The Fiery Trial (60 page)

6.
Eric Foner,
The Story of American Freedom
(New York, 1998), 54–55; Robert W. Johannsen, ed.,
The Letters of Stephen A. Douglas
(Urbana, Ill., 1961), 42–44.

7.
Mark Noll, “Lincoln’s God,”
Journal of Presbyterian History
, 82 (Summer 2004), 79–80; Richard Carwardine,
Lincoln
(London, 2003), 30–36; Allen C. Guelzo, “A. Lincoln, Philosopher: Lincoln’s Place in Nineteenth-Century Intellectual History,” in Joseph R. Fornieri and Sara V. Gabbard, eds.,
Lincoln’s America, 1809–1865
(Carbondale, Ill., 2008), 75–86; Wilson and Davis,
Herndon’s Informants
, 13, 61, 472;
CW
, 1: 382. Philip Ostergard lists every biblical reference in Lincoln’s letters and speeches. Clearly, Lincoln was very familiar with Scripture. Philip L. Ostergard,
The Inspired Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln
(Carol Stream, Ill., 2008).

8.
Darrel E. Bigham,
Towns and Villages of the Lower Ohio
(Lexington, Ky., 1998), 27–40; William E. Bartelt,
“There I Grew Up”: Remembering Abraham Lincoln’s Indiana Youth
(Indianapolis, 2008), 34; Winkle,
Young Eagle
, 12–18; Wilson and Davis,
Herndon’s Informants
, 27, 39, 93;
CG
, 37th Congress, 2nd Session, 3338; Don E. Fehrenbacher and Virginia Fehrenbacher, eds.,
Recollected Words of
Abraham Lincoln
(Stanford, 1996), 383. The Fehrenbachers are skeptical regarding the recollection of Lincoln referring to himself as a slave, while Michael Burlingame credits it as reflecting the origin of Lincoln’s antislavery beliefs. Michael Burlingame,
Abraham Lincoln: A Life
(2 vols.; Baltimore, 2008), 1: 42.

9.
Robert Mazrim,
The Sangamo Frontier: History and Archaeology in the Shadow of Lincoln
(Chicago, 2007), 116–19, 305; Winkle,
Young Eagle
, 43–54, 77, 99, 156–59; Benjamin P. Thomas,
Lincoln’s New Salem
(Springfield, Ill., 1954), 6–37; Paul M. Angle,
“Here I Have Lived”: A History of Lincoln’s Springfield, 1821–1865
(New Brunswick, N.J., 1935), 23–35, 154–58; Pratt,
Illinois as Lincoln Knew It
, 79; James E. Davis,
Frontier Illinois
(Bloomington, Ind., 1998), 198–207.

10.
Fehrenbacher and Fehrenbacher,
Recollected Words
, 395–96; Jean H. Baker, “Coming of Age in New Salem and Springfield: Lincoln Goes to Town,” in Timothy P. Townsend, ed.,
Papers from the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Annual Lincoln Colloquia
(Springfield, Ill., n.d.), 142–51; William Cronon et al., “Becoming West: Toward a New Meaning for Western History,” in William Cronon et al., eds.,
Under an Open Sky: Rethinking America’s Western Past
(New York, 1992), 12–23; Scott A. Sandage,
Born Losers: A History of Failure in America
(Cambridge, Mass., 2005), 156–58.

11.
William Lee Miller,
Lincoln’s Virtues: An Ethical Biography
(New York, 2002), 60–61;
CW
, 2: 15–16, 96–97; 4: 61; John L. Scripps,
Life of Abraham Lincoln
, eds. Roy P. Basler and Lloyd A. Dunlap (New York, 1968), 26.

12.
Emanuel Hertz,
The Hidden Lincoln
(New York, 1938), 117; Paul K. Conkin,
Prophets of Prosperity: America’s First Political Economists
(Bloomington, Ind., 1980), 116–23; Francis Wayland,
The Elements of Political Economy
(2nd ed.; New York, 1838), 7, 105–6, 110–22, 417;
CW
, 2: 32; 3: 361, 472–80.

13.
Kenneth J. Winkle, “The Middle-Class Marriage of Abraham and Mary Lincoln,” in Fornieri and Gabbard,
Lincoln’s America
, 94–114;
CW
, 4: 65; 2: 220–21; David Herbert Donald,
“We Are Lincoln Men”: Abraham Lincoln and His Friends
(New York, 2003), 24–26; Thomas,
Lincoln’s New Salem
, 88–110; Burlingame,
Abraham Lincoln: A Life
, 1: 78; Matthew W. Backes, “The Father and the Middle Class: Paternal Authority, Filial Independence, and the Transformation of American Culture, 1800–1850” (unpub. diss., Columbia University, 2005), 1–14.

