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Dr. Charles Leib: Lincoln’S Mole? Rodney O Dr. Charles Leib: Lincoln’s Mole? ROdnEY O. DAviS Abraham Lincoln’s fondness for “slightly damaged characters” has been aptly noted by David Donald, who cites such raffish individu- als as Mark Delahay, Ward Hill Lamon, and even Billy Herndon as cases in point.1 These individuals, though loyal and faithful to Lincoln personally and professionally—and in their ways effec- tive—were sometimes possessed of exaggerated notions of their own importance, or guilty of behavior that might border on the ridiculous, or flawed by such excesses as out-of-control drinking. None of these was ever called a scoundrel, however, as has recently been the case with another Lincoln associate, the mysterious and shifty Dr. Charles Leib.2 After Lincoln’s nomination in 1860, Leib’s loyalty and fidelity to the future president seem to have been con- sistent and beyond question, and perhaps reciprocated by Lincoln, but before that time his allegiance seems murky indeed and the possible reciprocity by Lincoln at best to be inferred. Quite simply, however, it seems obvious that Abraham Lincoln knew and ap- proved of Charles Leib’s efforts to divide the Illinois Democratic party thus to defeat Stephen A. Douglas and to ensure victory for Lincoln; to at least tacitly form an alliance between antislavery Republicans and proponents of the Lecompton Constitution. There seems reason also to believe that Lincoln at least approved of efforts to reward Leib for his services to the Republican party. But that others were outraged at Leib’s behavior then (before 1860, that is) and now, is not difficult to understand. The senatorial campaign of 1858 was the beginning of uneasy political alliance. Stephen A. Douglas’s vehement opposition to the Lecompton Constitution for Kansas, known since November 1857 and first publicly pronounced on December 9 of that year, left Illinois Republicans unsettled, for they could perceive the at- tractiveness of Douglas’s position, especially to Republicans of Democratic antecedents. Some Illinois Republican leaders were 1. David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 266. 2. Robert W. Johannsen to author, February 11, 1999, March 25, 2000. Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, Vol. 24, No. 2, 2003 © 2003 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois Rodney O. Davis 21 concerned over the possible division of their party by the charis- matic Douglas, whose appeal was enhanced by his anti-Lecompton stance, and some feared that Douglas could co-opt the Republicans. “There is a general determination to sustain Douglas in his course,” wrote former Jacksonian Ebenezer Peck to Lyman Trumbull in early December, whereas editor Charles H. Ray of the Chicago Press and Tribune, opined that “from all that I see and know that he [Douglas] is coming among us; and that we have got him to deal with in our own camp.”3 Anticipating collaboration between Republicans and Senator Douglas, old Illinois Democratic warhorse John Reynolds wrote Trumbull in January that “It is a strange spectacle to see you and Senator Douglas pulling at the same cord.”4 In the late winter and early spring of 1858, Illinois Republicans discussed ways of reconciling their identity and integrity with Douglas’s new stance, with some suggesting some sort of alliance between Republicans and Douglas and his followers.5 But shortly after the first of the year other possibilities arose. From April to the end of the campaign, Republican leaders and opinion makers became more confident as it became apparent to them that there was no unanimity among Democrats over Stephen A. Douglas, that indeed there was more likelihood of significant Democratic division than of Republican defections. Republicans would continue to accept overtures from Douglas and his follow- ers but only on the Republicans’ terms. They also beheld with gratification the spectacle of Buchanan administration supporters rallying against Douglas.6 Indeed, Republicans came not only to watch such divisions develop, they did what they could to actively encourage them and even to collude with their leaders, creating the 3. Peck to Trumbull, December 2, 1857, Ray to Trumbull, March 9, 1858, Lyman Trumbull Papers (microfilm edition); Trumbull to Lincoln, January 3, 1858, Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress. 4. Reynolds to Trumbull, January 4, 1858, Trumbull Papers. 5. Jesse K. DuBois to Trumbull, March 22, April 8, 1858, Peck to Trumbull, April 15, 1858, Trumbull Papers; Ray to Lincoln, April 14, 1858, Lincoln Papers; Abraham Jonas and Henry Asbury to Ozias M. Hatch, February 23, 1858, Jackson Grimshaw to Hatch, April 5, 1858, Ozias M. Hatch Papers, Illinois State Historical Library, Springfield. 6. Jonas to Trumbull, February 13, 1858, William Herndon to Trumbull, February 16, 1858, Norman B. Judd to Trumbull, March 19, 1858, Joseph Medill to Trumbull, April 22, 1858, Trumbull Papers; Jonas to Lincoln, July 30, August 5, 1858, Joseph T. Eccles to Lincoln, August 4, 1858, Clifton H. Moore to Lincoln, August 10, 1858, Lincoln Papers; William P. Kellogg to Jesse K. Dubois, April 25, 1858, Jesse K. Dubois Papers, Illinois State Historical Library. 