Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 1

by Michael Burlingame

  Whigs entertained high hopes for Clay’s success in 1844. A Baltimorean reported as early as February that the “enthusiasm of 1840 is returning. The Whigs look forward to the approaching contest,” for they had faith in “the justness of their cause—and in its righteousness read their claim to certain success.”80

  Throughout the campaign Lincoln and his fellow Whigs concentrated on the tariff issue while Democrats focused on expansionism in Texas and Oregon. The tariff of 1842—the chief accomplishment of the Whig-dominated Twenty-Seventh Congress—had been designed to restore prosperity, encourage foreign investment, improve the balance of trade, and enhance government revenues. Because most of these goals had been achieved, Whigs decided to emphasize the tariff issue in the presidential campaign. In May, Lincoln did speak once about Texas, endorsing the Whig argument “that Annexation at this time upon the terms agreed upon by John Tyler was altogether inexpedient.”81

  During the winter of 1843–1844, Lincoln joined Edward D. Baker, Stephen T. Logan, and John Todd Stuart speaking nightly throughout Sangamon County. Such extensive campaigning was necessary because, as David Davis explained to his brother-in-law in Massachusetts, Illinoisans “get their information by public speaking, and it is well that they do. Otherwise, they would have none, for newspaper taking is not a trait in Western character.”82 Several times during the spring, Lincoln debated John Calhoun, the Democratic congressional nominee in the Seventh District. Lincoln called Calhoun “the ablest Democrat in the State” and insisted “that Calhoun gave him more trouble in his debates than Douglas ever did, because he was more captivating in his manner and a more learned man.”83 (David Davis described Calhoun as “a social, companionable man, wholly destitute of moral principle, & reckless in pecuniary matters—of talents of a high order.”)84

  In late March, Lincoln and Calhoun held a protracted debate at Springfield during which Lincoln “proved conclusively that the English are now flooding this country with tracts & money to break down the present Whig tariff [of 1842].” Calhoun, who was fair and courteous, complained that the tariff “did not tax silk & wool high enough” and “that it was done to ‘benefit the rich to the injury of the poor man.’ ”85 James Gourley, who heard that debate, said “Calhoun was an able man—No mistake—one of the ablest men that ever made Stump Speeches in Ills—He came nearer of whipping Lincoln in debate than Douglas did.”86 John B. Weber, who also attended the debate in Springfield, marveled at the way “Lincoln used to stagger me with his tariff speeches: he so arranged his facts—his arguments—his logic that it approached me from such a peculiar angle that they struck me forcibly.”87 In Tazewell County, where neither Whigs nor Democrats showed much excitement, the audience listened to the two men “calmly and quietly,” for they were “determined to decide this contest as they honestly believe it should be decided—upon the measures, acts and principles of the two parties.”88 In April, a partisan Democratic observer said that Lincoln presented “all the stereotyped slanders upon Mr. Van Buren” which were “ably and successfully rebutted and exposed by Mr. Calhoun, in the course of the recent discussion.”89

  Milton Hay believed that debating with Calhoun advanced Lincoln’s political education. During the 1830s and 1840s, Calhoun was the best intellect on the Democratic side, and though he lacked Stephen A. Douglas’s oratorical power, he surpassed the Little Giant in elucidating the issues logically. Calhoun was especially talented at informal discussions, just the sort of debate in which he and Lincoln often clashed. “Like Lincoln he could fairly state his opponents side of the question, and argue with fairness and preserve his temper.” Better educated than Lincoln, Calhoun had devoted himself singlemindedly to the study of politics. “Frequent contact and conflict with such an opponent,” Hay speculated, “habituated the sententious, precise and guarded statement of political propositions for which Mr Lincoln became so remarkable.”90

  In the spring and fall, Lincoln stumped Illinois, often with Calhoun as a sparring partner; when not debating face-to-face, one of them would speak and the other would do so the next day at the same location. An admiring Jesse W. Fell recalled that in “these elaborate speeches,” Lincoln “evinced a thorough mastery of the principles of political economy which underlie the tariff question, and presented arguments in favor of the protective policy with a power and conclusiveness rarely equaled, and at the same time in a manner so lucid and familiar and so well interspersed with happy illustrations and apposite anecdotes, as to secure the delighted attention of his auditory.”91

