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The Underground Railroad in Indiana Levi Coffin House,PAGE 3 Upcoming Events

LINCOLN LORE is the bulletin of the Allen County Public Library and the Friends of the Lincoln Collection of Indiana

CONTRIBUTORS David Dew Nichole Etcheson Allen C. Guelzo Jeffrey R. Kerr-Ritchie, PhD Frank Williams

ACPL LEVI & CATHARINE COFFIN STATE HISTORIC SITE Jane Gastineau COMMUNITY DAYS [email protected] Fountain City, Indiana Dec. 10, 2016, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm FRIENDS OF THE LINCOLN COLLECTION Sara Gabbard, Editor Dec. 11, 2016, 1:00 to 5:00 pm Post Office Address FREE Box 11083 Celebrate the opening of the Interpretive Center at the Levi and Fort Wayne, Indiana 46855 Catharine Coffin State Historic Site. Visitors can enjoy self-guided [email protected] tours of the center, including an introductory film, and view the www.acpl.info exhibition “Souls Seeking Safety,” which explores the stories of www.LincolnCollection.org freedom seekers and the Coffins’ antislavery work. Guided tours www.facebook.com/LincolnCollection of the Coffin home will also be available. LINCOLN LORE® For more information, see page 3. ISSN 0162-8615 Unless otherwise indicated, all images are held by the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection (LFFC).

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FALL 2016 The Levi Coffin State Historic Site, locat- ed at 113 U.S. 27 North in Fountain City, Indiana, was the third home of Quakers Levi and Catharine Coffin in what was then called the town of Newport. The eight-room, Federal-style brick house was a safe haven for as many as 2,000 fugitive slaves on their journey to Canada. As the point of convergence for three major escape routes through Ohio and Indiana, it became known as “The Grand Central Station of the Underground Railroad.” The “station” was so successful that every slave who passed through eventually reached freedom. The Levi Coffin House The house, built in 1839, has some unusual features that made it a suc- cessful “station.” Most rooms have at also deeply com- mitted to the cause. least two ways out, there is a spring-fed She organized the well in the basement for easy access Antislavery Sewing to water, plenty of room upstairs al- Society depository lowed for extra visitors, and large attic at the Coffin house and storage garrets on the side of the to make and distrib- rear room made for convenient hid- ute new clothing for ing places. The location of the house fugitives, and she at the center of an abolitionist Quaker ensured their safe- community allowed the entire commu- nity to act as lookouts for the Coffins Quakers, Levi and Catharine “did not ty and comfort in the Coffins’ home. and give them plenty of warning feel bound to respect human laws that In 1847, the Coffins moved to Cincinnati when slave catchers came into town. came in direct contact with the law of so Levi could operate a wholesale ware- God.” Although many Quakers were op- house supplying goods to free-labor LEVI AND CATHARINE COFFIN posed to slavery, few were active aboli- tionists and even fewer risked their lives stores. The Coffins continued to assist Levi and Catharine Coffin were and freedom to actively help slaves es- fugitive slaves along the Kentucky-Ohio Quakers from North Carolina who cape bondage. Nonetheless, others in border. During the Civil War, they fo- opposed slavery and became very ac- the Newport community who were un- cused their efforts on aiding freed peo- tive with the Underground Railroad in willing to directly help fugitives provid- ple living in refugee camps. After the Indiana. Between 1826 and 1846 they ed the Coffins with money, extra food, war, they turned their attention to the lived in Newport (now Fountain City) clothing, and protection for their work. Western Freedmen’s Aid Society, which where, in defiance of federal law, they helped educate and provide basic liv- worked to provide transportation, shel- Levi was a well-respected communi- ing needs for former slaves. Levi raised ter, food, and clothing for hundreds of ty leader with several business inter- funds in Europe and the American fugitive slaves. Many of their stories ests in Newport. Instead of hiding his North to help the freed people estab- are told in Levi Coffin’s 1876 memoir, lish business and farms. Levi Coffin abolitionist work, he jokingly boast- Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, the Reputed died in 1877 at age 79. Catharine died ed about being the “President of the President of the Underground Railroad. four years later, aged 78. Underground Railroad” and publicly As a child in the South, Levi witnessed spoke out against slavery. He often For information about visiting the the cruelty of slavery, and his wife, used the law to his advantage and was Levi Coffin State Historic Site, go to Catharine White Coffin, came from friends with Henry Ward Beecher and http://www.indianamuseum.org/ an abolitionist family. As abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Catharine was levi-coffin-state-historic-site.

LINCOLN LORE . NUMBER 1913 The Youth of Abraham Lincoln, by Morgan J. Rhees (1889) 71.2009.081.1770

By NICOLE ETCHESON Lincoln BALL STATE UNIVERSITY as a Hoosier: Race, Politics, and the Sixteenth President

Editor’s Note: Because 2016 marks the Bicentennial of both Indiana statehood Indiana.” This period of Abraham Lincoln’s life is frequently given and the year that the Lincoln family moved across the Ohio River only a cursory glance in biographical material. It is our purpose from Kentucky to settle in southern Indiana, we are pleased to to present information which raises—and, perhaps, answers—the announce that some articles in this issue and in Lincoln Lore question: What aspects of Lincoln’s personality and abilities as a issues to be published during 2017 will focus on “The Lincolns in leader can be traced to his “Indiana roots?”

4 FALL 2016 NICOLE ETCHESON

To honor the bicentennial of Abraham admiration for—young Abe’s eager preme court ruled the law unconsti- Lincoln’s birth, the United States desire for education. But to the adults tutional two years later. With patchy Mint issued a new penny in spring who knew Lincoln as a boy, reading a funding, the average school year in 2009 “that pays homage to Abraham book looked like slothfulness. Indiana by mid-century was two-and- Lincoln’s years as a Hoosier.” The a-half months. Another Hanks, Dennis, remem- “tails” side shows “a teenage Lincoln bered that Abe’s father, Tom Lincoln, Lincoln recalled of his Indiana youth, reading a book while taking a break thought his son spent too much time “There was absolutely nothing to ex- from railsplitting.” on books, “having sometimes to slash cite ambition for education. Of course The Indiana penny is the second in a him for neglecting his work by read- when I came of age I did not know series commemorating Lincoln’s life: ing.” Dennis Hanks also considered much.” By his own estimate, a year the first shows his Kentucky log-cab- Lincoln “lazy—a very lazy man. He in a “blab” school was all the formal in birthplace; the third, Lincoln as an was always reading,—scribbling,— schooling Lincoln had. Americans cel- Illinois state legislator; and the fourth, writing—ciphering—writing Poetry.” ebrate Lincoln’s self-education, but the unfinished Capitol dome dating Neighbors in southern Indiana— Lincoln himself would have preferred from his presidency. whom Lincoln’s Illinois law partner, formal schooling. He made sure his William Herndon, interviewed after The penny’s release created traffic son Robert went to Phillips Exeter the president’s death—agreed that jams around the Lincoln boyhood Academy and Harvard. Lincoln was lazy. And they reached home in Spencer County, IN. Despite that conclusion from his preference Lincoln’s hunger for education was the rain, “coin collectors and Lincoln for books over farm work. just one of many differences that set enthusiasts” waited in lines a quar- him apart from Hoosiers. After leav- ter-mile long to buy the coin. Mint Frontier conditions may Director Edmond C. Moy told the have circumscribed crowd, “The 14 years Lincoln spent Lincoln’s childhood ed- here in Indiana gave him the skills ucation in Indiana, but and character, compassion and forti- it was also the case that tude, to lead the nation through one Indiana didn’t make of the darkest periods in our history.” much of an effort to Biographers agree. It was in Indiana, provide education for writes Ronald C. White, Jr. in a recent its children. The 1816 biography, that Lincoln developed Indiana Constitution “the interior moral compass” which stipulated that the guided him. As former Governor Otis General Assembly Bowen said, “Indiana made Lincoln.” would provide “a gener- al system of education,” Certainly Hoosiers would like to think from township schools that our greatest president derived to a state university, his greatness from growing up in their where tuition was to state. He did. But Lincoln became be free, “as soon as cir- great by rejecting many of the values cumstances will per- of nineteenth-century Indiana. mit.” But circumstances Race, Politics, and the Sixteenth President The penny shows young Abe sitting would not permit un- on a log, reading a book, with a maul til after the Civil War. resting against the log. The penny’s Although the 1851 state portrayal is accurate: John Hanks, a constitution renewed cousin, said that Lincoln would take a promises for a “general book into the field and “would always and uniform system of read while resting.” Despite the classic common schools,” and image, Lincoln apparently read not by the General Assembly firelight but outside in good weather passed a school law in or by grease or hickory bark lamps 1852 to provide for pub- indoors. The penny is supposed to lic schools supported by remind one of—and to provoke one’s taxpayers, the state su- William Henry Harrison OC-1794

