agreement personally on his part to rest content with one term, he
declared himself betimes a candidate for another nomination. Lincoln’s
rejoinder was the maxim,--“Turn about is fair play.” He called this his
“only argument,” and proceeded in effect to make it the slogan of an
energetic campaign. A less inspiring issue on which to ask for political
support is not often presented. Yet this was the issue, and Lincoln
candidly said so. With a freedom from the customary cant of “public
servants” that is really refreshing, he canvassed the party on personal
grounds, but without personalities. His supporters were cautioned
against saying anything unkind about Hardin; and when he himself made
any reference to his adversary, it was in terms of friendly
appreciation. Lincoln wanted that office. He wanted it badly. But his
ever-present sense of fairness saved him from resentment toward the
Bakers and Hardins who wanted it, too. They were entitled to a place in
the sun. And even the fact that one who had basked in its warmth for a
season was trying now to elbow him back when his turn came, did not
ruffle the man’s good humor. Yet he stood his ground firmly, while
insisting, with winsome naïveté, on “a fair shake.” So when General
Hardin made a crafty suggestion that the candidates should agree
respectively to “remain in their own counties,” Lincoln promptly
declined, with the obvious explanation: “It seems to me that on
reflection you will see, the fact of your having been in Congress has,
in various ways, so spread your name in the district, as to give you a
decided advantage in such a stipulation.”
His reasons, given in the same letter, for refusing to walk into the
general’s other cunningly contrived pitfalls, were equally cogent; while
the temper of the missive, as a whole, may be inferred from the pretty
little apology: “I have always been in the habit of acceding to almost
any proposal that a friend would make, and I am truly sorry that I
cannot in this.”[v-65]
Hardin, on his part, was apparently not so amiable. The general’s
supporters were allowed to assail Lincoln in somewhat the same manner
that Baker’s friends had done three years before. Indeed, they may have
been even less scrupulous. For one of Lincoln’s youthful lieutenants, G.
W. Harris, tells us how, disheartened by their methods, he went to his
chief in the heat of the canvass, and declared that it was useless to
proceed any further unless the object of these assaults was willing to
adopt similar tactics. Without any show of feeling, Lincoln replied:
“Gibson, I want to be nominated; I should like very much to go to
Congress; but unless I can get there by fair means, I shall not go. If
it depends on some other course, I will stay at home.”[v-66]
“That settled it,” Harris adds. But things hardly went as he had
predicted. Not long thereafter his leader’s scruples were vindicated, on
even the politician’s narrow ground, by Hardin’s withdrawal from the
contest, in a generous letter, which left the field to our Springfield
friend unopposed. So it came to pass that when the Whig District
Convention met early in May, 1846, the name of this sole remaining
candidate was duly presented by Judge Logan and Lincoln received a
unanimous nomination.
The Democrats put forward as their candidate the well-known Methodist
circuit-rider, Peter Cartwright. He gave promise of making a formidable
antagonist. Few men had more friends throughout the district, and
indeed, throughout the State. His robust ministry, as he traveled on
horseback undaunted by frontier hardships from place to place, brought
him into intimate, at times even sacred, relations with the people. They
cherished, in their rough way, a fondness for the man whose piety and
never-failing human sympathy had made him through all the shifting
years, whether at weddings, christenings, sick-beds, or funerals, the
dependable partner of their joys and their sorrows. A preacher,
moreover, of the church-militant, he compelled respect among these
sturdy pioneers by his physical, no less than by his spiritual,
qualities. As became one who patrolled in autocratic fashion “the
country of superior men,” he was wont, when occasion served, to pound
out a sermon or knock out a service-disturbing brawler, with equal
force, and--if the truth must be told--with equal relish. But the
aggressive elements in Cartwright’s make-up found still freer vent on
the several occasions when he sought to transmute all this popularity
into votes. For somewhat after the manner of the high priests in Israel,
the “Apostle of the West,” as he was sometimes called, aspired to
combine religion with statecraft. A Jacksonian Democrat of the
uncompromising type, his politics like his theology belonged to the
hard-shell variety; and few campaigners could give a better account of
themselves on the stump. If rugged eloquence failed to produce the
desired effect, a certain nimble-witted humor might be depended on to
carry the day for him. He had, in fact, been elected or, more precisely
speaking, reëlected, to the State Legislature when Lincoln suffered his
first, his only, rebuff at the polls, fourteen years before; and with
the two men now pitted against each other again--this time on a larger
field--the Democrats naturally expected to bring about a repetition of
that defeat.
But the Lincoln who faced Cartwright in 1846 was a different adversary
from the comparatively unknown novice who had gone down before the
famous preacher in 1832. Since then the younger man must have learned
many practical lessons in the school of politics, and learned them well,
for his congressional canvass is described as a model of skillful
electioneering. It left unturned, in all the district, no stone beneath
which might lurk a favorable vote; while it met, with similar alertness,
every issue raised by the enemy, or more accurately speaking, every
issue but one--that of religion.
The charge of impiety, covertly made in former primary contests, as we
have seen, by Lincoln’s own Whig associates, was now publicly urged
against him with far greater earnestness by his Democratic opponents.
What ground they had for their accusations cannot conveniently be
considered at this point. The assailed candidate himself shrewdly
refrained from taking any public notice of the matter, and he impressed
upon his lieutenants the wisdom of exercising similar forbearance. Here
was one of those rare junctures in which your true leader may be
recognized, not so much by what he does as by what he omits to do.
Lincoln confidently left this issue in the hands of the people. They
have on repeated occasions been known to meet it with appropriate vigor,
yet nearly every generation of politicians must be taught the lesson
anew. The man who lays Religion by the heels, and drags her through the
mire of a political campaign for the votes that may adhere to the soiled
vestments, usually bends so low over his narrow course that he does not
see, until too late, the shocked devotees, on the one hand, deserting
him because he has profaned a sacred thing, nor the indignant citizens
on the other, turning from him because he would obtrude sectarian
influences where they have no business--in purely secular affairs. Even
the popularity of a Cartwright sags under such a strain. Moreover, his
sterling character gave him no countervailing advantage in that
particular contest. For when it came to the weighing of these opposing
candidates--cleric against skeptic, saint against sinner--by almost any
voter’s own work-a-day standards, the rectitude of Lincoln’s life at the
bar, no less than the notable honesty of his politics, dressed the
balance between the two champions, so far as practical ethics went, to a
nicety. This left the revulsion from bigotry that touched broad-minded
men in both parties, together with the normal preponderance of the Whigs
and the superior campaigning tactics of their leader, to tip the scales
finally in his favor. As the canvass drew near its close, not a few of
the Democrats are said to have looked upon him with kindly eyes. But
party feelings ran so strong in those days that to support a candidate
on the opposing side involved a wrench to cherished traditions from
which these alien well-wishers, these friends the enemy, naturally, for
the most part, recoiled. One of them, doubtless a typical instance,
coming to Lincoln in such a dilemma, declared himself willing to cast a
Whig ballot if it were needed to defeat Cartwright. The sacrifice, he
thought, should be required only in the event of a very close struggle;
and the Whig captain, accepting this view, agreed to let him know how
the contest stood. Accordingly, right before election-day, Lincoln
having made one of those clever forecasts for which he was noted,
released his provisional recruit with the announcement: “I have got the
preacher, and don’t want your vote.”[v-67]
He certainly did have the preacher. When returns came in, it was found
that a considerable number of Democrats, setting public spirit above
partisan prejudice, after all, had given their adherence to the Whig
nominee. Lincoln led Cartwright at the polls by 1511 votes. How splendid
a victory this was, and how much of it may be credited to Democratic
defections, will be understood when it is recalled that the same
district had, in the preceding presidential campaign, given electors for
Henry Clay, the popular Whig standard-bearer, a plurality of but 914.
“Lincoln’s election by the large majority he received,” said Governor
Reynolds, commenting on the congressional contest some years later, “was
the finest compliment personally and the highest political endorsement
any man could expect, and such as I have never seen surpassed.”[v-68]
These superlatives hardly overstated the case. No previous Whig
campaigner of the district had in fact achieved such results; and so
fully did they justify Lincoln’s persistent demands upon his party for
the nomination that his election must have brought him a double measure
of gratification.
Then, however, came the all but inevitable reaction. That triumph, so
long deferred and so patiently wrought out, fell short of what his
ambitious fancy had pictured. The sub-acid tang, which detracts too
often from our complete enjoyment of life’s sweetest morsels, entered
into the victor’s spirit at the moment of achievement, and left him
disappointed. Addressing his sympathetic friend Speed--the other self of
those days--in much the same vein as the great Roman politician Cicero
was wont to employ toward his intimate Atticus, when eclipsing shadows
of depression marred the joy of some brilliant exploit, Lincoln wrote:
“Being elected to Congress, though I am very grateful to our friends for
having done it, has not pleased me as much as I expected.”[v-69]
THE END
ALONZO ROTHSCHILD
[Illustration: ALONZO ROTHSCHILD]
The morning that my father finished that concluding paragraph--the last
that he ever wrote--he called mother into the study. With an air of
mysterious solemnity, belied by the twinkle in his eye, he beckoned her
to the desk.
“Meta, if you promise not to tell a soul, I’ll tell you a state secret,”
he said. “I’ve got Lincoln to Congress at last.” Then more earnestly he
continued: “It wasn’t an easy job either. I’ve fought all his battles
side by side with him, and the world will probably never know how hard
we toiled and moiled together.”
These words exactly expressed his relationship to his work. During the
twenty-three years that he devoted to the study and interpretation of
Abraham Lincoln, he lived with him in spirit as the great novelists have
lived with the children of their fancies. Lincoln’s sorrows and triumphs
and defeats were as real to him as those of his own life. It is small
wonder, therefore, that when men who had known Lincoln read _Lincoln,
Master of Men_, they frequently mistook its author for an intimate
contemporary of the great President.
Though not of the same generation as Lincoln, my father’s life was, in a
trivial way, associated with it at the start. He was born in New York
City on the evening of a Lincoln rally at Cooper Union, October 30,
1862. The family physician was at the meeting when the time became ripe
for his services, so my grandfather followed him there, somehow found
him in the vast crowd, and worked upon his sense of duty so that he
consented to forego the speeches, and returned with my grandfather to
the Rothschild home.
One is tempted to speculate whether or not, as the doctor looked down
at the boy whose birth had prevented him from hearing eminent men
discuss the President,--whether or not some confiding Fate whispered to
him a half-articulate prophecy that that same boy was one day to be
among the most deep-seeing interpreters of Abraham Lincoln.
Interesting as this coincidence is, in the light of succeeding
developments, it is, of course, quite devoid of significance. Not until
some years later did Abraham Lincoln actually become an influence in my
father’s life.
Probably it was his father who first planted the seed of admiration for
Lincoln in his mind, for John Rothschild came to America with an influx
of German revolutionists--men of the Carl Schurz stamp--and to him, as
to so many of those who came in that wave of immigration, “Lincoln
became an ideal,--a prophet.”
Just as some knowledge of my father’s parentage helps to an
understanding of his interest in Abraham Lincoln, it enables one better
to comprehend several of his personal characteristics. The thoroughness
that fortified all his undertakings may be attributed to his unmixed
German blood. For his mother as well as his father was German. She was
known as “Beautiful Kate,” but a remarkable amiability that poverty and
the raising of a large family never impaired was her outstanding
characteristic. The evenness of disposition that my father inherited
from her combined strangely with a certain fiery impetuosity and
violence of temper that was of paternal origin, so that his ordinary
mildness and long-suffering sometimes blazed out into a Jovian wrath.
From both parents equally, he derived a sturdy honesty, common sense,
and humor, while to his father in particular he owed a ready wit and
skill in repartee.
