David Herbert Donald: A Life Remembered 1920-2009

FOR THE PEOPLEA NEWSLETTEROFTHE ABRAHAM LINCOLN ASSOCIATION3MICHAEL BURLINGAME SPEAKS AT BICENTENNIAL DINNERLincoln and to explain why I find himsuch an inspirational figure.NEW INFORMATIONMichael BurlingamePhotograph by Susan Northrup Scott.The following remarks of Michael Burlingame were presented on the occasion ofthe 200th birthday of Abraham Lincolncelebrated at a banquet at the CrownePlaza Hotel in Springfield, Illinois, on theevening of February 12, 2009. ProfessorBurlingame is a member of the Board ofDirectors of The Abraham Lincoln Association and holds the Chancellor NaomiB. Lynn Distinguished Chair in LincolnStudies at the University of IllinoisSpringfield.Upon departing Springfield forWashington to take office as the 16thpresident of the U.S., Lincoln told hisfellow townsmen: ―To this place, and tothe kindness of these people, I owe everything.‖ As a Lincoln scholar who hadspent much time here over the past 25years, I too feel a strong sense of gratitude to this place and to the kindness ofits people. Many of them have extendedto me the most gracious hospitality andhave assisted me enormously as I conducted my research, first in the bowels ofthe Old State Capitol and more recentlyin the splendid new Abraham LincolnPresidential Library, whose staff hasbeen unfailingly helpful. If I were tothank all of the Springfielders to whom Ifeel grateful, I would exhaust my allotted15 minutes. But I cannot refrain fromtendering my especial thanks to Dick andAnn Hart and to Sarah Thomas, whoover the years have not only generouslyput me up but have patiently put up withme.I am deeply honored to be askedto speak on this very special occasion. Iwould like to share with you some of thenew information I have uncovered aboutEarlier this evening we heardhow the foremost African American public figure of the 21st century regards Lincoln. Perhaps it would not be inappropriate to consider what the foremost AfricanAmerican public figure of the 19th century thought of him. In the papers ofFrederick Douglass at the Library ofCongress, I stumbled across twospeeches that Douglass delivered in1865, neither of which appears in the five-volume edition of Douglass‘s publicutterances that the Yale University Presspublished recently.Before a large audience atManhattan‘s Cooper Union on June 1,1865, Douglass said: ―No people or classof people in the country, have a betterreason for lamenting the death of Abraham Lincoln, and for desiring to honorand perpetuate his memory, than have thecolored people.‖ The record of the martyred president, when compared ―with thelong line of his predecessors, many ofwhom were merely the facile and servileinstruments of the slave power,‖ was impressive. Lincoln was ―in a sense hithertowithout example, emphatically the blackman‘s President: the first to show anyrespect for their rights as men . . . . Hewas the first American President who. . .rose above the prejudice of his times, andcountry.‖ If during the early stages ofthe Civil War the president had favoredcolonizing the freedmen abroad, Douglassasserted, ―Lincoln soon outgrew his colonization ideas and schemes and came tolook upon the Black man as an Americancitizen.‖ To illustrate this point, Douglasscited his personal experience: ―It was myprivilege to know Abraham Lincoln andto know him well. I saw and conversedwith him at different times during hisadministration.‖ Douglass found Lincoln‘s willingness to receive him remarkable in itself: ―He knew that he could donothing which would call down uponhim more fiercely the ribaldry of thevulgar than by showing any respect to acolored man.‖ (In a draft of this speech,Douglass said: ―Some men there arewho can face death and dangers, buthave not the moral courage to contradicta prejudice or face ridicule. In daring toadmit, nay in daring to invite a Negro toan audience at the White house, Mr. Lincoln did that which he knew would beoffensive to the crowd and excite theirribaldry. It was saying to the country,I am President of the black people aswell as the white, and I mean to respecttheir rights and feelings as men and ascitizens.‖)When Douglass was admitted tothe President‘s office, he found Lincolneasy to converse with: ―He set me at perfect liberty to state where I differed fromhim as freely as where I agreed withhim. From the first five minutes Iseemed to myself to have been acquainted with [him] during all my life. . .[H]e was one of the very few whiteAmericans who could converse with anegro without anything like condescension, and without in anywise remindinghim of the unpopularity of his color.‖Douglass recalled one episodein particular that demonstrated Lincoln‘s ―kindly disposition towards colored people.‖ While Douglass was talking with the president, a White Houseaide on two occasions announced that thegovernor of Connecticut sat in an adjacent room, eager for an interview. ―Tellthe Governor to wait,‖ said the President.―I want to have a long talk with myfriend Douglass.‖ Their conversationcontinued for another hour. Douglasslater speculated that ―[t]his was probablythe first time in the history of the countrywhen the Governor of a State was required to wait for an interview, becausethe President of the United States wasengaged in conversation with a negro.‖According to Douglass, millionsof blacks ―from first to last, and throughall, whether through good or through evilreport, fully believed in Abraham Lincoln.‖ Despite his initial tardiness in attacking slavery, Douglass said, they―firmly trusted in him‖ with a faith thatconstituted ―no blind trust unsupportedby reason.‖ Blacks had ―early caught a(Continued on page 4)

