CHAPTER XVII.

PLOTS AND ASSASSINATION.

The fact that we have in this country a literature of assassination, "voluminous and vast," suggests a melancholy reflection on the disordered spirit of the times through which we have passed, and on the woful perversity of human nature even under conditions most favorable to intellectual progress and Christian civilization. It is hurtful to our pride as Americans to confess that our history is marred by records so repugnant to the spirit of our liberal institutions, and to the good fellowship which ought to characterize both individual and national life in a free republic. But the appalling fact remains that two of our Chief Magistrates, within as many decades, were murdered in cold blood, and that bulky volumes have been filled with circumstantial accounts of plots and conspiracies by and against men born upon our soil and enjoying the full protection of our laws; and yet, voluminous and extensive as these records are, they are by no means complete.

One most daring attempt upon the life of Mr. Lincoln--the boldest of all attempts of that character, and one which approached shockingly near to a murderous success--was never made public. For prudential reasons details were withheld from the press; but as the motives which imposed silence respecting a strange freak of homicidal frenzy no longer exist, it is perhaps a matter of duty to make public the story, together with certain documents which show in what deadly peril Mr. Lincoln stood during the ceremonies attending his second inauguration at the Capitol in March, 1865. A glance at prior conspiracies will lead to a better understanding of the event to which these documents relate.

The first conspiracy, from motives of policy, had for its object the abduction of President Buchanan. There was intense disgust on the part of certain fiery and ferocious leaders in the secession movement with the conservative temper of the Executive and of the ruling members of his Cabinet. After fruitless attempts to bully the Administration into a change of policy in harmony with his revolutionary scheme, Mr. Wigfall, some time in the month of December, 1860, formed a plan for kidnapping Mr. Buchanan. A number of desperate men were banded together by him at Washington, and the details of the plot were discussed and agreed upon. The plan was to spirit Mr. Buchanan away, install Mr. Breckenridge in the White House, and hold the captive President as a hostage until terms of compromise could be proposed to conservative Democrats and Republicans in the North. Mr. Wigfall and other choice spirits had no doubt that their plan of accommodation could be enforced through the _ad interim_ Executive. The scheme, however, could not be executed, in its first stage, without the concurrence and co-operation of Mr. Floyd, who threw Wigfall into a paroxysm of explosive wrath by flatly refusing to have anything to do with the enterprise. It was accordingly abandoned, so far as Mr. Buchanan was concerned.

When Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated, in March, 1861, the organization of plotters was still intact; but no plan of assassination had, as yet, received the sanction of the conspirators as a body. It was their purpose to kidnap Mr. Lincoln and hold him in captivity, without injury to his person, until such concessions were made to the Southern leaders as their plan of compromise rendered necessary. This second scheme of abduction, having proved as abortive as the first, was abandoned in favor of a more deadly purpose. Some of the more desperate among the conspirators, exasperated by repeated failures, resolved to dispose of Mr. Lincoln by the swifter and surer means afforded by the dagger or the bullet.

Circumstances, in a surprising way, seemed to favor their murderous designs. Against the protest of his friends, who by detective means had obtained from the plotters many of their secrets, Mr. Lincoln made the Soldiers' Home his summer residence. The conspirators thought that either abduction or assassination could be accomplished without difficulty. They resolved upon the latter. They would dispatch him during one of his lonely rides after nightfall from the White House to his summer retreat. The attempt was made.

In the spring and early summer of 1862 I persistently urged upon Mr. Lincoln the necessity of a military escort to accompany him to and from his residence and place of business, and he as persistently opposed my proposition, always saying, when the subject was referred to, that there was not the slightest occasion for such precaution. One morning, however, in the month of August he came riding up to the White House steps, where I met him, with a merry twinkle in his eye that presaged fun of some kind. Before he alighted he said, "I have something to tell you!" and after we had entered his office he locked the doors, sat down, and commenced his narration. (At this distance of time I will not pretend to give the exact words of this interview, but will state it according to my best recollection.) He said: "You know I have always told you I thought you an _idiot_ that ought to be put in a strait jacket for your apprehensions of my personal danger from assassination. You also know that the way we skulked into this city, in the first place, has been a source of shame and regret to me, for it did look so cowardly!"

To all of which I simply assented, saying, "Yes, go on."

"Well," said he, "I don't now propose to make you my father-confessor and acknowledge a change of heart, yet I am free to admit that just now I don't know what to think: I am staggered. Understand me, I do not want to oppose my pride of opinion against light and reason, but I am in such a state of 'betweenity' in my conclusions that I can't say that the judgment of _this court_ is prepared to proclaim a reliable 'decision upon the facts presented.'"

He paused; I requested him to go on, for I was in painful suspense. He then proceeded.

"Last night, about 11 o'clock, I went out to the Soldiers' Home alone, riding _Old Abe_, as you call him [a horse he delighted in riding], and when I arrived at the foot of the hill on the road leading to the entrance of the Home grounds, I was jogging along at a slow gait, immersed in deep thought, contemplating what was next to happen in the unsettled state of affairs, when suddenly I was aroused--I may say the arousement lifted me out of my saddle as well as out of my wits--by the report of a rifle, and seemingly the gunner was not fifty yards from where my contemplations ended and my accelerated transit began. My erratic namesake, with little warning, gave proof of decided dissatisfaction at the racket, and with one reckless bound he unceremoniously separated me from my eight-dollar plug-hat, with which I parted company without any assent, expressed or implied, upon my part. At a break-neck speed we soon arrived in a haven of safety. Meanwhile I was left in doubt whether death was more desirable from being thrown from a runaway federal horse, or as the tragic result of a rifle-ball fired by a disloyal bushwhacker in the middle of the night."

This was all told in a spirit of levity; he seemed unwilling, even in appearance, to attach that importance to the event which I was disposed to give to it. He seemed to want to believe it a joke. "Now," said he, "in the face of this testimony in favor of your theory of danger to me, personally, I can't bring myself to believe that any one has shot or will deliberately shoot at me with the purpose of killing me; although I must acknowledge that I heard this fellow's bullet whistle at an uncomfortably short distance from these headquarters of mine. I have about concluded that the shot was the result of accident. It may be that some one on his return from a day's hunt, regardless of the course of his discharge, fired off his gun as a precautionary measure of safety to his family after reaching his house." This was said with much seriousness.

He then playfully proceeded: "I tell you there is no time on record equal to that made by the two Old Abes on that occasion. The historic ride of John Gilpin, and Henry Wilson's memorable display of bareback equestrianship on the stray army mule from the scenes of the battle of Bull Run, a year ago, are nothing in comparison to mine, either in point of time made or in ludicrous pageantry. My only advantage over these worthies was in having no observers. I can truthfully say that one of the Abes was frightened on this occasion, but modesty forbids my mentioning which of us is entitled to that distinguished honor. This whole thing seems farcical. No good can result at this time from giving it publicity. It does seem to me that I am in more danger from the augmentation of imaginary peril than from a judicious silence, be the danger ever so great; and, moreover, I do not want it understood that I share your apprehensions. I never have."

At this time Mr. Lincoln was to me a study. It would seem that he was always prepared for the inevitable, and singularly indifferent as to his personal safety. He was then still suffering from his terrible domestic affliction, the death of his favorite son Willie. He doubtless at times acted an unnatural part in his endeavors to banish from his memory the disturbing recollections of his lost idol. I often recur with mingled feelings of admiration and sadness to the wonderful simplicity and perfect faith exemplified in his narration of the hazardous experience above described. He said: "I am determined to borrow no trouble. I believe in _the right_, and that it will ultimately prevail; and I believe it is the inalienable right of man, unimpaired even by this dreadful distraction of our country, to be _happy_ or _miserable_ at his own election, and I for one make choice of the former alternative."

"Yes," said I, "but it is a devil of a poor protection against a shot-gun in time of war; for that fellow on the road-side last night was just such a philosopher as yourself, although acting from a different standpoint. He exercised one of his supposed inalienable rights to make himself happy and the country miserable by attempting to kill you; and unless you are more careful and discreet, and will be governed by wiser counsels than you derive from your own obstinate persistency in recklessness, in less than a week you'll have neither inalienable nor any other rights, and we shall have no Lincoln. The time, I fear, may not be far distant when this republic will be minus a pretty respectable President."

It was impossible, however, to induce him to forego these lonely and dangerous journeys between the Executive Mansion and the Soldiers' Home. A stranger to fear, he often eluded our vigilance; and before his absence could be noted he would be well on his way to his summer residence, alone, and many times at night.

Another occasion when the vigilance and anxiety of his friends were exercised will appear in the following extract from a memorandum written by Robert Lamon, who was deputy marshal of the District of Columbia at the time:--

In the early part of the night my brother came to me and asked me to join him in the search for Mr. Lincoln. He was greatly disturbed. We drove rapidly to the Soldiers' Home, and as we neared the entrance to the grounds we met a carriage. Behind it we could see in the darkness a man on horseback. My brother, who seemed unusually suspicious, commanded the party to halt. His order was instantly obeyed. "Who are you?" he demanded, in the same peremptory tone. A voice from within the carriage responded, "Why do you ask?" The speakers recognized each other. The one in the carriage was Secretary Stanton, and the man behind it was one of his orderlies. "Where is Mr. Lincoln?" asked Stanton. "I have been to the Soldiers' Home and he is not there. I am exceedingly uneasy about him. He is not at the White House?" "No," said my brother, "he is not there. I have looked for him everywhere." We hurried back to the city. Arriving at the White House before Mr. Stanton, we found Mr. Lincoln walking across the lawn. My brother went with him to the War Department, and from there took him to his [Lamon's] house, where Mr. Lincoln slept that night and the three or four nights following, Mrs. Lincoln being at that time in New York.