Beyond the excellence of his parentage, there was nothing particularly
auspicious about the conditions of my father’s early life. John
Rothschild was an invalid, and his various attempts to get on in the
world were unsuccessful. Furthermore, there were six complications in
the bread-and-butter problem of which my father was the fourth. But
nature had equipped him splendidly for the upward battle that those must
wage who would rise from the ranks. While there cannot have been much
suggestive of the fighter in the frail little chap who was “Lonny”
Rothschild, yet a cool sureness of purpose and virile resourcefulness
often won him the palm in unequal encounters with bullies as well as in
the subtler battles of school and daily life.
There is a story that testifies to his resourcefulness and at the same
time indicates his literary instinct. “Lonny’s” family lived on
Fifty-fourth Street and his school was at Thirteenth Street, two miles
away. He could afford the horse cars only on his way to school, and used
to return afoot. His chum, however, whose parents were in better
circumstances, received two car fares daily and was expected to ride
both ways. One day, by the promise of a story, “Lonny” inveigled the
youngster into walking home with him. The story proved to be an exciting
serial that never ended, so that henceforth the author always had
company on these journeys. And what is more, not only were his spirits
fortified by company, but his inner being was regaled with the
refreshments that he persuaded young Crœsus to buy along the way with
the misappropriated car fares.
Generally speaking, “Lon” did not care much for the company of his
schoolmates or for their games. He preferred a book to a game of ball.
In fact he used habitually to get his one pair of shoes wet so that he
might be allowed to curl up in an armchair before the kitchen stove with
a biography or some standard novel.
There was a periodical shop in the neighborhood, where he spent part of
his spare time, helping the proprietor and, in lieu of pay, gorging
himself indiscriminately on the literature that lined the walls.
Heterodox as it may be to say so, “Jack Harkaway” and the other
yellowbacks which he read there, had a beneficial effect on his style.
They developed the virility and feeling for dramatic sequences that
later constituted his main literary charm.
But perhaps the most germinal of all these early literary habits was his
daily custom of reading the newspaper to his invalid father. Those were
the Reconstruction days, when the blunders of certain of Lincoln’s
successors called forth constant editorial comment on “How Lincoln would
have done it.” The spirit of reverence and admiration for the great
President that the press exhaled must have stimulated tremendously the
hero-worship that had already taken root in the enthusiastic mind of the
lad.
Somewhat of an idealist, as this would suggest, almost from the first,
Alonzo Rothschild was never a mere dreamer. The same balance that
contributed so to his success throughout later life was already
ingrained in his make-up. He was earnest, but fun-loving; frail, yet
red-blooded; youthful, and still mature; idealistic, but none the less
practical.
His practical powers had an opportunity to expand as soon as he was old
enough to run errands. From that time on until he left college, his
summer vacations were spent in the employ of some firm, earning a little
money and learning something of business methods. The first of these
summer positions was with a leather importer, who, largely in jest, set
him the task of making a cable code. What the merchant meant in fun, my
father took in earnest, and some time thereafter he handed his employer
a code so well worked out, and so beautifully written, that for weeks
the man proudly exhibited it to every member of the trade who entered
the office.
Such precocity often engenders superficiality, but his was the rare
brilliance that does not catch at sunbeams, but is content to labor.
This appeared in school as well as in his summer work, for the abstract
desire to do effectively whatever might come to hand was reinforced, in
school, by ambition and directed by a passion for knowledge.
At the age of fourteen he entered the College of the City of New York,
where he took his first independent step into journalism. One of his
summer positions had been with an art magazine which employed him as
“office boy, devil, and General Utility,--his only military
distinction.” The force was small and the office boy’s functions
corresponded with the range of his abilities. He ran errands, received
visitors, read proof or compiled articles for publication, as occasion
demanded.
With this varied experience, as a background, the lad started a college
publication called _The Free Press_. The paper was intrinsically modest,
but when one considers that the bulk of the work was borne by one boy
and that the publication was successful enough to pay that boy’s
expenses, the matter appears in a wholly different light.
He did almost everything connected with _The Free Press_ save the
printing. He wrote the jokes, editorials, stories, and news items. But
so effectively did he attack certain obnoxious faculty measures that he
was compelled to work behind a mask of anonymity, thus forfeiting the
prestige that his achievement would normally have given him in the eyes
of his fellow students.
Although his connection with the paper remained a secret during his
college years, it caused his downfall. So much of his time did the
undertaking absorb that in his junior year, he failed to pass his
examinations. This slump from honors to failure, however, did not
destroy the confidence that his teachers had in his inherent worth, for
when he decided to finish at Cornell, the president of the College gave
him a warm letter of introduction to the president of the other
institution.
The plan to transfer to Cornell was never consummated. His brother
Meyer, who favored it strongly and who was furnishing him the means,
went to Europe that summer on business, and in his absence my father
decided that the hour had come for him to assume a share in his
brother’s burdens. Acting upon this decision, he turned to newspaper
work, and his brother upon his return found him reporting for the
_Commercial Advertiser_. Yet, even with the college doors closing behind
him and the bitter, dubious, financial battle ahead, my father
determined to return to college in ten years. His first news assignment
cannot have cast much of the sunshine of hope upon his ambitions. It was
a dog-show. But he soon demonstrated his ability so conclusively that it
became the rule to billet him for important assignments. And a few
months later he was selected to interview Thomas A. Edison.
He had notable success as an interviewer, a success that he owed to his
scrupulous accuracy. He recognized two obligations,--an obligation to
the newspaper and an obligation to the person who had entrusted him with
the publication of his opinions. But it did not take him long to
discover that in the newspaper world faithful service such as his waits
long for even meager rewards, so after a few months with the _Commercial
Advertiser_, he turned his back on journalism and entered the employ of
a wholesale gem company. There his promotion was steady and he even
learned the business well enough to travel for the firm. After several
years, however, he decided that early financial independence and
consequent freedom for literary pursuits could not come to him if he
remained a “hireling.” He therefore cast about until he found what
seemed an opportunity, and having matured his plans with the precision
of a military strategist, he started out at the age of twenty-two to be
his own employer.
His new venture carried him back again into the field of journalism. The
jewelry trade publications of the day were monthlies or semi-monthlies
and though better than the common run of their contemporaries in trade
journalism, they were contemptible when judged by twentieth-century
journalistic standards. Their only aim was to sell advertising space and
they subordinated everything to that one purpose. Their pages were given
over to “puffs” and inadequate news items, and to dull technical
articles. They published the news or suppressed it at the will of
powerful advertisers.
Mr. Rothschild planned a weekly which was to publish the jewelry news
with the impersonal completeness of a daily newspaper; whose editorial
comment was to be “brief, conservative and absolutely independent of
advertisers”; and in which “puffs” were to be confined to a single
column where brevity and moderation were to obtain. As a partner in the
enterprise, he chose a man whose previous experience in the field led
him to value his services.
A class publication conducted on such principles was an innovation and
the graybeards shook their heads. Their belief that the whole thing was
the disordered dream of a Don Quixote and his Sancho was strengthened
into certainty when it became known that Mr. Rothschild allowed none of
his agents to treat customers. In the light of their experience it was
as necessary to clinch a contract with a drink as it was to ingratiate
one’s self by a judicious suppression of news, and a lavish use of
“puffs.”
Had the founder of _The Jewelers’ Weekly_ been merely an idealist, their
prophecies would have been justified. But so completely did his new
paper cover the activities of the jewelry world that no jeweler could
keep abreast of the trade without reading it. Such an indispensable
organ was logically a valuable advertising medium, and before long
disgruntled advertisers came trooping back with contracts, quite willing
to let the young editor determine his own policies. What those policies
were may be inferred from a law which owes its presence on the statute
books of New York to the activities of _The Jewelers’ Weekly_. The law
is that which forbids a pawnbroker to receive a pledge from any one
under sixteen years of age. The need for it was first revealed by an
exposé in _The Jewelers’ Weekly_ and its passage was due largely to Mr.
Rothschild’s efforts.
Not only was the _Weekly_ a power for good, but its editor, though not
much more than twenty, became the recognized “guide, philosopher, and
friend” of the trade. He took a friendly interest in the affairs of all
his customers, particularly the small men whom it was his delight to
nurse along with advice and assistance, helping them often to achieve
great success.
In this respect and in several others, Mr. Rothschild showed himself to
be no mere seeker after wealth. It is true that he was in business with
the avowed purpose of making a competency rapidly, but while in the game
he played it as much for its own sake as for the prize. Writing in his
diary concerning the famous “Birthday Number,” the finest thing of its
day in trade journalism, he said: “My ambition is to make this the
handsomest and most readable volume ever issued by a trade publication.”
That and similar utterances indicate that his interest in the _Weekly_
was not focused entirely on its money-getting powers.
Because of ill health, his partner withdrew from the firm after a few
years, leaving him a free hand in all departments, editorial and
financial, and he was able to test his theories to the limit. In the six
months following he made the _Weekly_ a landmark in trade journalism
besides increasing its value five times. The principle which built his
success at this time will surprise most business men. It was: “Give the
other fellow a chance to make something too.” In testing this thesis, he
worked out what was probably one of the first profit-sharing plans,
which, like his other attempts to humanize business, justified itself in
dollars and cents.
It was partly this policy of liberality and partly his desire to pave
the way for his farewell to business that induced him, at the zenith of
his success, to take his one-time partner back into the firm, and with
him two other men.
The Jewelers’ Weekly Publishing Company, as it was called, with Mr.
Rothschild as president, then took over _The Jewelers’ Weekly_ and the
allied publications that he had either started or projected. As long as
he remained an active member of the firm, success continued to crown its
undertakings, but after he ceased to have a hand in its conduct the
splendid publication of which he was so proud, languished.
The failure of his colleagues to continue the work he had so
successfully carried on almost single-handed, throws into strong relief
his achievements. He had attained financial independence in six
years--an independence won at cost to no one else and with incidental
benefit to many; he had shown that profits and ethical principles are
not at opposite poles of human endeavor; he had proved the feasibility
of the profit-sharing plan; he had elevated the tone of the jewelry
trade; and he had set new standards in trade journalism.
One would ordinarily feel safe in concluding that a young man who in six
years accomplished so many things had not been able to do much else. Yet
Alonzo Rothschild found opportunity, also, to keep alive his
intellectual interests, to do literary work, and to take an active part
in city politics.
While still in newspaper work he had begun making an elaborate card
index of his reading in the belief that it would be useful in later
literary undertakings. This he continued to enrich during the years that
he was building up the _Weekly_, finding time somehow to do a vast
amount of general reading. His active literary work comprised a very
excellent monograph on Nathan Hale which appeared subsequently in
_America_, a patriotic journal of the day. The research requisite for
the work was considerable and it was only by dogged persistence that Mr.
Rothschild could make any headway. All through his chronicle of those
busy days one comes across references to the Hale manuscript, triumph at
having found time to progress or chagrin at being delayed. One of these
passages throws so much light upon his character that it is worth
quoting. He writes: “The Hale notes hardly seem to move. I get so little
time for them. I am tempted to discontinue them for the present, but I
have never yet failed in anything I started to accomplish and I will not
begin now. We’ll crawl ahead as best we can.”
Despite the conflicting interests that he complains of, he still found
time to do his part in politics. He was one of the founders of the Good
Government Movement--“Goo-Goos,” as they were called--and the youngest
member of its Executive Council. When the organization was forming, a
body of naturalized Germans asked to be affiliated, proposing to
designate their branch as German-American. Without any heed to the
possible political consequences of such a course, Mr. Rothschild argued
against affiliation with any society that maintained a hyphenated
character. He said: “There is no such thing as a German-American. These
men are either American or they are not. If their patriotism is
equivocal and they persist in tying strings to it, we must have nothing
to do with them.” Such an attitude in one whose tenderest associations
were all in some sense German is strikingly indicative of an unbiased,
logical mind.
Mr. Rothschild’s activities were not even confined to politics, study,
and literary work. He was also prominent among the younger members of
the Society for Ethical Culture. He had a way of giving an original turn
to a discussion or of putting a question in a clearer, more spiritual
light that attracted Dr. Adler and the latter asked him to write a book
on the _Morals of Trade_ and to become a member of the society’s lecture
staff.
