Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 1

by Michael Burlingame

  This curious choice puzzled Lincoln’s friends and biographers, and even Herndon himself. Asked why Lincoln chose him, Herndon replied, “I don’t know and no one else does.”112 Residents of Springfield offered several different explanations. According to John W. Bunn, either John Todd Stuart or Joshua Speed had recommended Herndon to Lincoln, who accepted the suggestion “largely out of pity” for the young man. Herndon’s proslavery father, Archer G. Herndon, enraged by the antislavery enthusiasm his son had acquired at Illinois College, withdrew him from school and for all intents and purposes abandoned him.113

  Another Springfielder reported that “Lincoln took Herndon as a partner to save him from ruin, drink & women.”114 That hypothesis seems confirmed by Herndon’s acknowledgment that Lincoln “picked me out of the gutter and made a man of me. I was a drunkard till he took me in hand and kept me straight.”115 Lincoln’s sense of pity may have been aroused by Herndon’s relative poverty and by the shabby treatment he had suffered at the hands of his father, conditions to which Lincoln could easily relate. He may also have chosen Herndon because, unlike Logan or Stuart, the younger man would not be a political rival.

  Lincoln viewed Herndon as a surrogate son, a role for which the young man was well suited. Lincoln, Herndon said, was “truly paternal in every sense of the word” and was “the best friend I ever had or expect ever to have except my wife & mother.”116 Estranged from his hard-drinking, proslavery sire, Herndon went to live at the Springfield store of Joshua Speed, where Lincoln also roomed. In time, Herndon became a temperance zealot, perhaps as a gesture of rebellion against his father. Later he spoke of Lincoln as though he were a surrogate father, calling him “the great big man of our firm” and himself “the little one,” and remarking that the “little one looked naturally up to the big one.”117 Herndon recalled that Lincoln “moved me by a shrug of the shoulder—by a nod of the head—by a flash of the eye and by the quiver of the whole man.”118

  Lincoln looked after Herndon as if he were his own son. Once, when the junior partner lay ill for three months, some of Lincoln’s friends urged him to end the partnership. Lincoln “exclaimed vehemently: ‘Desert Billy! No, never! If he is sick all the rest of his days, I will stand by him.’ ”119 Herndon, perhaps recalling this episode, said that at one point he “had become so dissipated that some of Lincoln’s friends thought proper to advise a separation, but Lincoln, with great dignity, declined their counsel, and the manner of the act so moved Herndon as to sober him and endeared him to Lincoln forever.”120 Lincoln stood by Herndon for sixteen years, dividing fees equally with him. Only after the election of 1860 did the partnership end. The firm of Lincoln and Herndon would handle approximately 3,400 cases, of which half involved debt collection, and would argue on average fifteen cases annually before the Illinois Supreme Court. At first, Herndon was, as he later recalled, “inclined to lawyers[’] tricks false pleas—and so on. Lincoln strictly forbade it.”121

  Election to Congress

  Lincoln quietly launched a campaign for the 1846 congressional nomination eight months before the district convention was to assemble. On the circuit, he had been practicing law in five of the district’s counties—Sangamon, Logan, Menard, Tazewell, and Woodford—which together would have sixteen delegates at the nominating convention to be held at Petersburg on May 1. Lincoln counted on the eleven votes of Menard, Sangamon, and Logan, where he was especially well known and popular. If he could then add the six delegates from the district represented by Senator Robert S. Boal (comprising Tazewell, Woodford, and Marshall counties), he would have a majority. In the autumn of 1845 while in Lacon, he called on Boal, who said “it had always been his understanding since the Pekin convention” that Lincoln would be the nominee in 1846.122

  If Baker and Hardin would abide by the Pekin understanding of 1843, Lincoln seemed to have the nomination sewed up. In keeping with its terms, Hardin had stepped down in 1844 in favor of Baker, who won the seat. But Hardin was not so accommodating in 1846; despite the Pekin agreement, he intended to run for Congress once again. In September 1845, Lincoln called at his home in Jacksonville, where he reported Baker’s plans and asked about Hardin’s. Hardin equivocated. Two months later Lincoln reported that “Baker is certainly off the track, and I fear Hardin intends to be on it.”123 To preempt Hardin, who delayed announcing his candidacy, Lincoln obtained pledges from Whigs as he traveled the legal circuit that fall. He also urged leading Whig editors not to support Hardin. In response, the Tazewell Whig of Pekin, the Beardstown Gazette, the Illinois Gazette of Lacon, and the Sangamo Journal backed Lincoln’s candidacy; in the Seventh District, only one Whig paper—the Morgan Journal (in Hardin’s hometown of Jacksonville)—was opposed.

