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The Lincoln Issue

Kentucky Humanities Council Inc.

Lincoln to the Fore, and a Fond Farewell

Dear Friends,

Welcome to a special issue honoring Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday on February 12, 2009. We hope you’ll enjoythis collection of insightful articles that look at the great president and his legacy from a variety of perspectives.

John E. Kleber writes of Lincoln with a constant view to his lifelong ties to Kentucky. Kleber’s article—“Shall AnyClaim Come Before the Mother?”—is a superb overview of Lincoln’s life and career. In “A Power Trio,” James C. Klot-ter focuses on Lincoln’s relationship with two Lexingtonians who played major roles in his life, Henry Clay and MaryTodd. Jonathan Jeffrey recounts the fascinating stories of the many Lincoln memorials that have arisen in Kentuckyover the past hundred years—and are still rising—in “Now He Belongs to the Ages.”

Slavery was the issue that dominated American politics during the Lincoln era. From Karolyn Smardz Frost we get“Flight to Freedom,” the amazing story of Thornton and Lucie Blackburn, whose bold flight from slavery in Kentuckyended in Canada.There, as Kentucky slave catchers tried to reach across the border to drag them back, the Blackburnsmade legal history. Their case turned Canada into the runaway slave’s promised land.

And there’s more to discover, including a useful chronology of Lincoln’s life, the origins of Kentucky’s many Lincolnplace names, and an essay on the conflicted legacy of Lincoln’s wartime rival, Jefferson Davis. The president of theConfederacy was a Kentuckian too—2008 is his bicentennial year.

This special issue is just one of the ways the Humanities Council is celebrating the Lincoln bicentennial, and there’s bignews about one of our other Lincoln programs: Our Lincoln, the musical and dramatic tribute that was such a smashin Lexington in February 2008, is on the way to Washington! We’ll present Our Lincoln at the John F. Kennedy Centerfor the Performing Arts on February 2, 2009. See page 48 for details—and tickets.

Finally, some news about this magazine.This issue is my last as editor of Kentucky Humanities. After almost nineteen yearsof doing my best to help advance the noble goals of the Kentucky Humanities Council, I am moving on. Editing KentuckyHumanities has been a rare opportunity and a labor of love.Your compliments and encouragement—and constructive crit-icism—have been the best rewards an editor could hope for. My deepest thanks for your attention and support.

Beginning with the April 2009 issue, Kentucky Humanities will be in the capablehands of the new editor, Julie Nelson Satterly. Julie is an outstanding journalist whocomes to the Council from the world of newspapers, most recently as the editorand publisher of the Oldham Era. Read all about her on page 49.

Now I’m off to join the rank and file of my favorite special interest group—thereaders of Kentucky Humanities. Best wishes always, and happy reading.

[email protected]

www.kyhumanities.org

KHCBoard of Directors Chair:William L. Ellison Jr.Louisville

Vice Chair:Ernestine M. HallLouisville

Secretary:John Michael PhilippsCincinnati

Treasurer:Carole BeereHighland Heights

Executive Committee:Kristen BaleGlasgow

Pat BradleyBronston

Aristofanes CedenoLouisville

Rebecca EggersOwensboro

Geoffrey A. HallLexington

Lynn T. HarpringLouisville

Kenneth R. HixsonLexington

Guy LaJeunesseCovington

Brigitte LaPrestoPikeville

Karen C. McDanielFrankfort

Reed PolkLexington

Howard V. RobertsPikeville

Suzanne D. RoseOwensboro

William G. ScottFrankfort

Michelle TooleyBerea

Bob WillenbrinkMorehead

Margie Kennedy WilsonLexington

Kenneth H. WolfMurray

StaffExecutive Director:Virginia G. Carter

Associate Director:Kathleen Pool

Assistant Director:Charles Thompson

Assistant Director:Julie N. Satterly

Fiscal Officer:Steven Price

Chautauqua Coordinator:Catherine Ferguson

EditorCharles Thompson

Kentuckyhumanities

The Lincoln Issue

© 2008 Kentucky Humanities Council ISSN 1554-6284Kentucky Humanities is published in April & October by the Kentucky Humanities Council, Inc., 206 East Maxwell St., Lexington, KY 40508-2613(859/257-5932). KHC is an independent, nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities in Washington, D.C., and providesmore than 500 public humanities programs for Kentuckians every year. Supporters of the Council’s programs receive Kentucky Humanities bymail. Views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the KHC Board and staff. For information on ourvery favorable advertising rates, please call Julie Satterly at 859/257-5932.

On the cover: Bust of Abraham Lincoln by Robert Berks. Photograph by Sid Webb.

FEATURES

6 Shall Any Claim ComeBefore the Mother?John Kleber writes that Abraham Lincoln’sties to Kentucky were strong and lifelong.

18 Flight to Freedom:The Blackburns’ Great EscapeKarolyn Frost tells how Thornton and Lucie Blackburn fled slavery,and made history.

26 A Question of TimingWhy did Lincoln wait so long to issue the Emancipation Proclamation?Burrus Carnahan explains.

30 A Power TrioJames Klotter examines how Lincoln,Henry Clay and Mary Todd influencedeach other.

34 Now He Belongs to the AgesMemorializing Abraham LincolnThe number of Lincoln memorials, reportsJonathan Jeffrey, is large and growing.

41 Jefferson Davis at 200:Still No Respect?Davis’s bicentennial is in 2008 but, says John Coski, he’s in Lincoln’s shadow again.

30 A Lincoln ChronologyA reader-friendly listing of the majorevents in the life of Abraham Lincoln.

DEPARTMENTS

2 Kentucky Historyand Travel NotesA view of Lincoln from Bowling Green,and Robert Rennick on Lincoln placenames.

48 The Council PagesOur Lincoln goes to Washington. Newmembers join our board and staff.

Page 6 Page 18 Page 34

November 2008www.kyhumanities.org

2 Kentucky Humanities

JOHANNA Louise (Josie) Under-wood was born in 1840 to one ofBowling Green’s wealthiest families.

The Underwoods lived on a beautifulfarm called Mt. Air. By the time shebegan her diary in December 1860, Josiewas a reigning belle of Bowling Green.Knowledgeable and outspoken, shepainted a vivid picture of the hardshipsand heartaches the Civil War visitedupon her prosperous town and its peo-ple. The Confederates were the first tooccupy Bowling Green—that’s whenJosie wrote that “the Philistines are uponus.” After the Confederates pulled out,the Union army moved in and stayed forthe duration of the war.

The Union occupiers were even lesspopular than the Confederates. Never-theless, Underwood was resolute in hersupport of the Union—and in her distastefor Abraham Lincoln, as the followingcomments from her diary make clear. Inthe first excerpt, she starts with what asecessionist said at a party.

Jan. 1, 1861“How could Washington dream a Lincoln—alow born clod hopper, would ever be electedpresident of the United States? And he never

was either—only a part of the country wantshim and the sooner we separate forever fromthat part—the better for the South.”I was gladthe dancing stopped his talk. It is plain to seethat the older—wiser people are for preservingthe Union in spite of their antagonism to Lin-coln and his party—but it is dreadful to hearhow so many of the younger men talk—Mr.Western advocates secession as a fundamentalprinciple for any free country—he and Mr.Grafton are very fond of the expression, “Asecessionist per se.” In spite of this episode Inever spent a pleasanter evening or attendedso brilliant a party.

Jan. 27, 1861They are organized as state guard but do nothesitate to say—they will fight against theUnion—I asked under what flag and Mr.Grafton said “A Banner with the Virginiamotto ‘Sic Semper Tiramus [sic],’ on it andyour friend Lincoln for the prostrate figurewould please us best”—He knows I dislike Lin-coln as much as he does and speaks of him as“your friend Lincoln” just to provoke me andthen laughs when I get excited—This is one ofthe hard things for the Unionists to contendwith—so many of them don’t approve Lin-coln’s course and have to fight his extremeviews as well as the secessionists.

Josie Underwood’s father, whom sherefers to as “Pa,” was Warner Under-wood, a prominent lawyer and politicianwho had served in the Kentucky legisla-ture and the U.S. Congress. He was astaunch Unionist.Though he claimed an“antipathy” toward slavery, Underwoodowned slaves. He called himself an“advocate” of colonization in Liberia,but did not free any of his slaves so thatthey could emigrate to Africa. In thepresidential election of 1860, Under-wood campaigned hard for the Consti-tutional Union Party ticket of John Bellof Tennessee and Edward Everett ofMassachusetts. Bell and Everett empha-sized saving the Union and ignored theissue of slavery.

April 13, 1861Sister Fanny and Mr. Grider went in townto their home after dinner and when Pacame from town he was grieved greatly tofind the firing on Sumter had turned anumber of wavering people to secessionists,for they argue now there is no chance ofsaving the Union and right or wrong theywant to go with the South. But thestaunchest and most prominent men in thetown—are all determined still to stand bythe Union, and save the country from beingbroken up like South America—as isinevitable if the right of secession prevails—but oh! how they wish they had a less Ultrapartisan than Lincoln, at the head of theGovernment. Pa knows Lincoln well andwhilst he does not agree at all with hisideas—and as a Bell and Everett electordid all in his power to defeat him for Presi-dent—he thinks him honest in his convic-tions and his desire to do what is right—however his ideas differ with the greatUnion party of Kentucky and other conser-vative states—

In July, 1862, Josie traveled to Wash-ington with her father. Warner Under-wood met with President Lincoln at theWhite House, and later introduced Josieto Mary Todd Lincoln.

July 20, 1862Pa had met Mr. Lincoln before this trip andknew Mrs. Lincoln well—when she wasMiss [Mary] Todd and Pa a young man in

“The Philistines Are Upon Us”In her Civil War diary, Josie Underwood of Bowling Green reflectedKentuckians’ dislike of Abraham Lincoln—and she was a Unionist.

KENTUCKY HISTORY AND TRAVEL NOTES

In the Lincoln Issue ofKentucky Humanities

●Lexington

●Bowling Green

●Louisville

●Hardinsburg ●

Hodgenville

●Washington

●Fairview

The Lincoln Issue 3

the Kentucky Legislature. The Presidentand family were staying at the Soldier’sHome. The day after we reached Washing-ton, Pa had called on Mr. Lincoln at theWhite House—but a few days after—in theafternoon—he got a carriage and invitedMr. Etheridge and Miss Bell with me—todine with him to pay our respects to Mrs.Lincoln. I was most agreeably surprisedwhen I met her. Instead of seeing the coarse,loud, common woman the papers had madeher out to be—she really was a handsomegentle woman dressed in deep mourning (forher little boy—not long dead) her conversa-tion was agreeable. Her manner gentle—Mr. Etheridge thought—this owing to thesadness which was very apparent thoughshe did not intrude it upon us—onlyresponding to Pa’s very appropriate expres-sions of sympathy and then tactfully pass-ing on to other subjects. However, it was—Ithink it a great shame to so misrepresent apresident’s wife or any other woman.

And then they met President Lincolnon the road, alone on horseback.

July 20, 1862As we met, Pa had the carriage stop.The mandid the same and Pa introduced us to Mr.Lincoln. He leaned over, shook hands with us,then slouched down on one side of the sad-dle—as any old farmer would do, as he talkedfor ten or 15 minutes with us. Pa and Mr.Etheridge thought it very imprudent andunwise risk for him in such a time of warfareand especial hatred of Mr. Lincoln himself forhim to be riding unattended, unguarded out alonely country road—and called his attentionto the dangers—Mr. Lincoln’s smile—expressed kindliness to all men and fear ofnone—as he said—he “did not think anybodywould hurt him that way”—shaking handsagain with us—he galloped on, neither did wemeet anybody else for quite a little way so itwas very evident there were no guards—fol-lowing him.

Josie Underwood’s Civil War diaryends on September 8, 1862. The nextday, her family sailed for Scotland—Lin-coln had appointed her father Americanconsul in Glasgow. During the war theUnderwood estate in Bowling Green wasdestroyed, and the family never quiteregained its antebellum prosperity. Josiemarried in 1870, had four children, livedin New York and California, andreturned to Bowling Green in 1912. Shedied in 1923. Her diary was lost formany decades. In 2009, it will be pub-lished for the first time by the Universi-ty Press of Kentucky as Josie Under-wood’s Civil War Diary. ●

Celebrate theAbraham Lincoln Bicentennial the Kentucky Crafted way.Commemorative gifts, historic replicas, literature, music and fine art printsare now available through the Kentucky Arts Council at www.artscouncil.ky.gov/shop/merchandise.htm.

© University Press of Kentucky 2008.www.kentuckypress.com Used by permission.


AT least a dozen Kentucky countieshave Lincoln names, but not allhonored the sixteenth president.

Lincoln County, one of the three estab-lished by Virginia in 1780, was named forRevolutionary War general BenjaminLincoln, no kin to the future president.Several of the president’s forebears,notably his father and paternal grandpar-ents, are credited with a few other names.

There’s Lincoln Run, a branch of theSalt River’s Beech Fork, some five milesnorth of Springfield in WashingtonCounty. The president’s paternal grand-parents, Virginia-born Capt. Abrahamand Bersheba (Herriott) Lincoln settledthere in the fall of 1782. After Capt. Lin-coln was killed by Indians in 1786 on hisnewly settled Long Run home in Jeffer-son County, Bersheba brought their fam-ily, including young Thomas (the futurepresident’s father) back to Lincoln Run.It is commemorated today in the LincolnHomestead State Park, which housesreplicas of the Lincoln Cabin and thenearby Berry Home where the president’smother, Nancy Hanks, was raised.

In 1803 Thomas, trained as a wood-worker and cabinetmaker, acquired a238-acre spread on Mill Creek in HardinCounty (some eight miles from Eliza-bethtown), where he and Bershebamoved. Just west of the creek and twomiles east of Radcliff, in the Fort KnoxMilitary Reservation, is the LincolnMemorial Cemetery.

While living in Hardin County,Thomas applied his woodworking skillsin furnishing the Hardin-Thomas familyhome in Elizabethtown. It’s now the Lin-coln Heritage House. Another Elizabeth-town landmark is the Lincoln-HaycraftMemorial Bridge, built in 1936 at SevernCreek crossing—said to be the routeThomas and his family took on their wayto Indiana in 1816.

Two years after Thomas and Nancymarried in 1806, they moved to the Sink-ing Spring Farm on the south fork ofNolin Creek, three miles south of Hod-genville, in what is now LaRue County.Here Abe was born on February 12,1809. Ostensibly because of land titleirregularities, the family moved some tenmiles northeast to the Knob Creek farmin 1811, leaving for Indiana when Abra-ham was seven.

The Knob Creek farm is now part ofthe Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Nation-al Historic Site, a national shrine on US31E in the vicinity of the site of the natallog cabin. The Memorial Building wasdedicated by President William HowardTaft in November 1911 and accepted as anational shrine by President WoodrowWilson in September 1916. In its centeris a log cabin that is now called the “sym-bolic” Lincoln birth cabin. About a milesouth is the Lincoln Memorial Church.Drive north on the Lincoln Parkway intothe center of Hodgenville and you willfind yourself in Lincoln Square.

Lincoln names were applied to threeother places in north central Kentucky.In Grayson County is Lincoln Branch,the one-mile-long Clay Lick tributary ofBear Creek, near the Edmonson Countyline, that heads just south of the oldSadler post office. Lincoln School is twobuildings in Edmonson County justsouth of Demumbrun’s Store and justnorth of the Mammoth Cave NationalPark’s northern boundary. And Lin-colnshire is a sixth-class city with a pop-ulation of 150 on the east edge of the oldLouisville city limits between the Watter-son Expressway and Taylorsville Road.Precisely which Lincoln these werenamed for is not yet known.

Between US 60 and I-64, about amile and a half southwest of Simpsonvillein Shelby County, is Lincoln Ridge, the

site of the Lincoln Institute. This schoolwas organized on October 1, 1912 to pro-vide vocational and teacher training pro-grams for Kentucky African Americans.It became a public secondary school in1947 and closed in 1966. The buildinglater became the Whitney M. Young, Jr.Residential Manpower Center. To servethe Lincoln Institute and the villagegrowing up around it, a post office wasestablished by Edith M. Ellis. Her pre-ferred names, Lincoln Institute and Lin-colnia, yielded to Lincoln Ridge. In 1967,the office became a rural branch andclosed for good in 1974.

Another Lincoln post office, ostensi-bly named for the president, was the firstof the two offices serving the Short Creekvicinity in Pulaski County. It was estab-lished by Eli Farmer about a mile east ofBuck Creek and opened in April 1891. InMarch of the following year, James P.Sears had it moved one mile northwest toShort Creek, where it closed in Decem-ber 1913.

Clay County also had a Lincoln postoffice. This was established on May 26,1923 by Hughey L. Tankersley to servethe Old Theophilus Smith place, four anda half miles up Buzzard Creek, a CollinsFork branch. Actually Tankersley’s firstname choice, Harding (for another presi-dent) was rejected by postal authorities astoo similar to Hardin, in use in MarshallCounty. Lincoln is assumed to have beensuggested to honor the earlier presidentsince the area it would serve had beenvery pro-Union and remained well withinthe Republican fold. In 1945, the officewas moved a mile down the creek. Itclosed in 1974.

Finally there’s Lincoln Creek (knownto local residents as Old Meadows Creek),a two-and-a-half-mile long intermittentstream in the eastern section of WayneCounty. But this we know was not namedfor Abraham Lincoln or his family. WhileWayne County historians aren’t sure of this,they believe it may have honored one Lin-coln Denney, whose descendants and col-lateral kin still live in the area. ●

Lincoln This and Lincoln ThatOur place names detective investigates Kentucky’s many Lincoln place names

BY ROBERT M. RENNICK

KENTUCKY HISTORY AND TRAVEL NOTES

Robert M. Rennick is the coordinator of the Kentucky Place Names Survey.


ON a dank and muddy day,February 12, 1909, Presi-dent Theodore Rooseveltarrived at the small town ofHodgenville, Kentucky. In

what was to be one of the last publicevents of his presidency, Roosevelt laidthe cornerstone for a memorial buildingcommemorating Abraham Lincoln’sbirthplace “as a shrine for all times.” Theoccasion was the centennial of the birthof the sixteenth president, and the daywas auspicious only in the dignitaries andlarge crowd it attracted. Indeed, theprospect of the president traipsingthrough the mud to the dedication siteprompted the purchase of rubber shoeswhen the presidential train brieflystopped in Louisville. The weather pre-vented Emilie Hardin Helm, the onlyremaining sister of Mary Todd Lincoln,from reaching the ceremonies. However,those who did make it heard a number ofspeakers, including former slaves andCivil War veterans.

Following the president’s remarks,Kentucky Governor Augustus E. Willsonclearly claimed Lincoln as a scion of theBluegrass state. Recognizing that our entirecountry claims him, Willson noted howsome states have special claims. Illinoissays, “He was mine, the man of Illinois;here on my prairies he ripened into noble

manhood and here he made his home.”And Indiana says, “He was mine. In mysouthern hills the little child grew strongand tall.” While each was right and true,Kentucky surpassed both because it couldsay, “I am his mother. I nursed him at mybreast; my baby born of me. He is mine.Shall any claim come before the mother?”

The answer, obviously, was no. Ken-tucky’s claim led to the Abraham LincolnBicentennial Commission’s decision tobegin the celebration of Lincoln’s 200thbirthday in Hodgenville in February2008. That was no surprise. Lookingback, however, Kentucky’s warmembrace of the centennial of Lincoln’sbirth was very surprising, indeed remark-able. Following the Civil War, Kentuckyjoined the Confederacy, mainly becauseKentuckians did not like the wartime

policies of Lincoln. Confederate presi-dent Jefferson Davis was our hero. Timewas to change that. The writer IrvinCobb said Kentucky looks like a fallencamel, and the straw that broke its backwas when it first voted for a Republicanpresident.That was William McKinley in1896. By 1909 Kentucky had a Republi-can governor who was proud to helpdedicate the Lincoln Memorial buildingin Hodgenville as a “shrine second tonone, even Mt.Vernon, in the affection ofthe American people.” Forty-four yearsearlier, Governor Thomas Brambletteforetold the change when he addressed acrowd in front of the Jefferson CountyCourthouse following Lincoln’s assassi-nation. “We may have differed with him,and have differed with him,” Bramblettesaid, “but when the judgment of futureevents has come, we find we were differ-ing blindly, that he was right and we werewrong.” By 1909 Kentucky recognized ithad been wrong.

