LINCOLN'S BURNT BOOK
IN the chapter on the "Conditions of Lincoln's Young Manhood at New
Salem" mention was made of the "book" which Lincoln is said to have
written, opposed to the Christian religion, a book which his employer,
Samuel Hill, is said to have snatched from his hand and thrown into the
fire lest Lincoln's infidelity should ruin his political career. To
have treated this subject at length would have thrown that chapter out
of focus, and it is time that we should learn the truth about it.
Colonel Lamon tells us about this book thus:
"He had made himself thoroughly familiar with the writings of Paine
and Volney,--the _Ruins_ by one and the _Age of Reason_ by the other.
His mind was full of the subject, and he felt an itching to write. He
did write, and the result was a 'little book.' It was probably merely
an extended essay,[40] but it was ambitiously spoken of as a 'book' by
himself and by the persons who were made acquainted with its contents.
In this book he intended to demonstrate,--
"First, that the Bible was not God's revelation; and
"Secondly, that Jesus was not the Son of God."
--LAMON, _Life of Lincoln_, pp. 157-58.
Lamon wrote this in 1872 of a book supposed to have been written by
Lincoln and burned by Hill in 1834.
We have already quoted from Herndon's account, but it is brief and for
convenience will bear reading here in full:
"In 1834, while still living in New Salem and before he became a
lawyer, he was surrounded by a class of people exceedingly liberal in
matters of religion. Volney's _Ruins_ and Paine's _Age of Reason_
passed from hand to hand, and furnished food for the evening's
discussion in the tavern and village store. Lincoln read both these
books and thus assimilated them into his own being. He prepared an
extended essay--called by many a book--in which he made an argument
against Christianity, striving to prove that the Bible was not
inspired, and therefore not God's revelation, and that Jesus Christ
was not the Son of God. The manuscript containing these audacious and
comprehensive propositions he intended to have published or given a
wide circulation in some other way. He carried it to the store, where
it was read and freely discussed. His friend and employer, Samuel
Hill, was among the listeners, and seriously questioning the propriety
of a promising young man like Lincoln fathering such unpopular
notions, he snatched the manuscript from his hands and thrust it into
the stove. The book went up in flames, and Lincoln's political future
was secure."--HERNDON, III, 439, 440.
Mr. Herndon had already given this information to Lamon in another
form, and Lamon used it in his list of certificates from Lincoln's old
friends that Lincoln was an infidel.
As printed in Lamon's book, Herndon's account of the burnt manuscript
was communicated in the following letter:
"As to Mr. Lincoln's religious views, he was, in short, an infidel,
... a theist. He did not believe that Jesus was God, nor the Son of
God,--was a fatalist, denied the freedom of the will. Mr. Lincoln
told me a thousand times, that he did not believe the Bible was the
revelation of God, as the Christian world contends. The points that
Mr. Lincoln tried to demonstrate [in his book] were: First, That the
Bible was not God's revelation; and, Second, That Jesus was not the
Son of God. I assert this on my own knowledge, and on my veracity.
Judge Logan, John T. Stuart, James H. Matheny, and others, will
tell you the truth. I say they will confirm what I say, with this
exception,--they will make it blacker than I remember it. Joshua F.
Speed of Louisville, I think, will tell you the same thing."--LAMON,
_Life of Lincoln_, p. 489.
It is important to notice that we do not have two witnesses concerning
this book, but only one. Lamon gives no evidence of having possessed
any independent knowledge of the book. His information was derived
from Herndon. In the chapter on "Lincoln's Young Manhood" we considered
how slight was Herndon's personal connection with New Salem. The town
had vanished long before he ever visited the spot, and apparently the
only time he ever spent there for the purpose of study was a Sunday
afternoon and Monday morning, October 14 and 15, 1866. On the occasion
of that visit he gathered the material for his lecture on Ann Rutledge.
So far as we have evidence, he learned nothing at this time about
Lincoln's burnt book. In his letter, written to be included in Lamon's
biography, in which reference to this book is made, he says: "I assert
this on my own knowledge and on my own veracity." That sentence appears
at first reading to refer to Herndon's personal knowledge of the book,
but a second reading with the context shows that Herndon does not mean
to claim that he had personal knowledge of the book, but personal
knowledge of Lincoln's belief or the lack of it.
Where did Herndon learn about this book?
