LINCOLN & HERNDON
YOUNG HERNDON'S STRANGE FASCINATION FOR LINCOLN
Lincoln remained in the office with Judge Logan about four years,
dissolving partnership in 1845. Meanwhile he was interesting himself in
behalf of young William H. Herndon, who, after Speed's removal to
Kentucky, had gone to college at Jacksonville, Ill. The young man seemed
to be made of the right kind of metal, was industrious, and agreeable,
and Mr. Lincoln looked forward to the time when he could have "Billy"
with him in a business of his own.
Mrs. Lincoln, with that marvelous instinct which women often possess,
opposed her husband's taking Bill Herndon into partnership. While the
young man was honest and capable enough, he was neither brilliant nor
steady. He contracted the habit of drinking, the bane of Lincoln's
business career. As Mr. Lincoln had not yet paid off "the national debt"
largely due to his first business partner's drunkenness, it seems
rather strange that he did not listen to his wife's admonitions. But
young Herndon seems always to have exercised a strange fascination over
his older friend and partner.
While yet in partnership with Judge Logan, Mr. Lincoln went into the
national campaign of 1844, making speeches in Illinois and Indiana for
Henry Clay, to whom he was thoroughly devoted.
Before this campaign Lincoln had written to Mr. Speed:
"We had a meeting of the Whigs of the county here last Monday to appoint
delegates to a district convention; and Baker beat me, and got the
delegation instructed to go for him. The meeting, in spite of my
attempts to decline it, appointed me one of the delegates, so that in
getting Baker the nomination I shall be fixed like a fellow who is made
a groomsman to a fellow that has cut him out, and is marrying his own
dear 'gal.'"
Mr. Lincoln, about this time, was offered the nomination for Governor of
Illinois, and declined the honor. Mrs. Lincoln, who had supreme
confidence in her husband's ability, tried to make him more
self-seeking in his political efforts. He visited his old home in
Indiana, making several speeches in that part of the State. It was
fourteen years after he and all the family had removed to Illinois. One
of his speeches was delivered from the door of a harness shop near
Gentryville, and one he made in the "Old Carter Schoolhouse." After this
address he drove home with Mr. Josiah Crawford--"Old Blue Nose" for whom
he had "pulled fodder" to pay an exorbitant price for Weems's "Life of
Washington," and in whose house his sister and he had lived as hired
girl and hired man. He delighted the old friends by asking about
everybody, and being interested in the "old swimming-hole," Jones's
grocery where he had often argued and "held forth," the saw-pit, the old
mill, the blacksmith shop, whose owner, Mr. Baldwin, had told him some
of his best stories, and where he once started in to learn the
blacksmith's trade. He went around and called on all his former
acquaintances who were still living in the neighborhood. His memories
were so vivid and his emotions so keen that he wrote a long poem about
this, from which the following are three stanzas:
"My childhood's home I see again
And sadden with the view;
And still, as memory crowds the brain,
There's pleasure in it, too.
"Ah, Memory! thou midway world
'Twixt earth and paradise,
Where things decayed and loved ones lost
In dreamy shadows rise.
"And freed from all that's earthy, vile,
Seems hallowed, pure and bright,
Like scenes in some enchanted isle,
All bathed in liquid light."
TRYING TO SAVE BILLY FROM A BAD HABIT
As Mr. Lincoln spent so much of his time away from Springfield he felt
that he needed a younger assistant to "keep office" and look after his
cases in the different courts. He should not have made "Billy" Herndon
an equal partner, but he did so, though the young man had neither the
ability nor experience to earn anything like half the income of the
office. If Herndon had kept sober and done his best he might have made
some return for all that Mr. Lincoln, who treated him like a
foster-father, was trying to do for him. But "Billy" did nothing of the
sort. He took advantage of his senior partner's absences by going on
sprees with several dissipated young men about town.
WHAT LAWYER LINCOLN DID WITH A FAT FEE
A Springfield gentleman relates the following story which shows Lawyer
Lincoln's business methods, his unwillingness to charge much for his
legal services; and his great longing to save his young partner from the
clutches of drink:
"My father," said the neighbor, "was in business, facing the square, not
far from the Court House. He had an account with a man who seemed to be
doing a good, straight business for years, but the fellow disappeared
one night, owing father about $1000. Time went on and father got no
trace of the vanished debtor. He considered the account as good as lost.
"But one day, in connection with other business, he told Mr. Lincoln he
would give him half of what he could recover of that bad debt. The tall
attorney's deep gray eyes twinkled as he said, 'One-half of nought is
nothing. I'm neither a shark nor a shyster, Mr. Man. If I should collect
it, I would accept only my regular percentage.'
"'But I mean it,' father said earnestly. 'I should consider it as good
as finding money in the street.'
"'And "the finder will be liberally rewarded," eh?' said Mr. Lincoln
with a laugh.