14.
Silbey, “Always a Whig,” 28–29; Ashworth,
“Agrarians,”
52–57, 117, 163–64; Sean Wilentz,
The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln
(New York, 2005), 503–6.

15.
CW
, 1: 48. David Donald, unlike most biographers, thinks Lincoln included women as a joke and that his reference to paying taxes as a requirement for voting was meant to exclude propertyless Irish-born canal workers, who tended to vote Democratic. David Herbert Donald,
Lincoln
(New York, 1995), 59. Burlingame sees Lincoln as a “proto-feminist,” no doubt a considerable exaggeration. Burlingame,
Abraham Lincoln: A Life
, 1: 104. The Illinois Constitution of 1818 contained neither a taxpaying nor a property qualification for voting, although it limited the suffrage to white males. Alexander Keyssar,
The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States
(New York, 2000), appendix A.

16.
CW
, 1: 1–8; 3: 511.

17.
Michael Burlingame, ed.,
An Oral History of Abraham Lincoln: John G. Nicolay’s Interviews and Essays
(Carbondale, Ill., 1996), 30–31; Wilson and Davis,
Herndon’s Informants
, 476; Johannsen,
Letters of Stephen A. Douglas
, 68; Paul Simon,
Lincoln’s Preparation for Greatness
(Norman, Okla., 1965), 48–53, 147–56, 184–86; Gabor S. Boritt,
Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream
(Memphis, 1978), 26–25;
CW
, 1: 200–1.

18.
Robert G. Gunderson,
The Log-Cabin Campaign
(Lexington, Ky., 1957), 109; George W. Julian,
Political Recollections, 1840 to 1872
(Chicago, 1884), 11–13; Boritt,
Lincoln and Economics
, 63–72; Richard L. Miller,
Lincoln and His World: Prairie Politician, 1834–1842
(Mechanicsburg, Pa., 2008), 342.

19.
CW
, 1: 307–11, 329, 334, 381–82; 3: 487.

20.
Thomas Corwin to John McLean, September 8, 1845, John McLean Papers, LC; Theodore C. Pease, ed.,
Illinois Election Returns, 1818–1848
(Springfield, Ill., 1923), 117, 149; Vernon L. Volpe,
Forlorn Hope of Freedom: The Liberty Party in the Old Northwest, 1838–1848
(Kent, Ohio, 1990), 64–69; Reinhard O. Johnson,
The Liberty Party, 1840–1848: Antislavery Third-Party Politics in the United States
(Baton Rouge, 2009), 197–201.

21.
Pease,
Illinois Election Returns
, 149;
CW
, 1: 347–48.

22.
Mark E. Brandon,
Free in the World: American Slavery and Constitutional Failure
(Princeton, 1998), 52–57; Lysander Spooner,
The Unconstitutionality of Slavery
(Boston, 1845), 36.

23.
Cincinnati Gazette
, March 26, 1860; George W. Julian,
The Life of Joshua R. Giddings
(Chicago, 1892), 118–19, 134, 417–23;
The Works of Charles Sumner
(15 vols.; Boston, 1870–83), 2: 288;
CP
, 2: 79–80, 87–88; Foner,
Free Soil
, 73–87.

24.
T. K. Hunter, “Transatlantic Negotiations: Lord Mansfield, Liberty and Somerset,”
Texas Wesleyan Law Review
, 13 (Symposium 2007), 711–27; Mark S. Weiner,
Black Trials: Citizenship from the Beginnings of Slavery to the End of Caste
(New York, 2004), 84–86; Douglas R. Egerton,
Death or Liberty: African Americans and Revolutionary America
(New York, 2009), 52–55.

25.
John Niven,
Salmon P. Chase: A Biography
(New York, 1995), 51–54;
CP
, 1: xxi–xxiii;
Law Reporter
(Boston), 9 (April 1847), 553.

26.
Leonard W. Levy,
The Law of the Commonwealth and Chief Justice Shaw
(Cambridge, Mass., 1957), 58–71; Paul Finkelman,
An Imperfect Union: Slavery, Federalism, and Comity
(Chapel Hill, 1981), 43–127.

