Part 3 (1/2)
”But what could I do? I had told her sister that I would take her for better or for worse, and I made a point of honor and conscience in all things to stick to my word, especially if others had been induced to act on it, which in this case I had no doubt they had; for I was now fairly convinced that no other man on earth would have her, and hence the conclusion that they were bent on holding me to my bargain. 'Well,'
thought I, 'I have said it, and, be the consequences what they may, it shall not be my fault if I fail to do it....' All this while, although I was fixed 'firm as the surge-repelling rock' in my resolution, I found I was continually repenting the rashness which had led me to make it.
Through life I have been in no bondage, either real or imaginary, from the thraldom of which I so much desired to be free.... After I had delayed the matter as long as I thought I could in honor do (which, by the way, had brought me round into last fall), I concluded I might as well bring it to a consummation without further delay, and so I mustered my resolution and made the proposal to her direct; but, shocking to relate, she answered, No. At first I supposed she did it through an affectation of modesty, which I thought but ill became her under the peculiar circ.u.mstances of her case, but on my renewal of the charge I found she repelled it with greater firmness than before. I tried it again and again, but with the same success, or rather with the same want of success. I finally was forced to give it up, at which I very unexpectedly found myself mortified almost beyond endurance. I was mortified, it seemed to me, in a hundred different ways. My vanity was deeply wounded by the reflection that I had so long been too stupid to discover her intentions, and at the same time never doubting that I understood them perfectly; and also that she, whom I had taught myself to believe n.o.body else would have, had actually rejected me with all my fancied greatness. And, to cap the whole, I then for the first time began to suspect that I was really a little in love with her.”
The serious side of this letter is undoubtedly genuine and candid, while the somewhat over-exaggeration of the comic side points as clearly that he had not fully recovered from the mental suffering he had undergone in the long conflict between doubt and duty. From the beginning, the match-making zeal of the sister had placed the parties in a false position, produced embarra.s.sment, and created distrust. A different beginning might have resulted in a very different outcome, for Lincoln, while objecting to her corpulency, acknowledges that in both feature and intellect she was as attractive as any woman he had ever met; and Miss Owens's letters, written after his death, state that her princ.i.p.al objection lay in the fact that his training had been different from hers, and that ”Mr. Lincoln was deficient in those little links which make up the chain of a woman's happiness.” She adds: ”The last message I ever received from him was about a year after we parted in Illinois.
Mrs. Able visited Kentucky, and he said to her in Springfield, 'Tell your sister that I think she was a great fool because she did not stay here and marry me.'” She was even then not quite clear in her own mind but that his words were true.
V
Springfield Society--Miss Mary Todd--Lincoln's Engagement--His Deep Despondency--Visit to Kentucky--Letters to Speed--The s.h.i.+elds Duel--Marriage--Law Partners.h.i.+p with Logan--Hardin Nominated for Congress, 1843--Baker Nominated for Congress, 1844--Lincoln Nominated and Elected, 1846
The deep impression which the Mary Owens affair made upon Lincoln is further shown by one of the concluding phrases of his letter to Mrs.
Browning: ”I have now come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying.” But it was not long before a reaction set in from this pessimistic mood. The actual transfer of the seat of government from Vandalia to Springfield in 1839 gave the new capital fresh animation.
Business revived, public improvements were begun, politics ran high.
Already there was a spirit in the air that in the following year culminated in the extraordinary enthusiasm and fervor of the Harrison presidential campaign of 1840, that rollicking and uproarious party carnival of humor and satire, of song and jollification, of hard cider and log cabins. While the State of Illinois was strongly Democratic, Sangamon County was as distinctly Whig, and the local party disputes were hot and aggressive. The Whig delegation of Sangamon in the legislature, popularly called the ”Long Nine,” because the sum of the stature of its members was fifty-four feet, became noted for its influence in legislation in a body where the majority was against them; and of these Mr. Lincoln was the ”tallest” both in person and ability, as was recognized by his twice receiving the minority vote for Speaker of the House.
