Elizabeth, Frances, Ann, and their husbands would join them for dinner that evening, but Emilie had time to warm herself by the fire with a cup of tea before Mary showed her to her room and helped her settle in. “You have arrived in the midst of a very busy season,” her elder sister said happily as she helped her unpack. “So many Christmas parties and balls and dinners await you! Tonight’s dinner will seem quiet in hindsight.”
But the social calendar was not all that kept Mary occupied those days, she explained. Abe was in the midst of another campaign.
“I thought he had left politics to focus on his new law practice,” said Emilie, surprised. She knew that after his single term in Congress, he had hoped to be appointed to certain political patronage positions; the posts he was interested in had gone to other men, however, and instead he had been offered the position of governor of the Oregon Territory. Mary frequently had intense flashes of intuition that had proved true more often than not through the years, and she had insisted that accepting that post would ruin any chance he had of becoming president one day. Whether Abe had trusted her clairvoyance or simply had not wanted to uproot the family, Emilie could only guess, but he had declined the appointment. As far as Emilie knew, he had not actively sought any role in government since then.
“It’s true that the law has taken up most of his time,” said Mary. “He grew tired of working as our cousin’s junior partner, so he decided to start a new firm and hire a junior partner of his own.” She made a face. “Regrettably, he chose that dreadful William Herndon, the one who tried to flatter me by saying I danced with the grace of a serpent.”
Emilie laughed. “I hope Mr. Herndon is more eloquent in the courtroom than in the ballroom.”
“Even if he were not, I don’t think Abe would mind. He insists upon splitting all his fees with Mr. Herndon fifty-fifty. And yet when Abe was my cousin Stephen’s junior partner, his cut was only a third.”
“Your Abe is very generous.”
“To a fault. Mr. Herndon does not deserve half the fees. He is not half the lawyer my Abe is, nor one-quarter the man.”
Emilie glanced up from arranging folded stockings in a bureau drawer, her eyebrows rising. Apparently, Mr. Herndon’s clumsy remark still stung, years later. Ma had said that Mary never forgot an affront; perhaps that was no exaggeration.
Dismissing Mr. Herndon with the wave of a hand, Mary resumed hanging Emilie’s dresses in the wardrobe and explained how the passing of the Kansas-Nebraska Act had rekindled Abe’s interest in seeking political office. The act overturned the ruling of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had restricted the spread of slavery to territories south of Missouri’s southern border. For decades, the nation had been divided by a line running east-west between Southern slave states and Northern free states, and the status of new states depended entirely upon geography. The Kansas-Nebraska Act instead decreed that new states forming from territorial land would decide by popular vote whether to forbid or allow slavery.
“But isn’t that desirable?” asked Emilie. “It’s democracy, is it not, to put such decisions in the hands of the people?”
“Not if the people desire to perpetuate a monstrous injustice,” declared Mary, closing the wardrobe door firmly. “Slavery must not be permitted to spread beyond its current borders. Abe calls it a cancer.”
“My goodness,” said Emilie, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “A cancer?” What must Abe think of the Todds back in Lexington, of Emilie herself, for perpetuating it?
Mary regarded her levelly. “I was raised in a slaveholding family, as you were. I daresay I have more experience and knowledge about the ‘peculiar institution’ than my husband does. And I say he is not wrong, and we both believe that the majority of the people share his opinion. Even Ninian remains firmly against slavery, despite switching parties to become a Democrat, more fool he.”
Emilie managed a shaky laugh. “Ma would not like to hear that Abe is an abolitionist.”
“I see no need to tell her.” Mary shrugged indifferently. “It would not change a thing. We are not ruled by her opinions.”
She went on to explain that Abe had been inspired when another Todd cousin, Cassius Clay, had campaigned against the Kansas-Nebraska Act in Illinois, declaring that Whigs, Free-Soilers, and like-minded Democrats must unite in order to prevent the insidious spread of slavery. He had been moved, too, by transcripts of speeches by Frederick Douglass, the former slave turned abolition activist, who lamented that his people had no Stephen Douglas on their side, only truth, justice, and their humanity. For as it happened, Mary’s former beau and Abe’s longtime rival had become one of the act’s fiercest advocates.
In late summer, Abe had embarked on a speaking campaign to denounce the expansion of slavery, and the reception to his speeches had convinced his supporters in Springfield to put his name forward as a candidate for state representative. More than that, they had published an announcement of his candidacy, without his knowledge or consent, while he was out of town and unable to intervene. He had had other ambitions, but when the unendorsed announcement had met with great enthusiasm, his friends and supporters had prevailed upon him to keep his name in the race. On November 7, he had been elected to the Illinois legislature once more.
“Why, that’s wonderful, Mary,” exclaimed Emilie. Although they disagreed on the slavery question, she knew Abe to be a man of unmatched intelligence and integrity, well deserving of such a distinguished position. “When will he be seated?”
“He won’t be,” said Mary. “Not three weeks later, he formally declined the office. You see, it is against the law in our state for a legislator to be elected to the United States Senate, and that is the office to which he aspires.”
Emilie gasped. “He turned down the seat he won in the Illinois legislature so he may campaign for senator?”
