The Life and Writings of Abraham Lincoln (82 page)

Springfield, Illinois, June 19, 1860

M
Y
D
EAR
S
IR
: Your very kind letter of the 15th is received. Messrs. Follet, Foster & Co.’s
Life
of me is
not
by my authority; and I have scarcely been so much astounded by anything, as their public announcement that it is authorized by me. They have fallen into some strange misunderstanding. I certainly knew they contemplated publishing a biography, and I certainly did not object to their doing so,
upon their own responsibility.
I even took pains to facilitate them. But, at the same time, I made myself tiresome, if not hoarse, with repeating to Mr. Howard, their only agent seen by me, my protest that I authorized nothing—would be responsible for nothing. How they could so misunderstand me, passes comprehension. As a matter,
wholly my own
, I would authorize no biography, without time and opportunity to carefully examine and consider every word of it; and, in this case, in the nature of things, I can have no such time and opportunity. But, in my present position, when, by the lessons of the past,
and the united voice of all discreet friends, I can neither write nor speak a word for the public, how dare I to send forth, by my authority, a volume of hundreds of pages, for adversaries to make points upon without end? Were I to do so, the Convention would have a right to re-assemble, and substitute another name for mine.

For these reasons, I would not look at the proof sheets. I am determined to maintain the position of truly saying I never saw the proof sheets, or any part of their work, before its publication.

Now, do not mistake me. I feel great kindness for Messrs. F., F. & Co.—do not think they have intentionally done wrong. There may be nothing wrong in their proposed book. I sincerely hope there will not. I barely suggest that you, or any of the friends there, on the party account, look it over, and exclude what you may think would embarrass the party, bearing in mind, at all times, that
I authorize
nothing—will be responsible for nothing.

Dr. A. G. Henry, Lincoln’s friend and former personal physician, had left Springfield and gone to Oregon to live. Lincoln now writes him there, giving him his interpretation of the political set-up against him. The son alluded to as being in his tenth year was Willie Lincoln.

Springfield, Illinois, July 4, 1860

M
Y
D
EAR
D
OCTOR
: Your very agreeable letter of May 15th was received three days ago. We are just now receiving the first sprinkling of your Oregon election returns—not enough, I think, to indicate the result. We should be too happy if both Logan and Baker should triumph.

Long before this you have learned who was nominated at
Chicago. We know not what a day may bring forth, but today it looks as if the Chicago ticket will be elected. I think the chances were more than equal that we could have beaten the Democracy united. Divided as it is, its chance appears indeed very slim. But great is Democracy in resources; and it may yet give its fortunes a turn. It is under great temptation to do something; but what can it do which was not thought of, and found impracticable, at Charleston and Baltimore? The signs now are that Douglas and Breckinridge will each have a ticket in every State. They are driven to this to keep up their bombastic claims of nationality, and to avoid the charge of sectionalism which they have so much lavished upon us.

It is an amusing fact, after all Douglas has said about nationality and sectionalism, that I had more votes from the southern section at Chicago than he had at Baltimore. In fact, there was more of the southern section represented at Chicago than in the Douglas rump concern at Baltimore!

Our boy, in his tenth year (the baby when you left), has just had a hard and tedious spell of scarlet fever, and he is not yet beyond all danger. I have a headache and a sore throat upon me now, inducing me to suspect that I have an inferior type of the same thing.

Our eldest boy, Bob, has been away from us nearly a year at school, and will enter Harvard University this month. He promises very well, considering we never controlled him much. Write again when you receive this. Mary joins in sending our kindest regards to Mrs. H., yourself, and all the family.

Lincoln writes to introduce himself to the man who had been nominated as Vice President on the same ticket with him. They first met in Chicago after their election in November.

Springfield, Illinois, July 18, 1860

M
Y
D
EAR
S
IR
: It appears to me that you and I ought to be acquainted, and accordingly I write this as a sort of introduction of myself to you. You first entered the Senate during the single term I was a member of the House of Representatives, but I have no recollection that we were introduced. I shall be pleased to receive a line from you.

The prospect of Republican success now appears very flattering, so far as I can perceive. Do you see anything to the contrary?

(
Confidential
)

Abraham Jonas, an English-born Jew living in Quincy, III., was one of Lincoln’s best friends. He writes to him to deny that he had ever had any connection with the Know-Nothings who were violently opposed to all foreigners, Jews and Catholics. Lincoln wishes the whole matter to remain quiet since many of the Know-Nothings (who also called themselves “the Americans”) had joined the Republican party, and he was afraid of losing their support.

Springfield, Illinois, July 21, 1860

M
Y
D
EAR
S
IR
: Yours of the 20th is received. I suppose as good or even better men than I may have been in American or Know-Nothing lodges; but, in point of fact, I never was in one at Quincy or elsewhere. I was never in Quincy but one day and two nights while Know-Nothing lodges were in existence, and you were with me that day and both those nights. I had never been there before in my life, and never afterward, till the joint debate with Douglas in 1858. It was in 1854 when I spoke in some hall there, and after the speaking, you,
with others, took me to an oyster-saloon, passed an hour there, and you walked with me to, and parted with me at, the Quincy House, quite late at night. I left by stage for Naples before daylight in the morning, having come in by the same route after dark the evening previous to the speaking, when I found you waiting at the Quincy House to meet me. A few days after I was there, Richardson, as I understood, started this same story about my having been in a Know-Nothing lodge. When I heard of the charge as I did soon after, I taxed my recollection for some incident which could have suggested it; and I remembered that on parting with you the last night, I went to the office of the hotel to take my stage-passage for the morning, was told that no stage-office for that line was kept there, and that I must see the driver before retiring, to insure his calling for me in the morning; and a servant was sent with me to find the driver, who, after taking me a square or two, stopped me, and stepped perhaps a dozen steps farther, and in my hearing called to some one, who answered him, apparently from the upper part of a building, and promised to call with the stage for me at the Quincy House. I returned, and went to bed, and before day the stage called and took me. This is all.

