Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 1

by Michael Burlingame

  Logan had a brilliant mind but an unimpressive appearance. In 1843, an observer called him “the very personification of carelessness.”136 Gustave Koerner, who sat in the General Assembly with Logan, described him as “the most slovenly man, not only in the Legislature, but in the city of Springfield.” Although he was rich and owned a magnificent estate, he dressed shabbily, never wearing a necktie. In cold weather his headgear was a fur cap, which in the summer he replaced with a cheap straw hat. Completing his wardrobe were rough, coarse brogans, baggy pants, and coat. Hezekiah Morse Wead reported that when Logan “rises to speak, his mouth is filled with tobacco which he rolls over and stows away inside of his cheek, and spits forth as he get[s] excited in small punches from his filthy mouth.”137 People were astonished that such an eminent lawyer would dress so shabbily and have traces of tobacco juice streaking his face.

  Wead, a fellow delegate to the 1847 Illinois constitutional convention, voiced some other negative feelings people had about Logan. Wead confided to his diary that Logan was clever and skillful but given to “sophistry.” Shallow, even devious, he was “always specious, frequently ingenious and sometimes powerful, but his great forte is in making a skillful use of men’s prejudices.… Sometimes he approaches a subject boldly, probes it to the bottom and handles it like a man of intellect, but such instances are rare, and only occur where the subject itself is not deep or obscure. He has always, an argument calculated to draw the mind from deep and useful investigation—he plays around the true question, raising collateral issues, and deceiving men with straws and chaff, while the grain is not seen.… His mind is limited to a certain sphere, but in that limit he is superior. Quick of apprehension, possessing a happy faculty of compassion, and great knowledge of the prejudices of men, he is calculated to exercise & does exercise a great influence: but with all his influence and all his tact he is utterly unable to comprehend the strength of a powerful intellect or the superiority of a mind which towers immensely above his own.”138

  Logan also lacked a winning personality, for he had a volatile temper and was notoriously tightfisted. Herndon called him “a little shriveled-up man,” who was “cold, ungenerous, snappy, [and] irritable” and who died “without a warm friend in the world.”139

  Logan and Lincoln became close friends personally and politically despite their different values. Logan cared a great deal about money and made lots of it, while Lincoln did not care about it and made comparatively little. Logan revered the law while Lincoln regarded a legal career as simply the means to facilitate a political career.

  In Logan’s view, Lincoln had not systematically studied law under Stuart, who was, he said, “never a reader of law; he always depended more on the management of his case.” Consequently, Lincoln’s approach was piecemeal and lacked deep understanding. Despite a few years of successful practice, “Lincoln’s knowledge of the law was very small when I took him in,” Logan maintained. “He would work hard and learn all there was in a case he had in hand” and thereby “got to be a pretty good lawyer though his general knowledge of law was never very formidable.” After joining forces with Logan, Lincoln “turned in to try to know more and studied to learn how to prepare his cases.”140 (To William H. Herndon, Lincoln explained: “As I am constituted I don’t love to read generally, and as I do not love to read I feel no interest in what is thus read. I don’t, & can’t remember such reading. When I have a particular case in hand I have that motive, and feel an interest in the case.”)141

  For three years Lincoln worked with Logan, who taught his young partner a great deal. The older man also shared Lincoln’s natural inclination to act as a peacemaker, for Logan discouraged litigation and tried to resolve controversies amicably.

  Logan may have influenced Lincoln’s approach to jury trials. Joseph Wallace found it “entertaining and instructive” to watch Logan argue a case to a jury: “Resting one foot on a chair, he commences with a few commonplace remarks uttered in a clear conversational tone.” Then he “lays hold of the leading facts and strong points of his case, states them with singular perspicuity and force, dwells on them at length, and presents them from every standpoint favorable to his client.” As “he warms to his work,” his “small frame involuntarily assumes a more erect and impressive attitude; his gestures become more rapid; his shrill voice is pitched to a higher key; his gray eyes glow with animation; every muscle is at play, and every energy of his nature aroused, while words, sentences, arguments, illustrations, appeals, flow in torrents from his lips.”142

