The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln Part 15

IN LOVE WITH A BELLE FROM LEXINGTON

Lincoln's popularity in Sangamon County, always increasing, was greatly strengthened by the part he had taken in the removal of the capital to Springfield, which was the county seat as well as the State capital. So he was returned to the Legislature, now held in Springfield, time after time, without further effort on his part. He was looked upon as a young man with a great future. While he was in the office with Major Stuart that gentleman's cousin, Miss Mary Todd, a witty, accomplished young lady from Lexington, Kentucky, came to Springfield to visit her sister, wife of Ninian W. Edwards, one of the "Long Nine" in the State a.s.sembly.

Miss Todd was brilliant and gay, a society girl--in every way the opposite of Mr. Lincoln--and he was charmed with everything she said and did. Judge Douglas was one of her numerous admirers, and it is said that the Louisville belle was so flattered by his attentions that she was in doubt, for a time, which suitor to accept. She was an ambitious young woman, having boasted from girlhood that she would one day be mistress of the White House.

To all appearances Douglas was the more likely to fulfill Miss Todd's high ambition. He was a society man, witty in conversation, popular with women as well as with men, and had been to Congress, so he had a national reputation, while Lincoln's was only local, or at most confined to Sangamon County and the Eighth Judicial Circuit of Illinois.

But Mr. Douglas was already addicted to drink, and Miss Todd saw doubtless that he could not go on long at the rapid pace he was keeping up. It is often said that she was in favor of slavery, as some of her relatives who owned slaves, years later, entered the Confederate ranks to fight against the Union. But the remarkable fact that she finally chose Lincoln shows that her sympathies were against slavery, and she thus cut herself off from several members of her own family. With a woman's intuition she saw the true worth of Abraham Lincoln, and before long they were understood to be engaged.

But the young lawyer, after his recent experience with Mary Owens, distrusted his ability to make any woman happy--much less the belle from Louisville, so brilliant, vivacious, well educated and exacting. He seemed to grow morbidly conscious of his shortcomings, and she was high-strung. A misunderstanding arose, and, between such exceptional natures, "the course of true love never did run smooth."

Their engagement, if they were actually betrothed, was broken, and the lawyer-lover was plunged in deep melancholy. He wrote long, morbid letters to his friend Speed, who had returned to Kentucky, and had recently married there. Lincoln even went to Louisville to visit the Speeds, hoping that the change of scene and friendly sympathies and counsel would revive his health and spirits.

In one of his letters Lincoln bemoaned his sad fate and referred to "the fatal 1st of January," probably the date when his engagement or "the understanding" with Mary Todd was broken. From this expression, one of Lincoln's biographers elaborated a damaging fiction, stating that Lincoln and his affianced were to have been married that day, that the wedding supper was ready, that the bride was all dressed for the ceremony, the guests a.s.sembled--but the melancholy bridegroom failed to come to his own wedding!

If such a thing had happened in a little town like Springfield in those days, the guests would have told of it, and everybody would have gossiped about it. It would have been a nine days' wonder, and such a great joker as Lincoln would "never have heard the last of it."

THE STRANGE EVENTS LEADING UP TO LINCOLN'S MARRIAGE

After Lincoln's return from visiting the Speeds in Louisville, he threw himself into politics again, not, however, in his own behalf. He declined to be a candidate again for the State Legislature, in which he had served four consecutive terms, covering a period of eight years. He engaged enthusiastically in the "Log Cabin" campaign of 1840, when the country went for "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too," which means that General William Henry Harrison, the hero of the battle of Tippecanoe, and John Tyler were elected President and Vice-President of the United States.

In 1842 the young lawyer had so far recovered from bodily illness and mental unhappiness as to write more cheerful letters to his friend Speed of which two short extracts follow:

"It seems to me that I should have been entirely happy but for the never-absent idea that there is one (Miss Todd) still unhappy whom I have contributed to make so. That still kills my soul. I cannot but reproach myself for even wis.h.i.+ng to be happy while she is otherwise. She accompanied a large party on the railroad cars to Jacksonville last Monday, and at her return spoke, so I heard of it, of having 'enjoyed the trip exceedingly.' G.o.d be praised for that."

