Lincoln (139 page)

165
“or to myself”: CW,
2:82.

165
“are still aloft!”: CW,
2:85.

165
“the world respectably”: CW,
2.124.

165
“of his cause”: CW,
2:126.

165
views on slavery:
Mark E. Neely, Jr., “American Nationalism in the Image of Henry Clay: Abraham Lincoln’s Eulogy on Henry Clay in Context,”
Register of the Kentucky Historical Society
73 (Jan. 1975): 31–60.

165
“a greater evil”: CW,
2:130.

165
knowledge of slavery:
On his two flatboat trips down the Mississippi, Lincoln was more concerned with river currents than with social institutions. But he did remember distinctly that on his first trip he was “attacked by seven negroes with intent to kill.”
CW,
4:62. William H. Townsend argued that on his visits to his father-in-law in Lexington, Kentucky, Lincoln “had an opportunity to study the institution of slavery at close range,” and he detailed a number of horrors and atrocities that Lincoln might have witnessed.
Lincoln and the Bluegrass: Slavery and Civil War in Kentucky
(Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1955), pp. 126–132. Benjamin Quarles,
Lincoln and the Negro
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1962), also says Lincoln “could not have missed” the whipping post, the slave pens, and the slave auctions in Lexington. But neither author gives any evidence that Lincoln did witness these scenes, and he never made any reference to them.

166
crucified his feelings:
Compare Lincoln’s letter of Sept. 27, 1841, to Mary Speed with that of Aug. 24, 1855, to Joshua F. Speed.
CW,
1:260, 2:320.

166
“you owned slaves”:
Joseph Gillespie to WHH, Jan. 31, 1866, HWC.

166
it in colonization:
The most perceptive account is Michael Vorenberg, “Abraham Lincoln and the Politics of Black Colonization,”
Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association
14 (Summer 1993): 23–45. On the Colonization Society, see P. J. Staudenraus,
The African Colonization Movement, 1816–1865
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1961). For a thoughtful analysis, see George M. Fredrickson,
The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817–1914
(New York: Harper & Row, 1971), pp. 6–25.

166
“for the future”: CW,
2:132.

167
“times ten days’: CW,
2:255.

167
171 were blacks: The Seventh Census of the United States, 1850
(Washington, D.C.: Robert Armstrong, 1853), p. 715.

167
small legal problems:
Lloyd Ostendorf, “A Monument for One of the Lincoln Maids,”
LH
66 (Winter 1964): 184–186; John E. Washington,
They Knew Lincoln
(New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1942), pp. 183–202. See also Quarles,
Lincoln and the Negro,
pp. 25–28.

167
“the existing institution”: CW,
2:255.

167
were “settled forever”: CW,
2:232.

167
very useful escape:
For this interpretation I am indebted to Gabor S. Boritt, “The Voyage to the Colony of Linconia: The Sixteenth President, Black Colonization, and the Defense Mechanism of Avoidance,”
Historian
37 (1975): 619–632.

167
the Nebraska Territory:
Potter and Fehrenbacher,
The Impending Crisis,
chap. 7, offers the most satisfactory account of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. For Douglas’s motives, see Robert W. Johannsen,
Stephen A. Douglas
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1973),
chapters 16
-
18
.

168
“thunderstruck and stunned”: CW,
2:282.

168
“masters and slaves”:
David Herbert Donald,
Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1960), p. 252.

168
about them all:
WHH to James H. Wilson, Aug. 18, 1889, copy, HWC; Herndon to Zebina Eastman, Feb. 6, 1866, Eastman MSS, Chicago Historical Society.

169
“perfect and uniform”: CW,
2:282.

170
“or our forefathers”:
Matthew Pinsker, “If You Know Nothing: Abraham Lincoln and Political Nativism,” unpublished essay, p. 6.

170
“God speed it!”: CW,
2:229, 234.

170
whittling and listening:
Townsend,
Lincoln and the Bluegrass,
p. 213.

170
“into free territory”: CW,
2:227.

170
“Yates to congress”: CW,
4:67.

171
“as english—vote”: CW,
2:284.

171
“not
taste
liquor”: CW,
10:24.

