By PAUL VERDUIN
How did Abraham Lincoln develop his fabled forbearance? How did he manage to rise from such humble origins? How vast and varied was his law practice, and how did it serve his political ambitions? Did he indulge his mind by digesting the weighty works of philosophical writers like Mill, Carey and Wayland? Was his tragic assassination a Confederate plot? And did his law partner despise his troubled widow as he turned to writing his controversial biography of Lincoln?
These and other questions about our 16th president were addressed and debated at the Library on March 25 during an all-day symposium appropriately titled "The Latest in Lincoln Scholarship." Co-sponsored by the Abraham Lincoln Institute of the Mid-Atlantic and the Library's Rare Book and Special Collections Division, the event featured presentations by seven nationally recognized Lincoln scholars, followed by remarks from noted presidential biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin.
The opening speaker before the capacity audience was University of Virginia professor William Lee Miller, author of Arguing About Slavery, a much- praised book dealing with an earlier 19th century antislavery figure, John Quincy Adams. Turning his thoughts to Lincoln, Mr. Miller engaged his audience with a close-up view of his evolution from a vitriolic Illinois political attack-man of the 1830s and early '40s, to the paragon of civility, magnanimity and forbearance that characterized his presidency. Mr. Miller, an ethics professor, titled his address "A Very Poor Hater: Instances of Lincoln's Magnanimity."
The symposium's second address, "An American Journey: The Rise of Abraham Lincoln," was delivered by Kenneth J. Winkle of the University of Nebraska. Calling Lincoln "a self-described self-made man," Mr. Winkle said there was "surprising complexity" in this characterization. Popularized by renowned political leader Henry Clay, the self-made concept was understood in Lincoln's day as "one who rendered himself great by his own efforts." Lincoln, Mr. Winkle contended, was "adept at identifying and seizing opportunities for self- advancement," particularly during the great economic expansion in Illinois and other Western states between 1832 and 1836. The economic downturn known as the Panic of 1837 "could not have been more fortunate in its timing," since it precipitated a brisk demand for attorneys as young Lincoln was admitted to the Illinois Bar.
Cullom Davis, the senior editor and director of the Lincoln Legal Papers project throughout most of the 15-year effort, and Daniel W. Stowell, who took over as director and general editor in January, deftly demonstrated to the audience how to access and make sense of the nearly 100,000 computer-based documents in the DVD-ROM The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete Documentary Edition. Cases as diverse as murder trials, domestic squabbles and high-powered railroad litigation were explored.
"Herndon and Mary Todd had never gotten along," David Herbert Donald pronounced in Lincoln's Herndon (1948), his benchmark biography of Lincoln's third law partner, William Henry Herndon. Although the story of Herndon's hatred of Mary Todd Lincoln has found universal acceptance for five decades, Douglas L. Wilson, co-director of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College, expressed profound doubt about Donald's thesis. "There is no evidence Herndon hated Mary Todd, or wanted to get back at her, declared the author of the Lincoln Prize-winning Honor's Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln (1998). Mr. Wilson recounted a humorous 1837 episode, when, after dancing for the first time with 19-year-old Springfield debutante Mary Todd, Herndon complimented her for dancing "with the ease of a serpent." The primordial "serpent" tale has always been understood as the fatal faux pas that earned the brash youth Mary's lasting enmity.
Mr. Wilson, however, sees the episode differently: Herndon, meaning no insult, immediately saw the unintended effect of his remark, regretted it, and became "very apologetic." What's more, he does not think Mary held the incautious remark against Herndon. Years later, in 1866, Mr. Wilson finds the widowed Mary Lincoln's letter to Herndon accepting his interview invitation to be "very gracious" in tone. "She trusted him with sensitive information."
Mr. Wilson makes no attempt to deny that Mary was furious when Herndon published his 1866 lecture on the Ann Rutledge romance, which depicted the maid of New Salem as the only woman Lincoln ever loved, and went on to declare that during their 23-year marriage, "Mr. Lincoln has known no joy." Herndon never asserted, Wilson maintained, that the unhappy character of the marriage was "solely the fault of Mary." The fortuitous result of the troubled union, Herndon believed, was that it was a crucial factor in Lincoln's becoming president.
Thomas R. Turner, historian at Bridgewater State College, opened the afternoon session by taking issue with the thesis put forward by William Tidwell, James O. Hall and David Gaddy in Come Retribution: The Confederate Secret Service and the Assassination of Lincoln. Their theory is that John Wilkes Booth was taking orders from Jefferson Davis's collapsing rebel administration. Mr. Turner believes the available evidence, or lack thereof, conclusively supports the view that Booth and his co-conspirators acted alone, without Confederate help.
"If we haven't heard about Lincoln as a man of ideas, it is because we have been listening with tin ears." With this criticism, Allen C. Guelzo, dean of the Templeton Honors College at Eastern College, challenged the attendees to reexamine the Prairie Rail Splitter's remarkable intellect. The 2000 Lincoln Prize laureate quoted William Herndon's estimation that "Lincoln was far from the country innocent that many people imagined him to be." "Lincoln was a persistent thinker and a profound analyzer ... entirely logical ... shrewd ... cunning. ... [He was] the superior of all and governed by his intellectual superiority."
Citing intellectual works read and digested by Lincoln, Mr. Guelzo began with those of Charles Lyell and Robert Chambers. The latter turned Lincoln into what Herndon called "a firm believer in the theory of development [evolution]." Continuing his list, Mr. Guelzo mentioned works of political economy read by Lincoln: John Stuart Mill, Henry Carey and Francis Wayland. The result was that "Lincoln had no trouble holding his own, with ease" in discussions centering on "the great intellectual controversies of the 19th century." The president's best friend, Joshua Speed, said "Lincoln's mind was of a metaphysical and philosophical order. He read law, history, Thomas Brown's philosophy, or William Paley, Burns, Byron, Milton, or Shakespeare." "Today, we prefer to avoid the strife of ideas," Mr. Guelzo concluded, "But it was the strife of such ideas which brought us Abraham Lincoln."
In her impromptu remarks during the speakers' panel discussion, author Doris Kearns Goodwin, who is in the middle of writing her biography of the Lincoln presidency, declared, "Lincoln was more married to his Cabinet than to Mary during the Civil War. The Cabinet members came to grow under Lincoln, and respect him and accept his leadership," she added.
"I'm fascinated with the circle that included not only these men, but their wives and daughters as well. There is a thing about fathers and daughters here that I want to explore." According to Goodwin, "the pleasure these men had in the company of other men" in the Cabinet is an important dynamic -- one that is in stark contrast to the iciness apparent in Jefferson Davis's Confederate Cabinet.
Mr. Verduin is an independent historical researcher.