  Such performances inspired Lincoln, who said “that it was his highest ambition to become as good a lawyer as Logan.”143 He described Logan as “the best nisi prius [i.e., trial] lawyer he ever saw,” one who could “make a nice distinction in the law, or upon the facts, more palpable to the common understanding, than any lawyer he ever knew.”144 Lincoln wrote that Logan was “almost a father to me”; he felt for Logan a reverent affection that he never felt for his biological father.145

  Under Logan’s tutelage, Lincoln expanded his legal horizons to include practice in the Federal Courts and the Illinois Supreme Court, both of which had transferred operations to Springfield from Vandalia in 1839. Of the 411 Supreme Court cases that Lincoln appeared in during his twenty-four-year legal career, a substantial number were tried during his brief partnership with Logan. In response to the hard times following the Panic of 1837, Congress enacted a short-lived bankruptcy law in 1841 to relieve debtors, many of whom enlisted the services of Logan and Lincoln. They handled seventy-seven such cases, more than any other firm in Springfield and the fourth largest number of any firm in the state.

  Logan stopped riding the circuit when he joined forces with Lincoln, who traveled not only the Eighth Judicial Circuit but also many other counties, among them Coles, where his stepmother and father resided. He ventured as far east as Clark County along the Indiana border and as far west as Madison County on the Mississippi River. At first, Logan and Lincoln occupied an office across from Hoffman’s Row; in 1843, they moved to the Tinsley building on the southeast corner of the public square. Of the roughly 850 cases they were involved in, 70 percent related to debt collection.

  In the winter and spring of 1841, Lincoln avoided Mary Todd, much to her distress. He may even have considered leaving the country; on March 5, John Todd Stuart recommended him for the post of chargé d’affaires at Bogotá, Colombia. In June, Mary lamented to a friend that Lincoln “deems me unworthy of notice, as I have not met him in the gay world for months.” She consoled herself with the knowledge “that others were as seldom gladdened by his presence as my humble self.” Yet, she confessed, “I would that the case were different, that he would once more resume his Station in Society, that ‘Richard should be himself again,’ much, much happiness would it afford me.”146 According to her cousin Martinette Hardin, Mary Todd wanted Lincoln back because she had “made up her mind that he should marry her at the cost of her pride to show us all that she was not defeated.”147

  While ignoring Mary Todd, Lincoln sometime in 1841 briefly courted Sarah Rickard, the sister of Mrs. William Butler (née Elizabeth Rickard). He had often seen Sarah at the Butlers’ house, where he boarded between 1837 and 1842. She was only 12 years old when they first met; four years later he seriously paid her court and proposed marriage, remarking that since she was named Sarah, she was destined to marry Abraham. She rejected the offer because, as she later explained, “his peculiar manner and his General deportment would not be likely to fascinate a young girl just entering the society world.”148 The fatherly qualities that appealed to Mary Todd were lost on Sarah, who thought of him as a big brother, not a potential mate.149

  In the summer of 1841, Lincoln spent six weeks in Kentucky with Joshua Speed at his family’s stately home, Farmington, near Louisville. There his spirits revived as he enjoyed the Speeds’ gracious hospitality, the luxurious appointments of a house far grander than any he had lived in, the companionship of his closest friend, the maternal wa
rmth of Speed’s mother, the playfulness of Speed’s older half-sister Mary, and the intellectual stimulation provided by Speed’s brother, James. Years later James recalled: “I saw him daily; he sat in my office, read my books, and talked with me about his life, his reading, his studies, his aspirations.” Lincoln impressed everybody at Farmington “with his intelligent, vigorous mind, strong in grasp, and original” and showed himself to be “earnest, frank, manly, and sincere in every thought and expression. The artificial was all wanting.”150 (In 1864, Lincoln would appoint James Speed attorney general of the United States.)