LINCOLN LORE . NUMBER 1913 5 LINCOLN AS A HOOSIER: RACE, POLITICS, AND THE SIXTEENTH PRESIDENT

the American System, which already passed its own Mammoth included federal funding for Internal Improvements Bill, also for internal improvements, a high $10 million. Both states had the same protective tariff, and a nation- experience: the economy crashed al bank. These policies, Whigs with the Panic of 1837, leaving enor- claimed, would stimulate the mous debts. Yet even after the panic, economy. Democrats, how- Lincoln as a state legislator opposed ever, feared the high taxes stopping construction of the improve- necessary to fund internal ments. Similarly, although Indiana improvements, the high con- went bankrupt after the Panic, the sumer prices brought by tar- state legislature passed measures to iffs, and the favoritism such continue building the canal system, a policies (especially a bank) system that was increasingly super- would show to capitalists and seded by privately built railroads. bankers over farmers and la- Lincoln was less adamant about boring men. the third element of the American Lincoln favored a national System, the protective tariff. He does bank. Biographer Michael not appear to have taken a stand on Burlingame says Lincoln it as a state legislator or in Congress. “championed the state bank David Herbert Donald finds Lincoln’s with special vehemence” in speeches on the tariff “confusing,” 1837, just before the Panic of and concludes that he tried to follow that year ruined the econo- the Whig party line but didn’t really my, inspired by efforts to re- understand the pro-tariff argument. peal the state bank’s charter. Lincoln studied writings about the Lincoln believed a state bank tariff to improve his comprehension was necessary to finance inter- of the issues, and he advocated a Henry Clay OC-0498 nal improvements and stimu- protective tariff as a presidential can- late the economy, arguing that didate only because he needed the ing for Illinois, he went into politics, the credit provided by banks allowed electoral votes of protection-demand- but not those of his family and neigh- poor men to rise economically. In one ing Pennsylvania, whose politicians bors in Indiana. Tom Lincoln was a famous incident of Lincoln’s state put him forward as an “old Henry Clay Democrat, according to Dennis Hanks, legislative career, he and other Whig tariff Whig.” As president-elect,- how and “so were we all.” Lincoln, howev- legislators jumped out a second-story ever, he merely said he would carry er, became a Whig, an adherent of window of the statehouse to prevent a out whatever tariff policy Congress the party of business. Whigs believed quorum. Less well known, however, is enacted and confessed he did not that government could play a positive that Lincoln’s jump was provoked by a know much about the impending role in not only the economy but also Democratic measure that would have Morrill Tariff. He articulated a protec- in society, supporting moral reforms hurt the state bank. Banks were also tionist position, saying it was wasteful such as temperance and moderate controversial in Indiana, whose state to import from abroad what could be antislavery measures. The Democrats, bank was under attack. Democrats produced at home, and tried to count- by contrast, preferred limited govern- charged that it existed for the benefit er the Democratic argument that ment, lest a powerful state intrude on of a “moneyed aristocracy,” not hon- tariffs raised prices for consumers. individual rights, and distrusted gov- est workingmen, and contributed to Lincoln’s adherence to the tariff dif- ernment regulation of personal mo- the economic fluctuations of the era. fered somewhat from the emerging rality. Not a single Lincoln or Hanks position in Indiana, where many were Perhaps even more than banking, in- would vote for Abe in 1860. growing less supportive of protective ternal improvements won Lincoln’s tariffs, viewing them as good for New Lincoln always maintained that support as a state legislator in Illinois. England’s infant manufacturing but Henry Clay, the Whig leader, was In 1837 he led the passage of a large harmful to Midwestern consumers. his “beau ideal of a statesman.” Clay internal improvements bill that allo- was most famous for his support for cated $10 million for canals, roads, As a young candidate, Lincoln an- a pro-business set of policies, called and railroads. Indiana in 1836 had nounced, “My politics are short and

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sweet, like the old woman’s dance.” was predominantly a Democratic His earliest political addresses advo- state. Illinois went Democratic in ev- cated Whig political policies, especial- ery election until 1860, and Indiana ly internal improvements. His public went for the Whigs only in 1836 and addresses, intended for general au- 1840, when native son William Henry diences, more often took up issues Harrison was the presidential candi- other than abolitionism. In an 1838 date. One historian says no Whig was speech, Lincoln referred to the death elected to statewide office in Illinois. of Elijah Lovejoy, an abolitionist news- The same was true in Indiana. paperman in Alton, Illinois, who was Lincoln was elected to Congress killed by a mob. But unlike other an- only because the Seventh Illinois ti-slavery men, he used the incident Congressional District was safely not to indict the Slave Power or incite Whig. During Lincoln’s one term, he sympathy for abolitionism but to de- was the only Whig congressman from plore mob violence as a violation of Illinois. And he only got one term be- law and order. cause all the ambitious Whigs rotated While Lincoln did not endorse aboli- through that one office. Lincoln had tionism, he did support temperance, to wait for John J. Hardin and Edward the anti-alcohol movement. Although D. Baker to have their turns. He then he never joined the prohibition move- gave way to the next Whig candidate, ment, he addressed temperance Stephen Logan, who promptly lost groups and did not drink himself. the seat—a defeat some attributed Lincoln spoke feelingly to a work- to Lincoln’s unpopular criticism of ing-class temperance organization, the Mexican War. Lincoln’s early polit- Mr. Clay’s Speech in Support of an American System for the Protection of American Industry, the Washingtonian Society, of the ical career thus came to a dead end Delivered March 30th and 31st, 1824 71200908400339 defeat of alcohol as “a greater tyrant because his political views differed deposed” than King George III in the from those of most of the people of American Revolution. In the Midwest, Illinois—and of Indiana. He later said where much of the corn produced he was “always a whig in politics,” and was converted into whiskey, tem- that was just the problem. perance was a hotly contested issue. Drinking was socially acceptable and Without much chance of election to considered conducive to hard agricul- office, Lincoln said he “was losing -in tural labor. Moreover, temperance, a terest in politics, when the repeal of middle-class movement, was seen as the Missouri Compromise aroused interfering with long-held customs me again.” He was referring to the and personal rights. Temperance Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which forces did attempt to pass prohibition repealed the Missouri Compromise’s (so-called Maine laws) in both Illinois prohibition on slavery in the northern and Indiana. In Illinois the law was part of the Louisiana Purchase, re- narrowly defeated. A prohibition law opened the slavery issue, and brought passed the Indiana legislature in 1855 him back into politics. but was quickly ruled an unconstitu- Lincoln is best known not for his ad- tional infringement on property rights vocacy of banks and internal improve- by the Indiana Supreme Court. ments but for opposing slavery and It is often noted that Lincoln had little emancipating the slaves. Yet his po- political experience when he became litical views on slavery evolved gradu- president. Aside from his time in the ally. He was not an abolitionist in the Illinois state legislature, he had served 1850s, although he believed slavery only one term as a congressman. The to be morally wrong. He succeeded reason Lincoln had so little political as an antislavery politician because Proceedings of the Indiana Whig Convention, Indianapolis, experience is that Illinois, like Indiana, his opposition to slavery expansion Jan. 22, 1838 71200908408227

LINCOLN LORE . NUMBER 1913 7 LINCOLN AS A HOOSIER: RACE, POLITICS, AND THE SIXTEENTH PRESIDENT

into the territories aligned with the to introduce political and social equal- cause Douglas kept insisting that his views of other Midwesterners and ity between the white and black races. opponent was an abolitionist who Northerners. Lincoln won both Illinois There is a physical difference between favored black equality. And Lincoln’s and Indiana when he ran for president the two, which, in my judgment, will statements that the Declaration in- in 1860. In fact, Lincoln became the probably forever forbid their living cluded African Americans—which candidate precisely because he was together upon the footing of perfect Douglas adamantly denied—gave cre- considered most likely to take those equality . . . and I . . . am in favor of dence to the charge that Lincoln was states. Hoosier Henry S. Lane told the race to which I belong having the a “Black Republican” who favored ra- anyone who would listen at the 1860 superior position.” This passage has cial equality and even intermarriage. Republican convention that Lincoln been used to show that Lincoln was a Stephen Douglas frequently used a was the only nominee who could win racist. Yet he went on to say, “I hold story about seeing the black abolition- Indiana that fall. The Republicans that, notwithstanding all this, there is ist Frederick Douglass in a carriage knew they had to win Indiana, as no reason in the world why the negro with a white woman to shock Illinois well as Illinois and Pennsylvania, in is not entitled to all the natural rights audiences. Despite rejecting Stephen order to elect a president. According enumerated in the Declaration of to some accounts, Lane danced a jig Douglas’s charges of racial egalitari- Independence, the right to life, liberty, on the stage in Chicago when Lincoln anism, Lincoln maintained that slav- and the pursuit of happiness.” went over the top on the third ballot. ery was immoral, that it was a cancer Lincoln had to repeat his statements that should not spread, and that the Lincoln was vulnerable as a candi- in favor of black subordination be- Founders had viewed it as antithetical date, however, because his support for white supremacy was weak. Both Indiana and Illinois were black law states. In Indiana, African Americans could not testify against whites, marry whites, or attend public schools with them; nor could they vote; or, after the 1851 Constitution, even migrate into the state. Illinois had all the same provisions. Because Lincoln did not believe blacks and whites could live together as equals, he supported col- onization—the program of resettling African Americans in a colony in Africa or Latin America. His great political hero, Whig leader Henry Clay, had been a colonization advocate. Indiana not only prohibited black migration into the state, but had a fund to colo- nize the existing free black population in the West African nation of Liberia.

Lincoln did not challenge the black laws, and he continued to support vol- untary colonization well into his presi- dency. And he did state, when running for the Senate in 1858, his belief in black subordination. Lincoln enunci- ated his views on racial equality re- peatedly in his debates with Stephen A. Douglas, saying, “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with The Proclamation of Emancipation by the President of the United States, the institution of slavery in the States to Take Effect January 1st, 1863 (1862) 71200908403283 where it exists. . . . I have no purpose

8 FALL 2016 NICOLE ETCHESON

to republican liberty. George Julian, Hoosiers. Putnam County, Indiana, diers. During the Civil War, Frederick an Indiana congressman, said, “the Democrats resolved that the Douglass met Abraham Lincoln. The American people are emphatically a Emancipation Proclamation “is a most eminent black abolitionist comment- negro-hating people. By their actions palpable violation of Executive pow- ed that he had never been “more . . . they declare that ‘the negro is not er—a disgrace to the age in which quickly or more completely put a man.’” One of Lincoln’s complaints we live—and a burning shame upon at ease in the presence of a great about Douglas’s rhetoric was that the fair name which our nation has man” than he was by the president. Douglas denied the basic humanity hitherto borne, and will bring down Douglass considered this particularly of blacks. By contrast, Lincoln insisted upon it the execrations of mankind, noteworthy since Lincoln came from that African Americans were humans and consign its author to well merit- a black law state. The measures asso- and not brutes. In this assertion, ed oblivion and eternal infamy.” And ciated with Lincoln’s enduring memo- Lincoln defied much public opinion in Indiana’s Thomas Hendricks was one ry, emancipation and black equality, the Midwest. of six senators who voted against the would have been unthinkable in the Thirteenth Amendment. (The others Indiana—or the America—of Lincoln’s In his First Inaugural Address, Lincoln were from Kentucky, Delaware, and youth. Because Lincoln was not a typi- stated his intention to uphold south- California.) cal Hoosier, they became realities. ern constitutional rights to slavery. He even endorsed a proposed amend- Among the Democrats’ fears was that Sources: “U.S. Mint Unveils New ment that would have written those Indiana’s black laws would be over- Lincoln Penny in Ind.,” Muncie Star- rights expressly into the Constitution. turned by the Proclamation and by Press, May 15, 2009, p. 6a; Michael But the Civil War changed the circum- further measures advancing black Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life. stances under which that endorse- rights. That is precisely what hap- Volumes One and Two (Baltimore, ment was made. In Lincoln’s view, pened. Once freed, many slaves from Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, secession had nullified any northern Kentucky and other southern states 2008); David Herbert Donald, Lincoln obligation to respect southern rights migrated northward. The black pop- (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995); to slaves. Increasingly, he hinted that ulation of Indiana doubled after the Fred Kaplan, Lincoln: The Biography emancipation in some form might war, although it still remained tiny. of a Writer (New York: HarperCollins, come about. He asked Congress to Courts ruled that the Thirteenth and 2008); Nicole Etcheson, The Emerging fund compensated emancipation and Fourteenth Amendments, the latter Midwest: Upland Southerners and the told slaveowners that it was impos- of which asserted black citizenship, Political Culture of the Old Northwest, sible to foresee all the possible out- nullified discriminatory measures 1787-1861 (Bloomington: Indiana comes of a continuing war. When he such as the black laws. And in grant- University Press, 1996); Nicole revoked Union general David Hunter’s ing black men the vote, the Fifteenth Etcheson, A Generation at War: The emancipation order early in the war, Amendment superseded Indiana’s Civil War Era in a Northern Community he nonetheless added that such mea- constitutional prohibition on black (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, sures might “become a necessity in- suffrage. But while other northern 2011); Ronald C. White, Jr., A. Lincoln: dispensable to the maintenance of states formally removed their black A Biography (New York: Random the government.” When Lincoln did laws from the statute books, Indiana’s House, 2009); Douglas L. Wilson, issue the Emancipation Proclamation, were not repealed until 1881, making ed., Herndon’s Informants: Letters, he put it forward as a military necessi- it the last northern state to get rid of Interviews, and Statements about ty. W.H. McIlvaine, a soldier in the 11th those discriminatory provisions. Abraham Lincoln (Urbana: University Indiana, accepted that reasoning. He of Illinois Press, 1998). Lincoln died before the Fourteenth explained to relatives at home why and Fifteenth Amendments were Nicole Etcheson is the Alexander M. the Emancipation Proclamation was added to the Constitution, so it is not Bracken Professor of History at Ball required: “Slavery is the cause of this possible to know whether he would State University. war, which no one will deny. It is also have backed these measures. (The the life and sinew in supporting and Thirteenth Amendment was sub- prolonging this war. The President has mitted to the states in early 1865, the constitutional power to declare although it was not officially ratified the slaves free. . . . The Proclamation until December of that year.) By the is simply a military necessity.” end of his life, however, Lincoln was Nonetheless, the Proclamation was advocating black suffrage for some, distinctly unpopular with many such as the educated and black sol-