“It is a risk,” Mary acknowledged, but her face glowed with the certainty that it was a risk worth taking. “He may end up with nothing, having sacrificed one office to pursue the other. And yet, the enthusiastic crowds he meets on his speaking tours are so strongly with him that he believes he has an excellent chance to win.”
The question would be settled in a special legislative election to replace the incumbent senator at the end of January. In the meantime, the work of winning over the legislators who would choose the next senator of Illinois awaited. Fortunately, brother Abe would not have to toil alone. In addition to his friends and political colleagues, he had Mary, who brought pertinent newspaper articles to his attention, discussed the issues with him, and helped him clarify policies and create strategy. When he traveled, she kept her ear tuned to gossip, distinguished between truth and rumor, and briefed him on relevant matters upon his return. Abe preferred to rehearse his speeches aloud, and Mary, who would listen intently, pose insightful questions, and offer suggestions, was the ideal first audience. She could not accompany him as he worked the halls of the statehouse, garnering support and observing the competition, but she could help him prepare.
Emilie often sat in on these practice sessions, and she marveled not only at Abe’s masterful oratory and Mary’s keen grasp of complex issues, but at the way the couple worked together, so different in personality and yet so harmonious. She could not imagine Papa and Ma collaborating in this way, and it made her wonder if she should not aspire to a more egalitarian marriage than theirs, the example she knew best and, until now, had assumed she would emulate.
As fascinating as it was, Emilie spent relatively little time observing Abe and Mary prepare for the election, for as Mary had promised, she had arrived when the social season was in full swing. With Mary as her indulgent chaperone and adviser on everything from attire to hairstyling to witty conversation, Emilie embarked on a delightful whirlwind of balls, dinners, soirees, and sleighing parties. She befriended several charming young ladies and found herself much admired by many young gentlemen, all of whom were pleasant enough, and handsome enough, and good enough dancers, but n
one of whom made her heart beat faster or became the subject of pleasant daydreams.
As much as she enjoyed being, as Mary proudly proclaimed her, the loveliest belle in society that season, Emilie also welcomed quieter, more intimate gatherings with her sisters and their families. The Todd sisters met at least one afternoon a week for tea in Ann’s parlor, and every Sunday the sisters, husbands, and children met for dinner in Elizabeth’s grand dining room. Emilie delighted in her young nieces and nephews, and she cheerfully took her needle in hand to help prepare the trousseau for Julia’s June wedding.
“By then you may have your own betrothal to announce,” Ann teased as the sisters sat together sewing one snowy afternoon in mid-January. Emilie blushed and her sisters smiled, but her heart sank a little too. She had met nearly all the eligible young gentlemen in Springfield, and while many of them were perfectly adequate, she did not truly fancy any of them, not in the way she had so romantically imagined when she was counting the days until her eighteenth birthday and the commencement of her glorious adventure in Springfield.
Meanwhile, the election provided a fascinating distraction. The sense of anticipation that had graced her visit from the beginning intensified as the end of January approached. On the day of the election, Emilie woke to discover a blizzard raging outside her window, but her distress quickly eased when Abe told her that the vote had been postponed a week and a day. The interval dragged by, provoking anxiety and dread in the household where there had been almost none before.
Finally, on February 8, Emilie joined Mary to observe the election from the statehouse gallery, which fairly crackled with eagerness and urgency intensified by the delay. By his best estimate, Abe judged himself a few votes shy of the majority required, but he hoped to gain support from one round of balloting to the next.
After the first ballot, Mary squeezed Emilie’s arm and pressed her lips together in a valiant effort to contain her jubilation. Abe was only six votes shy of victory, and since no candidate had claimed a majority, another vote would be called, in which he was sure to acquire more support. After the next round, however, as legislators’ loyalties shifted, he tallied a net loss of two votes. In the third round, he lost two more. On and on it went for hours, the atmosphere increasingly tense and frantic, as candidates lost and gained ground and one and then another seemed moments away from capturing the majority.
Then, on the seventh ballot, one of the four candidates withdrew from the race and pledged his votes to Lyman Trumbull, who, like Abe, was against the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Trumbull now commanded more votes than Abe had ever won on any balloting, and in the eighth round he received eighteen more. All the while, Governor Joel Matteson, the leading Democratic candidate, was steadily gathering more votes from the act’s advocates. It seemed inevitable that if the anti–Kansas-Nebraska Act voters could not consolidate their support behind a single candidate, the proslavery candidate would win.
“My husband is going to sacrifice himself,” Mary murmured tensely near Emilie’s ear, a catch in her voice. Moments later, he did precisely that, pledging his fifteen votes to his rival Whig to ensure that an abolitionist would achieve a majority and win the election.
Even Emilie, political neophyte that she was, recognized this as a tremendous show of party loyalty and a significant personal sacrifice on her brother-in-law’s part. It was only afterward, as the session was adjourned and the men were leaving the statehouse, that he learned how his opponents had arranged their sudden shift of votes to a single candidate ahead of time, hoping that it would be enough to capture the majority. Their gambit had failed, but only because Abe had put the greater good ahead of his own advancement.
