Lincoln
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80 “to our nature”: CW, 1:114–115.
80 “native Spanish moss”: CW, 1:109–110.
81 “religion of the nation”: CW, 1:112.
81 “in the land”: CW, 1:69.
81 “or enslaving freemen “: CW, 1:113–114.
81 “knew no rest”: Herndon’s Lincoln, 2:375.
81 “he had lived”: Joshua F. Speed to WHH, Feb. 1866, copy, Lamon MSS, HEH.
82 “[and] shoot editors”: CW, 1:111.
82 “as moral pestilences”: CW, 1:273.
82 “any other class”: CW, 1:278.
83 “Reason, all hail!”: CW, 1:279.
83 “one of the boys”: WHH, monograph on “Lincoln & Mary Todd,” [1887], HWC.
83 “and faithful obedience”: CW, 1:156.
83 “coarse and vulgar fellow”: Linder, Reminiscences of the Early Bench and Bar, pp. 62–63.
83 “shrunk from responsibility”: CW, 1:124–125.
83 “belong to him”: Simon, Lincoln’s Preparation for Greatness, p. 171.
83 “a thousand years”: CW, 1:109.
83 “and my love”: CW, 1:178–179.
84 “have avoided it”: CW, 1:78.
84 “these girls look”: Baker, Mary Todd Lincoln, p. 89.
84 sister, Mary Todd: The standard, highly sympathetic life is Ruth P. Randall, Mary Lincoln: Biography of a Marriage (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1953). Jean H. Baker, Mary Todd Lincoln, is more balanced. For Mary Todd’s family and Kentucky background, see William H. Townsend, Lincoln and the Bluegrass: Slavery and Civil War in Kentucky (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1955).
84 “a merry dance”: WHH, Jan. 16, 1886, HWC; WHH, monograph on “Lincoln & Mary Todd,” [1887], HWC.
85 “nature—and culture”: WHH, interview with Mrs. N. W. Edwards, [Jan. 10, 1866], HWC.
85 “been hard bargains”: Turner, Mary Todd Lincoln, pp. 18, 26.
85 “for policy”: WHH, interview with N. W. Edwards, Sept. 22, 1865, HWC.
86 “a rising man”: WHH, interview with Mrs. N. W. Edwards, [Jan. 10, 1866], HWC.
86 still sexually inexperienced: For sensitive comment on this point, see Strozier, Lincoln’s Quest for Union, pp. 47–48.
86 “horrible and alarming”: CW, 1:280.
87 His nerve snapped: Herndon’s elaborate story of how Lincoln failed to show up at the wedding ceremony planned for Jan. 1,1841, has been thoroughly discredited. See Randall, Mary Lincoln, chap. 4.
87 “her—and parted”: WHH, interview with Joshua F. Speed, undated, HWC. I have reversed the order of the first two quoted sentences. For the best reconstruction of this interview, which was recorded on two separate pieces of paper, see Douglas L. Wilson, “Abraham Lincoln and ‘That Fatal First of January,’” Civil War History 38 (1992): 104–106.
87 with Matilda Edwards: Those who blamed Matilda Edwards for the rupture seem to have their information from Mary Todd, who was looking for a face-saving reason for Lincoln’s actions. There is no credible evidence that Lincoln was in love with Matilda Edwards; to the contrary, Matilda told Elizabeth Edwards, “On my word he never mentioned such a subject to me: he never even stooped to pay me a compliment.”
87 “felt as always”: WHH, interview with Mrs. N. W. Edwards, [Jan. 10, 1866], HWC. As Douglas L. Wilson has pointed out (“Abraham Lincoln and ‘That Fatal First of January’ “), it is difficult to construct a correct chronology of these events. I judge that the breaking of the engagement occurred on what Lincoln referred to as “that fatal first of Jany. ’41.” My guess is that Mary did not write her letter immediately but delayed by as much as a week. That would explain why Lincoln was able to go about his business in the legislature during the first week in January but was prostrated with guilt and depression during the second week.
87 might commit suicide: WHH, interview with James Matheny, May 3, 1866, HWC.
87 “such dangerous things”: WHH, interview with Joshua F. Speed, [1866], HWC.
87 “serious was apprehended”: Wilson, “Abraham Lincoln and ‘That Fatal First of January,’ “p. 123.
87 “of my character”: CW, 1:289.