(Signed) ROBT. LAMON.

My anxiety about Mr. Lincoln that evening grew out of a report of an alarming character made to me by one of my detectives. Stanton had threatening news also, and was therefore excited about Mr. Lincoln's safety. He told me that he never had so great a scare in his life as he had that night. The brusque Secretary thought the deputy marshal and I were assassins. The incident provoked much merriment among the parties concerned, no one enjoying the serio-comic part of it more than Mr. Lincoln himself.

Meanwhile the conspirators, becoming alarmed for their own safety, observed a stricter caution. Their movements were embarrassed by the escort of cavalry which Mr. Lincoln was finally induced to accept, after prolonged importunities by those who had certain knowledge of the dangers to which he was exposed. Lost opportunities, baffled hopes, exasperating defeats, served however only to heighten the deadly determination of the plotters; and so matters drifted on until the day of Mr. Lincoln's second inauguration. A tragedy was planned for that day which has no parallel in the history of criminal audacity, if considered as nothing more than a crime intended.

Everybody knows what throngs assemble at the Capitol to witness the imposing ceremonies attending the inauguration of a President of the United States. It is amazing that any human being could have seriously entertained the thought of assassinating Mr. Lincoln in the presence of such a concourse of citizens. And yet there was such a man in the assemblage. He was there for the single purpose of murdering the illustrious leader who for the second time was about to assume the burden of the Presidency. That man was John Wilkes Booth. Proof of his identity, and a detailed account of his movements while attempting to reach the platform where Mr. Lincoln stood, will be found in many affidavits, of which the following is a specimen:--

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,} COUNTY OF WSHINGTON, } _ss_:

Robert Strong, a citizen of said County and District, being duly sworn, says that he was a policeman at the Capitol on the day of the second inauguration of President Lincoln, and was stationed at the east door of the rotunda, with Commissioner B. B. French, at the time the President, accompanied by the judges and others, passed out to the platform where the ceremonies of inauguration were about to begin, when a man in a very determined and excited manner broke through the line of policemen which had been formed to keep the crowd out. Lieutenant Westfall immediately seized the stranger, and a considerable scuffle ensued. The stranger seemed determined to get to the platform where the President and his party were, but Lieutenant Westfall called for assistance. The Commissioner closed the door, or had it closed, and the intruder was finally thrust from the passage leading to the platform which was reserved for the President's party. After the President was assassinated, the singular conduct of this stranger on that day was frequently talked of by the policemen who observed it. Lieutenant Westfall procured a photograph of the assassin Booth soon after the death of the President, and showed it to Commissioner French in my presence and in the presence of several other policemen, and asked him if he had ever met that man. The commissioner examined it attentively and said: "Yes, I would know that face among ten thousand. That is the man you had a scuffle with on inauguration day. That is the same man." Affiant also recognized the photograph. Lieutenant Westfall then said: "This is the picture of J. Wilkes Booth." Major French exclaimed: "My God! what a fearful risk we ran that day!"

ROBERT STRONG.

Sworn to and subscribed before me this 20th day of March, 1876.

JAMES A. TAIT, [SEAL] _Notary Public_.

From this sworn statement it will be seen that Booth's plan was one of phenomenal audacity. So frenzied was the homicide that he determined to take the President's life at the inevitable sacrifice of his own; for nothing can be more certain than that the murder of Mr. Lincoln on that public occasion, in the presence of a vast concourse of admiring citizens, would have been instantly avenged. The infuriated populace would have torn the assassin to pieces, and this the desperate man doubtless knew.

It is a curious fact, that, although Mr. Lincoln believed that his career would be cut short by violence, he was incorrigibly skeptical as to the agency in the expected tragedy, with one solitary exception. Elderly residents of Washington will remember one Gurowski, a Polish exile, as many believed. He was an accomplished linguist, a revolutionist by nature, restless, revengeful, and of a fiery and ungovernable temper. He had been employed in the State Department as a translator, I believe, but had quarrelled with Mr. Seward and was discharged. This caused him to pursue Lincoln, Seward, and Sumner with bitter hatred. The curious will find in a published diary of his a fantastic classification of his enemies. The President he rated as "third-class," according to his estimate of statesmanlike qualities.

From this man Gurowski, and from him alone, Mr. Lincoln really apprehended danger by a violent assault, although he knew not what the sense of fear was like. Mr. Lincoln more than once said to me: "So far as my personal safety is concerned, Gurowski is the only man who has given me a serious thought of a personal nature. From the known disposition of the man, he is dangerous wherever he may be. I have sometimes thought that he might try to take my life. It would be just like him to do such a thing."

The following letter was written one night when I was much annoyed at what seemed to me Mr. Lincoln's carelessness in this matter:--

WASHINGTON, D. C. Dec. 10, 1864, 1.30 o'clock, A. M.

_Hon. A. Lincoln_:

SIR,--I regret that you do not appreciate what I have repeatedly said to you in regard to the proper police arrangements connected with your household and your own personal safety. _You are in danger._ I have nothing to ask, and I flatter myself that you will at least believe that I am honest. If, however, you have been impressed differently, do me and the country the justice to dispose at once of all suspected officers, and accept my resignation of the marshalship, which is hereby tendered. I will give you further reasons which have impelled me to this course. To-night, as you have done on several previous occasions, you went unattended to the theatre. When I say unattended, I mean that you went alone with Charles Sumner and a foreign minister, neither of whom could defend himself against an assault from any able-bodied woman in this city. And you know, or ought to know, that your life is sought after, and will be taken unless you and your friends are cautious; for you have many enemies within our lines. You certainly know that I have provided men at your mansion to perform all necessary police duty, and I am always ready myself to perform any duty that will properly conduce to your interest or your safety.

God knows that I am unselfish in this matter; and I do think that I have played low comedy long enough, and at my time of life I think I ought at least to attempt to play star engagements.

I have the honor to be Your obedient servant, WARD H. LAMON.

Mr. Lincoln had in his great heart no place for uncharitableness or suspicion; which accounts for his singular indifference to the numberless cautions so earnestly and persistently pressed upon him by friends who knew the danger to which he was hourly exposed. He had a sublime faith in human nature; and in that faith he lived until the fatal moment when the nations of the earth were startled by a tragedy whose mournful consequences no man can measure.

An unwonted interest attaches to the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, not alone from the peculiarly dramatic incidents by which it was attended, but also from the controlling influence he would unquestionably have exerted, if his life had been spared, in modifying and facilitating the solution of perhaps the greatest social and political problem of modern times. This problem, after being committed to the solemn arbitrament of the sword, and passing through its ordeal, had now reached an ulterior stage of development which demanded, in the council chamber, the exercise of even higher administrative qualities than those which had hitherto directed its general conduct in the field. These attributes, it was generally recognized and conceded, were possessed by Mr. Lincoln in a pre-eminent degree. To a constancy of purpose and tenacity of will, of which conspicuous evidence had been presented in the final triumph of the Union cause, he united a conciliatory disposition, and the gentleness, sensibility, and simplicity of a child.

Frequent reference has already been made to the humane and generous promptings of Mr. Lincoln's great soul, in all the varied relations of his life, as well private as official, and to instances of patriotism and of self-sacrifice almost unparalleled in the annals of history.

With a more enlarged experience of the violence of party passion and of internecine strife, and of the excesses to which they sometimes unhappily lead, it seems almost incredible that the apprehensions of danger to Mr. Lincoln should have been shared by so few, when one thinks of the simplicity of his domestic habits, the facilities at all times afforded for a near approach to his presence, and the entire absence of all safeguards for the protection of his person, save the watchfulness of one or two of his most immediate friends; and this, too, at a period of such unprecedented party excitement and sectional strife and animosity. But the truth is, the crime of assassination was so abhorrent to the genius of Anglo-Saxon civilization, so foreign to the spirit and practice of our republican institutions, that little danger was apprehended of an outrage against society at large, the recollection of which even now suffices to tinge with a blush of shame the cheek of every true American, whether of Northern or of Southern birth.

In 1880, after the nomination of General Garfield for President, General Grant visited Boulder, Col., where I was at that time residing. We had a long conversation on the assassination of Mr. Lincoln; and he told me that about the period of the surrender of General Lee no subject gave him deeper concern than the personal safety of the President. He stated that while no special cause existed for this apprehension, as the war was manifestly and inevitably drawing to a conclusion, he had been harassed by almost constant fears and anxieties for Mr. Lincoln's life. "I learned," said he, "that your own apprehensions were excited from the very outbreak of the war; in fact, before war was declared. It seems unaccountable to me now, in reviewing the situation, that more persons were not so impressed. I was aware, during all the latter part of the war, of your own fears, and of what you had done and were doing for his safety and protection."

I read a communication addressed to the "St. Louis Democrat," in July, 1886, by Mr. R. C. Laverty, General Grant's telegraph operator, in which he states that at the time of the surrender, "General Grant reported every day regularly to Washington, and was in constant communication at that time with the capital, because he was extremely anxious about the personal safety of the President."