He learned it from James H. Matheny, who had never seen the "book" but
had received the information in confidence from Lincoln. It will be
remembered that Matheny repudiated the supposed letter to Herndon which
Lamon printed as from him and said that he never wrote it, but that
Herndon compiled it from scraps of several conversations, and that it
did not represent Matheny's opinion of Lincoln's ultimate religion. It
is not necessary to suppose that either Herndon or Lamon intended to
misrepresent Matheny. Lamon had no original documents to work from and
the copy which he received of Herndon's notes of Matheny's conversation
he took to be the copy of a letter from Matheny and printed it as such.
It appears to be quite clear that this was the only source of Herndon's
knowledge of Lincoln's burnt book. The following is the report of these
scraps of conversation with Matheny as Herndon wrote them down and as
Lamon printed them:
"I knew Mr. Lincoln as early as 1834-5; know he was an infidel. He
and W. D. Herndon used to talk infidelity in the clerk's office
in this city, about the years 1837-40. Lincoln attacked the Bible
and the New Testament on two grounds: first, from the inherent or
apparent contradictions under its lids; second, from the grounds of
reason. Sometimes he ridiculed the Bible and New Testament, sometimes
seemed to scoff it, though I shall not use that word in its full and
literal sense. I never heard that Lincoln changed his views, though
his personal and political friend from 1834 to 1860. Sometimes Lincoln
bordered on atheism. He went far that way, and often shocked me. I
was then a young man and believed what my good mother told me. Stuart
& Lincoln's office was in what was called Hoffman's Row, on North
Fifth Street, near the public square. It was in the same building
as the clerk's office, and on the same floor. Lincoln would come
into the clerk's office, where I and some young men--Evan Butler,
Newton Francis, and others--were writing or staying, and would bring
the Bible with him; would read a chapter; argue against it. Lincoln
then had a smattering of geology, if I recollect it. Lincoln often,
if not wholly, was an atheist; at least, bordered on it. Lincoln
was enthusiastic in his infidelity. As he grew older, he grew more
discreet, didn't talk much before strangers about his religion; but to
friends, close and bosom ones, he was always open and avowed, fair and
honest; but to strangers, he held them off from policy. Lincoln used
to quote Burns. Burns helped Lincoln to be an infidel, as I think; at
least, he found in Burns a like thinker and feeler. Lincoln quoted
'Tam o' Shanter.' 'What! send one to heaven, and ten to hell!' etc.
"From what I know of Mr. Lincoln and his views of Christianity, and
from what I know as honest and well-founded rumor; from what I have
heard his best friends say and regret for years; from what he never
denied when accused, and from what Lincoln hinted and intimated, to
say no more--he did write a little book on infidelity at or near New
Salem, in Menard County, about the year 1834 or 1835. I have stated
these things to you often. Judge Logan, John T. Stuart, yourself, know
what I know, and some of you more.
"Mr. Herndon, you insist on knowing something which you know I
possess, and got as a secret, and that is, about Lincoln's little book
on infidelity. Mr. Lincoln did tell me that he did write a little
book on infidelity. This statement I have avoided heretofore; but,
as you strongly insist upon it,--probably to defend yourself against
charges of misrepresentation,--I give it to you as I got it from
Lincoln's mouth."--LAMON, _Life of Lincoln_, pp. 487-88.
We have here our one witness that Mr. Lincoln while at New Salem,[41]
freshly risen from the reading of Volney and Paine, and having what
Lamon called the "itch for writing" wrote some kind of essay adverse to
the doctrines of Christianity as Lincoln then understood them. Matheny
never saw the book and never talked with anyone so far as we know who
had seen it, excepting Lincoln himself, who told him in confidence that
he had written such an essay. The fact that Matheny says that he "got
it as a secret" would seem to indicate that Lincoln had no pride in it,
and his reference to Herndon's insistence indicates that Herndon had no
other source of information.
Lincoln did, then, write something of this character and it may
have been burned; though it is extremely doubtful whether it met so
spectacular a fate or was anything like so formidable a document as
tradition has represented it.
It will be noted that Colonel Matheny says nothing about the burning of
the book. Herndon got that item from some other source, and apparently
misunderstood it. This information, apparently, Herndon picked up
on the occasion of his visit to New Salem. Samuel Hill may, indeed,
have reminded Lincoln that if he intended to run for the Legislature
against Peter Cartwright, it would be better for him not to be known
as an infidel; and indeed if Lincoln was known as an infidel, Peter
Cartwright was not the man to have failed to remind him of it. But at
the time when Samuel Hill snatched something out of Lincoln's hand and
threw it into the fire he was not concerned so much about Lincoln's
political future as he was about something else. The document which
Samuel Hill burned contained very little about theology.
