penmanship—copying from a spelling book; it seemed great
fun to me to spell out words, so much easier than working
with an ax. Mrs. Burke’s tabby, grey and fat, liked to
keep me company, flipping a paw at the M’s and L’s.
In Salem I fell into debt.
When my partner died, my partner in the grocery
business, I assumed his indebtedness—$1,000. It took me
years to wipe out that sum, as huge as the national debt.
I shucked corn, cradled wheat, chopped wood, ferryboated,
clerked...$2.00 here, $5.00 here, $7.00 here. My debit
column required all of my scheming. While I struggled to
pay that thousand dollars I resolved to lay aside
something as a cushion, but it was many years before I
could carry out that resolution. Those were pinching
times.
Executive Mansion
June 25, 1863
At Number 4, Hoffman’s Row, we had our law office,
second floor, a narrow room with a pair of elegant brass
spittoons, a Pennsylvania wood burning stove. High on the
wall, above my desk, hung an engraving of Benjamin
Franklin. Our rough center table was usually overloaded
with documents—like some outlandish mule. Legal books and
newspapers filled shelves. A narrow window faced the
street; another window let in sunlight. The elements
washed them. The floor was bare oak but we had a fine
assortment of chairs. There was a lounge near the sunny
window and I liked to stretch out there, on the shaggy
buffalo hide.
Billy Herndon and I had that shingle, good natured
Billy. Here we talked business, cockfights, women, and
horse races. For sixteen years we kept at it, learning,
unlearning. For every stick of wood we burned in that
Pennsylvania stove we had an ardent opinion.
Billy and I earned about $3,000 or $4,000, good for a
town that already had eleven lawyers. Springfield, in
those days, offered better legal services than sidewalks.
Pigs in the streets, mud on our boots—so it went. We
offered our services at all hours of the day. Often I
never walked home for lunch. When I rode circuit, Billy
kept house. The wren that lived in a box outside our door
had a neater establishment than ours, but, she was not a
member of the state legislature.
The White House
July 3rd, 1863
During my political career, I have striven to be astute
where slavery is concerned. The issue of slavery has been
a sensitive one, always difficult. Anti-slavery sentiment
has been in existence no matter where I lived, usually
undercover. The Baptist preacher I listened to as a boy
was anti-slavery. I believed him. I saw blacks in chains,
men and women. I soon learned about the cruelty that
menaced their lives, destroyed their lives; I felt that I
could, if I lived long enough, thwart slavery, perhaps
abolish it, make our great nation a free nation.
Patience, I repeated again and again to myself. I knew
about Linda Mae. She was bound to William Wison for
ninety-nine years. She was nineteen when that legal
document was signed. When she reached 118 years she would
be free. Patience?
Slavery was an old institution in Illinois, winked at
in the 30’s and 40’s. The first governor of the state
possessed slaves. I have seen human beings herded and
treated like animals. Our family moved from Kentucky,
troubled by the ways of slavery. My black clients
sometimes confided in me, described, underlined, the
devious trickeries of the whites. Billy, my Springfield
barber, had tales to tell. I have heard them as he shaved
me or trimmed my hair.
I am slow to learn, and slow to forget. My mind is like
a piece of steel—very hard to scratch anything on it, and
almost impossible after you get it there to rub it out.
Memories...it wasn’t so long ago I tramped at the head
of the ox team, as we moved from one place to another,
one beginning that had not really ended, to another
beginning that might not end. The oxen were faithful.
They meant much to me. I will not forget. They ate from
my hands, they blew their breaths on my fingers, they
regarded me intently. It rained on us. The sun shone on
us.
July 11, 1863
Was it twenty or thirty years ago, we drifted down the
Mississippi, three of us on a loaded flatboat? She was
well overloaded because all of us wanted to get rich
quick. The second or third day on the river, a tornado-
like storm struck us; I thought we would lose more than
our cargo. Down went the stern, down went the bow. I
thought lightning would strike us. My friends, John H___
and John J___ , were experienced river men. With luck we
made it. In New Orleans, we sold both cargo and flatboat,
and returned home by sternwheeler.
Memories—one of the most vivid is the New Orleans’
slave auction: men and women for the highest bidder. How
much is my mother worth? I asked myself. How much is my
father? My Uncle James? Two women were sold while I
watched at the corner of a busy street. Two women, then
three men were sold. Were they friends, relatives? Did
they speak our language? Where were they taken? One of
the men in New Orleans left the auction stand in
handcuffs. The women rode away in fancy buggies—faces
haggard.
