The soul of Abraham Lincoln

Front matter

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

Preface

The author is aware that he is dipping his net into a stream already darkened by too much ink. The fact that there are so many books on the rehgion of Abraham Lincoln is a chief reason why there should be one more. Books on this subject are largely polemic works which followed the publication of Holland's biography in 1865, and multiplied in the controversies growing out of that and the Lamon and Herndon biographies in 1872 and 1889 respectively. Within that period and until the death of Mr. Herndon in 1892 and the publication of his revised biography of Lincoln in 1893, there was little opportunity for a work on this subject that was not distinctively controversial. The time has come for a more dispassionate view. Of the large number of other books dealing with this topic, nearly or quite all had their origin in patriotic or religious addresses, which, meeting with favor when orally delivered, were more or less superficially revised and printed, in most instances for audiences not greatly larger than those that heard them spoken. Many of these are excellent little books, though making no pretense of original and thorough investigation.

Of larger and more comprehensive wOrks there are a few, but they do not attempt the difficult and necessary task of critical analysis.

So much has been said, and much of it with such intensity of feeling, on the subject of Lincoln's religion, that a number of the more important biographies, including the great work of Nicolay and Hay, say as little on the subject as possible.

The author of this volume brings no sweeping criticism against those who have preceded him in the same field. He has eagerly sought out the books and speeches of all such viii PREFACE

within his reach, and is indebted to many of them for valuable suggestions. A Bibliography at the end of this volume contains a list of those to whom the author knows himself to be chiefly indebted, but his obligation goes much farther than he can hope to acknowledge in print. With all due regard for these earlier authors, the present writer justifies himself in the publication of this volume by the following considerations, which seems to him to differ in important respects from earlier works in the same field :

(i) He has made an effort to provide an adequate historical background for the study of the religious life of Abraham Lincoln in the successive periods of his life ; and without immediately going too deeply into the material of the main subject, to relate the man to his environment. In this the author has been aided not only by books and interviews with men who knew Lincoln, but by some years of personal experience in communities where the social, educational, and religious conditions were in all essential respects similar to those in which Mr. Lincoln lived during two important epochs of his career. The author was not born in this environment, but he spent seven years of his youth and young manhood as a teacher and preacher in a region which give him somewhat exceptional opportunities for a discriminating judgment.

(2) The author has assembled what is, so far as he knows, all the essential evidence that has appeared in print concerning the religious life and opinions of Mr. Lincoln, a larger body, as he believes, than any previous writer has compiled. He h&s added to this all evidence available to him from written and personal testimony.

He has subjected this evidence to a critical analysis, in an effort to determine the degree of credibility with which its several portions may reasonably be received. The author is not unaware that this is the most disputable, as it is the most difficult part of his task, and, as he believes, the most valuable part of it. Unless some such analysis is made, the evidence resolves itself into chaos.

(3) Several entirely new avenues of investigation have been opened and lines of evidence adduced which find no place

PREFACE ix

in any previous book on Mr. Lincoln's religious life, and very scant reference, and that without investigation, in one or two of the biographies.

(4) The book also contains a constructive argument, setting forth the conviction to which the author has come with regard to the faith of Abraham Lincoln.

It is entirely possible that some readers will find themselves in essential agreement with the author in the earlier parts of the book, but will dissent in whole or in part from his own inferences. Whether the reader agrees or disagrees with the author in his conclusions, he will find in this book some material not elsewhere available for the formation of an independent judgment. Nevertheless the author counts himself justified not only in adducing the evidence but in stating frankly the conclusion which to his mind this evidence supports.

This book treats of the religion of Abraham Lincoln; but it does not consider his religion as wholly expressed in his theological opinions. Important as it is that a man should think correctly on all subjects, and esf)ecially on a subject of such transcendent value, religion is more than a matter of opinion. We cannot adequately consider religion apart from life. Abraham Lincoln's life was an evolution, and so was his religion. In a way which this volume will seek to set forth, Lincoln was himself a believer in evolution, and his life and religion were in accord with this process as he held it.

This book is, therefore, more than an essay on the religion of Lincoln, unless religion be understood as inclusive of all that is normal in life. It deals, therefore, with the life, as well as with the opinions, of Lincoln; and it considers both life and opinion as in process of development in each of the successive stages of his career.

In this respect the present book may claim some distinctive place in the literature of this subject. Other books have drawn sharp contrasts between the supposed religious opinions of Lincoln's youth and those which he is believed to have cherished later. This book undertakes what may be termed a study of the evolution of the spiritual life of Abraham Lincoln.

X PREFACE

The author is not aware that this has been done before in quite this way.

The author acknowledges his obligations to many friends for their assistance in the preparation of this volume. Mr. Jesse W. Weik, of Greencastle, Indiana, associate of Mr. Herndon in the preparation of his Life of, Lincoln, and owner of the Herndon manuscripts, has been generous to me. Mrs. Clark E. Carr, of Galesburg, Illinois, widow of my honored friend, and the friend of Lincoln, Colonel Carr, author of " Lincoln at Gettysburg," has placed at my disposal all her husband's books and papers. Mr. Judd Stewart, of New York City, owner of one of the largest collections of Lincolniana, has assisted me. President John W. Cook of the Northern Illinois State Normal School has suggested important lines of research. Mr. John E. Burton, of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, whose collection of Lincoln books was once the largest in America, has sold me some of his chief treasures, and imparted to me much of the fruit of his experience. Mr. O. H. Oldroyd, of Washington, owner of the famous Lincoln Collection, and custodian of the house where Lincoln died, has, on two visits, placed all that he has within my reach. To these, and to a considerable number of men and women who knew Lincoln while he was yet living, and to many others whom I cannot name, my thanks are due.

I regret that one great collection, consisting, however, more largely of relics than of manuscripts, is so largely packed away that it has not been of much use to me. Mr. Charles F. Gunther of Cliicago has, however, produced for me such Lincoln material as seemed to him to bear upon my quest, and I acknowledge his courtesy.

Mr. Oliver P. Barrett of Chicago has given me great joy in the examination of his fine collection of Lincoln manuscripts.

I have spent a few pleasant and profitable hours in the collection of Honorable Daniel Fish, the noted Lincoln bibliographer, of Minneapolis, and thank him for his friendly interest in this undertaking.

Among libraries, my largest debt is to those of the Chicago

PREFACE xi

Historical Society, the Illinois State Historical Society at Springfield, and the Library of Congress in Washington. In each of these I have had not only unrestricted access to the whole Lincoln material possessed' by them, but the most generous and courteous assistance. I have examined every rare Lincoln book, and many manuscripts, in these three collections. I have had occasion also to use the Chicago Public Library, the Newberry Library, and the Library of the University of Chicago, as well as those of Chicago Theological Seminary and McCormick Theological Seminary. In certain important local matters, I have been assisted by the libraries of Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, Illinois College, Jacksonville, Illinois, the Public Library of Peoria, Illinois, and the library of Transylvania University at Lexington, Kentucky. I also visited the Public Library of Louisville, with its historical collections, but most that I found there I had already consulted elsewhere. The New York Public Library and the Library of Columbia University supplemented my research at a few important points. The Oak Park Public Library has been constantly at my service. The Library of Berea College, Kentucky, has given me very valuable assistance in finding for me a large amount of periodical literature bearing on my study. The five great Boston libraries would have yielded me much had I come to them earlier. While the book was undergoing revision, I visited the Athenaeum, the Massachusetts State, the Boston Public, the Massachusetts Historical, and the Harvard University libraries. It was gratifying to discover that even in the last named of these, enriched as it is with the collections of Charles Sumner, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and the Lincoln collection of my friend Alonzo Rothschild, author of " Lincoln, Master of Men," there was practically nothing relating to this subject which I had not already seen and examined. In the Massachusetts Historical Library, however, I discovered some manuscripts, and that quite unexpectedly, which afford me much aid in a collateral study.

In addition to the foregoing, I have my own Lincoln library, which, while a working collection rather than one of incunabula, and modest in size as compared with some that xii PREFACE

I have used, is still not small. The Bibliography at the end of the volume is virtually a catalogue of my own Lincoln booka. Claims of completeness are dangerous, and I make none. But I have been diligent in pursuit of all probable sources of knowledge of this subject, and I do not now know where to look for any other book or manuscript that would greatly alter or add to the material which this book contains. I am glad, therefore, at this stage, to share the fruits of my irvestigations with the reader.

W. E. B.

The First Church Study Oak Park, Illinois

Part I: A Study Of Religious Environments Chapter Page

I The Conflict of Testimony 19

II Why the Biogeaphies Differ 24

III The Environment of Lincoln's Boyhood . . 29

IV The Environments of Lincoln's Young Manhood 51 V The Environment of Lincoln's Life in Springfield 71

VI The Environment of Lincoln's Life in Washington 86

PART II: AN ANALYSIS OF THE EVIDENCE VII The Rules of Evidence loi

VIII The Bateman Incident 114

IX The Lamon Biography 128

X The Reed Lecture 135

XI The Herndon Lectures, Letters, and Biography 140

XII Lincoln's Burnt Book 146

XIII " The Christian's Defence " 156

XIV " Vestiges of Creation " 166

XV Other Formative Books 172

XVI Chittenden and Chiniquy 188

XVII The Beecher and Sickles Incidents . . . 198

XVIII " Behind the Scenes " 203

XIX From the Housetops and in the Closet . .210

ziii xiv CONTENTS

Part Iii: The Religion Of Lincoln Chapter Page

XX What Lincoln Was Not 225

XXI Why Did Lincoln Never Join a Church? . .244

XXII The Constructive Argument 260

XXIII The Creed of Abraham Lincoln . . . .291

APPENDICES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

I Extract from Newton Bateman's Lecture on Lincoln with Variants of the Springfield

Farewell Address 303

II " High-Handed Outrage at Utica "... 307 By Artemus Ward

III " The Conversion of Abraham Lincoln " . . 309

By the Rev. Edward L. Watson

IV The Reed Lecture 314

V Two Herndon Letters Concerning Lincoln's

Religion 336

VI The Irwin Article, with Letters .... 341

VII " The Christian's Defence " 358

With full chapter analysis

VII Lincoln and the Churches 377

By Nicolay and Hay IX " Bound together in Christianity and Patriotism " 385

Hitherto unpublished address of Lincoln

Index 401

Chapter I The Conflict Of Testimony

Of no other American have so many biographies been written as of Abraham Lincoln. No other question concerning his life has evoked more interest than that of his religious faith and experience. What Abraham Lincoln believed has been told by many who knew him and whose varied relations to him during his lifetime rendered it not unreasonable to suppose that they could give some assured answer to the question of his belief. The answers are not only varied, but hopelessly contradictory. It is stated on apparently good authority that in his young manhood he read Volney's Ruins and Paine's Age of Reason, and it is affirmed that he accepted their conclusions, and himself wrote what might have been a book or pamphlet denying the essential doctrines of the Christian faith as he understood them. Friends of his who knew him well enough to forbid the throwing of their testimony out of court have affirmed that he continued to hold these convictions ; and that, while he became more cautious in the matter of their expression, he carried them through life and that they never underwent any radical change. On the other hand, there are declarations, made by those who also knew Lincoln well, that these views became modified essentially, and that Lincoln accepted practically the whole content of orthodox Christian theology as it was then understood ; that he observed daily family worship in his home ; that he carried a Bible habitually upon his person ; and that he was in short in every essential a professed Christian, though never a member of a Christian church.

There is more than a conflict of testimony; there is positive chaos. Every recent biographer has felt the inherent difficulties involved in it. ■ One or two of them have passed it over with practically no mention ; others have become fierce partisans of the one extreme or the other.

Besides the formal biographies, a literature of this special topic has grown up. Entire books and many pamphlets and magazine articles have been written on this one question. The Chicago Historical Society and the Chicago Public Library have each devoted a principal division in the Lincoln material to the literature relating to his religion. It has been the writer's privilege to examine in both these libraries and in several others the whole known body of literature of the subject.

In this investigation the writer came face to face with utterly contradictory testimony from men who had known Abraham Lincoln intimately.

Of him Mr. Herndon, for twenty years his law partner, said:

" As to Mr. Lincoln's religious views, he was, in short, an infidel. . . . Mr. Lincoln told me a thousand times that he did not believe the Bible was the revelation of God as the Christian world contends." — Lamon : Life of Lincoln, p. 489.

The direct antithesis of this statement is found in a narrative of Hon. Newton Bateman, who knew Mr. Lincoln from 1842 until Mr. Lincoln's death, and whose office was in the State House at Springfield next-door to that which, for a period of eight months from the time of his nomination till his departure for his inauguration, was occupied by Mr. Lincoln. He affirmed (or at least was so quoted by Holland) that Mr. Lincoln said to him :

" I know there is a God, and that He hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know that His hand is in it. If He has a place and work for me — and I think He has — I believe I am ready. I am nothing, but truth is everything. I know I am right because I know that liberty is right, for Christ teaches it, and Christ is God." — J. G. Holland: Life of Lincoln, p. 237.

THE CONFLICT OF TESTIMONY 21

Popular oratory has carried even farther these two extremes of irreconcilable contradiction. On the one hand are to be found scurrilous publications, shockingly offensive against all good taste, declaring Lincoln to have been an atheist, a mocker, a hypocrite, a man of unclean mind, and a violator in his speech of all canons of decency. We will not quote from any df these at present ; but of the length to which the other extreme can go, has gone, and continues to go, let the following incident, gleaned from a recent English book, serve as an illustration :

" In the year 1861 the Southern States of America were filled with slaves and slaveholders. It was proposed to make Abraham Lincoln president. But he had resolved that if he came to that position of power he would do all he could to wipe away the awful scourge from the page of his nation's history. A rebellion soon became imminent, and it was expected that in his inaugural address much would be said respecting it. The time came. The Senate House was packed with people; before him was gathered the business skill and the intellectual power of the States. With one son lying dead in the White House, whom he loved with a fond father's affection; another little boy on the borders of eternity; with his nation's eternal disgrace or everlasting honor resting upon his speech, he speaks distinctly, forcefully, and without fear. Friend and foe marvel at his collected movements. They know of the momentous issues which hang on his address. They know the domestic trials that oppress his heart. But they do not know that, before leaving home that morning, the President had taken down the family Bible and conducted their home worship as usual, and .then had asked to be left alone. The family withdrawing, they heard his tremulous voice raised in pleadings with God, that He whose shoulder sustains the government of worlds would guide him and overrule his speech for His own glory. Here was the power of this man's strength." — G. H. Morgan : Modern Knights- Errant, p. 104; quoted in Hastings' Great Texts of the Bible, volume on " Isaiah," pp. 237-38.

This incident is now an integral part of the best arid most recent homiletic work in the English language, and will be

22 TStE SOUL OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

used in thousands of sermons and addresses. It is a story that carries its own refutation in almost every line. Mr. Lincoln had no son either sick or dead and lying in the White House or anywhere else at the time of his first inaugural, nor had he as yet entered the White House ; and the hours of that day are fairly well accounted for; but this and similar iricidents illustrate the length to which the oratorical imagination may carry a speaker either in the pulpit or on the platform, and not only be preserved in books but pass the supposedly critical eye of a careful compiler of material for sermons and lectures. ,

If another book is justified, it should be one that does more than compile that part of the evidence which appears to support a particular theory. The compilation should be as nearly complete as is humanely possible. But it must do more than plunge the reader into this swamp of conflicting testimony. It must somehow seek to evaluate the evidence and present a reasonable conclusion.

Moreover, in the judgment of the present writer, religion is more than opinion, and cannot be considered as a detachable entity. Lincoln's religion was more than his belief, his conjecture, his logical conclusion concerning particular doctrines. It can only be properly appraised in connection with his life. While, therefore, the writer does not now undertake a complete biography of Lincoln, though cherishing some hope that he may eventually write a book of that character, this present work endeavors to study the religion of Lincoln not in detachment, but as part and parcel of his life.

A word may be said concerning the author's point of view and the experience which lies behind it. In his early manhood he had an experience of several years which he considers of value as affording a background for the interpretation of the Lincoln material. For several years the author taught school and afterward preached in the mountain region of Kentucky and Tennessee amid social conditions essentially parallel to those in which Mr. Lincoln was born and amid which he spent his manhood up to the time of his going to Washington. The same kind of preaching that Lincoln heard, not only in

THE CONFLICT OF TESTIMONY 23

Kentucky but in the backwoods of Indiana and the pioneer villages of central and southern Illinois, the present author heard in his own young manhood as a teacher in district schools far back beyond the sound of the locomotive's whistle or the inroads of modern civilization. How that kind of preaching affected the inquiring mind of the young Lincoln, the author is sure he knows better than most of Lincoln's biographers have known. The fierce theological controversies that waged between the old-time Baptists and the itinerant Methodists, together with the emphatic dogmatism of the Southern type of Presbyterianism as it was held and preached in the Kentucky mountains forty years ago and in southern Illinois and Indiana eighty years ago are part of the vivid memory of the present writer. A young man who refused to accept this kind of teaching might be charged with being an infidel, and might easily suppose himself to be one ; but whether that would be a just or fair classification depends upon conditions which some of the controversialists appear not to have known or to have been capable of appreciating through lack of experience of their own.

This book attempts, therefore, to be a digest of all the available evidence concerning the religious faith of Abraham Lincoln. It undertakes also to weigh that evidence and to pass judgment, the author's own judgment, concerning it. If the reader's judgment agrees with the author's, the author will be glad; but if not at least the facts are here set forth in their full essential content.

Chapter II Why The Biographies Differ

The many biographies of Abraham Lincoln differ widely in their estimate of his religious opinions and life, partly because the biographers approach the subject from widely differing angles, and some of them are seeking in advance the establishment of particular conclusions. But apart from that personal bias, from which no author can claim to be wholly free, the biographical study of Abraham Lincaln was itself an evolution whose main outlines and processes it will be profitable briefly to consider.

The first printed biographies of Mr. Lincoln appeared in i860. They were the familiar campaign biography, such as is issued for every candidate for the Presidency. The first man who approached Mr. Lincoln with a proposal to write his Life was J. L. Scripps of the Chicago Tribune. Mr. Lincoln deprecated the idea of writing any biography.

" Why, Scripps, [said he] it is a great piece of folly to attempt to make anything out of me or my early life. It can all be condensed into a single sentence, and that sentence you will find in Grey's ' Elegy ' :

' The short and simple annals of the poor.'

That's my life, and that's all you or anyone else can make out of it." — Herndon, I, 2.

Lincoln felt the meagerness of his biographical material, but the biographers succeeded in making books about him, Scripps wrote his booklet, and it appeared in thirty-two closely printed double-column pages, and sold at twenty-five cents. It is now excessively rare. Lincoln read the proof and approved it. The " Wigwam " Life of Lincoln appeared

WHY THE BIOGRAPHIES DIFFER 25

simultaneously with the Scripps booklet, and it is not quite certain which of the two emerged first from the press. It contained 117 pages, of which the last seven were devoted to Hannibal Hamlin, Republican candidate for Vice-President. This also had a wide sale, and is now very rare. That Lincoln did not read the proofs of this book is evidenced by the name " Abram " instead of " Abraham " on its title page and throughout the book. It relates that " when he was six years old, his father died, leaving a widow and several children, poor and almost friendless " ; and in other respects shows that Lincoln did not furnish the data of it, and also indicates how meager was the biographical material at hand outside the little sketch which Lincoln prepared for Scripps.

Another pamphlet, containing 216 pages, was "The Authentic Edition" by J. H. Barrett, and still another, the " Authorized " edition by D. W. Bartlett, which extended to 354 pages and was bound in cloth. Perhaps the best of these campaign biographies of i860 was that written by William Dean Howells, then a young man and unknown to fame. Apparently Lincoln furnished to each of these writers — except the Wigwam edition — essentially the same material which he had given to Scripps, or else they borrowed from Scripps, with permission, and to this extent they were " authorized " or " authentic." But there is no indication that Lincoln read any of them except that of Scripps. Even this must have surprised him when he beheld how his little sketch could be spread out over as many as thirty-two pages.

The campaign of 1864 brought out a new crop of campaign biographies, and these used essentially the same material up to i860, and found their new matter in the history of the Civil War up to the date of their publication.

This campaign material still stood in type or stereotyped pages when Lincoln was killed, and was hastily used again. The author, who owns all the books cited above, has also others which came from the press in May or June of 1865, whose main part was taken over bodily from the campaign biographies of 1864 and speaks of Lincoln as still living, while the back part is made up of material concerning the assassination, the funeral, and the trial of the conspirators. These called themselves " Complete " biographies, but they were merely revamped campaign booklets of 1864 with appended matter and virtually no revision.

These works represent the first stage of the attempt to make books out of the life of Abraham Lincoln. The outline of the life itself is meager in all of them, and they are well padded with campaign speeches; and the last of them, with full and interesting details of the funeral services of Lincoln, the death of Booth, and other matter lifted from the newspapers of the period.

The second epoch began with the publication of, the Life of Abraham Lincoln by John G. Holland in 1865. It was by all odds the best of the books that undertook within a few years after his death to tell the story of the life of Lincoln, with some estimate of his place in history. It is also the book which began the controversy concerning Lincoln's religion.

The third period was introduced by the biography of Abraham Lincoln by Ward Hill Lamon, which was issued in 1872. It was based upon manuscripts that had been collected by William H. Herndon, who was supposed to have had a considerable share in the work of its preparation. Herndon emphatically denied writing any part of it, and said in a letter to Mr. Horace White that it was written for Lamon by Chauncey F. Black, son of J. S. Black, a member of Buchanan's cabinet and a political enemy of Lincoln (Newton: Lincoln and Herndon, p. 307). This valuable but unwisely written book, containing many things offensive to good taste, occasioned much controversy for its stark realism and what seemed to many of Lincoln's friends misrepresentations. Some of the intimate friends of Lincoln are alleged to have bought a considerable part of the edition and destroyed the books, but copies are in the principal libraries and in the best private collections.

Unterrified by the reception which had been accorded Lamon's work, William H. Herndon, for twenty years Lin-

WHY THE BIOGRAPHIES DIFFER 27

coin's law partner, assisted by Jesse W. Weik, published in 1889 a Life of Lincoln, in three volumes/ The storm of denunciation that beat upon Herndon's head was fierce and long. The greater part of the edition disappeared. Librai-ies that contain it keep it under lock and key, and the prices bid for it at occasional book auctions contrast strikingly with those for which it went begging immediately after it was issued. Four years later, assisted by Mr. Horace White, Mr. Herndon ;reissued the book in two volumes, with those passages elided which had given greatest offense.

These two tiographies mark the rise and high-water mark of the demand for " the real Lincoln " ; and nobody can deny that they were quite sufficiently realistic.

The next stage in the Lincoln biography was the tenvolume Life of Lincoln by his former secretaries, John G. Nicolay and John Hay. It was issued in 1890, and called itself " a history." It is a history rather than a biography ; the biographical material in it was condensed into a single volume by Mr. Nicolay in 1904. This work is monumental, and may be said to attempt the giving of materials for the complete Lincoln rather than to be in itself an effort within the proper limits of biography.