Upon the assassination of Mr. Lincoln being communicated to General Grant he exclaimed: "This is the darkest day of my life! I do not know what it means. Here was the Rebellion put down in the field, and it is reasserting itself in the gutter. We had fought it as war, we have now to fight it as murder." Continuing his observations he said: "I was busy sending off orders to stop recruiting and the purchase of supplies, and to muster out the army. Mr. Lincoln had promised to go to the theatre that evening and wanted me to accompany him. While I was with the President a note was received by me from Mrs. Grant, saying that she was desirous of leaving Washington on the same evening on a visit to her daughter at Burlington. Some incidents of a trivial character had influenced this determination, and she decided to leave by an evening train. I was not disinclined to meet her wishes, not caring particularly to go to the theatre. I therefore made my excuses to the President, and at the hour determined upon we left home for the railway station. As we were driving along Pennsylvania Avenue, a horseman rode rapidly past us at a gallop, and wheeling his horse, rode back, peering into our carriage as he again passed us. Mrs. Grant, with a perceptible shade of concern in her voice and manner, remarked to me: 'That is the very man who sat near us at lunch to-day with some others, and tried to overhear our conversation. He was so rude, you remember, as to cause us to leave the dining-room. Here he is again, riding after us!' For myself I thought it was only idle curiosity, but learned afterward that the horseman was Booth. It seemed that I was also to have been attacked, and Mrs. Grant's sudden determination to leave Washington deranged the plan. Only a few days afterwards I received an anonymous letter stating that the writer had been detailed to assassinate me; that he rode in my train as far as Havre de Grace, and as my car was locked he failed to get in. He now thanked God he had so failed. I remember very well that the conductor locked our car door; but how far the letter was genuine I am unable to say. I was advised of the assassination of Mr. Lincoln in passing through Philadelphia, and immediately returned to Washington by a special train."

When the dreadful tragedy occurred I was out of the city, having gone to Richmond two days before on business for Mr. Lincoln connected with the call of a convention for reconstruction, about which there had arisen some complications. I have preserved the pass Mr. Lincoln gave me to go through to Richmond, of which the following is a fac-simile:--[12]

[12] Page 275, line 5, after the word "fac-simile."

Apropos of passes to Richmond once when a man called upon the President and solicited a pass to Richmond. Mr. Lincoln said: "Well, I would be very happy to oblige, if my passes were respected; but the fact is, sir, I have, within the past two years, given passes to 250,000 men to go to Richmond and not one has got there yet."

This was perhaps the last passport ever written or authorized by Abraham Lincoln.

On the eve of my departure I urged upon Mr. Usher, the Secretary of the Interior, to persuade Mr. Lincoln to exercise extreme caution, and to go out as little as possible while I was absent. Mr. Usher went with me to see Mr. Lincoln; and when about to leave, I asked him if he would make me a promise. He asked what it was, and said that he thought he could venture to say he would. I wanted him to promise me that he would not go out after night while I was gone, _particularly to the theatre_. He turned to Mr. Usher and said:--

"Usher, this boy is a monomaniac on the subject of my safety. I can hear him or hear of his being around, at all times of the night, to prevent somebody from murdering me. He thinks I shall be killed; and we think he is going crazy." He then added: "What does any one want to assassinate me for? If any one wants to do so, he can do it any day or night, if he is ready to give his life for mine. It is nonsense."

Mr. Usher then said: "Mr. Lincoln, it is well to listen and give heed to Lamon. He is thrown among people that give him opportunities to know more about such matters than we can know."

I then renewed my request, standing with my hat in my hand, ready to start.

"Well," said Mr. Lincoln, "I promise to do the best I can towards it." He then shook me cordially by the hand, and said, "Good-bye. God bless you, Hill!"

This was the last time I ever saw my friend.

APRIL 14

Mr. Lincoln, accompanied by his wife, Miss Harris and Maj. Rathbone, of Albany, New York, was occupying a box at Ford's Theatre, in the city of Washington. The play was "Our American Cousin," with the elder Sothern in the principal rôle. Mr. Lincoln was enjoying it greatly. Lee had surrendered on the 9th; on the 13th the war was everywhere regarded as ended, and upon that day Secretary Stanton had telegraphed to Gen. Dix, Governor of New York, requesting him to stop the draft. Sothern as _Lord Dundreary_ was at his best. Lincoln was delighted. The lines which care and responsibility had so deeply graven on his brow, were now scarcely visible. His people had just passed through the greatest civil war known in the history of nations and he had become well convinced that now, the cause of strife being destroyed, the government over which he was ruling would be made stronger, greater and better by the crucial test through which it has passed. Before leaving for the theatre he had pronounced it the happiest day of his life. He looked, indeed, as if he now fully realized the consummation of the long cherished and fondest aspiration of his heart. He was at length the undisputed Chief Magistrate of a confederation of States, constituting the freest and most powerful commonwealth of modern times.

At some part of the performance Sothern appeared on the stage with Miss Meridith, the heroine, on one arm and a wrap or shawl carelessly thrown over the other. The latter seats herself upon a garden lounge placed on the stage near the box occupied by the President on this occasion. Lord Dundreary retires a few paces distant from the rustic seat when Miss Meridith, glancing languidly at his lordship, exclaims: "Me lord, will you kindly throw my shawl over my shoulders--there appears to be a draught here." Sothern, at once complying with her request, advanced with the mincing step that immortalized him; and with a merry twinkle of the eye, and a significant glance directed at Mr. Lincoln, responded in the happy impromptu: "You are mistaken, Miss Mary, the draft has already been stopped by order of the President!" This sally caused Mr. Lincoln to laugh, as few except himself could laugh, and an outburst of merriment resounded from all parts of the house. It was Mr. Lincoln's last laugh!

NOTES.

APPENDIX.

LINCOLN IN A LAW CASE.

Mr. Lincoln believed that: "He who knows only his own side of a case knows little of that." The first illustration of his peculiar mental operations which led him always to study the opposite side of every disputed question more exhaustively than his own, was on his first appearance before the Supreme Court of Illinois when he actually opened his argument by telling the court that after diligent search he had not found a single decision in favor of his case but several against it, which he then cited, and submitted his case. This may have been what Mr. Lincoln alluded to when he told Thurlow Weed that the people used to say, without disturbing his self-respect, that he was not lawyer enough to hurt him.

The most important case Mr. Lincoln ever argued before the Supreme Court was the celebrated case of the Illinois Central Railroad Company vs. McLean County.

The case was argued twice before this tribunal; one brief of which is among the forty pages of legal manuscript written by Mr. Lincoln in the writer's possession. While its four pages may have more historic value than a will case argued in the Circuit Court of Sangamon County, still the latter is chosen to illustrate the period of Mr. Lincoln's mature practice and to show his analytical methods, his original reasoning, and his keen sense of justice.

The case is one wherein land has been left to three sons and a grandson and the personal estate to be divided among three daughters after the death of the widow. Mr. Lincoln is employed to defend the will against the three daughters and their husbands.

The brief consists of fifteen pages of legal cap paper only four of which are here given.

It is said that he wrote few papers, less perhaps than any other man at the bar; therefore this memorandum in his own hand is also valuable as an example of the notes he so rarely made.

Then a copy of the will and the evidence of sixteen witnesses, after which the following page of authorities:--

Illustration: The declarations of the Testator long before his sickness, to make such a Will as he finally did make, are admissable, and weighty evidence in support of the Will

7 Ala. 55 5 Strob. 167 7 Humph. 320 7 Ala. 519 6 Geo. 324.

Where an influence is acquired+ over a testator, by kind offices, or persuasion, unconnected with fraud, the Will made under such influence, would not be set aside--

2 N. J. 117 5 Strob. 167 3 Strob. 44. 552. 6 Geo. 324. 3 Denis 37. 1 Rich. 80 . Cheve, 37. 2 J.J. Mav. 340. 3 SvR. 267 1 Hanrig* 454. 2 Do. 375

A lower degree of of intellect is requisite to make a Will than to make a contract.

21 Vt. 168 9 Iren. 99 6 Geo 324 7 B Mon. 655 3 Denis 37 9 Conn. 102. (over, on the start*)

On "+Sound mind and memory+" and also on "+opinions+" of witnesses, see.

Sowe vs Williamson 1 Green's Ch. 82 Stoan vs Maxwell 2 Green's Ch. 563. Hunt's heirs vs Hunt 3. B. Mon. 575 M. Daniel's Will 2. J.J. Mar 331

Note--Hunt's heirs vs Hunt, above cited, contains an excellent form of an instruction to be given to a jury, as to the weight and to the opinions of the witnesses--][M]

[M] This was evidently written twice by Mr. Lincoln for it seems to be the corrected page of one in the Collection of General Orendorff. This corrected page has not the first allegation found in the rough draft: "The widow of the testator is not a competent witness. II Hump. 565."

One of the opposing attorneys in the case was Mr. Lincoln's former law partner, Judge Stephen T. Logan, who was the acknowledged leader of the Illinois Bar for many years and from whom Mr. Lincoln derived more benefit than from any other.[N]

[N] Mr. Lincoln's first partner, John T. Stuart, enjoyed telling of his own arrival in Springfield in 1828 from Kentucky; how the next morning he was standing in front of the village store wondering how to introduce himself to the community, when a well-dressed old gentleman approached him, who, interesting himself in his welfare, inquired after his history and business. "I am from Kentucky," answered Mr. Stuart, "and my profession is that of a lawyer, sir. What is the prospect here?" Throwing back his head and closing his left eye the old gentleman reflected a moment, then replied: "Young man, d---- slim chance for that kind of a combination here."