4A NEWSLETTER(Continued from page 3)glimpse of the man, and from the evidence of their senses, they believed inhim. They viewed him not in the lightof separate individual acts, but in thelight of his mission, in his manifest relation to events and in the philosophy of hisstatesmanship. Viewing him thus theytrusted him as men are seldom trusted.‖Frederick DouglassSeveral months later, Douglassprepared a speech in which he discussedLincoln‘s final public address, which wasdelivered on April 11, 1865. In it thepresident endorsed black voting rights:Alluding to the new constitution of thestate of Louisiana, Lincoln said: ―It is . . .unsatisfactory to some that the electivefranchise is not given to the colored man.I would myself prefer that it were nowconferred on the very intelligent, and onthose who serve our cause as soldiers.‖When Douglass heard that April 11speech, he thought Lincoln‘s call forblack suffrage ―seemed to mean but little,‖ for its scope was too limited. But intime Douglass came to acknowledge thatthe speech actually ―meant a great deal.It was just like Abraham Lincoln. Henever shocked prejudices unnecessarily.Having learned statesmanship whilesplitting rails, he always used the thinedge of the wedge first – and the fact thathe used it at all meant that he would ifneed be, use the thick as well as thethin.‖ Douglass could cite Lincoln‘sdealings with slavery. The president hadinserted the thin edge of the wedge inMarch 1862 when he recommended thatCongress compensate any Border Stateadopting gradual emancipation. Lincolnthen drove the wedge in deeper in 1863with the Emancipation Proclamation.And in 1864 he fully drove home theOFTHE ABRAHAM LINCOLN ASSOCIATIONthick part of the wedge in 1865 by endorsing the Thirteenth Amendment. Evenbefore March 1862, Lincoln had workedbehind the scenes to persuade Delawareto emancipate its slaves. So it was withblack suffrage. In 1864, Lincoln hadprivately urged Louisiana Governor Michael Hahn to enfranchise at least someblacks in Louisiana: ―Now you are aboutto have a Convention which, amongother things, will probably define theelective franchise. I barely suggest foryour private consideration, whether someof the colored people may not be let in –as, for instance, the very intelligent, andespecially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks. They would probablyhelp, in some trying time to come, tokeep the jewel of liberty within the family of freedom.‖ In 1865, he publiclyendorsed the same policy.One member of Lincoln‘s audience on April 11, 1865, did not underestimate the importance of the president‘scall for limited black suffrage. Uponhearing that passage, a handsome, popular, impulsive, twenty-six-year-old actornamed John Wilkes Booth turned to afriend and declared: ―That means niggercitizenship. Now by God I‘ll put himthrough!‖ Booth added: ―That is the lastspeech he will ever make.‖Lincoln was murdered becausehe endorsed the enfranchisement ofblacks, not because he issued the emancipation proclamation or supported the13th amendment. Thus he was as much amartyr to black citizenship rights as Martin Luther King, or Medgar Evers, orViola Liuzo, or James Reeb, or MichaelSchwerner, or James Cheney, or AndrewGoodman, or any of the other civil rightsactivists killed during the 1960s.INSPIRATIONThe distinguished biographer ofWoodrow Wilson, Arthur S. Link, asserted that he was glad he had spent hisacademic career studying the life of aman whom he liked and admired. Scholars who specialized in Hitler or Stalin,Link said, seemed to him to be depressed.Similarly, a rising young pianistrecently wrote that he regarded it as aprivilege and a responsibility to playFOR THE PEOPLEBeethoven‘s sonatas. When rehearsingand performing those works, he declared,he felt compelled to try to be a bettermusician and a better human being. Ifeel the same way about Lincoln. As Iconduct research on him and write abouthim, I feel compelled to try to be a betterhistorian and a better human being. I try,and I will continue to try.One of the ways I try to be abetter human being is to follow the advice that President Lincoln gave a youngUnion captain who was squabbling withhis superior officers.Quoting from―Hamlet,‖ the president wrote that a father‘s admonition to his son—―Bewareof entrance to a quarrel, but being in,bear it that the opposed may beware ofthee‖—was good counsel ―and yet notthe best.‖ Instead, Lincoln enjoined thecaptain: ―Quarrel not al all.‖The reasons Lincoln gave werepractical: ―No man resolved to make themost of himself, can spare time for personal contention. Still less can he affordto take all the consequences, includingthe vitiating of his temper, and the loss ofself-control. Yield larger things to whichyou can show no more than equal rightand yield lesser ones, though clearly yourown. Better give your path to a dog, thanbe bitten by him in contesting for theright. Even killing the dog would notcure the bite.‖Let me close by sharing withyou the final paragraph of Abraham Lincoln: A Life: ―Lincoln speaks to us notonly as a champion of freedom, democracy, and national unity but also as asource of inspiration. Few will achievehis world historical importance, butmany can profit from his personal example, encouraged by the knowledge thatdespite a childhood of emotional malnutrition and grinding poverty, despite alack of formal education, despite a seriesof career failures, despite a miserablemarriage, despite a tendency to depression, despite a painful midlife crisis, despite the early death of his mother andhis siblings as well as of his sweetheartand two of his four children, he became amodel of psychological maturity, moralclarity, and unimpeachable integrity. Hispresence and his leadership inspired hiscontemporaries; his life story can do thesame for generations to come.‖For The People (ISSN 1527-2710) is published four times a year and is a benefit of membership of The Abraham Lincoln Association.

