Lincoln (136 page)

130
“to marry again”:
Ibid.

130
“away from you”:
Turner,
Mary Todd Lincoln,
p. 38.

131
“I see you”: CW,
1:477.

131
he had appointments:
The following paragraphs draw heavily on William F. Hanna’s excellent monograph,
Abraham Among the Yankees: Abraham Lincoln’s 1848 Visit to Massachusetts
(Taunton, Mass.: Old Colony Historical Society, 1983), and on Wayne C. Temple’s authoritative
Lincoln’s Connections with the Illinois & Michigan Canal, His Return from Congress in ’48, and His Invention
(Springfield: Illinois Bell, 1986).

131
“of the soil”: CW,
2:3–4.

131
“a melancholy display”:
For these newspapers’ verdicts, see Hanna,
Abraham Among the Yankees,
pp. 30, 34, 37, 64.

132
“of his countenance”:
Ibid., pp. 72–73.

132
“a tasteful speech”:
Sheldon H. Harris, “Abraham Lincoln Stumps a Yankee Audience,”
New
England Quarterly
38 (June 1965), p. 228.

132
“in the Union”:
E. L. Pierce to Jesse W. Weik, Feb. 12, 1890, HWC; Hanna,
Abraham Among the
Yankees,
p. 40.

132
visited Niagara Falls:
The date of this visit is problematic. By careful research in the shipping records Wayne C. Temple has shown that the Lincolns probably arrived in Buffalo on Sept. 25 and left the next morning for Chicago on the Great Lakes steamer
Globe.
He concludes that “it is most doubtful that they visited Niagara Falls for anything more than a brief glance, if at all.” They did return and see the Falls in 1857. Temple,
Lincoln’s Connections with the Illinois & Michigan Canal,
pp. 32–34.

132
water came from:
Donald,
Lincoln’s Herndon,
p. 128.

132
“overwhelming, glorious triumph”: CW,
1:477.

132
“known them to be”:
David Davis to W. P. Walker, May 16, 1848, photostat, David Davis MSS, Chicago Historical Society.

133
termed “heart-sickening
”:
CW,
1:490.

133
Lincoln’s “Spot” resolutions:
Thomas L. Harris to Messrs. Lanphier and Walker, Apr. 5, 1848, in Charles C. Patton, comp., “Glory to God and the Sucker Democracy” (Springfield, Ill, 1973, photocopy), vol. 2.

133
“to do this”: CW,
1:491.

133
“young men back”: Herndon’s Lincoln,
2:285.

133
the Democratic candidate:
Herndon blamed Logan’s defeat on Lincoln’s Mexican War stand, which he said was the equivalent of committing “political suicide” (
Herndon’s Lincoln,
2:284), and a number of subsequent biographers echoed this view. It has recently been challenged by Gabor S. Boritt in “Lincoln’s Opposition to the Mexican War” and by Mark E. Neely, Jr., in “War and Partisanship,” and in “Lincoln and the Mexican War: An Argument by Analogy,”
Civil War History
24 (Mar. 1978): 5–24, who point out that Lincoln’s antiwar views were shared by most Western Whigs and that criticism of his stand came mostly from partisan Democratic sources. Sangamon County poll books show that Mexican War veterans must not have been alienated by Lincoln’s stand, since they split their vote almost evenly between Logan and Harris. Mark E. Neely, Jr., “Lincoln, the Mexican War, and Springfield’s Veterans,”
LL,
no. 1701 (Nov. 1979).

133
“newly acquired territory”: CW,
2:11.

133
the congressional contest:
Mark E. Neely, Jr., “Did Lincoln Cause Logan’s Defeat?”
LL,
no. 1660 (June 1976).

133
and its expansion:
For Lincoln’s limited commitment to antislavery up to 1854, see Robert W. Johannsen’s incisive
Lincoln, the South, and Slavery: The Political Dimension
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991), chap. 1.

134
“the different States”: CW,
1:75.

134
“abate its evils”:
Ibid.

134
“in the old”: CW,
1:347–348.

135
voted for it:
Beveridge, 1:480. Beveridge correctly notes that Lincoln’s 1854 statement that he had voted for the Wilmot Proviso forty times while in Congress was “a campaign exaggeration.”

135
him into custody:
Findley,
A. Lincoln: The Crucible of Congress,
p. 130.

135
“Negro livery-stable”:
Ibid., p. 124.

135
“of the earth”: Congressional Globe,
30 Cong., 2 sess., pp. 31, 38, 55, 83.

136
“of said District”: CW,
1:75.

136
“to be abolished”:
Findley,
A. Lincoln: The Crucible of Congress,
pp. 138, 139.