That there was a chance for that combination in Springfield has been most conclusively proven. Lincoln's three law partners at that place as well as himself were all from Kentucky, to say nothing of other prominent members of the bar of Springfield who came from the Blue Grass state.

Was Mr. Lincoln's experience at the bar a mere episode in his wonderful career, or was it the foundation upon which rested the whole structure of that career? He said himself that "Law is the greatest science of man. It is the best profession to develop the logical faculty and the highest platform on which man can exhibit his powers of well trained manhood."

MR. LINCOLN'S VIEWS OF THE AMERICAN OR KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.

That Mr. Lincoln found in the Declaration of Independence his perfect standard of political truth is perhaps in none of his utterances more conclusively shown than in a private letter to his old friend Joshua F. Speed, written in 1855, in which he says: "You enquire where I now stand. That is a disputed point. I think I am a Whig; but others say there are no Whigs, and that I am an Abolitionist. I am not a Know-Nothing! that is certain. How could I be? How can anyone who abhors the oppression of negroes be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation we began by declaring that '_All men are created equal_.' We now practically read it, 'All men are created equal except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control it will read, 'All men are created equal, except negroes and foreigners and Catholics.' When it comes to this, I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty,--where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy."

ACCOUNT OF ARRANGEMENTS FOR COOPER INSTITUTE SPEECH.

NEW YORK, March 20, 1872.

MY DEAR SIR,--....I send you for such use as you may deem proper the following letter written by me when at "Old Orchard Beach" a few years ago, giving the "truth of history" in relation to the address of Mr. Lincoln at the Cooper Institute in this City on the 27th of February, 1860....

... We, the world, and all the coming generation of mankind down the long line of ages, cannot know too much about Abraham Lincoln, our martyr President.

Yours truly, (Signed) JAMES A. BRIGGS.

MR. WARD H. LAMON, WASHINGTON, D. C.

"In October, 1859, Messrs. Joseph H. Richards, J. M. Pettingill, and S. W. Tubbs called on me at the office of the Ohio State Agency, 25 William Street, and requested me to write to the Hon. Thomas Corwin, of Ohio, and the Hon. Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, and invite them to lecture in a course of lectures these young gentlemen proposed for the winter in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn.

"I wrote the letters as requested, and offered as compensation for each lecture, as I was authorized, the sum of two hundred dollars. The proposition to lecture was accepted by Messrs. Corwin and Lincoln. Mr. Corwin delivered his lecture in Plymouth Church as he was on his way to Washington to attend Congress. Mr. Lincoln could not lecture until late in the season, and a proposition was agreed to by the gentlemen named, and accepted by Mr. Lincoln, as the following letter will show:--

DANVILLE, ILL., November 13, 1859.

JAMES A. BRIGGS, Esq.:

DEAR SIR,--Yours of the 1st, closing with my proposition for compromise, was duly received. I will be on hand, and in due time will notify you of the exact day. I believe, after all, I shall make a political speech of it. You have no objection?

I would like to know in advance, whether I am also to speak or lecture in New York.

Very, very glad your election went right.

Yours truly, A. LINCOLN.

P. S. I am here at court, but my address is still at Springfield, Ill.

"In due time Mr. Lincoln wrote me that he would deliver the lecture, a political one, on the evening of the 27th of February, 1860. This was rather late in the season for a lecture, and the young gentlemen who were responsible were doubtful about its success, as the expenses were large. It was stipulated that the lecture was to be in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn. I requested and urged that the lecture should be delivered at the Cooper Institute. They were fearful it would not pay expenses--three hundred and fifty dollars. I thought it would.

"In order to relieve Messrs. Richards, Pettingill, and Tubbs of all responsibility, I called upon some of the officers of the 'Young Men's Republican Union' and proposed that they should take Mr. Lincoln, and that the lecture should be delivered under their auspices. They respectfully declined.

"I next called upon Mr. Simeon Draper, then President of 'The Draper Republican Union Club of New York,' and proposed to him that his 'Union' take Mr. Lincoln and the lecture, and assume the responsibility of the expenses. Mr. Draper and his friends declined, and Mr. Lincoln was left in the hands of 'the original Jacobs.'

"After considerable discussion, it was agreed on the part of the young gentlemen that the lecture should be delivered in the Cooper Institute, if I would agree to share the expenses, if the sale of tickets (twenty-five cents each) for the lecture did not meet the outlay. To this I assented, and the lecture was advertised to be delivered in the Cooper Institute on the evening of the 27th of February, 1860.

"Mr. Lincoln read the notice of the lecture in the papers and, without any knowledge of the arrangement, was somewhat surprised to learn that he was first to make his appearance before a New York instead of a 'Plymouth Church' audience. A notice of the proposed lecture appeared in the New York papers, and the 'Times' spoke of him 'as a lawyer who had some local reputation in Illinois.'

"At my personal solicitation Mr. William Cullen Bryant presided as chairman of the meeting, and introduced Mr. Lincoln for the first time to a New York audience.

"The lecture was over, all the expenses were paid, I was handed by the gentlemen interested the sum of $4.25 as my share of the profits, as they would have called on me if there had been a deficiency in the receipts to meet expenses."

[Mr. Briggs received as his share of the profits $4.25. What the country profited by this, Mr. Lincoln's first triumph outside of his own state, has never been computed.]

THE RAIL-SPLITTER.

It has been said that the term "rail-splitter" which became a leading feature of the campaign in 1860 originated at the Chicago convention when Mr. Deland of Ohio, who seconded the nomination of Mr. Lincoln, said: "I desire to second the nomination of a man who can split rails and maul Democrats."

Mr. Delano not only seconded the nomination, but "seconded" the campaign "cry."

Gov. Oglesby one week before at the State Convention at Decatur introduced into the assemblage John Hanks, who bore on his shoulder two small rails surmounted by a banner with this inscription: "Two rails from a lot made by Abraham Lincoln and John Hanks in the Sangamon Bottom in the year 1830."

For six months Rail-splitter was heard everywhere and rails were to be seen on nearly everything, even on stationery. One of the Lincoln delegates said: "These rails represent the issue between labor free and labor slave, between democracy and aristocracy."

The Democrats disliked to hear so much about "honest Old Abe," "the rail-splitter" the "flatboatman," "the pioneer." These cries had an ominous sound in their ears. Just after the State Convention which named Lincoln as first choice of the Republicans of Illinois, an old man, devoted to the principles of Democracy and much annoyed by the demonstration in progress, approached Mr. Lincoln and said, "So you're Abe Lincoln?"--"That's my name, sir," answered Mr. Lincoln. "They say you're a self-made man," said the Democrat. "Well, yes," said Lincoln, "what there is of me is self-made."--"Well, all I've got to say," observed the old man after a careful survey of the statesman before him, "is that it was a ---- bad job."

TEMPERANCE.

On the temperance question Mr. Lincoln has been quoted by the adherents of both sides. He had no taste for spirituous liquors and when he took them it was a punishment to him, not an indulgence. In a temperance lecture delivered in 1842 Mr. Lincoln said:--"In my judgment such of us as have never fallen victims have been spared more from the absence of appetite than from any mental or moral superiority over those who have. Indeed, I believe if we take habitual drunkards as a class their heads and their hearts will bear an advantageous comparison with those of any other class."

None of his nearest associates ever saw Mr. Lincoln voluntarily call for a drink but many times they saw him take whiskey with a little sugar in it to avoid the appearance of discountenancing it to his friends. If he could have avoided it without giving offence he would gladly have done so. He was a conformist to the conventionalities of the surroundings in which he was placed.

Whether Mr. Lincoln sold liquor by the dram over the counter of the grocery store kept by himself and Berry will forever remain an undetermined question. When Douglas revived the story in one of his debates, Mr. Lincoln replied that even if it were true, there was but little difference between them, for while he figured on one side of the counter Douglas figured on the other.

Mr. Lincoln disliked sumptuary laws and would not prescribe by statute what other men should eat or drink. When the temperance men ran to the Legislature to invoke the power of the state, his voice--the most eloquent among them--was silent. He did not oppose them, but quietly withdrew from the cause and left others to manage it.

In 1854 he was induced to join the order called Sons of Temperance, but never attended a single meeting after the one at which he was initiated.

Judge Douglas once undertook to ridicule Mr. Lincoln on not drinking. "What, are you a temperance man?" he inquired. "No," replied Lincoln, "I am not a temperance man but I am temperate in this, to wit: I don't drink."

He often used to say that drinking spirits was to him like thinking of spiritualism, he wanted to steer clear of both evils; by frequent indulgence he might acquire a dangerous taste for the spirit and land in a drunkard's grave; by frequent thought of spiritualism he might become a confirmed believer in it and land in a lunatic asylum.

In 1889 Miss Kate Field wrote W. H. Lamon saying:--

Will you kindly settle a dispute about Lincoln? Lately in Pennsylvania I quoted Lincoln to strengthen my argument against Prohibition, and now the W. C. T. U. quote him for the other side. What is the truth?

... As you are the best of authority on the subject of Abraham Lincoln, can you explain why he is quoted on the Prohibition side? Did he at any time make speeches that could be construed with total abstinence?

To this Lamon replied:--

You ask my recollection of Mr. Lincoln's views on the question of Temperance and Prohibition. I looked upon him as one of the safest temperance men I ever knew. He seemed on this subject, as he was on most others, unique in profession as well as in practice. He was neither what might be called a drinking man, a total abstainer, nor a Prohibitionist. My acquaintance with him commenced in 1847. He was then and afterwards a politician. He mixed much and well with the people. Believed what the people believed to be right was right.

