romancer. The well poised Lincoln and Herndon recently published by
Joseph Fort Newton holds what I feel compelled to regard as a sounder
view; namely, that while Herndon was at times reckless and at times
biased, nevertheless he is in the main to be relied upon.
Three things are to be borne in mind: Herndon was a literary man by
nature; but he was not by training a developed artist; he was a romantic
of the full flood of American romanticism and there are traceable in him
the methods of romantic portraiture. Had he been an Elizabethan one can
imagine him laboring hard with great pride over an inferior "Tamburlane
the Great"--and perhaps not knowing that it was inferior. Furthermore,
he had not, before the storm broke on him, any realization of
the existence in America of another school of portraiture, the
heroic--conventual, that could not understand the romantic. If Herndon
strengthened as much as possible the contrasts of his subject--such
as the contrast between the sordidness of Lincoln's origin and the
loftiness of his thought--he felt that by so doing he was merely
rendering his subject in its most brilliant aspect, giving to it the
largest degree of significance. A third consideration is Herndon's
enthusiasm for the agnostic deism that was rampant in America in his
day. Perhaps this causes his romanticism to slip a cog, to run at times
on a side-track, to become the servant of his religious partisanship.
In three words the faults of Herndon are exaggeration, literalness and
exploitiveness.
But all these are faults of degree which the careful student can allow
for. By "checking up" all the parts of Herndon that it is possible to
check up one can arrive at a pretty confident belief that one knows how
to divest the image he creates of its occasional unrealities. When one
does so, the strongest argument for relying cautiously, watchfully,
upon Herndon appears. The Lincoln thus revealed, though only a character
sketch, is coherent. And it stands the test of comparison in detail with
the Lincolns of other, less romantic, observers. That is to say, with
all his faults, Herndon has the inner something that will enable
the diverse impressions of Lincoln, always threatening to become
irreconcilable, to hang together and out of their very incongruity to
invoke a person that is not incongruous. And herein, in this touchstone
so to speak is Herndon's value.
8. Herndon, 265.
9. Lamon, 51.
10. Lincoln, I, 35-SO.
11. The reader who would know the argument against Herndon (436-446) and
Lamon (486-502) on the subject of Lincoln's early religion is referred
to The Soul of Abraham Lincoln, by William Eleazer Barton. It is to
be observed that the present study is never dogmatic about Lincoln's
religion in its early phases. And when Herndon and Lamon generalize
about his religious life, it must be remembered that they are thinking
of him as they knew him in Illinois. Herndon had no familiarity with
him after he went to Washington. Lamon could not have seen very much of
him--no one but his secretaries and his wife did. And his taciturnity
must be borne in mind. Nicolay has recorded that he did not know what
Lincoln believed. Lamon, 492. That Lincoln was vaguely a deist in the
'forties--so far as he had any theology at all--may be true. But it is a
rash leap to a conclusion to assume that his state of mind even then was
the same thing as the impression it made on so practical, bard-headed,
unpoetical a character as Lamon; or on so combatively imaginative but
wholly unmystical a mind as Herndon's. Neither of them seems to have
any understanding of those agonies of spirit through which Lincoln
subsequently passed which will appear in the account of the year 1862.
See also Miss Nicolay, 384-386. There is a multitude of pronouncements
on Lincoln's religion, most of them superficial.
12. Lincoln, I, 206.
13. Nicolay, 73-74; N. and H., 1, 242; Lamon, 275-277.
14. Lamon, 277-278; Herndon, 272-273; N. and H., 1, 245-249.
VI. UNSATISFYING RECOGNITION.
1. N. and H., I, 28, 28&
2. Tarbell, 1, 211.
3. Ibid., 210-211.
4. Herndon, 114.
5. Lincoln, II, 28-48.
6. Herndon, 306-308, 319; Newton, 4(141).
7. Tarbell, I, 209-210.
8. Herndon, 306.
9. Lamon, 334; Herndon, 306; N. and H., I, 297.
VII. THE SECOND START.
1. Herndon, 307, 319.
2. Herndon, 319-321.
3. Herndon, 314-317.
4. Herndon, 332-333.
5. Herndon, 311-312.
6. Herndon, 319.
7. Lamon, 165.
8. Herndon, 309.
9. Herndon, 113-114; Stories, 18~
10. Herndon, 338.
11. Lamon, 324.
12. Lincoln, 11, 142.
13. Herndon, 347.
14. Herndon, 363.
15. Herndon, 362.
16. Lincoln, II, 172.
17. Lincoln, II, 207.
18. Lincoln, II, 173.
19. Lincoln, II, 165.
VIII. A RETURN TO POLITICS.
1. Johnson, 234.
2. I have permission to print the following letter from the Honorable
John H. Marshall, Judge Fifth Judicial Circuit, Charleston, Illinois:
"Your letter of the 24th inst. at hand referring to slave trial in
which Lincoln was interested, referred to by Professor Henry Johnson.