LINCOLN LORE . NUMBER 1913 9 Riding the Circuit, by Rollin Kirby (1909) 71.2009.081.1790

Lincoln through Interview by SARA GABBARD the Lens of History, An Interview with Frank Williams

10 FALL 2016 FRANK WILLIAMS

Sara Gabbard: Why does the life of Abraham Lincoln continue to en- thrall us?

Frank Williams: President Lincoln struck many visitors to the White House as bizarre – honest and friend- ly, but woefully unfit for the office, given his personal quirks and frontier sense of humor. Physically, he was picturesque with a 6’4” frame, massive hands, size 13 feet, and strikingly ugly face. Even professionally, the verbal tricks of a self-taught prairie lawyer (including his frequent use of “ain’t” and the endless country tales to make a point) left many to question wheth- er his intellect was enough to face the crises that engulfed the nation.

Strangely, it seemingly took a future assassinated leader to fully appreci- ate why a victim occasionally becomes even larger in death than in life. In Bombardment of Fort Sumter, Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War, Vol. I 71200908406574 1905, while in South Africa, Mohandas Gandhi wrote a newspaper article on with the King James Bible, the plays ership needed to preserve the Union why America’s 16th president had a of William Shakespeare, and poetry in during a massive Civil War. But let us major influence on him and suggest- general. remember, too, that it was the legal experience from 24 years as a practic- ed that Lincoln’s death was histori- By these means, Lincoln the lawyer- ing attorney that had helped prepare cally less important than his endur- statesman, was able to steer the na- him for the challenge of the presiden- ing legacy in the world. His death on tion through its Civil War without de- cy. Long before he became the na- the Saturday morning between Good stroying the U.S. Constitution, while tion’s greatest president, Lincoln was Friday and Easter almost immediate- he contributed to a political and legal a well-respected lawyer in Illinois. As ly transformed Lincoln the politician revolution. Surely, this crafty politi- into a secular saint across America cian who kept the nation’s commit- a trial lawyer, Lincoln’s style was sim- and around the world. ment to black soldiers who helped ple, logical, and direct. He was folksy but shrewd, knowing every detail of It then took scholars at least a half-cen- save it by championing the 13th a case. He practiced this art as pres- tury to restore Lincoln’s humanity, yet Amendment, abolishing slavery—final ident by, for example, propounding their increasing academic specializa- freedom—would have far more art- interrogatories to his subordinates. tion undermined his worldwide leg- fully handled Reconstruction than the acy until more recently. What was men who succeeded him. His desire When he sought the advice of General not clear at first after his death were to bring the South back into the fold in Winfield Scott on the Fort Sumter aspects of him that many around him a spirit of charity and without malice, crisis, he told the general, “You will had come to discover; the folksy prai- while protecting basic rights of blacks, much oblige me by giving answers, in rie lawyer had a will of steel; a knack required the willpower and skills of a writing, to the following interrogato- for peering into the heart of a prob- master politician. ries.” When his plan of attack differed lem; a rare ability to rise above insults from General George B. McClellan’s, SG: What lessons, if any, have polit- and emotion while applying reason he directed him to answer a series ical leaders learned from Lincoln’s and pragmatism to tasks; a penchant of direct questions: “Wherein is a vic- life? What lessons should they have for moderation; a keen sense of pub- tory more certain by your plan than learned? lic opinion to determine how far the mine?” In leading, one should reflect public and politicians were willing to FW: Every president wants “to get on Lincoln’s political courage. He was go; and a brilliant flair for the English right” with Abraham Lincoln as he is clear and self-confident in his beliefs. language, cultivated by familiarity remembered most for providing lead- He learned to trust his own judgment.

LINCOLN LORE . NUMBER 1913 11 LINCOLN THROUGH THE LENS OF HISTORY

Although he made mistakes, they right context to nudge a group along and the pursuit of happiness. Lincoln were not mistakes of self-doubt. A toward solutions. Lincoln, the collab- understood that Jefferson’s meaning prerequisite for this kind of courage orative political leader, appears differ- formed “the definitions and axioms of is remaining steady even amid a bar- ent from traditional ones. He created free society.” These “truths” formed rage of criticism. And certainly Lincoln an atmosphere of cooperation, rather Lincoln’s political philosophy. He was no stranger to criticism. He suf- than competition, by evoking a shared quoted in profusion the vision of the fered continuous assaults on his char- national consciousness, rather than Declaration of Independence draft- acter from the North, the South, and partisanship. ed primarily by Jefferson. It became abroad. Lincoln’s legal brief for a democratic SG: Which of our Founding Fathers society. To Lincoln, the Declaration Lincoln understood that half mea- does Lincoln most resemble in was antecedent and superior to the sures were insufficient regarding views regarding the proper role of “positive” or man-made law found in national union and emancipation. the federal government? On the the U.S. Constitution. These issues could only be resolved in same subject, which Founder’s such a way that they could never be viewpoint does he reject? For that reason, Lincoln would con- reopened. FW: His last law partner, William H. cede, “all honor to Jefferson,” who Lessons that later political leaders Herndon, wrote, “Mr. Lincoln hated “had the coolness, forecast, and ca- should learn include what Lincoln had Thomas Jefferson as a man and as a pacity” to fix in the Declaration of in abundance: a fundamental vision, politician.” Yet Herndon only got it Independence the “abstract truth” a golden temperament, and a shrewd half right. that all men are created equal, so that strategy for how to cope with political it would “be a rebuke and a stumbling Jefferson believed that the only real realities. Primarily missing today is a block” to anyone who planned to re- wealth was land and that the only true collaborative leader who avoids domi- introduce “tyranny and oppression.” occupation of virtuous and indepen- nating his party and the other branch- It was a profound insight and stan- dent citizens was farming. Lincoln, es of government. Today’s leaders, dard for democratic government, not who actually grew up laboring on a like Lincoln, should see themselves just for the United States, but for the backwards farm, saw little there but as a stage setter who makes creativity world. endless, mind-numbing toil under the possible for everyone. Collaborative rule of his illiterate father. He made On a more practical level, Lincoln leaders remove the distance between his escape from the farm as soon as valued another Virginian. George themselves and others. Today’s prob- he turned 21, opened a store which Washington was Lincoln’s earliest lems are too complex for a single failed, and finally went into law to pro- model as a patriot, statesman, and brain, so these leaders can create the mote commerce. Jefferson regarded self-made man. He had read Parson banks as the source of commercial Weems’s The Life of George Washington evil. But Lincoln, as an Illinois state as a young boy and from that point legislator, promoted a state banking forward molded his career and his system and public funding for canals understanding of patriotic duty and bridges. As a lawyer, Lincoln was around Washington’s example. It was never “unwilling to appear in behalf probably why he became a surveyor of a great soulless corporation,” espe- and enlisted in the Illinois Militia. If cially railroads. As president, he put Lincoln was, in the words of Richard into place a national banking system, Brookhiser, the “founders’ son,” then protective tariffs for American manu- it was Washington who was first facturing and government guarantees among his fathers, while Jefferson for building a transcontinental rail- played a more intellectual role in road. Jefferson would turn over in his Lincoln’s mind. grave if aware of Lincoln’s economic SG: If one subscribes to the concept policies. that there are “historical eras,” But there was another dimension of Abraham Lincoln was born on the Jefferson that Lincoln admired. In cusp between Enlightenment and the Declaration of Independence and Romanticism. Is there any evidence elsewhere, Jefferson articulated a “nat- in his writing/speaking/thought The Life of George Washington, by M.L. Weems, ural law” perspective on life, liberty, that would support the concept Eighth edition, 1809 71200908400741