Few young men would have been dissatisfied with a lot so varied and rich
as his, yet this many-sided man longed for something different. Neither
was this a vague dissatisfaction. Ever since he left college he had
hoped, one day, to make good the deficiencies of his education.
Somewhere in these days came also the ambition to write about Abraham
Lincoln.
One of the marvels of his career is that he should have realized his
ideals. Other men have tried to do what he did and have failed because
money, instead of remaining a means to them, became the object. Yet at
no time did he let the brilliant present loom large enough in his mind
to shut out the future. At the flood-tide of his success, one finds this
passage in his diary: “How I long for the day when, free from business
cares, I can give my whole time and attention to literary work!”
Another, further on, shows that with increased prosperity he grew even
more restive. It reads: “Five more months of my last money-grubbing year
have passed. They were more agreeable than I expected them to be. I long
for the day when some other sound than the chink of the golden guinea
will charm my ear. It is siren music.... Let me steer my bark through
the high seas of moral and intellectual progress toward--well, we shall
see! How I long for the day of my freedom!”
Finally the day of freedom did come and then my father made good his old
vow to return to college, entering Harvard University as a special
student at the age of twenty-eight. His year there was one of almost
cloister-like tranquillity and yet it was marked by achievement. In
addition to his studies he found opportunity to write a series of
newspaper articles on the Elective System, then being introduced by
President Eliot. The latter evinced great interest in his work and went
far out of his way to furnish him with data.
Shortly after his return to New York from Harvard, Mr. Rothschild met
Miss Meta Robitscheck, who subsequently became his wife. She was
heartily in sympathy with his aspirations and agreed with him that the
work he planned could be done better away from the distractions of the
metropolis. Accordingly, they went, immediately after their wedding, to
Cambridge, wrenching themselves away from lifelong associations. This
action seemed to others even more unjustifiable than my father’s
premature withdrawal from business, but neither he nor his partner in
the enterprise ever regretted their course.
The two years at Cambridge were an auspicious beginning for the
intellectual life. There my mother took special courses at Radcliffe
until my birth increased her responsibilities, and there my father began
his study of Abraham Lincoln. It was his plan at first to write a set of
monographs on Lincoln and his Cabinet, but an investigation of the
material revealed possibilities for more ambitious work, and gradually
the great scheme matured of which _Lincoln, Master of Men_, and this
book are merely parts, the whole to have been a cycle of books treating
Lincoln’s character from all angles. Having set himself this monumental
task of reconstructing a personality, my father decided to find a quiet
spot where he might settle down to work and where his family could grow
up. He finally discovered in the village of East Foxboro, twenty-two
miles south of Boston, a hundred-year-old house surrounded by more than
one hundred acres of land that suited him and my mother, and there they
moved in the fall of 1897. It was in this place that Ruth and Miriam
were born and that my father passed the last eighteen years of his life
in the happy realization of the dreams of his youth.
Though absorbed in his chosen work, he somehow found time to foster
other interests, just as in the New York days. From the very first, he
was a guiding voice in the town councils. He gained the confidence of
the people by his absolute straightforwardness and their support by his
sound judgment. Only once did he consent to hold office, but he never
withheld his assistance, serving on many committees and doing all manner
of valuable work. He might as well have been a town official, for
usually, when there was constructive work to be done, the selectmen came
to him for guidance. People seemed instinctively to turn to him for
assistance. Shortly after he moved to East Foxboro, the inhabitants
asked him if he would be their leader in a legislative fight for
independence from Foxboro. For years they had nursed their grievances
and waited for a Moses to lead them out of bondage. They complained,
very justly, that they had been paying taxes and asking in vain for
their share of the appropriations. The streets were in bad condition,
the schoolhouse falling to decay, and on every hand were evidences of a
very palpable wrong. Somewhere, somehow Mr. Rothschild had got a
remarkably sound knowledge of law. He drew up a petition of separation
and led the fight against the parent town, in the legislature. The facts
of the case were plainly in favor of the petition, and it would have
been granted, had not the member from Foxboro log-rolled long before the
bill came up. Although defeated in his effort to make East Foxboro a
separate town, Mr. Rothschild virtually won a victory, for ever since
that time the village has enjoyed fair treatment from the parent town.
A number of years later East Foxboro called upon Mr. Rothschild to go
before the state authorities to procure a water district charter. He
drew up the charter and saw to its enactment, thus saving the district
several thousand dollars in attorneys’ fees. And, what is more, his
charter embodied such improvements that it has since been the model for
new water districts in Massachusetts.
Nor were Mr. Rothschild’s public services confined to his own community.
He was instrumental in procuring the passage of a law that compels every
town in Massachusetts to employ the services of a superintendent of
schools. He was also one of those who tried, with partial success, to
get the State to compel the railroads to burn crude oil in their
locomotives and thus put an end to the forest fires caused by flying
coal sparks.
Save for such public services to his community and to the State, my
father devoted most of his time to his study of Abraham Lincoln. It is
true that he was vice-president of the Lincoln Fellowship, a director of
the Free Religious Association, a member of the Anti-Imperialist League,
of the Massachusetts Peace Society, and of the Massachusetts Reform
Club, but none of these organizations claimed much of his time.
In 1901 he was a delegate to the Anti-Imperialist Convention at
Indianapolis, but barring this and occasional short business or
pleasure trips, he spent his time quietly at “Brook Farm” educating his
family; entertaining his friends; farming a little; helping those who
turned to him for advice from all sides; and carrying on his work. In
1906 this study bore its first fruit in the volume _Lincoln, Master of
Men_.
His premature death at the age of fifty-three prevented him from quite
completing _Honest Abe_. Had he finished this book, however, he would
merely have taken Lincoln a little further in his political career and
added to proof that already amply sustains his thesis.
It is given to few to meet death so exquisitely as he did,--alone,
without suffering, in the presence only of Nature. On the morning of
September 29, 1915, after a game of tennis with my mother, he went down
to the lake alone for a plunge. He was missed some hours later, and a
search discovered him dead in the water--a victim of heart failure
caused by the icy shock.
His life was a candle that, burning with an unusually generous and
beautiful flame, consumed itself before the appointed hour.
* * * * *
One of my father’s friends used to say, “The real thing never looks the
part.” Like most epigrams his is too inclusive. My father, for example,
did most thoroughly look the part. Literary admirers who met him in the
flesh were not disillusioned and those other persons who came in casual
contact with him rarely hesitated to class him as a student,--though
beyond that point opinions diverged. Some set him down for a physician,
others for a lawyer, still others as a college professor, and a few of
the keenest for what he really was,--a man of letters. His physical
traits, clothes, and manner were--contrary to his friend’s epigram--true
indices to his personality and occupation.
A trifle below the medium stature, my father had a distinction of air
that many a taller man might have envied. That dignity--courtly at
times--was due to a subtle blending of distinct characteristics. To say
that he owed it to his well-built, muscular figure, or to his erect
carriage, would be palpably inaccurate. Such a description might fit
many a substantial bourgeois, whereas Alonzo Rothschild, despite his
plain tastes, was far more the patrician. One would have had to imagine
him with another head and other hands to consider him bourgeois. Such
long, white, blue-veined hands belong to the proverbial gentleman; such
delicate skin is an attribute of gentle birth; such a head is seen only
on those who do the world’s thinking. Admirably moulded, it put one in
mind of a well-built house,--good in its lines and roomy inside. The
broad, dome-like forehead--exaggerated by partial baldness--and the
full, gray-brown beard were almost unmistakable indications of the
scholar. Yet quite as distinctly were the silkiness of his black hair,
the well-set, finely cut features, the sparse eyebrows, and the curling
nostrils, marks of the aristocrat. But it was the kindliness and swift
intelligence of his hazel eyes that gave his face its mobility of
expression. Passions and moods played across it as freely as the lights
and shadows of the sky are reflected on the surface of a summer meadow.
As his appearance bespoke, my father was physically and nervously of
delicate fiber. His sense of touch, for example, was hypersensitive, and
it was amusing, at table, to see how gingerly he handled hot plates. He
was, however, in no sense unmanly and too often suffered acutely in
silence. In fact he could much better bear suffering himself than
witness it in others. Not infrequently when some member of the family
was in pain, he became similarly afflicted through sheer sympathy.
Sometimes his constitutional intensity manifested itself in quite a
different manner. Ordinarily mild-tempered and patient, he was capable
of a withering wrath. Relentless, and concentrating in itself all his
physical and intellectual forces, it could flare up without warning, or
wait years for an opportune moment, and then sweep upon the chosen
enemy like a rain of fire. Crushing as the effect of such an outburst
was upon its victim, it was hardly less disastrous in its physical
reaction upon himself.
Irritability and violence of temper constituted in his case the enemy
that every man carries within himself. It is evident that he recognized
his cardinal fault, for he kept a little card perched on his inkstand
bearing this proverb in his own handwriting: “Mensch ärger dich nicht.”
Usually people so highly organized are difficult to live with, but my
father was a striking exception. Save for such occasional outbursts as
have already been alluded to, he was of a sunny disposition and most
considerate in his personal relationships. Those whose duty it was to
minister to his comfort and physical well-being found him easy to
please. He was austerely plain in matters of dress and neither knew nor
cared what he ate. Indeed, when mentally absorbed, he forgot his meals,
and it is said that while he was editing _The Jewelers’ Weekly_ he ate
lunch only if one of his friends came and dragged him out. Even had he
been more exacting and given freer rein to his moods, his personal charm
would have been sufficient counterbalance. His resonant voice, buoyancy,
and ready sympathy would alone have made him a pleasant companion. Then,
too, he had an almost magical influence over all who came within his
range of acquaintance, stimulating the best that they had in them, and
bringing it to the surface.
His interest in humanity was not limited by age or sex. He had a great
tenderness for children and a power over their affections that was but
another phase of his diverse nature. He made a capital playmate, as his
own children well remember, and the serious concerns of the grown-up
world never so shackled him that he could not shake them off for a romp,
or a song, to invent a new game or to play some old favorite. Like many
other men who have done big things, he never entirely lost a certain
boyishness that cropped out occasionally in whimsical little pranks.
One of these is so superior to the general run of practical jokes that
it bears narrating.
It was in _The Jewelers’ Weekly_ days. He was returning to New York from
a trip to Albany and some friends had accompanied him to the train.
While they were waiting, my father accidentally dropped a half-dollar
and one of the young ladies, picking it up, vowed that she would keep it
as a remembrance. My father pleaded with mock concern that he needed it
to complete his fare, but she, disbelieving him, clung to it the more
firmly. She was correct in her assumption that he had plenty of money
with him, but on the train he decided that the fifty cents should earn
him some fun and not be a total loss.
On arriving in New York, he went to his printer and had him strike off a
mock newspaper clipping which narrated how a young man, giving his name
as Alonzo Rothschild, had been ejected from the Chicago Limited because
he lacked part of the fare; how he maintained that it had been stolen
from him by a Miss L---- of Albany, and how he was last seen trudging
toward New York.
Not only was the young lady contrite over her playful theft, but she was
enraged at the newspaper that would print such a story about her, and
for a long time she begged my father to divulge the name so that she
might bring suit.
This story well illustrates the exuberant, playful humor that brightened
his whole life and that made our dinner table more famous for puns,
jokes, and repartee than for good cheer of the other sort. But there is
another anecdote of this period which throws more light on his
character.
One day a gentleman who knew the family was walking through Mount Morris
Park, in New York, when he noticed a bareheaded young man seated on a
park bench and absorbed in a book. Approaching along the path he was
surprised to recognize my father, and on reaching the bench he was still
more astonished to see that his forehead swarmed with mosquitoes.
“Didn’t expect to see you here, Lon,” he sang out. My father started at
the unexpected sound of the voice as if he had been shot, and looked up.
