A. Lincoln

by Ronald C. White, Jr.

  “I warned Mary” Baker, Mary Todd Lincoln, 89.

  sexually segregated Victorian society Karen Lystra, Searching the Heart: Women, Men, and Romantic Love in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 157, 179.

  “a great sharpener” Junior Theocritus (pseudonym), Didionary of Love (New York: Dick and Fitzgerald, 1858), cited in Lystra, Searching the Heart, 179.

  relationship advanced Baker, Mary Todd Lincoln, 85.

  their relationship suddenly fell apart For an analysis of the multiple strands of the breaking of the engagement, see “Abraham Lincoln and ‘That Fatal First of January,’ “ in Wilson, Lincoln Before Washington, 99—132.

  “a most interesting” Mary Todd to Mercy Ann Levering, December [15] 1840, MTL, 20.

  “went to see ‘Mary’ “ Joshua F. Speed (WHH interview), [1865-66], HI, 475.

  January 2,1841 Day by Day, 1:151.

  “emaciated in appearance” James C. Conkling to Mercy Ann Levering, January 24, 1841, ALPLM.

  “I am now” AL to John T. Stuart, January 23, 1841, CW, 1:229.

  “[Lincoln] deems me” MTL, 159.

  an odd allusion Baker, Mary Todd Lincoln, 91.

  “Shields is a fool” “The ‘Rebecca’ Letter,” Sangamo Journal, September 2, 1842, CW, 1:295.

  the dueling ground For a vivid account of the duel, see James E. Myers, The Astonishing Saber Duel of Abraham Lincoln (Springfield, 111.: Lincoln-Herndon Building Publishers, 1968).

  “Are you now” AL to Joshua Speed, October 5, 1842, CW, 1:302-3.

  “One thing is plainly discernable” Joshua F. Speed to WHH, November 30, 1866, Hi, 431.

  they intended to marry Clinton, Mrs. Lincoln, 68—70.

  “With this ring” William Jayne to WHH, August 17, 1887, HI, 624. Reports of the wedding, most given many years after, vary about what took place on that day and evening.

  “Nothing new here” AL to Samuel D. Marshall, November 11, 1842, CW, 1:305.

  CHAPTER 8. The Truth Is, I Would Like to Go Very Much: 1843-46

  Baker, two years younger Harry C. Blair and Rebecca Tarshis, The Life of Colonel Edward D. Baker, Lincoln’s Constant Ally, Together with Four of His Great Orations (Portland: Oregon Historical Society, 1960); and Winfred Ernest Garrison, Religion Follows the Frontier: A History of the Disciples of Christ (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1931).

  “Now if you should hear” AL to Richard S. Thomas, February 14, 1843, CW, 1:307.

  “that great fabulist” Campaign Circular from Whig Committee, March 4, 1843, CW, 1:309-18.

  “It would astonish” AL to Martin S. Morris, March 26, 1843, CW, 1:320.

  “There was the strangest” Ibid.

  “I only mean” Ibid.

  “In getting Baker” AL to Joshua Speed, March 24, 1843, CW, 1:270.

  “a suitable person” “Resolution Adopted at Whig Convention at Pekin, Illinois,” May 1, 1843, CW, 1:322.

  “whether the Whigs” AL to John J. Hardin, May 11, 1843, CW, 1:322-23.

  Lincoln voted Thomas, Abraham Lincoln, 104.

  started their married life Clinton, Mrs. Lincoln, 70—73; and Daniel Mark Epstein, The Lincolns: Portrait of a Marriage (New York: Ballantine Books, 2008), 54-55.

  Abraham and Mary purchased “Sale Contract by Charles Dresser and Abraham Lincoln,” January 16, 1844, CW, 1:331.

  “turn a Chair down” Harriet A. Chapman to WHH, December 10, 1866, HI, 512.

  “ ‘This rock “ Helm, The True Story of Mary, Wife of Lincoln, 108.

  Afresh opportunity John A. Lupton, “A. Lincoln, Esquire: The Evolution of a Lawyer,” in Allen D. Spiegel, A. Lincoln, Esquire: A Shrewd, Sophisticated Lawyer in His Time (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2002), 26.

  “I have seen him” Lincoln Centennial Association Bulletin, September 1928, 5.

  Lincoln selected an unlikely David H. Donald, in Lincoln’s Herndon: A Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948), 19—21, discusses the various reasons proposed as to why Lincoln chose Herndon.

  he sent Billy Ibid., 8—14. For a discussion of Herndon’s year at Illinois College, see 8—14.

  “There is Nat” Nathaniel Grigsby (WHH interview), September 16, 1865, HI, 127-28.

  “walked over” (Rockport) Indiana Herald, November 1, 1844, CW, 1:341-42.

