Lincoln (138 page)

153
became seriously sick:
Harry E. Pratt, “Little Eddie Lincoln—‘We Miss Him Very Much,’”
JISHS
47 (Autumn 1954): 300–305.

153
no known cure:
Wayne C. Temple, “Government Records as Historical Sources,”
Illinois Libraries
52 (Feb. 1970): 169–170. For informed medical opinion, see Baker,
Mary Todd Lincoln,
pp. 125–126.

153
“him very much”: CW,
2:77.

154
“to our loss”:
Mary Lincoln to “My Dear Friend,” July 23, 1853, photostat, ISHL.

154
“a womanly nature”:
Randall,
Mary Lincoln,
p. 148.

154
was gradually changing:
John W. Starr, Jr.,
Lincoln & the Railroads
(New York: Arno Press, 1981), offers good general treatment of Lincoln’s railroad cases.

154
significant railroad case:
This account of the Barret case is drawn from the admirable monograph
by William D. Beard, “‘I Have Labored Hard to Find the Law’: Abraham Lincoln for the Alton and Sangamon Railroad,”
Illinois Historical Journal
85 (Winter 1992): 209–222. A shorter commentary, together with pertinent documents, has been published as
Barret v. Alton and Sangamon Railroad Company, Illinois Supreme Court, December Term 1851
(Springfield, Ill: Abraham Lincoln Association, 1989). This was not Lincoln’s first railroad case. In 1849 he had appeared on behalf of the plaintiff in
John B. Watson
v.
Sangamon & Morgan Railroad
(HWC, LC).

155
two minor cases:
The first was
Houser
v.
Illinois Central Railroad,
McLean County Circuit Court, Apr. 15, 1853 (Lincoln Legal Papers). The second is discussed in Duff, A
Lincoln,
p. 210.

155
“got up in the State”: CW,
2:202.

155 “
‘count me in’”: CW,
2:205. In 1854, James F. Joy, agent of the Illinois Central Railroad, urged the company to employ a lobbyist at Springfield for a retainer or salary of $1,000 a year, and he recommended an unnamed man who would be “a valuable ally and a dangerous opponent in any matter before the Legislature.” Pratt,
Personal Finances,
pp. 48–49. Some historians believe that Lincoln was the man retained. I think this is doubtful, because in correspondence subsequent to this date Lincoln repeatedly had to ask to be retained in cases involving the railroad.

156
for the Illinois Central:
Albert A. Woldman,
Lawyer Lincoln
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1936), pp. 165–169, offers a full account of this case.

156
and South Carolina:
Lincoln’s brief is in Emanuel Hertz,
Abraham Lincoln: A New Portrait
(New York: Horace Liveright, 1931), 2:675–677, where, however, beginning with the third paragraph on p. 677, it is confused with Lincoln’s 1856 opinion on land titles in Beloit, Wisconsin. Cf.
CW,
2:336–339.

156
“such a claim”: Herndon’s Lincoln,
2:352.

156
steamers over shoals: CW,
2:32–36. With the help of Walter Davis, a Springfield cabinetmaker, Lincoln built an elaborate model of this invention. Wayne C. Temple,
Lincoln’s Connections with the Illinois & Michigan Canal, His Return from Congress in ’48, and His Invention
(Springfield: Illinois Bell, 1986), pp. 35–36, 54–58.

157
“its territorial limits”: Register,
Dec. 20, 1851.

157
“clear and uninterrupted”: Journal,
Jan. 28, 1852.

157
“of the Northwest”: CW,
2:415.

157
for the railroad:
See the excellent account in Duff,
A Lincoln,
chap. 20.

157
American legal thought:
John P. Frank,
Lincoln as a Lawyer
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1961), pp. 171–172.

157
“a case lawyer”:
WHH, monograph on “Lincoln as Lawyer Politician and Statesman,” HWC.

158
his family life:
Benjamin P. Thomas, “Lincoln and the Courts, 1854–1861,”
Abraham Lincoln
Association Papers, 1933
(Springfield, Ill.: Abraham Lincoln Association, 1934), pp. 59–62.

158
edge of hysteria:
Randall,
Mary Lincoln,
pp. 118–120, offers a sympathetic account.

158
“Bob and I”:
WHH, interview with James Gourley, undated [1866], copy, Lamon MSS, HEH.

158
with her own:
William Dodd Chenery, in
Register,
Feb. 27, 1938.

159
“laugh at her”:
WHH, interview with James Gourley, [1866], copy, Lamon MSS, HEH.

159
grew in crooked:
Ruth Painter Randall,
Lincoln’s Sons
(Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1955), is an affectionate portrait of the Lincoln children.