That I never was in a Know-Nothing lodge in Quincy, I should expect could be easily proved by respectable men who were always in the lodges and never saw me there. An affidavit of one or two such would put the matter at rest.

And now a word of caution. Our adversaries think they can gain a point if they could force me to openly deny the charge, by which some degree of offense would be given to the Americans. For this reason it must not publicly appear that I am paying any attention to the charge.

There is reason to believe that Lincoln himself had been incautious enough to tell a newspaper correspondent that he had said he was afraid he would be lynched it he went to Kentucky. The New York Herald seized upon the item and gave it wide publicity—much to Lincoln’s embarrassment. Lincoln writes to Haycraft to cover himself lest the news be spread in Kentucky.

Springfield, Illinois, August 16, 1860

M
Y
D
EAR
S
IR
: A correspondent of the
New York Herald
, who was here a week ago, writing to that paper, represents me as saying I had been invited to visit Kentucky, but that I suspected it was a trap to inveigle me into Kentucky in order to do violence to me. This is wholly a mistake. I said no such thing. I do not remember, but possibly I did mention my correspondence with you. But very certainly I was not guilty of stating, or insinuating, a suspicion of any intended violence, deception or other wrong, against me, by you or any other Kentuckian. Thinking the
Herald
correspondence might fall under your eye, I think it due to myself to enter my protest against the correctness of this part of it. I scarcely think the correspondent was malicious, but rather that he misunderstood what was said.

Lincoln writes to explain that Haycraft was in no way to blame for what had happened.

Springfield, Illinois, August 23, 1860

M
Y
D
EAR
S
IR
: Yours of the 19th just received. I now fear I may have given you some uneasiness by my last letter. I did
not mean to intimate that I had, to any extent, been involved or embarrassed by you; nor yet to draw from you anything to relieve myself from difficulty. My only object was to assure you that I had not, as represented by the
Herald
correspondent, charged you with an attempt to inveigle me into Kentucky to do me violence. I believe no such thing of you or of Kentuckians generally; and I dislike to be represented to them as slandering them in that way.

John Hanks was a relative of Lincoln’s mother. He had been with Lincoln in Indiana, had helped him build a boat for Offut in 1831, and at the Decatur convention on May 9, 1860, had brought in the rail fences that had made Lincoln famous as the “Rail-splitter Candidate.” Lincoln writes to him to answer a query about the family.

Springfield, Illinois, August 24, 1860

M
Y
D
EAR
S
IR
: Yours of the 23rd is received. My recollection is that I never lived in the same neighborhood with Charles Hanks till I came to Macon county, Illinois, after I was twenty-one years of age. As I understand, he and I were born in different counties of Kentucky, and never saw each other in that State; that while I was a very small boy my father moved to Indiana, and your father with his family remained in Kentucky for many years. At length you, a young man grown, came to our neighborhood, and were at our house, off and on, a great deal for three, four, or five years; and during the time, your father, with his whole family, except William, Charles, and William Miller, who had married one of your sisters, came to the same neighborhood in Indiana, and remained a year or two, and then went to Illinois. William, Charles, and William Miller, had moved directly from Kentucky to Illinois, not even passing through our neighborhood in Indiana. Once, a year or two before I came to Illinois,
Charles, with some others, had been back to Kentucky, and returning to Illinois, passed through our neighborhood in Indiana. He stopped, I think, but one day (certainly not as much as three); and this was the first time I ever saw him in my life, and the
only
time, till I came to Illinois, as before stated. The year I passed in Macon County I was with him a good deal—mostly on his own place, where I helped him at breaking prairie, with a joint team of his and ours, which in turn, broke some on the new place we were improving.

This is, as I remember it. Don’t let this letter be made public by any means.

(
Private
)

In the rough-and-tumble politics of the sixties it was not unusual to invent and even to forge documents that would discredit an opponent. Lincoln nails the lie to one of these—a forgery which stated that he had once slandered Thomas Jefferson.

Springfield, Illinois, September 5, 1860

M
Y
D
EAR
S
IR
: Yours of the 1st is received. The extract upon a newspaper slip which you sent, and which I herewith return, is a base forgery, so far as its authorship is imputed to me. I never said anything like it, at any time or place. I do not recognize it as anything I have ever seen before, emanating from any source. I wish my name not to be used; but my friends will be entirely safe in denouncing the thing as a forgery, so far as it is ascribed to me.

(T
HE
C
LIPPING
)

L
INCOLN ON
J
EFFERSON
.—The Macomb (Ill.) Eagle rakes up the following extract from a speech made by Mr. Lincoln in 1844:

“Mr. Jefferson is a statesman whose praises are never out of the mouth of the democratic party. Let us attend to this uncompromising friend of freedom, whose name is continually invoked against the Whig party. The character of Jefferson was repulsive. Continually puling about liberty, equality, and the degrading curse of slavery, he brought his own children to the hammer, and made money of his debaucheries. Even at his death he did not manumit his numerous offspring, but left them, soul and body, to degradation, and the cart whip. A daughter of this vaunted champion of democracy was sold some years ago at public auction in New Orleans, and purchased by a society of gentlemen, who wished to testify by her liberation their admiration of the statesman who        ‘Dreampt of freedom in a slave’s embrace.’

“This single line I have quoted gives more insight to the character of the man than whole volumes of panegyric. It will outlive his epitaph, write it who may.”