  “I went into the neighborhood” AL to Andrew Johnston, April 18, 1846, CW, 1:378.

  My childhoods home AL to Andrew Johnston, April 18, 1846, CW, 1:377-79.

  publish these words Quincy Whig, May 5, 1847.

  “If the whig abolitionists” AL to Williamson Durley, October 3, 1845, CW, 1:347.

  “We are not to do evil” Ibid.

  “I strongly suspect” AL to Henry E. Dummer, November 18, 1845, CW, 1:350.

  “I know of no argument” Ibid.; CW, 1:350.

  “That Hardin is” AL to Robert Boal, January 7, 1846, CW, 1:352.

  “I do not well see” Robert Boal to John J. Hardin, January 10, 1846, Hardin MSS, Chicago History Museum.

  “He never overlooked” HL, 304.

  “In doingthis” AL to Benjamin F. James, December 6, 1845, CW, 1:351.

  “It is my intention” AL to Benjamin F. James, January 14, 1846, CW, 1:354.

  “spins a good yarn” John Morrison to John J. Hardin, February 3, 1846, Hardin MSS, Chicago History Museum.

  “I am entirely satisfied” AL to John J. Hardin, January 19, 1846, CW, 1:356-

  57.

  “I believe you” AL to John J. Hardin, February 7, 1846, CW, 1:360-65.

  he sent Sangamo Journal, February 26, 1846.

  Committee on Nominations Donald W. Riddle, Lincoln Runs for Congress (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1948), 156—59.

  “prompt and united action” Sangamo Journal, June 4, 1846.

  Cartwright was born For the story of Cartwright, see Robert Bray, Peter Cartwright: Legendary Frontier Preacher (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005).

  “I would get” Peter Cartwright, Autobiography of Peter Cartwright: The Backwoods Preacher, ed. W. P. Strickland (New York: Carlton and Porter, 1856), 165.

  “Mr. Cartwright was whispering” CW, 1:384 n. 3; Bray, Peter Cartwright, 210.

  “Cartwright, never heard” AL to Allen N. Ford, August 11, 1846, CW, 1:383-84.

  “an open scoffer” AL, “Handbill Replying to Charges of Infidelity,” July 31, 1846, CW, 1:382.

  “Being elected” AL to Joshua F. Speed, October 22, 1846, CW, 1:391.

  “at the terminus” Chicago Journal, November 16, 1846; and July 5—6, 1847.

  July 6 Robert Fergus et al., Chicago River-And-Harbor Convention: An Account of Its Origin and Proceedings (Chicago: Fergus Printing Company, 1882), 80—81; Mentor L. Williams, “Lhe Chicago River and Harbor Convention, 1847,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 35, no. 4 (March 1949), 607-26.

  “how many States” J. James Shaw, “A Neglected Episode in the Life of Abraham Lincoln,” Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society 29 (1922), 56.

  “Hon. Abraham Lincoln” New York Tribune, July 14, 1847.

  He first advertised Sangamo Journal, October 30, 1845.

  CHAPTER 9. My Best Impression of the Truth: 1847-49

  “Success to our talented member” Illinois State Journal, October 28, 1847.

  leased their family home Lease Contract Between Abraham Lincoln and Cornelius Ludlum, October 23, 1847, CW, 1:406.

  four Lincolns continued Ruth Painter Randall, Mary Lincoln: Biography of a Marnée (Boston: Little, Brown, 1953), 104-5.

  Negroes for sale Lexington Observer and Reporter, November 20, 1847.

  “who is slow” Ibid., November 3, 1847.

  “dark and gloomy” Henry Clay, “Speech at Lexington, KY, November 13, 1847,” The Papers of Henry Clay, ed. Melba Porter Hay (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1991), 10:361-64.

  Clay laid the blame Robert V. Remini, Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1991), 69
2-93.

  “to disavow” Henry Clay, “Speech at Lexington, KY,” 372.

  “noted for his hostility” James Freeman Clarke, Anti-slavery Days: A Sketch of the Struggle Which Ended in the Abolition of Slavery in the United States (New York: R. Worthington, 1884), 27.

  “A. Lincoln & Lady” Ibid., 8.

  which had a population Wilhelmus Bogart Bryan, A History of the National Capital, vol. 2, 1815-1878 (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1916), 420.

  “the City of Magnificent Intentions” Charles Dickens, American Notes (London: Chapman and Hall, 1842), 281.

  “Washington maybe called” Ibid., 272.

  Lincoln drew seat 191 Donald W. Riddle, Congressman Abraham Lincoln (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1957), 12—13.

  “mileage-elongators” Glyndon G. Van Deusen, Horace Greeley: Nineteenth-Century Crusader (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1953), 127.