KENTUCKY was much more toLincoln than a birth site.The sevenyears he lived here produced the

earliest memories of this impressionableyouth. Growing up on the Knob Creekfarm adjacent to the important Louisvilleand Nashville Turnpike, he encountered alarger outside world that beat a path to his

BY JOHN E. KLEBER

Abraham Lincoln left Kentucky when hewas seven years old, but the great president’s

connections to his native state were strong and lifelong.

Shall Any Claim ComeBefore the Mother?

Looking back, Kentucky’swarm embrace of the

centennial of Lincoln’s birth was very surprising,

indeed remarkable.

The Lincoln Issue 7

1809-1865Photograph by Alexander Gardner, Feb. 5, 1865

Abraham

Lincoln Presidential Library and M

useum (A

LPLM

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doorstep. On that road, Lincoln met a vet-eran returning from the battle of NewOrleans. He encountered ChristopherColumbus Graham, a natural scientist,who spent the night and told Abe that heknew Daniel Boone, and had a friendnamed John James Audubon who couldpaint pretty fair pictures of birds. Nodoubt Lincoln first heard about Louisvilleliving along that road. From his father, hewould have learned that his grandfatherhad been killed by Indians near Louisville.The wagons that each day lumbered pastconnected Lincoln to a larger world, andthose who traveled it must have excitedhis imagination.

In 1815, a traveler passing the Lincolnfarm and continuing north would have alsopassed a large home being built on a plan-tation known as Farmington outsideLouisville. It was the home of the Speedfamily. The builders, John and Lucy, had ason, Joshua, who would become Lincoln’sbest friend.Although a mere fifty miles sep-arated the two homesteads, there was aworld of difference between the Lincolns’

simple log cabin and the grand home of theSpeeds.Yet, in time, Lincoln traversed thatdistance, albeit with several detours, andwas entertained in the Speed family home.The fact that he was received so warmly byone of the leading families of Kentuckydemonstrates how he could reach acrossboth distances and class lines. It shows howthe American dream of opportunity workedthrough him.

Joshua Speed was but one of manyKentuckians who kept crossing Lincoln’spath after the family moved north of theOhio River in 1817. The women Lincolnloved were from Kentucky. His three lawpartners were from here. His politicalmentor was Henry Clay. Joshua Speed’sbrother, James, became Lincoln’s secondattorney general. His stepmother was fromElizabethtown. During the Civil War, hisnative state was much on his mind, and hisknowledge of Kentucky and its peopleenabled him to maneuver to keep it in theUnion. Although Kentucky turned againstits native son, he never lost his affection forit, an affection that can be traced to the lateeighteenth century when his grandfathermigrated from Virginia.

A man of substance, the older Abra-ham came to Kentucky and acquired sev-eral parcels of land. In May 1786, he waskilled during an Indian raid on a parcel

east of Louisville on Floyd’s Fork Creek.He left several children, among themeight-year-old Thomas, the future presi-dent’s father. Grandfather Abraham wasone of those pushy, ambitious Virginianswho had moved into Kentucky when itwas still just a place of promise.They werepart of an irresistible migratory currentthat had a pull so great neither King norIndian danger could stop it. Young Abra-ham must have heard stories about theIndian menace.That may explain his will-ingness to enlist in the Black Hawk Warand his harsh retribution against the Siouxwhen they rose up during the Civil War.

The fatherless Thomas Lincolnmoved with his mother to the beautifulregion of Washington County. Later, moth-er and son moved to Elizabethtown. In1806, he married Nancy Hanks. Nancywas described as a lonesome woman ofdark complexion. She had come from Vir-ginia with her mother and was reared byrelatives in Springfield.Thomas saw her ata camp meeting. The two soon marriedand set up housekeeping in Elizabethtown.Although he learned to be a competent car-penter,Thomas wanted land, and the cou-ple acquired a substantial parcel known asSinking Spring. On a cold February day in1809,Thomas came out of the cabin to theroad, stopped a passerby, and asked him tofetch the midwife, for Nancy would soonhave need of her. On February 12, Nancydelivered her second child and first son.Weknow little of the circumstances surround-ing the birth, but the location was no mean-er than many others in the frontier regions.From there, the family moved to a smallermore fertile farm known as Knob Creek, afew miles outside Hodgenville.

“My earliest recollection is of the KnobCreek place,” Lincoln recalled. “Our farmwas composed of three fields. It lay in thevalley surrounded by high hills and deepgorges. Sometimes when there came a bigrain in the hills the water would come downthrough the gorges and spread all over thefarm.” There began what one writer calledhis “frontier rough-and-readiness and mas-culine democratic traits.”

Although he was largely self-educat-ed, it was at Knob Creek that Abrahamfirst went to school.The school was abouta mile and a half up the road from the

Lincoln’s family moved to the KnobCreek farm when he was two, andstayed until departing for Indiana fiveyears later.The farm was adjacent to thebusy Louisville and Nashville Turnpike.

Sid

Web

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The Lincoln Issue 9

Lincoln cabin. In later years he remem-bered the names of two of his teachers—Zachariah Riney and Caleb Hazel. Theseteachers used the blab method, broughtover the mountains from Virginia, whichemphasized recitation and memorization.Lincoln had a prodigious memory andwould often commit long poems to it. Hesaid of his early education, “When I cameof age I did not know much. Still, some-how, I could read, write, and cipher to therule of three, but that was all. I have notbeen to school since. The little advance Inow have upon this store of education Ihave picked up from time to time underthe pressure of necessity.”

Necessity was a good teacher forLincoln. Instinct directed him to just theright books to read. As a young boy heread Aesop, Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrim’sProgress, Weems’s Life of Washington. TheBible and later Shakespeare were impor-tant to him and developed his writingskills. As he grew older, he liked the essaysof John Stuart Mill, the poems of LordByron and Robert Burns. For humor heread Petroleum V. Nasby and ArtemusWard. And for most of his life he was anavid reader of newspapers, some of thempublished in Kentucky. During the CivilWar, it was noted that he was no longerreading the newspapers.When asked whynot, he replied that he knew more thanthey did, but that was atypical of his life-long enjoyment of reading. For that hegave credit to his illiterate mother and lit-erate stepmother.

His teacher Riney and many othersin the area were Catholic, but the Lincolnfamily was Baptist. Indeed, Nancy and

Thomas were founders of the LittleMount Separate Baptist Church andwere Calvinists. Abraham neverembraced the faith of his parents andlargely remained aloof from formal reli-gion. His stepmother’s religion was moremoral than doctrinal, and he preferredthat. Early in life he had been somethingof a freethinker and skeptic. Later he wasdrawn to Presbyterianism, perhapsbecause of the dogma of pre-destination,which mitigated his personal responsibil-ity in the Civil War.The Bible taught himthe beauty of language, provided himwith the phrases of speech, and helpedexplain the retribution wrought upon thenation for slavery. The idea of DivineProvidence—an overruling, ever guidingforce—was important to him. Few presi-dents have more frequently acknowl-edged implicit dependence on DivineProvidence. He used the term in hisfarewell address to the citizens of Spring-field, and asked for their prayers.

IT was said of early Kentucky that he whobuys land buys a lawsuit. Indeed, theuncertainty of land holdings, mainly due

to the antiquated system of Virginia survey-ing, discouraged some from settling andcaused others to flee. And so it was withThomas Lincoln’s land holdings.When the

title was challenged, he thought about moresecure land somewhere else. Like many inHardin County, he did not prosper. Thentoo, the area was quickly filling with slaveholders, an institution Thomas abhorred. Inthe new free state of Indiana there was goodtimber, good water, and cheap and secureland. In 1817, he crossed the Ohio River andacquired land on Little Pigeon Creek inwhat is now Spencer County. He returnedto Kentucky and prepared his family tomove, selling much of what they possessed.We do not know the route taken from KnobCreek, but it probably led over old Mul-draugh Hill past Little Mount. At Elizabeth-town, they most likely put up over night,perhaps with old friends, before pushing onto a point on the Ohio opposite the mouthof Anderson Creek, where the ferryboatlanded.Arriving on the Indiana side near thelittle town of Troy, they loaded their suppliesinto a borrowed wagon and set out for theirnew homestead. Thus closed the Kentuckychapter of Abraham Lincoln’s life. But otherchapters will be filled with Kentuckyacquaintances and ties because so manyothers imitated the same westward migra-tion. Living in southern Indiana or Illinoiswas almost like never leaving Kentucky.

In Indiana, Abraham’s motherNancy died of milk sickness, an illnesscaused by drinking milk from cows that

Farmington, the Speed family’s Louisville estate, was a world apart from Lincoln’schildhood log cabin, but he bridged the gap, becoming a fast friend of the Speedsand an honored guest in their home.

“When I came of age…I could read, write, and

cipher to the rule of three. The little advance

I now have upon this store of education I have

picked up from time to time under the pressure

of necessity.”

Sid W

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have eaten the poisonous white snakerootplant. Thomas returned to Kentucky, toElizabethtown, to find an old acquain-tance, Sarah Bush Johnston, a widow.After a brief courtship, they wed. Sarahagreed to move to Indiana only if shecould take her furniture. The furniturewas symbolic of the more comfortablelifestyle she would afford the Lincolnchildren. She had children of her own,and so Abraham became part of a mixedbut harmonious family. He loved his step-mother. Shortly after his election as pres-ident, he visited her for the last time. Shehad the misfortune of living long enoughto endure the sorrow of his assassination.

The Lincoln family removed to Illinoisafter several less than prosperous years insouthern Indiana. After a few years in NewSalem, Lincoln decided that his fortunecould best be made in the new Illinois capi-tal, Springfield. He moved there in March1837 at the request of his friend and com-mander in the Black Hawk War, John ToddStuart.Also a transplanted Kentuckian, Stu-art was the cousin of Mary Todd of Lexing-ton. A graduate of Centre College, he sawpotential in Lincoln and encouraged him toread law, then asked him to become his lawpartner in Springfield. Later, he wouldintroduce him to his pretty cousin at a partyat the home of her sister, Elizabeth Edwards.

Springfield was a typical raw westerntown of some 1,500 inhabitants. It hadrecently wrested the state capital from Van-dalia, and so opportunity abounded. Be it

fate or luck, on the day of his arrival in townLincoln strode into a mercantile owned byJoshua Speed, originally of Louisville. Fiveyears Lincoln’s junior, Speed had gone toSpringfield in 1835, like many a child ofKentucky slave owners, to make his ownway. He was described as a well-educated,wealthy man with dark curly hair and an airof elegance. A lady’s man, some called him.

Lincoln entered to ask for credit to set uphousekeeping. As Speed later wrote, “Hehad ridden into town on a borrowed horsewith no earthly property save a pair of sad-dle-bags containing a few clothes . . . Lincolncame into the store with the saddle-bags onhis arm. He said he wanted to buy the furni-ture for a single bed.” Instead of lending himcredit, Speed suggested that Lincoln sharehis room and the large double bed above thestore. Speed continues,“He took the saddle-bags, went upstairs, set them on the floor,and came down with the most changedexpression of countenance. Beaming withpleasure, he explained, ‘Well Speed, I’mmoved.’” What convinced Speed to soquickly offer Lincoln a place to live andeventual friendship is an intriguing question.Whatever it was, it endured until Lincoln’sdeath. Lincoln seldom revealed himself toanyone, preferring to keep his own counsel,but he came closest to opening himself toSpeed. When Speed returned to Louisvilleat the death of his father, he invited Lincolnto visit his Kentucky home.

ON a sweltry day in August 1841,Lincoln got off a steamboat at thewharf and rode six miles through the

streets of Louisville to the Farmington plan-tation. He had accepted Speed’s invitation. Itwas a particularly difficult time for him. Hewas depressed because of his brokenengagement to Mary Todd and consideredhimself the most miserable man living. Hecalled his depression the hypo, and he suf-

fered many bouts of it, so it was a good timeto get away. For three weeks he was enter-tained in a grand manner. It was one of thehappiest times of his life, and he returned toSpringfield with good memories and in abetter frame of mind.

The entire Speed family was responsi-ble for that alteration. Biographer WilliamHerndon wrote, “The congenial associa-

tions of the Speed farm, the freedom fromunpleasant reminders, the company of hisstaunch friend and above all the motherlycare and delicate attention of Mrs. Speedexerted a marked influence over Lincoln.”He took long walks in the fields and hadgood conversations with Joshua. All aroundwas the bounty of Farmington—hemp,corn, wheat, apples, sheep—all tended byslaves. He made friends with Mary,Joshua’s half-sister, with whom he“romped.” He visited James, Joshua’sbrother, in his law office across from thenew courthouse. The two talked at lengthand years later Lincoln asked James toserve as his attorney general. Lucy Speedfed him peaches and cream, gave himmotherly attention, and put an OxfordBible in his hands when he departed.

Farmington was Lincoln’s firstopportunity to closely observe a slaveplantation. He would have preferredSpeed not own slaves, but he respected hisright to do so. Downtown, he must haveseen the slave pens where people were heldawaiting transfer down river. Indeed, thebondage of slavery was the last image Lin-coln carried away from Louisville. He andSpeed left on or about September seventh.Also aboard the boat to St. Louis wereslaves. In a letter to Mary Speed, Lincolndescribed their plight. “A gentleman hadpurchased twelve negroes in differentparts of Kentucky and was taking them toa farm in the South.They were chained sixand six together. A small iron clevis wasaround the left wrist of each, and this fas-tened to the main chain by a shorter one ata convenient distance from the others; sothat the negroes were strung together pre-cisely like so many fish upon a trout line.”Many years later Lincoln said that sighthad been a continual torment to him.

A little more than a year after returninghome, mutual friends brought him andMary back together.The two were wed onNovember 4, 1842. Mary had gone toSpringfield in the summer of 1839 toescape an intolerable home situation. Astubborn person, she could not abide herstepmother, who had called her a limb ofSatan. She decided to accept the invitationto stay with her sister, Elizabeth ToddEdwards, whose husband, Ninian, was agraduate of Transylvania law school. From

Lincoln was disturbed by the enthusiasm for slavery among a new generation of Kentuckians—

“thoughtless and giddy headed young men who looked upon work as vulgar and ungentlemanly.”

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the hill where the Edwards’ house over-looked the city, Mary spent the summerobserving the events of the town. It was tothat house that her cousin, John Todd Stu-art, brought Abraham Lincoln to meet herin 1839. She may have remembered hisname from her Kentucky days, for he waslisted in the Kentucky Reporter as a candi-date for the Illinois legislature in the sum-mer of 1832, and she too was a thoroughnewspaper reader.

Born to wealth and privilege onDecember 13, 1818, Mary was thedaughter of prominent LexingtoniansRobert Todd and Elizabeth Parker Todd.She received an excellent education atMadame Mentelle’s school on RichmondPike. Fluent in French and conversant incurrent affairs, she was the belle of Lex-ington, a position she also assumed inSpringfield. We do not know how manymen courted her, but given the high pro-portion of men to women in Springfield,it must have been many. Even Lincolnhad two earlier “loves,” both from Ken-tucky. Anne Rutledge died young, andMary Owen, from Green County, reject-ed him. But Mary Todd saw something inhim. His law partner and biographerWilliam Herndon said it was “position insociety, prominence in the world, and thegreatest social distinction.” By 1840,friendship had turned into courtship withthe understanding that they might marry.

Elizabeth warned Mary that she andLincoln were not compatible. In his earlythirties and a rising politician, Lincolnremained in some ways an awkwardfarmer’s son. To the Edwardses and eventhe casual observer, he seemed to sharewith the aristocratic Mary little besides aKentucky birthplace. “Mr. Edwards andmyself,” said Elizabeth, “believed theywere different in nature, and educationand raising. They had no feeling alike.They are so different that they could notlive happily as man and wife.” After all,she was a Todd of Lexington and fewbeaus would have been good enough. AsLincoln humorously observed, theyspelled their name with two “d”s, onemore than even God needed. But bothloved poetry and were interested in poli-tics. Mary saw his great potential and solove prevailed. Their marriage lasted for

twenty-two years. Marriage, said Lincoln,is neither heaven nor hell, but purgatory.Whatever it was, the two made accom-modations and relied upon one another,neither being easy to live with. He was agood husband in his own peculiar way,and in his way only.They had four sons—Edward, Robert,William and Thomas.

IN September 1876 Mary, accompaniedby her grand nephew Lewis Baker,returned to Lexington. She had been

away from Fayette County for twenty-fiveyears and much had changed. Several ofthe family places had disappeared, but sheshowed him Transylvania, and a short wayaway Grandma Parker’s home on ShortStreet, and the decaying brick mansion ofher grandfather on the Richmond Pike.She noticed that the Todds and Parkershad nearly disappeared from the citydirectory. They found them in LexingtonCemetery. Slightly behind the graves andovershadowing them was the tall obeliskdedicated to Henry Clay. Here were twoparts of Lincoln’s Kentucky connection inclose proximity—his wife’s family and hispolitical mentor. From Lexington theywent on to Mammoth Cave, a wonderknown by every American of that time. Ontheir way back to Lexington, they passedclose to Hodgenville and the Knob Creekfarm. Historian Jean Baker speculates theymay have stopped there.

It was to Lexington that Mary hadtaken her husband to meet her family andsee Henry Clay. Their first visit came inOctober 1847 on the way to Washington,where Lincoln was to serve in the Houseof Representatives. In Congress, Hern-don said, he would find many men whopossessed twice the good looks and nothalf the good sense. Lincoln returned toLexington twice more—in 1849 at thedeath of Mary’s father, and in 1850 at thedeath of Grandma Parker, to settle herestate. In 1847, they were warmly wel-comed to the Todd home on West MainStreet. For Lincoln, it was a three-weekvacation. He visited relatives, read news-papers, swapped stories at Cheapside,and talked politics around the courthouse. Mary may have taken him to seeHenry Clay at his Ashland estate,although there is no hard evidence to

substantiate the meeting. He did hearClay speak at the Lower Market Houseon Water Street. Clay took the opportuni-ty to criticize the Mexican War and sup-port the gradual emancipation and colo-nization of slaves in Africa. Lincoln wasimpressed by what he heard, but by thenhe was already a Whig partisan.

By 1842, Illinoisans recognized Lin-coln as one of the rising stars of the Whigparty. Like many in that party, HenryClay was his political mentor. Lincolnhad broken with Andrew Jackson over theidea that government should be divorcedfrom economic enterprise. Lincoln said,“The legitimate object of government isto do for a community of people whatev-er they need to have done, but cannot doso well, for themselves, in their separateand individual capacities.” He soonincluded that to mean Henry Clay’sAmerican System. The system’s threebasic principles were a national bank, aprotective tariff, and internal improve-ments financed by the federal govern-ment. To Lincoln, Illinois and the Westneeded such economic aid to develop.Indeed, while Mary may have thought ofhim as a president, he likened himself toDeWitt Clinton, the New York governorwho built the Erie Canal.

Mary Todd Lincoln about four yearsafter her 1842 marriage to AbrahamLincoln.The daughter of a prominentLexington family, she was well-educat-ed and, like her husband, ambitious.

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Clay stood for more than economicdevelopment. For Clay and his colleagueDaniel Webster, nothing was more impor-tant than the Union. Lincoln saw in themthe hope for the future. If a slave-holdingSoutherner like Clay could agree with aNew England descendant of the Pilgrimssuch as Webster, then anything was possi-ble. While the Union is something we takefor granted, it was, as historian Paul Nagelpointed out, an idea that was forced toprove itself in time and then only througharmed conflict. For Clay,Webster, and iron-ically Jackson, the Union simply had to bepreserved. For Jefferson Davis and theSouth, who found their mentor in John C.Calhoun, it was something dear but not asdear as liberty and honor. The South didnot know how well Lincoln had learned thelessons of nationalism from Clay. It was thatignorance that would in time spell its defeat.One might say that it was the metal ofUnion, bequeathed by Clay to his fellowKentuckian, that, when combined with Lin-coln’s indomitable will, saved the Union.

KENTUCKY also taught Lincolnabout slavery. He had another chanceto observe it closely in Lexington.

Newspapers carried notices of slave sales,and he saw five sold at the courthouse door.