Twenty-five years ago, while I was secretary of the Coles County Bar
Association, a paper was read to the Association by the oldest member
concerning the trial referred to, and his paper was filed with rue. Some
years ago I spoke of the matter to Professor Johnson, and at the time
was unable to find the old manuscript, and decided that the same had
been inadvertently destroyed. However, quite recently I found this paper
crumpled up under some old book records. The author of this article is a
reputable member of the bar of this country of very advanced age, and at
that time quoted as his authority well-known and very substantial men
of the county, who had taken an active interest in the litigation.
His paper referred to incidents occurring in 1847, and there is now
no living person with any knowledge of it. The story in brief is as
follows:
"In 1845, General Robert Matson, of Kentucky, being hard pressed
financially, in order to keep them from being sold in payment of his
debts, brought Jane Bryant, with her four small children to this county.
Her husband, Anthony Bryant, was a free negro, and a licensed exhorter
in the Methodist Church of Kentucky. But his wife and children were
slaves of Matson. In 1847, Matson, determined to take the Bryants back
to Kentucky as his slaves, caused to be issued by a justice of the peace
of the county a writ directed to Jane Bryant and her children to appear
before him forthwith and answer the claim of Robert Matson that their
service was due to him, etc. This action produced great excitement in
this county. Practically the entire community divided, largely on
the lines of pro-slavery and anti-slavery. Usher F. Linder, the most
eloquent lawyer in this vicinity, appeared for Matson, and Orlando B.
Ficklin, twice a member of Congress, appeared for the negroes. Under the
practice the defendant obtained a hearing from three justices instead
of one, and a trial ensued lasting several days, and attended by great
excitement. Armed men made demonstrations and bloodshed was narrowly
averted. Two of the justices were pro-slavery, and one anti-slavery. The
trial was held in Charleston. The decision of the justice was discreet.
It was held that the court had no jurisdiction to determine the right
of property, but that Jane and her children were of African descent and
found in the state of Illinois without a certificate of freedom, and
that they be committed to the county jail to be advertised and sold to
pay the jail fees.
"At the next term of the circuit court, Ficklin obtained an order
staying proceedings until the further order of the court. Finally when
the case was heard in the circuit court Linder and Abraham Lincoln
appeared for Matson, who was insisting upon the execution of the
judgment of the three justices of the peace so that he could buy them
at the proposed sale, and Ficklin and Charles Constable, afterward a
circuit judge of this circuit, appeared for the negroes. The judgment
was in favor of the negroes and they were discharged.
"The above is a much abbreviated account of this occurrence, stripped
of its local coloring, giving however its salient points, and I have no
doubt of its substantial accuracy."
3. Lincoln, II, 185.
4. Lincoln, II, 186.
5. Lamon, 347.
6. Lincoln, II, 232-233.
7. Lincoln, II, 190-262.
8. Lincoln, 274-277.
IX. THE LITERARY STATESMAN.
1. Herndon, 371-372.
2. Lincoln, II, 329-330.
3. Lincoln, III, 1-2.
4. Herndon, 405-408.
5. Lincoln. II, 279.
6. Lamon, 416.
X. THE DARK HORSE.
1. Lincoln, V, 127.
2. Tarbell, I, 335.
3. Lincoln, V, 127,138, 257-258.
4. Lincoln, V, 290-291. He never entirely shook off his erratic use of
negatives. See, also, Lamon, 424; Tarbell, I, 338.
5. Lincoln, V, 293-32&6. McClure, 23-29; Field, 126,137-138; Tarbell, I,
342-357.