  Contemporary press summaries of Lincoln’s oratory are sketchy, but evidence supports David Davis’s 1844 assertion that Lincoln was “the best Stump Speaker in the State.” He “shows the want of early education,” Davis acknowledged, “but he has great powers as a speaker.”92 In February, Lincoln defended national and state banks in addition to the tariff. On March 1, he tried to persuade farmers in Sugar Creek that a high protective tariff “made every thing they bought cheaper.”93 In mid-March, he and Edward D. Baker debated Calhoun and Alfred W. Cavarly in Jacksonville. Later that month, at a debate with those two Democrats in Springfield, he “promised to forfeit his ‘ears’ and his ‘legs’ if he did not demonstrate, that protected articles have been cheaper since the late Tariff [of 1842] than before.”94 On April 6, Lincoln spoke for two hours to the Clay Club of Peoria; Calhoun replied a week later. After the Democratic leader’s four-hour speech, Lincoln reportedly “overwhelmed Calhoun and his friends by his argument, ridicule and good natured sarcasm.”95

  In that city two months later, Lincoln delivered a pro-tariff speech to the Whig state convention. Initially, he made a poor impression, fumbling for the right words and speaking in a tremulous voice. But he grew more confident as he went along. As one auditor recalled, he “straightened up, his countenance brightened, his language became free and animated, as, during this time he had illustrated his arguments by two or three well-told stories.” Eventually, “he became eloquent, carrying the swaying crowd at his will” with his “closeness and soundness of logic,” his “numerous facts,” and his “elaborate and powerful arguments.”96

  That summer in Peoria, Lincoln debated William L. May, who insisted that Lincoln not refer to May’s erratic political history. (May had been a Whig in his native Kentucky, switched to the Democratic Party when he moved to Illinois, and then resumed his Whig loyalty, only to return to the Democrats in 1844. President Jackson appointed him receiver of public moneys for the United States Land Office in Springfield; in 1841 he became mayor of that city.) Poking fun at the Whigs’ tall liberty pole, which had a decayed section that was replaced, May “ridiculed the whole concern,” declaring that “the pole was hollow at the butt end.” Lincoln replied that the hollow spot “was where the Col. had crawled out of the Whig party! He proposed to stop up the hole so that he couldn’t get back again!” The audience howled at the jest and laughed even harder when May lost his composure and “fell ‘to cursing like a very drab.’ ” May threatened to resort to the code duello, but calmed down when Lincoln apologized, “saying that he was in the predicament of the fellow who knocked his daddy down, and explained his ungracious conduct by the remark that the old man stood so fair he had to hit him.”97

  Because, as Lincoln explained in 1860, it “was not fashionable here [in Illinois] in those days [the 1840s] to report one’s public speeches,” it is hard to know precisely what facts and arguments he used in his Whig campaign addresses.98 But a revealing article in the Sangamo Journal by one “Lancaster,” probably a Lincoln pseudonym, may shed light on his thinking. Protective tariffs did not unfairly burden “the poor farmer,” Lancaster argued, because all “manufactured articles were sold as low and many lower after [the enactment of the 1842 tariff] than they were before.” Prices stayed down because manufacturers “were encouraged to start their factories believing they could find a sale for their goods,” and the increased number of firms heightened competition, thus preventing “any extortion in prices.” Lanca
ster insisted that “These facts prove that our revenue is paid entirely by the foreign manufacturers; except perhaps occasionally some of our Fops and Dandies may be inclined to show off with a London Coat, a Paris pair of boots, or ornament his table with a set of English knives and forks, or his parlour with an European carpet.” Echoing Lincoln’s 1843 Whig Party circular, Lancaster noted that farmers and working men “do not indulge in those luxuries.” American manufacturers “can furnish an article good enough for us, and if our office holders want to ape the Paris or London fashions, and are willing to give their custom to the foreign manufacture, and pay the duty themselves, it is certainly democratic to grant them the liberty.” American manufacturers of broadcloth would benefit from a 35 percent tariff, but farmers would also benefit from that protection, for the manufacturers paid for wool and lard oil, which the farmers produced, and paid wages to workers, who spent three-quarters of their income on goods produced by farmers. Lancaster concluded that an “examination into the business of cotton goods, boots, shoes, cordage, iron, lead, and in fact most all articles coming under the denomination of manufactures will exhibit the fact that nine tenths of all the protection goes indirectly into the pocket of the farmer.”99

