“The single most”: Edwin S. Shneidman, The Suicidal Mind (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 59.
“that intensity of thought”: AL to Joshua F. Speed, January 3, 1842, CWL, vol. 1, 265.
[>] But the context points: To these points, made by Richard Lawrence Miller, it should be added that “The Suicide’s Soliloquy” shifts radically in tone at the end, tipping from subdued and controlled language into something wilder, even desperate. This is characteristic of Lincoln’s work in the late 1830s and early 1840s, including his 1838 Lyceum address, his 1839 speech on the state bank, and his 1842 temperance lecture. A number of scholars: Joshua Wolf Shenk, “Eureka Dept.: The Suicide Poem,” The New Yorker, June 14–21, 2004.
“The idea of Hell”: Shneidman, The Suicidal Mind, 158.
[>] “Depression is the most difficult”: S. Nassir Ghaemi, interview with author, June 8, 2004.
3. I AM NOW THE MOST MISERABLE MAN LIVING
[>] Countless works: For one short treatment of this traditional view, see CWL, vol. 1, 228–29n.3. “Lincoln was absent from the legislature January 13 to 19 because of illness of a psychopathic nature, brought on in all probability by what he later would refer to as ‘that fatal first of Jany. ‘41’. . . General agreement has been reached among modern scholars to the effect that on this date Lincoln asked to be released from his engagement to Mary Todd . . . Lincoln underwent misery of no mild variety as the result, not merely of his own indecision and instability, but also of his awareness that he was the cause of an injury to Mary Todd no less severe and humiliating than his own.”
“that fatal first of Jany. ‘41”: AL to Joshua F. Speed, March 27, 1842, CWL, vol. 1, 282.
[>] state’s population tripled: Drew E. VandeCreek, “Frontier Settlement,” on LincolnNet, http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/frontier.html, February 21, 2005.
Stoking the fires: For the political and economic mechanics behind the internal improvements scheme and the debt crisis that followed, see Paul Simon, Lincoln’s Preparation for Greatness: The Illinois Legislative Years (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1965), 48–54,151–56,173–78,182–88,225–27,232–36. Also useful is Newton Bateman, ed., Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Sangamon County (Springfield, Ill.: Sangamon County Genealogical Society, 1987). Except where otherwise noted, the details to follow are drawn from these texts. One picayune note: the body of the law authorized $10.25 million in bonds, but $500,000 was added to this in separate canal bonds.
wanted to be the DeWitt Clinton: Joshua F. Speed, interview with WHH, 1865–66, Herndon’s Informants, 476.
scores of banks failed: Of 729 banks with charters in 1837, 194 were forced to close their doors. Peter L. Rousseau, “Jacksonian Monetary Policy, Specie Flows, and the Panic of 1837,” Working Paper No. 00–W04R, January 2000, rev. June 2001, Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University.
endure the short-term pain: AL, “Report and Resolutions Introduced in Illinois Legislature in Relation to Purchase of Public Lands,” January 17, 1839, CWL, vol. 1, 135–38.
“without benefit of clergy”: AL to John Stuart, January 20, 1840, CWL, vol. 1,184.
[>] His colleagues frankly: Orville H. Browning to John J. Hardin, January 14, 1841, Hardin Papers.
“In short, arriving”: Wilson, Honor’s Voice, 223.
nine cases: Jean H. Baker, Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987), 90.
“with great diffidence”: AL, “Remarks in Illinois Legislature Amending a Bill Providing Interest on State Debt,” December 4, 1840, CWL, vol. 1, 216.
But in a maneuver: For a firsthand account of the inglorious window jump, see Joseph Gillespie to WHH, January 31, 1866, Herndon’s Informants, 187–88. For a concise treatment of the politics of the affair, see Willard L. King, Lincoln’s Manager, David Davis (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960), 40–41.
“appeared to enjoy”: Simon, Lincoln’s Preparation for Greatness, 229, citing Illinois State Register, December 12, 1840.
[>] pack the state courts: To deprive Whigs of their majority on the state Supreme Court, the Democrats added five justices to the court and, to boot, abolished the circuit courts, where Whigs were plentiful. Stephen A. Douglass, Lincoln’s nemesis, took one of the new Supreme Court seats. The court-packing bill passed by just one vote. “Had Lincoln been himself,” argues Willard L. King, “it probably would not have passed.” King, Lincoln’s Manager, 41.
“It can not be”: AL to Andrew McCormick, January 1841?, CWL, First Supplement, 1832–1865 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1974), 5–6. McCormick’s name was alternately spelled with an i and an a.