Society in Illinois at that early day was as crude as the country was uncultivated. People then were tenacious of their natural as well as their acquired rights and this state of things existed until Mr. Lincoln left the State to assume the duties of President. The people of Illinois firmly believed it was one of their inalienable rights to manufacture, sell, and drink whiskey as it was the sacred right of the southern man to rear, work, and whip his own nigger,--and woe be unto him who attempted to interfere with these rights--(as the sequel afterwards showed when Mr. Lincoln and his friends tried to prevent the southern man from whipping his own nigger in the territories).

I heard Mr. Lincoln deliver several temperance lectures. One evening in Danville, Ill., he happened in at a temperance meeting, the "Old Washingtonian Society," I think, and was called on to make a speech. He got through it well, after which he and other members of the Bar who were present were invited to an entertainment at the house of Dr. Scott. Wine and cake were handed around. Mrs. Scott, in handing Mr. Lincoln a glass of homemade wine, said, "I hope you are not a teetotaler, Mr. Lincoln, if you are a temperance lecturer." "By no means, my dear madam," he replied; "for I do assure you (with a humorous smile) I am very fond of my 'Todd' (a play upon his wife's maiden name). I by no means oppose the use of wine. I only regret that it is not more in universal use. I firmly believe if our people were to habitually drink wine, there would be little drunkenness in the country." In the conversation which afterward became general, Judge David Davis, Hon. Leonard Swett, and others present joining in the discussion, I recollect his making this remark: "I am an apostle of temperance only to the extent of coercing moderate indulgence and prohibiting excesses by all the moral influences I can bring to bear."

LINCOLN'S SHREWDNESS.

Perhaps no act of Mr. Lincoln's administration showed his political shrewdness more clearly than the permission he gave for the rebel legislature of Virginia to meet for the purpose of recalling the state troops from General Lee's Army. This permission was given in a note to General Weitzel. Mr. Lincoln told Governor Francis H. Pierpont that "its composition occupied five hours of intense mental activity." Governor Pierpont says he was the loyal Governor of Virginia at the time, and Mr. Lincoln deemed it necessary to say something to him about so extraordinary a measure as permitting the rebel legislature to assemble when a loyal legislature with a loyal governor was in existence and was recognized by the federal government. Mr. Lincoln's note to General Weitzel read:--

"It has been intimated to me that the gentlemen who have acted as the legislature of Virginia in support of the rebellion may now desire to assemble at Richmond and take measures to withdraw the Virginia troops and other support from resistance to the general government. If they attempt it, give them permission and protection until, if at all, they attempt some action hostile to the United States, in which case you will notify them, give them reasonable time to leave, and at the end of which time arrest any who remain. Allow Judge Campbell to see this, but do not make it public."

To write this note occupied all Mr. Lincoln's time from 9 P. M. till 2 A. M.--"five hours of uninterrupted stillness."

Mr. Lincoln foresaw that an attempt would be made to construe his permission into a virtual recognition of the authority of the rebel legislature. He steered clear of this recognition by not speaking of them "as a legislature," but as, "the gentlemen who have acted as the legislature of Virginia in support of rebellion," and explained afterward when it was misconstrued, that he "did this on purpose to exclude the assumption that I was recognizing them as a rightful body. I dealt with them as men having power de facto to do a specific thing."

LETTERS.

FAIRFIELD, CONN., Jan. 9, 1861.

W. H. LAMON, Esq.:

DEAR SIR,--Yours of December 26th duly received. Connecticut is death on secession. I regard it the duty of the Government to uphold its authority in the courts as effectually south as it has done north if it can, and to hold its forts and public grounds at whatever cost and collect the revenue ditto. There is but one feeling here, I believe, though in the city of New York there are those who sustain her actions, that secession is _disgraceful_ as well as ruinous on the part of South Carolina. I glory in Lincoln now for I feel that he is the most suitable man of our party for this terrible ordeal through which he has to pass. I rely with entire confidence upon his urbanity, gentleness, goodness, and ability to convince his enemies of his perfect uprightness as well as his firmness and courage. I do not expect him to be as warlike as Jackson, but I look for the calm courage befitting a Judge on the bench. With Lincoln as President and Scott as Lieutenant-General, I have no fears but the dignity of the Government will be sustained after the 4th of March. What is being done to protect Lincoln personally at Washington before and after Inauguration? Is there not a propriety in some of his friends making it their especial business to escort him without even his knowing it? You know these Southern men better than I do. If there is propriety in such a thing, or need for it, rather, I would meet you at Washington when he goes on and stay with you while it is needed.

Yours truly, BRONSON MURRAY.

NEWARK, OHIO, Feby. 14, 1861.

FRIEND LAMON,--I concluded to drop you this note, on learning that you in company with our mutual friend Judge Davis were with the President Elect on his tour to the Seat of Government. I was led to this through fear of the failure of some correspondence to reach your eye, the drift of it was to secure the appointment of postmaster at this city for your humble servant. Now if you have not been bored to death already by friends who are your _humble servants_, say a kind word for me. I have asked for the Post Office here for some good reasons. Poor enough to ask it and capable to fill it ... and have my second papers for being _Black_ Republican. I might add that the Citizens would not look upon my appointment as an overt _act_ against this City. I was removed from the Post Office Dept. in 1855 for opposition to Judge Douglas for removing the Missouri Compromise.... I would beg to be remembered to Messrs. Lincoln and Davis. Wishing you all a pleasant trip, safe arrival and a smooth sea in the future.

Yours very truly, JAS. H. SMITH.

The following letter may be of interest as showing the impression made at a time when opinions of Mr. Lincoln were in the formative state. New York City, as a whole, was unfriendly to Lincoln. Written when Lincoln was in New York on his way to Washington.

NEW YORK, Feby. 20, 1861.

DEAR LAMON,--I was glad today to recognize you; and drop you a line instead of a call when you must be so weary.

Just before we met, my father and old Ald^{n} Purdy (both wheel-horses in the Dem^{t} party here) were canvassing matters politic. Purdy said he had seen Lincoln and liked the man; said he was much better looking and a finer man than he expected to see; and that he kept aloof from old politicians here and seemed to have a mind of his own. Old Judge Benson too (who was with us) is a Democrat and was equally pleased with Lincoln. He says Lincoln has an eye that shows power of mind and will, and he thinks he will carry us safely.

I repeat these comments, because they came from behind the scenes of the popular apprehensions whence at present our friend Lincoln is excluded, and I feel sure he will be pleased to know how favorable an impression he makes....

Tell Lincoln to use his _own_ judgment and be bold and firm. The _people_ of all parties here are prepared to sustain _him_. But he may beware of all old politicians of both parties.

Because he is a fresh man and an able one he was taken up. Let his freshness enter his policy also

Your friend, BRONSON MURRAY.

SPRINGFIELD, Feb. 22, 1861.

HILL,--This is Dick Gilmer of Pike--he is to that neck of _Woods_ what you or Dick Oglesby are to this region of Country.... Do what you can consistently for him--and oblige

Your friend, O. M. HATCH.

BLOOMINGTON (ILL.), Feby. 25, 1861.

DEAR HILL,--Nothing of moment has occurred since your departure. Do write me immediately explaining the cause of your mysterious transit through Maryland.

Here let me say a word about Washington. It is the worst place in the world to judge correctly of anything. A ship might as well learn its bearings in the Norway Maelstrom, as for you people to undertake to judge anything correctly upon your arrival there.

You are the subject of every artful and selfish appliance. You breathe an air pregnant with panic. You have to decide before you can discover the secret springs of the action presented to you.

There is but one rule and that is to stand by and adopt the judgment you formed before you arrived there.

The atmosphere of Washington and the country are as unlike as the atmosphere of Greenland and the tropics.

The country is moved and moves by its judgment--Washington by its artificial life. The country really knows nothing of Washington and Washington knows nothing of the country. Washington is drunk, the Country is sober and the appeal from your judgment there to your home judgment is simply an appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober.

Please give these ideas in better language than I have done to Mr. Lincoln. I know his sound home judgment, the only thing I fear is the bewilderment of that city of rumors. I do ache to have him do well.

Yours truly, LEONARD SWETT.

WASHINGTON, March 2, 1861.

DEAR SIR,--I have received your request and shall take great pleasure to do what you wish in respect to Delaware.

Very truly your friend, WINFIELD SCOTT.

WARD H. LAMON, Esq. DANVILLE, ILL., March 5, 1861.

DEAR HILL,--Have just read Lincoln's inaugural.--It is just right and pleases us much. Not a word too much or too little. He assumes the tone and temper of a statesman of the olden time. God bless him--and keep him safely to the end.--Are you coming home to see us ere you depart hence? You could unfold to us a chapter that would be spicy, rich and rare.

We were at first disposed to regret Lincoln's hasty trip from Harrisburgh. But the action of the crowd at Baltimore convinces us that it was the most prudent course to pursue....

O. F. HARMON.

ON BOARD STEAMER WARSAW, March 8, 1861.