I have never had to summon a jury in defense of
freedom. No court can defend slavery if men are
honorable.
Tuesday evening
Late
As the months pass, as troubles increase, I hunt for
moments from yesterday, moments that may strengthen me,
moments that may prove I was once young. There is my Ann
Rutledge. I see her auburn hair, blue eyes and delicate
face—more than ephemera. My love for her is real, apart,
unrelated to the man I am, yet remembered—a
contradiction. Although it is a lie I feel that Ann is
alive.
I allowed my burden of debts to turn me away from
marriage. I believed that frontier hardships were to
remain my lot; I could not see harnessing her to a life
of animal drudgery. Debts...they were like bars in a
gate; I peered through those bars at her beautiful face.
We buried her among currant bushes, in the wind, in the
sun. I left the cemetery to wander through hungry
woodlands, woodlands I never saw again, that extended...I
don’t know how far they extended. Hunger and
sorrow...they were mine.
All that remains of our brief relationship is the
memory of her voice, as she spoke, as she sang. She loved
to sing hymns and frontier songs—her voice so feminine.
The touch of her hand, the touch of her voice...in the
midst of war, under desperate commitments.
Evening
We were to enroll. Ann was to enroll at Jacksonville
Academy. I was to enroll at Illinois College.
That year I called on her at the Rutledge farm, several
times. We worked together in the fields. When she worked
at Jim Short’s farm, I rode over to be with her. I helped
her with the chores. Swampy place.
August came, hot, dry August. Corn was stunted that
year. Few martins and swallows were around. But malaria
was around and put me down, a day, two days, three. I
sipped Peruvian bark—jalap. Late that month, her father
sent for me.
Valued brother, come, Ann is very ill.
D. H. Rutledge.
I still have that message.
She lay on her bed, feverish; the log house seemed to
be claiming her; she put her small hands in mine; her
corn silk hair was around her face. In two days she was
gone. We buried her in Concord, seven miles away, seven
miles to walk behind her coffin.
It was many weeks, many weeks and miles of walking,
before I recovered, out of that grey mystery.
I still write to her family. I want to know how the
Rutledges are faring.
White House
In wagons, on foot, on horseback, they stream west, for
the gold rush, for the promises. Ours is a migratory
urge. Flux of men, women, children, reapers, sowers,
which comes first? Which the most important? We Americans
expropriate, accomplish, destroy. The rough rock becomes
polished by time, but do we? Can such migrations achieve
a true union?
I realize there is a power larger than self, more
powerful than leadership. It is this mysterious power
that causes this human wave. It is not destiny. It is an
interchange of ideas, a wave or waves of emotion, a
desire for betterment—and beyond that! The pioneer has
this in his mind, as he hacks at timber, removes stumps,
sprouts corn. Deep inside me, like a blue pool, I am in
accord with these frontiersmen.
White House
window wide open
August 1st, 1863
In Springfield, when problems got under my skin, I
sometimes woke at night, puzzled, thinking where am I?
I’d find myself sitting up in bed, gesturing, talking to
myself. Alarmed, I would dress and lay a fire and sit by
it the remainder of the night, sit by the stove or go out
into the backyard, if it was summer or autumn.
Melancholia has always dogged me. It seems to sit
inside of me and peer out. It catches me, involves me, at
the most unexpected moments. Melancholy influences my
decisions, legal decisions or those at home, even while I
am playing with the children. Like any physical handicap
I try to live with it, minimize it.
Springfield problems were largely legal problems,
problems for Billy and me, problems about horse thieves,
mortgage foreclosures, defaults in payment, land titles.
I lost a manslaughter case but won my defense of the nine
women involved in rioting. I had a bevy of widows trail
after me when I won the case of the man accused of
robbing the mail of $15,000.
Such problems create a backwash over the years; I see
now that on my circuit I avoided home very frequently,
staying away two or three weeks at a time. Marital bliss
and melancholia are known to be mates.
Executive Mansion
8/9/63
For years I was haunted by a great number of things.
First, it was essential to learn to read. Then to write.
To find work that would support me. I wished to help
others. I felt that there was more to life than brute
labor. I found friends. Honesty appealed. I was not
impressed by rowdies. Serving as Captain in the Black
Hawk War taught me that causes are not always good
causes. Scalped men are not helpful men.