XII. THE CRISIS
1. Letters, 172.
2. Lincoln, VI, 77, 78, 79, 93.
3. Bancroft, 11,10; Letters, 111.
XIII. ECLIPSE.
1. Bancroft, II, 10; Letters, 172.
2. Bancroft, II, 9-10.
3. Herndon, 484.
4. McClure, 140-145; Lincoln, VI, 91, 97.
5. Recollections, 111.
6. Recollections, 121.
7. Recollections, 112-113; Tarbell, I, 404-415.
8. Tarbell, 1, 406.
9. Tarbell, I, 406.
10. Lincoln, VI, 91.
11. Tarbell, 1, 406.
12. Herndon, 483-484
13. Lamon, 505; see also, Herndon, 485.
14. Lincoln, VI, 110.
XIV. THE STRANGE NEW MAN.
1. Lincoln, VI, 130.
2. Merriam, I, 318.
3. Public Man, 140.
4. Van Santvoord.
5. N. and H., I, 36; McClure, 179.
6. Herndon, 492.
7. Recollections, 39-41.
8. Lincoln, VI, 162-164.
9. Bancroft, II, 38-45.
10. Public Man, 383.
11. Chittenden, 89-90.
12. Public Man, 387.
XV. PRESIDENT AND PREMIER.
1. Hay MS, I, 64.
2. Tyler, II, 565-566.
3. Bradford, 208; Seward, IV, 416.
4. Nicolay, 213.
5. Chase offered to procure a commission for Henry Villard, "by way of
compliment to the Cincinnati Commercial" Villard, 1,177.
6. N. and H., III, 333, note 12.
7. Outbreak, 52.
8. Hay MS, I, 91; Tyler, II, 633; Coleman, 1, 338.
9. Hay MS, I, 91; Riddle, 5; Public Man, 487.
10. Correspondence, 548-549.
11. See Miss Schrugham's monograph for much important data with regard
to this moment. Valuable as her contribution is, I can not feel that the
conclusions invalidate the assumption of the text.
12. Lincoln, VI, 192-220.
13. Sherman, I, 195-1%.
14. Lincoln, VI, 175-176.
15. 127 0. R., 161.
16. Munford, 274; Journal of the Virginia Convention, 1861.
17. Lincoln, VI, 227-230.
18. N. R., first series, IV, 227.
19. Hay MS, I, 143.
20. The great authority of Mr. Frederick Bancroft is still on the side
of the older interpretation of Seward's Thoughts, Bancroft, II, Chap.
XXIX. It must be remembered that following the war there was a reaction
against Seward. When Nicolay and Hay published the Thoughts they
appeared to give him the coup de grace. Of late years it has almost been
the fashion to treat him contemptuously. Even Mr. Bancroft has been very
cautious in his defense. This is not the place to discuss his genius
or his political morals. But on one thing I insist, Whatever else he
was-unscrupulous or what you will-he was not a fool. However reckless,
at times, his spread-eagleism there was shrewdness behind it. The idea
that he proposed a ridiculous foreign policy at a moment when all his
other actions reveal coolness and calculation; the idea that he proposed
it merely as a spectacular stroke in party management; this is too much
to believe. A motive must be found better than mere chicanery.
Furthermore, if there was one fixed purpose in Seward, during March and
early April, it was to avoid a domestic conflict; and the only way he
could see to accomplish that was to side-track Montgomery's expansive
all-Southern policy. Is it not fair, with so astute a politician as
Seward, to demand in explanation of any of his moves 'he uncovering
of some definite political force he was playing up to? The old
interpretation of the Thoughts offers no force to which they form a
response. Especially it is impossible to find in them any scheme to get
around Montgomery. But the old view looked upon the Virginia compromise
with blind eyes. That was no part of the mental prospect. In accounting
for Seward's purposes it did not exist. But the moment one's eyes are
opened to its significance, especially to the menace it had for the
Montgomery program, is not the entire scene transformed? Is not, under
these new conditions, the purpose intimated in the text, the purpose to
open a new field of exploitation to the Southern expansionists in
order to reconcile them to the Virginia scheme, is not this at least
plausible? And it escapes making Seward a fool.
21. Lincoln, VI, 23~237.
22. Welles, 1,17.
23. There is still lacking a complete unriddling of the three-cornered
game of diplomacy played in America in March and April, 1861. Of the
three participants Richmond is the most fully revealed. It was playing
desperately for a compromise, any sort of compromise, that would save
the one principle of state sovereignty. For that, slavery would
be sacrificed, or at least allowed to be put in jeopardy. Munford,
Virginia's Attitude toward Slavery and Secession; Tyler, Letters
and Times of the Tylers; Journal of the Virginia Convention of 1861.