"You will see by the last _Sangamon Journal_ that I made a temperance speech on the 22d of February, which I claim that f.a.n.n.y and you shall read as an act of charity toward me; for I cannot learn that anybody has read it or is likely to. Fortunately it is not long, and I shall deem it a sufficient compliance with my request if one of you listens while the other reads it."

Early the following summer Lincoln wrote for the _Sangamon Journal_ a humorous criticism of State Auditor s.h.i.+elds, a vain and "touchy" little man. This was in the form of a story and signed by "Rebecca of the Lost Towns.h.i.+ps." The article created considerable amus.e.m.e.nt and might have pa.s.sed unnoticed by the conceited little auditor if it had not been followed by another, less humorous, but more personal and satirical, signed in the same way, but the second communication was written by two mischievous (if not malicious) girls--Mary Todd and her friend, Julia Jayne. This stinging attack made s.h.i.+elds wild with rage, and he demanded the name of the writer of it. Lincoln told the editor to give s.h.i.+elds _his_ name as if he had written both contributions and thus protect the two young ladies. The auditor then challenged the lawyer to fight a duel. Lincoln, averse to dueling, chose absurd weapons, imposed ridiculous conditions and tried to treat the whole affair as a huge joke. When the two came face to face, explanations became possible and the ludicrous duel was avoided. Lincoln's conduct throughout this humiliating affair plainly showed that, while s.h.i.+elds would gladly have killed _him_, he had no intention of injuring the man who had challenged him.

Mary Todd's heart seems to have softened toward the young man who was willing to risk his life for her sake, and the pair, after a long and miserable misunderstanding on both sides, were happily married on the 4th of November, 1842. Their wedding ceremony was the first ever performed in Springfield by the use of the Episcopal ritual.

When one of the guests, bluff old Judge Tom Brown, saw the bridegroom placing the ring on Miss Todd's finger, and repeating after the minister, "With this ring"--"I thee wed"--"and with all"--"my worldly goods"--"I thee endow"--he exclaimed, in a stage whisper:

"Grace to Goshen, Lincoln, the statute fixes all that!"

In a letter to Speed, not long after this event, the happy bridegroom wrote:

"We are not keeping house but boarding at the Globe Tavern, which is very well kept now by a widow lady of the name of Beck. Our rooms are the same Dr. Wallace occupied there, and boarding only costs four dollars a week (for the two). I most heartily wish you and your family will not fail to come. Just let us know the time, a week in advance, and we will have a room prepared for you and we'll all be merry together for a while."

CHAPTER XV

LINCOLN & HERNDON

YOUNG HERNDON'S STRANGE FASCINATION FOR LINCOLN

Lincoln remained in the office with Judge Logan about four years, dissolving partners.h.i.+p in 1845. Meanwhile he was interesting himself in behalf of young William H. Herndon, who, after Speed's removal to Kentucky, had gone to college at Jacksonville, Ill. The young man seemed to be made of the right kind of metal, was industrious, and agreeable, and Mr. Lincoln looked forward to the time when he could have "Billy"

with him in a business of his own.

Mrs. Lincoln, with that marvelous instinct which women often possess, opposed her husband's taking Bill Herndon into partners.h.i.+p. While the young man was honest and capable enough, he was neither brilliant nor steady. He contracted the habit of drinking, the bane of Lincoln's business career. As Mr. Lincoln had not yet paid off "the national debt"

largely due to his first business partner's drunkenness, it seems rather strange that he did not listen to his wife's admonitions. But young Herndon seems always to have exercised a strange fascination over his older friend and partner.

While yet in partners.h.i.+p with Judge Logan, Mr. Lincoln went into the national campaign of 1844, making speeches in Illinois and Indiana for Henry Clay, to whom he was thoroughly devoted.

Before this campaign Lincoln had written to Mr. Speed:

"We had a meeting of the Whigs of the county here last Monday to appoint delegates to a district convention; and Baker beat me, and got the delegation instructed to go for him. The meeting, in spite of my attempts to decline it, appointed me one of the delegates, so that in getting Baker the nomination I shall be fixed like a fellow who is made a groomsman to a fellow that has cut him out, and is marrying his own dear 'gal.'"