I can not forget those men lying in the bush, lying in
a row, red sunlight on them.
My father was a slave to ignorance.
My mother was a slave to the wilderness.
I longed to abolish all kinds of slavery.
Some of my black friends were slaves; I wanted to
abolish their kind of slavery. There is the slavery of
poverty. Men and women eating potatoes day after day.
So, I was haunted.
Could I become man’s benefactor?
Lying in my attic, on my bed of corn shocks, I
confronted log walls—- strong log walls.
August 9, 1863
On my circuit rides, when weather favored, when there
was enough time, I stopped at a grove, dismounted, walked
to a tree deep in the grove, a tree I had blazed when
county surveying; I walked on to the second blaze that
marked a green pool. It was a small shallow pool rimmed
with short grass. Dragonflies came there. Crickets lived
near there. Standing there, sitting there, I found
meaning, a meaning I still respect.
Tell me, ye winged winds
That round my pathway roar,
Do ye not know some spot
Where mortals weep no more?
The White House
August 12, 1863
I suppose I may as well confess: I have always envied
my partner his marital luck: Billy Herndon married Nancy
Maxcy, back in ’40, a quiet beauty, a gentle beauty,
blonde as corn silk, ready with dreamy smiles. She gave
Billy rare personal happiness, made it easier for him
after annoying legal squabbles, after long circuit rides.
She gave him six healthy children. She was a giver in so
many ways—alms for all. Theirs has been a continual
romance.
The mind does tricks. I am back in my boyhood cabin. A
prairie schooner stands outside. A man and woman have
unhitched their oxen team, their little girl is made to
feel at home by my mother. She is eight; I am eight or
nine, I can’t remember. I remember that she was pretty.
We played together all day. Then, came sunup, the ox team
hauled away the schooner...my love was gone. I dreamed
about her for weeks, happy dreams; in one of those
repeated dreams we eloped, we went to California, we
built a beautiful home...
My love for her has never gone away.
August 14, 1863
Many times Jenny plodded my rural circuit.
Usually, I gave her the reins. Every stopping place,
store, tavern, church, saloon, school, was fixed in her
brain. If I had to check her it was for some washout, new
ruts in the road, a downhill run, a flooded creek. As we
plodded along I read my law books or played the
harmonica. June, July, August...January and February, we
rocked in that black buggy with its scarlet spokes. I
kept it in good shape but I never did eliminate the
squeaks in the right rear spring.
In those days prosperity was slow in arriving. I
settled my cases under trees, in churches, in schools and
stores—for barter and for cash.
Mary never neglected my food hamper; always something
tasty, with an apple or a carrot or two tossed in for
Jenny. We would stop in a patch of woods on a hot day; I
would yank off my boots and rest my corns. Thunderstorms
often fell on us; at the nearest stable I would rub Jenny
until she was dry, and she would look and look at me as I
rubbed her.
Willie liked to accompany me on our summer jaunts; he
got to know the lone dead pine; the maple grove at
Dobson’s Creek; he knew the roosting place of the red
hawk, the place of the squirrels. We often saw fox and
deer. I might read Fennimore Cooper to him as we rode
along.
“...Papa, look at those pigeons...a whole cloud of
them.”
Willie’s favorite topic was the railroad, the
locomotives. He knew every type of engine, their speed,
their horsepower. “Wonder horses,” he called them.
“All aboard,” he would shout, as we got into our buggy.
“Let’s go...the Indians are comin’.”
Who owns Jenny now?
Where is she?
She’s about eleven years old.
The White House
August 29, 1863
Glancing through a Greek history, I found something
Euripides said in one of his plays:
Slavery, that thing of evil, by its nature
evil,
forcing submission from man to what no man
should yield to.
To set men free—that is the greatest goal any man could
achieve.
But slavery is part of our issue. This is essentially a
people’s contest. On the side of the Union is a struggle
for maintaining in the world that form and substance of
government whose leading object is to elevate the
condition of men; to lift artificial weights from all
shoulders; to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for
all; to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance
in the race of life.
Tuesday
I like to forget East Salem’s juvenility, sparring,
boxing, wrestling. Pranks could be alarmingly stupid.
