Lincoln (146 page)

253
“to the charge”: CW,
4:86.

253
“fairly with all”: CW,
10:54.

253
“fairness to all”:
CW,
4:94.

254
“among its’ members”: CW,
4:78.

254
“propose to forget”: CW,
4:54.

254
“as he is”:
WHH to Lyman Trumbull, June 14, 1860, Trumbull MSS, LC.

254
“make no speeches”: CW,
4:91.

254
“horse to town”:
WHH, interview with George M. Brinkerhoff, undated, Lamon MSS, HEH.

254
senator’s triumphant procession:
George G. Fogg to N. B. Judd, Sept. 11, 1860, Lincoln MSS, LC.

254
dropped the idea: CW,
4:94; George G. Fogg to AL, Aug. 18, 1860, Lincoln MSS, LC.

254
“Wide-Awakes”:
Nicolay and Hay, 2:284–286.

254
“dry, and irksome labor”: CW,
4:109.

255
party campaign strategy:
See the admirable analysis in Gienapp, “Who Voted for Lincoln?” pp. 50–97. For conflicting views on the role played by foreign-born voters in this election, see Leubke,
Ethnic Voters and the Election of Lincoln.

255
“surpassed all expectation”: CW,
4:126–127.

255
“upon the public”: CW,
4:135.

255
raised their hats:
WHH to Jesse W. Weik, Nov. 14, 1885, HWC.

256
“was upon me”:
Paul M. Angle,
“Here I Have Lived”: A History of Lincoln’s Springfield, 1821—1865
(New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1935), pp. 251–253; Welles,
Diary,
1:82.

256
the Southern states:
For election returns, see Edward Stanwood,
A History of the Presidency from 1788 to 1897
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1926), 1:297, and Charles O. Paullin,
Atlas of the Historical Geography
of the United States
(Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution, 1932), p. 99.

256
“of the presidency
” : John G. Nicolay, memorandum, Oct. 25, 1860, Nicolay MSS, LC.

Phillip Shaw Paludan,
The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln
(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1994), chaps. 2–3, offers an excellent, succinct account of Lincoln between his election and the firing on Fort Sumter.

William E. Baringer,
A House Dividing: Lincoln as President Elect
(Springfield, Ill: Abraham Lincoln Association, 1945), is a spirited account that, like Harry J. Carman and Reinhard H. Luthin,
Lincoln and the Patronage
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1943), deals extensively with the problems of selecting a cabinet.

Lincoln’s policy toward secession and the steps he took in the Sumter crisis have been repeatedly examined by careful scholars. The basic studies are David M. Potter,
Lincoln and His Party
in the Secession Crisis
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1942 [and see also the preface to the 1962 paperback edition]); J. G. Randall,
Lincoln the President: Springfield to Gettysburg
(New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1945); Kenneth M. Stampp,
And the War Came: The North and the Secession Crisis, 1860–1861
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1950); and Richard N. Current,
Lincoln and the First Shot
(Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1963). I have offered some evaluation of this controversial literature in notes at the end of the present chapter.

258
loss for words:
Henry Villard’s dispatches to the
New York Herald
give a vivid, day-by-day account of Lincoln’s activities. Some of them have been collected in Henry Villard,
Lincoln on the Eve of ’61: A Journalist’s Story,
ed. Harold G. Villard and Oswald Garrison Villard (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1941).

258
“wear standing collars”:
“True Republicans” to AL, Oct. 12, 1860, Lincoln MSS, LC.

258
“begin it now?”: CW,
4:129–130.

258
“puttin’ on (h)airs”:
Charles Hamilton and Lloyd Ostendorf,
Lincoln in Photographs: An Album of Every Known Pose
(Dayton, Ohio: Morningside, 1985), p. 67.

259
the youngest presidents:
James K. Polk and Franklin Pierce were slightly younger. So were John Tyler and Millard Fillmore, but they were elected Vice President.

259
to his face: Memoirs of Henry Villard, Journalist and Financier, 1835–1900
(Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1904), 1:143.

259
“em a little”:
Lincoln had used this story as early as 1848.
CW,
1:487.