Society also began organizing itself upon metropolitan rather than provincial a.s.sumptions. As yet, however society was liberal. Men of either wealth or position were still too few to fill its ranks. Energy, ambition talent, were necessarily the standard of admission; and Lincoln, though poor as a church mouse, was as welcome as those who could wear ruffled s.h.i.+rts and carry gold watches. The meetings of the legislature at Springfield then first brought together that splendid group of young men of genius whose phenomenal careers and distinguished services have given Illinois fame in the history of the nation. It is a marked peculiarity of the American character that the bitterest foes in party warfare generally meet each other on terms of perfect social courtesy in the drawing-rooms of society; and future presidential candidates, cabinet members, senators, congressmen, jurists, orators, and battle heroes lent the little social reunions of Springfield a zest and exaltation never found--perhaps impossible--amid the heavy, oppressive surroundings of conventional ceremony, gorgeous upholstery, and magnificent decorations.
It was at this period also that Lincoln began to feel and exercise his expanding influence and powers as a writer and speaker. Already, two years earlier, he had written and delivered before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield an able address upon ”The Perpetuation of Our Political Inst.i.tutions,” strongly enforcing the doctrine of rigid obedience to law. In December, 1839, Douglas, in a heated conversation, challenged the young Whigs present to a political discussion. The challenge was immediately taken up, and the public of Springfield listened with eager interest to several nights of sharp debate between Whig and Democratic champions, in which Lincoln bore a prominent and successful share. In the following summer, Lincoln's name was placed upon the Harrison electoral ticket for Illinois, and he lent all his zeal and eloquence to swell the general popular enthusiasm for ”Tippecanoe and Tyler too.”
In the midst of this political and social awakening of the new capital and the quickened interest and high hopes of leading citizens gathered there from all parts of the State, there came into the Springfield circles Miss Mary Todd of Kentucky, twenty-one years old, handsome, accomplished, vivacious, witty, a das.h.i.+ng and fascinating figure in dress and conversation, gracious and imperious by turns. She easily singled out and secured the admiration of such of the Springfield beaux as most pleased her somewhat capricious fancy. She was a sister of Mrs.
Ninian W. Edwards, whose husband was one of the ”Long Nine.” This circ.u.mstance made Lincoln a frequent visitor at the Edwards house; and, being thus much thrown in her company, he found himself, almost before he knew it, entangled in a new love affair, and in the course of a twelvemonth engaged to marry her.
Much to the surprise of Springfield society, however, the courts.h.i.+p took a sudden turn. Whether it was caprice or jealousy, a new attachment, or mature reflection will always remain a mystery. Every such case is a law unto itself, and neither science nor poetry is ever able to a.n.a.lyze and explain its causes and effects. The conflicting stories then current, and the varying traditions that yet exist, either fail to agree or to fit the spa.r.s.e facts which came to light. There remains no dispute, however, that the occurrence, whatever shape it took, threw Mr. Lincoln into a deeper despondency than any he had yet experienced, for on January 23, 1841, he wrote to his law partner, John T. Stuart:
”For not giving you a general summary of news you must pardon me; it is not in my power to do so. I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on earth. Whether I shall ever be better, I cannot tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better.”
Apparently his engagement to Miss Todd was broken off, but whether that was the result or the cause of his period of gloom seems still a matter of conjecture. His mind was so perturbed that he felt unable to attend the sessions of the legislature of which he was a member; and after its close his intimate friend Joshua F. Speed carried him off for a visit to Kentucky. The change of scene and surroundings proved of great benefit.
He returned home about midsummer very much improved, but not yet completely restored to a natural mental equipoise. While on their visit to Kentucky, Speed had likewise fallen in love, and in the following winter had become afflicted with doubts and perplexities akin to those from which Lincoln had suffered. It now became his turn to give sympathy and counsel to his friend, and he did this with a warmth and delicacy born of his own spiritual trials, not yet entirely overmastered. He wrote letter after letter to Speed to convince him that his doubts about not truly loving the woman of his choice were all nonsense.