"'Yes,' my father replied, 'that's about the size of it; and I'm glad if
you understand it. The members of the bar here grumble because you
charge too little for your professional services, and I'm willing to do
my share toward educating you in the right direction.'
"'Well, seein' as it's you,' said Mr. Lincoln with a whimsical smile,
'considering that you're such an intimate friend, I'd do it for _twice_
as much as I'd charge a _total stranger_! Is that satisfactory?'
"'I should not be satisfied with giving you less than half the gross
amount collected--in this case,' my father insisted. 'I don't see why
you are so loath to take what is your due, Mr. Lincoln. You have a
family to support and will have to provide for the future of several
boys. They need money and are as worthy of it as any other man's wife
and sons.'
"Mr. Lincoln put out his big bony hand as if to ward off a blow,
exclaiming in a pained tone:
"'That isn't it, Mr. Man. That isn't it. I yield to no man in love to my
wife and babies, and I provide enough for them. Most of those who bring
their cases to me need the money more than I do. Other lawyers rob them.
They act like a pack of wolves. They have no mercy. So when a needy
fellow comes to me in his trouble--sometimes it's a poor widow--I can't
take much from them. I'm not much of a Shylock. I always try to get them
to settle it without going into court. I tell them if they will make it
up among themselves I won't charge them anything.'
"'Well, Mr. Lincoln,' said father with a laugh, 'if they were all like
you there would be no need of lawyers.'
"'Well,' exclaimed Lawyer Lincoln with a quizzical inflection which
meant much. 'Look out for the millennium, Mr. Man--still, as a great
favor, I'll charge you a fat fee if I ever find that fellow and can get
anything out of him. But that's like promising to give you half of the
first dollar I find floating up the Sangamon on a grindstone, isn't it?
I'll take a big slice, though, out of the grindstone itself, if you say
so,' and the tall attorney went out with the peculiar laugh that
afterward became world-famous.
"Not long afterward, while in Bloomington, out on the circuit, Mr.
Lincoln ran across the man who had disappeared from Springfield 'between
two days,' carrying on an apparently prosperous business under an
assumed name. Following the man to his office and managing to talk with
him alone, the lawyer, by means of threats, made the man go right to the
bank and draw out the whole thousand then. It meant payment in full or
the penitentiary. The man understood it and went white as a sheet. In
all his sympathy for the poor and needy, Mr. Lincoln had no pity on the
flourishing criminal. Money could not purchase the favor of Lincoln.
"Well, I hardly know which half of that thousand dollars father was
gladder to get, but I honestly believe he was more pleased on Mr.
Lincoln's account than on his own.
"'Let me give you your five hundred dollars before I change my mind,' he
said to the attorney.
"'One hundred dollars is all I'll take out of that,' Mr. Lincoln replied
emphatically. 'It was no trouble, and--and I haven't earned even that
much.'
"'But Mr. Lincoln,' my father demurred, 'you promised to take half.'
"'Yes, but you got my word under false pretenses, as it were. Neither of
us had the least idea I would collect the bill even if I ever found the
fellow.'
"As he would not accept more than one hundred dollars that day, father
wouldn't give him any of the money due, for fear the too scrupulous
attorney would give him a receipt in full for collecting. Finally, Mr.
Lincoln went away after yielding enough to say he might accept two
hundred and fifty dollars sometime in a pinch of some sort.
"The occasion was not long delayed--but it was not because of illness or
any special necessity in his own family. His young partner, 'Billy'
Herndon, had been carousing with several of his cronies in a saloon
around on Fourth Street, and the gang had broken mirrors, decanters and
other things in their drunken spree. The proprietor, tired of such work,
had had them all arrested.
"Mr. Lincoln, always alarmed when Billy failed to appear at the usual
hour in the morning, went in search of him, and found him and his
partners in distress, locked up in the calaboose. The others were
helpless, unable to pay or to promise to pay for any of the damages, so
it devolved on Mr. Lincoln to raise the whole two hundred and fifty
dollars the angry saloon keeper demanded.
"He came into our office out of breath and said sheepishly:
"'I reckon I can use that two-fifty now.'
"'Check or currency?' asked father.
"'Currency, if you've got it handy.'
"'Give Mr. Lincoln two hundred and fifty dollars,' father called to a
clerk in the office.
"There was a moment's pause, during which my father refrained from
asking any questions, and Mr. Lincoln was in no mood to give
information. As soon as the money was brought, the tall attorney seized
the bills and stalked out without counting it or saying anything but
'Thankee, Mr. Man,' and hurried diagonally across the square toward the
Court House, clutching the precious banknotes in his bony talons.
"Father saw him cross the street so fast that the tails of his long coat
stood out straight behind; then go up the Court House steps, two at a
time, and disappear.
"We learned afterward what he did with the money. Of course, Bill
Herndon was penitent and promised to mend his ways, and, of course, Mr.
Lincoln believed him. He took the money very much against his will, even
against his principles--thinking it might save his junior partner from
the drunkard's grave. But the heart of Abraham Lincoln was hoping
against hope."