12 FALL 2016 FRANK WILLIAMS

that he reflected both “Ages” …or of unrequited toil,” and ended, with a was his mind one that cannot be call for compassion and reconciliation. categorized? The first eight words of Lincoln’s last FW: Abraham Lincoln was sui generis. paragraph of the address proclaimed He transcended both Enlightenment an enduring promise of reconcilia- and Romanticism, as well as polit- tion: “With malice toward none, with ical labels. There are more books charity for all” immediately became on Abraham Lincoln than any other his most memorable words from the democratic political leader in world Second Inaugural Address. After his history—some 16,000. His defini- assassination, they came to represent tion of democratic government deliv- Lincoln’s legacy to the nation and the ered at Gettysburg has appeared in world. Lincoln ended the address with the Constitutions of nations around a coda for healing: “To bind up…to care the world and his presence is rein- for…to do all which may achieve and forced abroad on streets, schools, cherish a just and a lasting peace….” and stamps bearing his name and Instead of rallying followers, in the image more than any other American name of God, to support the war, he president. asked his listeners, quietly, to emulate the ways of God. This is what I mean A prime example of his words and by saying that Lincoln had become a deeds coming together is Lincoln’s James Buchanan OC-1800 lawyer-statesman-judge. Second Inaugural Address. In only have been had Lincoln not intervened 703 words, Lincoln carried the scales SG: Did the American public have in the sectional conflict of the 1850s. of justice into this speech. He did so different expectations for the pres- His predecessor, James Buchanan, knowing that Americans had always idency in the 1860s than today? been uncomfortable facing up to would not “fight.” While believing se- FW: Except for George Washington’s their own potential for malevolence. cession illegal, he thought there was defining the presidency through his The president suggested that the war nothing his administration could do demeanor and statesmanship and was a means of purging the nation of if states left the Union. We expect the strong and sometimes raucous its historic sin of slavery, “until every boldness from our leaders, along with presidency of Andrew Jackson, most drop of blood drawn with the lash, political courage, the ability to com- presidents until Abraham Lincoln shall be paid by another drawn with municate, and effectiveness. Lincoln tended to be subdued in their deport- the sword.” It was the language of a is the shrewd prairie lawyer-politician, ment and initiatives. Surprisingly, the judge, not the mere language of a law- more adept than his better-known ri- Whig Lincoln kept a portrait of the yer who delivered the First Inaugural vals and his predecessors. Democrat Jackson hanging in his cabi- Address four years earlier. It took only net room. While some, then and now, Yet, when he was urged during the six or seven minutes to deliver, yet it criticize Lincoln for this, there is really Civil War to ignore the Constitution’s contains many of the most memora- no other way he could have prevailed restraints on presidential power, he ble phrases in American political or- through four horrific years by winning echoed Jefferson’s warning against atory. The speech contained neither the war and addressing slavery—its taking “possession of a boundless gloating nor rejoicing, accounting for cause. No president has such a hold field of power” by asking: “Would I not the confusion of many listeners who on our minds as Lincoln. His greatest thus give up all footing upon consti- expected and wanted political tripe. trial, the Civil War, was the nation’s tutional law? Would I not thus be in Rather, it challenged the public and greatest trial. Aspects of the race the boundless field of absolutism?” offered Lincoln’s deepest reflections problem that caused it remain with Lincoln was bounded by democratic on the causes and the meaning of us today. His violent death gave his standards in the practice of govern- the war. The “scourge of war,” he ex- life a dramatic climax that allows us to ment—he helped define those stan- plained, was best understood as di- play the always-fascinating “what if?” dards for the world. vine punishment for the sin of slavery, game. in which all Americans, North as well From the outset of the Civil War, as South, were complicit. It described Lincoln, after all, is the central figure in Lincoln had exercised unprecedent- the national moral debt that had been America’s unfolding epic experiment. ed powers as commander in chief. In created by the “bondsmen’s 250 years What we are today we might never 1862, the President had told the dele-

LINCOLN LORE . NUMBER 1913 13 LINCOLN THROUGH THE LENS OF HISTORY

gation of antislavery clergymen from FW: The Constitution does not define ies drawn from the Treasury must be Chicago that he could, if he judged it functions and powers of the presi- as a result of congressional appropri- necessary, proclaim emancipation in dent as commander in chief. Wartime ations. Lincoln openly justified these Confederate states: “as Commander- Presidents James Madison and James actions on the grounds that “existing in-Chief of the army and navy, in time K. Polk did not go much beyond the exigencies demand immediate and of war, I suppose I have a right to take limited function of directing military adequate measures for the protec- any measure which may best subdue forces. Lincoln’s actions as command- tion of the national Constitution and the enemy.” Whether the measures er in chief certainly went beyond “pure- the national Union.” A year later, in he took exceeded his constitutional ly military” matters. The Constitution response to dictatorship charges, he authority was much debated at the gives Congress the power to declare insisted that “It became necessary for time and remain controversial even war. Yet, one of Lincoln’s first acts me to choose whether, using only the today. What remains certain, how- after the firing on Fort Sumter was to existing means, agencies, and pro- ever, is that Lincoln vastly expanded proclaim a blockcade of Confederate cesses which Congress had provided, I presidential war powers and estab- ports. In effect, this proclamation should let the government fall at once lished precedents invoked by his suc- was a declaration of war, and both into ruin, or whether, availing myself cessors during later wars. And he Congress and the Supreme Court sub- of the broader powers conferred by knew and accepted the fact that both sequently endorsed it as such. During the Constitution in cases of insurrec- Congress and the Supreme Court the hellish days during spring 1861, tion, I would make an effort to save would pass judgment on his actions— with Congress out of session, Lincoln it with all its blessings for the present as well as the people. preempted congressional author- age and for posterity.” While not defin- SG: Are we indulging in unfair ity to raise and support armies. His ing those “broader powers conferred judgments if we criticize Lincoln proclamation of April 15 calling on the by the Constitution,” he cited the com- for such wartime measures as the states for 75,000 ninety-day militia to mander in chief clause and the consti- suspension of habeas corpus? Or suppress the insurrection was based tutional mandate that the president are we correct to be cognizant of on the Militia Act of 1795. On May “shall take Care that the Laws be faith- possible legal precedents for future 3, Lincoln issued an Executive Order fully executed” (Article II, Section III). presidents? calling for 43,034 three-year volun- Later presidents also invoked these teers for the army and provisions to justify far-reaching ex- increasing the size of the ecutive actions, sometimes citing regular army and navy by Lincoln’s precedents. The presidential 40,714 men. Both actions oath to “preserve, protect, and defend were apparent violations the Constitution: of the United States” of the Constitution, which is a larger duty that overrides a lesser grants Congress exclusive provision in the Constitution, “A part authority to “raise and cannot be supreme over the whole, to support armies” and to the injury of destruction of the whole.” “provide and maintain a Lincoln sought and received retroac- navy.” President Lincoln tive congressional approval when it believed that the federal met in a special session that he called bureaucracy, in these ear- for on July 4, 1861. It could not meet earlier because of the election timeta- ly days of the war, was still ble in congressional sessions, and the infested with Confederate new Congress would not meet until sympathizers, so he or- December 1861. dered Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase After a mob in Baltimore attacked the to advance $2 million to 6th Massachusetts Infantry as it passed three private citizens from through the city to defend Washington New York to purchase in April 1861 and other Confederate arms and vessels. This or- sympathizers in Maryland tore down der directly contravened telegraph wires and burned railroad Detail of Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inauguration, March 4, 1865 OC-1541 the Constitution, which bridges linking the Capital to the out- stipulates that any mon- side world, Lincoln suspended the writ

14 FALL 2016 FRANK WILLIAMS

apparent violations of civil liberties. Likewise the attack on Pearl Harbor, Chief Justice Roger Taney in a cham- while a surprise as to its location, de- bers decision, ex parte Merryman ruled manded an immediate declaration of that only Congress could suspend war by the Congress and the retool- the writ of habeas corpus. (Article I, ing of American culture, as in the Civil Section 9). Lincoln believed that, “the War, to produce the materials for con- Constitution itself, is silent as to which, ducting a victorious war with 16 mil- or who, is to exercise the power;” and lion men and woman serving in the as the provision was plainly made for armed forces. a dangerous emergency,“…it cannot SG: As we have passed the 150th be believed the framers of the gov- anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s ernment intended, that in every case, death, what advice do you have for the danger should run its course, until those who hope to keep his legacy Congress should be called together; strong? the very assembling of which might be prevented, as was intended in this FW: Today, 150 years later, the entire case, by the rebellion.” Lincoln’s policy world still wrestles with notions of was to preserve the Union by winning equality and a government of, by, and the war, so necessary measures to for the people. It can be seen in dis- Roger B. Taney OC-1006 achieve that purpose overrode lesser parities in America’s criminal justice constitutional restrictions. system and in access to employment, education, housing, and healthcare. It of habeas corpus between Philadelphia SG: How were presidential options/ can also be heard worldwide in polit- and Washington. Subsequent orders decisions as a result of the firing ical discourse. Citizens of all nations expanded the areas where the writ on Fort Sumter and the bombing of are still inspired by the words and was suspended until the proclama- Pearl Harbor similar? Different? deeds of Abraham Lincoln—democra- tion of September 24, 1862, suspend- FW: Both acts of war were similar cy is always a work in progress. ed it throughout the whole country— in that they coalesced the country to North as well as South—and autho- fight a long war with great sacrifice The sesquicentennial of Lincoln’s rized martial law and trials by military at home and in the field. Abraham death is not just about a revered courts of “all Rebels and Insurgents, Lincoln sent a fleet toward Charleston, president. It is about what he stood their aiders and abettors…and all per- South Carolina, with supplies and re- for and the responsibilities “We, the sons discouraging volunteer enlist- inforcements when he learned that people” still shoulder to achieve that ments, resisting militia drafts, or guilty Fort Sumter’s garrison would run vision—a united nation where all peo- of any disloyal practice, affording aid out of supplies in six weeks or less ple enjoy freedom and equality. and comfort to Rebels against the au- the day after his inauguration. If the We will not get another Abraham thority of the United States.” Under Confederates allowed unarmed boats Lincoln—his face could not survive these orders more than 13,000 civil- to bring in “food for hungry men,” the TV, a person with his capacity for in- ians were arrested and detained with- war ships would stand off and rein- trospection could not survive the 24/7 out trial for varying lengths of time, forcements would return north. But self-branding campaign environment. most in the border slave states where if Southern artillery fired on the fleet, Yet, leaders should have a portion of Confederates and guerillas were nu- the guns in the fort would fire back. In his gifts—someone who is philosoph- merous. But even in the North a num- effect, Lincoln flipped a coin and told ically grounded, emotionally mature, ber of antiwar Copperheads were ar- Jefferson Davis: “Heads I win; tails I win and tactically cunning. Both leaders rested (some 4,500), and several were too.” If southern guns fired first, the and followers need resilience, cour- tried and convicted by military tribu- Confederates would stand convicted age, and empathy. nals for draft resistance, trading with of starting a war. If they let the sup- the enemy, sabotage or other alleged plies go in, the American flag would Frank J. Williams is the retired Chief pro-Confederate activities. No other continue to fly over the fort. Davis did Justice of the Supreme Court of Rhode action by the Lincoln administration not hesitate to order the firing before Island, co-chair of the Lincoln Forum, —except perhaps emancipation— the supply ships could reinforce Fort and a well-known expert on Abraham generated greater hostility than these Sumter. Lincoln.

