Thus armed, Lincoln on January 11, 1837, took the floor to make his first extended speech in the state legislature. A clumsy, poorly organized effort, it was in part an ad hominem attack on Linder’s haughty airs and entangled rhetoric. Lincoln claimed that the demand for an investigation was “exclusively the work of politicians,” whom he defined as “a set of men who have interests aside from the interests of the people, and who, to say the most of them, are, taken as a mass, at least one long step removed from honest men.” Then he tried to remove the sting of his remarks by adding: “I say this with the greater freedom because, being a politician myself, none can regard it as personal.”
Clearly not at home in discussing the economic issues involved in banking, Lincoln resorted to demagogy. An investigation of the bank, he claimed, would encourage “that lawless and mobocratic spirit,... which is already abroad in the land, and is spreading with rapid and fearful impetuosity, to the ultimate overthrow of every institution, or even moral principle, in which persons and property have hitherto found security.”
Despite its imperfections, the speech helped Lincoln’s standing, both in the legislature and in the public press. The Vandalia Free Press published it in full, and Springfield’s Sangamo Journal reprinted it, with the editorial comment, “Our friend carries the true Kentucky rifle and when he fires he seldom fails of sending the shot home.”
A third legislative initiative may have been only indirectly connected with plans to block the transfer of the capital to Springfield. Since the first publication of William Lloyd Garrison’s Liberator in 1831, Southern states had been growing increasingly angry over the rise of antislavery in the North, and Southern legislatures began passing resolutions demanding the suppression of abolitionist societies, which they said were circulating incendiary pamphlets among the slaves. These complaints received a generally favorable hearing in most Northern states, and Illinois, with its population largely of Southern birth, was no exception. The legislature passed a set of resolutions condemning abolitionist societies and affirming that slavery was guaranteed by the Constitution. For the most part, support of the resolutions was nonpartisan, though Democrats were more vehement in favoring them than Whigs, and they were adopted by the rousing vote of 77 to 6. The only reason to suspect that the opponents of Springfield had a hand in shaping these resolutions was the major role that Linder played in sponsoring them—the same Linder who had tried to partition Sangamon County and to destroy the Illinois State Bank at Springfield. Doubtless he wanted to show that Springfield, on that line where Southern and Northern settlements in Illinois were beginning to touch, was far less sympathetic to the slave states, which absorbed so much of the produce of Illinois, than Alton or Vandalia.
If this was his plan, it succeeded, because two of the Sangamon delegation, Lincoln and Dan Stone, a Vermonter, voted against the resolutions. Because neither made any public statement at the time, the damage that their votes did to support for Springfield in southern Illinois was kept to a minimum. Only after the removal of the capital and an internal improvements bill were agreed on did Stone and Lincoln present a protest against the resolutions. It was a cautious, limited dissent. Instead of the resolution of the General Assembly declaring that “the right Of property in slaves, is sacred to the slave-holding States by the Federal Constitution,” Stone and Lincoln suggested, “The Congress of the United States has no power, under the constitution, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the different States.” Where the General Assembly announced, “we highly disapprove of the formation of abolition societies, and of the doctrines promulgated by them,” the two Sangamon legislators voiced their belief “that the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy; but that the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than to abate its evils.”
After defeating all efforts to undermine the influence of the Sangamon delegation, Lincoln and the other members of the Long Nine shepherded through the legislature the bill to move the capital. The maneuvering required a delicate touch, and Lincoln’s political skills were repeatedly tested. Several times it seemed that the bill to relocate the capital would meet certain defeat. On one occasion, in order to eliminate the smaller and poorer towns from the competition to replace Vandalia, Lincoln drafted an amendment requiring that the city selected must donate $50,000 and two acres of land for new state buildings; then, to keep it from being known that this was a move in the interest of Springfield, which could afford such a gift, he allowed the amendment to be introduced by a member from Coles County. Twice the bill was tabled, and it was, as Robert L. Wilson, one of the Long Nine recalled, “to all appearance... beyond resussitation [sic].” But Lincoln, Wilson reported, “never for one moment despaired but called his Colleagues to his room for consultation,” and gave each an assignment to lobby doubtful members. When debate was renewed, the outcome was still doubtful. To win further support Lincoln accepted two unimportant amendments and added one of his own: “The General Assembly reserves the right to repeal this act at any time hereafter.” It was in reality meaningless, for of course the legislature always had a right to repeal laws; but the change gave a plausible excuse to vote for the bill, which passed, 46 to 37. After that came the balloting on the site, and from the initial tally it was clear that Springfield had a strong lead. On the fourth ballot the work of the Long Nine paid off, and on February 28, Springfield received a clear majority of all the votes.
That night the victorious Sangamon delegation had a victory celebration, at Capp’s Tavern, to which all members of the legislature were invited. Cigars, oysters, almonds, and raisins disappeared rapidly, as did eighty-one bottles of champagne, for which the wealthy Ninian Edwards paid $223.50. Afterward there were further celebrations in Springfield and other parts of Sangamon County, which the Long Nine attended. At the Athens rally the toast was “Abraham Lincoln one of Natures Noblemen.”
When the legislature adjourned, Lincoln returned to New Salem to say good-bye to his old friends. In September two justices of the Illinois Supreme Court had licensed him to practice law, and on March 1 his name was entered on the roll of attorneys in the office of the clerk of the Supreme Court. On April 15, 1837, he removed to Springfield, where Stuart took him into partnership, and the two opened an office at No. 4 Hoffman’s Row.
CHAPTER THREE
Cold, Calculating, Unimpassioned Reason
On April 15, 1837, Lincoln rode into Springfield on a borrowed horse, with all his worldly possessions crammed into the two saddlebags. At the general store of A. Y. Ellis & Company on the west side of the town square, he inquired how much a mattress for a single bed, plus sheets and pillow, would cost. Joshua F. Speed, one of the proprietors, reckoned up the figures and announced a total of $17. Lincoln replied that was doubtless fair enough but that he did not have so much money. Telling Speed that he had come to Springfield to try an “experiment as a lawyer,” he asked for credit until Christmas, adding in a sad voice: “If I fail in this, I do not know that I can ever pay you.”
Speed, who knew this young man by reputation and had heard him make a political speech, suggested a way he could avoid incurring a debt that clearly troubled him. “I have a large room with a double bed up-stairs, which you are very welcome to share with me,” he offered.
“Where is your room?” asked Lincoln.
When Speed pointed to the winding stairs that led from the store to the second floor, Lincoln picked up his saddlebags and went up. Shortly afterward he returned beaming with pleasure and announced, “Well, Speed, I am moved!”
Such a quick alternation from deep despair to blithe confidence was characteristic of Lincoln’s early years in the new state capital. He was trying to put together the fragmented pieces of his personality into a coherent pattern. Sometimes he felt he was the prisoner of his passions, but at other times he thought that he could master his world through reason. Often he was profoundly discouraged, and during these years he experienced his deepest bouts of depr
ession. But these moods alternated with periods of exuberant self-confidence and almost annoying optimism. In short, he was still a very young man.
I
To Eastern observers, Springfield in the 1830s was a frontier town. Though there were a few brick edifices, many of the residences were still log houses. If the roads were wide, they were unpaved; in the winter wagons struggled through axle-deep mud, and in the summer the dust was suffocating. The town had no sidewalks, and at crossings pedestrians had to leap from one chunk of wood to another. Hogs freely roamed the streets, and there was a powerful stench from manure piled outside the stables. After visiting Springfield, William Cullen Bryant came away with an impression of “dirt and discomfort.”