When on an evening in November, 1866, Mr. Herndon, but lately returned
from his visit to the site of New Salem, delivered in the old court
house in Springfield before a small and critical audience his lecture
on Ann Rutledge, he informed his hearers that in 1834 that sweet young
girl of nineteen was simultaneously loved by three men, one of whom
was Abraham Lincoln. He omitted the names of the other two, and filled
in their place in the manuscript with blanks. The world has long since
learned the other two names, of John McNamur and Samuel Hill. Herndon's
reason for concealing them at the time was probably the fact that their
descendants were living near, but those descendants are well aware of
it now, and have been for years.
Hill and McNamur were partners, and Ann loved McNamur and rejected
Hill. McNamur went East, and was gone so long that it was believed he
was either dead or had proved untrue, and Hill's hope lit up again only
to meet a second disappointment. Ann Rutledge still loved McNamur, but,
believing him forever lost to her, she had made her second choice, and
that choice was not Hill. Hill awoke to the sad discovery that having
once been refused for his partner's sake he was refused again for the
sake of his clerk. This shy, gawky, lank, and ill-mannered young fellow
who was selling goods in Hill's store and studying law and cherishing
all manner of ambitions had aspired to the hand of Ann Rutledge and had
been accepted.
The truth about it came out in the discovery of a letter which Hill had
written to McNamur. Hill was making one last effort to learn whether
McNamur was living or dead, and if living whether he still loved Ann;
and was reproaching him for his delay and neglect. This letter did
not find its way to the post office; in some way it was lost and was
picked up by the children who brought it to Lincoln. This was the
document which Lincoln held in his hand when he and Hill came to their
final reckoning concerning the heart of Ann Rutledge; and the argument
between them, while friendly, developed some heat, and that was what
Hill snatched from Lincoln's hand and threw into the fire.
As for the book or essay or whatever it may have been in which Lincoln
passed on his undigested reading of Volney and Paine, we do not know
what became of that, nor need we greatly care. It went the way of a
good deal of literature which Lincoln was producing at this time,
probably with no dream that any of it would ever see a printing-press.
It is hardly credible that Lincoln, who never printed a book even in
his maturer years, should have had serious purpose of printing this
particular bit of half-fledged philosophy.
But we have knowledge, and very direct knowledge, of something else
which Lincoln wrote at this time. We learn of it not by any such
circuitous route of hearsay evidence as accompanies the story of the
so-called book on infidelity. We learn of it from a man who received
it at Lincoln's hands and who read it and remembered its contents and
was a competent witness not only as to the production of the book, but
also as to its argument. This is none other than Mentor Graham, the
schoolmaster of New Salem, who introduced Lincoln to Kirkham's Grammar,
who taught Lincoln surveying, who had Lincoln in his home as a lodger,
and who knew more about Lincoln's religious views during his years at
New Salem than any other man who lived to tell the world about it after
Lincoln's death. In Irwin's article, which we have already quoted, is
found this letter from Mentor Graham.
Mentor Graham is a much better witness than either Mr. Herndon or
Colonel Matheny,--better because equally honest, and a man of less
violent prejudices and of more sober habits, and especially because he
had direct personal knowledge of the facts. In his letter to Mr. Irwin,
under date of March 17, 1874, Mentor Graham relates that when Lincoln
was living in Graham's house in New Salem in 1833, studying English
grammar and surveying under this good schoolmaster, Lincoln one morning
said to him:
"Graham, what do you think of the anger of the Lord?"
Graham replied, "I believe the Lord never was angry or mad, and never
will be; that His loving kindness endureth forever, and that He never
changes."
Lincoln said, "I have a little manuscript written which I will show
you."
The manuscript was written on foolscap paper, about a half-quire in
size, and was written in a plain hand. Mentor read it.
"It was a defense of universal salvation. The commencement of it was
something about the God of the universe never being excited, mad, or
angry. I had the manuscript in my possession some week or ten days.
I have read many books on the subject, and I don't think in point of
perspicacity and plainness of reasoning I ever read one to surpass it.
I remember well his argument. He took the passage, 'As in Adam all
die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive,' and followed with the
proposition that whatever the breach or injury of Adam's transgression
to the human race was, which no doubt was very great, was made right by
the atonement of Christ."
On this point, then, we have abundant witness. Lincoln argued from the
fall of man to the redemptive work of Christ as the Baptist preachers
were in the habit of doing, but instead of finding there the basis
of an argument for individual election and particular salvation or
damnation, found in it the basis of faith in universal salvation.
How Lincoln can have reconciled this kind of reasoning with his
readings from Thomas Paine can be understood by those who have read
Paine--which most men who discuss him have not--and who know the form
of argument of the backwoods preachers which Lincoln had known all his
life and little else in the way of reasoned discourse in spiritual
things. His line of argument was a not unnatural resultant of the
forces at work in his mind.
But what about the book which Hill burned?
Here again we have the personal knowledge of Mentor Graham. He was
not, indeed, actually present when the manuscript was burned. No one,
probably, was present, except Hill and Lincoln. But Graham was very
much nearer to the event in point both of time and distance than either
Herndon or Matheny, from whom Herndon learned about it, and learned
incorrectly.
What Hill snatched from Lincoln's hand and burned was a letter which
Hill had written to McNamur about Ann Rutledge. The letter was lost
and picked up by the school children, who brought it to Lincoln, the
postmaster. Lincoln, knowing Hill's handwriting, and guessing the
nature of the letter, kept it to discuss with Hill alone; and they did
discuss it together. Hill was demanding of McNamur that he either come
back to New Salem, or release Ann Rutledge from her engagement; and
what he learned was, that his successful rival was not now McNamur, but
Lincoln. Here is what Graham says about it:
"Some of the school children had picked up the letter and handed it to
Lincoln. Hill and Lincoln were talking about it, when Hill snatched the
letter from Lincoln and put it into the fire. The letter was respecting
a young lady, Miss Ann Rutledge, for whom all three of these gentlemen
seemed to have respect."
Graham lived in New Salem at the time that this incident occurred.
Neither Herndon nor Matheny lived there. Graham left New Salem when
it ceased to be a town, and spent the remainder of his life among the
people who had been his neighbors in New Salem and who became residents
with him in the near-by town of Petersburg. Graham had direct access to
the facts.
The reason why it was not much talked about is evident enough. Hill,
McNamur, and Lincoln all married, and their wives and children were
living not far from where these events occurred. The triangular
misunderstanding of three young men about a young woman who had died
many years before was a matter for quiet gossip on the part of the
older inhabitants, but it did not come to the general knowledge of the
public until Herndon delivered his unwelcome lecture on Ann Rutledge.
In some things he learned and told the truth. But his material had been
too hastily gathered, and was too quickly rushed into a lecture to be
reliable in all respects, and it requires about four titles to cover
its diversified and unstratified subject-matter.
Our knowledge of the burnt book is, therefore, a matter in which we
come finally to the remote recollection of James Matheny on the one
hand, who never saw the book, and who manifestly misunderstood some
parts of the story, and the close and intimate knowledge of Mentor
Graham on the other. Lincoln apparently told Matheny in confidence that
he while he was living in Salem wrote an essay against the Christian
religion, and Matheny regarded it as a secret but told it to Herndon.
Herndon heard some gossip about a manuscript which Hill burned,
and thought it to have been the same. Mentor Graham had reliable
information as to what it was that Hill burned, and moreover knew
from his own personal knowledge that Lincoln wrote a very different
manuscript than the one of which he told Matheny, for he himself had
read it, and remembered its general nature.
Why Lincoln wrote on both sides of the same subject we do not know and
it is not necessary to ask. He may have been practicing his skill in
debating; he may have held one view at one time and another at another;
he may have been uncertain what view he really held and have been
seeking to formulate his opinions. It would not be fair to judge his
mature opinion by our scant knowledge of what was contained in either
of these two manuscripts. But the thing which should be remembered is
that we know more about the book in favor of Christianity than we know
of the book against it. Mentor Graham was a truthful and a competent
witness and he had both seen and read the book, which is not true of
anyone through whom we have knowledge of the other essay.
We are not at liberty to draw the sharp distinction which sometimes has
been drawn against the rampant infidelity of Lincoln's earlier years
and the supposed orthodoxy of his mature life. Neither of these may
have been as hard and fast as have sometimes been assumed. It is quite
possible that Abraham Lincoln never became a Christian of the type who
could have expressed his faith in the terms of the Bateman interview;
it is equally possible that even in those callow years when he was
reading Tom Paine and Volney and writing sub-sophomoric effusions on
things he knew little about, the germ of religious faith was actually
present even in his doubt.