“I made a point of honor”: Lincoln gave the details of this courtship in a letter to Eliza Browning, from which the quotations in this paragraph are drawn. AL to Mrs. Orville H. [Eliza] Browning, April 1, 1838, CWL, vol. 1, 117–19.
[>] “Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Speed”: Elizabeth Edwards, interview with WHH, 1865–66, Herndon’s Informants, 623.
Mary Todd: See Baker, Mary Todd Lincoln, 74–79, for the circumstances of her arrival, and Baker, 51, for a physical description.
“if there were several”: Presley Judson Edwards, memoirs, 1898, Chicago Historical Society.
“She could make a bishop”: Katherine Helm, The True Story of Mary, Wife of Lincoln: Containing the Recollections of Mary Lincoln’s Sister Emilie, Mrs. Ben Hardin Helm: Extracts from Her War-time Diary, Numerous Letters and Other Documents Now First Published by Her Niece, Katherine Helm (New York: Harper, 1928), 81.
ambitious woman: Elizabeth and Ninian Edwards, interview with WHH, July 27, 1887, Herndon’s Informants, 623.
According to Mrs. Edwards: Elizabeth Todd Edwards, interview with WHH, 1865–66, Herndon’s Informants, 443.
Henry Clay: Ruth Painter Randall, Mary Lincoln: Biography of a Marriage (Boston: Little, Brown, 1953), 23.
Todd often said: Elizabeth Edwards, interview with WHH, 1865–66, Herndon’s Informants, 443.
courtship in the early nineteenth century: See Ellen K. Rothman, Hands and Hearts: A History of Courtship in America (New York: Basic Books, 1984).
[>] “a matrimonial pledge”: Baker, Mary Todd Lincoln, 87–88.
“She darted after him”: Joshua F. Speed, interview with WHH, 1865–1866, Herndon’s Informants, 474.
“She had taken a fancy”: O. H. Browning, interview with John G. Nicolay, June 17, 1875, An Oral History, 1.
According to a variety: O. H. Browning, interview with John G. Nicolay, June 17, 1875, An Oral History, 1–2; Ninian Edwards, interview with WHH, September 22, 1865, Herndon’s Informants, 133; Elizabeth Edwards, interview with WHH, 1865–66, Herndon’s Informants, 443–44; Jane D. Bell to Ann Bell, January 27, 1841, Wilson, Honor’s Voice, 237; Joshua F. Speed, interview with WHH, 1865–66, Herndon’s Informants, 475.
wry, self-assured: This description is drawn from Matilda Edwards’s own letters in the Edwards Papers, Knox College Library, and from a statement by Edwards’s niece Alice Edwards Quigley, March 22, 1935, in Harry O. Knerr, “Abraham Lincoln and Matilda Edwards,” copy in Tarbell Papers.
“like the wind at play”: Joshua F. Speed to Eliza J. Speed, March 12, 1841, ISHL.
stayed in the Edwards home: Elizabeth Edwards, interview with WHH, 1865–66, Herndon’s Informants, 443.
“a most interesting young lady”: Mary Todd to Mercy Ann Levering, December 1840, MTL, Life and Letters, 19.
“became very much attached”: O. H. Browning, interview with John G. Nicolay, June 17, 1875, An Oral History, 1–2.
[>] Todd was still encouraging: For Mary Todd’s links to Stephen Douglass, see Wilson, Honor’s Voice, 218, 238–40, 244; for Edwin (“Bat”) Webb, 228, 243–44; for Joseph Gillespie, 222.
“She has a great many Beaus”: Jane D. Bell to Ann Bell, January 27, 1841, Wilson, Honor’s Voice, 237.
“flirtations with [Stephen] Douglas”: Elizabeth and Ninian W. Edwards, interview with WHH, Herndon’s Informants, July 27, 1887, 623.
“My beloved husband”: Mary Lincoln to Josiah G. Holland, December 4, 1865, MTL, Life and Letters, 293.
“when it comes to women”: AL to Mary Owens, August 16, 1837, CWL, vol. 1, 94.
“Went to see ‘Mary “: Joshua F. Speed, interview with WHH, 1865–66, Herndon’s Informants, 475, 477.
[>] “Miss Todd released Lincoln”: Ninian Edwards, interview with WHH, September 22, 1865, Herndon’s Informants, 133.
“The world had it”: Elizabeth Todd Edwards, interview with WHH, 1865–66, Herndon’s Informants, 443–44.
“His conscience troubled him”: O. H. Browning, interview with John G. Nicolay, June 17, 1875, An Oral History, 1.
“Lincoln went Crazy”: Joshua F. Speed, interview with WHH, 1865–66, Herndon’s Informants, 475.