  “a wanton outrage” Congressional Globe, 30th Cong., 1st sess., 61, appendix, 159-63.

  “wonderful earnestness” Charles Lanman, Haphazard Personalities Chiefly of Noted Americans (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1886), 342.

  “Mr. Stephens of Georgia” AL to William H. Herndon, February 2, 1848, CW, 2:448.

  splendid oratory See Thomas E. Schott, Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia: A Biography (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988).

  “As soon as the Congressional” AL to William H. Herndon, December 12, 1847, CW, 1:419.

  sent out 7,080 copies Riddle, Congressman Abraham Lincoln, 74.

  “When about to tell” Samuel C. Busey, Personal Reminiscences and Recollections (Washington, D.C. [Philadelphia: Dornan, printer], 1895), 25.

  “They would have been laughed” Nathan Sargent, Public Men and Events (Philadelphia:}. B. Lippincott and Co., 1875).

  “The confusion and noise” Private letters quoted by Paul Findley, A Lincoln: The Crucible of Congress (New York: Crown Publishers, 1979), 97.

  “the aggrieved nation” “Message of the President of the United States” [James K. Polk], Congressional Globe, 30th Cong., 1st sess. appendix (December 7, 1847), http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwcg.html, “Presidential Messages” (accessed 8/7/08).

  “of a portion” Ibid.

  “As you are all so anxious” AL to William H. Herndon, December 13, 1847, CW, 1:420.

  “This House desires” AL, “Spot Resolutions in the U.S. House of Representatives,” December 22, 1847, CW, 1:420-21.

  “unnecessarily and unconstitutionally begun” Congressional Globe, 30th Cong., lstsess., 1848,9.

  “as citizens and patriots” AL, “Speech in United States House of Representatives: The War with Mexico, “January 12, 1848, CW, 1:432.

  “Now I propose” Ibid., 439.

  “I more than suspect” Ibid., 439, 441-42.

  “Thank heaven” Springfield Register, January 16, 1848.

  “If you misunderstand” AL to William H. Herndon, February 1, 1848, CW, 1:446-47.

  “I have always intended” Ibid., 447.

  “provision of the Constitution” AL to William H. Herndon, February 15, 1848, CW, 1:451. The two Herndon letters to Lincoln do not exist today.

  “We have a vague” AL to Solomon Lincoln, March 6 and 24, 1848, CW, 1:455-56,459-60.

  “There is no longer” AL to David Lincoln, April 2, 1848, CW, 1:461-62.

  “In this troublesome” AL to Mary Todd Lincoln, April 16, 1848, CW, 1:465-66.

  “Will you be a goodgirl” AL to Mary Todd Lincoln, June 12, 1848, CW, 1:477-78.

  Library began For the story of the Library of Congress, see James Conway, America’s Library. The Story of the Library of Congress 1800—2000 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000); and William Dawson Johnston, History of the Library of Congress, vol. 1, 1800—1864 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904).

  “a puzzle” This account is from Hubert M. Skinner, The Lincoln—Douglas Debate (Lincoln-Jefferson University, 1909), 7, but the trustworthiness of his account is not supported by footnotes; Findley, A. Lincoln: The Crucible of Congress, 100.

  served in the military See “The Soldier Becomes a Politician,” in K. Jack Bauer, Zachary Taylor: Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985), 215—38.

  “I am in favor” AL to Thomas S. Flournoy, February 17, 1848, CW, 1:452. Flournoy was a Whig member of Congress from Virginia.

  “Our only chance” AL to Jesse Lynch, April 10, 1848, CW, 1:463.

  “Like a horde of hungry ticks” AL, “Speech in the U.S. House of Representatives on the Presidential Question,” July 27, 1848, CW, 1:508.

  “By the way” Ibid., 509-10.

  “was so good natured” Baltimore American, July 29, 1848.

  campaign tour in Massachusetts William F. Hanna, Abraham Among the Yankees: Abraham Lincoln’s 1848 Visit to Massachusetts (Taunton, Mass.: The Old Colony Historical Society, 1983), 30—34; and Sheldon H. Harris, “Abraham Lincoln Stumps a Yankee Audience,” New England Quarterly 38 0une 1865), 227—33.

  “frequently interrupted” Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican, September 14, 1848.

  “Mr. Lincoln has” Boston Daily Advertiser, September 13, 1848.

  “It was an altogether new show” Old Colony Republican (Taunton, Massachusetts), September 23, 1848.

  “in a most forcible” Boston Courier, September 23, 1848.

  “We spent the greater part” Frederick Seward, Seward at Washington as Senator and Secretary of State (New York: Derby and Miller, 1861), 79-80.