88 “she is otherwise”: CW, 1:282.
88 “on the earth”: CW, 1:228–229.
88 “a Duck fit”: Wilson, “Abraham Lincoln and ‘That Fatal First of January,’” p. 124 and note.
88 “not loved again”: Carl Sandburg and Paul M. Angle, Mary Lincoln: Wife and Widow (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1932), pp. 179–180.
88 “of the law”: Ibid., p. 180.
89 “for its promises”: J.F. Speed to WHH, Sept. 17, 1866, HWC.
89 “to the truth”: CW, 1:261.
89 “creatures on board”: CW, 1:260.
89 “heavenly black eyes”: CW, 1:266.
89 doctor and patient: I borrow this image from Wilson, “Abraham Lincoln and ‘That Fatal First of January,’” p. 127.
89 “for a while”: CW, 1:266–269.
89 “on defective nerves”: CW, 1:265.
89 “happiest of men”: CW, 1:270.
90 “of Jany. ’41”: CW, 1:282.
90 “pardon it in me”: CW, 1:303.
90 “Be friends again”: Herndon’s Lincoln, 2:227.
90 except Dr. Henry: See Harry E. Pratt, Dr. Anson G. Henry: Lincoln’s Physician and Friend (Harrogate, Tenn.: Lincoln Memorial University, 1944), and Wayne C. Temple, Dr. Anson G. Henry: Personal Physician to the Lincolns (Milwaukee: Lincoln Fellowship of Wisconsin, 1988).
90 “husband and wife”: WHH, interview with Mrs. N. W. Edwards, [Jan. 10, 1866], HWC.
91 “out of the question”: CW, 1:294–295.
91 “and so interesting”: CW, 1:295–296.
91 “Rebecca, the widow”: Beveridge, 1:343–344.
91 the code duello:. For a spirited account of the Lincoln-Shields affair, see James E. Myers, The Astonishing Saber Duel of Abraham Lincoln (Springfield, Ill.: Lincoln-Herndon Building Publishers, 1968). The letters exchanged by the principals and their seconds are included in Herndon’s Lincoln, 2: 243–259.
92 “much of menace”: CW, 1:299.
92 “such degradation”: Beveridge, 1:345.
92 “of his backbone”: Herndon’s Lincoln, 2:260.
92 “for political effect”: Ibid., 2:256.
92 “mention it again”: Turner, Mary Todd Lincoln, pp. 296, 299.
93 “eyes and ears”: WHH, interview with Mrs. N. W. Edwards, [Jan. 10, 1866], HWC.
93 “to the slaughter”: WHH, interview with James Matheny, May 3, 1866, HWC.
93 “hell, I suppose”: Herndon’s Lincoln, 2:229.
CHAPTER FOUR: ALWAYS A WHIG
The title of this chapter comes from Joel H. Silbey’s excellent article, “‘Always a Whig in Polities’: The Partisan Life of Abraham Lincoln,” Papers of the Abraham Lincoln Association 8 (1986): 21–42, an interpretation that I have drawn on heavily. A thoughtful chapter in Daniel Walker Howe’s The Political Culture of the American Whigs (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979) places Lincoln in the Whig tradition. Gabor S. Boritt’s magisterial Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream (Memphis: Memphis State University Press, 1978) is especially valuable on Lincoln’s economic ideas.
On Lincoln’s legal career all the works cited in the previous chapter continue to be valuable, but I have drawn most heavily on John J. Duff, A. Lincoln: Prairie Lawyer (New York: Rinehart & Co., 1960). My account of the Lincoln & Herndon partnership repeats, often in the same words, material I included in Lincoln’s Herndon (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948).
Ruth P. Randall’s Mary Lincoln: Biography of a Marriage (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1953) needs to be balanced with William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik, Herndon’s Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life (Chicago: Belford-Clarke Co., 1890). Jean H. Baker, Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1987), is shrewd and insightful. Michael Burlingame, The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), which presents an ex
ceedingly hostile account of Mary Lincoln, appeared too late for me to consider it in preparing the present biography.
Donald W. Riddle, Lincoln Runs for Congress (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1948) is a thorough account of Lincoln’s quest for office.
94 “of profound wonder”: CW, 1:305.
94 “a presidential chair”: CW, 1:114.