  When some Whig leaders urged Hardin to seek the gubernatorial nomination instead, he replied that he would prefer another term in Congress to the governorship, though he would not actively campaign for it. When Hardin accused Allen Ford, editor of the Illinois Gazette of Lacon, of trying to sidetrack his bid for Congress by raising the gubernatorial option, Ford explained that he “would gladly see” him reelected to the U.S. House “were it not that the impression has prevailed” that Hardin had, in keeping with the Pekin agreement, yielded to Baker in 1844 and would do the same for Lincoln in 1846.124 In response to a similar charge by Hardin, Lincoln denied it, pointing out that he had gone to the office of the Sangamo Journal “and told them it was my wish that they should not fall in with the nomination for Governor.”125 Hardin was reluctant to run for governor because no Whig stood much chance of winning statewide office in solidly Democratic Illinois.

  As Lincoln maneuvered for the congressional nomination, his political correspondence became so heavy that he enlisted the help of Gibson W. Harris, an aspiring law student clerking in the Lincoln-Herndon office. To Harris, Lincoln dictated letters to politicos throughout the district. When the young man suggested using a printed circular letter, Lincoln demurred, contending that such a document “would not have nearly the same effect; a written one had the stamp of personality, was more flattering to the recipient, and would tell altogether more in assuring his good-will, if not his support.” So Harris spent many days laboriously writing out more letters, each custom-tailored to the recipient.126

  In February, Lincoln did some politicking throughout the northern half of the district. Among the counties he targeted was Putnam, where hostility to slavery was strong, thanks in part to the efforts of the noted abolitionist Benjamin Lundy, who had settled there in 1838 and published his newspaper, The Genius of Universal Emancipation. When two Free Soilers, Thomas Alsop and Franklin King, asked Lincoln about slavery, they were, as King recalled, “so well pleased with what he said on the subject that we advised that our anti-slavery friend[s] throughout the district should cast their vote for Mr. Lincoln: which was genirally done.”127 (It is not known what Lincoln told them, but in October 1845, he had written an Ohio antislavery leader that he opposed the expansion of the peculiar institution into the western territories: “we should never knowingly lend ourselves directly or indirectly, to prevent that slavery from dying a natural death—to find new places for it to live in, when it can no longer exist in the old.”)128 King, Alsop, and their friends significantly helped Lincoln win the district. Once in Congress, Lincoln had King’s brother appointed register of the Springfield land office, much to the dismay of William Butler and some other Whigs. (The Liberty Party’s congressional candidate, Elihu Walcott, won only 2% of the vote in 1846.)

  Lincoln effectively argued that the Pekin understanding should be interpreted to mean that Hardin should not be nominated because he had already served his term in Congress. On January 7, 1846, Lincoln explained to Dr. Robert S. Boal that he would gladly have given way to Hardin if neither of them had been in Congress or if they both had been; but “to yield to Hardin under present circumstances, seems to me as nothing else than yielding to one who would gladly sacrifice me altogether.” Lincoln declared that “turn about is fair play” a
nd asked for “a fair shake.”129 Boal agreed, and when Hardin tried to enlist his support, the good doctor replied that while he admired and liked the former congressman, “I do not see how we can avoid adopting the maxim that ‘turn about is fair play’ so far as the 7th District at least is concerned, and whether right or wrong, this is my only reason for favoring the pretensions of Mr Lincoln.”130 Similarly, the Tazewell Whig, edited by Benjamin F. James, chairman of the Whig District Central Committee, declared in December 1845, “we unhesitatingly say that the motto of ‘turn about is fair play’ should be recognized in the future nomination for representative.”131 The following February, James’s paper said: “We conceive it due to Mr. Lincoln, that the people of this district should pay a substantial tribute to his worth, energy and patriotic exertions in behalf of Whig principles.”132