[>] “went Crazy as a Loon”: Ninian W. Edwards, interview with WHH, September 22, 1865, Herndon’s Informants, 133.
“gave me more pleasure”: AL to Joshua F. Speed, March 27, 1842, CWL, vol. 1, 282.
[>] “Lincoln’s, lincoln green”: Mary Todd to Mercy Ann Levering, December 1840, MTL, Life and Letters, 21.
“will return on Monday”: Cyrus Edwards to Nelson G. Edwards, December 29?, 1840, Edwards Family Collection, Knox College Library. Wilson, Honor’s Voice, 355n.1, notes that the postmark is faint but December 29 can clearly be seen under a microscope.
[>] “You know I am never sanguine”: AL to John T. Stuart, January 20, 1840, CWL, vol. 1, 184.
[>] father had died: James Speed to Joshua F. Speed, April 1, 1840, Filson Historical Society.
the price of hemp: R. L. Troutman, “Aspects of Agriculture in the Ante-Bellum Bluegrass,” Filson Club History Quarterly 45 (1971): 166–67.
“tottering concern”: The quotations from Speed in this paragraph and the next are from Joshua F. Speed to Mary L. Speed, February 2, 1841, Speed Family Papers, University of Louisville Archives, transcription by B. Ballantine and P. Lassiter.
fifty-plus slaves: When John Speed, Joshua’s father, died in 1840, he owned fifty-seven persons. His will assigned fifteen slaves to his wife and four each to his children. Pen Bogert, slave data on John Speed, in the vertical file, “Farmington—African Americans,” Filson Historical Society Library, 1997.
“Mr Speed’s ever changing heart”: Mary Todd to Mercy Levering, December 1840, MTL, Life and Letters, 20.
“policy reasons”: Ninian Edwards, interview with WHH, September 22, 1865, Herndon’s Informants, 133.
[>] “I am sure I have seen”: Samuel J. Hayes to Helen Hayes, July 24, 1837, Samuel J. Hayes Collection, Illinois Historical Survey.
After a respite: Petersen, Lincoln-Douglas: The Weather As Destiny, 74. Petersen, a physician, gathered weather data from military bases in Illinois and linked Lincoln’s breakdowns in 1835 and 1840–1841 with the sharp drops in temperature in both periods. Though turgid prose makes his theory inaccessible, Petersen’s basic point, that weather affects people’s emotional states, resonates with common sense and recent clinical investigations into seasonal affective disorder, or SAD. “SAD was first noted before 1845, but was not officially named until the early 1980’s. As sunlight has affected the seasonal activities of animals (i.e., reproductive cycles and hibernation), SAD may be an effect of this seasonal light variation in humans. As seasons change, there is a shift in our ‘biological internal clocks’ or circadian rhythm, due partly to these changes in sunlight patterns. This can cause our biological clocks to be out of ‘step’ with our daily schedules. The most difficult months for SAD sufferers are January and February.” National Mental Health Association, “Seasonal Affective Disorder,” www.nmha.org/infoctr/factsheets/27.cfm, March 31, 2005. For a clinical treatment of the condition and its response to light therapy, see N. E. Rosenthal et al., “Seasonal Affective Disorder: A Description of the Syndrome and Preliminary Findings with Light Therapy,” Archives of General Psychiatry 41 (1984): 72–80. A year after this breakdown, Lincoln wrote that his friend Joshua Speed should be aware of his “exposure to bad weather . . . which my experience clearly proves to be verry severe on defective nerves.”
Lincoln’s friend David Davis: “Would that I could give you all a hearty shake of the hand,” Davis wrote on January 19, 1841. “My spirits would undoubtedly raise several degrees this cold day—for you must know that I am writing with the thermometer several degrees below zero. I have been out riding two days this winter when the severity of the cold was greater than had ever before been known in this Succer State.” King, Lincoln’s Manager, 40, citing Davis to William P. Walker, January 19, 1841. political nightmare: After all the wrangling in December 1840, the Assembly authorized the issuance of special bonds to pay the interest due on January 1, 1841. The state made its next payment as well, but then defaulted. “Four years after the passage of the measure,” writes Paul Simon, “Illinois had a debt of $15,000,000, and Illinois bonds were selling for 15 cents on the dollar . . . The state debt kept climbing. By 1853 the debt had reached almost $17,000,000. Not until 1857 was the state able to pay even the interest on the bonds. Not until 1882 were the bonds finally paid—forty-five years after the passage of the measure and seventeen years after Lincoln’s death.” Lincoln’s Preparation for Greatness, 52. See also Governor Thomas Ford, A History of Illinois from Its Commencement as a State in 1818 to 1847, annotations and introduction by Rodney Davis (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995; orig. 1854), 144, and Theodore C. Pease, The Frontier State, 1818–1848 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987), 228–29.