However, practically no Virginian would put himself in the position of
forcing any Southern State to abandon slavery against its will. Hence
the Virginia compromise dealt only with the expansion of slavery, would
go no further than to give the North a veto on that expansion. And
its compensating requirement plainly would be a virtual demand for the
acknowledgment of state sovereignty.
Precisely what passed between Richmond and Washington is still something
of a mystery. John Hay quotes Lincoln as saying that he twice offered
to evacuate Sumter, once before and once after his inauguration, if
the Virginians "would break up their convention without any row or
nonsense." Hay MS, I, 91; Thayer, I, 118-119. From other sources we have
knowledge of at least two conferences subsequent to the inauguration and
probably three. One of the conferences mentioned by Lincoln seems pretty
well identified. Coleman II, 337-338. It was informal and may be set
aside as having little if any historic significance. When and to whom
Lincoln's second offer was made is not fully established. Riddle in his
Recollections says that he was present at an informal interview "with
loyal delegates of the Virginia State Convention," who were wholly
satisfied with Lincoln's position. Riddle, 25. Possibly, this was the
second conference mentioned by Lincoln. It has scarcely a feature in
common with the conference of April 4, which has become the subject
of acrimonious debate. N. and H., III, 422-428; Boutwell, II, 62-67;
Bancroft, II, 102-104; Munford, 270; Southern Historical Papers, 1,
449; Botts, 195- 201; Crawford, 311; Report of the Joint Committee on
Reconstruction, first session, Thirty-Ninth Congress; Atlantic, April,
1875. The date of this conference is variously given as the fourth,
fifth and sixth of April. Curiously enough Nicolay and Hay seem to
have only an external knowledge of It; their account is made up from
documents and lacks entirely the authoritative note. They do not refer
to the passage in the Hay MS, already quoted.
There are three versions of the interview between Lincoln and Baldwin.
One was given by Baldwin himself before the Committee on Reconstruction
some five years after; one comprises the recollections of Colonel
Dabney, to whom Baldwin narrated the incident in the latter part of
the war; a third is in the recollections of John Minor Botts of a
conversation with Lincoln April 7, 1862. No two of the versions entirely
agree. Baldwin insists that Lincoln made no offer of any sort; while'
Botts in his testimony before the Committee on Reconstruction says that
Lincoln told him that he had told Baldwin that he was so anxious "for
the preservation of the peace of this country and to save Virginia
and the other Border States from going out that (he would) take the
responsibility of evacuating Fort Sumter, and take the chances of
negotiating with the Cotton States." Baldwin's language before the
committee is a little curious and has been thought disingenuous.
Boutwell, I, 66. However, practically no one in this connection has
considered the passage in the Hay MS or the statement in Riddle. Putting
these together and remembering the general situation of the first week
of April there arises a very plausible argument for accepting the main
fact in Baldwin's version of his conference and concluding that Botts
either misunderstood Lincoln (as Baldwin says he did) or got the matter
twisted in memory. A further bit of plausibility is the guess that
Lincoln talked with Botts not only of the interview with Baldwin but
also of the earlier interview mentioned by Riddle and that the two
became confused in recollection.
To venture on an assumption harmonizing these confusions. When Lincoln
came to Washington, being still in his delusion that slavery was the
issue and therefore that the crisis was "artificial," he was willing
to make almost any concession, and freely offered to evacuate Sumter if
thereby he could induce Virginia to drop the subject of secession. Even
later, when he was beginning to appreciate the real significance of the
moment, he was still willing to evacuate Sumter if the issue would not
be pushed further in the Border States, that is, if Virginia would not
demand a definite concession of the right of secession. Up to this point
I can not think that he had taken seriously Seward's proposed convention
of the States and the general discussion of permanent Federal relations
that would be bound to ensue. But now he makes his fateful discovery
that the issue is not slavery but sovereignty. He sees that Virginia
is in dead earnest on this issue and that a general convention will
necessarily involve a final discussion of sovereignty in the United
States and that the price of the Virginia Amendment will be the
concession of the right of secession. On this assumption it is hardly
conceivable that he offered to evacuate Sumter as late as the fourth of
April. The significance therefore of the Baldwin interview would consist
in finally convincing Lincoln that he could not effect any compromise
without conceding the principle of state sovereignty. As this was the
one thing he was resolved never to concede there was nothing left
him but to consider what course would most strategically renounce
compromise. Therefore, when it was known at Washington a day or two
later that Port Pickens was in imminent danger of being taken by the
Confederates (see note 24), Lincoln instantly concentrated all his
energies on the relief of Sumter. All along he had believed that one
of the forts must be held for the purpose of "a clear indication of
policy," even if the other should be given up "as a military
necessity." Lincoln, VI, 301. His purpose, therefore, in deciding on the
ostentatious demonstration toward Sumter was to give notice to the whole
country that he made no concessions on the matter of sovereignty. In a
way it was his answer to the Virginia compromise.