  An example of the qualities that endeared Lincoln to the Speed family was his conduct at dinner one evening at which mint jelly was served to accompany the mutton. Unfamiliar with that condiment, he helped himself to all of it. When another container of jelly was brought out, he noticed that each of the other diners took only a small amount. Without embarrassment he said with a quiet laugh, “I seem to have taken more than my share.”151

  When it came time to leave, Speed’s mother gave Lincoln an Oxford Bible, which she called “the best cure for the ‘Blues.’ ”152 In late October 1841, Joshua Speed reported that since Lincoln’s return to Springfield, “he has been eminently successful in his practice” and “is in fine spirits and good health.”153 Three months later, Lincoln cheerfully told Speed that he recently had “been quite clear of hypo.”154

  Lincoln soon found an opportunity to return the Speeds’ kindness, for just as he was recovering from his romantic misadventures with Mary Todd, Joshua Speed, who was highly susceptible to Cupid’s arrows, found himself tormented by an affair of the heart. He had fallen in love with a young neighbor, Fanny Henning, and impulsively proposed to her. When she accepted, however, instead of joy, Speed endured “immense suffering” because he doubted that he really loved her.155 Now Lincoln played counselor and emotional nursemaid to Speed, reversing their earlier roles, writing him several letters that reveal as much about their author as they do about their recipient. He assured Speed that his anxiety was groundless, rhetorically asking his doubt-torn friend: “How came you to court her? Was it because you thought she desired it; and that you had given her reason to expect it? If it was for that, why did not the same reason make you court Ann Todd [cousin of Mary Todd], and at least twenty others of whom you can think, & to whom it would apply with greater force than to her? Did you court her for her wealth? Why, you knew she had none. But you say you reasoned yourself into it. What do you mean by that? Was it not, that you found yourself unable to reason yourself out of it? Did you not think, and partly form the purpose, of courting her the first time you ever saw or heard of her? What had reason to do with it, at that early stage? There was nothing at that time for reason to work upon. Whether she was moral, aimiable, sensible, or even of good character, you did not, nor could not then know; except perhaps you might infer the last from the company you found her in. All you then did or could know of her, was her personal appearance and deportment; and these, if they impress at all, impress the heart and not the head. Say candidly, were not those heavenly black eyes, the whole basis of all your early reasoning on the subject?”156

  This document suggests indirectly that Lincoln had several doubts about wedding Mary Todd: that he persuaded himself that he loved her because she wanted and expected him to do so; that he feared he was interested in her wealth and social status; and that he had allowed his head to rule his heart.

  When Speed reported that he was deeply concerned about his fiancée’s health, Lincoln poignantly referred to his own experience as he tried to comfort his friend: “Why, Speed, if you did not love her, although you might not wish her death, you would most calmly be resigned to it. Perhaps this point is no longer a question with you, and my pertenacious dwelling upon it, is a rude intrusion upon your feelings. If so, you must pardon me.” Alluding to his own doubts about Mary Todd, he added: “You know the Hell I have suffered on that point, and how tender I am upon it.”157

  On February 15, 1842, despite his misgivings, Speed married Fanny Henning, prompting Lincoln to write yet another revealing letter: “I do fondly hope … that you will never again need any comfort from abroad. But should I be mistaken in this … still let me urge you, as I have ever done, to remember in the dep[t]h and even the agony of despondency, that verry shortly you are to feel well again. I am now fully convinced, that you love her as ardently as you are capable of loving. Your ever being happy in her presence, and your intense anxiety about her health, if there were nothing else, would place this beyond all dispute in my mind. I incline to think it probable, that your nerves will fail you occasionally for a while; but once you get them fairly graded now, that trouble is over forever. I think if I were you, in case my mind were not exactly right, I would avoid being idle; I would immediately engage in some business, or go to making preparations for it, which would be the same thing.”158 Lincoln seemed to be trying to persuade himself not to take seriously his doubts about Mary Todd, and if he should perchance succumb to them, he should immediately busy himself with some project.