  The rising tide of immigration was beginning to roil parts of the country in 1844, foreshadowing the growth of the nativist movement that would peak a decade later. When the Democrats tried to blame the Whigs for bloody anti-Catholic riots in Philadelphia, Lincoln and his party forcefully denied that there was any “hostility of the Whig party in general of foreigners and Catholics.” At a Springfield public meeting in June, the Whigs adopted resolutions, presented by Lincoln, condemning the riots and asserting that “in admitting the foreigner to the rights of citizenship, he should be put to some reasonable test of his fidelity to our country and institutions; and that he should first dwell among us a reasonable time to become generally acquainted with the nature of those institutions; and that, consistent with those requisites, naturalization laws, should be so framed, as to render admission to citizenship under them, as convenient, cheap, and expeditious as possible.” Moreover, “we will now, and at all times, oppose as best we may, all attempts to either destroy the naturalization laws or to so alter them, as to render admission under them, less convenient, less cheap, or less expeditious than it now is.” In addition, they resolved that “the guarantee of the rights of conscience, as found in our Constitution, is most sacred and inviolable, and one that belongs no less to the Catholic, than to the Protestant; and that all attempts to abridge or interfere with these rights, either of Catholic or Protestant, directly or indirectly, have our decided disapprobation, and shall ever have our most effective opposition.”100

  At this meeting Lincoln gave a speech in which he “expressed the kindest, and most benevolent feelings towards foreigners” and “alleged that the whigs were as much the friends of foreigners as democrats.” A Democratic paper chided him for “stating that the Catholics demanded the exclusion of the Bible from the public schools,” when in fact “all they wanted was the privilege … of introducing and using their own translation.”101 Ebenezer Peck responded by summoning a Democratic meeting at which, according to a Whig account, he “presented statements, declarations, and, as he said, quotations, which, the evening after were proved to be falsehoods and forgeries by Mr. Lincoln.”102 In the 1850s, Lincoln would once again denounce xenophobia and religious bigotry.

  By October, Lincoln acknowledged that Clay would probably lose in Illinois. In August the Democrats had won substantial majorities in the General Assembly, and the state’s Whig press conceded victory to the Democratic presidential nominee, James K. Polk. So Lincoln crossed the Wabash River and spoke several times in southwestern Indiana. At Bruceville, Democrats disrupted his meeting, but nothing daunted, Lincoln waited for the uproar to subside, then finished his speech. After hearing Lincoln’s address in Rockport, his former employer, William Jones, admiringly reported that Lincoln “knows what he is talking about. He makes his arguments as plain as the nose on your face. You can’t miss the point. They are as outstanding as his jokes are funny.”103 James C. Veatch remarked that Lincoln’s “plain, argumentative” tariff speech did “honor to himself and the whig cause.”104 Later Veatch recalled that, once again, Lincoln had begun poorly; his “appearance was awkward, his voice high and squeaky, and he had none of that extreme dignity which clothed the State orators I had heard.” But soon Veatch “was struck by his manner of statement” as he discussed the shopworn tariff issue, placing “things in a new light” so that “dry facts became interesting.” Veatch reported that by the time Lincoln finished it was “the most remarkable speech that I had ever heard.” (Veatch would play a key role in helping Lincoln win the Republican nomination for the presidency sixteen years later.)105