FOR THE PEOPLEA NEWSLETTEROFTHE ABRAHAM LINCOLN ASSOCIATION5DARWIN, LINCOLN, STANTON ANDAPES, ANGELS, AND AGESBy Thomas F. SchwartzWith much of the fanfare nowbehind, the public was reminded thatfamed British naturalist Charles Darwinand America‘s Sixteenth President Abraham Lincoln share a common birthday ofFebruary 12, 1809. This year marked thebicentennial celebration for both. DavidR. Contosta, a professor of history atChestnut Hill College, provided the firstdual biography with Rebel Giants: TheRevolutionary Lives of Abraham Lincolnand Charles Darwin (Prometheus Books,2008). This was followed by The NewYorker columnist Adam Gopnik‘s Angels and Ages: A Short Book about Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life (Knopf,2009).Victorians were appalled byDarwin‘s ideas of evolution: the popularnotion that apes evolved into men. Lincoln had an interest in natural science butthere is nothing to suggest that he readDarwin‘s seminal On the Origin of theSpecies, published in 1859. Ironically,Lincoln often devolved to simian proportions at the hands his critics. Characteristic of the era‘s racism, many of theseLincoln portrayals as an ape or gorillafollowed the issuing of the EmancipationProclamation. David Strother‘s January14, 1863 image of Lincoln as a monkeyholding a copy of the EmancipationProclamation reinforces the Southernnotion that blacks were not human beings. A Phunny Phellow cartoon fromMay 1864 shows Lincoln as a monkeyholding the George B. McClellan cat bythe tail. In Lincoln‘s other hand is adead mouse representing the WhiteHouse, 1865. Clearly a reference to theupcoming presidential contest, the caption reads, ―Don‘t You Wish You MayGet It?‖ That McClellan frequently referred to Lincoln as ―the original gorilla‖ was based upon a mistaken beliefthat primates were not intelligent creatures or, anyway, lower than man.Lincoln‘s comparison to or portrayal with apes was not only a nineteenth century phenomenon. Many modern artistic endeavors have the undesiredresult of creating Lincoln‘s visage withsimian features. The 2001 Tim Burtonremake of the Charlton Heston classicPlanet of the Apes substitutes the LincolnMemorial for the Statue of Liberty at thefilm‘s end. Lincoln is not found sittingin the chair; rather, the evil leader of theapes, General Thade, is shown.Recent efforts by several scholars have sought to elevate Lincoln fromhis sometime simian status and give hima harp, wings, and a halo, just like Clarence in Frank Capra‘s It’s A WonderfulLife. Beginning with Jay Winik and seconded by James Swanson and AdamGopnik, these writers claim that EdwinStanton, Lincoln‘s Secretary of War,really said: ―Now he belongs to the angels.‖ From ape to angel, one wonderswhatever happened in the interveningages? A simple answer to this questionis that, in efforts to reduce costs, publishers no longer fact check most authors.Every author makes mistakes, but thereis no longer the safety net in the editingprocess to rigorously eliminate them.Had there been such a mechanism inCharles Darwinplace, Lincoln might never have left theearthbound ages for the heavens above.Jay Winik, in his best sellingbook April 1865: The Month That SavedAmerica (HarperCollins, 2001), claimsthat Stanton later changed his words―Now, he belongs to the angels‖ to themore widely quoted ―Now, he belongs tothe ages.‖ Winik argues ―that Stantondid revise his words for history—something that in his time Lincoln didnot do—is fascinating in itself. Thequote I use is from the attending stenographer, James Tanner (see Bak, Day Lincoln was Shot, 98), which strikes me asmost accurate.‖ Two claims are advanced, both dubious: 1) that Lincolnnever revised his publically utteredwords and 2) James Tanner claimed thatStanton originally said, ―Now, he belongs to the angels.‖Many of the recent books onLincoln as a writer have convincinglyshown that Lincoln was never reluctantto rewrite or polish his prose. This isevident in his Farewell Address toSpringfield which exists in three different versions. It is also more starkly evident in the five different versions of theGettysburg Address.The real issue is whether JamesTanner ever stated that Stanton‘s wordsupon Lincoln‘s death were ―Now he belongs to the angels.