DEAR LAMON,--I got home a week ago. I have heard a good many things said pro and con about the new administration, and as far as I have heard the mass of the people have confidence in Mr. Lincoln, and this applies to the people of the border slave states as well as the free states. But it is not worth while to disguise the fact that a large majority of the free states in the Northwest are opposed to _Ultra measures_ and the people of the slave states are almost unanimous against coercion. Many appointments that have been made by the new administration were unfortunate. It must necessarily be so with all administrations, and Mr. Lincoln has had more than his share of trouble in making his selection. I fear that a majority of the Senators on our side care but little for his success further than it can contribute to their own glory, and they have had such men appointed to office as they felt would serve their own purpose without any reference to Mr. Lincoln and but little for the party....

As far as I could see when at Washington, to have been an original friend of Mr. Lincoln was an unpardonable offence with Members of Congress....

I have the utmost confidence in the success of Mr. Lincoln but I do not expect his support to come from the radical element of our party....

Your true friend, HAWKINS TAYLOR.

HON. W. H. LAMON.

STATE OF ILLINOIS, SECRETARY'S OFFICE, SPRINGFIELD, March, 18, 1861.

WARD H. LAMON:

DEAR HILL,--My brother is foolish enough to desire an office.--When you see him, and this, if he still _insists_ that he has as good right to a place as anybody else, I want you to do for him, what you would for me. No more, no less--...

Your friend, O. M. HATCH.

March 19, 1861.

MY DEAR COLONEL,--When I left Washington I handed to Judge Davis a letter setting forth what I wished him to do for me in Washington if it met his views.

I desired to be detailed as acting Inspector General of the Army in place of Emory promoted Lieutenant-Colonel of the Cavalry. This appointment needs only an order of the Secretary of War. Mr. Cameron promised Judge Davis to attend to it at once, but I presume he has overlooked it. Will you do me the favor to see Cameron on the subject? He knows all about it and precisely what to do.

I hope you are having a good time in Washington. I presume you are as you seem to have very much enjoyed the excitement along the road and in Washington. I shall always cherish a most pleasant remembrance of our journey and of the agreeable acquaintances and friends I made on the road. Among the last I have rated you and Judge Davis with peculiar satisfaction and I hope you will always believe that I shall cherish the warmest personal regard for you.

Very truly your friend, JOHN POPE.

MARCH 23, 1861.

DEAR HILL,--The public mind is prepared to hear of the evacuation of Sumter, but it is a great humiliation. Still if Mr. Lincoln gives the order you may swear that such is the public confidence in him it will be at once taken as a necessity of the situation.

W. H. HANNA.

BLOOMINGTON, ILL., March 30, 1861.

DEAR HILL,--I saw the "Telegraphic Announcement" of your prospective trip to Charleston before your kind and cordial letter was received. Yesterday, the "Telegraph" announced your return to Washington, which gratified us all. The papers represent you as quite a Lion. I have no doubt you bear your honors meekly....

I am anxious about the country. Are we to be divided as a nation? The thought is terrible. I never entertained a question of your success in getting to and from Charleston.

How do things look at Washington? Are the appointments satisfactory? No foreign appointments for the border slave states? Is this policy a wise one? Off here it does not look so to me.

Did Hawkins Taylor of Iowa get anything?...

Your friend, D. DAVIS.

URBANA, Apr. 6, 1861.

DEAR HILL,--The Judge and I are now attending Court at this place, the only wreck of that troupe which was once the life and soul of professional life in this country. I see Judge McLean has departed this life. The question is who shall succeed to the ermin so worthily worn by him. Why should not David Davis who was so instrumental in giving position to him who now holds the matter in the hollow of his hand? Dear Hill, if retribution, justice, and gratitude are to be respected, Lincoln can do nothing less than to tender the position to Judge Davis. I want you to suggest it to Lincoln.... Of course you will. I know your noble nature too well to believe that you would not think of a suggestion of this kind as soon as myself. Write me.

Yours, L. WELDON.

BLOOMINGTON, Apr. 7, 1861.

DEAR HILL,--Why don't you write. Tell us something.

By the way, since McLean's death the friends of Judge Davis think Lincoln ought to put him on Supreme Bench. Now I want you to find out when this appointment will be made. Also tell Lincoln that Judge Davis will be an applicant, so that he may not ignore the fact or act without that knowledge. I wish, too, _you_ would _without fail_ go immediately to Cameron, Caleb B. Smith, and Gov. Seward and tell them Davis will be an applicant. Tell Smith what I know, that it was through the Illinois fight and Judge Davis that Judd went out and he went in, and we think we ought to be remembered for it. Now, Hill, I know you are bored to death, but our mutual regard for the Judge must make us doubly industrious and persistent in this case.

Write immediately what the chances are, how Lincoln feels about it, and what we ought to do.

Yours truly, LEONARD SWETT.

WASHINGTON, April 8, 1861.

HON. WARD H. LAMON:

MY DEAR SIR,--I cannot deny the request of the Reverend Mr. Wright, so far as to enclose the within letter. I do not know the person recommended personally; but the Reverend gentleman who writes the letter is a most estimable and worthy man, whom I should be delighted to gratify if I felt at liberty to recommend any one, which I do not under existing circumstances.

I am very respectfully your obedient servant, S. A. DOUGLAS.

ST. LOUIS, MO., April 11, 1861.

COL. WARD H. LAMON:

DEAR SIR,--On the 30th of July last I was assaulted by twenty-five outlaws in Texas--with but one _fighting_ friend to stand by me. I gave an honorable compromise, and came forth from my stronghold, in the presence of my would-be hangmen, a daring Republican and a fearless Lincoln man. But it afterwards became necessary for me to leave Texas or be _suspended_. As I preferred dying in a horizontal position, _I left_, came to St. Louis and am now at the service of Mr. Lincoln and _our_ country. If war is made I want a showing in Texas. There are many true and loyal men there. A few thousand soldiers thrown in there to form a nucleus around which the Houston Union men can rally will soon form a barrier to rebellion in the Southwest. When the "ball" opens I would like to be authorized to raise five hundred men to occupy a position on Red River at the mouth of Bogy Creek.

What can you do to assist me in doing something of the kind. I will look for a reply to this in a few days.

Yours truly, J. E. LEMON.

BLOOMINGTON, ILLINOIS, April 16, 1861.

COL. W. H. LAMON:

DEAR HILL,--I send you the result of a public meeting here last night. We are, thank God, all right....

Secession, disunion and even fault finding is done with in this City. We shall all stand firmly by the administration and fight it out.

On last Monday we had a few fights, for just at that time we could not and would not allow a single word of fault found with the administration; the result was that three Democrats got thrashed. Just then we were hearing the news of Fort Sumter, now we are all on one side.

I write this that you may know the exact truth about us. If there is any service I can render the government--count me always on hand to do it. Write me if you can get time.

Your friend, W. H. HANNA.

INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA, April 19, 1861.

DEAR SIR,--Sufficient companies have been formed in Indiana or nearly so to fill the six Regiments of our state. They of course contain all classes of persons, but many of them are our _best_ and _dearest_ youths with whom it has cost many a sigh and burning tear to part. Thousands more will soon be made ready to join. We are now of course intensely anxious about the Commandants and suppose that the President will have the appointment of those officers, and my object in writing this is to request you _without fail_ to see the President and General Cameron and say to them that we are all sensitive upon the appointments of the Brigadier General of this state, and say to them that the appointment of a mere civilian will give extreme dissatisfaction not only to the troops but to their friends.

I name no person of that character who is an aspirant but I regret to say that there are some of that character here. From the appointment of one of whom, may God in his infinite mercy save us.

I believe every man in our State will arm, and those who refuse will be hung and their property confiscated. There is a feeling all through the State of the most intense character, wholly indescribable. I can do nothing of business. I am now helping our 200 men off, encouraging and counselling them what I can. Unless some change in my feelings now strained to the utmost pitch, I shall not be far behind them.

Our boys are taking the oath in the Hall of the House, and the telegraph brings intelligence of the fighting at Baltimore and the burning of Harper's Ferry. The boys take the oath with a look of determination to do or die.

All our fears now are for Washington. May God preserve you until succor comes.

Ever yours, J. P. USHER.

I am so excited that I can scarcely write legibly, but say to the President that the _entire power_ of Indiana with all its men, women and children, money and goods, will be sacrificed if necessary to sustain the government; the treachery of Virginia only intensifies the feeling.

J. P. U.

TERRE HAUTE, INDIANA, May 5, 1861.

W. H. LAMON, Esq.:

DEAR SIR,--Since I wrote to you on the 19th ult. I have been at Indianapolis endeavoring to aid the Governor in such way as I could. My desire has been to prevent rash counsels from being followed and from incurring unnecessary expense, and I think I have had some influence in keeping down extravagance. We are appalled every day by some new development of the dreadful conspiracy which has been formed for the entire overthrow of the Government. I hope its worst has now been realized and that whatever may occur hereafter will be for the better. Of one thing the President may rest perfectly satisfied, that the entire voice of Indiana is for the most vigorous prosecution of the War. I have no doubt but that 50,000 men could be raised in a month. All business has been suspended and the people do not expect to do anything until the war is ended. My desire is that it be pushed as fast as it possibly can, not rashly, but rapidly accompanied by such necessary severity as will be a terror to evil-doing. We have nothing to expect from Kentucky or Missouri, they remain partly quiet because of their proximity to the free states. My opinion is that they will not revolt now, or if they do, it will be in that partial way to avoid any entire destruction for the industrial interests of those states. However that may be, they refuse to answer to the call of the President for volunteers and I am totally opposed to their being suffered to remain in the attitude like cow-boys of the Revolution. I am for suspending all trade with them, if they will not furnish their quota of troops.