[>] In Victorian America: “Throughout most of Lincoln’s life,” writes Thomas F. Schwartz, “New Year celebrations were closer to the festivities we associate with Christmas.” People exchanged gifts, including books published for the occasion, with titles like The Gift for 1841. Thomas F. Schwartz, “Santa Abraham?” For the People: The Newsletter of the Abraham Lincoln Association 1, no. 4 (Winter 1999): 6. leap year of 1840: Baker, Mary Todd Lincoln, 90.
One is a young woman: Sarah Rickard Barret to WHH, August 3, 1888, Herndon’s Informants, 664.
he might have contracted syphilis: WHH to Jesse W. Weik, January 1891, Hidden Lincoln, 259. See also Wilson, Honor’s Voice, 127–29.
as many as half of the men: Baker, Mary Todd Lincoln, 88.
typical feature of hypochondriasis: Benjamin Rush, Medical Inquiries and Observations upon the Diseases of the Mind (New York: New York Academy of Medicine, 1962; orig. 1812), 5.
Whatever the reasons: For an account of Lincoln’s known whereabouts in January 1841, see Day by Day,vol. 1, 151–53.
[>] his “indisposition”: “Mr. Lincoln has recovered from his indisposition,” the Register reported on January 29, 1841, “and has attended the House for more than a week past, during which time he made no minority report, although he attended every meeting of the committee of Investigation.”
“two Cat fits and a Duck fit”: Martinette Hardin to John J. Hardin, January 22, 1841, Hardin Papers.
“He has grown much worse”: Edwin Webb to Orville H. Browning, January 17, 1841, Orville Hickman Browning Papers, Illinois Historical Survey.
several hours a day: H. W. Thornton to Ida Tarbell, December 21, 1895, Tarbell Papers. “hypochondriaism”: AL to John T. Stuart, January 20, 1840, CWL, vol. 1, 228.
“how are the mighty fallen!”: James C. Conkling to Mercy Ann Levering, January 24, 1841, typescript in ISHL.
“Poor fellow, he is in rather”: Jane D. Bell to Ann Bell, January 27, 1841, in Wilson, Honor’s Voice, 237. This letter was also printed in the Lincoln Herald 50, no. 4 (December 1948–February 1949): 47, but that text omitted a final fragment. Wilson draws his text from a copy in the Randall Papers.
[>] “desolating tortures”: Daniel Drake, “History of Two Cases of Burn, Producing Serious Constitutional Irritation,” Western Journal of the Medical and Physical Sciences 4 (April-June 1830): 48–60, 53. Drake’s conclusion resonates with a famous critical remark on nineteenth-century psychopharmacology by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. In an
1860 lecture at the Massachusetts Medical Society, Holmes stated that, with a few exceptions, if “the whole materia medica, as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind,—and all the worse for the fishes.” H. Wayne Morgan, Drugs in America: A Social History, 1800–1980 (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1982), 1.
hypochondriasis became the term: Stanley W. Jackson, Melancholia and Depression (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 37.
Medical Inquiries: What follows, unless otherwise specified, is drawn from Rush, Medical Inquiries, 74–134.
“direct and drastic interferences”: Robert C. Fuller, Alternative Medicine in American Religious Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 13–14.
elephant tamers: Rush, Medical Inquiries, 193.
[>] Arsenic and strychnine: Fuller, Alternative Medicine, 14.
Doctors approved: Norbert Hirschhorn, Robert G. Feldman, and Ian A. Greaves, “Abraham Lincoln’s Blue Pills: Did Our Sixteenth President Suffer from Mercury Poisoning?” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 44, no. 3 (Summer 2001): 315–22. Since it binds: Hirschhorn, Feldman, and Greaves write: “Regardless in what form or route it enters the body, mercury is eventually metabolized to mercuric chloride—‘corrosive sublimate’—which preferentially binds to the central nervous system and kidneys; thus mercury’s toxicity is mainly revealed by neurobehavioral disorders or renal failure. Because mercury is excreted from the body only slowly, over months to years, one can suffer chronic poisoning by taking mercury in small, regular amounts that build up body stores faster than excreted. Once mercury is absorbed, the signs and symptoms of poisoning are reliably predictable.” This article argues that Lincoln’s use of mercury adversely affected him both physically and emotionally. Studies have found that two thirds of people using mercury become “irritable, anxious, and hostile to the point of sudden rages and even violence.” The treatment used for depression in Lincoln’s time also produced depression, along with increased “emotional lability and hypersensitivity.” Ibid., 325–26.
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