  “overwhelmed in the contemplation” AL, Fragment: Niagara Falls [ca. September 25-30, 1848], CW, 2:10.

  traveled on the steamer HL, 188.

  “Lincoln has made nothing” Springfield Register, n.d., ca. 1848 (as quoted in Thomas, Abraham Lincoln, 125).

  Lincoln showed it to Findley, A. Lincoln: The Crucible of Congress, 138

  “No person within the District” AL, Remarks and Resolution Introduced in United States House of Representatives Concerning Abolition in the District of Columbia, January 10, 1862, CW, 2:20-22.

  “I believed it as good” Findley, A. Lincoln: The Crucible of Congress, 139.

  first and only case See “Attorney’s Notes,” March 1849, LEGAL, 1:415-28, 430-31.

  “the threatened revolution” HL, 188.

  “Not one man” AL to George W. Rives, May 7, 1849, CW, 2:46.

  “I must not only” AL to William B. Warren and others, April 7, 1849, CW, 2:41.

  return was not greeted Willard L. King, Lincoln’s Manager, David Davis (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960), 62.

  “He is my personal” Riddle, Congressman Abraham Lincoln, 122.

  “I opposed” Donald, Lincoln, 140.

  “determined to eschew” HL, 193.

  CHAPTER 10. Asa Veacemaher the Lawyer Has a Superior Opportunity: 1849 S2

  “If [I] went” David Davis (WHH interview), September 20, 1866, HI, 349.

  “From 1849 to 1854” AL to Jesse W. Fell, “Enclosing Autobiography,” December 20, 1859, CW, 3:512.

  “These cases attended” Lincoln Fee Book, ALPLM.

  “How hard” WHH to WHL, March 6, 1870, The Papers of Ward Hill Lamon, HEH.

  “It went below” HL, 193.

  discarded fruit seeds Ibid., 198.

  “innocent of water” Woldman, Lawyer Lincoln, 83.

  “When I read aloud” HL, 207.

  “Let us have both sides” Woldman, Lawyer Lincoln, 55.

  The best lawyers Robert A. Ferguson, Law and Letters in American Culture (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984), 87.

  “Lincoln’s knowledge” Quoted in Mark E. Steiner, An Honest Calling: The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln (Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 40—42.

  “Sometimes Lincoln studied” David Davis (WHH interview), [1866], HI, 529.

  Lincoln approached the practice of law Emanuel Hertz, ed., The Hidden Lincoln: From the Papers of Wil
liam H. Herndon (New York: H. Liveright, 1931), 176.

  relied on published digests Steiner, Honest Calling, 49.

  legislature had elected Davis For the biography of David Davis, see King, Lincoln’s Manager.

  “Lincoln is the best” David Davis to William P. Walker, May 4, 1844, Davis Papers, ALPML.

  “an amicable arrangement” Remini, Henry Clay, 732.

  “How can the Union be preserved?” Irving Bartlett, Calhoun: A Biography (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1993), 371-72.

  “I wish to speak” Merrill D. Peterson, The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 462—63.

  “I am not an accomplished lawyer” AL, “Fragment: Notes for a Law Lecture,” [July 1, 1850?], CW, 2:81.

  “the leading rule” Ibid.

  “I sincerely hope” AL to Abram Bale, February 22, 1850, LEGAL, 1:4-5.

  In his examination (Danville) Illinois Citizen, May 29, 1850.

  Mary bore these absences Baker, Mary Todd Lincoln, 125—28.

  “Eat, Mary” Ibid., 126.

  “We miss him” AL to John D. Johnston, February 23, 1850, CW, 2:76-77.

  Mary joined First Presbyterian Wayne C. Lemple, Abraham Lincoln: From Skeptic to Prophet (Mahomet, 111.: Mayhaven Publishing, 1995), 47-48.

  “the exercises” James Smith, The Christian’s Defence, Containing a Fair Statement, and Impartial Examination of the Leading Objections Urged by Infidels Against the Antiquity, Genuineness, Credibility, and Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures (Cincinnati, Ohio: J. A. James, 1843), 1:4.

  “the mind must” Robert L. Lincoln to Isaac Markens, November 4, 1917, Robert Lodd Lincoln MSS, Chicago History Museum; Lemple, Abraham Lincoln, 72.

  “everything must be given up” Smith, Christian’s Defence, 1:4.

  Lincoln accepted an invitation “On motion, Abraham Lincoln, Henry Van Huff and Lhomas Lewis were appointed a committee to aid the Rev. James Smith in a suit pending in Presbytery against this church.” Minutes of the Board of Trustees, First Presbyterian Church, 1829—1866, April 26, 1853, ALPLM.

  Lincoln began to attend John L. Stuart toj. A. Reed, December 17, 1872, in Scribner’s Monthly 6 (July 1873): 336.