If you please, and think it will not be deemed to be too impertinent in me, say to the President that my opinion is that the troops at Cairo should stop all boats of every kind passing down the river and that no provisions whatever should be permitted to be shipped to any state refusing to furnish their quota of troops. It will prevent violence here: throughout Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois most of the people think that trade of all kinds with the rebels should cease, and that can only be accomplished by the proclamation of the President. I hope he will make the proclamation. Our people want it, but his advisers there and his own wisdom, in which I have all confidence, will control. The people of the West expect him, nay all the civilized world expects him to press forward with undeviating firmness until the rebellion is crushed. We possess nothing too valuable for the sacrifice. Let us not be rash, but to the best advantage let us put the lives and worldly goods of us all upon the altar for the sacrifice, for the preservation of the government. Neither life nor goods will be valuable or worth preservation if the Constitution is to be overthrown. No villainy like this has ever occurred in the history of man, or one that deserves such terrible punishment. I believe it is said in history, though fabulous, that no spear of grass ever grew where Attila stepped his foot. I do most religiously hope that there will be a foot heavy enough to let down upon old Virginia to stop the growth of grass for a time. The evil must be met, and we were never in a better condition to test our patriotism.

Western Virginia has a Convention on the 14th; how will it do for Indiana to send a Commissioner? I think I could get Governor Morton to send R. W. Thompson. Suppose you ask Lincoln what he thinks of it. Thompson has been taking great interest in the war, making speeches and putting the people right. I have no doubt he will be much flattered at an appointment to the loyal Virginians, and if it is thought best at Washington, I think I can have it done. I shall be at Indianapolis for a day or two, when I shall return and be at the Charleston and Danville, Illinois, Courts for the next two weeks. Don't you wish you could be there?

Most truly yours, J. P. USHER.

BLOOMINGTON, ILL., May 6, 1861.

DEAR HILL,--Your anxious and harassing state at Washington during those perilous times has so occupied your time and attention that you have not had any leisure to write. I have not heard from you for three weeks. For the last three weeks I have been holding court in Lincoln. The excitement about enlisting nearly broke the court up for two weeks. I was at Springfield two days week before last and found everything astir. I need not say that you were missed at Lincoln by me and everybody else. Your absence was regretted by everyone and yet everyone thought you deserved your good fortune.

I found Trumbull very unpopular with the members of the Legislature and other parties at Springfield. Douglas is in the topmost wave. Douglas would beat Trumbull before this legislature. My course last summer in using my best endeavors to elect Trumbull does not meet with my own approbation.

This war and its dreadful consequences affects my spirits.... It is very lonely going round the circuit without you.

DAVID DAVIS.

DEAR HILL,--I have written you about every week since I left Urbana. Dan Voorhees has been here for two days. He is a devoted friend of yours. He feels badly about the state of the country but is for the maintenance of the Government....

Mr. [Joseph G.] Cannon the new Prosecutor is a pleasant, unassuming gentleman and will in time make a good Prosecutor.[O]

[O] This prophecy was certainly fulfilled.

I need not tell you that it is lonesome here--on account of your absence. This is my last court here and no lawyer is practising here who was practising here when I held my first court. This is emphatically a world of change.

Your friend as ever, DAVID DAVIS.

WASHINGTON, D. C., June 4, 1861.

COLONEL LAMON:

MY DEAR SIR,--I would be obliged to you to procure for me that Presidential interview as soon as practicable. I do not wish to trouble you, but I am in a considerable hurry. I wish to say some things to the President about matters in North Carolina. There are some Union men there yet.

Respectfully yours, CHAS. HENRY FOSTER.

BLOOMINGTON, ILLINOIS, August 25, 1861.

COL. WARD H. LAMON:

DEAR HILL,--We are making great preparations for war in this State, and will have twenty thousand men in camp, besides those already in Missouri, in a very short time. There is a universal demand for the removal of Mr. Cameron, and I think after all, the sooner it is done the better. Mr. Lincoln certainly has no idea of the universal disposition of the whole people on this subject. I feel that Cameron wants to render the war unpopular by mismanagement, for they all know that if this war is successfully prosecuted that all the scoundrels cannot keep Mr. Lincoln from being re-elected President.

Do tell Mr. Lincoln this thing, tell him also that he has the confidence of all parties, except the traitors....

I know Lincoln well enough to know that he will make no mistakes, if he will consult his own will and act up to it bravely and without hesitation. It is the best time in the world to be President, but he must be all President. Halfway measures will only now tend to our ruin and disgrace.

I fear Trumbull is a rascal,--the idea of his being unprepared in the Senate to vote for the resolution approving the act of the President, has killed him off. I will bet you a bottle of wine that he sees the day he will want to exchange that little speech....

I am perhaps too impatient, and I am besides under some personal obligations to Mr. Cameron, but in this fight I care nothing about obligations of friendship in opposition to the welfare of the country. No one man nor any number of men can in my estimation be allowed for one moment to stand in the way of good government.

Excuse me for all this and believe me in everything. I am,

Your friend, W. A. HANNA. The city is full of soldiers and we are all marching left foot foremost.

W. H. H.

WILLARD'S HOTEL, 7 P. M. Aug. 30, 1861.

DEAR SIR,--General Scott notified me that if I would make an arrangement with the President to receive the Fort Sumter Garrison at some definite time, he would be most happy to be present at the reception. My men are at leisure either to-morrow or Monday, or in fact any time during the next week. Will you have the kindness to arrange it and let me know the result? I will call at this hotel for your answer.

Yours very truly, A. DOUBLEDAY.

TO COL. WARD H. LAMON.

FORT LAFAYETTE, Oct. 24, 1861.

MY DEAR SIR,--It is nearly _three months_ since I have been seized and held as a close prisoner by the Government of the United States. No charge ever has--none can be--preferred against me,--and yet I am robbed of my liberty--separated from my family and home, and have been subjected to irreparable pecuniary loss. Is it possible that your friend Mr. Lincoln can permit such acts to be done in his name and under his administration? It is not possible for me to give you in a brief letter a just view of my relations to the Government or of its conduct to me, but I ask you to get the President in company with yourself to examine my correspondence with the War and State Departments, commencing on the nineteenth of September. After their perusal I think you will agree with me, that no man has ever within the limits of the United States been more unjustly deprived of his liberty. In truth, the President and yourself will reach the conclusion that the _honor_ and _good faith_ of the Government demand my release.

Yours truly, CHAS. J. FAULKNER.

In 1862 Hawkins Taylor wrote:--

Thinking back to the Presidential Campaign I cannot help but think how _strange_ things have turned. I was an original Lincoln man, worked for him before, at, and in the State Convention for the nomination of Delegates to the Chicago Convention. Grimes scouted the idea of such a country lawyer being President. When the Chicago Convention came off Colonel Warren, knowing that I was scarce of funds and knowing my anxiety for the nomination of Mr. Lincoln, sent me a ticket to Chicago and back. I pledged a watch that cost me $128 for money to pay expenses there and to our State Convention.

Colonel Warren also went to Chicago, and to _my own certain knowledge, rendered most important services to Mr. Lincoln_. At the State Convention he was put at the head of the electoral ticket, canvassed the entire state, made more than _one hundred speeches_, spent his money by the hundreds. While Grimes made two or three speeches, _grumbled_ privately at the nomination, damned the President upon all occasions since he took his seat. Yet Grimes has controlled the entire patronage of the State of Iowa to the exclusion of Colonel Warren and all his friends. How can Mr. Lincoln expect friends in Iowa under this state of things?

ILLINOIS, Feb. 12, 1862.

... By the bye I do not care how soon you come back to Illinois provided always that I should hate for Hale Grimes & Co. to have their way in driving off every one who does not believe in negro stealing.... Yet I feel a good deal like they profess to feel. I should be glad to see the poor negroes free and provided for, but the abolition leaders seem to me to entertain more hatred to the owners than love for the negroes, and to be willing to sacrifice Whites, Negroes, Country and Constitution to the gratification of their ambition and malignity.

I feel very glad at the progress the war is now making as I do hope the present prospect of speedy success will enable Lincoln and other conservative Republicans and Democrats to set at defiance the ravings of the abolitionists and universal confiscation men. If their mouths can be stopped I have now good hope that the union can soon be restored and that a few months will bring daylight out of the troubles of the Country....

Yours respectfully, S. T. LOGAN.

OFFICE CHIEF QUARTER-MASTER DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF NEW ORLEANS, Dec. 8, 1862.

DEAR HILL,--I have given both our Representatives from here letters of introduction to you. Messrs. Flanders and Hahn. You will find Flanders old enough to take care of himself, but I desire that you be especially attentive to Hahn as I want him to defend Mr. Lincoln. He is very popular here and has very considerable influence and can do Mr. Lincoln a great deal of good. See that he falls into the right hands,--men who support the policy of the administration. Both men are now right and I depend on our friends to keep them right. Let me hear from you.

As ever your friend, J. WILSON SHAFFER.

Quietly say to Lincoln to cultivate these men as they both desire to find out what he wants and they will do it.

J. W. S.

12 NORTH A STREET, Feb. 26, 1863.

MY DEAR SIR,--Mr. J. N. Carpenter, who is a pay-master in the Navy, has always borne and does now bear the character of a truthfully upright and veracious man. I am requested to say this of him to you and I give my testimony accordingly without knowing what the object may be of getting it. He is a member of the true church which believes in the ancient gospel, and you are related by marriage to the same establishment. If you can do any good for Mr. C. you will recollect that it is done unto them of the household of faith and you will no doubt do it with the more alacrity when you remember that Satan also takes care of his own.