“Why, hello, Sid, I’m just studying,” he said. “It looks more as if you
were mosquito farming,” his friend replied. “Why don’t you brush them
off?” “Oh, I want them there,” my father answered. “I don’t concentrate
the way I ought to and I’m learning how.”
The discipline must have been effectual, for while interruptions annoyed
him exceedingly, the mere presence of people in the study while he
worked never disturbed him. For years my youngest sister spent her
mornings on the rug beside his desk, and while she cut out paper dolls
and crooned to herself, he wrote.
My father was capable, not only of great concentration, but also of
unity of purpose. Gifted with a variety of talents and innumerable
opportunities to exercise them, he remained--save for unavoidable
digressions--a one-job man. He consistently refused tempting offers to
address audiences, to undertake other literary labors, or to go into
politics, and always with the same answer, that he had a task to do and
must not stop until he had finished. He could have made himself a
prominent figure in the public eye, but he found greater satisfaction in
quietly doing work of permanent value.
Singleness of purpose and concentration were only two of the several
qualities that made Alonzo Rothschild a man of strength. What had been
willful stubbornness in his childhood crystallized, later in life, into
dogged persistence. How great a factor it was in his successes may be
judged from his own words. Once in speaking of his past life he said, “I
have never really wanted a thing without getting it.”
In addition to this driving force he had the gift of silence. Not that
he was what is known as a man of few words, nor that he was loath to
express definite opinions, but he knew how to keep his own counsels. He
rarely discussed a plan until its success was assured, and concerning
his literary work, he was almost secretive. This reticence in discussing
himself was due somewhat to discreetness, somewhat to good taste, but
largely to his doctrine of work and to his constitutional objectivity.
He believed that the world’s interest should focus on the work, not on
the author. He despised the man whose personality was more discussed
than his work and seemed to have little sympathy for him who made his
pen a vehicle for expression of self. In this prejudice one can read the
influence of Addison, and others of the classical school,--the masters
whom he followed in forming his style.
Almost equal to his admiration for literature that definitely “gets
somewhere” was his impatience with leisurely, descriptive, digressive
writing, however charming its meanderings might be. The full measure of
his scorn, however, was reserved for “precious” writers such as Walter
Pater, whose involved, mannered style and somewhat luscious thought were
peculiarly offensive to one who prized virility, lightness of touch, and
lucid directness, as he did.
Between his literary work and his fine business instinct there was a
connecting bond. He applied to research the methods of a highly trained
business expert. The results can best be described by quoting his own
words: “I can,” he said, “go into my study and at a moment’s notice lay
my hand on the references covering any point in Lincoln’s life.”
Such a complete mastery of the subject bespeaks a laborious thoroughness
that one associates with such names as Stradivari; a striving for
perfection suggestive of the days of hand-made things. With the care of
a master cabinet-maker choosing his woods, he collected facts,
subjecting them to the same searching scrutiny to which the
cabinet-maker subjects the woods in a hunt for hidden flaws. Then having
tested his materials, he put them together--fitting, readjusting, and
polishing, with all the care of the cabinet-maker--until he had done a
work that would stand for all time. He wrote with a deliberateness that
might seem laughable to those unacquainted with the art of authorship,
never permitting a sentence to stand until every word rang true even
though it were to take hours in the writing. Like Ben Jonson he realized
that, “Who casts to write a living line must sweat.” It may seem a
trivial matter, but none the less it is significant of the spirit in
which he worked, that the printers who set up _Lincoln, Master of Men_,
found the manuscript one of the most faultless that they had ever
handled.
The grasp of detail here exemplified, supplemented by clearness of
judgment, originality, and foresight, constituted a rare intellectual
fitness. It is not uncommon to find a man of constructive ability or one
who is a good administrator, but the two qualities are rarely found
together. Where they are associated, one has a man equipped for high
service. With such an endowment of all-round effectiveness, Alonzo
Rothschild could have attained leadership in any one of many fields of
human endeavor.
There were lines, however, along which my father was little developed.
His tastes in music and art were plain, not to say plebeian. Nor was he
of a deeply poetic or metaphysical cast of mind. The older he grew, the
more he centered his attention upon international, ethical, and social
questions, and the less upon abstract metaphysical inquiries. A Jew by
birth, he early settled down to agnosticism, though never quite
contentedly. As a young man he had been strongly attracted by Theosophy,
but finding nothing substantial on which to base a belief he sadly gave
it up and lapsed back into agnosticism. Still all through his life
Theosophy flitted before his eyes as an unattained desire and he often
expressed the wish that he could accept its beautiful philosophy. That
he had a strong religious instinct is further testified by his own words
about sacred music. He writes: “Irreligious as I am, sacred music when
well played on the organ has a powerful influence on me. It makes me
feel sometimes as if I were inspired--as if I could seize my pen and
write something worth reading.”
Though too much a man of the world to be a poet in the strict meaning of
the word, he was one in the larger sense of magnificence of conceptions,
elevated thoughts, and high purposes.
It is interesting in this connection to consider what influence his
almost lifelong study of Abraham Lincoln may have had on his character.
It would seem that in his great simplicity, he must have been directly
influenced by Lincoln. Like him, he considered himself a plain man, and
he contented himself with a plain man’s share of the world’s luxuries.
He rarely rode in a parlor-car and could satisfy his hunger as
contentedly at a dairy lunch as in a hotel dining-room. He cared nothing
for the appearance of things.
The last eighteen years of his life he spent in a plain old farmhouse.
There was nothing about its exterior to distinguish it from thousands of
other New England farmhouses, but once inside, the visitor found himself
in “a city of books.” In other respects he found the house as
unpretentious inside as it appeared from without. It lacked no comforts
or conveniences, but there was no studied attempt at decoration. It was
quite evidently the home of a man who valued only the genuine things of
life.
And yet, with all its simplicity, that house was a Mecca toward which
turned many feet. All sorts of people came there, knowing that none ever
went away without being enriched. For one it was new inspiration; for
another the solution of some vexing problem, or perhaps a fresh grasp on
his whole life. They knew that the man who dwelt there was never too
busy or too weary to help his fellow men, and they came like tired
children for comfort or for help. They knew him to be a man of warm
sympathies, a brave man, an honest man, and a man strong enough to help
shoulder their burdens. How many realized as they sat there, quietly
talking with him, smiling with him, laughing with him, that this man who
seemed so like themselves was--in the language of one grateful old
lady--a “prince of men” in whom were all the elements of true greatness.
JOHN ROTHSCHILD.
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS,
_April, 1917_.
A LIST OF BOOKS CITED
WITH THE CORRESPONDING ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE NOTES
_Archer’s Ethical Obligations_: Ethical Obligations of the Lawyer.
By Gleason Leonard Archer. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. 1910.
_Arnold_: The Life of Abraham Lincoln. By Isaac N. Arnold. Seventh
Edition. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co. 1896.
_Atkinson_: The Boyhood of Lincoln. By Eleanor Atkinson. New York:
The McClure Company. 1908.
* * * * *
_Banks_: The Lincoln Legion. The Story of Its Founder and
Forerunners. By Rev. Louis Albert Banks, D.D. Illustrated with
Drawings by Arthur I. Keller and Photographs. New York: The Mershon
Company. 1903.
_Barrett, New_: Abraham Lincoln and His Presidency. By Joseph H.
Barrett, LL.D. Illustrated. In Two Volumes. Cincinnati: The Robert
Clarke Company. 1904.
_Barrett_: Life of Abraham Lincoln. Presenting his early history,
political career, and speeches in and out of Congress. By Joseph H.
Barrett. Cincinnati: Moore, Wilstach & Baldwin. 1865.
_Bartlett_: The Life and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln. With a
Portrait on Steel. To which is added a biographical sketch of Hon.
Hannibal Hamlin. By D. W. Bartlett. New York: H. Dayton. 1860.
_Bateman_: Abraham Lincoln; an address. By Newton Bateman.
Galesburg, Ill.: Cadmus Club Publications. 1899.
_Binney_: The Life of Horace Binney, with selections from his
letters. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company. 1903.
_Binns_: Abraham Lincoln. By Henry Bryan Binns. London: J. M. Dent
& Co. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. 1907.
_Boyden_: Echoes from Hospital and White House. A Record of Mrs.
Rebecca R. Pomroy’s Experience in War-Times. By Anna L. Boyden.
Boston: D. Lothrop & Co. 1884.
_Brady_: Washington and Lincoln. A comparison, a contrast, and a
consequence. An address delivered on June 18, 1904, at Valley
Forge, Penna. before the Pennsylvania Society of Sons of the
Revolution: to commemorate the abandonment of the camp by the
continental army in 1778. By Cyrus Townsend Brady. Philadelphia:
Sons of the Revolution, Pennsylvania Society Publications. 1904.
_Brockett_: The Life and Times of Abraham Lincoln, Sixteenth
President of the United States. By L. P. Brockett, M.D.
Philadelphia: Bradley & Co. 1865.
_Brooks_: Abraham Lincoln and the Downfall of American Slavery. By
Noah Brooks. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 1896.
_Brougham’s Works_: Works of Henry Peter Brougham, First Baron
Brougham and Vaux. Seven volumes. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles
Black. 1872.
_Browne_: The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln’s life and
character portrayed by those who knew him. Prepared and arranged by
Francis F. Browne. St. Louis: William G. Hills. 1896.
_Browne’s Lincoln and Men_: Abraham Lincoln and the Men of his
Time. By Robert H. Browne, M.D. Two volumes. Cincinnati: Jennings &
Pye. New York: Eaton & Mains. 1901.
* * * * *
_Campbell’s Reports_: Reports of cases determined at nisi prius in
the courts of King’s Bench and Common Pleas, and on Circuit. Four
Volumes. By John, Baron Campbell. New York: Riley. 1810-1816.
_Carpenter_: The Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln. Six Months at the
White House. By F. B. Carpenter. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1867.
_Caton_: Miscellanies. By John Dean Caton. Boston: Houghton, Osgood
& Co. 1880.
_Chiniquy_: Fifty years in the Church of Rome. By Father Chiniquy,
the apostle of temperance in Canada. 3d Edition. Chicago: Craig &
Barlow. 1886.
_Chittenden_: Recollections of President Lincoln and his
Administration. By L. E. Chittenden, his Register of the Treasury.
New York: Harper & Bros. 1891.
_Clarke_: James Freeman Clarke. Autobiography, Diary, and
Correspondence. Edited by Edward Everett Hale. Boston and New York:
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1891.
_Coffin_: Abraham Lincoln. By Charles Carleton Coffin. New York:
Harper & Bros. 1893.
_Curtis’s Lincoln_: The True Abraham Lincoln. By William Eleroy
Curtis. Philadelphia and London: J. B. Lippincott Co. 1904.
* * * * *
_Davidson_: A Complete History of Illinois from 1673 to 1873. By
Alexander Davidson and Bernard Stuvé. Springfield: Illinois Journal
Co. 1874.
_Debates_: Political Debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A.
Douglas, in the Celebrated Campaign of 1858 in Illinois. Including
the preceding speeches of each at Chicago, Springfield, etc. Also
the Two Great Speeches of Abraham Lincoln in Ohio in 1859.
Cleveland: O. S. Hubbell & Co. 1895.
_Dodge_: Abraham Lincoln, the evolution of his literary style. By
Daniel Kilham Dodge. Champaign, Ill.: University of Illinois. 1900.
_Douglass_: Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. Written by
himself. His early life as a slave, his escape from bondage, and
his complete history to the present time. With an introduction by
Mr. George L. Ruffin of Boston. Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing
Co. 1881.
* * * * *
_Edmonds_: Facts and Falsehoods concerning the war on the South,
1861-1865. By George Edmonds. Memphis, Tenn.: Taylor & Co. 1904.
* * * * *
_Flower_: Edwin McMasters Stanton, the Autocrat of the Rebellion,
Emancipation, and Reconstruction. By Frank Abial Flower. Akron,
Ohio: The Saalfield Publishing Co. 1905.