There was Ike and his pony. He was fool enough to try to
ride his piebald through a bonfire of shavings and
cornstalks—to settle a bet. He raced across a field
toward the blaze; just as he reached it, the pony bucked
and pitched Ike into the fire. The onlookers stomped and
roared and whistled. I was angry and took Ike to Dr.
Samuel’s office, where the doctor shaved his head and
salved his scorched face and hands.
I saw no profit, no form of progress in Salem’s
rowdies. I preferred the simple things in life, a job, a
long walk, hills, sun. As county surveyor I communicated
through transit and tapes, through timberland acreage.
They arranged life in useable proportions. This was a
function beyond the village. To measure land was to
measure the future. Precision spelled confidence.
September 1, 1863
To give the victory to the right, not through bloody
bullets but through peaceful ballots—this is essential.
Our constitution proves that the ballot can rule. Right-
thinking men shall go to the polls, without fear or
prejudice.
I think these thoughts, I write these words, as men
attack, counterattack, retreat, die. Hate and bitterness
are in control. I raise my spyglass and look through my
window. A small sailboat moves along the Potomac. It is
possible for a man to provision a boat, set sail, dis-
appear. It is possible for a man to work with other men
and achieve.
September 2, 1863
A drum corps passes the White House.
I listen.
I must ask myself some questions this evening: must
civilization be influenced by greedy politicians,
connivers, self-promoters, toadies? Is there such a thing
as common sense where the bulk of mankind is concerned?
Is Christianity a bulwark to be counted on, or is it
cleverly concocted pretension? Must tragedy dog man’s
footsteps? Does a lie have a more lasting influence than
the truth? Do the echoes of John Brown end? Is the Dred
Scott case on trial, decade after decade?
These and other questions flog my mind.
Men say I am moody, they say I am a man of mystery. If
I am mysterious at times it is because I seek answers. I
demand answers. Only fools accept the face of things. Men
weary of my tales and my humor as I hunt for
enlightenment for this troubled country. It is my duty to
care more than anyone, and humor and satire have an
influence not to be scorned.
The White House
September 15, 1863
If I were home my fat Filibuster would shove his
whiskers into my face and meow. He loved to be
scratched...he was Robert’s pet but when I lay on the
floor of the parlor to read he would stretch out beside
me. I’d scratch him and try to go on with my reading.
I would like to have supper tonight in my shirt
sleeves, and answer the doorbell in my carpet slippers.
I would like to hear Mary scolding the iceman, as he
tries, once more, to overcharge her.
How well she managed our house, penny-wise always. How
well she attended the children. She found time to help
the poor; was never too busy to chat with a neighbor.
“Let’s see a play tonight. There’s that new one, A For-
tune to Share. Shall we go?”
I see myself puttering in the yard. There was time to
prune the trees, to cut wood, plant flowers. The horse
and cow were part of our lives. I was another man then.
I wonder what happened to my grey hat; it had a wide
band inside, fine for stuffing letters and checks. Maybe
Billy has it, hanging on the tree, at the back of our
office.
The White House
Evening
Throughout that long, dry summer, Stephen Douglas and I
battled our verbal battles. There was a noble pertinacity
in the “Little Giant.” I called him a “slanderer” and a
“sneak.” He dubbed me a “fraud,” and alluded to pro-
slavery conspiracies. He attacked my “house divided”
stand... I insisted that a nation could not endure half-
free, half-slave.
Douglas had his private car, bannered and flagged. A
handsome brass cannon boomed from a flatcar coupled to
his train, boomed his entry into every town and city.
Often our debates were veritable picnics, fireworks,
bands. I rode on a Conestoga drawn by six white
horses...bunting... flowers...pretty girls. Sometimes a
secretary recorded our speeches.
As the summer wore on, I began to stress the moral
issues with great emphasis. I had little hope that I
would win the senate seat; my voice, pitched higher than
his, also lacked accomplished delivery. The silent
artillery of time was firing at us. I heard the country’s
slaves crying out. I remembered that John Randolph said
that slavery was “a volcano in full eruption.”
Votes...but it is not altogether a matter of votes.
Yet the day of reckoning arrived.
Douglas – 54. Lincoln – 46.
So I lost.
It will be hard to die and leave the country no better
than if I had never lived.
September 29th, 1863
My Desk
I may remark that having in my life heard many
arguments—or strings of words meant to pass for
arguments—intended to show that the negro ought to be a
slave—if he shall now fight in the Confederate Army to
keep himself a slave, it will be a far better argument
why he should remain a slave than I have ever heard
before.