The slave jail of W.A. Pullum stood in plainview of Grandma Parker’s home. He lookedinto its yard and saw the whipping post. Hecould hear the cries someone called “thedeath knell of Kentucky liberty.” Lincolnhad an early dislike of slavery. It may havestarted at his father’s knee. His visits to Lex-ington gave him insights into the problem of

slavery that only personal contact and first-hand observation could provide. In 1849,while in Lexington, he took great interest inKentucky’s constitutional convention. Hehoped that Kentucky would take the oppor-tunity to end slavery. Robert Todd pushedfor it. It was not to be, and Lincoln was dis-turbed by the enthusiasm for slavery amonga new generation of Kentuckians. He calledthem “thoughtless and giddy headed youngmen who looked upon work as vulgar andungentlemanly.” One of them told him,“You might have any amount of land,

money in your pocket or bank stock andwhile traveling around nobody would be anywiser, but if you had a darkey trudging atyour heels everybody would see him andknow that you owned slaves.” Kentuckyreflected a callous indifference to the unhap-py and hopeless situation of slaves. TheKentucky experience convinced him slavery

must never be allowed to obtain the slightestfoothold in new territory because onceentrenched it seemed to thrive and flourishdespite opposition.

One wonders how many individualAfrican Americans Lincoln knew. Observa-tion rather than acquaintance, and belief inthe words of the Declaration of Indepen-dence, seemed to motivate his anti-slaverystance. The sight of slaves sold on the auc-tion blocks of New Orleans and Lexingtonand families separated under slavery’s terri-ble oppression had upon him the same neg-ative impact it had upon Harriet BeecherStowe. Kentucky also inspired this youngwoman to look askance at the peculiar insti-tution.The result was her book Uncle Tom’sCabin.That it helped to end slavery cannotbe doubted, hence Kentucky ironicallyplayed a pivotal role in its demise by influ-encing this remarkable woman. It is report-ed that when President Lincoln met her atthe White House he identified her as the lit-tle lady who started the great Civil War. Intruth, Lincoln did not blame the war onMrs. Stowe’s book, but he did think it a kindof awful retribution for the sin of slavery, asin he observed in Kentucky.

While serving in Congress Lincolntook pleasure in seeing another man withKentucky ties go to the White House. In1848, he supported Zachary Taylorrather than Henry Clay, saying “I go forhim, not because I think he would make abetter president than Clay, but because Ithink he would make a better one thanPolk, or Cass, or Buchanan, or any such

The Todd family home on West Main Street in Lexington.The Lincolns spent threeweeks here in 1847. Lincoln was on the way to Washington to take his seat in Congress.

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Henry Clay. It was that ignorance that would in time spell its defeat.

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creatures . . .”The tie that bound this freestate man and the Louisiana slave holderwas their resolute devotion to the Unionand their insistence on the containmentof slavery. Taylor was the only presidentto have lived in Kentucky a great manyyears. As historian Holman Hamiltonwrote,Taylor inherited a mixture of west-ern and southern attitudes from here, sothat he was both a slave holder and a loverof the Union. Taylor’s Unionist standanticipated the Lincoln position of 1861.After Taylor’s inauguration, Lincolnexpected to be named commissioner ofthe general land office, but his criticismof the Mexican War had not been popu-lar. He could have become the territorialgovernor of Oregon, but declined, sayingthat Mary would not permit him to moveso far. In truth, it would have placed himfar outside the mainstream of politicalhappenings that were rapidly cloudingthe future of the Union in the 1850s.

THE issue that then dominated politi-cal thinking was the expansion ofslavery into western territories. The

matter was exacerbated by the acquisitionof large amounts of territory from Mexicoin the 1848 Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo.In Congress, Lincoln supported theWilmot Proviso that would have preventedslavery in the Mexican cession. The issuewas resolved in the Compromise of 1850,much of it Clay’s work. The Compromiseadmitted California as a free state and cre-ated two new territories—Utah and NewMexico—with no stipulation on slavery.Lincoln held no office during the Compro-mise debates, but as a former congressmanhe must have followed them with greatinterest. He was probably pleased with thepeaceful outcome, but was later criticizedfor not denouncing the Fugitive Slave Law.The law was favored in Kentucky, whichwas losing slaves through the growingUnderground Railroad. When expansionraised its troublesome head again, Lincolnwould not be so passive.

In 1854, Lincoln’s political rival,Stephen Douglas, maneuvered throughCongress a bill that reopened the LouisianaPurchase above latitude 36 degrees 30 min-utes to settlement and allowed the settlers ofKansas and Nebraska to decide for them-

selves whether to permit slave holding inthose territories. This position Douglascalled popular sovereignty. The reactionwas both swift and ominous. It was greatlyopposed in Illinois and gave rise in theNorth to the Republican Party. Lincoln feltit expanded slavery so that it might notgradually disappear, as he hoped it would.Therefore, Lincoln reentered the politicalarena. He joined the Republican Party in1856 and sought to become its leader in Illi-nois and the mid-West. It was this issue thatdominated the Lincoln-Douglas debates of1858. Lincoln insisted that Congress couldand must exclude slavery from the territo-ries. During these debates he made hisfamous house divided statement—“Ahouse divided against itself cannot stand. Ibelieve the government cannot endure per-manently half-slave and half-free.” Lincolnlost the senatorial election but gainednational recognition.

Abraham and Mary Lincoln wantedto be president and first lady. Even beforehe met Mary, Lincoln was politically ambi-

tious. He was elected four times to the Illi-nois State Legislature from 1834 to 1840,and held this relatively high position whenElizabeth Edwards felt he was not goodenough for her sister.This tells us the elec-torate saw something in the young Lincoln,and so did Mary. While she did not givehim his political ambition, she certainlymade him realize his potential to go higher.Behind this successful man was a veryambitious woman. Lincoln often toldfriends that his wife expected him to bepresident, an expectation that amused himonly until November 7, 1860. When theRepublican delegates who gathered inChicago at the Wigwam auditorium nomi-nated him on the third ballot, both Lin-colns were delighted. The party’s platformtells much about its prevailing philosophy.

Though there is no proof they evermet, Kentucky statesman Henry Claywas the biggest political influence inLincoln’s life. More than thirty yearsolder than Lincoln, Clay died in 1852.(Portrait by Matthew Jouett, c. 1819)

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Taking a lesson from its defeat in 1856, theparty tried to offer something to everyone,although the important part was thepreservation of the Union, a stand Lincolncould easily support.

Another Kentuckian now crossedLincoln’s path—John C. Breckinridge,the vice president of the United States.When the Democratic Party dividedover the issue of slavery, Breckinridgebecame the presidential candidate of theSouthern Democrats. Four men vied forthe presidency that year—Lincoln,Breckinridge, Stephen Douglas, thenorthern Democrat, and John Bell of theConstitutional Union Party. Lincoln gotvery few votes from Kentucky, and evenBreckinridge did not do as well asexpected. Kentucky, concerned aboutthe prospect of war, sought a presidentwho would bring reconciliation of the

sections and so supportedBell. Lincoln won only a plu-rality of the national popularvote, but by carrying theelectoral-vote-rich states ofthe East and mid-West hebecame president.

THE period between hiselection and his inaugu-ration on March 4,

1861, was one of great uncer-tainty and crisis. PresidentJames Buchanan was sur-rounded by traitors and, as alame duck, nearly powerless.Lincoln remained in Spring-field and refused to commenton the darkening events. Inhis own mind, he was alreadyon record and any statementmight be misconstrued. Thehistorian Alan Nevins criti-cized Lincoln for indecisive-ness. Circumstances were sounusual that he needed toprovide direction for the

nation. In February, seven southern statesformed the Confederates States of Amer-ica. Jefferson Davis had pleaded with hisfellow southerners to wait and see whatLincoln would do. When they did notheed his message, he accepted the presi-dency. On March 4, 1861, the countryhad two native Kentuckians in two exec-utive mansions.

Davis was born less than a year beforeLincoln and not many miles away inChristian (now Todd) County. Theyoungest of five sons and five daughters,he was the son of Samuel Lemory andJane Cook Davis. Davis was here only twoyears before his father moved the family toLouisiana and then to Mississippi. Butyoung Jefferson was sent back to Ken-tucky for his education at St.Thomas Col-lege of St. Rose Priory, a school operatedby the Dominican Order in Springfield,and Transylvania College in Lexington.He withdrew from the latter to go to WestPoint. Davis’s ties to Kentucky werestrengthened when he married SarahKnox Taylor, the daughter of ColonelZachary Taylor, at Springfields, theColonel’s home near Louisville. Three

months later Sarah died of malaria. UnlikeLincoln and Taylor, who took many west-ern values from Kentucky, Davis took val-ues that were more southern. For him,slavery was a principal to be defendedeven if it meant separation of the Union.

Bidding farewell to the citizens ofSpringfield, Lincoln made his way slowly,by a circuitous route, to Washington.When he spoke at Cincinnati, he wantedto cross the Ohio River and speak in Cov-ington also, but better judgment pre-vailed. To do so might have invited alynching. He had seen the electionreturns. Newspapers in Kentucky saw theelection as placing abolition in ascendan-cy. Secession was his fault, for the elec-tion of a “black Republican” was incom-patible with the maintenance of theUnion. Still, Lincoln tried to reassure res-idents of Kentucky and the South thatthey had nothing to fear and that hewould respect slavery as guaranteed bythe Constitution. Had he crossed intoKentucky, he was prepared to remind hisaudience that “I too am a Kentuckian.”

Lincoln made the same assurances inhis inaugural address on a cold March day.Present at the speech was a young Henry

Lincoln in 1860. Later that year, at thesuggestion of an eleven-year-old girlfrom Westfield, New York, he grew abeard—and was elected president of the United States.

Jefferson Davis, president of the Confed-eracy, was, like Lincoln, born in Ken-tucky. But Davis’s family headed south,and he developed a view of the worldvery different from his rival’s.

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Watterson, who would later edit the Courier-Journal. If we are to believe his autobiogra-phy, he got so close to the president that helifted his hand to take Lincoln’s hat, butDouglas reached over and took it.Wattersoncommented upon Lincoln’s black suit andtie and the walking stick he carried.To him,he looked self-possessed and dignified. Hiswords were resolute and firm, having madeup his mind as to his constitutional duty. Hisvoice was a little high-pitched and resonantand reached the outer fringes of the crowd.His expression was serious to the point ofgravity, with not a scintilla of humor. Hern-don said Lincoln was the most serious manhe had ever met, and the crisis of the Unionfitted his personality.

THE Civil War began on April 12,1861, at Fort Sumter in Charlestonharbor.The fort was commanded by

Major Robert Anderson, a Kentuckianloyal to the Union. Lincoln knew himbecause he had sworn Anderson into themilitary in the Black Hawk War. More thanthat, he fully trusted his actions. After hissurrender, Anderson was ordered toCincinnati, where he enlisted Kentuckytroops into the Union army. Recruits werediverted there because Kentucky haddeclared neutrality and Lincoln promisedto respect its position. On September 3,General Gideon Pillow’s Confederatetroops occupied Columbus, promptingGeneral Ulysses S. Grant to take Paducah.With Kentucky’s short-lived, and impossi-ble, policy of neutrality shattered, Lincolnmoved to see that the state did not fall intoConfederate hands. He knew its impor-tance and said, “I think to lose Kentucky isnearly the same as to lose the whole game.Kentucky gone we cannot hold Missouri,nor I think Maryland.” Kentucky meantcommand of the Ohio River, vital as acommercial and military artery and a lineof defense. It contained vast resources anda vital transportation link in the Louisville& Nashville Railroad. Indeed, he gave somuch attention to Kentucky that a frus-trated Stephen Douglas said, “We paymore attention to the advice of the half-rebel state of Kentucky than to any sug-gestion coming from the loyal North.”Thegenius of Lincoln is that he knew he hadno other choice.

One of the military maxims of Fred-erick the Great was “Know the man youare fighting.” Lincoln knew who he wasfighting in Kentucky. Thanks to theTodd family he had a good sense ofupper class opinions here. He was notwithout his supporters, who advised himon matters relative to the Common-wealth. Joshua Speed was one. CassiusClay, a vocal advocate of emancipation,was another—Lincoln made him ambas-sador to Russia. From his visits hereLincoln knew Kentucky’s former Whigleaders and the strength of their com-mitment to the Union. He had readKentucky newspapers from the time hewas a resident of New Salem. George

Prentice’s Louisville Journal was one ofhis favorites because it was an organ ofthe Whig party. It was sent to Sam Hill’sstore, where transplanted Kentuckiansread it. He read the Lexington Observer.“The Observer has been coming to ourhome ever since Mary and I were mar-ried and I reckon there is no betterweather-cock for Kentucky politics justnow,” he said. It worked. As much asanything, Lincoln must be given thecredit for keeping Kentucky in theUnion. Like a delicate barometer, herecorded the trends of pressure in theCommonwealth. His policy was to pro-tect slavery here as long as necessary,and do whatever else was needed. Timeand again he listened with deference,and often grievances were righted.WhenJohn C. Frémont moved to free theslaves of Missouri, Lincoln counter-manded the order and reassured Ken-tuckians. But in time he found both theopportunity to emancipate the slavesand the general to give him victories. Intime, the superior war machine of the

North wore down the South. In time,Lincoln offered himself as the final casu-alty of that bloody conflict.

Lincoln never expected any favorsfrom Kentucky just because of his ties. Heknew his emancipation principles madehim unpopular. Offers to compensateKentucky slave owners if they gave up theirproperty were spurned on more than oneoccasion.That disappointed him. Once thewar came, Lincoln had to make decisionsthat made him unpopular in Fort Wayne aswell as Savannah. Copperheads deridedhim in the North. He was disliked for hisenlistment of black troops and his suspen-sion of habeas corpus. Kentucky GovernorThomas Bramblette continually fired off

complaints about the actions of militarygovernors who appeared to be arbitraryand insensitive to civilian rule. With thegradual impoverishment of all classes ofpeople, the growing stagnation of business,and mounting mortality, the state’s news-papers turned against him. News itemswere distorted and editorials were partisanand contemptuous. Even Union newspa-pers attacked him.When he ran for reelec-tion, Kentucky overwhelmingly supportedhis Democrat opponent, George McClel-lan. In no loyal state was there so muchpersonal abuse—he was unmercifullymaligned, ridiculed, and persecuted. Inspite of all that, he continued to regardKentucky with a high degree of affection,and its people came to feel the same way,though only years after his assassination.

THE first news of his death was car-ried in a Louisville newspaper, whichmerely reported that he had been

shot and had died.With the official news aveil of sorrow fell on the city, the one placein Kentucky where he would be mourned.

In no loyal state was there so much personal abuse—he was unmercifully maligned, ridiculed,

and persecuted. In spite of all that, he continued to regard Kentucky with a high degree of affection.


There was a look of solemnity stampedupon almost every face. A service was heldat the Jefferson County courthouse onApril 18. Governor Bramblette came tospeak. The man who had made Lincoln’slife so difficult during the war offered amea culpa that in later decades resonatedwell with Kentuckians. “We may have dif-fered with him, and have differed withhim, but when the judgment of futureevents has come, we find we were differingblindly; that he was right and we werewrong,” Bramblette said. “Standing as wedid in local positions, surrounded as wewere by local prejudices, he occupied anelevated stand-point and viewed the wholepolitical surroundings of the country,grasping with massive intellect the logic ofevents . . .” And Prentice wrote, “It was theold saying of Martin Luther that ‘Godburied his workmen, but their work goeson.’” Newspapers pledged their support tothe new president, Andrew Johnson.

Governor Bramblette and otherKentuckians attended the funeral inSpringfield. The Frankfort Common-wealth said it was fitting that at the graveKentucky should bear testimony to thenation’s great loss and that she shouldthere renew her fealty to the old Union

in the presence of the sacred dust of himwho proved its savior. Henry WardBeecher, brother of Harriet BeecherStowe, conducted the services and said,“Four years ago, O Illinois, we took fromyour midst an untried man and fromamong the people.We return him to youa mighty conqueror. Not thine anymore, but the nation’s, not ours, but theworld’s. Give him place, Oh ye prairies.In the midst of this great continent hisdust shall rest, a sacred treasure to myr-iads who shall pilgrim to the shrine tokindle anew zeal and patriotism.”

Listening to these words was WilliamHerndon, Lincoln’s law partner. In 1891,Herndon was to be buried in the same OakRidge Cemetery. Herndon was fromGreen County, Kentucky. He was Lin-coln’s third law partner. The two earlierpartners were also from Kentucky, bothcousins of Mary Todd.The first, John ToddStuart, was followed by Stephen Logan.After three years, Logan withdrew andLincoln turned to their young clerk, Hern-don. Herndon stocked their office withgood books. He preceded Lincoln into theRepublican Party.The legal research he didallowed Lincoln to travel the circuit, engageactively in politics, and go to Congress. Heeven endured the antics of the Lincolnboys when they visited the office, a greattest of patience. During the war, he becameLincoln’s eyes and ears in Springfield, allthe time waiting until his friend returned totake up their practice, as Lincoln hadinstructed him to do.When it was not to be,Herndon mourned his friend and decidedto write about him. His love for Lincolnwas equaled by his dislike for Mary, whomhe called a “she-wolf” and a “wild-cat.”She returned the compliment and wouldnot permit him to visit the family’s quartersat the White House.

Immediately after Lincoln’s death,Herndon began to gather information fora biography. It would not be publisheduntil 1889. By then, many Americans hadno memory of Abraham Lincoln.To edu-cate them, Herndon published his biogra-phy of “a great life based upon personalrecollection.” He traveled extensively andconducted interviews with many whoremembered the fallen president in Ken-tucky and elsewhere. Regardless of whathe thought of Mary, this pioneer biogra-phy was the beginning of the seriousstudy of our sixteenth president. Biogra-

pher Benjamin P.Thomas said that Hern-don’s Lincoln: The True Story of a GreatLife was controversial, but to Herndon“more than to any other writer, we oweour knowledge of Lincoln the man—howhe looked and walked, his love of fun, hismelancholy, the way he thought, his per-sonal habits and idiosyncrasies.” In theensuing years, thousand of books havebeen published. None of them quite cap-ture the intimate feelings Herndon hadfor his friend who came “from a stagnantputrid pool like the gas which set on fireby its own energy and self-combustiblenature rises in jets blazing clear andbright.”That life will blaze forth in a newcascade of books to be published duringthe bicentennial celebration of the birthof Abraham Lincoln. They will note hisKentucky birth and ties, for no claimshall come before the mother. ●

John E. Kleber is a professor emeritus of historyfrom Morehead State University and a SeniorFellow at the McConnell Center at the Universityof Louisville. He is the editor in chief of The Kentucky Encyclopedia and The Encyclopedia of Louisville.

Lincoln came “from a stagnant putrid pool like the gas which set on fire by its own energy and

self-combustible nature rises in jets blazing clear and bright.”

William H. Herndon was Lincoln’s lawpartner, biographer and fellow Ken-tuckian (a native of Green County). Nosubsequent biographer has equaled hisunderstanding of Lincoln the man.


These are the two principles that have stoodface to face from the beginning of time andwill ever continue to struggle.The one is thecommon right of humanity, the other thedivine right of kings. It is the same princi-ple in whatever shape it develops itself. It isthe same spirit that says,“You work andtoil and earn bread, and I eat it.” No mat-ter what shape it comes, whether from themouth of a king who seeks to bestride thepeople of his own nation and live by thefruit of their labor, or from one race of menas an apology for enslaving another race, itis the same tyrannical principle…

Abraham Lincoln, 1858

AT the northwest corner ofFourth and Main streets indowntown Louisville, there isa bronze historical markerentitled “Kentucky Fugitives

to Canada.” It describes the remarkableadventures of runaway slaves Thorntonand Lucie Blackburn.There is a matchingmarker dedicated to the Blackburns indowntown Toronto, for the couple’s dar-ing flight to freedom in 1831 made histo-ry on both sides of the long border theUnited States shares with Canada. In afew sentences, both plaques recount howthe couple’s 1833 recapture by Kentuckyslave catchers in Michigan resulted inDetroit’s first racial riot. The Blackburns’

subsequent escape across the river towhat is now Windsor, Ontario, led to alandmark extradition case that estab-lished Canada as the main terminus ofthe fabled Underground Railroad.

Despite its international significance,the Blackburn story had been long for-gotten. Neither Lucie nor Thorntoncould read or write, and they had no chil-

dren.What little remained of the materialevidence for their lives had lain buried forgenerations. Then, in the summer of1985, archaeologists digging under the

BY KAROLYN SMARDZ FROST

When they fled slavery in Kentucky in 1831, Thornton and Lucie Blackburnjust wanted to be together and free. They became two of the most

important refugees in the history of the Underground Railroad.