136
“I
was nobody”:
Arlin Turner, “Elizabeth Peabody Visits Lincoln, February, 1865,”
New England
Quarterly
48 (March 1975): 119.

136
“District of Columbia”: CW,
2:22.

136
“into said District”: CW,
2:20–22.

137
“hound from Illinois”:
Beveridge, 1:482.

137
throughout the country:
W. D. Howells,
Life of Abraham Lincoln
(Springfield, Ill.: Abraham Lincoln Association, 1938), p. 64.

137
“calculation of consequences”:
Riddle,
Congressman Abraham Lincoln,
p. 170; Beveridge, 1:485. Lincoln’s proposal was not a moving cause for Calhoun’s Address of the Southern Delegates in Congress, to their constituents, which had been prepared in a preliminary form some weeks earlier. Charles M. Wiltse,
John C. Calhoun: Sectionalism 1840–1850
(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1951), p. 541.

137
“at that time”: CW,
2:22.

138
“fairness, and friendship”: CW,
2:22–24.

138
“not be sustained”: CW,
2:43.

138
“State Central Committee”: CW,
2:39–40.

138
“had no opposition”: CW,
2:46.

138
“go for him”:
J. F. Speed to WHH, Feb. 14, 1866, copy, Lamon MSS, HEH.

138
“it for themselves”: CW,
2:28–29.

139
“the Land Office”:
David Davis to AL, Feb. 21, 1849, Lincoln MSS, LC.

139
at most, tepid:
The most persuasive account of this episode, which I have closely followed, is Thomas F. Schwartz, “‘An Egregious Political Blunder’: Justin Butterfield, Lincoln and Illinois Whiggery,”
Papers of the Abraham Lincoln Association
8 (1986): 9–19.

139
“by common consent”: CW,
2:29.

139
“surrender of the law”: CW,
10:14.

139
Morrison declined it: CW,
2:41.

139
“in a favorable light”:
John H. Morrison to David Davis, Apr. 26, 1849, photostat, David Davis MSS, Chicago Historical Society.

140
“a Land lawyer”:
Josiah M. Lucas to AL, May 9, 1849, Lincoln MSS, LC.

140
Butterfield’s candidacy:
For the story from Butterfield’s perspective, see Thomas Ewing, “Lincoln and the General Land Office, 1849,”
JISHS
25 (Oct. 1932): 139–153.

140
“Mr. B. himself”: CW,
2:43, 51.

140
to write letters: CW,
2:52.

140
“of the State”:
Riddle,
Congressman Abraham Lincoln,
pp. 210, 122. The author of the letter, Caleb Birchall, was angry because Lincoln had failed to recommend him to be postmaster at Springfield. Boritt, “Lincoln’s Opposition to the Mexican War,” p. 96.

140
“man of straw”: CW,
2:60.

140
“the office myself
”:
CW,
11:5–6.

141
declined the offer: CW,
11:5.

141
“mass of names”: CW,
2:19.

Much of the information in this chapter comes from the hundreds of unpublished documents in the files of the Lincoln Legal Papers in Springfield. John J. Duff,
A. Lincoln: Prairie Lawyer
(New York: Rinehart & Co., 1960), is the fullest account of Lincoln’s law practice, and I have relied heavily on its accurate and informed accounts of Lincoln’s major legal cases. David Herbert Donald,
Lincoln’s Herndon
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948), discusses the Lincoln & Herndon partnership.

142
“than ever before”: CW,
3:512.

142
“tended to consumption”:
WHH, interview with David Davis, Sept. 19, 1866, HWC.

142
“in his mind”: CW,
4:67.

142
“Education defective”: CW,
2:459.

142
“training and method”: Herndon’s Lincoln,
2:307.

143
“Six-books of Euclid”: CW,
4:62.

143
Nancy Robinson Dorman:
For a full account of this case, see William D. Beard, “Lincoln’s ‘Jarndyce v. Jarndyce’: A Family Dispute on the Illinois Frontier,” unpublished monograph, Lincoln Legal Papers.

143
argued a case:
For details on this case, reported at 48 U.S. (7 Howard) 776, see James D. Maher, Clerk of the U.S. Supreme Court, to Willis Van Devanter, Feb. 15,1918, and Willis Van Devanter to Jesse W. Weik, Feb. 16, 1918, both in the Herndon-Weik Collection, LC. Lincoln was also attorney of record in five other cases, but he did not argue them in person.
Lincoln Legal Briefs,
no. 31 (July–Sept. 1994). See also Duff,
A Lincoln,
pp. 156–157.