_French_: Abraham Lincoln, the Liberator. A biographical sketch. By
Charles Wallace French. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. 1891.
* * * * *
_Gallaher_: Best Lincoln Stories, tersely told. By J. E. Gallaher.
Chicago: James E. Gallaher & Co. 1898.
_Gillespie_: Recollections of early Illinois and her noted men.
Read before the Chicago Historical Society, March 16, 1880. By Hon.
Joseph Gillespie, Judge of Circuit Court of Madison County
District. Chicago: Fergus Printing Co. 1880.
_Greeley_: Greeley on Lincoln. With Mr. Greeley’s Letters to
Charles A. Dana and a Lady Friend. To which are added reminiscences
of Horace Greeley. Edited by Joel Benton. New York: The Baker &
Taylor Co. 1893.
_Gridley_: The Story of Abraham Lincoln, or the Journey from the
Log Cabin to the White House. By Eleanor Gridley, Secretary of the
Lincoln Log Cabin Association. Copyright, 1902, by Eleanor Gridley.
_Gridley’s Defense_: Lincoln’s Defense of Duff Armstrong. The story
of the trial and the celebrated almanac. By J. N. Gridley. Reprint
from the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society: April,
1910.
* * * * *
_Hamlin_: The Life and Times of Hannibal Hamlin. By his grandson,
Charles Eugene Hamlin. Cambridge: The Riverside Press. 1899.
_Hanaford_: Abraham Lincoln: His Life and Public Services. By Mrs.
P. A. Hanaford. Boston: B. B. Russell & Co. 1865.
_Hapgood_: Abraham Lincoln, the Man of the People. By Norman
Hapgood. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1899.
_Hart’s Sketch_: A Biographical Sketch of Abraham Lincoln. By
Charles Henry Hart. Reprinted from the introduction to
Bibliographia Lincolniana. Albany: Munsell. 1870.
_Haynie_: The Captains and the Kings. Anecdotes and biographical
notes on contemporary celebrities. By Henry Haynie. New York:
Frederick A. Stokes Co. 1904.
_Herndon_: Abraham Lincoln. The True Story of a Great Life. By
William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik. With an introduction by
Horace White. Illustrated. In Two Volumes. New York: D. Appleton &
Co. 1896.
_Hill_: Lincoln, The Lawyer. By Frederick Trevor Hill. New York:
The Century Company. 1906.
_Hilliard’s Memoir_: Politics and Pen Pictures at home and abroad.
By Henry Washington Hilliard. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 1892.
_Hitchcock_: Nancy Hanks. The Story of Abraham Lincoln’s Mother. By
Caroline Hanks Hitchcock. New York: Doubleday & McClure Co. 1899.
_Hobson_: Footprints of Abraham Lincoln. Presenting Many
Interesting Facts, Reminiscences, and Illustrations Never Before
Published. By J. T. Hobson, D.D., LL.B., author of “The Lincoln
Year Book.” Dayton, Ohio: The Otterbein Press. 1909.
_Holland_: The Life of Abraham Lincoln. By J. G. Holland.
Springfield, Mass.: Gurdon Bill. 1866.
_Howells_: Lives and Speeches of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal
Hamlin. By W. D. Howells and John L. Hayes. Columbus, O.: Follett,
Foster & Co. 1860.
* * * * *
_Irelan_: The Republic; or A History of the United States of
America in The Administrations, From the Monarchic Colonial Days to
the Present Times. By John Robert Irelan, M.D. In Eighteen Volumes.
Chicago: Fairbanks and Palmer Publishing Co. 1888.
* * * * *
_Jayne_: Abraham Lincoln. Personal Reminiscences of the martyred
President. An address delivered by William Jayne to the Grand Army
Hall and Memorial Association, February 12, 1900. Chicago: The
Grand Army Hall and Memorial Assn. 1908.
_Jennings_: Abraham Lincoln, The Greatest American. By Janet
Jennings. Dedicated to the plain people of the Nation he saved--To
the University of Wisconsin that honors his memory. Copyright,
1909, by Janet Jennings. Madison, Wis.
_Jones_: Lincoln, Stanton, and Grant. Historical Sketches. By Major
Evan Rowland Jones. London: Frederick Warne & Co. 1875.
* * * * *
_Keckley_: Behind the Scenes. By Elizabeth Keckley, formerly a
slave, but more recently modiste, and friend of Mrs. Abraham
Lincoln. Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White
House. New York: G. W. Carleton & Co. 1868.
_Ketcham_: The Life of Abraham Lincoln. By Henry Ketcham. New York:
A. L. Burt Co. 1901.
_Koerner_: Memoirs. Life sketches written at the suggestion of his
children. By Gustav Philipp Koerner. Edited by Thomas J. McCormack.
2 Volumes. Cedar Rapids, Iowa: The Torch Press. 1909.
* * * * *
_Lamon_: The Life of Abraham Lincoln; from his Birth to his
Inauguration as President. By Ward H. Lamon. Boston: James R.
Osgood & Co. 1872.
_Lamon’s Recollections_: Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, 1847-65.
By Ward Hill Lamon. Edited by Dorothy Lamon. Chicago: A. C. McClurg
& Co. 1895.
_Larwood’s Humor of Law_: Humor of the Law. Forensic anecdotes. By
Jacob Larwood [pseudonym for L. R. Sadler]. London: Chatto &
Windus. 1903.
_Leland_: Abraham Lincoln and the Abolition of Slavery in the
United States. By Charles Godfrey Leland. New York: Merrill &
Baker. 1879.
_Lewis’s Great American Lawyers_: Great American Lawyers. A history
of the legal profession in America. (University Edition.) Eight
volumes. Edited by William Draper Lewis. Philadelphia: The John C.
Winston Co. 1907-1909.
_Liber Scriptorum_: The First Book of the Authors’ Club. Liber
Scriptorum. New York: Published by the Authors’ Club. 1893.
_Lincoln and Douglas_: Abraham Lincoln. A Paper Read before The
Royal Historical Society, London, June 16, 1881. By Hon. Isaac N.
Arnold, F.R.H.S. Stephen A. Douglas: An Eulogy Delivered before the
Chicago University, July 3, 1861. By Hon. James W. Sheahan.
Chicago: Fergus Printing Co. 1881.
_Lincolnics_: Familiar Sayings of Abraham Lincoln. Collected and
Edited by Henry Llewellyn Williams. New York and London: G. P.
Putnam’s Sons. 1906.
_Ludlow_: President Lincoln, Self-Pourtrayed. By John Malcolm
Ludlow. Published for the benefit of the British Foreign Freedmen’s
Aid Society. London: Alfred W. Bennett; Alexander Strahan;
Hamilton, Adams & Co. 1866.
* * * * *
_McCulloch_: Men and Measures of Half a Century. Sketches and
Comments. By Hugh McCulloch. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
1889.
_MacChesney_: Abraham Lincoln. The Tribute of a Century, 1809-1909.
Commemorative of the Lincoln Centenary and containing the principal
speeches made in connection therewith. Edited by Nathan William
MacChesney. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co. 1910.
_McClure’s Stories_: Abraham Lincoln’s Stories and Speeches. Edited
by J. B. McClure, A.M. Chicago: Rhodes & McClure Publishing Co.
1899.
_McClure’s Yarns_: “Abe” Lincoln’s Yarns and Stories. A complete
collection of the funny and witty anecdotes that made Lincoln
famous as America’s Greatest Story Teller. With introduction and
anecdotes by Colonel Alexander K. McClure of the Philadelphia
Times, a personal friend and adviser of the Story-Telling
President. The Story of Lincoln’s Life told by himself in his
stories. Wit and Humor of the War, the Courts, the Backwoods, and
the White House. Copyright by Henry Neil, 1901.
Magruder’s Marshall: John Marshall. By Allan B. Magruder. Boston:
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1899.
_Markens_: President Lincoln and the Jews. By Isaac Markens. New
York: Printed for the Author. 1909.
_Master_: Lincoln, Master of Men. A Study in Character. By Alonzo
Rothschild. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin Company. 1906.
_Merrick’s Narrative_: Old Times on the Upper Mississippi. The
Recollections of a Steam-Boat Pilot from 1854 to 1863. By George
Byron Merrick. Cleveland, Ohio: The Arthur H. Clark Co. 1909.
_Morgan_: Abraham Lincoln, The Boy and the Man. By James Morgan.
New York: The Macmillan Company. 1908.
_Morgan’s Henry_: The True Patrick Henry. By George Morgan.
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co. 1907.
_Morse_: Abraham Lincoln. By John T. Morse, Jr. Two volumes. Boston
and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1896.
* * * * *
_Newton_: Lincoln and Herndon. By Joseph Fort Newton. Cedar Rapids,
Iowa: The Torch Press. 1910.
_Nicolay_: A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln. Condensed from Nicolay
and Hay’s Abraham Lincoln. By John G. Nicolay. New York: The
Century Company. 1904.
_Nicolay’s Boys’ Life_: The Boys’ Life of Abraham Lincoln. By Helen
Nicolay. New York: The Century Company. 1906.
_Nicolay & Hay_: Abraham Lincoln, A History. By John G. Nicolay and
John Hay. Ten Volumes. New York: The Century Company. 1890.
* * * * *
_Oldroyd_: The Lincoln Memorial. Album-Immortelles. Original Life
Pictures, with autographs, from the hands and hearts of eminent
Americans and Europeans, contemporaries of the great martyr to
liberty, Abraham Lincoln. Together with extracts from his
speeches, letters, and sayings. Collected and edited by Osborn H.
Oldroyd. With an introduction by Matthew Simpson, D.D., LL.D., and
a sketch of the patriot’s life by Hon. Isaac N. Arnold. Chicago:
Gem Publishing House. 1883.
_Onstot_: Pioneers of Menard and Mason Counties. Made up of
personal reminiscences of an early life in Menard County, which we
gathered in a Salem life from 1830 to 1840, and a Petersburg life
from 1840 to 1850, including personal reminiscences of Abraham
Lincoln and Peter Cartright. By T. G. Onstot. Forest City,
Illinois: T. G. Onstot. 1902.
* * * * *
_Parkinson’s Tour in America_: A tour in America, in 1798, 1799,
and 1800. Exhibiting sketches of society and manners, and a
particular account of the American system of agriculture. By
Richard Parkinson. London: J. Harding. 1805.
_Paul_: Massachusetts’ practice with reference to proceedings
before masters and auditors, and their reports. Boston: Little,
Brown & Co. 1909.
_Phillips’s, Men who knew_: Abraham Lincoln, by some men who knew
him. Being personal recollections of Judge Owen T. Reeves, Hon.
Jas. S. Ewing, Col. Richard P. Morgan, Judge Franklin Blades, John
W. Bunn. With introduction by Hon. Isaac N. Phillips. Bloomington,
Ill.: Pantagraph Printing and Stationery Co. 1910.
_Pratt_: Lincoln in Story. The Life of the Martyr-President told in
Authenticated Anecdotes. Edited by Silas G. Pratt. Illustrated. New
York: D. Appleton & Co. 1901.
* * * * *
_Ram_: A treatise on facts as subjects of inquiry by a jury. Fourth
American Edition. Edited by John Townshend, and additional notes by
Charles F. Beach, Jr. Also appendix. New York: Baker, Voorhis & Co.
1890.
_Raymond_: The Life and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln,
Sixteenth President of the United States, together with his State
Papers. By Henry J. Raymond. To which are added anecdotes and
personal reminiscences of President Lincoln. By Frank B. Carpenter.
New York: Derby & Miller. 1865.
_Rice_: Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln. By distinguished men of
his time. Collected and edited by Allen Thorndike Rice. New York:
The North American Review. 1888.
_Salkeld’s Reports_: Reports in French and English, containing
cases heard and determined in the court of King’s Bench, during the
time that Sir Robert Foster, Sir Robert Hyde, and Sir John Kelyng
were chief Justices there, as also of certain cases in other courts
at Westminster during that time. 2d Edition. Two Volumes.