Flight to FreedomThe Blackburns’ Great Escape

The back side of a marker telling theamazing story of Lucie and ThorntonBlackburn.The sign is at Fourth andMain in downtown Louisville.

Charles T

hompson


asphalt of a Toronto schoolyard broughtto light the remains of a narrow framehouse, a barn and a mysterious cellar.Thefirst owner of that property was listed as“Thornton Blackburn, cabman, colored.”He had occupied the land from 1834until the 1890s. An 1888 newspaper arti-cle credited Mr. Blackburn and his wifewith starting Toronto’s first taxi business.An earlier article identified the couple aswell-to-do philanthropists devoted to thecause of assisting fugitive slaves, whoarrived in Canada’s largest city in increas-ing numbers in the years before the CivilWar. The refugees’ plight inspired anti-slavery feeling on the part of the popu-lace, white and black, as well as deep con-cern for their welfare.

THE tale of the Blackburn family’sexperiences in slavery and freedomspans some 120 years. Thornton’s

young mother, Sibby Blackburn, was bornnear Manassas,Virginia, in 1776, on a farmowned by George Washington’s friend,Colonel Thomas Blackburn. Sibby was oneof the tens of thousands of enslaved AfricanAmericans carried into the newly openedlands west of the Alleghenies in the years fol-lowing the American Revolution. In 1792,her third owner, William Smith, brought anentourage of more than 100 people—hisown extended family and their slaves—out ofVirginia to claim his bounty lands in Mason

County, Kentucky.The Smiths would residein a home built for them at the gracious littlevillage of Washington, high on the tall lime-stone cliff that forms so impressive a back-drop to the river port of Maysville.

William Smith sent his teenaged son,Robert, to supervise Sibby Blackburnand his other field hands in clearing hisfarm.This lay a few miles distant, border-ing the Clark’s Run Road that led to Ger-mantown. There the bondspeople began

the laborious process of cutting down theforest and pulling the stumps so that thefields of their owner could be plantedwith his first Kentucky crops.

Sibby added to her owner’s wealththree times over the next few years. Shebore three sons. Her first, John, died as atoddler. Her second,Alfred, was taken awaywhen he was but 11 years old, sold to a fam-ily in Washington (Kentucky) to be trainedas a stonemason.When her third baby, littleThornton, was born, Sibby must have beenterrified. She had lost two sons, and she wasagain a mother.

Sibby Blackburn’s plight was espe-cially poignant. Whenever she traveled totown to market her master’s produce orcarry a message, she could stand at thetop of the Maysville Hill, high above theOhio River, and gaze across those placidgreen waters to the free soil on the otherside.Yet she had just given birth to a childdestined to be a slave. Henry Bibb, a run-away slave from Kentucky who wouldone day publish Canada’s first black abo-

litionist newspaper, the Voice of the Fugi-tive, wrote:

Sometimes standing on the Ohio Riverbluff, looking over on a free State, andas far north as my eyes could see, I haveeagerly gazed upon the blue sky of thefree North . . . and I thought of the fish-es of the water, the fowls of the air, thewild beasts of the forest, all appeared tobe free, to go just where they pleased,and I was an unhappy slave!

Sibby’s fears were realized, for heryoungest child was sold on June 17, 1815, toan elderly man named George Morton. Hewanted a living present for his nine-year-oldgrandson and namesake, one that wouldappreciate over time as his tiny slave grewolder. Thornton, only three years old, wastaken away from his grieving mother inMaysville and sent to live in Washington.There he resided in the household ofWilliam Murphy, the local postmaster andlater president of the Maysville Jockey Club.Murphy’s elegant brick house is still stand-ing, magnificently restored, its parlourgraced by the original portrait of the dourman who oversaw Thornton Blackburn’schildhood training.

Sibby’s fears were realized, for her youngest child was sold on June 17, 1815, to an elderly man

named George Morton. He wanted a living present for his 9-year-old grandson and namesake.

At the age of three,Thornton Blackburnwas sold and taken to live in this housein Washington, Kentucky, a few milesfrom Maysville.

Karolyn S

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Thornton was brought up as ahouse servant and a coachman, a skillthat would stand him in good stead inlater life. He also gained some experi-ence in stonemasonry when he wasapprenticed alongside his brother,Alfred.Washington was noted for its finelocal stone and the imposing WashingtonCourthouse was just a few doors awayfrom the Murphy home where Thorntonlived. One day a visitor to the townwould make its courthouse international-ly famous, for it was here that a youngCincinnati-based schoolteacher wouldwitness her first slave auction.Years later,

Harriet Beecher Stowe set her slave salescene on the courthouse steps at Wash-ington in her bestselling antislaverynovel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

BUT Thornton Blackburn was notthere when Stowe visited in 1833,for at the age of fourteen he left the

Maysville area forever. He next appears agood 200 miles west of Maysville inHardinsburg, Kentucky, the county seatof Breckinridge County, as the propertyof Dr. Gideon Brown and his wife, SusanTalbot Brown. He may have come westwith a migrating family, or been “solddown the river” to a slave dealer whointended him for the lucrative NewOrleans market. Flatboats carrying slaves

south often stopped at Stephensport, atiny river port sixteen miles fromHardinsburg. Dr. Brown may have madethe journey to Stephensport looking for alikely lad who had a way with horses, andcome home with Thornton.

Dr. Brown’s family was from CulpeperCounty,Virginia, and had settled some yearsearlier on the Rolling Fork of the Salt Riverin Nelson County. Although a prominentprofessional man, he was of modest means,but had married very well. His wife’s fatherwas the successful construction magnateand tavern owner, Clayton Talbot ofNashville. The Talbots were early pioneers

of Fort Nash and Clayton was a one-timeresident of Russellville, Kentucky. Earlydocuments show that his Russellville homeserved as the Logan County courthouse,where documents were authenticated bybeing signed “on Clayton Talbot’s billiardtable.” One of the attorneys who tried casesthere was the bold young Andrew Jackson.

Pretty Susan Talbot met her dashingphysician husband in 1812 while on a visitto her sister, Melinda, at Hardinsburg.Melinda Talbot was wife to John Pope Old-ham, son of William Oldham, after whomOldham County is named. The Oldhamswere intermarried with some of the mostillustrious families in the state. John PopeOldham’s mother had been widowed earlyand taken as her second husband Henry

Churchill of the noted Louisville family.Abigail Oldham, John Pope Oldham’s sis-ter, later married Henry’s youngest broth-er, Samuel Churchill, thereby hopelesslycomplicating the family tree. TheChurchills’ passion for horseracing waslegendary. One of their descendants estab-lished a racecourse on the family estate thatforever commemorates their name—Churchill Downs.

Thornton Blackburn lived with Susanand Gideon Brown and their five other slavesat Hardinsburg from 1825 to 1827. Thetown has more than a glancing connectionwith Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was born innearby LaRue County (then Hardin), buthis mother’s parents, the Hanks, had land atHardinsburg and were associated with theOldhams in business dealings while theylived in the town. But in 1816, Abraham’sfather moved the family to Indiana and laterto Illinois.The president would in later yearssay that it was partly because of Kentucky’slegendary land disputes and “partly onaccount of slavery” that they left the state.The Lincolns passed through Hardinsburgon their way, and therein lies a tale that wasrecounted by local landowner David MurrayJr., who heard the story from his father:

When the Lincoln family moved fromHodgenville, they came throughHardinsburg on their way to their land-grant in Indiana . . . Lincoln was driv-ing two large oxen hitched to a cart orwagon, and a cow was hitched to thehind end of the wagon. On account ofthe unusual size of the oxen, a crowdsoon gathered to find out who thesepeople were and where they weregoing.The outfit consisted of ThomasLincoln with his family, his wife, adaughter, and a small boy about sevenyears old; some household furnishingssuch as bedding and cooking utensils; acow he was taking along for milk, butlooked as if she was about dry, and theteam of oxen. Old Minerva, a Coloredslave, who had been attracted to thescene, seeing the condition of the chil-dren, went back into the house andcame back immediately with a plateheaped with slices of home-madebread covered with butter, a pitcher ofmilk, and some cups. She seated the


children on the steps . . . and fed them.When they left Hardinsburg, theydrove to Cloverport to get across theriver. In those days there were no ferryboats, and passengers, whenever anycame along, were sent across in acanoe.When the Lincolns reached theferry, a raft was made, with the assis-tance of several people, and the wagonplaced upon it. With one man in thecanoe to pull and one man on the rearof the raft to push with a long pole (theriver was low at the time), the Lincolnswere ferried across to the Indiana shoreand landed.Then they came back, andthe two oxen and the cow were madeto swim over.”

In later years her master, ColonelDavid R. Murray, would often laughinglyremind Aunt Minerva of her kindness toa little boy who carried the big name of“Abraham Linkhorne.”

Thornton Blackburn would haveknown kindly Minerva, but his time inHardinsburg was destined to be short.When Thornton was seventeen, Dr. Brownand two of his children died of a sudden ill-ness. Susan Talbot Brown had land andhorses but little money, and she was left

with five minor children.Thedoctor’s will ordered that hisslaves be hired out to pay forhis children’s education.Susan’s brother-in-law, JohnPope Oldham, now a judgeand the postmaster atLouisville, carried youngThornton off to the city towork as a porter at Wurts andReinhard’s dry goods store.This emporium stood at thecorner of Fourth and Mainstreets in the heart ofLouisville’s mercantile dis-trict, not far from where thecommemorative plaque tothe Blackburns now stands.Susan Brown was paid $110per year for her slave’s servic-es. Thornton received cloth-ing, food, and medical care aspart of the contract betweenthe dry goods company andJohn Pope Oldham as super-

intendent of Dr. Brown’s estate. Mrs.Brown saved the cost of the young man’supkeep, avoided the chore of supervisinghim, and turned a tidy profit on his labor.

TWO years after Thornton moved toLouisville his life took a dramatic andvery happy turn. He fell in love.

Thornton must have been very charmingand personable, for the object of his affec-tions was a lovely young woman who wasborn in the West Indies and had come toKentucky via New Orleans. Ruthie, whowould in later years change her name toLucie, was a nursemaid to a local mer-chant’s family. She was 28 years old.Thornton Blackburn was only 19, but hewooed her, and won her, and beganspending his Saturday nights at the GreenStreet home of Mrs. Blackburn’s owners,George and Charlotte Backus. But theyoung couple’s joy was to be short-lived.

In May of 1831, just months afterRuthie found her Thornton, both Georgeand Charlotte Backus died. Their estatewas found to be completely bankrupt.The couple’s only possession of real valuewas their pretty nursemaid. And so Mrs.Blackburn was put up on the block in theparlor of the very house where she had

served and sold off to the highest bidder.Her purchaser was a local dry goods mer-chant named Virgil McKnight.

Virgil McKnight was destined tobecome a highly respected man. As thepresident of the Bank of Kentucky, hewas credited with saving the bank’s repu-tation and honoring its debts after theCrash of 1837. But in earlier years heparticipated in the highly varied trade inmerchandise, land and livestock that wascharacteristic of Louisville wholesalers inthe early part of the 19th century. Hiscommercial dealings suggest that he notonly bought and sold slaves on occasion,but also gathered up coffles of “likely”looking men, women and children.Thesehe sent by boat down the Ohio River tothe Mississippi where they would beresold at a profit in the great slave mar-kets of the Cotton Kingdom at Natchez-Under-the-Hill and at New Orleans.

The most valuable of all Kentucky’sslaves were beautiful women like Mrs.Blackburn. A striking painting from the1850s entitled the Slave Market shows alovely girl being auctioned off at the“fancy girl” sales in New Orleans. Abra-ham Lincoln’s law partner and biogra-pher,William H. Herndon, cited an occa-sion when Lincoln, on a trip to NewOrleans in May of 1831, witnessed theintimate examination of a beautiful youngwoman by potential purchasers at a slavesale. This was just two months before

An inventory of Dr. Gideon Brown’s assets, madeafter his death in 1829.Thornton Blackburn was the first asset on the list, valued at $400.

The Blackburns feared Ruthie’s newowner, Louisville businessman VirgilMcKnight, would sell her down the river.

Filson H

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Ruthie Blackburn could have expected toshare her fate. The staunchly abolitionistHerndon attributed Lincoln’s later oppo-sition to slavery to his utter revulsion atthis experience.

Thornton had lost his brother to aslave sale. He had been torn from his moth-er’s arms at the age of three in a similartransaction. Now a young man, he couldnot bear to see his own wife carried offdown the Ohio River to the auction roomsof the Deep South. He knew, as did she,that it was her very beauty that most

endangered her. In the fancy girl marketsshe would be sold as a rich man’s mistress,or worse, a brothel keeper’s wares. Justeleven days after her sale, Thornton tookhis wife north in search of freedom.

ON the morning of July 3, 1831,Thornton and his wife set forthon the most perilous of journeys.

They were dressed in their finest clothingand armed with nothing more than a set

of well-forged manumission papers and abold and confident manner. Leavingfrom the docks at the top of Third Street,where Thornton was a familiar figure dueto his employment in the district, theBlackburns boarded a ferry to take themacross the river to Jeffersonville, Indiana.From the Indiana shore they hailed asteamboat.They convinced the captain ofthe Versailles, a packet boat plying theLouisville-Cincinnati mail route, thatthey were free people. After paying theirfare, the couple traveled for a night and a

day all the way north to the Queen City ofthe West. There are coincidences in theBlackburn tale that could not be invented:the Versailles, bearing the Blackburns,landed on free soil in front of what is nowthe National Underground RailroadFreedom Center at Cincinnati on the glo-rious Fourth of July, 1831.

The Blackburns’ flight from Ken-tucky was quickly discovered, but it was along weekend and the next steamboat out

of the Port of Louisville was not sailinguntil Tuesday, July 5. By the time itreached Cincinnati bearing John PopeOldham’s eldest son, William, the Black-burns were long gone. He arrived inCincinnati to discover a trail grown cold.Assuming the Blackburns were well awayin Canada, William returned home toreport to his father and to Mrs. Black-burn’s new owner, Virgil McKnight, thattheir slaves had successfully escaped. Thecaptain and owners of the Versailles wouldbe prosecuted by Oldham and McKnightfor their part in the Blackburns’ escape.The court case lasted more than 15 years.

But Thornton had not taken his wifeto Canada. Voyaging by stagecoachnorthwards through Ohio, the Black-burns made their way from Cincinnati toSandusky and then to the city of Detroit,on the far northwestern boundaries of theTerritory of Michigan. There, amidstfriends, the young couple settled down toa life in freedom.

As did many fugitive slaves, Thorn-ton earned his living as a free man usingskills he had acquired in bondage. InDetroit he worked as a stonemason,

It was her very beauty that most endangered her.In the fancy girl markets she would be sold as a rich man’s mistress, or worse, a brothel keeper’s wares.

The Slave Market, an American painting from the 1850s, vividly portrays a “fancy girl” on the auctionblock in New Orleans.

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quite a well-paid position and one ingreat demand in his new home, whichhad recently experienced a huge fire andwas in the process of rebuilding. Detroitwas a raw and blustery place, the mostdistant fur trading outpost of France’sfar-flung Canadian empire. Occupied bythe British after 1760, the town and itsstrategically placed fortifications on theDetroit River had finally been handedover to the Americans in 1796 under theterms of Jay’s Treaty. There were aboutsixty black families in Detroit when theBlackburns lived there. Most weredescendants of formerly enslaved peopleonce claimed by Native American,French and British owners. More recentarrivals included Kentucky-born freed-man Benjamin Willoughby and his wifefrom Falmouth, Kentucky; CarolineFrench and her husband, George, whohad been brought up near Thorntonsouth of Maysville; and the Virginia-born Madison Lightfoot and his wife,

Tabitha. Together, they formed thenucleus of black society in Detroit.

Thornton’s wages enabled him andhis bride to live in relative comfort intheir new hometown. This was the firsttime that he and Ruthie could live togeth-er as man and wife. Surely they foundtheir time in Detroit very sweet. Theyoung couple was now secure in the

knowledge that oneor the other of themwould not be solddown the river.Theycould live off thefruits of their ownlabor, with no all-powerful master tocollect Thornton’swages or “interfere”with his wife.

But the long armof the Fugitive SlaveLaw was reaching outfor them. Two yearsafter their escape, theBlackburns were dis-covered in Detroit.Thomas Rogers, thevery man who hadsupervised Thorn-ton’s labors at theWurts and Reinhardstore in Louisville,was traveling inMichigan and metThornton Blackburnon the streets ofDetroit. They talked.Rogers returned toLouisville to inform

Judge John Pope Oldham and Virgil McK-night that he had located their runawayhuman property.

WITHIN days, slave agentsarrived in Detroit to claim theBlackburns as runaways. On

Saturday June 15, 1833, Thornton andhis wife were tried as fugitive slavesbefore Judge Henry Chipman. Despitean impassioned defense by the city attor-ney of Detroit, Alexander Frazier, theunfortunate couple was sentenced to bereturned to Kentucky and a lifetime ofbondage. Detroit’s African-Americancommunity packed the courthouse bal-cony and threatened to burn the city tothe ground should the Blackburns behanded over to their former owners.Thejudge’s hands were tied, however, for thefederal law was clear. Thornton andRuthie were jailed pending their returnto Kentucky and slavery.

From all over Michigan and as faraway as Fort Malden in Upper Canada,armed men and women filtered intoDetroit and a carefully choreographedrescue scheme was hatched. It was thebrainchild of former Kentucky slaveBenjamin Willoughby, the Frenches, andthe Lightfoots with the unlikely but verywelcome assistance of City AttorneyFrazier and Charles Cleland, publisherof the Detroit Courier. Both men wereabolitionists and offered to help in anyway they could to secure the Blackburns’freedom.

On Sunday morning, June 16, fol-lowing church services, a respectable pairof black congregants approached Sheriff

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John M.Wilson. Mrs. Lightfoot and Mrs.French entreated him to let them visitMrs. Blackburn to share with her the sol-ace of friendship and prayer.Wilson like-ly considered the visit a means of helpingdiffuse the public tension. He agreed tolet the ladies sit with Ruthie.

Night was falling when Mrs. Light-foot and Mrs. French made their “sor-rowful departure, the tears falling likerain, and all wringing their hands in terri-ble anguish.” The pair of visitors coveredtheir faces with handkerchiefs and low-ered their veils to hide their sorrow asthey emerged from the jail and hurriedhome along the darkened streets.

It was not until the next morning thatJailer Lemuel Goodell realized it was Mrs.French sitting in Ruthie’s prison cell,

wearing Mrs. Blackburn’s clothes. Ruthiewas already safely ensconced in Amherst-burg, across the Detroit River in Canada.

The very next day, Thornton wasrescued from the steps of the Detroit jailby an angry mob in the event known inthat city’s history as the Blackburn Riotsof 1833. With the authorities in hot pur-suit, he too made it across the river toCanada. The mayor of Detroit sent a let-ter over the river to the sheriff of Sand-wich demanding the couple’s apprehen-sion. Mrs. Blackburn, her husband andhis seven youthful rescuers were all soonincarcerated within the cold stone walls ofthe Sandwich jail. From its barred win-dows they could see the lights of theDetroit shore just across the river.

This presented an interesting legalproblem for both Michigan and Canadi-an authorities. The Blackburn case wasthe first test of the Fugitive OffendersAct, a new extradition bill allowing fortransfer of accused criminals from UpperCanada (what is now Ontario) to theUnited States. It would be the only timein North American history that the returnof a female fugitive slave living in Canadawould be sought by the American gov-ernment. Detroit officials accused theBlackburns of inciting the very riot thatrescued them and of trying to kill thesheriff, who had been badly injured.These were capital offenses, thus qualify-ing them for extradition.

But the Canadian government hadno intention of sending them back. At thistime slavery was still technically legal inCanada, but a 1793 law had made own-ing slaves so financially onerous that thepractice had died out. Lieutenant Gover-

nor Sir John Colborne, an abolitionist,ordered his attorney general to find alegal and diplomatic solution to theBlackburns’ dilemma, without incitingthe Michigan government to unpleasantforms of retaliation. This is the conclu-sion that was reached: the punishment forthe crimes of which Thornton and hiswife were accused would be the samewhether an American court judged thecouple guilty or innocent—they wouldstill be slaves for life. But that was moresevere than any punishment for the samecrimes under Canadian law. From thattime forward, no accused criminal couldbe returned to any jurisdiction where thepunishment for the crime they were sup-posed to have committed was more strin-gent than Canadian law would dictate.This is the same policy that underliesCanadian refugee law to this day, and itbegan with the Blackburn case.

On what were essentially humanitar-ian grounds, the Blackburns were givenasylum in Canada. Ruthie changed hername in honor of her newfound liberty.Henceforth she would be “Lucie Black-burn,” a free woman in a free land. TheBlackburn case had made Canada a safehaven and the main terminus of theUnderground Railroad.

T HE couple moved to Toronto in thespring of 1834. There the Black-burns built a tiny frame shotgun

Sir John Colborne, the Lieutenant Gov-ernor of Upper Canada, never had anyintention of returning the Blackburnsto slavery in the United States.

A View of King Street by John Gillespie.In the center of this 1846 view of down-town Toronto, you can see ThorntonBlackburn’s taxi heading for the cabstand beside St. James Cathedral.

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house in a sparsely settled area of thefledgling city, near the lake where landwas cheap. Thornton went to work as awaiter at the courthouse belonging to theLaw Society of Upper Canada, and theyoung couple started to make a new lifefor themselves. Thornton was 22 and hisbride, now safe from all harm, was 31.Within two years, they had started a busi-ness. The first hackney cab, a new con-cept from London, England, had arrivedin Montreal. Thornton conceived theidea of beginning a taxi business inToronto—the first in Upper Canada. Hepainted his taxi red and yellow, named it“The City,” and set about making a suc-cess of his business.

The Blackburns’ adventures were farfrom over, however. For the rest of theirlives, they would be involved in assistingother fugitive slaves and free black immi-grants from the United States as they set-tled into their new Canadian homes. Thecouple’s names appear in the annals of theactive antislavery movement that operatedout of Canada’s largest city.Thorton’s taxiwas a success and the couple grew wealthy.They contributed to the building ofchurches, mills and retail establishments.Two of the latter were at Buxton, a com-munity in southwestern Ontario that pro-vided employment and education for hun-dreds of fugitive slaves.

Thornton also managed to reunitehis scattered family. Upon his arrival inToronto, he must have been thrilled todiscover that Alfred Blackburn, the broth-er from whom he had been separated forso many years, was already living there.We don’t know how Alfred escaped fromhis Washington, Kentucky, owners, but itis intriguing to note that one of the run-aways assisted by famous abolitionistJohn Rankin at his Liberty Hill home inRipley, Ohio, was named “Alfred,” and hecame from Maysville.

Both Alfred and their much-lovedmother, Sibby, would find their final rest-ing place under the tall granite obelisk inthe Necropolis Cemetery that marksThornton and Lucie’s Toronto gravesite.How Thornton managed to rescue hiselderly mother, still living in slavery atAugusta, Kentucky, is almost unbeliev-able in its audacity. Returning to theUnited States by way of Detroit in 1837,just four years after becoming notoriousfor his part in the Blackburn Riots, hemade his long and perilous way south-ward. Traveling through Michigan andthen the length of Ohio, he reached theshores of the Ohio River. How he locatedhis mother, whom he had not seen sincehe was fourteen years old, is not record-ed, but one can well imagine the joy oftheir reunion. He brought the elderlywoman home to Canada to live out herlife in freedom.

On December 18, 1865, ratification ofthe Thirteenth Amendment to the Consti-tution freed all the slaves in the United

States. Lucie and Thornton Blackburnstayed in Canada, for their home and busi-ness were there. Like thousands of otherfugitive slaves, the Blackburns had putdown deep roots in Canada’s frozen soil.Far from the chains that had once boundthem, the Blackburns had, indeed, found ahome in Glory Land.

Like tens of thousands of people ofAfrican ancestry, Thornton and LucieBlackburn were part of the vast enslavedlabor pool that helped settle the AmericanWest. Their labor helped build Kentucky.The Blackburns died childless, butdescendants of Kentucky’s thousands ofblack pioneers are today scattered acrossNorth America and beyond. Most oftheir stories are lost to history, but theamazing tale of Thornton and LucieBlackburn stands as a monument to theircourage and love of freedom. ●

Karolyn Smardz Frost, Ph.D. is an archaeologist and historian based in Toronto, Canada. She is thearcheaologist who discovered the Blackburns’ home and spent 20 years tracking down their story. She tells the complete story of Thornton andLucie Blackburn in I’ve Got A Home in Glory Land:A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad, winner of the 2007 Governor General’s Literary Award for Nonfiction. The book is available in paperback.

The Blackburn family is permanentlyreunited under this obelisk in Toronto’sNecropolis Cemetery.


BY BURRUS M. CARNAHAN

IN a lecture at the Lincoln Museum in2004, (historian) Allen Guelzo noted that“the most obvious fact about the Eman-cipation Proclamation that raises ques-tion-marks in people’s minds is the mat-

ter of timing: why did he wait so long?. . . If the Civil War was really about slavery,and Lincoln was in earnest about abolishingslavery, why didn’t he pick up his pen onApril 13th, 1861, [when Fort Sumter surren-dered] and free the Confederacy’s slaves

then?”During his lifetime,Lincoln’s antislav-ery critics had faulted him for delayingalmost two years before issuing an emancipa-tion proclamation. “From the genuine aboli-tion ground,” Frederick Douglass observedin 1876, “Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold,dull and indifferent.” In the twentieth centu-ry, this complaint was taken up by someactivists for civil rights and racial equality.

These critics have a point. By 1861, ithad become a common practice for gov-ernments at war with a slave-holdingenemy to offer freedom to their adversary’sslaves. Why didn’t President Lincoln usethis weapon against the South from the daythe Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, justas he authorized the army to use musketsand cannon, and the navy to impose ablockade? At the beginning, the presidentmust have hoped that, like President Wash-

ington in the Whiskey Rebellion, he couldface down the secessionists without resort-ing to a full-scale war. By September, how-ever, it was clear that the governmentwould have to accord the Confederatesmost, if not all, the rights and privileges ofa belligerent power under the internationallaw of war. Lincoln’s correspondence withSenator Orville Browning (of Illinois)

about John C. Frémont’s emancipationorder* indicates that the president hadalready decided on the legal test—militarynecessity—that he would eventually use tojustify the Emancipation Proclamation. Ifthe Confederates were to be given rightsunder the law of war, why shouldn’t theysuffer the penalties of that law as well,including having their slaves freed by theenemy army?

Professor Guelzo and others havepointed out that in the fall and winter of1861, there was in fact a military necessitynot to emancipate the enemy’s slaves,because this would have caused the seces-sion of Kentucky, a strategically importantborder state. That necessity had ended byMarch 1862, however, and still the presi-dent waited. He waited until GeneralMcClellan’s army had been thrown backfrom the gates of Richmond, and the needfor new approaches to the war was obvi-ous. Only then, after the military necessityfor emancipation would be clear to all butdie-hard supporters of slavery, did he tellhis cabinet that he had decided to issue anemancipation proclamation.

In the eyes of Lincoln’s critics, his delaycan only be attributed to racism and a secretsympathy for the institution of slavery.The

The Emancipation Proclamation, which took effect on January 1, 1863,was one of Abraham Lincoln’s greatest achievements, but

critics have never stopped asking: Why did he wait so long?

A Questionof Timing

* On August 30, 1861, General John C. Frémont, commander of the Department of the West, issued a proclamation that emancipated the slaves in Missouri. PresidentLincoln, fearing it might cause Kentucky to secede from the Union, countermanded Frémont’s order.

If Lincoln was really a reluctant emancipator who secretly believed in slavery, it is difficult to

understand why the proclamation he issued was so radical in its scope.


president’s qualms about the legality ofemancipation, as expressed in his letters toSenator Browning, can be dismissed asexcessive sensitivity to the constitutionalrights of slaveholders, combined with cal-lousness toward the victims of slavery.

The unspoken assumptions of thesecritics are that any emancipation proclama-tion, even an unconstitutional one, was bet-ter than none at all, and that the presidentwould have acted on that basis if he trulyhated slavery. An invalid emancipationproclamation could do no harm, theyassume, and might do some good byencouraging slaves to seek freedom. Even ifthe courts overturned the proclamation, atleast some of these refugees would escapeand remain free. As “Black power” ad-vocate Julius Lester wrote in 1968, “his penwas sitting on his desk the whole time. Allhe had to do was get up one morning andsay ‘Doggonit! I think I gon free the slavestoday. It just ain’t right for folks to ownother folks.’ It was that simple.”

Under nineteenth-century Americanlaw, however, it was not that simple.Then, as now, officers of the U.S. Armyswore an oath to preserve, protect, anddefend the Constitution, which declaredthe president to be their commander inchief. President Lincoln had a duty to theofficers who had taken that oath not toorder them to perform acts that he knewthe courts would find to be illegal.

As a lawyer, Lincoln also knew thatFederal officers who loyally carried out hisillegal orders could be held personally liablefor any monetary damages that resulted.Officers who received and protected fugi-tives under an illegal emancipation procla-mation could be successfully sued by theaggrieved slave owners. Chief Justice RogerTaney had already ruled that superiororders provided no defense for an officerwho took an American citizen’s property. Itwas unlikely that Taney and his colleagueswould make an exception for the antislaveryorders of a president many of them loathed.

If the issue reached the Federal courtsthey might well hold that there was no truemilitary necessity, and therefore no legaljustification, for a premature emancipationproclamation. By waiting until the militarynecessity for emancipation was palpable andobvious, President Lincoln greatly increased

the chances that his Emancipation Procla-mation would be upheld by the courts, andthat loyal officers would not suffer for obey-ing it.The legal context in which he wagedthe war, rather than reluctance to strike atslavery, is a more likely explanation for whythe president waited to issue his Emancipa-tion Proclamation.

If Lincoln was really a reluctantemancipator who secretly believed inslavery, it is difficult to understand whythe proclamation he issued was so radicalin its scope. Had the proclamation trulybeen issued reluctantly, in response toabolitionist and Radical Republican pres-sure, then it should have gone no furtherthan the other military emancipation doc-uments issued in the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries, and granted freedomonly to refugees who actually escaped toUnion military lines. Section 9 of the Sec-ond Confiscation Act, which Lincolnquoted in his preliminary proclamation,only went this far, and the president

could easily have deferred to Congress ifhe was acting only in response to pressureand against his personal inclinations.

Both section 9 and the historicalprecedents were based on the laws govern-ing enemy property in wartime, and onecannot seize enemy property unless onehas control of it. Lincoln, however, draftedhis proclamation to emphatically reject theidea that it was limited by the rules appli-cable to property. From the speeches ofSenator (Charles) Sumner (of Masssachu-setts), his correspondence with SenatorBrowning, and other sources, the presi-dent had learned that the law of war per-mitted him to do anything to defeat anenemy, except for a few acts that wereinhumane. By declaring that the U.S. gov-

The first page of the final Emancipa-tion Proclamation, which on January 1,1863, freed all slaves held in states orparts of states then in rebellion againstthe United States.


ernment immediately recognized the free-dom of all slaves in the Confederacy, Lin-coln dealt with them as an oppressed peo-ple, rather than as property, and appealedfor their support as humans.

The document Lincoln signed onJanuary 1, 1863, was the last emancipa-tion proclamation issued in Western mili-tary history. Slavery was still legal inBrazil and the Spanish colonies of theCaribbean, but the death of the institu-tion in the United States doomed itthroughout the Western hemisphere.

Despite the end of slavery, theEmancipation Proclamation remains animportant precedent. As an officialrefusal to recognize the legitimacy ofenslaving a whole people, and anencouragement for them to resist, theEmancipation Proclamation foundmany echoes in the conflicts of the twen-tieth century. In 1932, for example, Sec-retary of State Henry Stimson declaredthat the United States would not recog-nize any territorial changes resultingfrom Japanese aggression against China.

The United States and other Westerngovernments refused to recognize Stal-in’s annexation of the Baltic Republicsof Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia in1940, a policy that aided their recoveryof independence in 1991. During WorldWar II, neither the United States nor theUnited Kingdom recognized the Vichyregime in France, and both gave materialaid to the Free French forces that con-tinued to resist German occupation.These policies attained universalapproval in 1974, when the UnitedNations General Assembly adopted adefinition of aggression that declared:“No territorial acquisition or specialadvantage resulting from aggression isor shall be recognized as lawful.”

Many other examples could be given.What is significant is that Lincoln’s decisionto recognize the freedom of an oppressedpeople, to offer them assistance in securingthat freedom, and to ask their aid against acommon enemy, has remained an importantdiplomatic weapon in the continuing strug-gle for human liberty. ●

Excerpted from Act of Justice by Burrus M. Carna-han. © University Press of Kentucky 2007. Used bypermission. www.kentuckypress.com

Burrus M. Carnahan is a foreign affairs officer inthe U.S. Department of State and a lecturer atGeorge Washington University Law School.

Proud to Support the Kentucky Humanities

Council

Thrilled to send “Our Lincoln” to Washington!


By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation

Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in theyear of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of theUnited States, containing, among other things, the follow-ing, to wit:

“That on the first day of January, in the year of ourLord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, allpersons held as slaves within any State or designatedpart of a State, the people whereof shall then be inrebellion against the United States, shall be then,thenceforward, and forever free; and the ExecutiveGovernment of the United States, including the mili-tary and naval authority thereof, will recognize andmaintain the freedom of such persons, and will do noact or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, inany efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

“That the Executive will, on the first day of Januaryaforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States andparts of States, if any, in which the people thereof,respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the Unit-ed States; and the fact that any State, or the peoplethereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, representedin the Congress of the United States by members cho-sen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qual-ified voters of such State shall have participated, shall,in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, bedeemed conclusive evidence that such State, and thepeople thereof, are not then in rebellion against theUnited States.”

Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the Unit-ed States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Comman-der-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States intime of actual armed rebellion against the authority andgovernment of the United States, and as a fit and necessarywar measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this firstday of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eighthundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my pur-pose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of onehundred days, from the day first above mentioned, orderand designate as the States and parts of States wherein the

people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion againstthe United States, the following, to wit:

Arkansas,Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Ber-nard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St.James Ascension, Assumption,Terrebonne, Lafourche, St.Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of NewOrleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, SouthCarolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also thecounties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, ElizabethCity,York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the citiesof Norfolk and Portsmouth); and which excepted parts,are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamationwere not issued.

And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I doorder and declare that all persons held as slaves within said des-ignated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shallbe free; and that the Executive government of the United States,including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recog-nize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to befree to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases whenallowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.

And I further declare and make known, that such personsof suitable condition, will be received into the armed service ofthe United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and otherplaces, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act ofjustice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military neces-sity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and thegracious favor of Almighty God.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand andcaused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this first day of Janu-ary, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundredand sixty three, and of the Independence of the UnitedStates of America the eighty-seventh.

By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLNWILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

Source: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 6, 28-30 (R. P. Basler ed. 1953).

Final Emancipation ProclamationJanuary 1, 1863


INTERVIEW WITH JAMES C. KLOTTER

James C. Klotter: Both Lincoln and Clayare born in other states and then left theirhome states, Clay coming from Virginia toKentucky, Lincoln going from Kentucky toIndiana and Illinois. Both were part of thatwestward movement, to new frontiers.

There are really a lot of similarities intheir lives besides their movement west.They’re both very tall for their time—Clay over six feet and Lincoln a giant-like6-4, very tall and thin. Neither of themwas considered handsome. In fact, Lin-coln was considered ugly by most people,that’s the reason he grew a beard, suppos-edly to disguise that. Clay’s mouth, theysaid, was so large that he couldn’t evenwhistle well. There’s a physical similaritythat shapes them.

Both are men who use humor tomake their points—the humor of thefrontier, the rough frontier. Lincoln wasknown for telling dirty stories and Claywas the life of every party he went to.They both had the ability to make peoplefeel comfortable in their midst, and tobecome a part of their circle. There’s afamous story about a new congressmanfrom Georgia. At a party, somebodypointed out to this new congressman,“There’s the famous Whig Mr. Clay.Don’t you want to meet him? He’s afamous man.” And the congressman said,“No sir, no sir, I do not choose to subjectmyself to the spell of his fascination.”

Lincoln and Clay had that kind ofrough charisma about them, countrycharm, as well as an aristocratic charm.Clay, when he was making the peacetreaty to end the War of 1812, was with

the giants and aristocrats of Europe.Theycalled him Prince Hal because he wascomfortable in their presence. Englishtravelers who came to Kentucky saidClay was the one man who mostimpressed them because he was so goodat conversation, and Lincoln was thesame way.

They’re both attorneys. Lincoln isactually more of an attorney than Clay is.Clay makes his living that way briefly, buthe lives mainly as a politician and as aplanter, whereas Lincoln pretty muchdepends on the law for his career. Even

though Clay may have had a little betterlegal background, Lincoln is the man whoactually practices law longer and better.However Clay is a good lawyer too—heargues cases before the Supreme Court.

They both are the kind of men whocan overcome defeat. Clay loses threepresidential races and two other timesloses the nomination. His beloved partyplatforms go down to defeat time aftertime. Neither life is filled with successafter success. Lincoln, in his first politicalrace, finishes far down the ladder. Heloses his first attempt for Congress. Hedoesn’t even run for a second term afterhe finally does win a seat in Congress. Justbecause we have some setback or defeatdoesn’t mean you can’t overcome it andgo on to better things. In Lincoln’s case,obviously, the presidency. But he hadn’teven held an office for twelve years beforehe became president. Clay never won thepresidential prize he sought, but he wouldlater be named one of the five greatestUnited States senators of all time. And, ina sense, he’s more praiseworthy than a lotof the presidents in his era.

Charles Thompson: You’d have greatdifficulty finding anybody who couldname all the men who were presi-dent when Clay was in public life.

JK: That’s one of the reasons I’mstudying Clay for a book.What was it thatcaused Clay to remain a fingertip awayfrom the prize? But also what does it sayabout how we elect presidents, what doesit say about his age, his time period, andhow they selected people?

Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln had a tremendous impact on the nation, but how did they influence one another? Historian James C. Klotter

discussed this Kentucky power trio with Kentucky Humanities editor Charles Thompson.

A Power Trio

James C. Klotter is a professor of history at Georgetown College andState Historian of Kentucky. A special-ist in Kentucky history, he has writtennumerous books about the Common-wealth’s past and is working on a book about Henry Clay.


CT: Lesser people were elected tothe office.JK: Very lesser people in some cases. Forinstance, another person with strongKentucky ties, Zachary Taylor, defeatsClay for the nomination in 1848 whenClay probably would have won. ZacharyTaylor had never voted before he becamepresident. How can you elect a man whohas had no interest in politics over a manwho had all this background as statesmanand diplomat and great compromiser?

CT: Clay is always described as Lin-coln’s political mentor. How did thatdevelop? JK: Lincoln called Clay “my beau ideal ofa statesman.” And Lincoln’s policiesthroughout his life right up into the CivilWar certainly reflect the policies of HenryClay. Now, it’s not a blind devotion. In1848, Lincoln leaves Clay, the man he’salways supported, and supports ZacharyTaylor simply because he didn’t thinkClay could win and he thought the Whigparty deserved a winner. Lincoln’s sup-port for Clay came first and foremost onthe policy level. He believed firmly inClay’s American plan of internalimprovements—canals, roads, to build upties between the sections, to make thenation stronger, to make it a better place.He believed in the high tariff to protectAmerican industries, and in Clay’s planfor the distribution of federal land in theterritories. And he believed in a strongcentral bank.

On slavery, Lincoln would eventuallydiverge, but initially his policy was virtuallythe same as Clay’s. He believed, as Claydid, in gradual emancipation with compen-sation or else just freedom by the owner,with colonization of many of the freedslaves to Africa. Both of them believed thatrace prejudice was too strong in America,that large numbers of free slaves in thesouthern population would create prob-lems. So they believed not necessarily thatall African Americans would have to leaveAmerica, but enough so that the numberswould not be a threat to the white popula-tion, and so that the white populationwould not be a threat to the black.This wasLincoln’s policy even into the Civil War. Heoffered emancipation and compensation to

Kentuckians and they turned it down. Ithink it says that Kentuckians, and south-erners generally, couldn’t envision a worldwithout slavery.