Perhaps he ought to be a slave if he desires it
ardently enough to fight for it. Or, if one out of four
will, for his own freedom, fight to keep the other three
in slavery, he ought to be a slaver for his selfish
meanness.
I have always thought that all men should be free; but
if any should be slaves, it should be first those who
desire it for themselves, and secondly those who desire
it for others. Whenever I hear anyone arguing for
slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him
personally.
Once again, we ask: what is freedom?
Individually, it is a chance to worship or not worship,
it is a chance to earn a living, to raise a family,
examine the past, improve one’s intellect, guard one’s
health. It is also an opportunity to perfect national and
international law. Certainly, freedom should not be a
code but should emphasize, in every respect, human
values. Millions in our land lack freedom. This condition
must not continue. Education is the sure route toward
freedom.
Thursday
My Desk
If A can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of
right, enslave B, why may not B snatch the same argument
and prove equally, that he may enslave A? You say A is
white and B is black. It is color then; the lighter,
having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By
this rule you are to be a slave to the first man you meet
with a fairer skin than your own.
You do not mean color exactly? You mean the whites are
intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and,
therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care
again. By this rule you are to be the slave to the first
man you meet with an intellect superior to your own. But,
say you, it is a question of interest; and if you can
make it your interest, you have the right to enslave
another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest,
he has the right to enslave you.
I hear rifle fire in the night.
October 4, 1863
This rainy evening I take up my pen again.
There are no accidents in my philosophy. Every effect
must have its cause. The past is the cause of the
present, and the present will be the cause of the future.
All these are links in the endless chain stretching from
the infinite to the finite.
Probably it is to be my lot to go on in a twilight,
feeling and reasoning my way through life, as
questioning, doubting Thomas did. But in my poor, maimed,
withered way bear with me as I go on seeking for a faith
that was with him of olden times, who exclaimed “Help
thou my unbelief.”
I do not see that I am more astray—though perhaps in a
different direction—than others whose points of view
differ widely from each other in the sectarian
denominations. They all claim to be Christians, and
interpret their several creeds as infallible ones. I
doubt the possibility, or propriety, of settling the
religion of Jesus Christ in the models of man-man creeds
and dogmas.
It was a spirit in the life that He laid stress on and
taught, if I read aright. I know I see it to be so with
me... The fundamental truths reported in the four Gospels
as from the lips of Jesus, and that I first heard from
the lips of my mother, are settled and fixed moral
precepts with me. I have concluded to dismiss from my
mind the debatable wrangles that once perplexed me with
distractions that stirred up but never absolutely settled
anything. I have tossed them aside with the doubtful
differences which divide denominations. I have ceased to
follow such discussions or be interested in them. I
cannot without mental reservations assent to long and
complicated creeds and catechisms.
The White House
I had a visitor this morning who needed to be
reassured. He is a trembling old man from Arkansas, a
local politician. After spelling out some good news for
his benefit I told him this anecdote... I think it worked
very well...
An eccentric old bachelor lived in the Hoosier state
and was famous for seeing big bugaboos in everything. He
lived with an elder brother and one day went out hunting.
His brother heard him firing back in the cornfield and
went out to see what was the matter. He found him loading
and firing into the top of a tree. Not being able to dis-
cover anything in the tree, he asked his brother what he
was firing at. “A squirrel,” the man said, and kept on
firing. His brother thought there was some humbug about
the matter and looked him over carefully and found a big
louse crawling about on one of his eyelashes.
Executive Mansion
October 12, 1863
After my nomination Springfield filled with ox carts,
wagons, buggies, horsemen, trainloads of folk. Fifty-
thousand poured into my little town. Hordes jammed the
street in front of my house, yelling “Speech...speech!”
I greeted them, said a few words, joked.
Reporters swarmed around me. Friends came and went. I
forgot to stable the horse, forgot to milk the cow. Mary
scolded me for forgetting my supper.
Tad got lost in the crowd.
Wind blew, dust blew.
It seems very amusing to me now. Unreal.
Streets were lit with burning tar barrels and torches.
People sang, paraded the streets.
“ Ole Abe Lincoln came out of the
wilderness,
Out of the wilderness, out of the
wilderness...”
I turned in mighty late that night, yet singers were
still singing, singing “Gentle Annie” and other
favorites.
October 13, 1863