Translated into English by Mr. Serjeant Salkeld and others. London:
Browne. 1722.
_Schurz_: The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz. Three Volumes. New
York: The McClure Company. 1907-1908.
_Schurz’s Essay_: Abraham Lincoln. An Essay. By Carl Schurz. Boston
and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1892.
_Scripps_: Tribune Tracts No. 6. Life of Abraham Lincoln. Entered
according to act of Congress in the year 1860 by Horace Greeley and
Company in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United
States for the Southern District of New York.
_Selby_: Stories and Speeches of Abraham Lincoln. Including stories
of Lincoln’s early life, stories of Lincoln as a lawyer,
Presidential incidents, stories of the war, etc., etc. Lincoln’s
Letters and Great Speeches Chronologically arranged; with
Biographical Sketch by Paul Selby (Associate Editor of the
Encyclopedia of Illinois). Fully Illustrated. Chicago: Thompson &
Thomas. 1900.
_Sheppard_: Great Americans of History: Abraham Lincoln. A
Character Sketch. By Robert Dickinson Sheppard, D.D. With
supplementary essay, by G. Mercer Adam. Together with Anecdotes,
Characteristics, and Chronology. Milwaukee: H. G. Campbell
Publishing Co. 1903.
_Speed_: Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln and Notes of a Visit to
California. Two Lectures by Joshua F. Speed. With a sketch of his
Life. Louisville: John P. Morton & Co. 1884.
_Stephens_: Recollections of Alexander H. Stephens. His Diary, kept
when a prisoner at Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, 1865; giving
incidents and reflections on his prison life and some letters and
reminiscences. Edited, with a biographical study, by Myrta Lockett
Avary. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co. 1910.
_Stevens’s Black Hawk_: The Black Hawk War, including a review of
Black Hawk’s life. Chicago: Stevens. 1903.
_Stoddard_: Abraham Lincoln. The True Story of a Great Life. By
William O. Stoddard, one of President Lincoln’s Private
Secretaries during the War of the Rebellion. New York: Fords,
Howard & Hulbert. 1896.
_Stovall_: Robert Toombs. Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage. By
Pleasant A. Stovall. New York: Cassell Publishing Co. 1892.
_Stowe_: Men of Our Times, or Leading Patriots of the Day. Being a
narrative of the lives and deeds of Statesmen, Generals, and
Orators. By Harriet Beecher Stowe. Hartford: Hartford Publishing
Co. 1868.
_Sumner_: The Promises of the Declaration of Independence. Eulogy
on Abraham Lincoln, delivered by Charles Sumner before the
municipal authorities of the City of Boston, June 1, 1865. Boston:
Farwell & Co., Printers to the City. 1865.
* * * * *
_Tarbell’s Early Life_: The Early Life of Abraham Lincoln.
Containing many unpublished documents and unpublished reminiscences
of Lincoln’s early friends. By Ida M. Tarbell, assisted by J. McCan
Davis. New York: S. S. McClure. 1896.
_Tarbell_: The Life of Abraham Lincoln. Drawn from original sources
and containing many speeches, letters, and telegrams hitherto
unpublished. Two Volumes. By Ida M. Tarbell. New York: The
Doubleday & McClure Co. 1900.
_Thayer_: The Pioneer Boy and How He Became President. By William
M. Thayer. Boston: Walker, Wise & Company. 1864.
_Trevelyan’s Fox_: The Early History of Charles James Fox. By Sir
George Otto Trevelyan. New York: Harper & Bros. 1880.
* * * * *
_Ward_: Abraham Lincoln. Tributes from his associates.
Reminiscences of soldiers, statesmen, and citizens. With
introduction by The Rev. William Hayes Ward, D.D. New York: Thomas
Y. Crowell & Co. 1895.
_Whipple_: The Story-Life of Lincoln. A Biography composed of Five
Hundred True Stories, told by Abraham Lincoln and his friends,
selected from all authentic sources, and fitted together in order,
forming His Complete Life History. By Wayne Whipple. Memorial
Edition. Issued to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of Lincoln’s
Birth. Copyright, 1908, by Wayne Whipple.
_White_: Abraham Lincoln in 1854. An address delivered before the
Illinois State Historical Society. By Horace White. January 30,
1908. Illinois State Historical Society Publication.
_White, Money and Banking_: Money and Banking, illustrated by
American history. By Horace White. Boston: Ginn & Co. 1896.
_Whitney_: Life on the Circuit with Lincoln. With Sketches of
Generals Grant, Sherman, and McClellan, Judge Davis, Leonard Swett,
and other contemporaries. By Henry C. Whitney. Boston: Estes &
Lauriat. 1892.
_Whitney’s Life_: Life of Lincoln. By Henry C. Whitney. Edited by
Marion Mills Miller, Litt.D. Two Volumes: Vol. I., Lincoln, The
Citizen; Vol. II., Lincoln, The President. New York: The Baker &
Taylor Company. 1908.
_Williams_: The Burden Bearer, an Epic of Lincoln. By Francis
Williams. Philadelphia: Jacobs & Co. 1908.
_Wilson’s Washington_: George Washington. By Woodrow Wilson.
Illustrated by Howard Pyle. New York: Harper & Bros. 1905.
_Works_: Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln. Edited by John G.
Nicolay and John Hay. With a General Introduction by Richard Watson
Gilder, and Special Articles by Other Eminent Persons. New and
Enlarged Edition. Twelve Volumes. New York: Francis D. Tandy
Company. 1905.
NOTES
The author would have wished to acknowledge his indebtedness to the many
admirers of Abraham Lincoln who so cheerfully and readily replied to his
inquiries. The responsiveness of all to whom he applied for information
and particularly the eagerness with which collectors entrusted precious
pamphlets and scrap-books to him were a constant source of gratification
and encouragement.
In the following notes there are frequent references to secondary
authorities. They are given, not to authenticate what has been said on
direct authority, but for the convenience of readers and the service of
students. The reader may find one book more available than another; and
the student, who may wish to collate all that has been published on a
subject, will have at hand an adequate bibliography.
CHAPTER I
[i-1] Henry Pirtle, quoted in Herndon, i, 7. See, also, W. F. Booker,
in Barrett (New), i, 6; Irelan, xvi, 21.
[i-2] George B. Balch in Browne, 87; Samuel Haycraft in Barrett (New),
i, 8; Rev. Thomas Goodwin, _ibid._, 115.
[i-3] Atkinson, 44-45.
[i-4] Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks were married near Beechland, in
Washington County, Kentucky, on the 12th of June, 1806.
[i-5] Usher F. Linder, who was born in Hardin County, Kentucky,
became a prominent Democratic leader in Illinois. Delivering a eulogy
of Lincoln in 1865 and speaking from his recollections of the old
Kentucky days, he said: “They were a good family. They were poor, and
the very poorest people, I might say, of the middle classes, but they
were true.”
[i-6] Sarah Lincoln was born February 10, 1807. The removal to Nolin
Creek is said to have occurred in the following year.
[i-7] Speed, 30; Browne, 489; Barrett (New), ii, 122-23; Morgan,
255-56.
[i-8] The reader who wishes to follow Thomas Lincoln in his migrations
is referred for some of the fuller accounts to: Lamon, 12-15, 19-22,
25-26, 73-75; Herndon, i, 15-18, 57-61; Holland, 24-26, 38-41;
Brockett, 37-40, 51-54, 57; Barrett, 21-24, 30-34; Barrett (New), i,
9-10, 12-14, 25-26; Brooks, 6, 8-13, 44-45; Browne, 42, 45-51, 80-85;
Tarbell’s _Early Life_, 40, 51-55, 94-101; Tarbell, i, 13-15, 18-19,
45-49, 59; Nicolay and Hay, i, 24-30, 45-47; Whitney’s _Life_, i,
21-28, 57-64; Stoddard, 10-18, 57-59; Coffin, 18-29, 46-49; Irelan,
xvi, 34-40, 64-65; Curtis’s _Lincoln_, 19-22, 26, 30; _Works_, vi,
26-31.
[i-9] Gridley, 47-48. For the story of a previous speculation, of a
similar nature, that resulted disastrously, see Dr. C. C. Graham in
Tarbell’s _Early Life_, 233; also, Hitchcock, 93-97, and Gridley,
47. The loss of the cargo by an accident to the vessel, however, as
told by Dr. Graham, bears a striking, perhaps suspicious resemblance
to what befell Thomas Lincoln (note 8) when he tried to move his
belongings by water from Kentucky to Indiana.
[i-10] Nancy Hanks Lincoln died at Little Pigeon Creek, Indiana, on
October 5, 1818, in her thirty-fifth year.
[i-11] Holland, 23; Arnold in Oldroyd, 33; Barrett (New), i, 16;
Browne, 43-44; Coffin, 28; Ketcham, 12; Hart’s _Sketch_, 5; L. S.
Portor, in the _Woman’s Home Companion_, February 1909, pp. 10, 64;
see, also, Speed, 19. Attention is called to the slight variations in
the language as reported by these several writers.
[i-12] In the Little Pigeon Creek cabin were Abraham, his sister
Sarah, and cousin Dennis Hanks, sometimes called Dennis Friend, whom
luckless chance had made a member of the Lincoln family. The Johnston
children comprised John D., Sarah, and Matilda.
[i-13] Thomas Lincoln and Sarah Bush Johnston were married on December
2, 1819. The episode of the debts is related in Barrett (New), i, 17;
Herndon, i, 26; Lamon, 29; Coffin, 31; McClure’s _Stories_, 272-74;
Tarbell’s _Early Life_, 52.
[i-14] But see charges or surmises that Thomas Lincoln, in his anxiety
to win Mrs. Johnston, had misrepresented conditions at home: Lamon,
11, 30-31; also Herndon, i, 27; Brooks, 28; French, 28; Leland, 18;
Irelan, xvi, 44; Hapgood, 9; Stoddard, 21-22, 24; Sheppard, 118. These
latter writers, following the lead of Lamon, have done so, apparently,
to explain what needs no historical explanation--an improvident
marriage; and Lamon quotes neither chapter nor verse for the faith,
or, more accurately speaking, the lack of faith, that is in him. On
the other hand, Cousin Dennis Hanks, though not always a trustworthy
witness, offers what look like sufficient reasons for the lady’s
course. “Tom,” he says, “had a kind o’ way with the women, an’ maybe
it was somethin’ she tuk comfort in to have a man that didn’t drink
an’ cuss none.” (Atkinson, 21.)
[i-15] Irelan, xvi, 26-27, 41; Lamon, 32; Leland, 20; Jones, 4;
Hapgood, 8; Janes, 7; E. I. Lewis in St. Louis _Globe-Democrat_,
February 12, 1899.
[i-16] Brooks, 28; Short Autobiography, in _Works_, vi, 27.
[i-17] Danville (Ill.) _News_, February 12, 1904.
[i-18] Probably Webster’s _American Spelling Book_, Dilworth’s
_Spelling Book_, Pike’s _Arithmetic_, Murray’s _English Reader_,
Scott’s _Lessons in Elocution_, and the _Kentucky Preceptor_. Lincoln
studied Kirkham’s _Grammar_ after he left home. See Dodge, 4-6;
Sumner, ix, 375; Scripps, 3; Herndon, i, 34, 44-45, note, 75-76;
Lamon, 37, note, 50; Hitchcock, 87; Atkinson, 18; Leland, 22; Browne,
70, 96; Brooks, 54; Morse, i, 19; Holland, 46; Tarbell’s _Early Life_,
124-25, 132; Tarbell, i, 66-67; Nicolay and Hay, i, 84; Nicolay,
25-26; Nicolay’s _Boy’s Life_, 36-37; Ketcham, 66; Howells, 29-30;
Irelan, xvi, 96-97; Stoddard, 70; Browne’s _Lincoln and Men_, i,
158-59; Jones, 8.