CT: Lincoln formally proposed a colo-nization plan not that long before theEmancipation Proclamation.JK: He had various places he thought itcould be, somewhere in central America,somewhere in the west. He just thoughtthat was a more realistic plan. I think that’swhere the two differ, because Clay nevergrew out of his plan. He couldn’t see aworld in which you had immediate eman-cipation, and he didn’t see the freed slavesas his equals. Lincoln had some of thosesame feelings, I think. His real strength ishe grows out of that. He grows in office, asthe good presidents do. People talk aboutHarry Truman, for example, the sameway—a man who learns from experience.Lincoln meets people, talks to people. Hegrows and does have a metamorphosis.And in that sense, Lincoln does become amoral leader for the nation.

CT: Lincoln was famously quoted assaying that he would do whatever ittook to keep the Union together. Andthat was Clay’s view too, wasn’t it?JK: Somebody asked him what was the keyto his life. He said, “If any man wants thekey to my heart, let him take the key ofunion, and that is the key to my heart.”TheUnion came above anything else, which I

think causes some people to misunder-stand Clay, because they see that he com-promises a lot and sometimes has to giveup some of his cherished plans to makethose compromises. Because of that theysay he’s wishy washy or he doesn’t hold toprinciple, but I don’t see it that way. I seethat Clay basically did have principles, buthis key principle was the Union, and it’s soimportant that he’s willing to compromiseeven some of his strongest principles tomake sure that the Union survives. Overtwenty-five years before the Civil War, Clayis talking about the dangers if we don’tcompromise and keep these sectionstogether. There’s going be a war betweenthe sections, literally pitting brother againstbrother—our fields will be devastated, ournation destroyed, our moral fiber wrecked.And he says, “If it does come to this, I willgo with the Union.” Because he feels this is,as Lincoln would say later, “the last besthope of earth.” The United States was themodel for the world and he wants to keepthat model intact.

Lincoln will try to keep the Uniontogether, but he decides somewhere alongthe way that there’s one thing he cannotcompromise on, and that’s the movementof slavery into new territories. We look atLincoln’s decision today and say that itkept the union together and it ended slav-ery, but it cost 600,000 American lives.Clay’s take would have been (he died in1852): Can we do this some other waywithout destroying the union? But that

These photographs show Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln c. 1846.They first visited Lexington together in 1847.The Clay photograph is c. 1850, about two years before his death at 77. Mary Todd and Clay inhabited Lexington’s elite political and social circles. Lincoln was from a different world.(Lincoln and Todd photos: Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.Clay photo: National Portrait Gallery)


would have meant keeping slavery formany more years. There were costs toeach approach.

CT: Mary Todd grew up in a housewhere Henry Clay was a frequentvisitor, then she married AbrahamLincoln. How does she fit in here?JK: Well, both men married well. Theold saw says the fastest way to get rich isto marry well. Henry Clay certainly didthat. You can see it from his tax recordsyear to year. It also gave him contactsthat proved very useful to him. AbrahamLincoln was the same way with MaryTodd. Holman Hamilton did a bookcalled Three Kentucky Presidents, and he

stresses that the marriage of Lincoln toMary Todd was important to Lincoln’seventual success. First of all, it gave himan entryway into quarters of power he’dnever had before. She was upper class,he was not. She came from a family witha lot of political ties, he came from onewith virtually none. She allowed him tomove in ways that helped him politically.Both Mary Todd Lincoln and AbrahamLincoln were ambitious. There’s a quotefrom his law partner about Lincoln,“His ambition was a little engine thatknew no rest.” Mary Todd was probablyjust as ambitious, but being a woman inthat time, her ambitions had to be chan-neled in different ways. She was a verysmart woman, one of the best educatedof her time. She was very cultured,spoke foreign languages, very differentthan Lincoln. Who knows what causesgreatness, what mix brings it out in aperson. Whatever it was in their mar-riage, that was a part of the mix. Plus,she gave him a love that he’d almost

never had in his life, and perhaps anability to go on and not be overcome bythe coils of melancholy which are part ofhis life too.

The Todds and Clay were close. Sowhen Lincoln comes back to Kentuckywith his wife and visits the Todds, hehears Henry Clay give a speech againstthe Mexican War, but we’re not surewhether they ever met. And incidentally,that’s another difference. Clay was agreat speaker, everybody says that. Buthis words on paper were dry and lifeless.You read them and say, “How could thisbe a great speech?” And then you readthe accounts of people yelling andcheering the same words because he

knew what he could do with them. Lin-coln was really not a great speaker. Hewas a good speaker, but his words onpaper lived through the ages. Most peo-ple didn’t hear these men speak, theyvery seldom saw them—they read theirwords in the papers. So, Lincoln wasmuch better than Clay at reaching themasses through words that touched theirhearts.

CT: Is there any evidence of how Clayinfluenced Mary Todd in her expo-sure to him as she was growing up?JK: Well, there are stories, but you don’tknow how accurate they are. She suppos-edly rides out to Ashland and interruptsClay during a dinner party and says, “Areyou married, could I become a part ofyour circle?” He’s charmed by her. I thinkshe certainly was one of many in Kentuckywho almost worshipped Henry Clay, andthat she brought that with her to her mar-riage. As an intelligent woman of her time,she would have been able to communicate

the beliefs of Clay, and probably helpedinculcate in Lincoln the support for theClay program that he would follow formost of his political career.

CT: In pictures and portraits of Clay,he looks a bit of a dandy. Lincoln cer-tainly could never be accused of that,so he didn’t exactly model himselfafter Clay in that respect.JK: I think Clay was more of an actor.When he got up to talk, the emotions heexpressed and everything else he didwere very carefully considered. Lincolndidn’t try to be something he wasn’t,which was one of the appeals he had.Clay turned some people off becausethey thought he was acting at times.Each of them did what they felt comfort-able doing in their public careers.To me,the interesting part is below the surface.Both of these families had tremendousamounts of tragedy. Clay had elevenchildren, six daughters. And all thedaughters die before Clay does. Everyone of them. And his most beloveddaughter, Anne—he’s closer to her thanany other member of his family—hecan’t be consoled when he hears abouther death. And then his son, Henry ClayJr., is killed in the Mexican War, whichClay had opposed. Most of the othersons had problems in their lives. Sevenof his 11 children die before he does.

And in Lincoln’s case, they had foursons, and three of the four die beforeMary Todd Lincoln does. So, in thesefamilies there are tragedies, and the pub-lic person sometimes has a very differentpersona than the private one.When Clayis wandering the fields of Ashland, he’sreminded almost daily of the familytragedies that have taken place there.The children who were playing who arenow gone. And Lincoln, in the middle ofthe war, loses a favorite son. All thesethings make us realize that we judgepeople on their public image, but belowthe surface there are a lot of other fac-tors that cause them to be the personsthey are. Do they go on despite theirfeelings, or because of their feelings?Those are the things that make us know,I think, that we can never fully under-stand the individuals in history. ●

Clay was a great speaker, everybody says that.But his words on paper were dry and lifeless.

Lincoln was really not a great speaker. He was a good speaker, but his words on paper lived

through the ages.

The Kentucky Historical Society is an agency of theKentucky Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet.

The KALBC is administered by the Kentucky Historical Society

The Kentucky Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission,

and Kentuckians past and present, congratulate the

Kentucky Humanities Council on the success of Our Lincoln

c.1906, LaRue County. Courtesy of the Kentucky Historical Society.

For more information on Our Lincoln

and other Bicentennial events, visit

“With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.”-Abraham Lincoln


BY JONATHAN JEFFREY

AFTER Abraham Lincolnwas shot on the evening ofApril 14, 1865, several mencarried him from Ford’sTheater to a lodging house

across the street. Teetering on the brinkof death for most of the evening, theGreat Emancipator breathed his last at7:22 the next morning. Several of Lin-coln’s cabinet members, including Sec-retary of War Edwin M. Stanton, wit-nessed his demise. With tears of griefstreaming down his face, Stanton said:“Now he belongs to the ages.”

As soon as Lincoln’s mortal remainswere safely interred in Springfield, Illinois,the American people began the process ofmemorializing the slain president. Theyfirst confined their efforts to paper: news-paper and magazine elegies, broadsides,and memorial photographs and engrav-ings coupled with declarations of sinceresentiment. Gradually these expressionsmetamorphosed into memorials of stone,bronze, and scholarly tomes. These mon-uments were about more than memorial-izing a man; they were meant to perpetu-ate the ideals he espoused: unity, equality,and opportunity.

Lincoln’s Springfield tomb, located inOak Ridge Cemetery and completed in1874, stands as one of the president’s firstmemorials.The majority of the other Lin-coln shrines found across the countrywere completed in the 20th century. Adegree of healing needed to take placebefore a Lincoln memorial could be gen-erally accepted, or, in some cases, tolerat-ed. The centennial of Lincoln’s birth in

1909 was the impetus for a number ofmemorials to the former president. One ofthe most significant of that year was theminting of the penny with a bust of Lin-coln on the obverse side, replacing thepopular Indian head penny. The Lincolnpenny was the first U.S. coin to feature apresidential image. Perhaps no other Lin-coln memorial has been so indeliblystamped on the nation’s consciousness.Since 1909, the U.S. Mint has producedmore than 288.7 billion pennies, enoughto circle the earth 137 times if lined upedge to edge. The Lincoln Memorial wasadded to the reverse side of the penny in1959 to honor the sesquicentennial ofLincoln’s birth. On his 200th birthday,February 12, 2009, the U.S. Mint willrelease the first of four new versions of theLincoln penny. The new pennies depictmilestones in Lincoln’s life, beginningwith his birth in a Kentucky log cabin.Also scheduled for release in 2009: a Lin-coln commemorative silver dollar.

During the 20th century Lincolnbecame America’s idol. His name andimage were emblazoned across the coun-try: Lincoln Highway, Lincoln Park, thefive dollar bill, the Lincoln Home Place,

Reviled by many of his fellow Kentuckians when he was president,Abraham Lincoln became Kentucky’s, and America’s, idol during the 20th century.

The Commonwealth is home to a growing list of notable Lincoln memorials.

Now He Belongsto the Ages

Memorializing Abraham Lincoln

No Lincoln memorial is more familiarthan this penny. Over the past century,the U.S. Mint has churned out almost289 billion of them.


Lincoln Square, Lincoln Center, the Lin-coln automobile, the U.S.S. Lincoln sub-marine, Lincoln National (Life Insur-ance) Corporation, the Lincoln LawOffice, Lincoln Logs, Lincoln University,Lincoln Encyclopedia and the Lincoln bustat Mt. Rushmore. Counties in nineteenstates were named for Abraham Lincolnas well as dozens of communities. Lin-coln, Nebraska, was actually named forhim before he was assassinated. Besidesthese, numerous pieces of sculpture andother forms of public art honored theCivil War president. The amazing aspectof this story is that Lincoln memorialscontinue to be erected, and a number willbe dedicated during 2009, the bicenten-nial of Lincoln’s birth. Americans willcontinue to memorialize the spirit ofAbraham Lincoln, who indeed “belongsto the ages.”

WASHINGTON, D.C.’s LincolnMemorial is perhaps the bestknown physical structure honor-

ing the sixteenth president. Congress spentnearly fifty years debating the project’s siteand financing. Construction began in 1914and the memorial was dedicated in 1922.Architect Henry Bacon designed the simpleDoric temple. Its thirty-six Colorado mar-ble columns represent each of the states inthe Union at Lincoln’s death. Inside, sculp-tor Daniel Chester French’s seated Lincolnhas mesmerized millions of visitors. AboveLincoln’s head the incised inscription reads:“In this temple, as in the hearts of the peo-ple for whom he saved the Union, the mem-

ory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forev-er.” At one of the site’s computer kiosks, arecent Lincoln Memorial guest wrote abouther inspiring visit: “This is it! Poignant,memorable, stunning. Appropriate for thisremarkable president.”

As the home state of Abraham Lin-coln, the Commonwealth of Kentucky fea-tures an impressive array of Lincolnmemorials.The earliest is in the place of hisbirth, LaRue County (Hardin County atthe time). In 1808, Thomas Lincoln paid$200 for a 348-acre tract of stony land onNolin Creek known as the Sinking SpringFarm. Thomas and his wife, Nancy, wereexpecting a child when they moved there.The baby was born on February 12, 1809,as Nancy lay on a pole bed fitted with amattress of corn husks and covered withbear skins. The couple named their newson for his grandfather, Abraham Lincoln,who had been killed by Indians east ofLouisville in 1786.

Lincoln’s birthplace cabin was usedby several families in the fifty years priorto his election as president, when its his-torical and monetary value naturallyincreased. In 1861, Dr. George Rodmanpurchased the Lincoln farm and movedthe remains of a log cabin, traditionallythought to be Lincoln’s birthplace, to hisneighboring farm. New York business-man A. W. Dennett purchased the cabinand returned it to the Sinking SpringFarm in 1895, but it was soon disman-tled and became a traveling exhibit, dis-played at the Nashville Centennial in1897, in New York’s Central Park, and atthe 1901 Buffalo Exposition. The cabinthen disappeared for a time and eventu-

Since 1922 Americans have flocked to Washington, D.C. to see the LincolnMemorial with its mesmerizing sculpture of a seated Lincoln.

The cabin inside the Lincoln birthplaceshrine has been called “symbolic” eversince it was proved that the logs arenot old enough to be the authentic.

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ally ended up in storage on Long Island,consigned to an unknown fate.

While the birthplace cabin remained instorage, the old Sinking Spring Farmbrought national attention to LaRue Coun-ty when it was sold to Robert J. Collier, edi-tor of Collier’s Weekly. Collier purchased theproperty with the intention of creating amonument to honor the former president.To execute this plan, the Lincoln FarmAssociation was incorporated in 1906. Theorganization’s single goal was to erect amemorial to honor Lincoln on the 100thanniversary of his birth. The associationattracted a stellar array of celebrities, includ-ing Samuel L. Clemens, Samuel Gompers,Jane Addams, Henry Watterson, WilliamJennings Bryan and Ida M.Tarbell.

After successful fundraising, the associ-ation commissioned architect John RussellPope to design the memorial. PresidentTheodore Roosevelt laid the cornerstone in1909, and two years later, President WilliamHoward Taft dedicated the neo-classicaltemple.The building sat on a small promon-tory, approached by a series of 56 steps, onefor each year of Lincoln’s too-short life.From 1911 to 1916, the Commonwealth ofKentucky owned the park. PresidentWoodrow Wilson signed the legislationtransferring ownership of the SinkingSpring Farm to the federal government in1916.The War Department maintained andoperated the memorial until the Depart-ment of the Interior took over in 1933.

Roy Hays, a Lincoln aficionado, was thefirst person to seriously question the authen-

ticity of the birth cabin enshrined in thegranite temple. In 1949, Hays raised legiti-mate questions about the provenance of thelogs used in the “authentic” Lincoln birth-place. A dendrochronologist—an expertwho dates logs based on a number of factorsincluding age rings—settled the matter in2004 when he declared that the oldest log inthe current structure dated from 1848.Today, interpreters at the Abraham LincolnBirthplace National Historic Site refer to thesimple structure as the “symbolic cabin.”The National Park Service has invested sev-eral million dollars during the last decade topreserve the shrine and to build new inter-pretive exhibits at the visitors center for thebicentennial celebration.

TWO years after Lincoln’s birth, thefamily moved to a 228-acre farm onKnob Creek, about ten miles east of

the Sinking Spring Farm. It was of thisfarm that Lincoln said he had his “earli-est recollections.” He attended nearby“blab” schools, where students learnedby memorization and recitation.The Lin-colns lived here for five years prior tomoving to Indiana in 1816. Their KnobCreek log cabin was torn down in 1870.As a Lincoln memorial this farm has arather unusual history. Chester and Hat-tie (Howell) Howard purchased a 308-acre parcel, which included the formerKnob Creek Farm, in 1928, in order toopen a “shrine” to Lincoln. Improve-ments to the adjacent road and its desig-nation as 31-E, part of a transnationalhighway, encouraged them.

Hattie Howard’s family, like many in thearea of Lincoln’s birth, possessed a long-timeinterest in the president’s family. Her broth-er, Jim Howell, built the Nancy LincolnInn—a gift shop and restaurant comple-mented by picnic grounds and four touristcabins—just across the parking lot from theLincoln birthplace memorial. Jim offeredHattie a half-interest in the inn, but she want-

The Memorial Building at the LincolnBirthplace National Historic Site wasprivately funded and dedicated in1911.The 56 steps approaching itequal Lincoln’s lifespan.

Across the parking lot from the birthplace memorial, the Nancy Lincoln Inn wasthe Howell/Howard family’s first Lincoln-related tourist venture.

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ed her own Lincoln site. In 1931, theHowards purchased a single-pen log cabinnear the Knob Creek Farm and had it recon-structed on the former Lincoln home site.

Chester Howard’s participation in theLincoln home place project was strictly sup-portive initially, but his interest escalatedwhen he noticed visitors frequently inquir-ing about available refreshments. With histypical entrepreneurial flair, Chesterdesigned a stylized log cabin restaurant, giftshop and gas station called the Lincoln Tav-ern. The facility served tourists during theday, but from 9 P.M. to 1 A.M. the LincolnTavern operated as a full-service nightclub,complete with dancing and liquor. It enjoyedmoderate success until LaRue County wentdry in 1942, although dances continuedthere on a regular basis until 1949.The tav-ern gradually evolved into a museum.Despite the lack of authentic Lincoln struc-tures on the property, the geography of thesite is evocative of the landscape that Lin-coln knew. This fact led director StanleyKubrick to film extensively on the site in1952 when the Ford Foundation hired himto produce the five-part movie biography,Mr. Lincoln. Howard family members oper-ated the Knob Creek Farm from its opening

as a tourist site in 1932 until 2001, when itwas acquired for $1 million in preparationfor turning it over to the National Park Ser-vice.Today the Knob Creek Farm is official-ly administered by the Abraham LincolnBirthplace National Historic Site.

Seven miles southwest of the KnobCreek Farm, in Hodgenville’s LincolnSquare, sits one of the oldest memorialsculptures in Kentucky.The U.S. Congressand the Kentucky General Assembly com-missioned this seated figure in 1909 for thecentennial of Lincoln’s birth. SculptorAdolph Alexander Weinmann crafted thebronze work, which is six feet tall and restson a twelve-foot granite pedestal.

Lincoln’s son, Robert Todd Lincoln,attended the May 31, 1909, unveiling of theWeinmann piece along with ten thousandother reverent onlookers.The sculpture wasdraped with an oversized American flag,symbolic of the Union that Lincoln had soardently supported. Just prior to the cere-monial unveiling, hundreds of school chil-dren began singing the chorus of “Ameri-ca.” “When the banner fell away,” reportedthe Courier-Journal, “the statue, senselessthough it was, gazed into the faces and inspi-ration came from the dull eyes as if from[the] living mind that filled its counterpart inthe stirring years of the long ago.” LaudingLincoln that day, “long winded but elo-quent” Courier-Journal editor Henry Wat-terson noted: “His was the genius of com-mon sense, the soul of common honesty.Knowing the people, he put his hand to thepulse of the nation, judged the distemperand was ready with a remedy.”

Ninety-nine years later, on May 31,2008, Hodgenville officials, with consider-ably less fanfare, dedicated a new Lincolnmonument titled “The Boy Lincoln.”Installed in front of the Weinmann statue,the boy Lincoln gazes into the face of hisadult visage in Lincoln Square. Thecharming piece commemorates the boy-hood Lincoln who roamed LaRue Coun-

ty’s hills and dales. It depicts him as aseven-year-old, leaning against a treetrunk, reading a copy of Webster’s Elemen-tary Spelling Book. At his feet lies a linensatchel filled with ears of corn as well as afishing pole. His ever faithful dog, Honey,waits attentively at his side. The statue’splayful stance and subject matter will betreasured by viewers, particularly children.The Daub Firmin Hendrickson SculptureGroup of Berkeley, California, created thedesign, which was selected from a field ofmore than seventy-five proposals submit-ted by sculptors nationwide.During the dedication of this statue in

Hodgenville in 1909, a speaker calledLincoln “the genius of common sense,and the soul of common honesty.”

The Boy Lincoln, dedicated in May2008, gazes up at the seated Lincoln inHodgenville’s town square.

“The statue, senseless though it was, gazed into the faces and inspiration came from the dull eyes

as if from [the] living mind that filled its counterpart in the stirring years of the long ago.”