  This “fair play” argument prevailed. Ira J. Fenn, a resident of Lacon, informed Hardin that some of Lincoln’s backers “are endeavoring to impress upon the mind of the People that it is Lincoln[’]s right to have the office next Term” because “the doctrine of ‘taking turns’ was established by the Pekin Convention, that it has so far been acted on, that it is now Lincolns turn, that Hardin has had his turn, that it is due to Lincoln on account of his great services to the Whig party, on account of his talent & worth, that he is poor & Hardin is Rich, That This is the only Whig district, in short that this is the only crumb that a Whig politician can obtain in the State, and that no one deserves [it] more than Lincoln.” Though Fenn himself rejected the rotation-in-office principle, he told Hardin: “I shall not be surprised if the new doctrine should get a pretty good hold of the public mind. Its preachers make it appear plausible.”133 On January 12, P. N. Thompson of Pekin reported to Hardin that Lincoln had assiduously gathered pledges from prominent Whigs and that nobody “supposed here, until your letter was published, that you had any desire to again represent us in Congress.” Although Hardin might have made headway against Lincoln because of all his “ardent friends,” Thompson said that now the dominant sentiment was “ ‘Hardin is a good fellow and did us and himself great credit and honor by his course in Congress, Lincoln is also a good fellow and has worked hard and faithfully for the Party, if he desires to go to Congress let him go this time, turn about is fair play.’ This latter remark I hear made in the store daily.” Thompson also noted that Lincoln’s exhaustive travels on the circuit made him very widely known, and “from this fact would have an advantage over you.”134 The following month, John H. Morrison of Tremont told Hardin that “Lincoln spins a good yarn, is what we call a clever fellow, has mixed much with our Citizens; and has done much in sustaining Whig principles in Illinois,” and “our people think that it is Abraham’s turn now.”135

  Discouraged by such reports, Hardin tried to sow animosity between Lincoln and Baker by misrepresenting to each man what the other had said. In the autumn of 1845, Baker called on Hardin, who alleged that Lincoln had reported that Baker would not seek the nomination at all. This was in fact not what Baker had told Lincoln, nor was it what Lincoln reported to Hardin. (Baker had promised not to oppose Lincoln but said he would resist any attempt by Hardin to seek another term. There was so much hostility between Hardin and Baker that in February 1846, when Hardin volunteered his services to the military, he did so through Stephen A. Douglas rather than Baker, for, he told Douglas, “the manner in which he [Baker] has recently acted towards me in endeavoring to prevent my renomination to Congress, would prevent me from making the request of him.”)136

  Angered by Lincoln’s purported statement to Hardin, Baker wrote Lincoln urging him to drop out of the race. Similarly, Hardin managed to hurt Lincoln’s relations with Baker by alleging that Baker informed him that Lincoln could defeat Hardin but that Baker could not. Eventually, Lincoln persuaded Baker that Hardin had erred in summarizing his remarks. Baker withdrew after Lincoln expressed reluctance to abandon his dream of a congressional seat.

  Desperate to counter the turn-about-is-fair-play argument, Hardin proposed that the convention system be scrapped in favor of a preferential primary election. Lincoln, sensing that the “movement is intended to injure me,” urged Whig editors to take “strong ground for the old system, under which Hardin & Baker were nominated.”137 On January 19, 1846, Lincoln calmly and firmly told Hardin that the primary scheme was unfair: “I have always been in the habit of acceeding to almost any proposal that a friend would make; and I am truly sorry I can not in this.” He tactfully declared his satisfaction “with the old system under which such good men [as Baker and Hardin] have triumphed.”138 In reply, Hardin denounced the convention system as “anti-republican,” criticized Lincoln for trying to derail his congressional candidacy by having him nominated for governor, and belittled the Pekin agreement for its assumption that “the District is a horse which each candidate may mount and ride a two mile heat without consulting any body but the grooms & Jockeys.” He implied that he had never agreed to the Pekin compromise in the first place. Hardin’s contention seemed disingenuous, for he announced shortly after winning the congressional race in 1843 that he would not seek reelection. In 1844 he kept his word and did not challenge Baker for the nomination.