LINCOLN LORE . NUMBER 1913 15 Clement Laird Vallandigham LN-1997

The Star-Crossed Case of Clement Laird Vallandigham BY ALLEN C. GUELZO

FALL 2016 ALLEN C. GUELZO

Ohio had the privilege of giving the Hidra headed, Cloven footed, heaven nation many of the most prominent forsaken, Hell begotten, Pucilanimous figures of the American Civil War. Curse.” Ulysses Grant was born in Ohio; These were curious terms of oppro- William Tecumseh Sherman was also brium to use on a man who was, after born there; and beyond those two all, the son of a Presbyterian preach- (who can be said to have carried most er from New Lisbon, Ohio, and a rea- of the war’s victories on their shoul- sonably successful lawyer in Dayton ders), Ohio can also point with pride from 1847 onward. Clement Laird to John A. Bingham (the architect of Vallandigham (Clement was his fa- the 14th Amendment), Salmon Chase ther’s name; his mother’s family sup- (Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury), plied the Laird) grew up in a household James Garfield, Rutherford B. Hayes, soaked in Calvinist piety. It was not and William McKinley (all of whom religion, though, but politics to which would become president), and even Johnny Clem, the “Drummer Boy of he had been attracted from his early Shiloh.” Lists of Ohio’s contributions twenties, and especially to the politics to the Civil War will, however, proba- of Andrew Jackson’s Democratic party. bly not include the name of Clement He made his first stump speech at a Laird Vallandigham, who represented Democratic political rally when he was rd barely twenty, campaigned for James Ohio’s 3 Congressional District in the Ambrose E. Burnside LN-0434 House of Representatives from 1858 K. Polk in 1844, and “greatly preferred until 1863. Of Vallandigham, perhaps politics to law.” Vallandigham a chance to pay a call the kindest thing said about him has But he cut no remarkable path as a on another well-known Ohioan— been that he was a Copperhead—a candidate for office. He ran - unop John Brown. “Old Ossawatomie,” or strenuous opponent of the Lincoln posed for a seat in the Ohio state leg- “Captain Brown” as he was revered administration. Others were less kind, islature in 1845 but in 1850, lost a bid by his friends, had thrown a lighted or restrained: “a traitor to his own for a county judgeship to a rival Whig match into the deepening controversy people,” “a burning disgrace,” and candidate. He ran for lieutenant-gov- between North and South over slavery most ingeniously, “a Treble tounged, ernor of Ohio in 1851 and lost. He lost by leading an armed party of antislav- an election for Congress in 1852 to ery “soldiers” to seize the federal ar- another Whig by only 147 votes, and senal at Harpers Ferry on October 16, when he ran again in 1854 against 1859. Brown’s plot failed, and Brown the same Whig opponent, he lost by himself was wounded and captured in 2,565 votes. Dreariness seemed to the raid. But he was not in the slightest be his companion in politics, because bit unwilling to talk to Vallandigham when he ran for a third time against when, three days later, the Ohio con- the same Whig incumbent in 1856, gressman came visiting. Vallandigham lost again, this time Vallandigham had actually been by only nineteen votes. But he con- en route from Washington to Ohio tested the election, on the basis that through Harpers Ferry when Brown’s his opponent’s total was tainted with raid froze all transportation westward the voting of a number of “colored for forty-eight hours. When he final- citizens,” and a Democrat-controlled ly arrived at Harpers Ferry at noon House of Representatives awarded on October 19th, Vallandigham used Vallandigham the seat. Incumbency the hours he would have to wait un- improved his situation, and in 1858 til the evening connecting train came he was finally elected to Congress on through to wander around the town his own power—although by only 188 “in deep reflection.” When he ar- votes. rived at the arsenal grounds, he was The 36th Congress did not assemble hailed by the officer in command of John Brown OC-0455 until December 1859, which gave the Marine detachment that had sub-

LINCOLN LORE . NUMBER 1913 17 THE STAR-CROSSED CASE OF CLEMENT LAIRD VALLADIGHAM

dued Brown, Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee. Southern attack changing his mind, Vallandigham learned from Lee that Vallandigham instead announced that James Mason, who would chair the he “never would, as a Representative Senate’s special investigative com- in the Congress of the United States, mittee into the Harpers Ferry raid, vote one dollar of money whereby and the local Virginia representative, one drop of American blood should Charles James Faulkner, were on their be shed in a civil war.” way to interview Brown in the office of Vallandigham’s concern was pointed the arsenal, where he was being held at Lincoln and the need to “rescue the prisoner, and Vallandigham was invit- Republic from an impending military ed to join them. Brown’s unashamed despotism.” He did not believe that it admission that “we came to free the was practically possible for the North slaves” appalled Vallandigham. He to coerce the Confederacy back into would write a few days later that the Union, but the effort might well “Captain John Brown is as brave and succeed in destroying constitutional resolute a man as ever headed an government. “History does not re- insurrection.” Clearly, Brown was “no cord an example where any human ordinary ruffian.” Instead, it broke Government has been strong enough on Vallandigham’s mind that Brown to crush ten millions of people into sub- was entirely typical of “the false and Abraham Lincoln LFA-0034 jection when they believed their rights cowardly prophets and teachers of and liberties were imperilled, without Abolition” and that bloodshed and fend both at every hazard, observing first converting the Government itself anarchy were the goals of all of them. with scrupulous and uncalculating fi- into a despotism, and destroying the “This interview made a very deep im- delity every article, requirement, and last vestige of freedom.” And each pression upon Mr. V.’s mind,” wrote step Lincoln took to deal with the re- compromise of the Constitutional his brother James, “he often referred bellion only confirmed Vallandigham’s compact between these States, to the to it, and spoke of John Brown as one darkest apprehensions. “The auda- letter and in its utmost spirit.” of the most remarkable men ever cious usurpation of President Lincoln, met.” But in November 1860, the nation for which he deserves impeachment, elected as its president a committed Vallandigham did not intend that as in daring, against the very letter of the a compliment. Vallandigham himself antislavery Republican in the form of Constitution, and without a shadow of had no personal investment in the Abraham Lincoln, and Vallandigham’s law, to ‘raise and support armies,’ and preservation of slavery; but neither did anxieties for the Constitution and to ‘provide and maintain a navy,’ for he have much antagonism toward it. the Union went into overdrive. “For three or five years, by mere executive As a state legislator, he voted against twenty years the country has been proclamation, I will not vote to sustain repeal of Ohio’s black codes and ag- agitated by this subject of slavery,” or ratify—Never! Millions for defence; gressively endorsed the Fugitive Slave Vallandigham said in a speech in not a dollar or a man for aggressive Act of 1850. “We have viewed with Detroit. “Men of the North and West and offensive civil war.” anxiety and alarm the perilous crisis have been taught to hate the men of Vallandigham seems to have giv- brought upon us by years of cease- the South, and Southerners have been en no thought to what blame the less and persevering agitation of the taught to hate the men of the North Confederates deserved for the ensu- Slavery question in its various forms,” and West. …What will be the inevita- ing civil war. But in truth, Vallandigham and as far as Vallandigham was con- ble result of the conflict that must en- cared little for either North or South. cerned the problem was not with slav- sue? …Human nature has been mis- “He was not for the North, nor for the ery but with the agitation. “We are for read from the time of Cain to this day, South, but…for The West all the time,” the Union as it is and the Constitution if blood, blood, human blood is not and in his mind the best response to as it is,” and Vallandigham’s constitu- the result.” And it was, after the slave the Civil War was for Ohio and the tion gave no authority to anyone—any states responded to Lincoln’s election rest of the old Northwest to secede state, any political party, any federal by announcing their withdrawal from themselves and declare a pox on both officer—the right to meddle with slav- the Union and pummeling the federal Northern and Southern houses. But ery in the states where it was legal. garrison at Ft. Sumter into submis- the Lincoln administration was, for “We will preserve, maintain, and de- sion on April 14, 1861. Far from the him, the nearer offender, especially

18 FALL 2016 ALLEN C. GUELZO

for the freedom of the blacks and the enslavement of the whites.” He confidently predict- ed that Abraham Lincoln “was about to appoint military mar- shals in every district, to restrain the people of their liberties, to deprive them of their rights and privileges,” and the template would be General Burnside. “The sooner the people inform the minions of usurped power that they will not submit to such restrictions upon their liber- ties, the better,” because it was high time in Ohio “to defeat the attempts now being made to build-up a monarchy upon the ruins of our free government.”

Announcement of the time and place of Vallandigham’s speech had not escaped the notice of these “minions.” Burnside Clement Vallandigham to Horatio Seymour, May 17, 1863 had two staffers, Captains Harrington R. Hill and John A. after Republicans in the Ohio state the lines, and that spring he issued Means, in civilian dress in the crowd legislature re-wrote congressional dis- General Order no. 38, prohibiting crit- to “observe” and “take notes,” and trict boundaries in 1863 to gerryman- icism of the “civil or military policy of those notes and observations were all der Vallandigham’s district from under the administration” as treason. The Burnside needed to send a company him. He gave his valedictory speech in legal folly of that order should have of soldiers on May 5th to batter down the House on February 14, 1863, bit- been apparent to Burnside, since Vallandigham’s front door at two-thir- terly promising his Republican oppo- the Constitution’s definition of trea- ty in the morning, tear him “from the nents that “at the time and in the man- son was an exceedingly narrow one, arms of his devoted wife and weeping ner appointed by the Constitution and and the brief history of treason trials child,” and hurried downstairs, where law, we shall eject you from the trusts in American law firmly excluded the he was bundled on a train to Cincinnati you have abused, and the seats of introduction of expansive notions of and imprisonment “in a building on power you have dishonored, and oth- “constructive” treason which would Second or Columbia-street, then used er and better men shall reign in your allow indictments for “compassing or as a military prison.” stead.” He returned home in March conspiracy to levy war.” No matter: The next day, Vallandigham was ar- 1863, a man without a district—but “treason, express or implied, will not raigned before a seven-member not without a cause.1 be tolerated in this department.” military commission, with Brigadier- Ohio had been placed within the On May 1, 1863, Vallandigham directly General Robert Potter as presiding Military District of the Ohio (one of challenged Burnside’s authority in a officer. The commission had no trou- sixteen military districts improvised speech delivered to a mass meeting in ble finding him guilty of fostering “in across the North during the war), and Mt. Vernon, Ohio, characterizing the his hearers a distrust of their own command of the district given to Major war as “a wicked, cruel, and unneces- Government, sympathy for those General Ambrose Burnside. A luckless sary war…a war not being waged for in arms against it, and a disposition general in the field, Burnside proved the preservation of the Union” but for to resist the laws of the land,” and to be even more hapless behind “the purpose of crushing out liberty they sentenced him “to be placed in 1 He would also shortly become a man without and erecting a despotism.” In the pro- close confinement in some fortress country, since Edward Everett Hale used cess, it had become something even of the United States, to be designat- Vallandigham as the model for Philip Nolan, the title character in Hale’s famous novella, The Man worse in Vallandigham’s eyes, “a war ed by the Commanding Office, of Without a Country.

