White House
In wagons, on foot, on horseback, they stream west, for the gold rush, for the promises. Ours is a migratory urge. Flux of men, women, children, reapers, sowers, which comes first? Which the most important? We Americans expropriate, accomplish, destroy. The rough rock becomes polished by time, but do we? Can such migrations achieve a true union?
I realize there is a power larger than self, more powerful than leadership. It is this mysterious power that causes this human wave. It is not destiny. It is an interchange of ideas, a wave or waves of emotion, a desire for betterment—and beyond that! The pioneer has this in his mind, as he hacks at timber, removes stumps, sprouts corn. Deep inside me, like a blue pool, I am in accord with these frontiersmen.
White House
window wide open
August 1st, 1863
In Springfield, when problems got under my skin, I sometimes woke at night, puzzled, thinking where am I? I’d find myself sitting up in bed, gesturing, talking to myself. Alarmed, I would dress and lay a fire and sit by it the remainder of the night, sit by the stove or go out into the backyard, if it was summer or autumn.
Melancholia has always dogged me. It seems to sit inside of me and peer out. It catches me, involves me, at the most unexpected moments. Melancholy influences my decisions, legal decisions or those at home, even while I am playing with the children. Like any physical handicap I try to live with it, minimize it.
Springfield problems were largely legal problems, problems for Billy and me, problems about horse thieves, mortgage foreclosures, defaults in payment, land titles. I lost a manslaughter case but won my defense of the nine women involved in rioting. I had a bevy of widows trail after me when I won the case of the man accused of robbing the mail of $15,000.