”Why, Speed, if you did not love her, although you might not wish her death, you would most certainly be resigned to it. Perhaps this point is no longer a question with you, and my pertinacious dwelling upon it is a rude intrusion upon your feelings. If so, you must pardon me. You know the h.e.l.l I have suffered on that point, and how tender I am upon it.... I am now fully convinced that you love her, as ardently as you are capable of loving.... It is the peculiar misfortune of both you and me to dream dreams of Elysium far exceeding all that anything earthly can realize.”
When Lincoln heard that Speed was finally married, he wrote him:
”It cannot be told how it now thrills me with joy to hear you say you are 'far happier than you ever expected to be,' That much, I know, is enough. I know you too well to suppose your expectations were not, at least, sometimes extravagant; and if the reality exceeds them all, I say, Enough, dear Lord. I am not going beyond the truth when I tell you that the short s.p.a.ce it took me to read your last letter gave me more pleasure than the total sum of all I have enjoyed since the fatal first of January, 1841. Since then it seems to me I should have been entirely happy, but for the never-absent idea that there is one 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.”
It is quite possible that a series of incidents that occurred during the summer in which the above was written had something to do with bringing such a frame of mind to a happier conclusion. James s.h.i.+elds, afterward a general in two wars and a senator from two States, was at that time auditor of Illinois, with his office at Springfield. s.h.i.+elds was an Irishman by birth, and, for an active politician of the Democratic party, had the misfortune to be both sensitive and irascible in party warfare. s.h.i.+elds, together with the Democratic governor and treasurer, issued a circular order forbidding the payment of taxes in the depreciated paper of the Illinois State banks, and the Whigs were endeavoring to make capital by charging that the order was issued for the purpose of bringing enough silver into the treasury to pay the salaries of these officials. Using this as a basis of argument, a couple of clever Springfield society girls wrote and printed in the ”Sangamo Journal” a series of humorous letters in country dialect, purporting to come from the ”Lost Towns.h.i.+ps,” and signed by ”Aunt Rebecca,” who called herself a farmer's widow. It is hardly necessary to say that Mary Todd was one of the culprits. The young ladies originated the scheme more to poke fun at the personal weaknesses of s.h.i.+elds than for the sake of party effect, and they embellished their simulated plaint about taxes with an embroidery of fict.i.tious social happenings and personal allusions to the auditor that put the town on a grin and s.h.i.+elds into fury. The fair and mischievous writers found it necessary to consult Lincoln about how they should frame the political features of their attack, and he set them a pattern by writing the first letter of the series himself.
s.h.i.+elds sent a friend to the editor of the ”Journal,” and demanded the name of the real ”Rebecca.” The editor, as in duty bound, asked Lincoln what he should do, and was instructed to give Lincoln's name, and not to mention the ladies. Then followed a letter from s.h.i.+elds to Lincoln demanding retraction and apology, Lincoln's reply that he declined to answer under menace, and a challenge from s.h.i.+elds. Thereupon Lincoln instructed his ”friend” as follows: If former offensive correspondence were withdrawn and a polite and gentlemanly inquiry made, he was willing to explain that:
”I did write the 'Lost Towns.h.i.+ps' letter which appeared in the 'Journal'
of the 2d instant, but had no partic.i.p.ation in any form in any other article alluding to you. I wrote that wholly for political effect; I had no intention of injuring your personal or private character or standing as a man or a gentleman; and I did not then think, and do not now think, that that article could produce or has produced that effect against you, and had I antic.i.p.ated such an effect I would have forborne to write it.
And I will add that your conduct toward me, so far as I know, had always been gentlemanly, and that I had no personal pique against you and no cause for any.... If nothing like this is done, the preliminaries of the fight are to be:
”_First_. Weapons: Cavalry broadswords of the largest size, precisely equal in all respects, and such as now used by the cavalry company at Jacksonville.