LINCOLN LORE . NUMBER 1913 19 THE STAR-CROSSED CASE OF CLEMENT LAIRD VALLADIGHAM

this Department, there to be kept been uncomfortable for him, but it toyed with the idea of issuing, on May during the continuance of the war.” quickly became even more uncom- 13th, a special suspension of the writ of Vallandigham did not wait for the fortable for the Lincoln administra- habeas corpus to cover Vallandigham verdict to be announced. His law- tion. Vallandigham had been delib- in particular. But when Salmon Chase yer, former Ohio Democratic senator erately provocative; and he might assured Lincoln that Leavitt would not George E. Pugh, was already applying indeed have crossed the line between issue a habeas, Lincoln abandoned the to Humphrey H. Leavitt, the federal mere dissent and giving aid and com- idea as too politically risky. Instead, district judge for the Southern District fort to an enemy. But Vallandigham Lincoln cut the knot on May 19th by of Ohio, for a writ of habeas corpus, to had committed his “disloyalty” in Ohio, ordering that Vallandigham be pun- pry him out of the hands of military where the civil courts were open and ished—not by imprisonment—but by commissions. available, and his arrest by military being sent “under secure guard to the force cast an ugly shadow over the headquarters of General [William S.] Leavitt was “in infirm health,” but he constitutionality of Lincoln’s policies. Rosecrans to be put by him beyond roused himself to write an opinion Petitions and protests from across the our military lines” and into the hands denying Vallandigham’s application North now descended on an embar- of Braxton Bragg and the Confederate on the narrow grounds that “it was rassed President Lincoln. In Indiana, Army on May 25th, as though to sug- not competent for a civil court” to the Democrat-controlled legislature gest that Vallandigham would find pass judgment on the actions of a refused to vote funds for Republican more congenial company there. “military commander.” The military in governor Oliver Morton’s adminis- time of war possessed a “discretion- The Confederates were no more tration of the state. In New York City, ary power” which allowed senior offi- interested in Vallandigham than 25,000 protesters filled Union Square cers like Burnside to decide “whether Lincoln was. “Our people ought to to declare that “were Vallandigham the arrest was a military necessity.” If give him a friendly greeting,” wrote arrested here the whole population Vallandigham wanted to appeal his the Confederate War Department would rise en masse to rescue him.” arrest, he should turn to Burnside’s clerk, John Beauchamp Jones—at superior, “the President of the United The most potent of the protest meet- first. No such greeting emerged after States as commander-in-chief,” who ings assembled in Albany on May the Confederate government inter- had “ample power to set aside the or- 16th, chaired by Erastus Corning (the der of Gen. Burnside.” Undismayed, Democratic nominee for New York’s Vallandigham then addressed himself fall Senate election). The crowd of directly to the U.S. Supreme Court 3000 was described as “one of the on a writ of certiorari (which would largest and most respectable meet- require the commission to turn over ings ever held at the Capitol,” but the its records to the Supreme Court for speakers—Judge Amasa J. Parker and review). But in ex parte Vallandigham Congressman Francis Kernan—were the following February, the Supreme on fire to denounce “the recent- as Court agreed with Leavitt. “Military ju- sumption of a military commander to risdiction...in the armies of the United seize and try a citizen of Ohio, Clement States,” wrote Justice James Moore L. Vallandigham, for no other reason Wayne,2 is “exercised by courts-mar- than words addressed to a public tial” or by “military commissions,” and meeting, in criticism of the course of such commissions are legitimate not the Administration.” only during “war with foreign nations,” Lincoln did not relish the prospect but also during “a rebellion, when a of promoting Vallandigham to the part of a country wages war against rank of martyr. On the other hand, its legitimate government, seeking to Lincoln could not very easily reverse throw off all allegiance to it, to set up Burnside’s action without under- a government of its own.” mining his own presidential sus- Vallandigham’s arrest might have pensions of the writ. “All the cabinet regretted the necessity of arresting” 2  Vallandigham had no grounds to accuse Wayne of prejudice, since Wayne, curiously, was a Vallandigham, Lincoln wrote coldly to Georgia-born Democrat and a slaveholder, and Burnside, “but, being done, all were the only justice on the Taney Court to concur The Trial of Hon. Clement L. Vallandigham, by a entirely with Taney in Dred Scott v. Sandford. for seeing you through with it.” Lincoln Military Commission (1863) 71200908407149

20 FALL 2016 ALLEN C. GUELZO

rogated Vallandigham and learned meeting sent to Lincoln) became the same spirit in which he had warned that neither “he or his party had any most eloquent and influential argu- Burnside, Lincoln now conceded that, other idea than that the Union would ment on presidential powers and civil speaking personally, “I do not know be reconstructed”—just that reunion liberties in time of war. “Thoroughly whether I would have ordered the ar- should occur under Democratic rath- imbued with a reverence for the guar- rest of Mr. V.... I was pained that there er than Republican auspices. On June ranteed rights of individuals,” Lincoln should have seemed to be a necessity th 8 , Jefferson Davis did as Lincoln assured Corning and his colleagues, for arresting him.” But he was not go- had done, and ordered Robert Ould, “I was slow to adopt the strong mea- ing to reverse Burnside’s decision un- the Confederate commissioner for sures, which by degrees I have been til he could “believe the public safety prisoner exchanges, to “conduct” forced to regard as being within the will not suffer by it.” Vallandigham to Wilmington, North exceptions of the constitution, and as None of this seems ever to have per- Carolina, “whence his departure for a indispensable to the public Safety.” suaded Clement Vallandigham, nor neutral port will be facilitated.” Since “ours is a case of Rebellion... did Vallandigham’s wartime experi- in fact, a clear, flagrant, and gigan- Vallandigham bounced from Bermuda ences do anything to improve his cre- tic case of Rebellion,” and since the to Canada, arriving at Halifax, Nova ative sense of bad timing. He made Constitution permits suspension of Scotia, on July 5th and announced two more unsuccessful bids to elec- the writ of habeas corpus “when, in several days later that he was en- tion to Congress, then settled into his cases of Rebellion or Invasion the pub- tering the race for governor of Ohio law practice. In 1871, he undertook lic Safety may require it,” there could that fall—from exile. Now it was the defence in a capital murder crime be no justification in the clamor over Vallandigham’s turn to overplay his in Lebanon, Ohio, and, while demon- Vallandigham’s arrest. hand. Ohioans who did not particu- strating how he would produce the larly like Vallandigham’s treatment at Lincoln saw no constitutional excep- murder weapon before the jury, man- Burnside’s hands did not have much tion in the fact that Vallandigham’s aged to fatally shoot himself. He died more sympathy for Vallandigham’s offense had been committed far the next day, affirming his belief in fulminations against the war effort, from the actual scene of rebellion. “that good old Presbyterian doctrine and he was defeated in the October “I am unable to believe that there is of predestination.” He had good rea- 1863 gubernatorial election by John any such constitutional distinction.” son: hardly have the stars in their Brough by 100,802 votes. Nine Nor was Vallandigham merely exer- courses marched against a man so months later, his political sails deflat- cising his freedom of opinion. “Mr. consistently as the unhappy Clement ed, Vallandigham slunk back across Vallandigham avows his hostility to Laird Vallandigham. Ironically, the the border and returned to Ohio. He the war on the part of the Union; and principle to which he appealed in ex attended the Democratic National his arrest was made because he was parte Vallandigham would be vindi- Convention in September as a dele- laboring, with some effect, to prevent cated only a year after the war in ex gate for the 3rd District, only to see a the raising of troops, to encourage de- parte Milligan, the gold standard for War Democrat, George B. McClellan, sertions from the army, and to leave all subsequent jurisprudence on pres- nominated. When the news of his re- the rebellion without an adequate mil- idential powers and civil liberties in turn was communicated to Lincoln, itary force to suppress it.” wartime. But Vallandigham himself is the supposed despot merely decided remembered more as the man who If what Vallandigham does literal- to “watch Vallandigham and others made it possible for a president to ly subtracts from the government’s closely” and, unless there was any compose the most aggressive state- capacity to defend the nation, why “palpable injury or imminent danger ment of those presidential powers. is he not as guilty as a deserter who to the military proceeding from him,” subtracts himself from the army— Allen C. Guelzo is the Henry R. Luce ignore him. especially if it was Vallandigham’s Professor of the Civil War Era at The one lasting result of the promptings which induced the deser- Gettysburg College. This article is an Vallandigham imbroglio was the tion? “Long experience has shown that expansion of remarks he delivered on lengthy public letter Lincoln wrote in armies can not be maintained unless October 13, 2014, in Mt. Vernon, Ohio. June—one of three major public letters desertion shall be punished by the se- he would compose that summer—in vere penalty of death.” So is it fair that reply to the Albany protest meeting. I order the execution of “simple-mind- The “Corning Letter” (so-called from its ed soldier boy who deserts, while I address to “Erastus Corning & others” must not touch a hair of a wiley agita- as signatories of the resolutions the tor who induces him to desert?” In the

LINCOLN LORE . NUMBER 1913 21 Lincoln the PeddlerBy JEFFREY R, KERR-RITCHIE, PHD HOWARD UNIVERSITY

Emancipation Proclamation, September 22, 1862 71.2009.081.0145

Eighty-five-year-old Mary Jane Kelley “What did slaves think about Lincoln?” “fine,” “great,” “big,” or “grand.” For of Newberry, South Carolina, did not Not all of the interviewees were asked instance, eighty-four-year-old Sam “remember anything about Abraham this, and it remains unclear wheth- Rawls offered a rather succinct recol- Lincoln nor Jefferson Davis.” She “only er all of the answers were record- lection when he told his interviewer, heard about” them. Kelley had either ed. But more than 260 responses “Abraham Lincoln was a good man.” forgotten or decided not to share any culled from the pioneering multi-vol- He also remembered that Lincoln information with her interviewer on ume The American Slave: A Composite said the slaves should “go to work,” November 10, 1937. This was not the Autobiography edited by George P. and he came with “his two men, Grant case, however, with many other for- Rawick and published in 1972 provide and Sherman, and captured de slave mer American slaves who between bosses.” William Henry Towns be- intriguing glimpses into the thoughts 1936 and 1938 were interviewed by lieved “Abe Lincoln was a mighty fine of African American men and women roughly 300 employees of the Federal man even if he was tryin’ to save their who acquired their freedom during Writers Project (FWP). The more than Union.” The distinction is a telling one. the Civil War era. 2,200 formerly enslaved people in 17 Eighty-five-year-old Mary Johnson told states were examined from a list of Many of the survivors of American her interviewer G. L. Summer that 333 questions. Question 309 asked: slavery described Lincoln as “good,” Lincoln “was a fine man,” but she also

22 FALL 2016 JEFFREY R. KERR-RITCHIE, PHD

thought Jeff Davis “was good,” and believed that “[s]lavery did good” be- cause it made the Negro “careful” and By JEFFREY R, KERR-RITCHIE, PHD HOWARD UNIVERSITY taught him “how to work.” Although her response may have been genuine, it was also indicative of the guarded responses of some interviewees in the 1930s U.S. South. In contrast, sev- enty-six-year-old Elisha Doc Carey was quite clear why she thought Lincoln was great. When the president “come to dis passage in de Bible: ‘My son, therefore shall ye be free indeed,’ he went to wuk to sot us free.” Similarly, Hannah Pummer from North Carolina believed “Abraham Lincoln was one of the best men that ever lived.” Unlike, South Carolinian Mary Johnson, she thought “[s]lavery was a very bad Abraham Lincoln Entering Richmond, April 3d, 1865, by J.C. Buttre (1866) 71.2009.081.1025 thing.” There are numerous other ex- amples that we could draw upon, but going to get forty acres of land and telling. Louis Meadows, who hailed the major point is that many former a mule. Stead of that we didn’t get from the Alabama interior, told his slaves held positive views of Lincoln nothing.” George Conrad, Jr., thought two interviewers that he was standing because they associated him with the Lincoln “was a smart man,” but added on the side of the road “an’ seed Mr. eradication of slavery and the advent simply: “I don’t think his work was fin- Lincoln ridin’ by wid Mr. [president of freedom. ished.” There was little evidence of the James] Buchanan.” Dan Thomas of Great Emancipator in these folks’ lives Tennessee “member seein’ Andrew Not all of these views, however, were and memories. Jackson, General Grant en Abraham favorable. Louis Davis of Coahoma Lincoln.” Jackson, of course, had died County, Mississippi, told WPA worker Among the most interesting respons- in 1845. Marylander Mary Barnes’ Carrie Campbell that they say Lincoln es to the question, however, were rec- recollections were more believable. set the slaves free. “He might have ollections from those who claimed to She claims to have seen Lincoln in done that for some of them, but he have seen, encountered, and shared Washington “when he took command sure wasn’t the one to set me free. various experiences with Lincoln. the second time [1864].” Alabaman Old Miss was the one that set all of us Numerous former slaves recalled Ester King Casey’s sighting was a little free, and Mr. Lincoln didn’t have noth- sightings associated with the famous jarring. She “saw” Abraham Lincoln ing to do with it.” For Davis, freedom president. Alex Godson from Indiana “hanging from a noose in the court- was local and immediate. For others, claimed to have seen “Abraham house square.” It was only an effigy. emancipation’s limitations were un- Lincoln’s cabin many a time, when I Of course, most of these sightings forgettable. Sam T. Stewart of North was young.” It was set on a high hill were imaginary. The key point is Carolina believed Lincoln “was a man with a spring which Godson visited they were largely favorable and en- who aimed to be good, but a man who “lots of times.” Similarly, Julia Williams dorse the broader point about the never got to it.” Lincoln was little more of Medina County, Ohio, responded inextricable link between Lincoln and than “a poor buckra white man” to Ed she “didn have no thought about him emancipation. Barber of Greenwood, South Carolina. but I seed him.” Virginia Newman of He meant well, “but I can’t help but Texas claims to have shaken hands Other formerly enslaved people re- wish him had continued splittin’ them with Lincoln even though “[s]ome called personal encounters with fence rails, which they say he knowed folks say dat ain’ Abr’am Lincoln.” But Lincoln. Joe Bouy from Lincoln County all ‘bout, and never took a hand in Newman “knowed better” because told his FWP interviewer Esther de runnin’ de government of which he the “culled folks call him ‘Papa’ and Sola how “Abraham Lincoln wuz tra- knowed nothin’ bout.” Sally Dixon he “shake han’s wid all d’ culled folks.” bling ‘long out our way an’ he stop agreed that Lincoln “was the one what This was probably a childhood mem- at our place an’ stay de night an res. freed us.” But after freedom, “we was ory reinforced by community story Tall, sparse man. He pat me on de

LINCOLN LORE . NUMBER 1913 23 LINCOLN THE PEDDLER

haid when he fixin’ to leave. Ah ‘mem- bers dat.” One wonders who this vis- itor was. Sarah Walker recalled how Lincoln had visited her county and stopped at her family cabin. “His height and dignity frightened the chil- dren and they fled in hiding. It was not until her father assured them that ‘Mass Lincoln’ wouldn’t harm them that they left their places of refuge.” Elizabeth Thomas of Washington, D.C., recalled a particular personal encounter. It was evening and she was sitting under a sycamore tree cry- ing with a little furniture and holding her six-month-old child “when a tall, Contrabands at Headquarters of General Lafayette (1862) LN-2629 slender man, dressed in black, came up and said to me: ‘It is hard, but played in establishing Lincoln as the occupation of Port Royal Sound on you shall reap a great reward.’ It was person who brought freedom to the coastal South Carolina in November President Lincoln, and had he lived I slaves. 1861. But it is less important to divide know the claim for my losses would these encounters into degrees of like- Some of these reported encounters have been paid.” The encounter was lihood than to reveal their range—as amounted to splendid fictions. Richard not impossible. It is also feasible that well as their commonality—as favor- Slaughter, born in 1849, traveled on Thomas entered a claim for compen- able reflections on the former presi- the same steamer as Lincoln from sation for property losses sustained dent because of his association with Alexandria to Mount Vernon. Adam during the Civil War with the Southern emancipation both at the time as well Smith of Tate County, Mississippi, told Claims Commission that was reject- as subsequently. Margaret L. Pack that he came across ed. Her belief in a better outcome as “Ole man Abe Lincoln and Jeff Davis a Particularly intriguing about some of a consequence of the president’s in- settin’ thar and a spittin’ and talkin’, these encounters was their furtive tervention speaks volumes about her before war.” Eighty-nine-year-old H. nature. Lincoln comes across as a understanding of emancipation. B. Holloway of Little Rock, Arkansas, slim shadowy figure almost akin to Others told not of direct encoun- recounted Lincoln’s visit to Atlanta. a spy. Bob Maynard from Oklahoma ters but related stories of visits from He called for all of the Confederate recalled that before “the [1860] elec- the president from family mem- money and the oldest colored man. tion he traveled all over the South and bers. Georgina Foster’s parents “said “Then he threw him one of those lit- he came to our house and slept in old Abraham Lincoln come through tle boxes of matches and told him Mistress’ bed. Didn’t nobody know there [North Carolina] on his way to to set FIRE TO IT AND BURN IT UP.” who he was.” Ninety-seven-year-old Jeff Davis.” Tom Hunley from Leflore Maria Heywood of Waccamaw Neck, Margret Hulm of Humphrey, Arkansas, County, Mississippi, told FWP inter- Georgetown County, South Carolina, recalled answering the door one day viewer Lalla Walker Lewis that his never forgot when her freedom “and when I opened it there stood a mother “tole me many a time about came. I “know when Lincoln shoot big man with a gray blanket around Mr. Abe Lincolm stoppin’ at her ol’ the chain of slavery off my neck. And him for a cape. He had a string tied marster’s place.” His mother told her I hear the gun. I hear SHOOT and the around his neck to hold it on. A part of son “many a time what he had on: house shake and water shake out the it was turned down over the string like ole boots, ole huntin’ cap, and his glass. The gun shoot to Georgetown!” a ghost cape.” He stayed all night. “We suit was – well, it wasn’t very much While Lincoln clearly never visited heard after he was gone that he was ’count.” After he left, he “writ back an’ the slave quarters nor spent time in Abraham Lincoln and he was a spy.” say: ‘Look like my rail-splittin’s over.’ the Confederate South as suggested Rose Mercer of Oklahoma claimed she Last time he writ to my mammy’s old by Slaughter, Smith, and Holloway, “saw him and shook hands with him” marster he say: ‘Now war is on us.’” Heywood’s memory of the link be- just before his election to the pres- We should not underestimate the tween gunfire and freedom was not idency. He came through Alabama role parental stories and recollections so far-fetched, given Union naval “riding on a grey mule.” The people of

24 FALL 2016 JEFFREY R. KERR-RITCHIE, PHD

the state said they would kill him, “but ever saw.” He “said he wus huntin’ and so forth. A clear illustration of he came through spying as to the con- his people; and dat he had lost all he this powerful tradition was the image ditions of the slaves.” Jordon Smith of had.” They fed him, after which they of Lincoln the rail-splitter in former Texas “seed Abe Lincoln once when heard he was in the White House. “We slaves’ recollections. It is only since he came through Anderson County, knowed den it wus Abraham Lincoln.” the 1980s that scholars have begun but he didn’t none of us know who he Eighty-one-year-old Mary Wallace to seriously question and document was.” Charlie Davenport from Adams Bowe of North Carolina recalled a visit the limitations of Lincoln the Great County, Mississippi, told Edith Wyatt from a peddler. He “was de uglies’ man Emancipator, although the 2009 bi- Moore that he was fifteen years old I ever seed.” He sat down on the porch centennial of Lincoln’s birth as well when “honest Abe Lincoln, what called looking parched. Mistress Fanny gave as the 2012 Stephen Spielberg movie hisself a railsplitter, come here to talk him some milk. “All de time Mis’ Fanny suggest this has yet to trickle down to wid us. He just went through de coun- was lookin’ at de things in de pack an’ the popular level. buyin’, de man kept up a runnin’ talk.” try jest a rantin and preachin ‘bout us This does leave us with an intriguing Some weeks later, Mis’ Fanny got a bein his black brudders. Old Marse question. A number of former U.S. letter from the peddler saying “he was didn’t know nothing ‘bout hit ‘cause slaves were adamant about the limita- Abraham Lincoln hesel’f; dat he was hit was sorta secret like.” It is hard to tions of the Great Emancipator. Their peddlin’ over de country as a spy.” accept that Lincoln did any of these recollections anticipated the more re- things ascribed to him. But the im- It is evident that many former slaves cent critical analysis of U.S. emancipa- portant point is that the clandestine invested Lincoln with an important tion as being a top-down directive. On nature of the visitor and his visitations meaning primarily associated with the other hand, many former slaves conveys the secretive nature of slave liberation. This investiture was never held positive memories of Lincoln aspirations for freedom. It further il- forgotten. Moreover, some contem- despite their frequent fictitious form. lustrates the dangerous implications poraries exploited this association What then does this say about the di- of emancipation in a wartime slave- for their own purposes. They deserve vergent paths of older cultural memo- holding region. some credit for peddling the image ries of the Great Emancipator and re- These former slaves’ recollections, of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator. cent historical scholarship on slaves’ memories, and stories of seeing, en- Families and kin also peddled such self-emancipation? countering, and experiencing Lincoln stories. Sarah Walker, Virginia Jeffrey R. Kerr-Ritchie is a professor of demonstrate the importance of Newman, Charlie Davenport, and history at Howard University. emancipation and its ineffaceable link others all learned about their free- to the wartime president. And some dom this way. Since many of the oc- contemporaries were not averse to togenarians interviewed in the 1930s exploiting this connection. South would have been children during the Carolinian Mary Scott proudly dis- 1860s, we cannot overlook the central played a picture of Lincoln to her FWP role played by families and communi- interviewer. Thinking it was a screen ties in constructing a positive view of star from a New York newspaper, the Lincoln. interviewer asked Scott who had told But perhaps the greatest peddler has her it was Lincoln? She replied that been a national tradition creating and “[s]ome preacher” had told her. (Why distributing the image of Lincoln as would he have done this? Ignorance? the Great Emancipator. This began Ingratiation? Money?) Henry Gibbs almost immediately after the presi- from Clay County, Mississippi, be- dent’s shocking assassination once he lieved he saw the man once and the had “saved” the Union and “freed” the same man came to the house “pre- slaves. It has been propagated ever tending to be crippled.” “When we was since through public remembrance out of sight,” recalled Gibbs, “dat man of the past based upon written re- put them crutches across his shoul- cords, oral traditions, personal rem- der. I always believed that man was iniscences, endlessly repeated and Lincoln.” Charity Austin of Raleigh, recycled stories and tales, pictorial im- North Carolina, recalled Lincoln’s visit: ages, patriotic rituals, statuary, sancti- “He wus just the raggedest man you fied sites, movies, television dramas, Memories, Harry Roseland (1905) 71.2009.081.0342