Mr. Lincoln, about this time, was offered the nomination for Governor of Illinois, and declined the honor. Mrs. Lincoln, who had supreme confidence in her husband's ability, tried to make him more self-seeking in his political efforts. He visited his old home in Indiana, making several speeches in that part of the State. It was fourteen years after he and all the family had removed to Illinois. One of his speeches was delivered from the door of a harness shop near Gentryville, and one he made in the "Old Carter Schoolhouse." After this address he drove home with Mr. Josiah Crawford--"Old Blue Nose" for whom he had "pulled fodder" to pay an exorbitant price for Weems's "Life of Was.h.i.+ngton," and in whose house his sister and he had lived as hired girl and hired man. He delighted the old friends by asking about everybody, and being interested in the "old swimming-hole," Jones's grocery where he had often argued and "held forth," the saw-pit, the old mill, the blacksmith shop, whose owner, Mr. Baldwin, had told him some of his best stories, and where he once started in to learn the blacksmith's trade. He went around and called on all his former acquaintances who were still living in the neighborhood. His memories were so vivid and his emotions so keen that he wrote a long poem about this, from which the following are three stanzas:

"My childhood's home I see again And sadden with the view; And still, as memory crowds the brain, There's pleasure in it, too.

"Ah, Memory! thou midway world 'Twixt earth and paradise, Where things decayed and loved ones lost In dreamy shadows rise.

"And freed from all that's earthy, vile, Seems hallowed, pure and bright, Like scenes in some enchanted isle, All bathed in liquid light."

TRYING TO SAVE BILLY FROM A BAD HABIT

As Mr. Lincoln spent so much of his time away from Springfield he felt that he needed a younger a.s.sistant to "keep office" and look after his cases in the different courts. He should not have made "Billy" Herndon an equal partner, but he did so, though the young man had neither the ability nor experience to earn anything like half the income of the office. If Herndon had kept sober and done his best he might have made some return for all that Mr. Lincoln, who treated him like a foster-father, was trying to do for him. But "Billy" did nothing of the sort. He took advantage of his senior partner's absences by going on sprees with several dissipated young men about town.

WHAT LAWYER LINCOLN DID WITH A FAT FEE

A Springfield gentleman relates the following story which shows Lawyer Lincoln's business methods, his unwillingness to charge much for his legal services; and his great longing to save his young partner from the clutches of drink:

"My father," said the neighbor, "was in business, facing the square, not far from the Court House. He had an account with a man who seemed to be doing a good, straight business for years, but the fellow disappeared one night, owing father about $1000. Time went on and father got no trace of the vanished debtor. He considered the account as good as lost.

"But one day, in connection with other business, he told Mr. Lincoln he would give him half of what he could recover of that bad debt. The tall attorney's deep gray eyes twinkled as he said, 'One-half of nought is nothing. I'm neither a shark nor a shyster, Mr. Man. If I should collect it, I would accept only my regular percentage.'

"'But I mean it,' father said earnestly. 'I should consider it as good as finding money in the street.'

"'And "the finder will be liberally rewarded," eh?' said Mr. Lincoln with a laugh.

"'Yes,' my father replied, 'that's about the size of it; and I'm glad if you understand it. The members of the bar here grumble because you charge too little for your professional services, and I'm willing to do my share toward educating you in the right direction.'

"'Well, seein' as it's you,' said Mr. Lincoln with a whimsical smile, 'considering that you're such an intimate friend, I'd do it for _twice_ as much as I'd charge a _total stranger_! Is that satisfactory?'

"'I should not be satisfied with giving you less than half the gross amount collected--in this case,' my father insisted. 'I don't see why you are so loath to take what is your due, Mr. Lincoln. You have a family to support and will have to provide for the future of several boys. They need money and are as worthy of it as any other man's wife and sons.'

"Mr. Lincoln put out his big bony hand as if to ward off a blow, exclaiming in a pained tone: