Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications
Civil War Era Studies
Winter 2000
Come-outers and Community Men: Abraham
Lincoln and the Idea of Community in NineteenthCentury America
Allen C. Guelzo
Gettysburg College
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Guelzo, Allen C. "Come-outers and Community Men: Abraham Lincoln and the Idea of Community in Nineteenth-Century
America." Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 21.1 (Winter 2000), 1-29.
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the copyright owner for personal use, not for redistribution. Cupola permanent link: http://cupola.gettysburg.edu/cwfac/32
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Come-outers and Community Men: Abraham Lincoln and the Idea of
Community in Nineteenth-Century America
Abstract
The most eloquent and moving words Abraham Lincoln ever uttered about any community were those "few
and simple words" he spoke on the rear platform of the railroad car that lay waiting on the morning of
February 11, 1861, to take him to Washington, to the presidency, and ultimately to his death. As his "own
breast heaved with emotion" so that "he could scarcely command his feelings sufficiently to commence" (in
the description of James C. Conkling), Lincoln declared that "No one, not in my situation, can appreciate my
feeling of sadness at this parting." To leave Springfield was to leave the only real home he had ever known. His
professional life had been bound up in Springfield; he had married, raised a family, and been elected to
Congress from Springfield; he had refused offers to relocate to Chicago and (so it was rumored later) even
New York City to remain in Springfield. "To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything,"
Lincoln said. [excerpt]
Keywords
Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, 19th century, nineteenth century, community, family, society
Disciplines
Cultural History | History | Political History | Social History | United States History
This article is available at The Cupola: Scholarship at Gettysburg College: http://cupola.gettysburg.edu/cwfac/32
Photograph
of Abraham
Lincoln, May
probably by Preston Butler
20, I860,
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Come-outers
Men:
and Community
Abraham Lincoln and the
in
Idea of Community
America
Nineteenth-Century
ALLEN C. GUELZO
ever ut
and moving
words Abraham
Lincoln
eloquent
were
those "few and simple words"
tered about any community
he spoke on the rear platform
of the railroad car that lay waiting
on the
of February
11, 1861, to take him to Washington,
morning
to the presidency,
to his death. As his "own breast
and ultimately
so that "he could scarcely command
heaved with emotion"
his feel
The most
to commence"
of James C. Con
(in the description
can ap
that "No one, not in my situation,
at
this
To
of
sadness
leave
preciate my feeling
parting."1
Springfield
was
to leave the only real home he had ever known. His profes
sional life had been bound up in Springfield;
he had married,
raised
a family, and been elected
to Congress
from Springfield;
he had
and (so it was rumored
refused offers to relocate to Chicago
later)
even New York City to remain in Springfield.2
"To this place, and
I owe everything,"
the kindness
of these people,
Lincoln
said.
ings sufficiently
kling), Lincoln
declared
1. Conkling
to Clinton
in Concerning Mr. Lincoln,
Feb. 12,1861,
in which
Conkling,
to Letter Writers
E.
Abraham
Lincoln Is Pictured As He Appeared
of His Time, ed. Harry
Pratt (Springfield,
111.:Abraham
Lincoln Association,
Address
1944), 50; "Farewell
at Springfield,
in Roy P. Basler,
ed.,
Illinois,"
vols.
(New Brunswick,
N.J.: Rutgers
University
cited as Collected Works).
Collected
Press,
Works
of Abraham
4:190
1953-1955),
Lincoln,
9
(hereafter
2. According
to David
in 1849 Grant Goodrich
had proposed
that Lincoln
Davis,
but Lincoln
after the Cooper
law firm in Chicago,
Union
address
declined;
one of the directors
of the New
York Central
Rail
1860, Erastus
Corning,
join his
in Feb.
road, was
railroad;
rumored
see David
to have
Davis
offered
Lincoln
to William
Letters, Interviews,
Informants:
Wilson
O. Davis
and Rodney
(Urbana:
after cited as Herndons
and
Informants),
York: Dodd,
Meade,
1927),
the position
of general
counsel
for the
in
Herndon's
Herndon,
19,
1866,
Sept.
about Abraham
L.
Lincoln, eds. Douglas
Illinois
349
of
(here
1998),
Press,
University
Henry
and Statements
John W.
Starr, Lincoln
and the Railroads
126-31.
Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2000
? 2000 by the Board of Trustees of the University
of Illinois
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(New
2
Come-outers
and
Men
Community
from
Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed
a young
to an old man. Here my children have been born, and
or whether
one is buried. I now leave, not
ever,
knowing when,
a
me
Imay
with
task
before
than that which
return,
greater
rested upon Washington.
as these
But well-known
often
overlooked
text?the
Nor was
moment
and affectionate
words
are, it is
kindly
con
that Lincoln
said them in a very peculiar
never
to
return
alive.
he was
leaving Springfield,
his sense of debt
expressed
he
communities
left
behind him for
had
those
after
In
sketch he composed
for John
the brief autobiographical
good.
Locke Scripps in 1860, he recalled harder times in his youth in New
in his first run for the state legis
Salem, how he had been beaten
even more
lature and had been beaten down
sorely by the busi
even
ness failure of his
Dent?n
Offutt.
Nevertheless,
employer,
was now without
means
out
and
of
Lincoln
"he
business,"
though
this the first time that Lincoln
to communities
to remain with his friends who had treated him with
"was anxious
so much
And he did?but
for only two-and-a-half
generosity."3
law in
until
of
and practicing
the
years,
opportunity
learning
commu
two
from
the
beckoned.
Lincoln's
departures
Springfield
nities that had nurtured him were
framed in soft words,
but he still
seems to have had the most
left them. In fact, Lincoln
admiring
he was
when
just at the point of
things to say about communities
severing his ties to them.
comments
about Springfield
and
The odd context of Lincoln's
one
at a peculiar
in
Lincoln
of
New
Salem situate Abraham
point
the most
cultural dilemmas
of American
life, and that
unsettling
mourn
we define,
and
the idea of
exalt,
(alternately)
in
is
With
what
American
life.
the
rise
of
frequently
community
called the "new communitarianism,"
the tone in which we discuss
one of mourning,
because
this dilemma
has increasingly
become
is the way
it is now
in the popular work of sociologists,
suggested
as
as Ami
and philosophers
dispersed
widely
Charles
Alisdair
Bellah,
Maclntyre,
Taylor, and
lost
American
has
Sandel
that
Michael
any meaningful
society
re
sense of community,
human
and with
it, any sense of genuine
of social health,
of cultural
sanity. We have become
lationships,
a heart
a nation of utterly self-centered,
individualists,
self-seeking
anxiously
theorists,
political
tai Etzioni, Robert
less society
connection.
that wrecks
Neighborhoods
3. "Autobiography
Written
every
non-tangible,
are accidental
for John L. Scripps,"
human
non-financial
throw-togethers
in Collected
Works,
4:64-65.
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of
3
Allen C. Guelzo
not
strangers who hardly know each other, and who will probably
to get that knowledge.
live there long enough
Education,
welfare,
even old-age
care, are fobbed off onto 401K plans and faceless gov
ernment agencies
and bureaucrats.
Our single most distinguishing
feature is not our name, our family, the place we were born, but
an integer?our
number. We have lost a sense of
Social Security
Etzioni charges, and exchanged
the restraints and sup
"we-ness,"
a
more closely resem
that
for
of
model
of
society
ports
community
bles a "den of thieves." Modern
declares
ap
society,
Maclntyre,
so
as
"a
citizens
of
much
collection
of
like
nowhere."
pears
nothing
tend to think that all we need are energetic
indi
a few impersonal
com
rules to guarantee
fairness,"
is not only superfluous
but danger
plains Bellah, "anything more
or
both."
But
the
for
the
ous?corrupt,
price
oppressive,
decay of
is
Bellah
warns,
community,
staggering:
"We Americans
viduals
and
the family to the school to the
today?from
us to use all
not challenge
to
the
arena?do
corporation
public
our
so that we have a sense of enjoyable
achieve
capacities
ment and of contributing
to the welfare
of others....
And the
a loss of meaning
in family and job, a dis
is palpable:
malaise
a disillusion
trust of politics,
with organized
religion.
Our
institutions
new level of dem
What we need, Bellah argues,
is "a dramatically
not only in America
ocratic institutionalization,
but in the world."4
But the jeremiads of Etzioni, Bellah, and other "new communi
are not actually
tarians"
all that new. The nineteenth-century
founders of scientific sociology?Auguste
Comte, Max Weber, Emil
and especially
Ferdinand
Tonnies?all
contrasted
the
Durkheim,
new industrial
nation-states
of the late 1800s with
their medieval
to the disadvantage
and traditional
and usually
of
predecessors,
the former.
its classic
(and ominously
gave this contrast
in 1887 by speaking
of the pre-capitalist,
pre
as a Gemeinschaft
world
(a "community"
industrial,
pre-urbanized
and consensus)
dominated
and the new in
by folkways,
religion,
dustrial Europe as a Gesellschaft
(a "society"
typified by individu
a
concern
formal
and
with
law,
alism,
rights).5 But the dread of los
Manichaean)
Tonnies
form
4. Etzioni,
The Spirit of Community:
and the Communitarian
Rights, Responsibilities
York: Crown,
1993), 118-19; Mclntyre,
After Virtue: A Study inMoral
et al., The Good Society
(New
Duckworth,
1981), 147; Bellah
Theory (London: Gerald
York: Knopf,
1991), 6, 49, 51.
Agenda
(New
5. Tonnies,
Fundamental
Concepts
American
Book,
1940), 53-73.
of Sociology,
trans.
C. P. Loomis
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(New
York:
4
Come-outers
Men
and Community
ing a sense
is already apparent
of community
from the very first
in
North
settlements
where
colonists
America,
Anglo-American
who had been uprooted
from traditional
societies
full of tradition
were now jumbled
and cultural markers
al geographical
together
a
in hostile
it was no longer pos
and unfamiliar
landscape where
sible to assume
that the conventional
rules of social interchange
or enforced. Governor
could be practiced
had not
John Winthrop
even gotten his boatloads
of Puritan
into Massachusetts
colonists
Bay before
logically
he
felt it necessary
opinionated
to warn
his
contentious
and
theo
that
charges
as one man, we must
in this work
together
entertain
each other in brotherly
be will
affection, we must
our
to
ourselves
of
for
the
ing
abridge
superfluities,
supply of
we must
a
commerce
to
others necessities,
familiar
uphold
...
in
all
and
meekness,
gether
gentleness,
patience,
liberality
... our
our
as
before
members
eyes
always having
Community
We must
of
the
be knit
same
.6
body...
And of course they didn't. They disobeyed
Winthrop's
injunction
to be a single settlement?"a
scattered over the
city on a hill"?and
to live in communities,
and far from agreeing
govern
landscape;
common
some
themselves
form
of
and subordinate
consensus,
by
to the good of the whole, Winthrop's
settlers dis
interests
private
an
for
and entre
debate,
played
extraordinary
penchant
mobility,
no
In
1970s
from
the
fact,
onward,
preneurial
land-development.7
more
or
has
American
historians
often
bedeviled
question
early
more
was
than
whether
America
pre
loudly
pre-Revolutionary
dominantly
a
system
of
local,
consensus-based,
agrarian
commu
of subsistence
nities based on self-contained
systems
agriculture
entre
and yeoman
farmers, or a socially fluid field of self-seeking
a
and
each
of
farmers,
preneurs
cash-crop
seeking
place
advantage
in the new international
commercial
of the Brit
capitalist markets
ish empire.8
in The Puritans:
of Christian
A Sourcebook
6. "A Modell
Charity,"
of Their Writ
Torchbooks,
1938, 1963), 1:198.
ings (New York: Harper
7. Darrett
B. Rutman,
Boston: Portrait of a Puritan Town, 1630-1649
(New
Winthrop's
in the Wilderness:
York: Norton,
Entre
Martin,
1965), 96-97;
John Frederick
Profits
and the Founding
of New
preneurship
Hill: University
of North
Carolina
8. James A. Henretta,
"Families
England Towns in the Seventeenth
Century
1991), 3-5.
Press,
in Pre-Industrial
and Farms: Mentalit?
(Chapel
Ameri
and Mary
35 (April 1978): 3-32; Allan
"The Transi
ca," William
Kulikoff,
Quarterly
tion to Capitalism
in Rural America,"
and Mary
William
46
Quarterly
(April 1989):
"The American
and the Formation
Revolution,
120-44; Allan
Kulikoff,
Capitalism,
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Allen C. Guelzo
5
over the
of American
the complaint
disappearance
more
than among
historians
community
fury among
generated
own
In his
is
those whose
bailiwick
Lincoln's
lifetime.
scholarly
1991 survey, The Market Revolution:
Ameri
monumental
Jacksonian
a picture of the Ameri
Charles G. Sellers painted
ca, 1815-1846,
can Republic
at the close of the War of 1812 as a society divided,
Nowhere
has
in large measure,
out beyond
the immediate
by its transportation:
environs
of the large east-coast
American
the
port towns,
Repub
lic had developed
into rural communities
of yeoman
republican
farmers took advantage
of the cheapness
of
ism, where American
western
land and the near-absence
of serious taxation to set them
on as little as twen
selves up as independent
growing
patriarchs,
a family could need in terms of food for them
ty acres everything
selves and their animals
and the raw materials
for clothing
and
in barter for whatever
else was needed
and in cash
shelter, dealing
and interest not at all, and "abundantly
human
meeting
and trust" through neighborly
reci
for security, sociability,
in
male
and
procity
participation
sexually-segregated
honor-sports
and in female supervision
of domestic
and child-bear
production
came at a price, as Sellers admits,
"in pa
ing. These communities
money
needs
and circumscribed
and they were
horizons,"
conformity,
came
vulnerable
whenever
land
up short and children
terrifically
or
the blandishments
whenever
of market
numerous,
exchange
to invade the trans-Appalachian
could find ways
interior, as it did
triarchy,
of steamboats,
canals, and finally railroads, all
by the introduction
of them bearing
and tempting yeoman
the gifts of the market
farm
ers to abandon
to develop
cash agricul
self-sufficiency
single-crop
ture and buy manufactured
store goods
rather than making
their
own.9 The serpent in Sellers's garden
is market
and as
capitalism,
concern
if echoing
the new communitarians'
for the atomization
of the Yeoman
in Beyond
the American
Revolution:
in the Histo
Classes,"
Explorations
F.
ed. Alfred
Northern
Illinois
Universi
(DeKalb:
Radicalism,
ry of American
Young
B. Rothenberg,
"The Market
and Massachusetts
1993), 81-119; Winifred
ty Press,
4 (October
1981): 283-314; Michael
Farmers,
1750-1855,"
Journal of Economic History
to Eat: Self-Sufficiency
in the Rural Economy
"Cash Is Good
and Exchange
Merrill,
4 (Winter
of the United
Radical History
Review
1977): 42-71; Christopher
States,"
Western Massachusetts,
1780-1860
Clark, The Roots of Rural Capitalism:
(Ithaca, N.Y.:
Cornell
Press,
1990), 8-11.
University
9. Sellers,
The Market
Revolution:
1815-1846
(New York: Ox
Jacksonian America,
ford University
of yeoman
is
Press,
1991), 12-21. Sellers's
portrait
republicanism
in Harry Watson,
echoed
and
Power:
The
Politics
America
Jacksonian
Liberty
of
(New York: Hill & Wang,
1990).
also
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6
Come-outers
and
Men
Community
of modern
American
society, Sellers frankly depict
of "internal
and market
de
program
improvements"
as
the
first
the
current
toward
crisis
of
step
community
velopment
stress intensifies,
the fruits of free-enterprise
where
"competitive
sour with
environmen
autonomy
job flight and social breakdown,
and alienation
ed the Whig
tal disaster
and huckster-driven
looms, politics
gridlocks,
dominate
consciousness."10
public
media
increasingly
a
In the Jacksonian
antidote
era, the most obvious
lay in host of
House
The
Seven
what Nathaniel
Hawthorne
(in
Gables) called
of
and
"community-men
come-outers"?"reformers,
temperance-lec
of cross-looking
turers, and all manner
philanthropists"?who
arose to re-create pre-capitalist
communities
through experiments
that would
from Rob
be proof against
the market's
temptations,
own southwestern
in Lincoln's
ert Owen's
Indiana at
experiment
to George Ripley's
in the mid-1820s
Brook Farm in
Harmony
Association
in
for Education
and Industry
1841, the Northampton
and sixteen others before
1842, and one hundred
1859, dedicated
to
more-or-less
the Northampton
(as was
Association)
generally
"ourselves
and
friends
rid
of
the
compe
get
making
happier?to
in American
and oppressive"
tition so omnipresent
society.11 But
in the case of Abraham
there is no sense that a need for
Lincoln,
New
any such antidotes
any
or
abiding
at all felt, no sense
was
supervening
loyalties
to
in fact that Lincoln
agrarian
communities
felt
or
Unlike
dread of competitive
individualism.
the com
any particular
as
labor
Lincoln
viewed
and
cash
munitarians,
wage
exchange
so
as
a
not
he
defined
much
of
and
freedom,
sys
slavery
symbols
tem of racial injustice but as an economic
whose
ob
arrangement
a
was
men
to
"I
to
to
labor
without
used
be
wages.
compel
ject
were
one
in
at
time
remarked
1856.
"We
all
slaves
Lincoln
slave,"
or another," but "now I am so free that they let me practice
law."12
in
in American
10. Sellers,
and Democracy
Historical
"Capitalism
Mythology,"
in America:
and Religious
The Market Revolution
Social, Political,
1800-1880,
Expressions,
Press of Vir
and Stephen
eds. Melvyn
Stokes
(Charlottesville:
University
Conway
1996), 314.
ginia,
11. Hawthorne,
ed. Allan
Smith
The House
(London:
of the Seven Gables,
Lloyd
The
Promise:
1815
Daniel
America,
73;
Feller,
Classics,
1995),
Jacksonian
Everyman
1840 (Baltimore,
Md.:
Press,
1995), 77-83; Christopher
Johns Hopkins
University
Moment:
The Radical Challenge
Associa
Clark, The Communitarian
of the Northampton
tion (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
Press,
1995), 1-38.
University
12. John E. Roll, in Recollected Words of Abraham
Lincoln, eds. Don E. Fehrenbacher
Calif.:
Stanford
and Virginia
Fehrenbacher
Press,
1996), 383.
(Stanford,
University
Inner
The
World
Abraham
Lincoln
Univer
See also Michael
(Urbana:
of
Burlingame,
sity of Illinois
Press,
1994),
35-36.
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Allen C. Guelzo
7
cast social relations, not in terms of com
all, he repeatedly
as "the race of life."13 Ifwhat
terms
in
but
of competition,
munity,
new
was
the
the old ones, too?feared
the
communitarians?and
that looked
like Michael
of a society
Wall
emergence
Douglas's
feared a society
that looked
like Sinclair Lewis's
Street, Lincoln
on the
in which
Main
established
elites played
Street, a society
Above
or black, it
of an agrarian proletariat?white
and mobil
order to repress the dynamism
middle
class. In all the major works
of the
name
Bellah?the
of
Abra
communitarians?Etzioni,
Taylor,
resentments
populist
made no difference?in
ity of a market-driven
new
no appearance.
There is good reason for that.
makes
Lincoln
the communitarian
ideal in
from
diverges
American
levels?the
the
life on four major
ideological,
personal,
the practical,
and the professional?and
all of them in fact made
own time than
him a much more controversial
political
figure in his
to
most
At
he is often understood
the
be.
level, though,
personal
for communitarianism
Lincoln was a poor candidate
simply be
cause he fit so poorly
the temperamental
model
of a person will
or to encourage
standards
the
ing to be restrained
by communal
in
The
life.
of
social
twenty-two-year
community
predominance
in New Salem as Dent?n
in 1831 planted himself
old Lincoln who
ham Lincoln
Abraham
of a fun-loving,
clerk had, at least at first, all the makings
of
the
local
He
himself pop
member
made
"b'hoys."
high-spirited
for
stories
and his
ular with his remarkable
memory
rollicking
a specimen
was
ruff
sheer physical
and
"as
he
strength,
although
as could be found," he was
of humanity
for
easily remembered
him
and
made
"full
which
of
fun,
companionable,
being
Highlarity
Offutt's
and
rather
Conspicuous
among
his
associates."14
And yet, even in his New
Salem days, while
Lincoln
"never
to be rude," he also "Seemed
to have a liking for Soli
Seemed
seems to have had the sense that "he was
tude."15 He already
the
to
of
and
be
intel
all"
allowed
himself
his
superior
"governed
by
concen
lectual superiority,"
and that fueled both a single-minded
tration on self-improvement
and the peculiar
that (as
conviction
13. "Speech
and
"Message
in Independence
Feb. 22, 1861,
Hall,
Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania,"
to Congress
in Collected Works, 4:240,
in Special
Session,"
July 4,1861,
438.
14. James Short
(Erastus Wright
interview,
July 10, 1865), in Josiah G. Holland
York Public Library, New
in
Butler
York; William
(James Q. Howard
Papers, New
ed. David
C. Mearns
1860) in The Lincoln Papers,
(Garden City, N.Y.:
terview, May
1948), 1:151.
Doubleday,
to Herndon,
in Herndons
15. E. R. Burba
Mar. 31,1866,
241.
Informants,
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8
Come-outers
and Community
Men
"a predestined
there was
observed)
Browning
. . . that he was destined
in the world
for something
nobler than he was for the time engaged
in."16 Consequently,
what
ever reputation
Mack
Lincoln won for frontier "familiarity"?John
com
for
essential
the
of
Faragher's
phrase
ingredient
egalitarian
Orville
work
Hickman
for him
a strain of aloofness
in early Illinois?he
also developed
munity
even more
once he em
and separateness
that became
apparent
to Springfield.17
barked on the reading of law and moved
"While
he was down
there at New Salem I think his time was mainly
giv
en to fun and social enjoyment
and in the amusements
of the peo
came daily in contact with,"
recalled Stephen T. Logan. "Af
ple he
came
ter he
here to Springfield
he got rid to a great degree
however
of this disposition."18
did not, of course, get rid of all of that "disposition"
for
to
in
when
1837.
Lincoln
he
moved
pos
"familiarity"
Springfield
of his professional
career, a surpris
sessed, even at the beginning
a
of
and
intention
that inspired
charm,
transparency
ing
expression
was
the
trust and encouraged
"Lincoln
favorite
of
sponsorship.
was
he
lived
and
child?where
and
woman,
everybody?man,
Lincoln
a pet, faithful
Herndon
and an
"Lincoln was
recalled,
known,"
So even though Lincoln
"was a poor
honest pet in this city...."
man and must work his way
that Spring
recollected
up," Herndon
over
to
"He
assist
other
and
Lincoln.
fielders
each
help
tripped
never saw the minute,
the hour, nor the day that he did not have
financial
friends to aid him, to assist him, and to help him
many
in all ways. His friends vied with
each other for the pleasure
of
the honor of assisting him ... they almost fought each other for the
he walked
of assisting
Lincoln."19 From the moment
into
privilege
store and struck up an immediate
with
Abner
Ellis's
friendship
store clerk,
what
turned out to be another ambitious Kentucky-born
or
ten choice
became
the
for
Lincoln
Joshua Speed,
magnet
"eight
to Jesse Weik,
Lincoln,
Apr. 4, 1890, in The Hidden
from the Letters
H. Herndon,
ed. Emmanuel
Hertz
(New York: Viking,
1938),
interview,
(John Nicolay
June 17, 1875), in An Oral History
Browning
of
Lincoln:
Interviews
and Essays,
ed. Michael
John G. Nicolay's
Burlingame
16. Herndon
and Papers
251; O. H.
Abraham
of William
Southern
Illinois University
(Carbondale:
1996), 7.
Press,
on the Illinois Prairie
17. Faragher,
(New Haven,
Sugar Creek: Life
1986), 153-55.
versity,
18. S. T. Logan
(John Nicolay
Lincoln, 37-38.
to C. O. Poole,
ry of Abraham
19. Herndon
(microfilm),
Papers
Library
134.
Lincoln,
Hertz, Hidden
interview,
July 6, 1875),
Jan. 5, 1886, group
of Congress;
Herndon
Conn.:
in Burlingame,
Yale Uni
Oral Histo
4, reel 9, 1885, Herndon-Weik
to Jesse Weik,
Jan. 15, 1886,
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in
9
Allen C. Guelzo
of lawyers and
community
spirits" among Springfield's
budding
Evan
civil servants?James
Milton
Butler,
James
Matheny,
Hay,
met
of
ei
other
habitues
the
court-house"?who
"and
Conkling,
office "once and sometimes
twice
ther in Ellis's store or Matheny's
a month."
in effect, the college
that Lincoln
became,
Springfield
a knot
never attended.
"There was scarcely a day or an hour when
not have been seen near the door of some leading
of men might
a
store, or about the steps of the court house eagerly
[discussing]
. . .but
as
a
news
news
current political
of
for
topic?not
question
Milton Hay recalled
rather in the nature of debate or discussion,"
remembered
and
that "it was
later,
Hay particularly
forty years
us?we
a
treat
when
Lincoln
would
al
got amongst
great
always
sure
some
to
of
stories
of
for
which
he
had
those
his
be
have
ways
a
already got
reputation."20
none
But
into a secure place in
of that "familiarity"
translated
"Mr. Lincoln was not a so
the Springfield
for Lincoln.
community
cial man by any means," warned
"his Stories?
Judge David Davis,
were
are
no evidences
to
&c.
off
which
done
whistle
sadness
jokes
was
not a social
"Mr.
of sociality."21 Herndon
Lincoln
agreed:
being
...
he was
rather
cold?too
too
abstracted?and
..
gloomy..
Lincoln
any, and
only revealed his soul to but few beings?//
then he kept a corner of that soul from his bosom
friends."22 The
same man with
the reputation
for outrageously
funny (and occa
was simultaneously
stories
"a man of
lewd)
sionally outrageously
even
at arm's
who
associates
infinite
held
his
closest
silences,"
quite
Mr.
length, who
cative,
and
"was
thoroughly
close-minded
as
and deeply
to his
plans,
secretive,
wishes,
uncommuni
and
hopes,
fears."
was inclined
to attribute
Herndon
this to Lincoln's
ambi
political
in him it was consuming
tions. "His ambition was never satisfied;
fire which
his feelings."23
smothered
never stopped
in the street to have a social chat
was
a
not
too reflective,
with anyone; he
too ab
social man,
never
he
attended
till the thing
stracted;
political
gatherings
was organized,
and then he was ready to make a speech, will
that grew out of it, ready
ing and ready to reap any advantage
Mr.
Lincoln
20. Milton
interview,
(John Nicolay
Hay
July 4,1875),
Lincoln, 26-27.
ry of Abraham
21. David
Davis
(Herndon
interview,
Sept. 20,1866),
22. Herndon,
of Abraham
of the Character
"Analysis
1 (December
1941):
Quarterly
23. Herndon
to Jesse Weik,
413, 419.
Nov.
24,1882,
in Hertz,
in Burlingame,
in Herndons
Lincoln,"
Hidden
Oral Histo
348.
Informants,
Lincoln
Abraham
Lincoln,
88.
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10
and
Come-outers
and
for the office
anxious
Community
it afforded,
Men
if any
in the political
world.24
remoteness
to simple temper
personal
"Mr.
believed
that
Lincoln's
James Matheny
fancy?Emotion,
& Imagination
dwindled"
years, "that is to
during his Springfield
. .. became
up all his being
Say his reason & his Logic?swallowed
Lincoln grew more abstracted?Contemplative?
dominant-Mr.
Others
attributed
Lincoln's
ament.
&c. as he grew older."25 There was no question
for John Todd Stu
"Mind
first law partner, that Lincoln's
[was] of a meta
art, Lincoln's
and philosophical
order," and (as Milton Hay put it) "ran
physical
tomathematical
exactness about things." "Did Mr. Lincoln rule him
asked. "He was great in the head
self by the head or heart?" Herndon
left little room for
and ruled & lived there."26 And Lincoln himself
doubt
that reason and logic, rather than communal
habits of the
in his 1842 address to the short-lived Wash
heart, were his pole-stars
in Springfield:
Society
chapter
"Happy day,
ington Temperance
all matters
sub
all appetites
all passions
controlled,
subdued,
move
live
the
all
shall
and
monarch
mind,
conquering
jected, mind,
Hail
Glorious
consummation!
of the world.
fall of fury! Reign of
But
Todd
his sister-in-law,
all
hail!"27
Elizabeth
Reason,
Edwards,
terms.
"I knew Mr.
in
withdrawnness
Lincoln's
put
simpler
when,
L[incoln]
had
no
well,"
affection?was
she told Herndon
not
bluntly.
Social?was
"He was
a cold Man?
abstracted?thoughtful."28
of
the opposite
virtually
of a "community-man."
Herndon
declared
what might be expected
a riddle and a puzzle
to his friends
and
that "Mr. Lincoln was
. . .The man was
and
moved.
whom
he
lived
among
neighbors
even
to understand,
friends and
hard, very difficult
by his bosom
It
he
whom
associated."29
his close and intimate neighbors
among
were
most
in
the
shield
friends
who
baffled
Lincoln's
was,
fact,
by
David Davis was net
he erected behind
the seeming
sociability.
ex
tled by how Lincoln
"never asked my advice on any question"
Lincoln's
withdrawnness
made
to Jesse Weik,
24. Herndon
Feb.
10, 2113-16.
25. James H. Matheny
(Herndon
432.
24,
him
1887, Herndon-Weik
Papers,
Nov.
in Herndons
interview,
1866),
group
Informants,
347.
of Abraham
of the Character
26. Herndon,
Lincoln,"
"Analysis
1:279.
27. "Temperance
Feb. 22, 1842, in Collected Works,
Address,"
in Herndons
Todd Edwards
28. Elizabeth
(Herndon
interview,
1865-1866),
mants, 443.
29. Herndon
to C. O. Poole,
Herndon-Weik
Papers,
group
4, reel 9, 1880.
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4, reel
Infor
11
Allen C. Guelzo
and how to put out his money,"
and
Lincoln's
for any thing I did." Ninian
Edwards,
was not a warm-hearted
man"
brother-in-law,
agreed that "Lincoln
even if he really "was not."30
to be ungrateful"
who often "Seemed
in the
Jesse Dubois, who had served as a fellow Whig with Lincoln
in the 1830s, who promised
state legislature
Lincoln
that "I am for
nom
in 1854 and who managed
the world"
Lincoln's
you against
in 1860, was
ination in Chicago
Lincoln
to
furious when
refused
even
more
listen to Dubois's
and
nominations,
patronage
pointedly
refused to help Dubois
obtain either the Illinois Republican
guber
in May
1864 or the Department
of the Interi
natorial nomination
I never Knew
or.31 "Lincoln
is a singular man and Imust Confess
a
wrote
to
C.
Dubois
week
before
him,"
angrily
Henry
Whitney
Lincoln's
death:
cept "about money
"never thanked me
affairs
to accom
for 30 years past just used me as a plaything
own
was
moment
to his
his
but
the
he
ends:
elevated
plish
once
to
at
he
all
have
seemed
proud position
entirely changed
a new
nature and become
his whole
altogether
being?Knows
no one and the road to his favor is
always open to his Ene
He has
mies
whilst
old
the door
is hymetically
[hermetically]
sealed
to his
friends.32
in Dubois's
This might,
litical disappointment,
number
of his political
off to simple po
case, have been written
did in fact reward a large
since Lincoln
backers with patronage
plums
(including
an army paymastership).
But many of those
who obtained
Whitney,
backers were not necessarily
his friends. John Todd Stuart agreed
that Lincoln
"did forget his friends?That
there was no part of his
nature which drew him to do acts of gratitude
to his friends." And
even David Davis, who was eventually
to
singled out by Lincoln
com
fill Justice John McLean's
seat on the U.S. Supreme
Court,
that Lincoln used "men as a tool?a
plained
thing to satisfy him?
to feed his desires &c."33
sense in which Lincoln
There is at least one particular
could not
have
been
"a very
social man"
even
if he had been
inclined
to it,
30. Ninian
and David Davis
Edwards
(Herndon
(Herndon
interview,
1865-1866),
in
Herndons
446.
interview,
19,1866),
346-47,
Sept.
Informants,
31. Harry
and Reinhard
H. Luthin,
Lincoln and the Patronage
(New York:
J. Carman
Columbia
309.
Press,
1943),
University
to
32. Dubois
620.
Apr. 6, 1865, in Herndons
Informants,
Henry Whitney,
33. John T. Stuart
Davis
(Herndon
(Herndon
interview,
June 1865), and David
interview,
Sept.
20,
1866),
in Herndons
Informants,
63-65,
351.
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12
Come-outers
and
Community
Men
the most
and that concerned
intimate community
he belonged
to,
with Mary Todd Lincoln. Although
his marriage
the Lincoln mar
almost from the start for being "a policy Match
riage was suspected
at marriage
all around,"
the fact is that all of Lincoln's
attempts
in more
His sadly abort
than a few respects, policy matches.
were,
as well as his rebound
ed love match with Ann Rutledge
proposal
to Mary Owens were, whatever
in them,
the quotient
of affection
both potential marriages-up
for Lincoln?Ann
of course,
Rutledge,
to
of
Salem
while
New
the
first
that
(and
may not
belonged
family
have been very much of a social climb from Lincoln's
later perspec
and Mary Owens was not
tive, it certainly was from New Salem's)
a
liberal English
&
education
only "jovial" and "social" but "had
was considered
wealthy."34
toMary Todd was also a match with a deeply emo
His marriage
troubled
whose
and
woman,
depression"
tionally
"spells of mental
drove
into
her
fits
and
mental
abuse
instability
shrieking
physical
into
and children, and turned the Lincoln marriage
of her husband
hell on earth."35 The difficulties
called "a domestic
what Herndon
in terms of the private
been described
usually
missed
of a
is
is how much
what
often
suffered;
agonies
to
in
could
be
Lincoln's
the
liability Mary
standing
Springfield
and social community. Neither David Davis nor John Todd
political
Stuart could ever remember when
they had been "asked to din
that "Lincoln as
believed
ner" at the Lincoln home, and Herndon
of that "hell" have
Lincoln
a general
rule dared not
not know what moment
of the house."36 Herndon
amount
do a substantial
to his house, because he
invite anyone
kick Lincoln and his friend
she would
this, since the Lincolns
exaggerates
is
but what
of political
entertaining;
amounts
inordinate
of time appeasing
did
out
did
true
out
is that Lincoln
spent
and irritated storekeepers
help (and their parents)
raged domestic
of Mary's
who had been the victims
temper and penuriousness.
was
under great
Lincoln
Even in the White
House,
"constantly
should
do
would
his
which
wife
lest
something
bring
apprehension
him
into disgrace."37
Stuart
(Hern
(Herndon
interview,
June 1865), and L. M. Greene
250.
63-65,
interview, May
3, 1866), in Herndons
Informants,
Oral
35. O. H. Browning
interview,
June 17, 1875), in Burlingame,
(John Nicolay
to
C.
O.
Herndon-Weik
Abraham
Herndon
1886,
Lincoln,
1;
5,
Poole,
Jan.
History
of
4, reel 9, 1885.
group
Papers,
34. John Todd
don
36. Herndon
to Jesse Weik,
Jan. 9, 1886, Herndon-Weik
Papers,
group
4, reel 9,
1923-26.
37. O. H.
History
(John Nicolay
Browning
Lincoln, 3.
interview,
June
17, 1875),
in Burlingame,
of Abraham
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Oral
13
Allen C. Guelzo
The result was that, outside of the circle of his immediate
friends,
was
no means Springfield's
most
In the
admired
citizen.
by
followed
the
elections
that
debates
of
Dou
1858,
great
legislative
Lincoln
easily defeated
glas Democrats
field and Sangamon
County,
Lincoln
in both Spring
Republicans
and Lincoln's
losses
there and in
are
what
the
scale
county
against Lin
Morgan
tipped
neighboring
in January 1859. In the 1860
coln in the Senate election that followed
election, Lincoln outdistanced
Douglas
by only sixty
in Springfield,
while
losing Sangamon
by more
County
voters
than four hundred.
rejected Lincoln's
Springfield
policies
can
to Democratic
and party by giving big majorities
legislative
in
in
the 1864 presidential
didates
the by-election
of 1862; and
race,
over McClellan
Lincoln carried Springfield
by only ten votes, while
presidential
nine votes
took all of Sangamon
four hundred
county by almost
in this city, nor was he
votes.38 "Mr. Lincoln was not appreciated
at all times the most popular man among us," Herndon
wrote. Part
that Lincoln
"had the courage of his convic
of this was political,
in a state where
he was,
tions and the valor of their expression"
for a minority
but
another
all of his life, a spokesman
party;
part
was that Lincoln
"was not a social man, not being
'hail fellow well
or communities
met.'"39 What
loved was not individuals
Lincoln
no
but ideas, especially
ideas.
"He
had
idea?no
proper
political
McClellan
or conception
Herndon
of particular men & women,"
wrote,
"In dealing with
"He scarcely could distinguish
the individual."40
has nev
men, he was a trimmer, and such a trimmer as the world
er seen," Leonard Swett told Herndon,
never
"Yet Lincoln
trimmed
notion
in
was
principles?it
only
in his
conduct
with
men.
. . ." Lincoln
"felt no special interest in any man or thing?Save
& Except poli
Todd
recalled
Stuart.
He
"loved
and such like
tics,"
John
principles
&
it
national
when
leads to his own
ones, Especially
large political
Ends?paths?Ambitions?Success?honor
It was
ness,
&c.
&c."41
as his
remote
ideas, fully as much
temperamental
that decisively
distanced
Abraham
Lincoln
from the glorifi
those
38. Paul M. Angle,
Here I Have Lived: A History
1821-1865
of Lincolns
Springfield,
Lincoln
Book Shop,
1971), 234, 253, 274, 286-87.
(Chicago: Abraham
to James Keys, Apr.
39. Herndon
to Jesse Weik,
Herndon
Feb. 11,1887,
14,1886,
in Springfield,"
and Herndon's
"Lincoln
in Hertz,
Hidden
Lincoln,
144, 171,
essay,
424.
40. Herndon,
41. Leonard
view,
June
of Abraham
of the Character
Lincoln,"
"Analysis
to Herndon,
and John T. Stuart
Swett
Jan. 17,1866,
165.
1865), in Herndons
64-65,
Informants,
372.
(Herndon
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inter
14
Come-outers
and
Community
Men
cation
of community
life and communal
when
values,
especially
came
so
in
the
form
of
the
local
beloved
agrarian community
they
and Jacksonian Democrats.
It was
"the cultivators
of Jeffersonian
their own
the freeholding
who
of the earth,"
yeomen
supplied
means
and controlled
their
needs and wants
of production
apart
on markets
and cash exchange, who were
from dependence
looked
"as the great and perennial
foundation
of
upon by the Jacksonians
our
to
is
that Republican
and
which
maintain
free
spirit
perpetuate
And consequently,
the Democratic
Review believed
institutions."42
in 1839 that
a Democrat?the
citizen may be so, but
farmer is naturally
In the city men move
it is in spite of many
in
obstacles....
an
masses...
in the country, on the other hand, man
enjoys
a nobler mental
existence
of a healthier
and truer happiness,
a higher native
And
to live he must
la
freedom,
dignity....
The
in great congregations
bor: all the various modes
of
by which,
are ingeniously
to
certain
classes
able to appropriate
men,
to
the fruits of the general
toil of the rest, being
themselves
him alike unknown
and impracticable.
Hence
does he better
the true worth and dignity of labor, and knows how
appreciate
to respect, with a more manly
and Christian
of uni
sympathy
masses
of the laboring
versal brotherhood,
those oppressed
poor.
urally
. . .And
hence,
as we
have
said
above,
the
farmer
is nat
a democrat.43
to find a better example
it would
of the
have been difficult
farmer than Thomas
Lincoln. Although
Tho
Jacksonian
yeoman
or "poor white
mas Lincoln was hardly
the "ne'er-do-well"
trash"
in order to
him as being
that Lincoln's
first biographers
painted
was
a clas
is
true
he
his
son's
it
that
achievements,
greater magnify
to
sic subsistence
farmer who was ambitious
mostly
produce
by
And
no more
required. One of his
to
Lincoln
"was satisfied
neighbors
simply
live in the good old fashioned way; his shack kept out the rain; there
was plenty
to burn . . . the old ways were
of wood
good enough
other neighbors
that Thomas
Lincoln
for him," while
explained
himself
than what
remarked
his household
that Thomas
and Compromise,
vol. 1 of Slavery, Capi
42. John Ash worth,
Commerce
1820-1850,
and Politics
in the Antebellum
Republic
(Cambridge:
Cambridge
University
Press,
1995), 303-6.
43. Democratic
6 (1839): 500-502;
and Aris
Review
and John Ashworth,
Agrarians
talism,
tocrats: Party Political
Ideology
1987), 22.
Press,
University
in the United
States,
1837-1846
(London:
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Cambridge
15
Allen C. Guelzo
no
more
than a few acres" because
"they wasn't
planted
unless you took it across two or three states.
for nothing
The people
raised just what
they needed."44
saw no reason why his son would
not
Thomas Lincoln evidently
"never
market
"Iwas raised to farm
classic agrarian patterns.
in
meant
remembered
which
(as he explained
work,"
1859,
... had
a year later) that "A.
to John Scripps
though very young
an axe out into his hands at once; and from that till within his twen
was almost constantly
that most useful
handling
tythird year, he
in these
him
follow
Lincoln
of course, in plowing
and harvesting
seasons."45
instrument?less,
as
It also meant
that
Lincoln grew into adolescence,
loaned
Thomas
his son out to neighboring
farmers as part of the incessant borrow
of rural subsistence
and
networks
of exchange,
ing and swapping
use whatever
own
his
small
Abraham
had
for
pocketed
change
the paucity
of cash in cir
been paid (which was not much,
given
culation on the frontier). But instead of inuring his son to the tra
ditional
the experience
patterns of Jeffersonian yeoman
agriculture,
Lincoln
in later
Abraham.
often
remarked
alienated
young
only
never
him
to
him
work
but
learned
father
that
"his
years
taught
to love it"?or at least not the kind of work his father intended
for
sort
him.46 What he did cherish was a memory
of a very different
on the
to the ferry-landing
down
of two men hurrying
of work,
Ohio
River where
a small cock-boat,
row
hiring him to
an
to intercept
and each
steamboat,
oncoming
on
which
"a silver half-dollar"
they "threw...
Lincoln
them out mid-stream
him with
rewarding
the floor of my boat."
kept
think
Gentleman,
you may
these days it seems to me a
in my
incident
life. I could
had earned a dollar in less
wider
and
a very little thing, and in
it was a most
important
credit
that I, a poor boy,
scarcely
than a day. . . .The world
seemed
it was
trifle; but
fairer before me.47
Lincoln had met the cash economy.
Once having met it, Lincoln saw it at once as his ticket to advance
ment
and status. He never entertained
for
any romantic affection
Abraham
44. Burlingame,
Inner World of Abraham Lincoln, 40; Arthur
E. Morgan,
on Lincoln's
Atlantic Monthly
125 (February
1920): 213.
Boyhood,"
45. "To Jesse W. Fell, Enclosing
in Collected Works,
Autobiography,"
in Collected Works, 4:62.
for John L. Scripps,"
Written
tobiography
46. John Romine
(Herndon
interview,
Sept. 14,1865),
47. William
D. Kelley,
in Reminiscences
of Abraham
American
of His Time, ed. A. T. Rice (New York: North
in Herndons
"New
Light
3:511;
"Au
118.
Informants,
Men
by Distinguished
1886), 280.
Publishing,
Lincoln
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16
Come-outers
and
agriculture?his
in 1859 was
Society
to the Wisconsin
address
and
landholding
Men
Community
State
of any rever
he indulged
so many
that made
of
frankly dismissive
farming methods?and
Agricultural
ence for farmers and traditional
for land speculation
very little in the mania
so
his friends, like David Davis,
wealthy.48 He left his father's farm
a great com
to enter on the life of what he hoped would
become
town in New
to
become
mercial
Salem, and moved
part of
again
a great city. In what
the professional
life of what became
really
amounts
to his most
in fa
savage criticism of yeoman
agrarianism
vor of a wage-labor
his
Lincoln
chided
John
economy,
step-brother,
D. Johnston,
it does
for not producing
cash-crops
"merely because
recom
not seem to you that you could get much
for it." Lincoln's
mendation
culture
to Johnston was,
in effect, to abandon
subsistence
and enter himself
into the cash-labor market:
are in need
agri
of some
I propose
and what
is,
ready money;
some
to
and
nails"
for
"tooth
work,
go
body
[for] it. Let father and your boys take
give you money
for a crop, and make
the
charge of things at home?prepare
or
to
in
for
the
best
and
work
dis
money wages,
you go
crop;
can
charge of any debt you owe, that you
get.49
You
that you
who will
shall
a state legislator, Lincoln
voted against
the granting
regularly
to
its
to
of pre-emption
dying breath the
squatters,
supported
rights
it executed
Illinois State Bank and the agricultural
af
liquidations
to ensure that the sale of feder
ter the Panic of 1837, and struggled
and trans
lands in Illinois would
support commercial
ally owned
"The
small
Olivier
As
remarks,
Fraysse
projects.
portation
threatened with seizure, the squatter who sold his clothes
landowner
to keep his rights of pre-emption
from falling into the hands of spec
one of their own kind in Lincoln."50
ulators, had trouble recognizing
As
Wis
State Agricultural
before
the Wisconsin
48. "Address
Society, Milwaukee,
I am not expected
3:472-73.
"I presume
consin,"
Sept. 20, 1859, in Collected Works,
as a class," Lin
in the mere
of farmers,
to employ
the time assigned
me,
flattery
are nei
to numbers,
of them is that, in proportion
coln began.
they
"My opinion
nu
are more
In the nature
of things
than other people.
ther better nor worse
they
merous
than any other class; and I believe
the reason of which
any other;
can cast more
votes
than any other."
them
than
49. "To Thomas
Lincoln
and
John D.
at flattering
there really are more
attempts
I cannot perceive,
it be that they
unless
Johnston,"
Dec.
24,1848,
in Collected
Works,
2:16.
Dream
Lincoln
and the Economics
S. Boritt,
50. Gabor
of the American
(Memphis,
State University
Tenn.: Memphis
Lincoln, Land
Press,
1978), 80-81; Olivier
Fraysse,
of Illinois Press,
trans. Sylvia Neely
and Labor, 1809-1860,
(Urbana: University
1994),
on
for the
Public
Land"
of
78. See also Lincoln's
31, 76-77,
Pre-emption
"Opinion
Illinois
Central
Railroad
in 1856,
in Collected
Works,
2:334-35.
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Allen C. Guelzo
17
was rooted in his
to yeoman
agrarianism
as the
distaste
for what
he regarded
of agrarian
claustrophobia
communities.
"Individuals
held the sacred right to regulate
their
own family affairs," Lincoln
in 1854; "the le
reminded
his hearers
is only "to do for a community
of
gitimate
object of government"
can
or
to
not
have
but
at
need
whatever
all,
done,
do,
people,
they
... In all that the
can not, so well do, for themselves.
can in
people
as
one
well
do
for
themselves,
dividually
government"?and
might
as well also say,
not to interfere."51 And in con
community?"ought
trast to the static nature of social relations
in rural communities,
re
that characterized
Lincoln praised
the competitiveness
market
Lincoln's
indifference
the use of wage
labor. "I am
lations, especially when
they involved
see that a system of labor
to
in
New
under
glad
prevails
England
which
laborers CAN
strike when
told a
to," Lincoln
they want
the 1860 shoemakers'
crowd in New Haven
strike.
during
is the true condition
of the laborer? I take it that it is best
as fast as he
for all to leave each man
free to acquire property
can. Some will get
a
in
I
to prevent
don't
law
believe
wealthy.
a man
more
it
would
do
harm
than
from getting
rich;
good.
So while we do not propose
any war upon capital, we do wish
man
an
to allow the humblest
equal chance to get rich with
.
.
.
can
Then
else.
better your condition,
and
you
everybody
so itmay go on and on in one ceaseless
round so long as man
exists on the face of the earth!52
What
in the largest sense, a classical nineteenth-century
Lincoln was,
lib
not
and
the
he
shared
classical
liberal
commit
cultural
eral,
only
to rationality,
ments
individualism,
personal
rights, and progress,
in the 1840s and 1850s was
but the backbone
of his reading
in the
basic texts of liberal political
Mill's
"[John Stuart]
economy:
polit
. . [John
ical economy,
economy.
[Henry] Carey's political
Ramsey]
and some others."
economy,
McCullough's
Wayland,
political
remembered
that "Lincoln ate up, digested,
(Herndon particularly
and assimilated"
Francis Wayland's
1837 textbook The Elements of
Political Economy).53 He tempered
this with a strong overlay of mor
al principle,
but
then
again,
the Whig
party
itself
embodied
on Government,"
at Bloomington,
51. "Fragment
July 1, 1854, and "Speech
in Collected Works, 2:220, 239.
nois," Sept. 26,1854,
52. "Speech
at New Haven,
Mar.
Connecticut,"
6, 1860, in Collected Works,
to delegation
See also Lincoln's
of striking
workers
in Nov.
replies
shipyard
as
in the New
York Times, Dec.
reported
cher, Recollected Words of Abraham
Lincoln,
to Jesse Weik,
53. Herndon
Jan. 1,1886,
5, 1863,
12.
in Hertz,
in Fehrenbacher
Hidden
Lincoln,
and
Illi
4:225.
1863,
Fehrenba
116-17.
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a
18
Come-outers
and
Community
Men
of evangelical
Protestant
with
moralism
op
compromise
was
in
that
the
Lincoln,
portunism.
respect,
perfect Whig.54
Itwas this embrace of the transformation
econ
of the American
a
into
market
cash-based
that
into
Lincoln
omy
economy
brought
as
as
to
the
Democrats
his
first
opposition
early
political
stirrings
in 1832, and into the forefront of the Whig
party once Henry Clay
his "national Republican"
had re-organized
schism from the Dem
ocrats as a national
in
1834.
the
Where
Democrats
party
thought
of the yeoman
farmer as the bulwark
of republican
independence,
the Whigs,
by the disastrous
example of the War of 1812,
prompted
were convinced
that a nation of subsistence
farmers and unprotect
was a sitting duck for the great industrial
ed manufacturing
capi
talist powers of Europe, beginning
with Great Britain. "Our repub
to our republican
lican system demands
and requires protection
unique
in 1851, and by protec
cried the American Whig Review
laborers,"
tion the Whigs meant Henry Clay's
"American
System" of nation
al bank finance,
commercial
(rather than
industry,
tariff-protected
and
free
labor.55
Lincoln
subsistence)
railroads,
wage
farming,
his "favorite of all
found in Clay his "beau ideal of a statesman,"
the great men of the Nation,"
and even as late as his own presi
he
still
described
himself
as
an
"old-line
Henry
Clay
"as
stiff as a man could
Whig."56 Stephen Logan
and Joseph Gillespie,
his long-time
be in his Whig
doctrines,"
po
him as an advocate
litical ally, described
"for a National
Currency,
Internal Improvements
and the encour
by the general government,
of
home
manufactures.
On
latter
this
agement
subject I have heard
more
him make
and
than
arguments
greatly
powerful
convincing
ever
or
as
I
read."57
have
heard
His
he
ambition,
anything
highest
dency,
found
Lincoln
was
54. J. David
The Lincoln Persuasion:
American
Liberalism
Greenstone,
Remaking
Press,
1993), 18-26.
N.J.: Princeton
University
55. "Unity of the Whigs:
Their Principles
The American Whig Re
and Measures,"
view 8 (September
six hours
his farewell
after making
1851):18.
Curiously,
only
in Springfield,
Lincoln was praising
the "great changes within
the recollec
speech
are the older," which
tion of some of us who
him to move
allowed
from "my home
(Princeton,
a
concourse
of my
al
fellow
citizens,
by
large
and I find myself
far from home
surrounded
recognize,
are
to me."
at
I now see before me, who
by the thousands
strangers
"Speech
Lafay
Feb. 11,1861,
in Collected Works, 4:192.
ette, Indiana,"
56. J. Rowan Herndon
inHerndons
(Herndon
interview, May
28,1865),
Informants,
in Illinois
most
where
all of whom
Iwas
surrounded
I could
and Fehrenbacher,
in Fehrenbacher
Recollected
Words
Botts,
8; John Minor
of Abra
ham Lincoln, 37.
57. Logan
Oral History
interview,
(John Nicolay
July 6, 1875), in Burlingame,
of
in Herndons
Abraham
(Herndon
Lincoln, 36; Gillespie
interview,
Jan. 31,1866)
Infor
188.
mants,
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Allen C. Guelzo
19
told Joshua Speed,
"was to become
of Ills."?
the De Witt Clinton
to imitate, in other words,
the New York canal pioneer who opened
of New York to the competitive
forces of
up the rural hinterlands
the international
markets.58 And even with
the threat of secession
over him in 1860, Lincoln
and civil war hanging
still insisted
that
"the question
of Slavery"
from
should not serve as a distraction
"the old question
remain one of the
of tariff?a matter
that will
to
chief affairs of national
all
time?the
of
question
housekeeping
the management
of financial affairs; the question
of the disposition
of the public domain"?in
domestic
short, the entire Whig
agen
a
in pol
da.59 He was, as he once described
himself,
"always
Whig
to a nationalist
him ideologically
itics," and that committed
politi
so beloved
rather than to the localism and diversity
cal mentality,
of Democratic
and later on, the clamor for "popular
agrarianism,
so to speak,
and
"states'
sovereignty"
rights," both of which were,
com
ultimate
of Democratic
century's
expressions
What
Lincoln praised
of
the
West"
for in
"Harry
was
his 1852 eulogy of Clay
Clay's placing of the princi
precisely
above the demands
of local, and
ples of the republican
ideology
the nineteenth
munitarianism.
even
national,
community:
He loved his country partly because
it was his own country,
it was a free country; and he burned with
but mostly
because
a zeal for its advancement,
and glory, of human
lib
prosperity
nature.
human
and
human
He
the
desired
prosper
erty,
right
were his country
ity of his countrymen
they
partly because
to show to the world
that freemen could be
men, but chiefly
prosperous.60
Itwas not that Lincoln pulled
shy only of agrarian community;
that much might be explained
and
purely in terms of his Whiggism
his sympathies
in
for a commercial
and industrial
Even
economy.
Lincoln
showed
little
into
enthusiasm
for
the
Springfield,
entering
broad variety of community-based
and activities
societies
that the
in engi
Illinois capital afforded. He was, of course,
instrumental
to Spring
the transfer of the state capital from Vandalia
neering
town
field in the first place, and served briefly on the Springfield
in 1839 and 1840, largely
to oversee
board
the
(one suspects)
in the
smooth completion
of the transition
he had done so much
58. Joshua
59. Speech
F. Speed
to Herndon,
in Herndons
476.
1865-1866,
Informants,
at New Haven,
Mar.
Connecticut,"
6, 1860, in Collected Works,
on
60. "Eulogy
in Collected Works,
2:126.
Clay,"
Henry
July 6,1852,
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4:14.
20
Come-outers
and Community
Men
on the or
to produce.
He also shows up occasionally
and
committees
of
cotillions,
ganizing
receptions
serving as guest
at a dinner
of honor and toastmaster
for a neighboring
fire com
in
the
birth
of
Robert
the
of
1858, commemorating
pany
centenary
a
which
number
Burns at a gala dinner
of
(at
large
"mysterious
circulated
looking bottles"
freely), and serving as one of the elev
en managers
in 1857 and as a fea
of the state Colonization
Society
legislature
tured
speaker
at
the Colonization
meetings
throughout
But the Colonization
of Lincoln's
Lincoln's
Society's
annual
January
the 1850s.61
an adjunct
in large measure,
Society was,
and
Simon's
Paul
activities,
political
Whig
study of
career has warned
us not to overvalue
state legislative
role in the transfer
of the state capital above those of the
is significantly
country
Sangamon
legislators.62 And what
in
most
in
life
is
the
but
Lincoln's
any
missing
tangen
Springfield
in the most obvious
tial involvement
forms of community
organi
was duly
zation. He never ran for any town office once Springfield
Lincoln's
other
in 1840. And although
he addressed
the Washington
incorporated
was
in
and
1842,
Society chapter
Temperance
clearly proud enough
it is not clear
it twice in letters to Joshua Speed,
of it to mention
was
with
the
A peti
how
Lincoln
involved
just
Washingtonians.63
tion Lincoln signed for use of the Hall of Representatives
for a tem
was
it
in
event
1845
makes
clear
that
the
lecturer
perance
being
not by a society; an inquiry
sponsored
by "private contribution,"
in 1860 received
from a temperance
society member
only the an
swer that he had "never held the 'cup' to the lips of my friends,"
no mention
to a temperance
of having
and made
soci
belonged
no
retained
the
later
1850s
Lincoln
ety.64 Certainly
by
memberships
in temperance
societies,
about alcohol
Douglas
to teasing from Stephen
since he responded
that
"No, I am not a member
by insisting
Here IHave Lived, 182,189-190;
Earl S. Miers,
61. Angle,
ed., Lincoln Day-by-Day:
A Chronology,
3 vols.
D.C.:
Lincoln
Commission,
(Washington,
Sesquicentennial
1960), 1:113, 114, 116, 134, 135, and 2:188, 220, 241.
Lincoln's Preparation
The Illinois Legislative
Years (Norman:
62. Simon,
for Greatness:
of Oklahoma
1965), 102.
Press,
University
a
63. Lincoln's
1842 eulogy
for Benjamin
member"
Ferguson,
"much-respected
that he may have been a member
at least up until
of the Washingtonians,
suggests
were dissolved
into the Sons
and absorbed
the time the Springfield
Washingtonians
in Collected Works, 2:268.
in 1845; see "Eulogy on Benjamin
of Temperance
Ferguson,"
64. "Request
for Use of Hall
for a Temperance
of Representatives
Lecture,"
Jan.
in Collected Works,
and "To J.Mason
1:343, and 4:75.
25,1845,
June 11,1860,
Haight,"
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Allen C. Guelzo
21
in this that I don't
of any temperance
society; but I am temperate
drink anything."65
to join any of Springfield's
He also declined
churches,
despite
his reasonably
cordial but distant
relations with
the Springfield
he paid for a pew rental for his family at Spring
clergy. Although
the Reverend
G. W. Pendleton
field's First Presbyterian
Church,
wrote with
that
irritation
"often
Lincoln
goes to the
ill-disguised
railroad
telling
and
shop and spends the sabbath in reading Newspapers,
but not to the house of God."66
stories to the workmen,
He went
to the old school church [wrote Charles Ray, speak
"Old School" theological
First
of
affiliation];
ing
Presbyterian's
assent
to
the
horrible
but in spite of that outward
of
sign
dog
mas of the sect, I have reason from himself
to know
that his
was of the
"vital piety," if that means
belief in the impossible,
if that means
I think that orthodoxy,
the Pres
was regarded by him as a huge joke; but he was
byterian doxy,
to challenge
faith with
far too kindly and cautious
any man's
sort.
negative
out
cause.67
to join fraternal societies
such as the Masons,
de
that
Masonic
offered
the
fact
important
spite
membership
politi
I do not think belonged
to any Secret
"Mr. Lincoln
cal advantages.
or Oddfellows.
I
recalled Abner Ellis, "neither Masonic
Society,"
once heard Judge Denney
ask him if he was Not a Mason And his
answer Was I do not belong
to any society except it be for the Good
He
also declined
of my Country."68
But even the good of his country did not draw Lincoln
into the
one community
where
he
could
have
organization
actually
brought
some valuable
its po
and which
had already proven
experience,
to him, and that was the local militia.
litical usefulness
Springfield's
in 1835, and another was re
first militia
company was organized
cruited
the following
close political
friend and
year by Lincoln's
own
Edward
But
Dickinson
Baker.
Lincoln's
service
ally,
despite
in the Black Hawk War (which brought
him for the first time into
65. James Ewing,
in Abraham
ed. Isaac N.
Lincoln,
by Some Men Who Knew Him,
111.:A.C. McClurg,
Personal
1910), 55. See also Helen Nicolay,
Phillips
(Bloomington,
Lincoln
in
Traits of Abraham
(New York: Century,
1912), 219, and Lawrence
Weldon,
198.
Lincoln,
Rice, Reminiscences
of Abraham
66. Pendleton,
in Burlingame,
Oral History
155.
Lincoln,
of Abraham
H. Ray to Herndon,
67. Charles
Feb. 11, 1866, in Herndons
209.
Informants,
in Herndons
Y. Ellis to Herndon,
68. Abner
178.
Jan. 30,1866,
Informants,
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22
Come-outers
contact with
influential
art and Orville Hickman
and Community
Men
like John Todd Stu
anti-Jacksonians
to
and
Browning)
despite his willingness
at
ral
recruitment
and
effective"
"warm,
give
thrilling,
speeches
in 1846, there is no record of Lincoln's
War
lies for the Mexican
in any of Springfield's
involvement
military
companies.69
ongoing
them:
To the contrary, Lincoln was more
likely to lampoon
Illinois
one of these parades
remember
ourselves
here, at the head
our old friend Gordon
on horseback,
figured
Abrams, with a pine wood
sword, about nine feet long, and a
cocked hat, from front to rear about the length of
paste-board
an ox yoke, and very much
the shape of one turned bottom
with
rowels as large as the bot
and
spurs having
upwards;
tom of a teacup, and shanks a foot and a half long. That was
the last militia muster
here. Among
the rules and regulations,
no man
is to wear more
of cod-fish
than five pounds
for ep
or
more
than
of
for a
aulets,
sausages
thirty yards
bologna
are
no
men
two
if
to
dress
should
and
and
alike,
sash;
any
dress alike the one that dresses most alike is to be fined, (I for
and mottoes,
get how much).
Flags they had too, with devices
run
one of which
latter is, "We'll fight till we run, and we'll
we
till
die."70
We
of which,
reasons for shunning
the Masons,
To be sure, Lincoln had political
as a "secret
of the churches. Masonry,
and a number
the militia,
as an example of dark
by the Whigs
Society" was publicly deplored
and
Masons
like
Illinois
Democratic
conspiracy-mongering,
a
and
the
Masons
definite
Democratic
flavor;
gave
Stephen Douglas
state militias were political
instruc
later claimed
that most
Lincoln
tion schools
for the Democrats.
men, being generally
"Antislavery
brother of Horatio
akin to peace," he told John F. Seymour,
in
New
York's
Democratic
1863, "had never
governor,
Seymour,
matters
in military
and in getting
interested
themselves
up com
as
to
the
He
also
had."71
Democrats
tended
clergy by
panies,
judge
much
69. Donald
W.
nois
Press,
1957),
sion in the Illinois
survives
of any
1834; see Wayne
72
Lincoln Herald
70. "Speech
Abraham
Lincoln
of Illi
(Urbana: University
Riddle,
Congressman
a second
Lincoln
received
commis
11. While
still in New
Salem,
in Dec.
from Governor
militia
1832, but no record
John Reynolds
in
this commission,
and itmay
have quietly
service under
expired
C. Temple,
Service
after the Black Hawk War,"
"Lincoln's Military
(Fall 1970), 87-89.
to the Springfield
Scott Club,"
Aug.
14,1852,
in Collected
Works,
2:149
50.
in Alexander
to Horatio
71. John F. Seymour
Jan. 19,1863,
Seymour,
1810-1886
York:
the
Horatio
(New
privately
printed,
of
Life of
Seymour,
J.Wall,
1929),
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A Sketch
30.
Allen C. Guelzo
23
admitted
that
and even G.W. Pendleton
on services at First Presbyte
out
skipped
rian in 1860 was that "the pastor
is afflicted with Douglas
procliv
ities." Even so, it cut Lincoln off from three of the most
important
in Springfield.
community
organizations
their political
affiliations,
one reason why Lincoln
at least two communities
in which Lincoln
There were, however,
did obtain an important place, the Illinois Whig party and the pro
of his fellow lawyers on the Eighth Judicial
fessional brotherhood
Circuit. He began his political
life in Illinois almost at the same time
was five times a success
was
as the Whig
party
being organized,
a
for the state legislature,
ful Whig
candidate
Whig
presidential
senator in 1855.
and almost aWhig
elector, aWhig
congressman,
to his place on numerous Whig
But in addition
tickets, Lincoln also
was heavily
in the construction
involved
of local Whig
clubs and
the organization
of Whig
cadres
"to or
and mobilization
political
can
so
to the
that
be
whole
State
the
every Whig
ganize
brought
as a stump speaker and campaign
."72
He
labored
polls...
selflessly
but after 1856 for the new Re
not only for the Whigs,
manager,
for Richard Yates
campaigns
congressional
managing
publicans,
Bis
of William
the nomination
Williams,
brokering
Nor
sell for governor,
between
and pacifying
inter-party quarrels
man Judd and
in Chicago,
and between
"Long John" Wentworth
and downstate
(like David Davis).73 One rea
Republicans
Chicago
so much heft within
son why Lincoln wielded
the Republican
party
on the
was
he had purchased
the visibility
and name recognition
the Eighth Judicial Circuit he had taken as a
long swings
through
of the Eighth Circuit in 1841 until
trial lawyer from the organization
"In my opinion
I think Mr. Lin
1858.
of
the great senatorial debates
as
was
on
he
coln
could be, when
this Circuit?
happy?as
happy
and happy no other place," David Davis
"This was his
recalled,
and Archibald
the "fraternity
of the bar," Lin
place of enjoyment."74 And among
some
most
of the
coln developed
personal
satisfying
relationships
in his life: Ward Hill Lamon, Leonard Swett, Hen
he ever enjoyed
and of course the rotund David
Lawrence Weldon,
ry C. Whitney,
72. "Campaign
1:201;
Circular
Joel Silbey,
"Always
coln," Papers of the Abraham
73. Don E. Fehrenbacher,
and Context: Collected
Essays
in Collected Works,
from Whig
Committee,"
Jan. 31,1840,
a
in
The
Life
of Abraham
Lin
Partisan
Politics:
Whig
Lincoln Association
8 (1986): 21-42.
"Lincoln
(Stanford,
and
the Mayor
Calif.:
Stanford
Sept.
20,1866),
of Chicago,"
University
in Lincoln
Press,
in Text
1987),
39
42.
74. David
Davis
(Herndon
interview,
in Herndons
Informants,
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349.
24
Come-outers
and Community
Men
Davis.
the court around on the circuit was, no doubt,
"Following
one of the greatest pleasures
Lincoln
enjoyed."75
or his
But to reach for Lincoln's
party work as aWhig
legal busi
ness around the circuit as the last evidence
of communitarian
long
on
a
is
stretch
indeed.
After
the
Lincoln's
all,
part
ings
quite
Whig
over local commu
the triumph of nationalism
party represented
over passion
and agrarianism;
and commerce
nity, of rationalism
lit
and in practical
terms, it actually netted Lincoln comparatively
term in Congress,
which
tle in hard results. His
he might
have
be the prelude
either to major national
officehold
hoped would
a
or
to
fiz
the
under
Senate,
ing
Whig
Zachary
president,
Taylor,
"In 1840 we fought a fierce
indifference.
zled under layers of Whig
in Illinois, many
of us spending
and laborious
the
battle
almost
"The
entire year in the contest," Lincoln
vic
complained,
general
... who
of a set of drones
it, the appointment
tory came, and with
had never spent a dollar or lifted a finger in the fight."76 He found
so little leverage
at the national
himself with
level that he was
his endorsement,
"You
forced to tell an office seeker who wanted
to serve you. Not one man recommended
overrate my capacity
by
me has yet been appointed
to any thing, little or big, except a few
who had no opposition."77
even more
Itwould
to the breaking
stretch matters
point to cast
as a kind of surrogate
for Lincoln.
the Eighth Circuit
community
trav
in
David
Davis's
Whatever
Lincoln
fellowship
enjoyed
good
was
was rootless, pro
was
it
the
fact
that
court,
traveling?it
elling
that lawyers on the cir
and so careless of commitment
fessional,
and opposed
cuit (including
combined
each
Lincoln)
regularly
other in case after case and in place after place. Above
all, the le
came to be, in the same years that Lincoln was com
gal profession
as a lawyer, the principal
to
of abstract
enforcement
ing
maturity
relations?becom
and of market
commerce,
contract, of national
accurate phrase of Charles
Sellers, "the shock
ing, in the wickedly
the romantic
troops of capitalism."78 Although
legend of Lincoln
as a lawyer offers us a vision of a community
counselor?defend
pro bono for the sake of his father's memory,
ing Duff Armstrong
war wid
a Revolutionary
for mulcting
Erastus
Wright
"skinning"
Y
E.
testi
Rice
into
ow, browbeating
admitting
Judge
unwillingly
mony
to acquit
Peachy
Harrison?the
bulk
of Lincoln's
A Portrait
(Boston: Houghton
Mifflin,
B. Preston,"
16, 1849, in Collected Works, 2:49.
May
2:46.
in Collected Works,
77. "To George W. Rives," May
7,1849,
119.
78. Feller, Jacksonian Promise,
33-39; Sellers, Market
Revolution,
75. Jesse Weik,
76. "To William
The Real Lincoln:
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law prac
1922),
189.
Allen C. Guelzo
25
its most profitable
tice, not to mention
aspects, had moved
by 1856
court and the federal courts, and was de
into the state supreme
voted to the service of precisely
those agents of the markets which
were most
lethal to rural and local communities:
the railroad cor
insurance
the banks
and
of Sangamon,
companies
porations,
and even at least one St. Louis ven
McLean
and Morgan
counties,
was won by the ver
ture capital firm.79 Lincoln's
single greatest fee
the pow
dict he obtained
for the Illinois Central Railroad,
denying
er of a local community?in
tax the
this case, McLean
County?to
but
railroad's property. He took no fee for freeing Duff Armstrong,
same
him
C.
"never
found
the
unwill
token,
Whitney
by
Henry
ing to appear
On virtually
in behalf
of a great
'soulless corporation.'"80
level
of his life Abraham
Lincoln
every important
or
in
the
showed
the
thinnest
interest
encourage
protection
only
or values;
to the contrary, he re
ment of communitarian
attitudes
hand of localism as a restraint on indepen
sented the deadening
ambition
and talent. Even the word
reason,
dence,
community turns
in
Lincoln's
up comparatively
writings?
surviving
infrequently
times in the eight volumes
less than a hundred
of his Collected
in only the most
and unspecific
conventional
Works?and
usually
a
to
that
It
be
caricature
Lincoln's
would
suggest
Whig
usage.81
meant
that he had no recognition
of the inter
gish individualism
on others or of the validity
in
of community
norms;
dependence
Lincoln's
fitness
for
office
fact, when Peter Cartwright
challenged
79. Albert
A. Woldman,
(Boston: Houghton
Mifflin,
1936), 161.
Lawyer Lincoln
s
to Jesse Weik,
in Herndon
733. Mark
E. Steiner
1887-89,
Informants,
in "Abraham
Lincoln
and the Antebellum
Profession"
disser
(Ph.D.
Legal
80. Whitney
argues
was
so
legal practice
broadly
a "market
as promoting
revolution."