At last the Union party in Virginia sent a delegation to confer with
Lincoln. It did not arrive until Sumter had been fired upon. Lincoln
read to them a prepared statement of policy which announced his
resolution to make war, if necessary, to assert the national
sovereignty. Lincoln, VI, 243-245.
The part of Montgomery in this tangled episode is least understood of
the three. With Washington Montgomery had no official communication.
Both Lincoln and Seward refused to recognize commissioners of the
Confederate government Whether Seward as an individual went behind the
back of himself as an official and personally deceived the commissioners
is a problem of his personal biography and his private morals that has
no place in this discussion. Between Montgomery and Richmond there was
intimate and cordial communication from the start. At first Montgomery
appears to have taken for granted that the Secessionist party at
Richmond was so powerful that there was little need for the new
government to do anything but wait But a surprise was in store for it
During February and March its agents reported a wide-spread desire
in the South to compromise on pretty nearly any terms that would not
surrender the central Southern idea of state sovereignty. Thus
an illusion of that day--as of this--was exploded, namely the
irresistibility of economic solidarity. Sentimental and constitutional
forces were proving more powerful than economics. Thereupon Montgomery's
problem was transformed. Its purpose was to build a Southern nation and
it had believed hitherto that economic forces had put into its hands
the necessary tools. Now it must throw them aside and get possession of
others. It must evoke those sentimental and constitutional forces that
so many rash statesmen have always considered negligible. Consequently,
for the South no less than for the North, the issue was speedily shifted
from slavery to sovereignty. Just how this was brought about we do
not yet know. Whether altogether through foresight and statesmanlike
deliberation, or in part at least through what might almost be called
accidental influences, is still a little uncertain. The question narrows
itself to this: why was Sumter fired upon precisely when it was? There
are at least three possible answers.
(1) That the firing was dictated purely by military necessity. A belief
that Lincoln intended to reinforce as well as to supply Sumter, that if
not taken now it could never be taken, may have been the over-mastering
idea in the Confederate Cabinet. The reports of the Commissioners at
Washington were tinged throughout by the belief that Seward and Lincoln
were both double-dealers. Beauregard, in command at Charleston, reported
that pilots had come in from the sea and told him of Federal war-ships
sighted off the Carolina coast. O. R. 297, 300, 301, 304, 305.
(2) A political motive which to-day is not so generally intelligible as
once it was, had great weight in 1861. This was the sense of honor
in politics. Those historians who brush it aside as a figment lack
historical psychology. It is possible that both Governor Pickens and the
Confederate Cabinet were animated first of all by the belief that the
honor of South Carolina required them to withstand the attempt of what
they held to be an alien power.
(3) And yet, neither of these explanations, however much either or both
may have counted for in many minds, gives a convincing explanation of
the agitation of Toornbs in the Cabinet council which decided to fire
upon Sumter. Neither of these could well be matters of debate. Everybody
had to be either for or against, and that would be an end. The Toombs
of that day was a different man from the Toombs of three months earlier.
Some radical change had taken place in his thought What could it have
been if it was not the perception that the Virginia program had put the
whole matter in a new light, that the issue had indeed been changed from
slavery to sovereignty, and that to join battle on the latter issue
was a far more serious matter than to join battle on the former. And if
Toombs reasoned in this fearful way, it is easy to believe that the more
buoyant natures in that council may well have reasoned in precisely
the opposite way. Virginia had lifted the Southern cause to its highest
plane. But there was danger that the Virginia compromise might prevail.
If that should happen these enthusiasts for a separate Southern
nationality might find all their work undone at the eleventh hour.
Virginians who shared Montgomery's enthusiasms had seen this before
then. That was why Roger Pryor, for example, had gone to Charleston as
a volunteer missionary. In a speech to a Charleston crowd he besought
them, as a way of precipitating Virginia into the lists, to strike blow.
Charleston Mercury, April 11, 1861.