259
Kentucky or Indiana:
Lincoln made no claim that most of the stories he told were original, and many of his jokes were hundreds of years old. Reports that he told “obscene” or “smutty” stories are hard to verify. Many of these accounts came from political enemies and others from witnesses like Herndon who had no sense of humor. Lincoln’s more raunchy stories rarely dealt with sexual innuendo; they usually related to bodily functions, like farting, which members of this Victorian generation considered “dirty.” The ribald and Rabelaisian stories that old-timers in Menard County recounted to me some forty years ago were clearly folk-say that made little pretense to authenticity. For Herndon’s views, see “‘The Coming Rude Storms’ of Lincoln Writings: William H. Herndon and the Lincoln Legend,”
JISHS
71 (Feb. 1978): 66–70. Randall,
Lincoln the President,
3:59–82, offers a balanced statement. P. M. Zall,
Abe Lincoln Laughing. Humorous Anecdotes from Original Sources by and about Abraham Lincoln
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), attempts to establish a canon of authentic Lincoln stories.

259
“a satisfactory answer”:
Segal,
Conversations,
p. 89.

260
“of fraternal feeling”: CW,
4:142–143.

260
“Private and confidential”: CW,
4:139–140.

260
“the most dangerous point”: CW,
4:170.

260
any public statement:
Thurlow Weed to AL, Nov. 7, 1860, Lincoln MSS, LC.

260
“wolfe [sic] traps”:
Joseph Medill to O. M. Hatch, Nov. 16, 1860, Hatch MSS, ISHL.

260
“I find it”:
Donn Piatt,
Memories of the Men Who Saved the Union
(Chicago: Belford, Clarke & Co., 1887), pp. 33–34.

260
“of buckeye wood”:
John G. Nicolay, memorandum, Nov. 5, 1860, Nicolay MSS, LC.

261
“under any administration”: CW,
4:141.

261 “
’be given them’ “: CW,
4:146. Cf. Luke 11:29: “They seek a sign, and there shall no sign be given.”

261
“may have encouraged”: CW,
4:142.

261
in the South:
Robert W. Johannsen,
Lincoln, the South, and Slavery: The Political Dimension
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991), p. 120.

261
M. Blair / Welles:
Undated card [Nov. 7, 1860], #6495c, Lincoln MSS, LC. Cf. the long account in Gideon Welles to Isaac N. Arnold, Nov. 27, 1871, MS in Chicago Historical Society (copy in Allan Nevins MSS, HEH), which, however, contains some errors.

262
“was to occupy”:
Harriet A. Weed,
Autobiography of Thurlow Weed
(Boston: Houghton, Mifflin &Co., 1883), p. 606.

262
“balanced and ballasted”:
Ibid., p. 610.

262
“in the highest degree”: Day by Day,
2:298.

262
“in the Senate”:
Baringer,
A House Dividing,
p. 85.

263
“with clean hands”:
Lyman Trumbull to AL, Dec. 2, 1860, Lincoln MSS, LC.

263
“in the case”: CW,
4:148.

263
“much self distrust”:
W. H. Seward to AL, Dec. 28, 1860, Lincoln MSS, LC.

263
“difference between them?”: CW,
4:150.

263
“white crows”:
Weed,
Autobiography,
p. 606.

263
Gilmer’s candidacy died:
For an excellent account of this episode see Daniel W. Crofts, “A Reluctant Unionist: John A. Gilmer and Lincoln’s Cabinet,”
Civil War History
24 (Sept. 1978): 225–249.

264
“other man’s hundred”:
George S. Boutwell,
Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs
(New York: McClure, Phillips & Co., 1902), 1:275.

264
“statesman to look”:
Carl Schurz,
The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz
(New York: McClure Co., 1907), 2:34.

264
“place if offered”:
J. W. Schuckers,
The Life and Public Services of Salmon Portland Chase
(New-York: D. Appleton & Co., 1874), p. 201; Robert B. Warden,
An Account of the Private Life and Public Services of Salmon Portland Chase
(Cincinnati: Wilstach, Baldwin & Co., 1874), p. 365.

264
for the navy:
The definitive biography is John Niven,
Gideon Welles: Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1973).

265
of Attorney General:
Bates,
Diary,
pp. 164–165.

265
“go for you”:
David Davis to AL, Nov. 19, 1860, Lincoln MSS, LC.

265
“he had supposed”:
Weed,
Autobiography,
p. 605.

265
“now or never”:
For an account of this choice, see Carman and Luthin,
Lincoln and the
Patronage,
pp. 29–33.

265
those of Pennsylvania:
Both Carman and Luthin,
Lincoln and the Patronage,
and Baringer,
A
House Dividing,
offer very full accounts of the Cameron imbroglio, on which I have relied heavily.