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KENTUCKY’S Lincoln memorialsare not limited to the region aroundHodgenville. The west lawn of the

Louisville Free Public Library boasts thetallest Lincoln sculpture in the Common-wealth. Dedicated on October 26, 1922,the eleven-foot statue by sculptor GeorgeGrey Barnard was donated to the city byIsaac W. Bernheim, a Louisville distiller andphilanthropist. Barnard was a bit of a Lin-

coln fanatic. A native of Indiana and theson of an ardent abolitionist, Barnard grewup hearing praise and honor bestowedupon the sixteenth president. The garru-lous sculptor came to Louisville in 1913 inhopes of locating a model for a plannedLincoln statue. He eventually found a suit-able model, but the unusual story sur-rounding this event did not become publicuntil 1960. After reading a story aboutBarnard’s sculpture in a 1960 Courier-Journal article, a woman contacted thenewspaper and revealed how Barnard hadhired her uncle, Charles Abraham Thomas,as the model. Thomas, a laborer for the

Louisville Gas and Electric Company, hadanswered a newspaper ad placed byBarnard in 1913, and been selected for theposition because of his resemblance to thepresident as well as his physical propor-tions. Not only did Charles AbrahamThomas share a name with the formerpresident, he also had been born in Febru-ary in Hardin County, had lived in a logcabin, and had split rails.

Thomas stayed withBarnard in New York Cityfor six months as the sculp-tor completed his Lincolnlikeness. The period clothesworn by model Thomas werereportedly provided by anelderly woman who donatedher husband’s wedding suitto the cause. The head ofBarnard’s Lincoln was mod-eled after the president’sdeath mask. The originalcasting of this sculpture,

which was commissioned by the CharlesP. Taft family, has stood in Lytle Park inCincinnati since 1917, and there is aduplicate in Manchester, England. Therewas concern and controversy inLouisville over whether the city wasreceiving an original work or simply aknock-off of the Cincinnati Lincoln.Barnard said the Louisville Lincoln wasoriginal due to what he termed his“remodeling of all the details.” Barnarddid sign the two sculptures in differentplaces, but close examination hasrevealed no other discernible differencesbetween them.

Henry Watterson was scheduled todeliver the dedication speech for theBarnard piece, but he died prior to theunveiling. The Courier-Journal printedexcerpts from his manuscript. Sometimesa vociferous defender of southern rights,Watterson defended his admiration forLincoln: “Let no Southern man point [a]finger at me because I canonize AbrahamLincoln, for he was the one friend we hadin court when friends were most in need;he was the one man in power who want-ed to preserve us intact.” This magnani-mous attitude toward Lincoln prevails tothis day. So does a superstition of the sortthat is common to pieces of public sculp-ture—the belief that rubbing Lincoln’sleft toe will bring good luck. Anyone whodoubts that this superstition is alive andwell need only view the Barnard Lin-coln’s well polished toe.

The state capitol in Frankfort boastsanother significant Lincoln sculpture. Cre-ated by Adolph A. Weinmann, the nine-and-a-half foot tall bronze figure stands ona beautiful green serpentine marble

Photographed during the great flood of1937, the Barnard statue of Lincolnstill stands on the west lawn of theLouisville Free Public Library.

Standing in the rotunda of the capitol in Frankfort, this statue was donated tothe Commonwealth by James B. Speedof Louisville.

Many people did not realizehow close the day came to

disaster. Less than a week before the event, the sculpture

was lost in transit from New York to Frankfort.

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pedestal in the middle of the capitol rotun-da. James B. Speed, a native of Louisvilleand member of a family that was very closeto Lincoln, donated this work of art to theCommonwealth. He paid Weinmann$12,000 for the work. Decorated with col-orful bunting, Frankfort welcomed Presi-dent William H.Taft for the statue’s dedica-tion on November 8, 1911, one year afterthe capitol building was completed. Manypeople did not realize how close the daycame to disaster. Less than a week beforethe event, the sculpture was lost in transitfrom New York to Frankfort. Only threedays prior to the unveiling, frantic transitworkers found it in Lexington on a side-track.Taking no chances, the L&N Railroadassigned a special crew to accompany thesculpture for the final thirty miles fromLexington to Frankfort.

PERHAPS the Commonwealth’smost unusual monument to Lin-coln, and without a doubt its most

obscure, is found 200 feet above Ken-tucky Highway 846 near Island Creek inOwsley County. In 1930 Granville John-son carved this rather crude bas-relief of

Lincoln in a boulder of native sandstonesaid to weigh in excess of 50 tons. Aretired teacher in his late 50s, Johnsonclambered up the hill every day for abouta month to carve the Lincoln likenesswith chisels that had been hand forged byhis blacksmith father. Apparently, John-son intended to cut through the rock andmake a three-dimensional statue, but illhealth forced him to stop. Owsley Coun-ty officials recently purchased the landsurrounding the unusual piece andintend to make it a Lincoln heritage site.

One of Kentucky’s newest Lincolnmemorials is located near the entranceto the Mary Ann Mongan Library inCovington. Commissioned as part ofCovington’s Art of Discovery program,Matt Langford’s life-size Lincoln stead-ies an axe alongside his right leg, sym-bolizing his dependence on hard work tosupport himself. Langford felt that thelibrary made a perfect site for the sculp-ture, as his Lincoln clasps a book in hisleft hand, a metaphor of the president’sfuture aspirations. Lincoln, Langfordsaid, was “of humble origin, [but]through his work ethic and determina-

Kentucky sculptor Matt Langfordemphasized Lincoln’s youthful strengthand work ethic in this statue that hasstood in Covington since 2004.

Other Notable Lincoln Memorials in KentuckyLincoln Homestead State Park (near Springfield): This park contains the original home of Lincoln’s mother. There arealso replicas of the 1782 cabin and blacksmith shop where his father was reared and learned his trade, as well as the homeof Mordecai Lincoln, the favorite uncle of the President.

Lincoln Marriage Temple (Harrodsburg): Located in Old Fort Harrod State Park, the temple built of local brick enshrinesthe log cabin in which Rev. Jesse Head presided over the marriage of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks.

Lincoln bust at the J. B. Speed Art Museum (Louisville): A beautiful bust of Lincoln by Versailles native Albert P. Henryis on display. Lincoln actually sat for Henry as the sculptor produced a plaster model that he used later in executing the mar-ble bust.

Lincoln bust at the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History (Frankfort):This bust is by Robert Berks, whosetextured style is well known and presents a striking contrast to more traditional cast bronze sculpture.

Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln Memorial (Elizabethtown): Constructed of vintage logs, this reproduction cabin was ded-icated in 1992 to the memory of the step-mother of President Lincoln. She married Thomas Lincoln on December 2, 1819.

New Lincoln statue (Springfield): Sculptor Paula B. Slater’s ten-foot tall bronze of Lincoln is the centerpiece of a plaza adjacentto the new Washington County Judicial Center in Springfield.The monument also features a plaque imprinted with a reproduc-tion of the Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks marriage bond.The sculpture will be dedicated on February 12, 2009.

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tion, rose to greatness.” For the plaqueattached to the base Langford selectedan appropriate Lincoln quote: “I shallprepare myself. Someday my chance willcome.” Some might find Langford’sLincoln too attractive, but the sculptorsays: “Lincoln was called the backwoodsAdonis in his youth. He had an unusualcountenance that people took notice of,but he aged early.” Langford judgedCovington the ideal place for a Lincolnsculpture as it marks the divisionbetween North and South.

The largest legacy resulting from theLincoln Bicentennial celebration in Ken-

tucky will be a plaza/amphitheater locat-ed on the Ohio River in Louisville’sWaterfront Park. Planned by Louisville’srenowned sculptor Ed Hamilton, the parkwill contain a Lincoln statue as well as aseries of bas-relief panels depictingscenes from the Lincoln era. TheLouisville Waterfront Development Cor-poration secured $2 million in state fundsfor the project, and it is to be dedicatedon June 4, 2009. For the plaza center-piece, Hamilton has crafted a Lincolnseated along the riverside. He clasps anopen book in one hand, with his otherhand extended as if he is inviting apasserby to engage in conversation.

In order to capture a believable Lin-coln, Hamilton collected scores of photo-graphs of the president and of Lincolnsculptures and had them enlarged andhung on the walls of his studio for studyand inspiration.The bas-relief panels willfeature scenes related to slavery, the Civil

War, and a lusty, youthful Lincoln. Thecentral sculpture itself is intended tocommemorate a younger Lincoln.George Barnard’s Lincoln at theLouisville Free Public Library ofteninspired Hamilton. “As a young kid Iused to go see the statue of Lincoln . . . hewas so big and tall and had big hands andbig feet,” recalled Hamilton. And, alongwith thousands of other children andadults, he rubbed Lincoln’s foot for goodluck as he passed by. ●

Jonathan D. Jeffrey of Bowling Green is the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives Coordinator atWestern Kentucky University’s Kentucky Library& Museum. He is a longtime member of theKentucky Humanities Council Speakers Bureau,and wrote about Duncan Hines for KentuckyHumanities in April 2006.

Louisville sculptor Ed Hamilton withhis Lincoln statue, which is destinedfor Louisville’s new waterfront park.In the background is a sketch for oneof the bas-relief panels that willaccompany the statue. (Photo courtesyEd Hamilton)


BY JOHN M. COSKI

JEFFERSON Davis, the only presi-dent of the Confederate States ofAmerica, is rather like the RodneyDangerfield of the Civil War. He rarelyreceives the respect or the attention he

deserves. Even in 2008, the bicentennialyear of his birth, he is getting lost in prepa-rations for the bicentennial of another Ken-tucky born president, Abraham Lincoln.

“Nothing succeeds like success” goesthe old adage. Accordingly, most historiansand most Americans rank Lincoln—theman who led the winning side in our bloody,cataclysmic Civil War—as one of thenation’s best presidents, while Davis, theman who led the losing side, is consigned toinfamy as the traitorous leader of a morallybankrupt cause. And that’s only one aspectof Jefferson Davis’s identity crisis. WhereasLincoln occupies an exalted status as“Father Abraham,” the personification ofthe Union cause, Davis was not “FatherJeff” and is rarely viewed today as the per-sonification of the Confederacy. That dis-tinction belongs to military officers, particu-larly Robert E. Lee and Thomas J.“Stonewall” Jackson.

As president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis fought fellow Kentuckian Abraham Lincoln. In 2008,

Davis celebrates his own bicentennial.

Jefferson Davis at 200:Still No Respect?

Jefferson Davis was born in what isnow Todd County, Kentucky on June 3,1808. His family left for the deep southonly two years later, but Davisreturned to Kentucky for part of hiseducation and to marry.

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Davis is not exactly a neglected fig-ure on the South’s historical landscape. Infact, it is possible to follow his life storythrough visits to publicly accessiblehomes and monuments in Kentucky,Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia,Tennesseeand Virginia. Richmond, the former cap-ital of the Confederacy, boasts the WhiteHouse of the Confederacy—Davis’ exec-

utive mansion—and Hollywood Ceme-tery, where Davis and his immediate fam-ily are buried.Visitors to these sites comewith little knowledge about the only pres-ident of the Confederacy. They leavemore enlightened, but still often callinghim “Mr. Jefferson”—as if he were theman who was U.S. president the year Jef-ferson Davis was born, and after whomhe was named.

Being president of the Confederacyearned Davis a place in the history books,but his accomplishments before 1861earned him that controversial office. An1828 graduate of the U.S. Military Acad-

emy, Davis served in the U.S. Army onthe western frontier until he resigned tomarry the daughter of his commander,future U.S. President Zachary Taylor.Sarah Knox Taylor contracted malaria ontheir honeymoon and died.

The grieving Davis devoted his ener-gies to his Mississippi plantation and tolaying the foundations for a politicalcareer. In 1845, the ambitious 37-year-old widower married 18-year-old VarinaHowell of Natchez and was elected to theU.S. House of Representatives. Shortlyafterward, Davis resigned his office tobecome commander of First MississippiVolunteers in the Mexican War and won ahero’s laurels at the battle of Buena Vista.Military fame led to political success.From 1848 to 1861, he served two termsin the U.S. Senate surrounding four yearsas secretary of war in President FranklinPierce’s cabinet.

On the eve of the Civil War, SenatorJefferson Davis was a national figure, betterknown and more highly regarded thanAbraham Lincoln, who was only beginningto emerge on the national stage. Davis wasone of the U.S. Senate’s most prominentdefenders of southern rights (includingslavery). As a moderate, opposed to south-ern secession from the Union, Davis was apossible compromise candidate for the1860 Democratic presidential nomination.He had made a successful tour of NewEngland in 1858 and won support of theMassachusetts delegation in the 1860Democratic Party national convention.

IT was this reputation that led southernstatesmen to appoint him Confederatepresident in February 1861 and south-

ern voters to elect him (unopposed) for asix-year presidential term beginning inFebruary 1862. Because the governmenthe headed ultimately failed (despite thestunning military victories that havemade generals Lee, Jackson, Stuart, For-rest and others into legends), Davis hastypically received low marks as president.Contemporary critics and historians havescored him for devoting too much atten-tion to the minutiae of military affairs andof indulging in bitter and senseless argu-ments with other politicians and with mil-itary officers.

The Jefferson Davis monument inFairview, Kentucky, his birthplace.Funded by admirers of Davis, it wascompleted in 1924 at a cost of$200,000. It is 351 feet tall.

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Certainly Davis’s troubles as presi-dent owed in large part to his personality,which friends and enemies alike couldfind difficult. “Cold, haughty, peevish,narrow-minded, pig-headed, and malig-nant” and the cause of the South’s trou-bles is how the editor of the Southern Lit-erary Messenger described Davis in his pri-vate journal. Upon first meeting him,future wife Varina wrote to her mother:“He impresses me as a remarkable kind ofman, but of uncertain temper, and has away of taking for granted that everybodyagrees with him when he expresses anopinion, which offends me . . .” She laterexplained: “If anyone differs with Mr.Davis he resents it and ascribes the differ-ence to the perversity of his opponent.”

Although still finding his personalityprickly and problematical, the current gen-eration of biographers has been kinder toJefferson Davis. Historian William C.“Jack” Davis (no relation), author of the1991 biography, Jefferson Davis: The Manand His Hour, “graded” Jefferson Davis ata recent symposium co-sponsored by theMuseum of the Confederacy and theLibrary of Virginia. The historian praisedthe president’s work with Congress and hisperformance as commander in chief, butcriticized his staffing decisions and hisability to inspire others. He assigned thepresident an overall grade of B+ but figu-ratively sent him home with a note tellinghis parents that “Jeff doesn’t always playwell with others.”

Another Davis biographer on thesymposium panel, William J. Cooper Jr.,concurred with the overall grade. Heagreed that the traditional portrayal of Jef-ferson Davis as a president who interferedtoo much in military affairs and was at log-gerheads with Congress is inaccurate.Cooper maintained that the presidentdeserves higher marks than Jack Davisgave him for taking his case to the south-ern people. Davis “was no Lincoln” in hisability to inspire others, Cooper noted, butthat is an unfair measure. Jefferson Davishad not been a leader of the secessionmovement, but, once his state left theUnion, his commitment to the Confeder-ate cause was absolute.

Jefferson Davis devoted himselfcompletely to the Confederacy, expected

others to do the same, and scorned thosewho put self-interest first. Already suffer-ing from a host of debilitating illnesses,including bouts with malaria, severe neu-ralgia (facial pain), and near blindness inone eye, Davis worked long hours to thedetriment of his own health. In the fall of1861, Northern newspapers reportedrumors that he had died. If the rumorwere true, mused the New York Herald,“the first question suggested is:What will

be the effect of his loss to the bad causeof this Southern Rebellion?” The editorsanswered their own question with a back-handed compliment: “We think the lossof Davis at this time would be more seri-ous to the rebel cause than would havebeen the defeat of Beauregard at BullRun . . .” The Herald hailed Davis as “thevery man required” for the job becausehe possessed “the very qualities”—con-ceit, will, arrogance and despotism—thatare “most needful to enable him to giveforce and authority to his position asPresident of the Confederate States.”

DAVIS did not die in 1861 or in thespring of 1863, when prolongedillness again produced rumors of

his demise. He did not die until Decem-ber 1889, outliving all of his four naturalsons and the Confederacy—what JackDavis dubbed his “fifth son.” In the 24years between the collapse of the Confed-eracy and his death, Davis saw his repu-tation fall and rise. Widely vilified in theSouth and the North for his wartimeleadership, Davis won sympathy forenduring two years of imprisonment fortreason (he was indicted, but never tried).

Davis became the South’s “vicarioussufferer.” A political enemy observed bit-terly that “the imprisonment of Mr. Daviswas the best thing that could have hap-pened for his fame.” By the mid-1880s,

the once disgraced former presidentemerged as a Confederate hero—a mandeserving the monuments and shrinesthat dot the southern landscape. JeffersonDavis died a man without a country. TheFourteenth Amendment to the Constitu-tion stripped Davis and other high-rank-ing Confederate leaders of their right tohold public office. Unlike other formerConfederates, Davis never applied for apardon because he believed that doing so

would be to admit that secession wasunconstitutional. Instead, he wrote a two-volume vindication of the Confederacyand his leadership.

Whatever Davis’s own wishes, theU.S. Congress in 1978 posthumouslyrestored Davis’s citizenship rights(retroactive to December 25, 1868) as agesture of reconciliation. Introducing theresolution, Sen. Mark O. Hatfield of Ore-gon called Davis “an honorable publicservant of principle the like of which is alltoo rare in these days when expedience ismore ardently practiced than convictiondefended.”

Jefferson Davis presents modernAmericans with a paradox.Was he indeedan honorable public servant and a goodAmerican or a man who defended slaveryand led a fledgling nation that, if success-ful, would have split the United States intwo? Or, as Davis himself would answer,was he all of those things? ●

Dr. John M. Coski is Historian and Director of Library & Research at the Museum of theConfederacy in Richmond, Virginia.

This article reproduced with permission fromGuide to Virginia’s Civil War, vol. XVI (2008).© Page One History Publications.www.CIVILWARTRAVELER.com

By the mid-1880s, the once disgraced former president emerged as a Confederate hero—

a man deserving the monuments and shrines that dot the southern landscape.


BY WADE HALL

1809Feb. 12: Abraham Lincoln is born in

Hardin County, Kentucky (nowLaRue County) three miles south ofHodgenville, the son of Thomas andNancy Hanks Lincoln.

1811Spring: The Lincoln family moves to a

farm on Knob Creek, 10 miles northof Hodgenville.

1812Another son, named Thomas, is born anddies in infancy.

1815Fall: Abraham and sister, Sarah, attend a

nearby school for several weeks.

1816December: The Lincoln family moves to

Perry County (now Spencer County)in southern Indiana, 17 miles north ofthe Ohio River.

1818Oct. 5: Lincoln’s mother, Nancy Hanks

Lincoln, dies from milk sickness.

1819Dec. 2: Lincoln’s father, Thomas, mar-

ries Sarah Bush Johnston, a widow,in Elizabethtown, Kentucky.

1823June 7: Thomas Lincoln joins Pigeon

Creek Baptist Church, which the fam-ily attends.

1828Jan. 20: Lincoln’s sister, Sarah, who is mar-

ried to Aaron Grigsby, dies in child-birth.

Date uncertain: Lincoln and Allen Gen-try take a flatboat loaded with cargo toNew Orleans.

1830March 1: Thomas Lincoln leaves with

his and his wife’s families for Illinois;Lincoln drives one of three wagons.

March 15: The families locate 10 milessouthwest of Decatur on the northbank of the Sangamon River.

1831March: Lincoln, cousin John Hanks, and

stepbrother John D. Johnston leavehome and arrive in Springfield, Illinois,where Denton Offutt hires them tobuild a flatboat at Sangamon Town.

April-July: Lincoln pilots the flatboat toNew Orleans for Offutt, then returnsto New Salem, 18 miles northwest ofSpringfield.

Aug. 1: Lincoln votes for the first time inNew Salem.

September: Lincoln is a clerk in DentonOffutt’s new store in New Salem.

1832March 9: Lincoln becomes a candidate

for the Illinois legislature, favorsimproved navigation on the Sanga-mon River, changes in the usury(money lending) laws, and universaleducation.

April 21: New Salem men form a volun-teer company to fight in the BlackHawk War, with Lincoln as captain.

Aug. 6: Lincoln is defeated in his bid fora seat in the Illinois legislature.

1833Jan. 15: Lincoln and William E. Berry

become partners in a store in NewSalem.

May 7: President Andrew Jacksonappoints Lincoln postmaster at NewSalem, a position in which Lincolnserves until May 30, 1836, when theoffice is closed.