I am most respectfully yours, &c., HON. W. H. LAMON. J. S. BLACK.

DECATUR, ILL., March 24, 1863.

COLONEL WARD,--Received a letter yesterday from Judge Davis who informs me that you and Swett joined him heartily in efforts to secure my promotion, that this was all done without my knowledge or encouragement, from pure motives of personal attachment and kind old remembrances. Allow me, Sir, to thank you kindly for this disinterested and zealous effort to benefit and honor me. I did not deserve the honor. I will try to do my best, however, and save my friends and self from disgrace. I learn you are prospering and are unchangeably the same. I hope some day to meet you again when our Country will allow us all once more to feel happy and at rest.

I go to the field to-day, although I am far from well....

Do not forget to remember me to the President cordially. May God spare his life many years yet. I hope he never despairs or falters under his heavy burden.

Most respectfully Your friend, R. J. OGLESBY.

WARD H. LAMON, Marshal of D. C.

NASHVILLE, January 10, 1865.

TO WARD H. LAMON:

DEAR SIR,--I am anxious to have a young Philadelphia lawyer made captain of the regular army, and I know of no one so likely to present the matter directly to Mr. Stanton or the President as yourself. Will you oblige me by attending to the matter? I am suffering from a fall and unable to get to Washington.

Most respectfully your obedient servant, J. CATRON.

KENTUCKY, January 23, 1865.

WARD H. LAMON, Esq.:

MY DEAR SIR,--....Please remember me to Mr. Lincoln and thank him for his great kindness shown me during my last visit to your city. I do hope and pray that he may stand firm to the end of this wicked Rebellion, and while he administers mercy so freely that he will not forget _justice_. I am in favor of _mercy_, but never at the expense of _justice_. I know he is magnanimous. He is too much so sometimes, I fear. But I had rather trust him in this great crisis than any other man living. May God give him wisdom to direct, mercy to temper, and justice to balance the mighty interests of humanity that tremble in the balance!

I should be happy to hear from you at an early date.

With kindest wishes for your health and prosperity,

I am, dear Sir, Your most obedient servant, D. P. HENDERSON.

CHICAGO, February 10, 1865.

DEAR SIR,--Enclosed is a letter which I wish you to place in the hands of President Lincoln in person.

I fear it will not get to him until action is had.

I am very sorry to trouble him, but my friends demand it of me. I told them that you would put it in his hands yourself.

Your obedient servant, JNO. WENTWORTH.

BLOOMINGTON, ILL., April 4, 1865.[P]

[P] Only ten days before the Assassination.

COL. WARD H. LAMON:

DEAR HILL,--....I am going with Governor Oglesby to visit the armies of Grant and Sherman, and shall call on you in passing.

We have glorious news, and am feeling happy over it.

I hope the President will keep out of danger; the chivalry are a greater set of scoundrels than he thinks them to be.

Mr. Lincoln's personal safety is of such vast importance to the country at this time, that his friends feel more or less solicitous when they read of his "going to the front." But he has made a glorious trip this time.

Your friend, W. H. HANNA.

RELIGION.

January 31, 1874.

REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER:

MY DEAR SIR,--My attention has been directed to a "Review of the Life of Lincoln" which appeared in the "Christian Union." This paper was by many attributed to your pen; it certainly must have received your editorial sanction.

I do not conceal the fact that some of its criticisms touched me sharply; but I determined, after no little deliberation, that it was better to submit in silence to whatever might be said or written of that biography. It happens, however, that certain lectures delivered by Mr. Herndon of Illinois have renewed the discussion of Mr. Lincoln's unbelief, and incident to that discussion some of the bitterest enemies of my own have taken occasion to renew their assaults upon me for what my honest duty as a biographer made it necessary for me to record in regard to so important an element in Mr. Lincoln's character.

Many of these self-appointed critics I know, and have long known. Their motives need no interpretation. Their hostility to me is very great, but it fails to equal the treachery with which they betrayed Mr. Lincoln while living, or the hypocrisy with which they chant his eulogies when dead.

Their malignment of the lamented President during the most anxious and trying period of his administration was so outrageous and vindictive that if Booth had wrapped his bullet in a shred of their correspondence he might have lodged a vindication of his crime in the brain of his victim. But these men could have no connection with this letter were it not that in this assault upon my character they have claimed the authority of the "Union" to sustain one of their unjust charges. I trust you will pardon the earnestness with which I protest against your conclusions as to myself, both because of their intrinsic injustice, and the sanction they have since given to the expression of others who can know nothing of the dignity and impartiality which belongs to honest criticism.

When the life of Lincoln was written it was my honest purpose to give to the world a candid, truthful statement of all facts and incidents of his life of which I was possessed, or could, by diligent investigation, procure, so as to give a true history of that wonderful man. I was well aware from the first that by pursuing such a course I would give offence to some; for who that ever had courage enough to write or utter great truths, since the commencement of the Christian era to the present time, has not been held up to public scorn and derision for his independence? Knowing this and yet believing that I knew Mr. Lincoln as well, and knew as much about him as any man living, I undertook to furnish biography, facts, truth, history--not eulogy--believing then, as I believe now, that the whole truth might be told of him and yet he would appear a purer, better, and greater man than there is left living. But he was human, composed of flesh and blood, and to him, as to others, belonged amiable weaknesses and some of the small sins incident to men. He was not perfect as a man, yet with all his humanity he was better than any other man I ever knew or expect to know. He was not a Christian in the orthodox sense of the term, yet he was as conscientiously religious as any man. I think I am justified in saying that had Mr. Lincoln been called upon to indicate in what manner the biography of him should be written, he would have preferred that no incident or event of his life should be omitted; that every incident and event of his history and every characteristic of his nature should be presented with photographic accuracy. He would have been content that the veil of obscurity should be withdrawn from his early life. All that was rude in it could detract nothing from the career which he afterwards so wonderfully accomplished. The higher elements of his character, as they were developed and wrought their effect, could have lost nothing in the world's judgment by a contrast, however strong, with the weaker and cruder elements of his nature. His life was a type of the society in which he lived, and with the progress and development of that society, advanced and expanded with a civilization which changed the unpeopled West to a land of churches and cities, wealth and civilization.

In your comment upon that part of the biography which treats of Mr. Lincoln's religion you say:--"A certain doubt is cast upon his argument by the heartlessness of it. We cannot avoid an impression that an anti-Christian animus inspires him." And you further say, "He does not know what Lincoln was, nor what religion is." That I did not know what Mr. Lincoln was, I must take leave to contradict with some emphasis; that I do not know what religion is, in the presence of so many illustrious failures to comprehend its true character, I may be permitted to doubt. Speaking of Mr. Lincoln in reference to this feature of his character, I express the decided opinion that he was an eminently moral man. Regarding him as a moral man, with my views upon the relations existing between the two characteristics, I have no difficulty in believing him a religious man! Yet he was not a Christian. He possessed, it is true, a system of faith and worship, but it was one which Orthodox Christianity stigmatizes as a false religion.

It surely cannot be a difficult matter to determine whether a man who lived so recently and so famously was a Christian or not. If he was a Christian he must have been sincere, for sincerity is one of the first of Christian virtues, and if sincere he must have availed himself of the promises of our Lord by a public profession of His faith, baptism in His name and membership of His church. Did Mr. Lincoln do this? No one pretends that he did, and those who maintain that he was nevertheless a Christian must hold that he may follow Jesus and yet deny Him; that he may be ashamed to own his Redeemer and yet claim His intercession; that he may serve Him acceptably, forsaking nothing, acknowledging nothing, repenting nothing.

When it is established by the testimony of the Christian Ministry that sinners may enter Heaven by a broad back gate like this, few will think it worth while to continue in the straight and narrow path prescribed by the Word of God. They who would canonize Mr. Lincoln as a saint should pause and reflect a brief moment upon the incalculable injury they do the cause which most of them profess to love. It would certainly have been pleasant to me to have closed without touching upon his religious opinions; but such an omission would have violated the fundamental principle upon which every line of the book is traced. Had it been possible to have truthfully asserted that he was a member of the Church of Christ or that he believed in the teachings of the New Testament, the facts would have been proclaimed with a glow of earnest and unfeigned satisfaction.

In conclusion I may say that my friendship for Mr. Lincoln was of no recent hot-house growth. Unlike that of many who have made me the subject of hostile criticism, it antedates the beginning of his presidential term and the dawn of his political triumphs. I had the good fortune to be in intimate association with his private life when it was humble and obscure, and I was near him too in the darkest hour of his executive responsibility, until, indeed, the first rays of God-given peace broke upon the land. I can say, with truth that none can assail, that I retained his confidence unshaken as he retained my affections unbroken until his life was offered up as a crowning sacrifice to domestic discord at the very threshold of his and the nation's triumph. Is it, therefore, likely that words of mine, written or spoken, should do purposed injustice to his memory? With the most profound respect, I am

Very truly your obedient servant, WARD H. LAMON.

* * * * *

Transcriber's note:

Page xxv: The date 1661 has been changed to 1861.

Page 24: "at Harrisburg to chose one companion"--"chose" has been replaced with "choose".

The following line of the Table of Contents has been moved from the first heading in CHAPTER II to the end of CHAPTER I:

"Time between Election and Departure for Washington 28".