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Contradictions Made Lincoln The Man
By James G. Wiles, For The Bulletin
Abraham Lincoln was destined to always be the president no one knows.
Perhaps the trial lawyer from Illinois knew that, just as he knew, surely, that he was the superior man of his time. In fact, the historical Lincoln was always surprisingly blunt about his superiority. If you forgot, he would promptly remind you, as his young secretaries, Hay and Nicolay learned repeated.
While each generation of American seeks to take Mr. Lincoln’s measure and find in him something of themselves, I believe the only hope of capturing some sense of Abraham Lincoln the man is by pondering his contradictions.
Here are a few, in time for his 200th birthday:
Mr. Lincoln was our funniest president. But he was also a man who, while in office, endured sustained repeated bouts of seve re clinical depression. He was, indeed, strange, attending séances (which he doubted) and sometimes visiting his young son’s grave where he had the casket taken out so he could, as he thought, commune with the deceased.
He was a man who didn’t attend church and who, almost certainly, like
Thomas Jefferson, did not believe in Christ’s divinity. Yet, Mr. Lincoln’s meditation on the Divine Will in the Second Inaugural Address is the most profound reflection in the American language.
A strong family man while president, Mr. Lincoln’s upbringing was anything but. His mother, who died when he was nine, may have been illegitimate. Young Abe was raised by his stepmother, who taught him to read and thereby gave him the means to rise. He loved her always, calling her “Mother.” Yet, he refused to attend his own father’s funeral. He also despised and wrote stinging letters to his brother.
While remembered in legend as the “railsplitter from Illinois,” he actually lived in Indiana from shortly after his birth until he was 21.
As a young man, he twice floated rafts down to New Orleans to trade and ride the riverboats back home. Along the way, he witnessed slavery and slave auctions at first hand, and conceived the belief that “if slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.”
As president, Mr. Lincoln freed the slaves where his orders were certain not to be followed (Confederate territory) and didn’t free them where they would be. He also supported sending freed slaves back to Africa and the establishment of African American colonies there and in Central America.
Mr. Lincoln’s ambition, his law partner, Billy Herndon, said was “a little engine which never stopped.”
One lazy afternoon at the law firm, Herndon, the senior partner, discovered the junior partner sitting surrounded by books, magazines and newspapers. Come on, Abe, Mr. Herndon said, court’s closed. Let’s go have some fun. What do you want with all those books anyway?
“I shall study and get ready,” said the political has-been who, at that point, had lost several successive elections, “and maybe the chance will come.” The next year, the Dred Scott decision would enable Mr. Lincoln to re-launch a public career which had been declared dead.
He cared little for neatness in personal deportment and his hair and cravat were often a fright.. Yet he died wearing a Brooks Brothers suit and kid gloves.
Mr. Lincoln is remembered as the original “country lawyer.” But by 1860, he had become the leading federal court, patent, corporate and railroad attorney in Illinois. Perhaps his greatest jury speech was given defending the Rock Island Railroad in a suit for damages caused by the collapse of the first railroad bridge over the Mississippi. He won.
When he announced for president, Mr. Lincoln had more business in the Illinois Supreme Court than any other lawyer and was functioning as the general counsel of the Illinois Central Railroad.
In an era when almost all men drank and smoked, he didn’t. But he loved country jokes and country manners, especially dialect jokes.
Mr. Lincoln, of course, had no formal education and was, as he said, a “shrub” from the frontier. Yet, he saw that his son, Robert, attended Phillips Exeter and Harvard. Mr. Lincoln also married a well-educated wife who spoke French and, after the White House, the Lincolns planned to go to Europe for six months. Then he wanted to see the West Coast.
His own military career in the Black Hawk War ended when his militia company shouted “you go to hell!” when he gave them a command. Yet, in the end, three million Americans served under him as commander-in-chief.
There is no record of Abraham Lincoln having ever been in a fistfight, and he was, in all respects, a temperate man. Yet, when it came to a choice between the Union or civil war, he chose blood — and at least 700,000 Americans, about 3 percent of the population, died in the Civil War. During the war, he was shot at repeatedly and never ducked.
Because of his intention to make a soft peace with the South, it may be that Mr.
Lincoln’s assassination saved his reputation for posterity. He might otherwise have suffered the fate of his impeached successor, Andrew Johnson. Certainly, the defeated South had no greater friend than Abraham Lincoln, unless it was General William Tecumseh Sherman.
Today, of course, both are still reviled in the South.
