The Soul of Abraham Lincoln

by William E. Barton

The date of the death of Eddie is important, because it gives us a terminus a quem for Lincoln's acquaintance with Rev. James Smith. Dr. Smith gives the date as "in the latter part of 1849." I sought in vain not only in published Lives of Lincoln but in the material on file with the State Historical Society for the precise date. What is more surprising, Colonel Johnson, custodian of the Lincoln tomb, has made diligent search for me and cannot find the date. In an article, prepared for the Lincoln Centenary in 1909, Rev. Thomas D. Logan, D.D., then pastor of the church in Springfield which Lincoln attended and successor of Dr. Smith, said it was "about 1848 or 1849"; but in working over the material, as he manifestly did, after furnishing it to The Interior, in which it was printed, and delivering the substance of it as a centenary address, he gives the date as February 1, 1850. This I judge to be correct, and it is upon his authority I have given that date above. The other dates of the Lincoln family's relation to this church support this statement.

[21] Governor Ford uses this term as inclusive of the "Long Nine" and their associates who voted for the combination of evils which brought financial disaster to Illinois in that early day. Among them were Stephen A. Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, John A. McClernand, and James Shields—"all of them spared monuments of popular wrath, evincing how safe it is to be a politician, but how disastrous it may be to the country to keep along with the present fervor of the people." Ford: History of Illinois.

[22] A careful reading of Mr. Lincoln's speeches while en route for Washington will reveal, I think, that Mr. Lincoln was confident there would be no war. A much more solemn note was in his First Inaugural, a few days later.

[23] Even Herndon commends Dr. Gurley and Bishop Simpson for their very conservative claims concerning the religion of Lincoln.

[24] Carpenter says that these were the negroes of Baltimore, and is probably correct.

[25] This curious passage, which is very nearly meaningless if read apart from its context, has to do with the appointment of the priestly families that furnished the porters, or guards, for the approaches to the temple in Jerusalem. It is found in I Chronicles 26:17-18.

[26] This well-known and picturesque passage describes the army of David when he was an outlaw and half a freebooter, fleeing from the fury of Saul and hiding in the cave of Adullam. I Samuel 22:2.

[27] "Mr. Lincoln had no method, system, or order in his exterior affairs; he had no library, no clerk, no stenographer; he had no common-place-book, no index rerum, no diary. Even when he was President and wanted to preserve a memorandum of anything, he noted it down on a card and stuck it into a drawer or in his vest pocket. But in his mental processes and operations, he had the most complete system and order. While outside of his mind all was anarchy and confusion, inside all was symmetry and method." Whitney: Life on the Circuit with Lincoln, p. 110.

[28] Mrs. Edwards, Mrs. Lincoln's sister, in a published interview which Barker of Springfield has reprinted in a limited edition, gives a circumstantial account of the wedding, which, she affirms, occurred on Sunday night. The calendar contradicts her. Nor would the court house have been open for the issue of the license on Sunday; its date is the date of the wedding. The license was procured, and the marriage was solemnized, on Friday.

[29] Newton Bateman was born at Fairfield, New York, July 27, 1822, and migrated with his parents to Illinois in his boyhood. He was graduated from Illinois College, in Jacksonville, in 1843, and was honored as one of the ablest men in the alumni of that institution. He first knew Abraham Lincoln in 1847, and knew him with increasing intimacy during the years of 1859 and 1860 when Mr. Bateman was in Springfield. Mr. Bateman served as Superintendent of Schools of the State of Illinois continuously from 1859 to 1875, except for the single term 1863-65. During his administration the school system of Illinois made notable progress, and he is remembered as having done large things for the educational system of his State. He was the author of the plan for the education of all the children of all the people of the State at the expense of all the property of the State. He wrought his system into the new constitution of Illinois, adopted in 1871, while he was at the zenith of his power. He was repeatedly re-elected, his defeat in 1862 being a defeat shared with the whole Republican ticket of the State in an off-year election when nearly the whole North, weary of the war which had scarcely begun, defeated partly by hostility and partly by lethargy the party and the policies that had sent Lincoln to the White House; and Bateman was triumphantly re-elected when Lincoln was re-elected, and for many terms thereafter. He established the Normal School system of the State; and his work was monumental in the life of the State University. Few men deserve so well to be remembered with honor in Illinois.