[i-19] Scripps, 3; Speed, 38; Herndon, i, 36; Lamon, 37, 57 note;
Tarbell, i, 29-34; Binns, 18-19; Atkinson, 23-27; Selby, 45; Stowe,
15; Nicolay and Hay, i, 35; Oldroyd, 33-34; McClure’s _Stories_,
22-23; Schurz’s _Essay_, 4-5; Chittenden, 433-34; Nicolay, 14;
Nicolay’s _Boy’s Life_, 23; Morse, i, 13; Swett’s _Reminiscences_,
in Rice, 459; Raymond, 22; Hobson, 30-31; Barrett (New), i, 23-24;
Arnold, 21; Brooks, 23-24, 29-30; Browne, 66-68; Holland, 31;
Morgan, 19-21; Whitney’s _Life_, i, 41-42; Tarbell’s _Early Life_,
69-71; French, 24-25; Hitchcock, 87-88; Leland, 22; Stoddard, 32-33,
36-37, 43; Sumner, ix, 375; Curtis’s _Lincoln_, 56-58; Beach, 8-9; H.
W. Mabie, in the _Chautauquan_, April, 1900, pp. 33-34, and in the
_Outlook_, February 20, 1904, pp. 454-55. See also _infra_, p. 331.
[i-20] According to most of our authorities this was the book by
Mason L. Weems, entitled _The Life of George Washington; with curious
anecdotes, equally honourable to himself and exemplary to his young
countrymen_. But Scripps (3), Raymond (21-22), Brockett (47), and
Holland (32) are apparently accurate in stating that the work was Dr.
David Ramsay’s _The Life of Washington_. It should be remembered that
Mr. Lincoln himself, looking with uncommon care through the advance
sheets of Scripps’s biography, published in 1860, made no correction
as to the name Ramsay there employed in connection with the anecdote.
Lincoln’s reference to Weems’s _Life_, moreover, in the speech at
Trenton (_Works_, vi, 150-51), indicates that he had read that book
during his early childhood--some years before he could as a “tall and
long-armed” youth have “made a clean sweep” of Crawford’s fodder-corn.
[i-21] Herndon, i, 52, note.
[i-22] For the fuller accounts of this episode see: Whitney’s _Life_,
i, 42-43; Arnold, 23; Raymond, 21-22; Lamon, 38, 50-51, 55, 66,
note; Scripps, 3; Holland, 31-32; Brockett, 47-48; Herndon, i, 37,
52, note; Stoddard, 37-38; French, 26; Irelan, xvi, 55-56; Brooks,
24-25; Barrett, 25-26; Browne, 67, 69-70; Bartlett, 116-17. A somewhat
fanciful narrative may be read in Thayer, 120-30, 177.
[i-23] Herndon, i, 29-31; Pratt, 11-12; Hapgood, 18-19. An instance of
truth-telling by Lincoln, regardless of impending punishment, quite
after the Weems manner, is related by Thayer (110-11), in his story
about the broken buck’s horn.
[i-24] Lamon, 71.
[i-25] How serious these abuses ultimately became may be inferred from
Merrick’s narrative (174-80), and from what Horace White says on the
subject, in _Money and Banking_, pp. 351-52:--
“The bewildering state of the paper currency before the Civil War
may be learned from the numerous bank-note reporters and counterfeit
detectors of the period. It was the aim of these publications to give
early information to enable the public to avoid spurious and worthless
notes in circulation. These were of various kinds: (1) ordinary
counterfeits; (2) genuine notes altered from lower denominations to
higher ones; (3) genuine notes of failed banks altered to the names
of solvent banks; (4) genuine notes of solvent banks with forged
signatures; (5) spurious notes, such as those of banks that had no
existence; (6) spurious notes of good banks, as 20’s of a bank that
never issued 20’s; (7) notes of old, closed banks still in circulation.
“The number of counterfeit and spurious notes was quite appalling,
and disputes between payer and payee as to the goodness of notes were
of frequent occurrence, ranging over the whole gamut of doubts,--as
to whether the issuing bank was sound or unsound, whether the note
was genuine or counterfeit, and, if sound and genuine, whether the
discount was within reasonable limits.”
[i-26] For a severe, though manifestly biased comment on the bad money
episode, so far as it concerned Lincoln, see Edmonds, 47-48.
[i-27] Wilson’s _Washington_, 11-12.
[i-28] Hill, 219-20.
[i-29] New Salem, Illinois, when Lincoln took up his residence there
in the summer of 1831, was a busy little village of recent origin,
near the west bank of the Sangamon River, in the county of that name.
Its site--for the place has long since fallen into decay--is within
the present limits of Menard County, about twenty miles northwest of
Springfield.
[i-30] The anecdote is from Parkinson’s _Tour in America_, ii, 436-37
(London, 1805). Whether or not it had come under Lincoln’s notice we
have no means of knowing.
[i-31] William McNeely, in Oldroyd, 393-94; Browne, 104.
[i-32] John Rowan Herndon, in Herndon, i, 98.
[i-33] William G. Greene, in Browne, 116-17; and in Onstot, 81-83.
A more circumstantial account, based on correspondence with Greene,
may be found in Coffin, 73-76. See, also, Nicolay and Hay, i, 110-11;
Herndon, i, 98-99; Lamon, 136-37; Tarbell, i, 92; Tarbell’s _Early
Life_, 160; Holland, 54; Brooks, 66.
[i-34] Lincoln’s experience with Berry reminds one of Benjamin
Franklin’s trials with his partner Hugh Meredith, who was “often seen
drunk in the streets, and playing at low games in the ale houses.”
It is an interesting coincidence, moreover, that both Franklin and
Lincoln were aided, at these critical junctures, by generous friends.
[i-35] Dennis Hanks, in Atkinson, 50.
[i-36] Leonard Swett, in Rice, 465-66.
[i-37] At about the time Abraham Lincoln thus spoke to his creditors
in Illinois, a young man in far-away Maine named Hannibal Hamlin,
destined to share his electoral honors, used somewhat similar language
under corresponding circumstances. He had gone on the bond of a
certain deputy sheriff for four thousand dollars. That officer became
a defaulter, and the people who had claims against him looked to his
bondsmen. Hamlin, having called the creditors together, said: “My
friends, I have lived among you only a few years, but I think you know
that I keep my word. I am poor, young, and struggling for an honest
support for myself. This struggle will continue right among you, my
neighbors. I am unable now to meet this just debt; but if you will
give me time, and God will give me strength, I will pay off every
dollar I owe you, even if it takes me a lifetime to do it.”
He redeemed his promise to the last cent; but at what cost may be
inferred from his exclamation, many years later, in telling the story:
“Heavens! how long it kept my nose on the grindstone.”
A fuller narrative of the incident may be found in Hamlin, 46. For
another somewhat similar episode, in the early life of Andrew Jackson,
the reader is referred to Brady, 56-57.
[i-38] A patron of Samuel Hill’s store, Harvey Ross who carried the
mails, once told how he, as well as others, was impressed by Lincoln’s
straightforward methods. His narrative which belongs perhaps to this
period may be found in Onstot, 76-77.
“Mr. Lincoln,” said Ross, “was very attentive to business; was kind
and obliging to the customers, and they had so much confidence in
his honesty that they preferred to trade with him rather than Hill.
This was true of the ladies who said he was honest and would tell the
truth about the goods. I went into the store one day to buy a pair of
buckskin gloves, and asked him if he had a pair that would fit me. He
threw down a pair on the counter: ‘There is a pair of dogskin gloves
that I think will fit you, and you can have them for seventy-five
cents.’ When he called them dogskin I was surprised, as I had never
heard of such a thing before. At that time no factory gloves had
been brought into the county. All the gloves and mittens then worn
were made by hand, and by the women of the neighborhood from tanned
deerskins, and the Indians did the tanning. A large buckskin could be
bought for fifty to seventy-five cents. So I said to Lincoln: ‘How do
you know they are dogskin?’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ll tell you how I know
they are dogskin. Jack Clary’s dog killed Tom Watkins’s sheep, and
Tom Watkins’s boy killed the dog, old John Mounts tanned the dogskin,
and Sally Spears made the gloves, and that is the way I know they
are dogskin gloves.’ So I asked no more, but paid six bits, took the
gloves, and can truly say that I have worn buckskin and dogskin gloves
for sixty years and never found a pair that did me such service as the
pair I got from Lincoln.”
[i-39] Lincoln to George Spears, _Works_, i, 11. A facsimile of the
letter is reproduced from the Menard-Salem-Lincoln Souvenir Album, in
Tarbell, i, 97.
[i-40] Tarbell’s _Early Life_, 190, note.
[i-41] This kind act is attributed to James Short and one of the
Greenes,--whether Bowling or William G. appears to be in doubt. See
Lamon, 138-39, 149-50; Arnold, 41-42; Herndon, i, 114-15; Leland,
43-44; Barrett (New), i, 40; Morse, i, 42; Curtis’s _Lincoln_, 33-34;
Stoddard, 88-89; Irelan, xvi, 109; Tarbell, i, 105-06; Tarbell’s
_Early Life_, 188-90.
[i-42] William H. Herndon, Lincoln’s law partner, relates (Herndon, i,
100): “He was a long time meeting these claims, even as late as 1848
sending to me from Washington portions of his salary as Congressman
to be applied on the unpaid remnant of the Berry and Lincoln
indebtedness. But in time he extinguished it all, even to the last
penny.”
According to Nicolay (36): “It was not until his return from Congress,
seventeen years after the purchase of the store, that he finally
relieved himself of the last installment of his ‘national debt.’”
[i-43] Several decades thereafter, when reference was made in
President Lincoln’s hearing to the large tracts of valuable land
acquired by Surveyor-General Edward F. Beale, in California, the
Executive may be said to have suffered no twinges of conscience if he
remarked, as was reported: “Yes, they say Beale is monarch of all he
surveyed.”
[i-44] Henry McHenry, in Herndon, i, 113.
[i-45] The Grigsby affair. (Master, 16-17.)
[i-46] Frank E. Stevens, in _Magazine of History_, February, 1905, pp.
86-90.
[i-47] William G. Greene, who was present, so quotes Lincoln; but
Lamon (111) and Stevens (_Black Hawk_, 283) report him to have said:
“Boys, the man actually threw me once fair, broadly so; and the second
time, this very fall, he threw me fairly, though not so apparently so.”
[i-48] _Magazine of History_, February, 1905, pp. 86-90. See also
Stevens’s _Black Hawk_, 281-83; Oldroyd, 516-17; Browne, 112-13;
Lamon, 109-12; Herndon, i, 87-88; Nicolay and Hay, i, 94; Thayer,
239-40; Lincoln and Douglas, 194a-194b; Master, 39-40.
[i-49] The whole experience left a deep impression in Lincoln’s mind.
After his first nomination to the Presidency, he received one day a
delegation of college men, among whom was Professor Risdon M. Moore,
the son of Jonathan, that quondam referee.
“Which of the Moore families do you belong to?” inquired the
candidate, with a twinkle of the eye. “I have a grudge against one of
them.”
To which the Professor, with a still merrier twinkle, replied: “I
suppose it is my family you have the grudge against; but we are going
to elect you President, and call it even.”
Thereupon Mr. Lincoln, narrating to those who were present the story
of his defeat by Thompson, concluded with the words: “I never had been
thrown in a wrestling-match until the man from that company did it. He
could have thrown a grizzly bear.”
Nor did the reminiscences concerning that memorable encounter cease
there. Discussing former days with old friends who visited him at
the White House, President Lincoln several times referred to the
occurrence. One of these interviews is thus related by Mr. Greene:
“During the rebellion, in 1864, I had occasion to see Mr. Lincoln in
his office at Washington, and, after having recalled many of our early
recollections, he said, ‘Bill, whatever became of our old antagonist,
Thompson,--that big curly-headed fellow who threw me at Rock Island?’