LINCOLN LORE . NUMBER 1913 25 BOOK REVEIW

, ment was fatally flawed because it was A Rebel’s Recollections constitutionally weak, he argues, but it by George Cary Eggleston (New York: Hurd and Houghton, grew into a despotism that tolerated no 1875; Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996) questioning of its authority. The army was efficient, well drilled, and well led, Reviewed by David Dew but the government was incompetent. A Rebel’s Recollec- en’s “starvation parties” and romanticiz- Eggleston partly blames that flaw on the tions by George es Southern womanhood by quoting a Southern view that honor dictated the Cary Eggleston Confederate general who opined that best men must fight, which left lesser was published in Virginia women are “worth a regiment men to fill the government posts. He 1875. Ten years apiece.” calls Jefferson Davis the “grand master of after the end of the war, the author Eggleston also discusses Confederate incapacity” and faults Davis for meddling believes that “the only thing necessary currency and rampant inflation and de- in military matters while being absorbed now to the final burial of the animosi- scribes needing baskets of money to buy in petty details and favoritism. He fur- ty existing between the sections is that things. Another chapter describes illiter- ther blames the commissary department the North and the South shall learn to ate mountain men he met in the ranks. for wasting resources and being so tied know and understand each other.” His Eggleston helped them fill out commis- up in red tape that the armies starved. purpose is to foster that understand- sary requests, and for his help he was Finally, Eggleston describes the end of ing by presenting the point of view of a elevated to the rank of Sergeant-Major. the war. He asserts that by 1864 the Confederate soldier, based on his own He also met street thugs from Baltimore South had to know the cause was lost experience. who would fight anyone they felt had in- but could not admit it. There was a “wea- Eggleston was born in Vevay, Indiana, in sulted their officers. riness” among the troops, but the think- 1839. When Eggleston was seventeen, he Eggleston served with J.E.B. Stuart and ing was if the South could just hold on, inherited a plantation in Amelia County, devotes a chapter to the officer he Providence would somehow provide the Virginia, where he led a privileged life. He calls the “Chevalier of the Lost Cause.” victory. The end came, Eggleston says, voted against Virginia’s leaving the Union Eggleston admired Stuart greatly and with utter disorganization of the govern- but enlisted in the Confederate Army af- declares him to be “the greatest cavalry ment and the army. The assassination of ter Virginia’s secession and served the officer that ever lived.” But Eggleston Lincoln was terrible news that brought entire war under Generals J.E.B. Stuart believes that the proper use of the horse on the fear of harsher treatment for and Fitzhugh Lee. After the war, he em- in the Civil War was not as cavalry but as the South, and Southerners distrusted barked on a career as a journalist, editor, dragoons and that Union General Philip Andrew Johnson as a renegade. and writer. He wrote a number of novels Sheridan made better use of his horse- George Cary Eggleston’s A Rebel’s as well as reminiscences of the Civil War. men and deserves a greater reputation Recollections is a valuable primary source Eggleston died in 1911. than Stuart. for those interested in the Civil War. A Rebel’s Recollections contains nine Eggleston’s descriptions of Stuart and The reader can study events of the war chapters, each presenting a theme or of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and through the eyes of an especially in- aspect of the war. In “The Mustering,” some lesser-known generals is where teresting participant—a Confederate Eggleston hopes to make the reader this book really begins to live for reader. soldier born in the North. The au- understand the Southern position—par- Eggleston believes Lee was “the best or- thor’s narrative provides insights into ticularly the position of Virginia—by ex- ganizer in the country” and asserts that a monumental time period without the plaining Southern beliefs about the war the ordinary soldier absolutely believed filters of interpretation and reinterpre- and why men enlisted in the Southern in Lee’s invincibility. He argues that Lee’s tation. Eggleston states that he is try- cause. Virginians believed absolutely advice to the men at the end of the war ing to get the reader to understand the in the right of secession and a primary to “stay at home, go to work, and hold Confederate point of view without jus- loyalty to one’s state. Honor, Eggleston your land” prevented a large-scale ex- tifying that point of view. He presents explains, was the issue for Virginia, even odus of disheartened young men to his perceptions without rancor but with though most Virginians dreaded war and foreign countries and bloody post-war some romanticism and a subtle sense of did not want it. guerrilla actions. Stonewall Jackson, humor. Eggleston says, was an enigma, but In another chapter Eggleston describes The book is most valuable for its char- “without doubt...next to Lee, the greatest the character of Confederate soldiers, acter studies and for its critique of the military genius we had.” whom he describes as a “vast mob failures of the Confederate government. of rather ill-armed young gentlemen” What makes Eggleston’s book most valu- In those areas, a book written 141 years whose ideal of soldiering was drawn from able, however, are chapters titled “Red ago book might spur further analysis. Sir Walter Scott. These Southern soldiers Tape” and “The End, and After.” Much of But important as this primary source is, did not respect military rank, but they felt the literature about the Civil War focuses A Rebel’s Recollections is limited by the deeply about differences in social status. on the military campaigns and the strat- viewpoint of the writer, who must base They fought for duty rather than under egies or miscalculations of those cam- his understanding of a huge event on his orders, and they fought even after there paigns. Eggleston spends very little time own a very small part in it. He wants the was little chance of success. Eggleston on those themes. Instead, he wants the reader to understand the South, but the focuses on the Confederate volunteer reader to understand the Confederate reader senses that Eggleston “pined” for soldier, and he criticizes conscription as mind and motivations and the weakness- the “lost cause.” bringing into the Confederate army “a es that were crucial to the downfall of the good deal of material which was worse Confederacy as he perceived them. David Dew is a retired teacher and discus- than useless.” sion leader for the Lincoln Book Group at In “Red Tape” Eggleston lays the prima- the Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, Eggleston devotes a chapter to extol- ry blame for the Confederate defeat on Indiana. ing the virtues of Southern women and the Confederate government and its praising their sacrifice. He tells of wom- commissary department. The govern-

26 FALL 2016 READING WITH LINCOLN

Father Lincoln: The Untold Story of Abraham Lincoln and His Boys – Reading Robert, Eddy, Willie, and Tad with Lincoln ALAN MANNING ROMAN & LITTLEFIELD, 2016

FALL 2016 The author seeks to show Abraham Lincoln as a father, who at first faces the normal challenges of balancing Under Lincoln’s Hat: 100 Objects That career and family. Obviously, the normal challenges become Tell the Story of His Life and Legacy severe as he navigates a war which threatens to divide his

ABRAHAM LINCOLN PRESIDENTIAL nation. As an example of new insight, Manning examines LIBRARY FOUNDATION Lincoln’s relationship with his son Robert, which has been LYONS PRESS, 2016 portrayed as somewhat distant and cool. In a review of the book in the Wall Street Journal (July 23, 2016), historian Harold Taken from the world class Lincoln Holzer suggests that: “In truth, Robert enjoyed much quality Collection at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and time with his father, and Mr. Manning supplies examples to Museum, this book focuses on 100 artifacts which add much spare.” The book gives a detailed look at the Lincoln family to the reader’s understanding of our Sixteenth President. in the context of the time. The images range from a page taken from his sum book to the gloves that he wore to Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865. Mourning Lincoln MARTHA HODES Lincoln and the Politics of Slavery: The YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2015 Other Thirteenth Amendment and the Hodes relies heavily on firsthand accounts Struggle to Save the Union of reactions to Lincoln’s assassination by “drawing on a remarkable range of DANIEL W. CROFTS diaries, letters, and other contemporary UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA documents.” (Eric Foner) “This book is a timely reminder PRESS, 2016 that wars rarely end on the battlefield, Through the lens of Lincoln’s death, Martha Hodes vividly portrays a scarred and This book examines the underreported story of Lincoln’s bitter nation that has laid down its arms yet embarked on willingness, in order to avoid war, to accept a Resolution a conflict that endures 150 years after Appomattox.” (Tony from Congress which proposed a “different” Thirteenth Horwitz) Amendment than the one we celebrate today. The document dated December 1, 1860, read: Article XIII. No amendment The Gettysburg Address: Perspectives on shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or Lincoln’s Greatest Speech give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that EDITED BY SEAN CONANT; FOREWORD BY of persons held to labor or service of said State. HAROLD HOLZER OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2015

Your Friend Forever, A. Lincoln Fifteen scholars have contributed to this volume, eight under the first section CHARLES STROZIER titled “Influences” and seven under “Impacts.” Volumes and COLUMBIA, UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2016 volumes have been written with the intent of explaining the There is no doubt that the friendship 272 words which Abraham Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg on between Abraham Lincoln and Joshua November 19, 1863. Historian James M. McPherson writes Speed was a significant factor in the lives of the book: “No famous speech is shorter than Abraham of both men. Beginning with the moment Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, and none has been analyzed that the newly arrived Lincoln walked into Speed’s store at greater length. Can anything important be said about the in Springfield and accepted the offer to share a room over speech that has not already been said? The essays in this the store, the two became fast friends and confidants. As volume demonstrate that the answer is yes. They offer fresh both historian and psychoanalyst, Strozier brings a unique and stimulating insights on the origins, meaning, impact, and perspective to this relationship. continuing relevance of the Address.”

LINCOLN LORE . NUMBER 1913 27 ACPL.INFO LINCOLNCOLLECTION.ORG