A very useful listingof major events in the life

of Abraham Lincoln.

A LincolnChronology


1834Jan. 6: Lincoln becomes deputy surveyor

of Sangamon County and does sur-veying for three years.

Aug. 4: Lincoln is elected as a Whig tohis first public office, representingSangamon County in the IllinoisHouse of Representatives.

1835Aug. 25: Ann Rutledge, alleged lady

friend of Lincoln, dies at her family’sfarm near New Salem.

1836Aug. 1: Lincoln is reelected to the Illinois

legislature.Sept. 9: Lincoln receives a license to

practice law in the Illinois courts withfinal approval on March 1, 1837.

1837Feb. 24: Lincoln supports a bill to move

the Illinois capital from Vandalia toSpringfield.

March 3: Lincoln makes his first attackon slavery when he protests an anti-abolitionist resolution in the House.

April 15: Lincoln moves to Springfield,becomes a junior law partner of John T.Stuart, and rooms with Joshua F. Speed.

1838Aug. 6: Lincoln is elected to the Illinois

House of Representatives for thethird time.

Dec. 3: Lincoln, a Whig, is defeated forSpeaker of the House by a Democrat.

1839June 24: Lincoln is elected to the Spring-

field town board.Sept. 23: Lincoln begins the practice of

law on the newly organized EighthJudicial Circuit and continues untilhe is nominated for the presidency in1860.

Oct. 8: Lincoln is named a presidentialelector by the state Whig convention(he is also selected in 1844, 1852 and1856).

Dec. 9: The Illinois legislature meets inSpringfield, the new state capital, forthe first time.

1840March: Joshua Speed’s father dies and

Speed announces plans to return toLouisville.

Aug. 3: Lincoln is elected for the fourthtime to the Illinois legislature.

August-September: Lincoln cam-paigns in southern Illinois for theWhig Party.

1841Early January: Lincoln is courting

Mary Todd but has an emotionalbreakdown.

April 14: Lincoln leaves the law firm ofJohn T. Stuart and becomes the part-ner of Stephen T. Logan.

August-September: Lincoln goes toLouisville to spend three weeks withhis close friend, Joshua Speed.

1842Sept. 22: A duel between Lincoln and

James Shields is avoided whenfriends intervene.

Nov. 4: Lincoln and Mary Todd are mar-ried in Springfield in the home of thebride’s sister, Mrs. Ninian W. Edwards,by an Episcopal priest, and they moveinto the local Globe Tavern.

1843Aug. 1: The first of Lincoln’s four sons,

Robert Todd Lincoln, is born at theGlobe Tavern.

1844May 1: The Lincolns buy and move into

a home in downtown Springfield.October-November: Lincoln campaigns

for Henry Clay in southern Illinois,Indiana and Kentucky; he speaks athis boyhood home near Gentryville,Indiana.

Dec. 9: William H. Herndon is admitted tothe bar and becomes the junior half ofthe Lincoln and Herndon law firm.

1846March 10: The Lincolns’ second son,

Edward Baker Lincoln, is born.Aug. 3: Lincoln defeats his Democratic

opponent, the Reverend PeterCartwright, and becomes the onlyWhig congressman from Illinois.

1847Dec. 6: The Lincolns spend most of

November visiting Mrs. Lincoln’s fam-ily in Lexington, Kentucky, then con-tinue to Washington, where Lincolntakes his seat in the Thirtieth Congress.

1848Sept. 12-22: Lincoln attends the Whig

convention in Philadelphia and sup-ports the successful candidate, Gen-eral Zachary Taylor, for president;Lincoln speaks for Taylor throughoutNew England.

1849Jan. 10: Lincoln supports a resolution in

Congress to abolish slavery in theDistrict of Columbia; he drafts anamendment to the resolution to pro-vide compensated emancipation butnever introduces it.

March 7: Lincoln is admitted to practicebefore the U.S. Supreme Court.

Aug. 21: Lincoln declines the offer of thesecretaryship of the Oregon Territory.

Sept. 27: He further declines the offer ofthe governorship of Oregon.

1850Feb. 1: The Lincolns’ second son,

Edward Baker, dies after a protractedillness.

July 25: Lincoln delivers a eulogy for thelate President Zachary Taylor atChicago’s City Hall.

Dec. 21: William Wallace Lincoln, theLincolns’ third son, is born.

1851Jan. 17: Abraham Lincoln’s father,

Thomas Lincoln, born in Virginia in1778, dies in Coles County, Illinois.

1852July 6: Lincoln eulogizes the late Henry

Clay in Springfield.

1853April 4: Thomas “Tad” Lincoln, the

Lincolns’ fourth son, is born inSpringfield.

Aug. 27: Lincoln allegedly uses water-melon juice to christen the new townof Lincoln, Illinois, named for him.


1854May 30: Lincoln has lost much of his

interest in politics over the previousfive years, but he reenters the politicalarena following the passage of theKansas-Nebraska Act, championed byStephen Douglas, U.S. senator fromIllinois. The law will apparently openup the Western territories to popularvote to decide whether a new state willallow slavery, and thus repeal the Mis-souri Compromise, which allowedMissouri into the Union as a slavestate but prohibited slavery in futurestates carved out of the territory of theLouisiana Purchase.

Oct. 16: Lincoln and Douglas meet inPeoria for the first in a series of piv-otal debates centered on the spreadof slavery into the new territories.

Nov. 7: Lincoln is elected again to theIllinois legislature, but resigns onNov. 27 to campaign unsuccessfullyfor the seat of Senator Douglas.

1856Spring:The Lincolns have their home in

Springfield enlarged from one-and-a-half stories to two full stories.

May 29: Lincoln is again a presidentialelector and delivers a speech at theorganization of the Republican Partyin Illinois in Bloomington.

June 19: The first Republican NationalConvention meets in Philadelphia,where Lincoln receives 110 votes forvice president.

Aug. 27: Lincoln speaks in support ofthe Republican candidate for presi-dent, General John C. Frémont, atKalamazoo, Michigan.

1857June 26: In the Illinois legislature meet-

ing in Springfield, Lincoln attacksthe Dred Scott decision of the U.S.Supreme Court, which held thattemporary residence in a free statedoes not give a slave freedom.

1858June 16: Lincoln is chosen by the Illinois

State Republican Convention, meet-ing in the statehouse in Springfield,as candidate for the U.S. Senate.

Aug. 21: Lincoln and Stephen Douglas,the Democratic candidate, meet fortheir first debate. From Augustthrough October, they meet at vari-ous Illinois locations for six moredebates.

July 10: Beginning in Chicago, Lincolnmakes at least 63 speeches during thecampaign.

Nov. 2: In the election, Lincoln receives amajority of the votes, but because ofthe gerrymandered legislative dis-tricts, Douglas wins reelection to theU.S. Senate.

1859Lincoln makes political speechesthroughout Ohio,Wisconsin and Kansas.

1860Feb. 27: Lincoln delivers his highly

acclaimed address at Cooper Unionin New York City .

Feb. 28: Lincoln begins a two-weekspeaking tour of New England.

May 9-10: The Illinois Republican Con-vention, meeting in Decatur, votes tosupport Lincoln for the Republicannomination for president.

May 18: The Republican National Con-vention, meeting in Chicago, nomi-nates Lincoln for president on thethird ballot. The nomination for vicepresident goes to Hannibal Hamlinof Maine.

July: After graduating from PhillipsExeter Academy in New Hampshire,Robert Todd Lincoln enrolls at Har-vard University (upon graduation in1864 he will become a captain on thestaff of General Ulysses S. Grant).

Oct. 19: Eleven-year-old Grace Bedell ofWestfield, New York, writes to Lin-coln suggesting that he grow abeard—which he does

Nov. 6: Lincoln defeats three other can-didates—Stephen Douglas, North-ern Democrat; John C. Breckinridge,Southern Democrat; and John Bell,Constitutional Union—and becomesthe first Republican to be electedpresident of the United States.

Dec. 20: The secession of states beginswith South Carolina.

1861Jan. 31: Lincoln pays a final visit to his

elderly stepmother, Sarah BushJohnston Lincoln, in Coles County,Illinois.

Feb. 4: The Confederate States of Amer-ica is formed by delegates fromSouth Carolina, Georgia, Florida,Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.Kentucky-born Jefferson Davis ischosen to be president and Alexan-der H. Stephens of Georgia is chosenas vice president.

Feb. 11: Lincoln delivers his emotionalfarewell address to the people ofSpringfield from the rear of the train atthe Great Western Railroad Station.

Feb. 23: After a 12-day trip, punctuatedby speeches and other public appear-ances, Lincoln arrives secretly inWashington.

March 4: Lincoln is inaugurated as the16th president of the United States.

April 12-14: Fort Sumter is attacked byConfederate forces and 34 hours latersurrenders.

April 15: Virginia, North Carolina, Ten-nessee and Arkansas secede from theUnion.

April 19: President Lincoln blockadesports in South Carolina, Georgia, Flori-da, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama,and Texas.

April 27: Lincoln suspends the writ ofhabeas corpus and blockades theports of North Carolina and Vir-ginia.

May 24: Lincoln weeps publicly mourningthe death of his young friend, ColonelE. E. Ellsworth, shot by a Confederatesympathizer after Ellsworth hadremoved a Confederate flag flying overa hotel in Alexandria,Virginia.

June 3: Lincoln orders 30 days of mourn-ing after the death of Stephen A.Douglas in Chicago at the age of 48.

July 21: Lincoln learns that the Unionforces under General Irvin McDow-ell have been badly defeated at BullRun.

July 27: Lincoln places General GeorgeB. McClellan in command of all thetroops in the Washington area.


Aug. 16: Lincoln issues an order forbid-ding commerce with states in insur-rection against the government of theUnited States.

Nov. 1: Following the resignation ofGeneral Winfield Scott, Lincoln des-ignates General McClellan as thecommander of the entire army.

1862Feb. 20: The Lincolns lose their second

son,William Wallace (Willie).April 6-7: The Union forces of General

Grant and the Confederate forces ofGeneral Albert Sidney Johnstonclash near a small church namedShiloh in Tennessee, with huge lossesto both sides.

June 1: General Robert E. Lee becomescommander of the Army of North-ern Virginia.

Aug. 22: Lincoln admits publicly his pol-icy on slavery in response to a criticaleditorial by Horace Greeley: “Myparamount object in this struggle isto save the Union, and is not either tosave or to destroy slavery.”

Sept. 22: Lincoln issues his preliminaryEmancipation Proclamation to takeeffect January 1, 1863.

Nov. 5: Lincoln replaces GeneralMcClellan as commander of theArmy of the Potomac with GeneralAmbrose E. Burnside.

Dec. 31: Lincoln approves the bill admit-ting West Virginia, which has secededfrom Virginia, to the Union.

1863Jan. 1: Lincoln issues the final Emanci-

pation Proclamation, which freesslaves that are held in states that haveseceded and are in rebellion.

July 1-3: General Robert E. Lee’s inva-sion of Pennsylvania is ended byUnion forces at Gettysburg, Penn-sylvania.

Oct. 3: Lincoln proclaims the firstnational observance of Thanksgiv-ing, to be held on Nov. 26.

Nov. 19: Lincoln delivers his address atthe national cemetery at Gettysburg.Lincoln grants amnesty to Confeder-ates who swear allegiance to the U.S.Constitution.

1864June 8: The National Union Party, in

convention at Baltimore, nominatesLincoln for president and AndrewJohnson of Tennessee for vice presi-dent.

June 28: Lincoln approves the act repeal-ing the Fugitive Slave Act.

July 11: Lincoln witnesses the Confeder-ate attack on Fort Stevens on theoutskirts of Washington.

Sept. 1: General William T. Sherman’sUnion forces occupy Atlanta, thusensuring Lincoln’s reelection.

Nov. 8: Lincoln is easily reelected, defeat-ing the Democratic candidate, Gen-eral George B. McClellan.

Nov. 21: Lincoln writes his letter of con-solation to Mrs. Lydia Bixby, whohad reportedly lost all five of her sonsin the Union cause.

Dec. 1: Lincoln appoints James Speed ofLouisville, brother of his friendJoshua Speed, attorney general.

Dec. 22: General Sherman capturesSavannah, Georgia, and presents itto Lincoln as his “Christmas gift.”

1865Feb. 1: Lincoln approves the Thirteenth

Amendment, which, when ratified bythe states, will abolish slavery.

March 3: Lincoln approves the actestablishing the Freedmen’s Bureau,which will assist the freed slaves.

March 4: Lincoln delivers his SecondInaugural Address, offering generousterms to the defeated southern statesas they reenter the Union.

April 2: Jefferson Davis and his cabinetflee south from Richmond,Virginia.

April 3: Union troops occupy Rich-mond.

April 4-5: Lincoln visits Richmond.April 9: General Lee surrenders to Gen-

eral Grant at Appomattox CourtHouse,Virginia.

April 11: Lincoln delivers his finalspeech from a window in the WhiteHouse, describing the condition ofthe Confederate states and a plan tobring them back into the Union.

April 14: Lincoln is shot by actor JohnWilkes Booth while attending a playat Ford’s Theatre in Washington.

April 15: Lincoln dies at 7:22 A.M. inthe home of William Petersen, acrossthe street from the theatre.

April 19: Funeral services are held forthe slain president in the WhiteHouse.

April 21: The Lincoln funeral train leavesWashington and takes a circuitousroute west by way of Baltimore,York,Philadelphia, New York City, Albany,Buffalo, Cleveland, Columbus, Indi-anapolis and Chicago, arriving at itsdestination in Springfield, Illinois, at 9 A.M. on May 3.

May 4: Lincoln’s body is buried in OakRidge Cemetery in Springfield. It islater moved to the present memorialin Springfield.

1870Congress awards Mrs. Lincoln an annualpension of $3,000, which is later increasedto $5,000, plus a one-time gift of $15,000.

1871July 15: Thomas (Tad) Lincoln dies of

“dropsy of the chest” in Chicago,and his body is taken for burial to theLincoln Tomb in Springfield.

1882July 16: Mary Todd Lincoln dies in the

Springfield home of her sister, Mrs.Ninian W. Edwards, the same housewhere she and Abraham Lincolnwere married; she is buried in theLincoln Tomb with her husband andthree of her four sons.

1887June 16: Robert Todd Lincoln and his

wife present the Lincoln home inSpringfield to the State of Illinois.

1926July 26: Robert Todd Lincoln dies and is

buried in Arlington National Cemetery.He has earlier deposited his father’spapers in the Library of Congress. ●

Reprinted from Wade Hall, Abraham Lincoln of Kentucky: An Interview with the President.© Kentucky Humanities Council Inc. 2008.


ON February 2, 2009, the Ken-tucky Humanities Council willpresent Our Lincoln at the John F.

Kennedy Center for the Performing Artson the banks of the Potomac River inWashington, D.C. Almost 400 Kentuckyartists and technicians will travel to thecapital for this performance.There will besome starry additions to the Our Lincoln

lineup. They include tenor GregoryTuray, a University of Kentucky gradu-ate, and soprano Angela Brown. Bothhave made their mark at the MetropolitanOpera in New York. The celebrated fid-dler and composer Mark O’Connor andradio personality and Kentucky nativeBob Edwards will also join the cast, as willthe University of Kentucky Symphony

Orchestra under the direction of JohnNardolillo. Performers returning from theLexington production include the Lex-ington Singers, the American SpiritualEnsemble, the Lexington Vintage DanceSociety, the University of KentuckyOpera Theater, the living history artists ofKentucky Chautauqua©, and KentuckyPoet Laureate Jane Gentry Vance.

Washington, Here We Come!Our Lincoln was such a smash in Lexington thatwe’re taking it to the Kennedy Center in Washington

THE COUNCIL PAGES

It’s A GoTickets are available for the Wash-ington performance of Our Lincoln.Please join us for this uniqueopportunity to showcase Kentuckyartists and honor our greatest son’s200th birthday.

Our Lincoln7:30 P.M.Monday, February 2, 2009John F. Kennedy Center

for the Performing ArtsBox Office: 800/444-1324

or 202/467-4600

www.ourlincoln.orgwww.kennedy-center.org

Above: Renowned composer and fiddlerMark O’Connor will join the Our Lincolncast at the Kennedy Center.

Left: Nick Clooney will narrate AaronCopland’s Lincoln Portrait.

As it did in Lexington, the American Spiritual Ensemble will raise its mightyvoice in Washington.

Jose

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Four Gubernatorial Appointees Join Humanities Council Board

Julie N. Satterly Joins Council Staff

THE Kentucky Humanities Councilhas welcomed four new membersto its Board of Directors.They were

appointed to the Board by GovernorSteve Beshear. They will serve duringBeshear’s term and can be reappointed ifthe governor is re-elected. These newmembers will represent the Council intheir home areas, help set policies, reviewgrant applications, and raise money forthe more than 400 public humanitiesprograms the Council supports everyyear. These programs reached all but sixof the Commonwealth’s 120 counties in2008. The Council and its communitypartners invest more than $1 millionannually in public humanities programsfor Kentuckians.

Karen C. McDanielKaren McDaniel(Frankfort) is avisiting scholar atEastern KentuckyUniversity and oneof three co-editorsof the forthcomingKentucky AfricanAmerican Encyclo-

pedia. She is a professor emeritus fromKentucky State University, where she wasDirector of Libraries from 1989 to 2005.A graduate of Berea College, McDaniel

has a master’s degree in library scienceand is completing her doctorate in histo-ry at the University of Kentucky. Herresearch focuses on Kentucky AfricanAmerican women’s clubs.

Reed PolkReed Polk (Lexing-ton) is a CrossroadsConsultant, speakerand commentatorfor WKYT-TV. Agraduate of HowardCollege (now Sam-ford University) inB i r m i n g h a m ,

Alabama, Polk was an administrator at theUniversity of Kentucky Chandler MedicalCenter for 22 years. He serves on the Unit-ed Way and God’s Pantry boards of direc-tors. He is past president of the LexingtonRotary Club and author of two books: Run-ning Into a Deadend While Escaping andBefore and After: A Commentary for OurTimes.

Howard V. RobertsHoward Roberts (Pikeville) is the BurlinColeman Distinguished Professor inBusiness at Pikeville College and chair ofthe division of business and economics.Before joining the college in 1984,Roberts worked for Turner Elkhorn Min-

ing in Drift, KYand Monsanto inNitro, WV. A grad-uate of PikevilleCollege and Mar-shall University,Roberts is a mem-ber of numerousboards and organi-

zations, including the Pikeville RotaryClub, the Pike County Chamber ofCommerce and the Williamson ARHHospital Advisory Board of Directors.

Suzanne D. RoseSuzanne D. Rose(Owensboro) is thechairperson of theEnglish departmentat Kentucky Wes-leyan College andan associate profes-sor of English. Roseearned her bache-

lor’s degree, master’s degree and Ph.D.from the University of Oklahoma. She hasedited several professional publications, andis a member of the American Association ofUniversity Women and the Modern Lan-guage Association. She serves on the Bish-op’s Pastoral Council for the Diocese ofOwensboro, and is a founder of the St.Benedict’s Homeless Shelter.

JULIE Nelson Satterly joined the Kentucky HumanitiesCouncil Inc. October 1, 2008 as the assistant director formarketing and public relations and editor of Kentucky

Humanities magazine.Satterly comes to the council after serving as editor and

publisher of the Oldham Era, a 7,500 circulation weeklynewspaper in La Grange, Kentucky, owned by LandmarkCommunity Newspapers Inc. She started her career innewspapers as a copy editor and graphic designer at the Jes-samine Journal in Nicholasville, moving then to Richmond(KY) to serve as news editor of the Richmond Register. Shejoined the Oldham Era in 2003.

Under Satterly’s watch, the Era won statewide recogni-tion as the first-place recipient of the Kentucky Press Asso-ciation General Excellence award in 2005, 2006 and 2007.

Satterly has received numer-ous Kentucky Press Associ-ation, Society for Profes-sional Journalists and Land-mark Community Newspa-pers Inc. awards for excel-lence in writing and news-paper design.

Julie Satterly graduatedfrom the University of Ken-tucky in December 2001with a Bachelor of Sciencedegree in journalism. She was the managing editor of the uni-versity’s newspaper, the Kentucky Kernel. Satterly lives inDanville with her son, Matthew, 2.

Julie Satterly

Kentucky Humanities Council, Inc.206 East Maxwell StreetUniversity of KentuckyLexington, KY 40506-0315859/257-5932www.kyhumanities.org

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