But this was the most cosmopolitan and sophisticated place Lincoln had ever lived. Though Springfield had been in existence only since 1821, it was now a thriving community with 1,500 residents. The Sangamon County Courthouse occupied the center of the town, which was laid out in a regular, rectangular grid. The north-south streets were numbered; those running east-west were named after American presidents. The courthouse—soon to be replaced by the new state capitol—was surrounded by nineteen dry goods stores, seven groceries, four drugstores, two clothing stores, and a bookstore. Four hotels cared for transients. In addition to schools and an “academy” (roughly equivalent to a high school), the town boasted six churches. The professions were represented by eighteen doctors and eleven lawyers. There was a Whig newspaper, the Sangamo Journal, edited by Simeon Francis, to whom Lincoln during the previous sessions of the legislature had frequently sent news from Vandalia; and it would shortly be joined by the Democratic organ, the Illinois Republican, later rechristened the Illinois State Register.
Lincoln had every intention of becoming a part of this bustling community, but, in addition to a lack of education and money, he had a handicap: he was in a sense engaged. After the death of Ann Rutledge, the older women of New Salem urged him to find a wife, as most of the other young men his age were doing. But there were not many eligible young women in the vicinity, and, anyway, he was always awkward in their presence. He had, however, taken a liking to a sister of Mrs. Bennett Abell who visited New Salem in 1833 or 1834. The daughter of a well-to-do Kentucky family, Mary Owens was a handsome young woman with black hair, dark eyes, fair skin, and magnificent white teeth. She impressed everyone with her gay and lively disposition, and the residents of the village considered her “a very intellectual woman—well educated.” After she returned to Kentucky, Lincoln is said to have boasted to Mrs. Abell that “if ever that girl comes back to New Salem I am going to marry her.”
On her second visit—about a year after the death of Ann Rutledge—Lincoln began courting Mary Owens, and at first she reciprocated his interest. Then both began to have second thoughts. Granting Lincoln’s “goodness of heart,” Mary felt that “his training had been different from mine; hence there was not that congeniality which would otherwise have existed.” Small events pointed to future difficulties. When she and Lincoln went for a walk with Mrs. Bowling Green, who was struggling to carry a very fat baby, he made no attempt to help her. On another occasion, when several young people were riding horseback to the Greens’, she observed that all the other young women were assisted by their escorts in crossing a deep stream, while Lincoln rode ahead, paying her no attention. When she mentioned the neglect to him, he replied oafishly that he reckoned she could take care of herself. Soon she concluded that “Mr. Lincoln was deficient in those little links which make up the chain of woman’s happiness.”
Lincoln’s doubts were even more severe. Maybe Mary had been a little too eager to return to New Salem. He feared “that her coming so readily showed that she was a trifle too willing.” He began finding defects in her appearance. From her first visit he remembered that she was pleasingly stout—weighing between 150 and 180 pounds, according to contemporaries—but now she appeared “a fair match for Falstaff.” In a burlesque account of the affair, written a few months later, he declared: “Now, when I beheld her, I could not for my life avoid thinking of my mother; and this, not from withered features, for her skin was too full of fat, to permit its contracting in to wrinkles, but from her want of teeth, weather-beaten appearance in general, and from a kind of notion that ran in my head, that nothing could have commenced at the size of infancy, and reached her present bulk in less than thirtyfive or forty years.” His reservations were rationalizations. Painfully aware of his humble origins, he was not sure he could make this well-bred young woman happy, and he was too poor to support a wife in comfort. On a deeper level, the problem was that his personality was as yet so incompletely formed that he had great difficulty in reaching out to achieve intimacy with anyone else.
When Lincoln went to Vandalia in December 1836, he and Mary had not reached “any positive understanding,” but both felt their informal arrangement might lead to marriage. For the next six months he engaged in an undignified attempt to get out of the liaison without injuring the lady’s feelings or violating his sense of honor. Betraying no passion whatever and never mentioning the word “love,” his letters to her were, as he admitted, “so dry and stupid” that he was reluctant to send them. His main purpose in writing was to get Mary to take the initiative in breaking off the courtship.