22 Dr. Charles Leib: Lincoln’s Mole? arresting spectacle of Illinois Republicans cooperating with pro- Lecompton Democrats for the sake of electoral advantage. Abraham Lincoln was quite aware of this collusion, and he did not disap- prove. As early as February 19, 1858, Lincoln’s law partner, William Herndon, admitted of Republican efforts to promote a Democratic split. “We want to make it wider and deeper,” he wrote, “hotter and more impassable.”7 By spring Republicans were actively encourag- ing administration supporters to organize, and though no formal arrangement existed between the two groups, they were in frequent contact, and Republicans actively promoted the candidacies of administration supporters—“Danites,” or National Democrats, as they were increasingly known—for the General Assembly.8 The ad- ministration supporters had the important advantage of the control of federal patronage in Illinois, and they were also able to establish several newspapers. The Chicago Tribune, however disingenuously, predicted that the Danites “alone will be recognized in the state as the legitimate Democracy.”9 One of the best-known examples of this cooperation between administration supporters and Republicans was reported by Hern- don to Lyman Trumbull. In July, Herndon wrote to Trumbull of a conference between Lincoln and John Dougherty, a Danite and southern Illinois lawyer and politician who was running for state treasurer. Dougherty informed Lincoln that the National Democrats intended to run a candidate for every office in every county and congressional district. Lincoln is said to have replied to Dough- erty, “If you do this the thing is settled—the battle is fought.”10 And late in September, a writer for the Republican Chicago Journal approached Republican Secretary of State Ozias Hatch for money he claimed was due him for writing anti-Douglas articles for the Danite Springfield newspaper, the State Democrat. James A. Clark- son, proprietor of the Democrat, had never paid him, the writer said. Clarkson claimed that “he expected $500 of Mr. Lincoln in a day or two, and as soon as he got it, he would send on the money.” The expected money never came, hence the writer’s application to 7. Herndon to Trumbull, February 19, 1858, Trumbull Papers. 8. Edward L. Baker to Trumbull, May 1, 1858, Herndon to Trumbull, June 24, 1858, July 9, 1858, Gustave Koerner to Trumbull, June 29, 1858, Trumbull Papers; Samuel Wilkinson to Lincoln, May 26, 1858, John Wentworth to Lincoln, June 6, 1858, Eccles to Lincoln, August 4 1858, Lincoln Papers. 9. Chicago Tribune, April 21, 1858. 10. Herndon to Trumbull, July 9, 1858, Trumbull Papers. 11. A. Sherman to Hatch, September 27, 1858, Hatch Papers. Rodney O. Davis 23 a Republican officeholder for compensation for writing in a pro- Lecompton Democratic newspaper.11 Enter Charles Leib. His antecedents are hazy, his motives obscure, and his tracks hard to follow. Of Pennsylvania origin, he is said to have been in the same West Point class as George McClellan but to have left on account of a physical disability. Leib’s obitu- ary reported that he had graduated from “a Philadelphia Medical College.” There is evidence that he resided in Iowa, though in an unknown capacity.12 Leib appears to have gone out to the new ter- ritory of Kansas in 1854 in the entourage of Kansas’s first governor, fellow Pennsylvanian Andrew Reeder, at whose first public func- tion in Kansas Leib spoke. In that respect Leib can be regarded as a beneficiary of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He took the first census in Kansas Territory and undertook to practice medicine in Leav- enworth.13 Though Reeder was a Democrat, he was a victim of the seizure of the territorial legislature by Missourians in March 1855 and was thus drawn toward the Free-State cause. Perhaps appro- priately then, Reeder’s friend Leib is said to have ridden, after violence broke out in Kansas, with the Free-State militia organized by the then-radical abolitionist James H. Lane. And although this is not verified, he is said later to have been a member of the unofficial Frontier Guard that Lane placed in the White House in the days immediately after the firing on Fort Sumter.14 On firmer ground, we know that after riding with Kansas Free-Staters, Leib took up residence in Illinois and edited a Democratic campaign paper in Chicago, the Democratic Bugle, in support of James Buchanan in 1856.15 Doubtless for this service, he was the successful candidate 12. Leib’s obituary, Arizona Miner (Prescott), February 18, 1865. For this and other materials on Leib in Arizona, I am grateful to Nancy Sawyer, archivist at the Arizona Department of Library, Archives and Public Records in Phoenix, and personnel at the Arizona Historical Society, Tucson.
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