I replied I did not know, and wondered why he asked. He playfully
remarked that if he knew where he was living, he would give him a
post-office, by way of showing him that he bore him no ill-will.”
[i-50] Henry McHenry, in Lamon, 154; Browne, 104.
[i-51] Confidence in Lincoln as an arbitrator continued through his
later career. This is evinced by the following telegram, quoted by
Hill (250) from the Orendorff collection:--
CHICAGO, Oct. 14, 1853.
To ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
Springfield, Ill.
Can you come here immediately and act as arbitrator in the
crossing case between the Illinois Central and Northern Indiana
R.R. Companies if you should be appointed? Answer and say yes if
possible.
(Signed) J. F. JOY.
[i-52] Address on Benjamin Ferguson, delivered at a meeting of the
Washington Temperance Society on February 8, 1842.
[i-53] Lincoln read this book during a series of visits that he made
for the purpose to the home of David Turnham, a constable, who owned
the volume. It was entitled: “The Revised Laws of Indiana, adopted
and enacted by the General Assembly at their eighth session. To which
are prefixed the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of
the United States, and the Constitution of the State of Indiana, and
sundry other documents connected with the Political History of the
Territory and State of Indiana. Arranged and published by authority
of the General Assembly. Corydon: Printed by Carpenter and Douglass.
1824.”
[i-54] Herndon, i, 52; Tarbell’s _Early Life_, 72.
[i-55] Alban Jasper Conant, in _Liber Scriptorum_, 172; and in
_McClure’s Magazine_, March, 1909, p. 514. That Lincoln’s picture
of close application was not overdrawn may be inferred from this
paragraph in Lamon (140), based on the recollections of an old
settler: “‘He used to read law,’ says Henry McHenry, ‘in 1832 or 1833,
barefooted, seated in the shade of a tree, and would grind around with
the shade, just opposite Berry’s grocery store, a few feet south of
the door.’ He occasionally varied the attitude by lying flat on his
back, and ‘putting his feet up the tree,’--a situation which might
have been unfavorable to mental application in the case of a man with
shorter extremities.” See, also: Nicolay and Hay, i, 112-13; Herndon,
i, 101-02; Browne, 121-23.
[i-56] Report of an interview by Albert B. Orr, with C. F. Warden, in
the McKeesport (Pa.) _Times_, February 12, 1909: also a letter from
Mr. Orr to the author.
[i-57] In response to the writer’s inquiries Henry B. Rankin of
Springfield, Illinois, at one time a clerk in Lincoln and Herndon’s
office, furnished a statement that is of topographical interest. The
communication was addressed to the Hon. James R. B. Van Cleave of that
city, through whose courtesy it is here published:
“The route Mr. Lincoln went over, in and out of Springfield from Salem
when he made his home in that village was entirely on the south side
of the Sangamon river, not the north as the travel from that vicinity
has been for the past fifty years. There was no bridge over the
Sangamon river in its entire length while Mr. Lincoln was at Salem.
The first bridge over this river was built in the early ’40s at the
then Carpenter’s Mills in this county. The next at Petersburg a few
years later, in the ’40s, and _via_ Athens in 1843.
“Mr. Lincoln’s trips to Springfield were usually made by the road
as now located, for the first few miles bearing south out from
Salem,--from that on into the city there have been more or less minor
changes since, at various places,--on to the junction with the present
‘Jacksonville and Springfield road,’ and _via_ it, entered the city on
the west. Quite occasionally he walked from Salem to Springfield, and
these trips were ‘across country,’ skirting the bluffs and breaks on
the south bank of the Sangamon river ‘as the crow flies,’--by shortest
angles, some five miles shorter trip in.
“I have heard Mr. Lincoln in the old Lincoln and Herndon law office
refer to these trips on foot into the city across the then unfenced
prairie and woods. So many writers about Mr. Lincoln’s early years
have traveled over the road from Springfield to Petersburg _via_
Athens,--now the nearest and always chosen one,--that you will please
pardon me for the stress I place on the difference between the two
roads. The road south of Salem across the ‘Rocky ford’ of ‘Rock
Creek,’ and several other streams,--then called ‘creeks,’ had to
bear westerly after leaving the Sangamon bottoms south of Salem, and
cross these creeks at the most favorable places between banks best
fitted to span crude bridges over. This made the ‘foot-path way’ from
Springfield to Salem, a much shorter one than the wagon road between
them. This wagon road as _then_ traveled was fully twenty-five miles
between Salem and the Capital City.”
[i-58] A reminder of this toilsome period is to be found, many years
later, in the letter addressed to J. M. Brockman:--
SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, September 25, 1860.
DEAR SIR: Yours of the 24th, asking “the best mode, of obtaining
a thorough knowledge of the law,” is received. The mode is very
simple, though laborious and tedious. It is only to get the
books and read and study them carefully. Begin with Blackstone’s
“Commentaries,” and after reading it carefully through, say twice,
take up Chitty’s “Pleadings,” Greenleaf’s “Evidence,” and Story’s
“Equity,” etc., in succession. Work, work, work, is the main
thing. Yours very truly,
A. LINCOLN.
[i-59] The Revised Laws of Illinois, edition of 1833, pp. 99-102, §1
and §9. Hill (57-58) is the only writer on Lincoln that has taken
notice of this prohibition.
[i-60] There appears to be some ground for controversy as to when
Lincoln was admitted to the bar. He, himself, preparing notes of his
life for the Scripps biography, sometime during 1860, wrote: “In the
autumn of 1836 he obtained a law license.” (See _Works_, vi, 33.)
And Jesse W. Weik, Herndon’s collaborator, referring to the records,
states (_Century Magazine_, June, 1904, p. 279): “The first step in
Lincoln’s legal career is thus set forth in an entry found in the
records of the Circuit Court of Sangamon County, Illinois, dated
March 24, 1836. ‘It is ordered by the Court that it be certified that
Abraham Lincoln is a person of good moral character.’ After this
necessary preliminary, as appears from the records of the clerk of the
Supreme Court, he was on September 9 duly licensed to practise in all
the courts of the State.”
But Hill (61) asserts: “He was legally qualified on March 24, 1836,
and his professional life properly dates from that day.”
Reaffirming this conclusion, Mr. Hill writes to the author: “There is
no doubt that Lincoln was legally admitted to practice March 24, 1836,
as is shown by the papers on file; but casting back to find out when
he was admitted to the bar, Lincoln undoubtedly relied upon the rolls
of attorneys for the year 1836, in which his name appeared September
9th of that year.”
Summarizing the facts, Judge John P. Hand, of the Illinois Supreme
Court, said in a Lincoln memorial address delivered on February 11,
1909: “He was licensed as an attorney, September 9, 1836, enrolled
March 1, 1837, and commenced practice April 21, 1837.” (See Illinois
Reports, ccxxxviii, 13; and MacChesney, 204.)
Yet beyond a doubt, Lincoln appeared as an attorney in actions at law,
previous to April 21, 1837. Following the rather offhand ways of the
day, he tried some cases at the bar, as we have seen, before all the
requirements for his admission had been complied with. The present
writer ventures the opinion that, according to statute, three steps
must have been taken before a person was, at this period, legally
qualified to practice as an attorney or counselor at law, within
the State. First, he had to obtain a certificate “of his good moral
character,” from a County Court; second, he had to secure a license
signed by two justices of the Supreme Court; and third, having taken
the oath of office, he had to have his name entered on the roll kept
by the clerk of that court. It was not, therefore, until Lincoln had
been formally enrolled that his career as a lawyer may correctly be
said to have begun. (See Revised Laws of Illinois for 1833, pp.
99-100; and a decision of the Supreme Court, December Term, 1840, in
the matter of E. C. Fellows, an attorney who had failed to have his
name enrolled--Illinois Reports, iii, 369.)
CHAPTER II
[ii-1] Nicolay, 53. See, also, Browne, 150-51; Coffin, 94.
[ii-2] This narrative of the interview has been collated from the
several accounts of it given by Mr. Speed at various times. See
Oldroyd, 145-46; Whitney, 16-17; Browne, 152-53; Clarke, 341-42;
Herndon, i, 175-76. See, also, Arnold, 53-54; Brooks, 80; Coffin, 95;
Hapgood, 61-62.
[ii-3] There are a number of variations in the different accounts of
this episode, but the essential facts appear to be as here related.
Comprehensive versions are given by Arnold, 39-40; Stowe, 19-20;
Holland, 55-56; Browne, 119-20; Onstot, 89-90; Brockett, 710; Jayne,
10; Noah Brooks, in _Harper’s Magazine_, July, 1865, p. 226.
[ii-4] According to Major Stuart, Lincoln was his partner from April
27, 1837, to April 14, 1841; Judge Stephen T. Logan’s, from April
14, 1841, to about September 20, 1843; and William H. Herndon’s,
from about September 20, 1843, until the death of Mr. Lincoln. There
appears to be some ground for the belief that the last partnership was
formed some months later than is here stated.
[ii-5] The oft-repeated statement that Lincoln disdained to keep
accounts has, in his case as in that of another eminent lawyer,
Patrick Henry, been confuted by the evidence of the fee-books
themselves.
[ii-6] Onstot, 58.
[ii-7] The parallel between Lincoln and his running mate in the
successful canvass of 1860 might be drawn at this point also.
Referring to Hamlin’s early days in the practice of law, his
biographer says: “He handled a good deal of money belonging to his
clients, and it often happened that they did not call for it until
some time after it had been collected. Mr. Hamlin, therefore, had
at times considerable sums of money in his possession, and on one
occasion he told a friend what disposition he made of such money and
his reasons. He said, ‘When I collect money for a client, I inclose
it in an addressed package, and lock the package up in my trunk until
it is called for. I will not touch or use that money for my purposes
under any circumstances, unless, of course, the owner should authorize
it. The money belongs to the owner. I have no more right to use it,
even if I could replace it in five minutes, than I would have to take
money that he might happen to have in his pocket-book.’” (Hamlin, 45.)
[ii-8] This principle was recognized as early as Cicero’s time.
In his _Ninth Philippic_, eulogizing Servius Sulpicius, that most
profound of Roman advocates, the orator said, according to Forsyth’s
version: “He did not consider himself a lawyer rather than a servant
of justice, and his constant endeavor was to temper the severity of
law, by reference to principles of equity. He had less pleasure in
advising that actions should be brought, than in removing all cause
for litigation.”
[ii-9] _Works_, ii, 142. Lincoln’s comment--“the nominal winner is
often a real loser”--suggests the similarity between his advice and
that of Professor Porson, as expressed in that learned humorist’s mock
examination questions for students:--
“What happens if you win your cause?”
“You are nearly ruined.”
“What happens if you lose your cause?”
“You are quite ruined.”
[ii-10] Browne’s _Lincoln and Men_, i, 338; Browne, 220.
[ii-11] For a few of these stories the reader is referred to Onstot,
20; Stringer, i, 218; McClure’s _Yarns_, 380; Gallaher, 46-47;
_Lincolnics_, 30-31; MacChesney, 299-300; Depew’s _Speech_, February
12, 1909, pp. 6-7; Dr. George M. Angell, in Bloomington (Ill.)
_Pantagraph_, February 12, 1909.
Lincoln was not the only great lawyer concerning whom such anecdotes
might be told. The eminent New England advocate, Jeremiah Mason, is
said to have been equally successful in bringing about compromises.
“Mr. Mason,” writes one who knew him well, “magnified his position by
exerting all his influence to prevent litigation, or the commencement
of suits upon mere quibbles, or for the purpose of procrastination, or
to gratify personal vindictiveness, or retaliation. He was eminently
a peacemaker, and was instrumental in healing many a wound, and in
preventing the useless expenditure of money, by a set of litigants,
who were in the habit of annoying (employing?) lawyers to aid them
in schemes of malice or revenge.” (John P. Lord, quoted in Hillard’s
_Memoir and Correspondence of Jeremiah Mason_, 46.)