After he moved to Springfield, he grew more than ever convinced that she did not fit in. She would be unhappy, he warned. “There is a great deal of flourishing about in carriages here, which it would be your doom to see without shareing in it,” he cautioned. “You would have to be poor without the means of hiding your poverty.” “You have not been accustomed to hardship,” he reminded her, “and it may be more severe than you now immagine.”
Apparently neither Lincoln’s letters nor the arguments he made when he revisited New Salem in the summer of 1837 convinced Mary that they were incompatible. He began to take a different tack, suggesting that it was for her emotional as well as her physical well-being that she should break off their relationship. “I want in all cases to do right, and most particularly so, in all cases with women,” he told her, and he was convinced that it would be best for Mary if he left her alone. “For the purpose of making the matter as plain as possible,” he wrote her, “I now say, that you can now drop the subject [of marriage], dismiss your thoughts (if you ever had any) from me forever, and leave this letter unanswered, without calling forth one accusing murmer from me.” Indeed, if so doing would add to her peace of mind, “it is my sincere wish that you should.” Then, having done his best to persuade her to break their understanding, he manfully announced: “I am willing, and even anxious to bind you faster, if I can be convinced that it will, in any considerable degree, add to your happiness.”
If Mary wrote a reply to this left-handed proposal, it has not been preserved, but Lincoln recorded that she firmly and repeatedly refused his tepid offer of marriage. To his surprise, instead of being relieved, he felt “mortified almost beyond endurance.” “My vanity was deeply wounded ... that she whom I had taught myself to believe no body else would have, had actually rejected me with all my fancied greatness,” he reported some months later. Once it was certain that Mary did not return his affections, he even began to suspect that he was “really a little in love with her.” Immensely relieved that the whole affair was over, he wrote a farcical account of his failed courtship—carefully not mentioning Mary Owens by name—to amuse Mrs. O. H. Browning, which ended: “I have now come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying; and for this reason; I can never be satisfied with any one who would be blockhead enough to have me.”
II
“This thing of living in Springfield is rather a dull business after all, at least it is so to me,” Lincoln lamented to Mary Owens a month after he had moved from New Salem. “I am quite as lonesome here as [I] ever was anywhere in my life.” No doubt he did feel isolated during his first few weeks in town, but he was probably exaggerating his feelings to discourage Mary from further thinking about m
arriage. Indeed, he was presently surrounded by friends and welcomed in Springfield society.
From the beginning Speed was his close companion, and he became perhaps the only intimate friend that Lincoln ever had. Four years younger than Lincoln, Speed was also a Kentuckian. Unlike Lincoln, though, Speed came from a prominent family that owned a prosperous plantation, called Farmington, near Louisville, tilled by seventy slaves. Speed had attended private schools in Kentucky and had studied for two years at St. Joseph’s College, in Bardstown. Seeking to make his fortune, he came to Springfield and became a part proprietor of Ellis’s store. With flashing blue eyes and a mane of dark curly hair, he was a handsome young man, whose vaguely Byronic air of elegance made him especially attractive to Springfield ladies.
For nearly four years Lincoln and Speed shared a double bed, and their most private thoughts, in the room above Speed’s store. No one thought that there was anything irregular or unusual about the arrangement. It was rare for a single man to have a private room, and it was customary for two or more to sleep in the same bed. Years later, when Lincoln was a well-known lawyer, he and the other attorneys traveling the judicial circuit regularly shared beds; only Judge David Davis was allowed to sleep alone, not because of his dignified position but because he weighed over three hundred pounds. Much of the time when Lincoln and Speed were sharing a bed, young William H. Herndon, who had recently been withdrawn from Illinois College in Jacksonville and was clerking in Speed’s store, slept in the same room, as did Charles R. Hurst, a clerk in another dry-goods store.
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