  As the day of Speed’s wedding approached, Lincoln became agitated. When Speed wrote him shortly after the ceremony, Lincoln opened the envelope, as he reported, “with intense anxiety and trepediation—so much, that although it turned out better than I expected, I have hardly yet, at the distance of ten hours, become calm.” With relief he told Speed, “our forebodings, for which you and I are rather peculiar, are all the worst sort of nonsense.” Speed confided his fear that the Elysium of which he had dreamed “is never to be realized.” Lincoln reassured him that “it is the peculiar misfortune of both you and me, to dream dreams of Elysium far exceeding all that any thing earthly can realize. Far short of your dreams as you may be, no woman could do more to realize them, than that same black-eyed Fanny. If you could but contemplate her through my immagination, it would appear ridiculous to you, that any one should for a moment think of being unhappy with her. My old Father used to have a saying that ‘If you make a bad bargain, hug it the tighter’; and it occurs to me, that if the bargain you have just closed can possibly be called a bad one, it is certainly the most pleasant one for applying that maxim to.”159 Here Lincoln seemed to be telling himself that he should not be disappointed if Mary Todd did not measure up to his unreasonable ideal and that he should marry her even if the engagement was a “bad bargain.”

  In March 1842, when Speed informed Lincoln that he was much happier than he had anticipated, Lincoln rejoiced with him but confessed that his own pleasure in the newlyweds’ bliss was diminished by his guilty conscience, which continued to torment him about Mary Todd. Referring cryptically to “that fatal first of Jany. ’41,” he asserted that since that time, “it seems to me, I should have been entirely happy, but for the never-absent idea, that there is one still unhappy whom I have contributed to make so. That still kills my soul. I can not but reproach myself, for even wishing to be happy while she is otherwise.”160

  In July, Lincoln again confided to Speed misgivings about breaking his engagement to Mary Todd. He said he could not follow Speed’s (unidentified) advice yet: “I must regain my confidence in my own ability to keep my resolves when they are made. In that ability, you know, I once prided myself as the only, or at least the chief, gem of my character; that gem I lost—how, and when, you too well know. I have not yet regained it; and until I do, I can not trust myself in any matter of much importance.” With characteristic fatalism and passivity in matters of the heart, he declared that his own course was now to obey the injunction of Moses: “Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.”161

  Near-Duel

  While awaiting a sign from the Almighty, Lincoln accepted a challenge to fight a duel, an act that he later called “the meanest thing he ever did in his life.”162 In August and September 1842, the Sangamo Journal ran three letters signed by “Aunt Rebecca” of “Lost Townships” ridiculing the Democratic leader James Shields. An impetuous, hot-tempered, 36-year-old native
of Ireland, Shields was a lawyer with a reputation as an exceptionally vain and ambitious egotist. His behavior at times scandalized polite society. In 1849, he wrote a letter to his opponent for a U.S. senate seat, Judge Sidney Breese, threatening to kill him. In court one day he smashed another attorney over the head with a legal tome, exclaiming: “If you have no law in your head I’ll bate some into it.”163

  In August 1842, Shields, the state auditor, announced that his office would no longer accept in payment of taxes any notes issued by Illinois’s state bank. Written the day after this order was published, the second “Rebecca” letter, which Lincoln was to acknowledge as his handiwork, ridiculed Shields as a “conceity dunce” and “a fool as well as a liar” with whom “truth is out of the question, and as for getting a good bright passable lie out of him, you might as well try to strike fire from a cake of tallow.” The letter also poked fun at Shields’s manliness and vanity, having him say to a group of young women: “Dear girls, it is distressing, but I cannot marry you all. Too well I know how much you suffer; but do, do, remember, it is not my fault that I am so handsome and so interesting.”164

  Enraged, Shields demanded the author’s identity. When Lincoln confessed, the feisty Irishman insisted on a retraction and an apology, alleging that “I have become the object of slander, vituperation and personal abuse, which were I capable of submitting to, I would prove myself worthy of the whole of it.”165 Indeed, he had become such a laughingstock in Springfield that people on the street teased him about it. His law partner, Gustave Koerner, thought that nobody “of the least spirit could have taken those insults without seeking satisfaction, even by arms, if necessary.” Shields, Koerner explained, “was a young man who had his reputation for honesty at stake; and to have in addition his personal features and peculiar habits ridiculed in a small but select society in which he daily moved was more than even a saint could have borne.”166