171
Yates as well:
Franklin T. King to WHH, Sept. 12, 1890, HWC.

171
“might the Democrats”:
Pinsker, “If You Know Nothing,” p. 65.

172
“and that’s enough”:
WHH, interview with William Jayne, Aug. 15, 1866, HWC.

172
“injurious to yourself”: CW,
2:228.

173
“don’t drink anything”:
Paul M. Angle, ed.,
Abraham Lincoln by Some Men Who Knew Him
(Chicago: Americana House, 1950), p. 43.

173
“points and arguments”:
George Fort Milton,
The Eve of Conflict: Stephen A. Douglas and the
Needless War
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1934), p. 180.

174
“intelligent, and attentive”: Journal,
Oct. 5, 1854.

174
“the palms up”:
WHH, “Lincoln’s Ways—Methods—Positions—Pose etc when Rising to Address ... the People,” undated monograph, HWC.

174
“class of men”: CW,
2:248. Because Lincoln’s speech in Springfield was not fully reported, it is easier to follow his argument in the version of the same address that he delivered on Oct. 16 at Peoria. Quotations in the following paragraphs, unless otherwise identified, are from the Peoria speech.

175
“slavery, than we”: CW,
2:255.

175
“be safely disregarded”: CW,
2:256.

175
“ace of passing”:
Ibid.

175
“a
palliation—
a
lullaby”:
CW,
2:262.

175 “is
a man”: CW,
2:265.

176
“legislating about him
”.:
CW,
2:281.

176
“of American republicanism”: CW,
2:266.

176
“arguments at all”: CW,
2:283.

176
“spread of slavery”: CW,
2:255, 266.

176
“a given time”: CW,
2:274.

176
“near stifling utterance”: Journal,
Oct. 10, 1854.

177
“of these States”: CW,
2:126.

177
“throughout the world”: CW,
2:276.

177
“of Human Freedom”:
This quotation is from a newspaper report of Lincoln’s speech in Springfield.
CW,
2:242.

177
“felt himself overthrown”: Journal,
Oct. 10, 1854.

177
“all over the country”: Register,
Oct. 7, 1854.

178
“his lifeless remains”:
Ibid., Oct. 9, 1854.

178
“him holler Enough”:
B. F. Irwin to WHH, Feb. 8, 1866, HWC.

178
“have ever met”:
Frank E. Stevens, “Life of Stephen Arnold Douglas,”
JISHS
16 (Oct. 1923-Jan. 1924):487.

178
“him skin me”: CW,
2:248.

178
throughout the state:
Herndon’s claim that, after the encounter at Peoria, Douglas asked Lincoln for a truce in debating and then promptly violated that agreement (
Herndon’s Lincoln,
2:373–374) has been rejected by nearly all Lincoln scholars.

178
before or since:
Henry C. Whitney, undated reminiscence, David Davis MSS, Chicago Historical Society.

178
“a powerful speaker”: Day by Day,
2:130.

178
two in Indiana:
Nevins,
Ordeal of the Union,
2:341–344.

179
for that office:
For an admirable account of Lincoln’s unsuccessful effort to be elected senator in 1854–1855, on which I have relied heavily in the following pages, see Pinsker, “Senator Abraham Lincoln,” 1–21.

179
senators and representatives: CW,
2:286.

179
“go for me”: CW,
2:288.

179
“one eye open”: Herndon’s Lincoln,
2:375.

179
“for a chance”: CW,
2303.

179
“a terrible struggle”: CW,
2:293.

179
election of senator:
Beveridge, 2:275–276.

180
“wouldhelp Yates”: CW,
2:289.

180
“with the Abolitionists”:
C. H. Ray to E. B. Washburne, Dec. 29, 1854, Washburne MSS, LC.

180
“Lincoln—hated him”:
WHH, interview with William Jayne, Aug. 15,1866, HWC.

180
“of the season”:
Shields to Charles Lanphier, Dec. 30, 1854, in Charles C. Patton, comp., “Glory to God and the Sucker Democracy” (Springfield, Ill, 1973, photocopy), vol. 3.

180
pressure of business:
For a skeptical view of Herndon’s claim that he was responsible for Lincoln’s leaving town in order to avoid connection with the odious abolitionist group, see Donald,
Lincoln’s Herndon,
pp. 77–78.