He had bet his seat in the state legislature on the senatorial election, and he had lost both.
In the days that followed, Abe seemed more relieved that the ordeal was over than regretful that he had not won. “The agony is over at last,” he said ruefully the next morning when Emilie gently asked him how he was feeling. “It was rather hard, but perhaps it will be better for the cause that Trumbull was elected.”
“Take heart, brother Abe,” Emilie consoled him. “From the ashes of disappointment, a great triumph may yet arise.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, Little Sister,” he said, a fond smile slowly brightening his face.
She reminded herself of that aphorism as summer came and she was no closer to a betrothal than the day she had arrived. In June the Todd sisters and their families celebrated Julia Edwards’s marriage to Edward L. Baker, a lawyer, a friend of Abe’s, and the editor and co-owner of the Illinois State Journal. After that, in her letters from home, Ma began hinting, and then plainly declaring, that Emilie had perhaps overstayed her welcome. Although Mary insisted that she had not, Emilie realized that her visit to Springfield must draw to a close.
She returned to Lexington without a promise of marriage, without even the likelihood of a proposal. In the weeks that followed, Mary sent her many long letters full of news about the family and her new acquaintances. She never failed to conclude with an invitation for Emilie to return to Springfield whenever she wished, whenever Ma consented.
As it happened, she did not need to, at least not for the reasons implied.
Soon after Emilie settled back into life at Buena Vista after so many months away, she was introduced to a young man at a ball, a gentleman who, in her eyes, surpassed all those she had met in Springfield. Benjamin Hardin Helm, a graduate of West Point from Hardin County, Kentucky, was so handsome—six feet tall, strong and fit, with a military bearing, ruddy complexion, attractive features, and penetrating blue eyes—that when he bowed over her hand for the first time, she was rendered nearly speechless. They began courting, and within a few months he declared himself to be deeply in love with her—not one bit more, she secretly believed, than she was in love with him.
They married at Buena Vista less than a year later, in March 1856, and were certain that joy and contentment would fill their hearts and their home for the rest of their lives. As brother Abe had once done, Ben served on the county circuit court. He and Emilie enjoyed each other’s company so much that they decided she would accompany him when he traveled rather than allow the circuit to part them, as it had too often parted Abe and Mary.
Thus from the ashes of her disappointment in Springfield arose the glorious triumph of marriage to the man she loved most dearly in the world.
Emilie fervently prayed that the old saying would prove as true for brother Abe as it had for her.
13
October–November 1875
Ann
Mary had been so pleasant, cheerful, and friendly to Ann since her return to Springfield that naturally Ann’s suspicions soared. They had never been as congenial as sisters were supposed to be, although they had become friendlier during the years Mary and Abe were married. Ann had always liked Abe, even when Elizabeth had her convinced that he was an unsuitable match for Mary—an absurd worry, as it had turned out. As for her own husband, Clark had admired Abe almost to the point of idolatry, especially after he ascended to the presidency. Perhaps, Ann mused, their fondness for Abe had helped her see Mary in a new light. She and Mary might have become quite close if Mary had not spoiled it by assuming an insufferably imperial manner after becoming first lady. Ann had complained to mutual friends that Mary expected them to address her as if she were Queen Victoria. Word eventually got around to her sister, who took great offense and assumed even more regal airs.
Now Ann did not know what to think. Earlier that spring, she had believed that Mary was feigning her illness in order to win sympathy from her family and the public, but especially from Congress, so that it would be moved to increase her pension. But upon seeing her after her release from the asylum, Ann had been shocked by her wan, aged appearance and subdued manner. Mary had always been vain and would not have let herself go, even to further a profitable scheme. The only plausible explanation was that she was too depressed to bother with the outward show that had
once meant so much to her.
Granted, Mary still cared about fashion, but her desire for new dresses and fine fabrics seemed obsessive to Ann, a symptom of her mental illness. She ordered dresses made up and never wore them, and then she turned around and purchased yards of fabric—always mourning black—and never had it made up into dresses. But when Ann suggested to Elizabeth that Mary’s urgent and persistent need to shop could be a mania, Elizabeth emphatically disagreed. “Her acquiring items, even if they’re unnecessary, is not excessive, considering what she can afford,” she said. “If we would all simply adopt a position of indifference to her spending, she might become less defensive and more willing to discuss it.”
When Ann remained skeptical, Elizabeth hastened to remind her how far Mary had come since she left the asylum. Her color was much better and her eyes were clear. She no longer fidgeted in her chair or jumped at the slightest sound. She enjoyed visiting friends and family, she was cordial and lucid when chatting with callers, and with her sisters she was more reasonable and gentler than she had been in years. “I have no hesitation in pronouncing her sane,” Elizabeth declared.
Ann let the argument drop. Elizabeth seemed determined to see only the good in Mary. Robert, on the other hand, was inclined to doubt that his mother was any better than when she had left Bellevue. “Her demeanor since the trial has shown that in general she is able to control her impulses if she has a reason to do so,” he replied after Ann wrote to warn him of Elizabeth’s revised assessment of his mother’s sanity. “She will appear rational until you bring up the subject of money, which draws her mania to the surface.”
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