"Far
spread
serve any client, whether
an
from allying with
Lincoln was
corporations,
ready to
or a
or
the
worked
for
individual
whether
the
pre
argument
against
corporation,
tation,
of Houston,
1993),
University
that he cannot be characterized
economic
and
powers,
vailing
was
with
consistent
arguments
that Lincoln's
even whether
to make
the argument
he would
have
was
true
This much,
before."
however,
to survive
by his fees in the highly
hoped
he had made
of nearly
every antebellum
lawyer who
of central
environment
civil
competitive
litigation
the question
of Lincoln's
affiliations
high-profile
both as counsel
and lobbyist with
corporations,
er's
dissertation
the best
is, nevertheless,
survey
and southern
it also begs
Illinois;
in the 1850s with
railroad
Illinois
the Bissell
Stein
administration.
of Lincoln's
legal
avail
practice
able.
81. See
159-60,
509,
547;
428,
459,
7:140,
to community
248, 254-55,
the references
163,
3:29,
185,
189, 230,
90, 94,
103, 221-22,
479, 481; 4:215,
455; and 8:79.
258,
269,
226,
312,
in Collected
Works,
1:7, 50, 100, 102, 109, 142,
and 343; 2:341, 388, 493, 507,
275,
310,
341,
257,
295,
303,
420,
434;
315,
5:52,
324,
422,
411-12,
527;
6:11,
416,
426-27,
87, 427,
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436;
26
Come-outers
and
Men
Community
in 1846 on the grounds
of religious
infidelity, Lincoln deftly side
the
averred
and
that "I still do not think
stepped
infidelity
charge
and injure the
any man has the right thus to insult the feeling,
in which
of the community
live."82 By the same
he may
morals,
to peo
liberalism did not consist in an indifference
token, Lincoln's
or to
he demonstrated
in press
beliefs?as
people's
repeatedly
on
the
rather
than
the in
ing
Stephen Douglas
immorality,
merely
to
of
Lincoln's
contained
utility,
slavery.83
opposition
slavery always
substantive
"I have always
hated
moral
judgement.
slavery," he
ple
in his great debates with Douglas
in 1858; and in 1854,
"I object to it because
he explained,
it assumes
that there CAN be
MORAL
RIGHT in the enslaving
of one man by another."84
set tremendous
store by commu
Democrats,
Douglas
ironically,
were
but
then
decision
denied
that
there
any neces
nity
making,
to
moral
that
For
A.
sary
process.
underpinnings
Stephen
Douglas
in 1858, the rights of black people were
"a question
which
each
State in this union must decide
for itself." This was because
"our
was
in the local
formed on the principle
of diversity
government
and laws, not that of uniformity."85
institutions
But it never oc
declared
were
to argue that slaveholders
with
individuals
as
to
their
so-called
and
rights
"property"
they pleased
no
that
take it wherever
had
business
wanted;
governments
they
about slavery, and should provide
judgements
making moral
only
a neutral framework
for the enjoyment
of slaveholders'
rights. That
as Lincoln
would
that "there is no right
be to suggest,
remarked,
He
action
but
of
believed
that, concerning
self-interest."
principle
the "first rules" of public
life, "there is no just rule other than that
of pure morality
and pure abstract right. . . ,"86
it was not always
Given Lincoln's
lack of religious
clear
profile,
what
the
of
constituted
basis
Lincoln's
moralism,
just
apart from
curred
to Lincoln
to do with
the general Whig
fondness
for moral
rhetoric. Certain
ideological
one
was
ten
moral
of
this
for
Lincoln's
part
ly,
loathing
slavery
to
with
told
associate
hedonistic
He
dency
slaveholding
lifestyles.
82. "Handbill
Replying
to Charges
of Infidelity,"
July 31,1846,
in Collected
Works,
1:382.
83. Michael
phy
(Cambridge,
84. "Speech
85. "Third
Complete,
150-52.
Discontents:
America
in Search
Sandel, Democracy's
Mass.:
Harvard
1996), 21-23.
Press,
University
at Peoria,"
in Collected Works,
2:274.
in The Lincoln-Douglas
at Jonesboro,"
Joint Debate
Unexpurgated
86. "Fifth
Joint Debate
Text,
ed. Harold
at Galesburg,"
Holzer
in ibid.,
(New
York:
of
a Public
Philoso
Debates:
The First
HarperCollins,
1993),
254.
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Allen C. Guelzo
27
that slavery "was the most glittering
ostentatious
Joseph Gillespie
was
in
to
& displaying
the
world"
and
property
"highly seductive
men
the thoughtless
and giddy headed
who
looked
young
upon
work as vulgar and ungentlemanly."87
And in his 1842 temperance
in Springfield,
Lincoln
society address
spoke of the "victory" of
a slave nor a
"when
Reason
there
shall
be neither
arriving
only
on the
drunkard
that
and
drunkenness
slavery
earth"?implying
were
was
twins. Another,
claim
for
that
moral
larger
indignation
ant
violated
law.
has
toiled
natural
"The
who
and
slavery
dragged
a crumb to his nest, will
defend
the fruit of his labor,
furiously
in 1854. Sla
robber assails him," Lincoln wrote
against whatever
the
the
fruit
which
robbed
slave
of
of
his
labor, was
very,
just as
on the part of the human
an outrage
much
laborer. This was
"so
plain, that the most dumb and stupid slave that ever toiled for a
does constantly
And even if the
know he is wronged."88
master,
to say against
had nothing
explicit
slavery, Lincoln believed
can be proved
"I
did.
that natural
think
that
if
theology
anything
it
is
natural
that
is
by
slavery
theology,
morally wrong."89
mo
But Lincoln distinguished
the self-evident
sharply between
a
that
natural
be
of
basis
rality
theology might
capable
revealing
for community
to discover
order and merely
licensing communities
and enforce any order for themselves
because
merely
they were
communities.
Will
"There is no contending
the
of God,"
against
Lincoln believed,
"but still there is some difficulty
in ascertaining,
cases." He was not eager to turn that
and applying
it, to particular
Bible
over
determination
of
all,
the
Senate
to town
Committee
councils,
on
county
Territories.90
overseers,
Lincoln
and, worst
was
a nation
was a better
he believed
national
alist, not because
government
communitarian
than
local
but
nation
because
agency
government,
a court of appeal and a stage of oppor
alism provided
him with
the constraints
and confinements
of localities
and
tunity beyond
to
as
Lincoln
refused
that
Mi
concede
his
was,
regions.
identity
chael Sandel puts it in defining
the communitarian
self, "always
in the story of those communities
embedded
I derive
from which
.. ."91 In contrast
to
the
rhetoric
of
romantic
my
identity.
organic
or
Lincoln believed
that the uni
communitarianism,
postmodern
to Herndon,
in Herndons
87. Gillespie
183.
Jan. 31,1866,
Informants,
on
in Collected Works, 2:222.
88. "Fragment
Slavery,"
in Collected Works, 4:3.
89. "Speech
in Hartford,"
on
90. "Fragment
Oct.
Collected Works, 3:204.
1,1858,
Pro-slavery
Theology,"
91. Michael
to Liberalism and Its Critics, ed. M. Sandel
"Introduction"
(Ox
Sandel,
ford: Blackwell,
1984), 5-6.
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
28
and
Come-outers
Community
Men
were
of American
premises
politics
the pettiness
of their local
transcend
. . .have come from
Europe?German,
people
in 1858, "But
Lincoln
Scandinavian,"
argued
versalist
Americans
to help
our
"Half
origins.
and
Irish, French,
intended
they look
find
princi
through
independence,"
they
another
the communities
of one's birth, whether
ples that transcend
state of the Union.
country or another
"They find that those old
men say that 'We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men
are created equal,' and then they feel that that moral
sentiment
... and that
men
in
to
that
their
evidences
relation
those
day
taught
. . .flesh of the
a
as though
they were
they have
right to claim it
that Declaration."92
For Lincoln, polit
flesh of the men who wrote
of the general good, were
ical and civil rights, not considerations
that old declaration
when
of
of a republican
central to the protection
society but foun
to any form of natural social arrangement.
But why,
of his train in
then, as he stood on the rear platform
did he believe
the drizzle and slush of that February morning,
that
he owed Springfield
Paul Angle once answered
that
"everything"?
...
of his own. "Could Lincoln
question with a series of questions
at the bar if he had not resided at the
have attained high standing
one city in the state where
the high courts sat?" In all likelihood,
and the Eighth Circuit sat athwart all the ma
no, since Springfield
not only
dational
of the 1850s in Illinois. "Could he have
jor commercial
development
a power
in Illinois politics
if the legislature
and the courts
become
had not drawn
the political
leaders to his home at regular and fre
since so much of his political work
quent intervals?" Only possibly,
was coterminous
with his circuit work.
"Could he have held to his
eco
not
if
had
lived in a city where
he
faith in political
democracy
was a fact?" Plainly, no, but this was
to define
nomic opportunity
in something
other than communitarian
terms, in fact
Springfield
or a village
as something
like a
other than a community
and more
was no
It
for
Lincoln's
ambitions.93
exaggeration,
springboard
to express
at departing
his sadness
for Lincoln
from
therefore,
he
had
known?Lit
because
communities
unlike
other
Springfield,
him
had not swaddled
tle Pigeon Creek, New
Salem?Springfield
in that respect, suited
communitarian
demands.
with
Springfield,
it was so much
unburdened
like Lincoln himself,
Lincoln because
a
and
for
and
with
life
for
collective
eager
expectations
growth
too
It
sometimes
all
and
had
stood
back,
willingly,
opportunity.
92. "Speech
at Indianapolis,
Indiana,"
Sept.
19, 1859,
in Collected
Works,
69.
93. Angle,
Here
I Have
Lived,
xiv.
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
3:468
29
Allen C. Guelzo
him the room he craved to grow and to strive. "Lincoln
allowed
was not a very social man," Herndon
wrote
in 1874. "He was not
as
some
in
rather cold." But it
his
was,
said,
spontaneous
feelings;
was the coldness of God's
not cold."
"rather
man,
reflective,
lonely
"take him all in all, he was as near a perfect
For all the coldness,
man as God
from commu
generally makes."94 All Lincoln wanted
to its limits; Spring
to test that perfection
nity was the opportunity
field gave him that, and gave him to the nation.
"
94. Herndon,
Jan. 15, 1874,
in Hertz,
Hidden
Lincoln,
83.
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