94 “rooms for boarders”: Baker, Mary Todd Lincoln, pp. 99–100; “The Lincolns’ Globe Tavern,” in The Collected Writings of James T. Hickey (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Society, 1990), pp. 49–73. It is not clear whether the Lincolns paid $4 a week each or for both.
95 Globe was stingy: Mrs. David Davis to Mrs. Daniel R. Williams, Feb. 23, 1846, photostat, David Davis MSS, Chicago Historical Society.
95 “say, exactly yet”: CW, 1:319.
95 “does Butler appoint?”: CW, 1:325.
95 “love and tenderness”: Randall, Mary Lincoln, p. 81.
95 “expressed the least”: Charles B. Strozier, Lincoln’s Quest for Union (New York: Basic Books, 1982), p. 78.
96 Todd had purchased: The case was Todd v. Ware (1844). The very extensive file on this case in the Lincoln Legal Papers shows what careful attention Lincoln paid to the minute details of his father-in-law’s case.
96 in her hand: Baker, Mary Todd Lincoln, p. 103.
96 home of their own: On Lincoln’s house, see Wayne C. Temple’s authoritative By Square and Compasses: The Building of Lincoln’s Home and Its Saga (Bloomington, Ill.: Ashlar Press, 1984). Also valuable are several reports prepared for the National Park Service: Floyd Mansberger, “Archaeological Investigations at the Lincoln Home National Historic Site, Springfield, Illinois” (1987); Vergil E. Noble, “Further Archaeological Investigations at Lincoln National Historic Site, Springfield, Illinois” (1988); and Katherine B. Menz, “Furnishings Plan ...: The Lincoln Home” (1983). I have profited enormously from a private conducted tour of the Lincoln Home National Historic Site that Mr. Norman D. Hellmers, the superintendent, gave me and have learned much from the careful drawings of the house and outbuildings that he kindly provided.
96 “calling, is diligence”: CW, 10:19.
97 fees of $10: Harry E. Pratt, “Lincoln and Bankruptcy Laws,” Illinois Bar Journal 31 (Jan. 1943): 201–206. The staff of the Lincoln Legal Papers has recently discovered complete transcripts of twelve bankruptcy cases in which Logan and Lincoln appeared. These will make possible a much fuller treatment of Lincoln’s practice in bankruptcy proceedings. Lincoln Legal Briefs (October–December 1994), No. 32.
97 seventeen cases: Day by Day, 1:195. For pleadings in these cases, see Rufus Rockwell Wilson, ed., Uncollected Works of Abraham Lincoln (Elmira, N.Y.: Primavera Press, 1948), 2:252–254, 211.
97 Tinsley Building: Paul M. Angle, “Where Lincoln Practiced Law,” Lincoln Centennial Association Papers, 1927 (Springfield, Ill.: Lincoln Centennial Association, 1927), pp. 30–31.
97 “in the wrong”: WHH, “Lincoln as Lawyer Politician and Statesman,” undated monograph, [1887], HWC
98 “will of Juries”: “Stephen T. Logan Talks About Lincoln,” Lincoln Centennial Association Bulletin 12 (Sept. 1, 1928): 3.
98 “fine-tooth combs”: John J. Duff, “This Was a Lawyer,” JISHS 52 (Spring 1959): 158.
98 “make a speech”: CW, 10:19.
98 “want to reach”: Herndon’s Lincoln, 2:325.
98 a courtroom litigator: For thoughtful appraisals of Lincoln as a lawyer, see Charles W. Moores, “Abraham Lincoln: Lawyer,” Indiana Historical Society Publications 7 (1922): 483–535; Benjamin P. Thomas, “Abe Lincoln, Country Lawyer,” Atlantic Monthly 193 (Feb. 1954): 57–61; Cullom Davis, Lincoln the Lawyer (Springfield, Ill.: Lincoln Legal Papers, 1990); and Cullom Davis, “Abraham Lincoln, Esq.: The Symbiosis of Law and Politics,” unpublished paper (Springfield, Ill., 1992).
98 “ambition in the law”: “Stephen T. Logan Talks About Lincoln,” p. 3.
99 “who heard him”: Wilson, Uncollected Works, 2:256–258; John P. Frank, Lincoln as a Lawyer (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1961), p. 13.