  Refusing to be provoked, Lincoln on February 7 gently criticized Hardin’s assumption “that the District is a horse which, the first jockey that can mount him, may whip and spur round and round, till jockey, or horse, or both, fall dead on the track.” He insisted that his qualifications for the congressional seat were substantial: “If I am not, (in services done the party and in capacity to serve in future) near enough your equal, when added to the fact of your having had a turn, to entitle me to the nomination, I scorn it on any and all other grounds.” Lincoln concluded with a mild protest: “After, by way of imputations upon me, you have used the terms ‘management’ ‘manoevering’ and ‘combination’ quite freely, you, in your closing paragraph say: ‘For it is mortifying to discover that those with whom I have long acted & from whom I expected a different course, have considered it all fair to prevent my nomination to congress.’ Feeling as I do, the utter injustice of these imputations, it is somewhat difficult to be patient under them—yet I content myself with saying that if there is cause for mortification any where, it is in the readiness with which you believe, and make such charges, against one with whom you truly say you have long acted; and in whose conduct, you have heretofore marked nothing as dishonorable. I believe you do not mean to be unjust, or ungenerous; and I therefore am slow to believe that you will not yet think better and think differently of this matter.”139

  Though nettled by Hardin’s failure to abide by the Pekin accord, Lincoln insisted that “nothing be said” against him.140 When Gibson Harris proposed that he respond in kind to Hardin’s tactics, Lincoln said, “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.”141 Lincoln’s scrupulousness was followed by his supporters in the press, including the Sangamo Journal, which later explained that “we cautiously avoided saying any thing in our paper, that might touch the feelings of either party.”142 One “H” protested in the Tazewell Whig that the “friends of Messrs. Lincoln and Baker have a right to complain of a want of good faith on the part of Mr. Hardin and his friends,” and Allen N. Ford emphatically denied Hardin’s interpretation of the Pekin convention resolution: “If the principle of rotation in office is not only recognized in that resolution [passed in Pekin in 1843] but by Gen. H. himself … then we confess our incapacity to comprehend the import of language or action.”143

  On January 31, the Whigs of Athens named Lincoln as their choice for Congress. Two weeks later, on the eve of other precinct meetings, Hardin, despairing of his prospects, withdrew from the race. He had failed to act as promptly and work as energetically as had Lincoln. Hardin’s announcement bluntly addressed the Pekin convention agreement: “I deem it an act of justice to myself to state, that this
report [that he had agreed to step aside after one term and let Baker and Lincoln have their turns] is utterly without foundation. I never made any bargain, or had any understanding directly or indirectly with Mr. Baker, or any other person, respecting either the last or any future canvass for Congress. Neither Mr. Baker, or any other voter of the District knew I would not be a candidate for re-election, until I stated that fact publicly after my election.”144 Along with his withdrawal statement, Hardin revealed his scheme for a preferential primary to replace the convention, but he did not provide a copy of Lincoln’s reply.

  As this statement indicates, there is some doubt about the exact terms of the Pekin understanding. Stephen T. Logan thought that “there was no agreement—no understanding between Hardin—Baker—Lincoln & Logan about rotation in office.”145 But James H. Matheny testified that though there may have been no formal pact, “there was a Kind of implied understanding that Hardin—Baker—Lincoln should rotate in Congress.”146 Whatever the case might have been, in 1846 many Seventh District Whigs believed that there had been an agreement of some sort whereby Hardin would serve one term in Congress, then Baker, then Lincoln. As the Sangamo Journal observed, Hardin’s contention “is strictly true,” but “the doings of the Pekin Convention did seem to point that way; and the General’s voluntary declination, as to the canvass of ’44 was, by many, construed into an acquiescence on his part. These things had led many of his most devoted friends to not expect him to be a candidate at this time.”147