James G. Wiles is a Philadelphia lawyer. He can be reached at jwiles@thebulletin.us.
Perhaps the trial lawyer from Illinois knew that, just as he knew, surely, that he was the superior man of his time. In fact, the historical Lincoln was always surprisingly blunt about his superiority. If you forgot, he would promptly remind you, as his young secretaries, Hay and Nicolay learned repeated.
While each generation of American seeks to take Mr. Lincoln’s measure and find in him something of themselves, I believe the only hope of capturing some sense of Abraham Lincoln the man is by pondering his contradictions.
Here are a few, in time for his 200th birthday:
Mr. Lincoln was our funniest president. But he was also a man who, while in office, endured sustained repeated bouts of seve re clinical depression. He was, indeed, strange, attending séances (which he doubted) and sometimes visiting his young son’s grave where he had the casket taken out so he could, as he thought, commune with the deceased.
He was a man who didn’t attend church and who, almost certainly, like
Thomas Jefferson, did not believe in Christ’s divinity. Yet, Mr. Lincoln’s meditation on the Divine Will in the Second Inaugural Address is the most profound reflection in the American language.
A strong family man while president, Mr. Lincoln’s upbringing was anything but. His mother, who died when he was nine, may have been illegitimate. Young Abe was raised by his stepmother, who taught him to read and thereby gave him the means to rise. He loved her always, calling her “Mother.” Yet, he refused to attend his own father’s funeral. He also despised and wrote stinging letters to his brother.
While remembered in legend as the “railsplitter from Illinois,” he actually lived in Indiana from shortly after his birth until he was 21.
As a young man, he twice floated rafts down to New Orleans to trade and ride the riverboats back home. Along the way, he witnessed slavery and slave auctions at first hand, and conceived the belief that “if slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.”
As president, Mr. Lincoln freed the slaves where his orders were certain not to be followed (Confederate territory) and didn’t free them where they would be. He also supported sending freed slaves back to Africa and the establishment of African American colonies there and in Central America.
Mr. Lincoln’s ambition, his law partner, Billy Herndon, said was “a little engine which never stopped.”
One lazy afternoon at the law firm, Herndon, the senior partner, discovered the junior partner sitting surrounded by books, magazines and newspapers. Come on, Abe, Mr. Herndon said, court’s closed. Let’s go have some fun. What do you want with all those books anyway?
“I shall study and get ready,” said the political has-been who, at that point, had lost several successive elections, “and maybe the chance will come.” The next year, the Dred Scott decision would enable Mr. Lincoln to re-launch a public career which had been declared dead.
He cared little for neatness in personal deportment and his hair and cravat were often a fright.. Yet he died wearing a Brooks Brothers suit and kid gloves.
Mr. Lincoln is remembered as the original “country lawyer.” But by 1860, he had become the leading federal court, patent, corporate and railroad attorney in Illinois. Perhaps his greatest jury speech was given defending the Rock Island Railroad in a suit for damages caused by the collapse of the first railroad bridge over the Mississippi. He won.
When he announced for president, Mr. Lincoln had more business in the Illinois Supreme Court than any other lawyer and was functioning as the general counsel of the Illinois Central Railroad.
In an era when almost all men drank and smoked, he didn’t. But he loved country jokes and country manners, especially dialect jokes.
Mr. Lincoln, of course, had no formal education and was, as he said, a “shrub” from the frontier. Yet, he saw that his son, Robert, attended Phillips Exeter and Harvard. Mr. Lincoln also married a well-educated wife who spoke French and, after the White House, the Lincolns planned to go to Europe for six months. Then he wanted to see the West Coast.
His own military career in the Black Hawk War ended when his militia company shouted “you go to hell!” when he gave them a command. Yet, in the end, three million Americans served under him as commander-in-chief.
There is no record of Abraham Lincoln having ever been in a fistfight, and he was, in all respects, a temperate man. Yet, when it came to a choice between the Union or civil war, he chose blood — and at least 700,000 Americans, about 3 percent of the population, died in the Civil War. During the war, he was shot at repeatedly and never ducked.
Because of his intention to make a soft peace with the South, it may be that Mr.
Lincoln’s assassination saved his reputation for posterity. He might otherwise have suffered the fate of his impeached successor, Andrew Johnson. Certainly, the defeated South had no greater friend than Abraham Lincoln, unless it was General William Tecumseh Sherman.
Today, of course, both are still reviled in the South.
James G. Wiles is a Philadelphia lawyer. He can be reached at jwiles@thebulletin.us.
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