27.
Newton N. Newbern, “Judicial Decision Making and the End of Slavery in Illinois,”
JISHS
, 98 (Spring–Summer 2005), 7–11; Finkelman,
Imperfect Union
, 97–99; Horace White,
The Life of Lyman Trumbull
(Boston, 1913), 28–29.

28.
N. Dwight Harris,
The History of Negro Servitude in Illinois
(Chicago, 1904), 122–23;
BD
, 1: xvi;
Chicago Daily Tribune
, August 5, 1857; Martha L. Brenner and Cullom Davis, eds.,
The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln
(3 CDs; Urbana, Ill., 2000):
McElroy v. Clements
(1857),
Dickinson v. Canton
(1860); Mark M. Krug,
Lyman Trumbull, Conservative Radical
(New York, 1965), 57–68.

29.
CW
, 3: 518; Brian Dirck,
Lincoln the Lawyer
(Urbana, Ill., 2007), 56–61, 106; Brenner and Davis,
Law Practice
. Lincoln’s cases involving blacks included
Shelby v. Shelby
(1841),
Unknown v. Smith
(1845),
Flourville v. Stockdale et al.
(1849),
Flourville v. Allen et al.
(1853), and
People v. Hill
(1854).

30.
Brenner and Davis,
Law Practice
:
Edwards et ux. v. Edwards et ux.
(1844),
Dungey v. Spencer
(1855); Stacey P. McDermott, “‘Black Bill’ and the Privileges of Whiteness in Antebellum Illinois,”
JIH
, 12 (Spring 2009), 2–26.

31.
Brenner and Davis,
Law Practice
:
People v. Pond
(1845),
People v. Kern
(1847),
People v. Scott
(1847).

32.
Carl Adams, “Lincoln’s First Freed Slave: A Review of
Bailey v. Cromwell
, 1841,”
JISHS
, 102 (Spring 2009), 235–59; Brenner and Davis,
Law Practice
:
Bailey v. Cromwell and McNaughton
(1841). By the time Lincoln argued the case, his partnership with John Todd Stuart had been dissolved and Lincoln was junior partner to Stephen T. Logan. Most accounts of the case refer to the woman simply as “Nance,” but Adams identifies her full name.

33.
Brenner and Davis,
Law Practice
:
In Re Bryant, et al.
(1847),
Matson for Use of Coles County Illinois v. Rutherford
(1847). Accounts of the case include Jesse W. Weik, “Lincoln and the Matson Negroes,”
Arena
, 17 (April 1897), 752–58; Anton-Hermann Chroust, “Abraham Lincoln Argues a Pro-Slavery Case,”
American Journal of Legal History
, 5 (October 1961), 299–308; and Mark E. Steiner,
An Honest Calling: The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln
(DeKalb, Ill., 2006), 103–25.

34.
North Star
, February 4, 1848.

35.
Weik, “Lincoln and the Matson Negroes,” 755–58; Brenner and Davis,
Law Practice
:
In Re Bryant, et al.
(1847). For a relevant discussion of morality and the law, see Steve Sheppard,
I Do Solemnly Swear: The Moral Obligations of Legal Officials
(New York, 2009).

36.
Michael Burlingame writes of lawyers’ “ideological neutrality” to exonerate Lincoln in the Matson case. Burlingame,
Abraham Lincoln: A Life
, 1: 253. Dirck also excuses Lincoln’s representation of Matson. Dirck,
Lincoln the Lawyer
, 147–49.

37.
Donald,
Lincoln
, 133–35.

38.
Robert V. Remini,
Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union
(New York, 1991), 692–93; James F. Hopkins, ed.,
Papers of Henry Clay
(10 vols.; Lexington, Ky., 1959–91), 10: 361–73.

39.
John S. Wright,
Lincoln and the Politics of Slavery
(Reno, 1970), 18–19;
CG
, 30th Congress, 1st Session, 391;
CW
, 2: 252.

40.
CG
, 30th Congress, 2nd Session, appendix, 79–80.

41.
Holt,
Rise and Fall
, 285–308.

42.
Wright,
Lincoln and the Politics of Slavery
, 23;
CW
, 1: 381–82;
CG
, 30th Congress, 1st Session, 523. The vote on the Ashmun resolution was reported as 85 to 81, but the actual list of ayes and nays shows only 82 in favor.
CG
, 30th Congress, 1st Session, 95.

43.
CW
, 1: 433–41.

44.
CW
, 1: 420–21;
Hudson River Chronicle
(Sing-Sing, N.Y.), August 15, 1848;
CG
, 30th Congress, 1st Session, 61–62, 175, 229; appendix, 156, 170.