159
“hot house plants”:
WHH to Jesse W. Weik, Jan. 6, 1886, HWC.

159
“hen pecked”: Milton Hay to Mary Hay, Apr. 6, 1862, Stuart-Hay MSS, ISHL.

159
them fell out:
WHH to J. W. Weik, Nov! 19, 1885, HWC.

159
“get too tired?”:
Randall,
Lincoln’s Sons,
p. 41.

160
“thought it smart”:
WHH to J. W. Weik, Feb. 18, 1887, HWC.

160
“my mouth shut”:
WHH to J. W. Weik, Nov. 19, 1885, HWC.

160
of their mother:
The following paragraphs follow Donald,
Lincoln’s Herndon,
pp. 188–189.

160
“insolent witty and bitter”:
WHH to J. W. Weik, Jan. 9, 1886, HWC.

160
“in his line”:
Randall,
Mary Lincoln,
p. 117.

161
“not tempt him”:
W. D. Howells,
Life of Abraham Lincoln
(Springfield, Ill.: Abraham Lincoln Association, 1938), pp. 69–70.

For comprehensive overviews of the political events discussed in this chapter, see Allan Nevins,
Ordeal of the Union, vol. 2, A House Dividing, 1852–1857
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1947), and David M. Potter and Don E. Fehrenbacher,
The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861
(New York: Harper & Row, 1976). Albert J. Beveridge,
Abraham Lincoln, 1809–1858
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1928), gives extensive coverage to Lincoln’s life during the 1850s, and, though it is marred by excessive dependence on Herndon’s belated recollections, I have drawn on it frequently.

My account of the political realignment of the 1850s rests heavily on two important books by Michael F. Holt:
The Political Crisis of the 1850s
(New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1978), and
Political Parties and American Political Development from the Age of Jackson to the Age of Lincoln
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992). William E. Gienapp,
The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852–1856
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), is definitive.

Don E. Fehrenbacher,
Prelude to Greatness: Lincoln in the 1850’s
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1962), is a brilliant interpretation of Lincoln’s reemergence as a political leader. Robert W. Johannsen,
Lincoln, the South, and Slavery
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991), is an incisive account of Lincoln’s growing concern with the slavery question.

The literature on Lincoln and colonization is extensive, but the best study, which offers full citation of previous works, is Michael Vorenberg, “Abraham Lincoln and the Politics of Black Colonization,”
Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association
14 (Summer 1993): 23–45.

For Lincoln’s unsuccessful bid for the Senate in 1855, see Matthew Pinsker’s authoritative “Senator Abraham Lincoln,”
Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association
14 (Summer 1993): 1–21. Pinsker’s unpublished paper, “If You Know Nothing: Abraham Lincoln and Political Nativism,” is by far the best account of Lincoln and the Know Nothings, but Tyler Anbinder,
Nativism & Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings & the Politics of the 1850s
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), is also useful.

162
“lived for it”:
WHH to W. H. Lamon, Mar. 6, 1870, Lamon MSS, HEH.

162
Congress in 1850: CW,
2:79.

162
“stands number one”:
Mark E. Neely, Jr., “Lincoln’s Theory of Representation: A Significant New Lincoln Document,”
LL,
no. 1683 (May 1978).

163
for his father: CW,
2:148.

163
“had ever engaged”:
W. D. Howells,
Life of Abraham Lincoln
(Springfield, Ill: Abraham Lincoln Association, 1938), p. 69.

163
“construction of language!!!”
.:
CW,
2:140–141.

163
the “common mortals”: CW,
2:144.

163
at the windows:
WHH to Jesse W. Weik, July 10, 1886, HWC.

163
“and miserable man”:
WHH, “Lincoln’s domestic Life,” undated monograph, HWC.

164
“breakfast bell rang”:
Henry C. Whitney,
Life on the Circuit with Lincoln,
ed. Paul M. Angle (Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Printers, 1940), p. 68.

164
“been moderately successful”: CW,
10:18

164
“a sort of lecture”: CW,
3:374.

164
“Discoveries and Inventions”:
In Lincoln’s
Collected Works
the editors showed two lectures on this subject (2:437–442 and 3:356–363), but through elegant detective work Wayne C. Temple has proved these were parts of a single lecture. For an illuminating account of that lecture and the circumstances in which it was delivered, see Wayne C. Temple, “Lincoln as a Lecturer on ‘Discoveries, Inventions, and Improvements,’”
Jacksonville Journal Courier,
May 23, 1982.

164
“of using them”: CW,
3:362.

164
“
‘died a bornin’ ”:
WHH to Jesse W. Weik, Feb. 21, 1891, HWC.