99 “it as anybody”: Herndon’s opinions are in his lecture “Analysis of the Character of Abraham Lincoln,” Abraham Lincoln Quarterly 1 (Dec. 1941): 431, and in his monograph, “Lincoln as Lawyer Politician and Statesman,” HWC; Logan’s are in “Stephen T. Logan Talks About Lincoln,” p. 5.’
100 “for this age”: Maus v. Worthing, 4 Ill. 26 (1841). See the able summary in John Long, The Law of Illinois, vol. 1, Lincoln’s Cases Before the Illinois Supreme Court from His Entry into the Practice of Law Until His Entry into Congress (Shiloh, Ill.: Illinois Co., 1993), pp. 3–10.
100 “know any thing”: WHH, “Lincoln as Lawyer Politician and Statesman,” HWC.
100 three hundred cases: All figures concerning the extent of Lincoln’s law practice have to be provisional, pending the completion of the work of the indefatigable researchers connected with the Lincoln Legal Papers. Dan W. Bannister’s thorough and informed Lincoln and the Illinois Supreme Court (Springfield, privately printed, 1995), appeared too late for me to consult it in preparing my account of Lincoln’s appellate practice.
100 “and in friendship”: “Stephen T. Logan Talks About Lincoln,” p. 5.
100 until March 1845: Angle, “Where Lincoln Practiced Law,” pp. 29–30.
100 a new partner: The following paragraphs are drawn from Donald, Lincoln’s Herndon, pp. 18–21.
101 this new partner: Ibid., chap. 4.
102 “to jump far”: WHH, “Lincoln as Lawyer Politician and Statesman,” HWC.
102 “a few other books”: Angle, “Where Lincoln Practiced Law,” p. 32.
102 “things in order”: Donald, Lincoln’s Herndon, pp. 21–22.
103 “his memorandum-book”: Duff, A Lincoln, p. 117.
103 “person is illegal”: Bailey v. Cromwell, 4 Ill. 71 (1841). See also the summary in Long, The Law of Illinois, pp. 11–12. See also W. H. Williamson, “Lincoln and Black Nance,” typescript in the Lincoln Legal Papers, which points out that Lincoln never represented Nance and did not win freedom for her; he simply demonstrated that her alleged owner “could not prove that she was a slave.” The Northwest Ordinance forbade the introduction of slavery into the territory that later became the state of Illinois, but it did not emancipate slaves who were already residing in the territory. Nor did the Constitution of Illinois. Moreover—as the Matson case, discussed just below, reveals—the law did not prevent slave owners from bringing their chattels temporarily into the state. The 1840 United States census showed 331 slaves still living in Illinois.
103 “privately by him”: The file on Matson v. Rutherford in the Lincoln Legal Papers contains much valuable information. For the account of O. B. Ficklin, one of the attorneys who opposed Lincoln and Linder, see “A Pioneer Lawyer,” Tuscola Review, Sept. 7, 1922 (in broadside collection, ISHL). See also Anton-Hermann Chroust, “Abraham Lincoln Argues a Pro-Slavery Case,” American Journal of Legal History 5 (Oct. 1961): 299–308, and Jesse W. Weik, “Lincoln and the Matson Negroes,” Arena 17 (Apr. 1897): 752–758.
104 “and butter involved”: CW, 10:19.
104 “if we fail”: CW, 1:305.
104 “case, if convenient”: CW, 1:345.
104 to do so: For these cases, see William H. Townsend, Lincoln the Litigant (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1925), pp. 7–30.
104 money was received: Donald, Lincoln’s Herndon, p. 33. The firm did have a partnership account at the Springfield Marine & Fire Insurance Co. (which performed the functions of a bank after the failure of the State Bank of Illinois), but it was used simply for the collection of drafts. Duff, A Lincoln, pp. 114–115.
104 riders of the circuit: Paul M. Angle, “Abraham Lincoln: Circuit Lawyer,” Lincoln Centennial Association Papers, 1928 (Springfield, Ill: Lincoln Centennial Association, 1928), pp. 19–41; Benjamin P. Thomas, “The Eighth Judicial Circuit,” Bulletin of the Abraham Lincoln Association, no. 40 (September 1935): 1�
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105 a nondescript buggy: Wayne C. Temple, “Lincoln Rides the Circuit,” LH 62 (1960): 139–143.
105 “two under them”: William H. Herndon, A Letter... to Isaac N. Arnold (1937).