  That November, Clay received only 105 electoral votes to Polk’s 170; Polk won 49.6 percent of the popular votes to Clay’s 48.1 percent. In Illinois, where enthusiasm for the annexation of Texas and for the American claim to all of the Oregon Territory was especially strong, the expansionist Polk swamped Clay, 54 percent to 42 percent. Lincoln was “not only disappointed but disgusted,” and regarded Clay’s defeat “as a great public calamity and a keen personal sorrow.”106 Other Illinois Whig leaders reacted similarly. David Davis declared: “Clay’s defeat has weaned me from politics. I shall quit the Legislature and attend to my own private business. There is precious little use for any Whig in Illinois to be wasting his time and efforts. This State cannot be redeemed. I should as leave think of seeing one rise from the dead.”107

  Along with many of his party colleagues, Lincoln blamed the outcome on New York antislavery Whigs who had voted for the Liberty Party candidate, James G. Birney, thus ensuring that Polk would carry the Empire State and, with it, the nation. (In New York, Birney received 15,814 votes, constituting 1.05% of the total; had one-third of Birney’s votes gone to Clay, the Kentuckian would have won.) In 1845, Lincoln told a Liberty Party supporter that if the “whig abolitionists of New York had voted with us last fall, Mr. Clay would now be president, whig principles in the ascendent, and Texas not annexed; whereas by the division [of the Liberty and Whig forces], all that either had at stake in the contest, was lost.” An antislavery Whig had declared to Lincoln that he could not vote for the slaveholder Clay, because people of conscience “are not to do evil that good may come.” Plaintively Lincoln asked: “If by your votes you could have prevented the extension, &c. of slavery, would it not have been good and not evil so to have used your votes, even though it involved the casting of them for a slaveholder? By the fruit the tree is to be known. An evil tree can not bring forth good fruit. If the fruit of electing Mr. Clay would have been to prevent the extension of slavery, could the act of electing have been evil?”108

  Lincoln’s analysis of the Liberty Party’s role in the 1844 election, accurate as far as it went, was somewhat misleading. The antislavery Whigs of New York objected to Clay’s wavering on the annexation of Texas, which he had opposed in April; four months later he seemed to recant. His waffling probably cost him New York, but it may well have gained him Tennessee, where he prevailed by a scant 267 votes. If he had won New York at the cost of losing Tennessee, Clay would still have been defeated. The most important element in Polk’s victory was the dramatic increase in the Democratic vote between 1840 and 1844, largely attributable to enthusiasm for the annexation of Texas among Southerners and Westerners, and to disaffection with Whiggery among Northern Catholics and immigrants who resented the party’s flirtation with nativists (like the American Republicans, also known as the Native Americans) and its choice of the militantly Protestant Theodore Frelinghuysen as Clay’s running mate.

  Third Law Partnership

  A month after the election, Lincoln amicably ended his partnership with Stephen T. Logan, who wanted to take into the firm his 20-year-old son David, recently admitted to the bar. Political considerations may also have played a role, for Logan aspired to Congres
s and hesitated to run as long as he was still in partnership with Lincoln. John W. Bunn believed that the two men disagreed over fees and the proper way to deal with cases. Logan, said Bunn, “was very keen after the money,” while “Mr. Lincoln didn’t seem to care for money at all.”109

  To replace Logan, Lincoln selected an inexperienced, erratic, impulsive attorney nearly ten years his junior, William H. Herndon. Years later Herndon described himself in 1844 as “a young, undisciplined, uneducated, wild man.”110 During an election campaign, Lincoln spotted him in Springfield urging a crowd of young men to vote for Whig candidates. By that time Herndon had come to hate the Democrats’ proslavery inclinations. Lincoln halted, called Herndon over, asked his name, and said: “So you are a good Whig, eh? How would you like to study law with me?” Thereafter Lincoln regularly discussed politics with Herndon and took him into the Logan-Lincoln law office to prepare for the bar. After a year and a half, Lincoln went a step further, asking his apprentice: “Billy do you want to enter into partnership with me in the law business?” Herndon, who thought Lincoln was joking, replied: “Mr Lincoln this is something unexpected by me—it is an undeserved honor; and yet I say I will gladly & thankfully accept the kind and generous offer.” He then broke down crying, for, as he later said, “I thought I was in Heaven.”111