‖ Richard Bak‘sbook, The Day Lincoln Was Shot: AnIllustrated Chronicle (Taylor, 1998),contains no footnotes so it is impossibleto know his sources. Otto Eisenschiml,in Why Was Lincoln Murdered?, alsocited by Winik, concedes: ―One report,also difficult to authenticate, was thatStanton said, ‗And now he belongs to theAngels.‘‖ Dorothy Meserve Kunhardtand Philip B. Kunhardt, Jr., probably arethe likely source of much of the recentconfusion. In Twenty Days, the Kunhardts provide a description of Lincoln‘sdeath by quoting James Tanner, the stenographer who was present in the room.(Continued on page 6)

6A NEWSLETTER(Continued from page 5)Tanner admits that his pencil point broketrying to remove it from his pocket torecord Reverend Gurley‘s prayer. ButTanner recalled ― Mr. Stanton raised hishead, the tears streaming down his face.A more agonized expression I never sawon a human countenance as he sobbed outthe words: ‗He belongs to the angelsnow.‘‖ The Kunhardts continued to explain ―Later, others in the room recalledStanton‘s remarks as loftier—‘Now hebelongs to the ages.‘‖ Once again, thereis no source cited for Tanner‘s remarks orwho the ―others‖ were that changed thephrasing. And because the Kunhardtsappear to be quoting Tanner directly,others who have used their work assumethat they are quoting Tanner correctly.But are they?In every instance where an author has argued that Stanton used theword ―angels‖ instead of ―ages,‖ no primary source is provided. If Tanner reallymade this claim, there should be someprimary source to cite. What one getsinstead is a series of secondary sourcesthat never lead to a primary source. Thesimple exercise of finding a primarysource in which Tanner recalls that fateful night consistently results with Tanneruse of the word ―ages,‖ and never―angels.‖ In Lincoln, Illinois, the LincolnOFTHE ABRAHAM LINCOLN ASSOCIATIONHeritage Museum received a collection ofmaterials from one of its supporters, JohnGehlbach. Among the items is a January11, 1909, letter from David Homer Bates,telegraph operator in the War Departmentduring the Civil War, to James Tannerthanking him for sending his account ofLincoln‘s death as published in the Washington Post, April 16, 1905, p.12. Indeed, Tanner received so many requestsfor his recollection that he composed astandard account that he provided to reporters and other interested parties. BothTanner‘s signed typescript and the Washington Post article have Stanton saying:―He belongs to the ages now.‖ In 1926Tanner gave a copy of his recollections toCongressman James A. Frear of Wisconsin, who entered it the CongressionalRecord. This entry was later published asa separate pamphlet.Tanner was frustrated that, evenafter providing reporters with printedcopies of Lincoln‘s last hours, the finalpublished newspaper articles usually misquoted him and otherwise distorted theevent. In a cover letter to CongressmanFrear in 1926, Tanner wrote: for 50 years I have attendedthe annual encampments of theGrand Army of the Republic; nevermissed one since I began in 1876.Well, it was generally known that IFOR THE PEOPLEhad been in that death group andthe reporters would come for aninterview, and generally, theywould mangle what I gave them,plenty of misstatements, and whatever they got they would cut it tosuit their cloth even after I wrotethis article some years ago, I wouldtake a copy or two along to thenational encampment, and whenthey would come at me about thismatter, hand them this statement,they would take it, but they wouldmeasure what space they had intheir paper and invariably cut it,and never once gave it in full, and Inever felt more like hitting a man incold blood A lengthy study identifying andcomparing all of the textual changes madeby newspaper accounts using Tanner‘sprinted recollection would be a project untoitself. One wonders how Tanner‘s repeatedclaim that Stanton uttered, ―He belongs tothe ages now,‖ was transposed to the morepopular ―Now he belongs to the ages.‖Undoubtedly, it has an explanation just asthis modest exercise has shown how recenthistorians garbled Tanner‘s words. Modern historians may want Lincoln to soaramong the angels, but James Tanner‘s broken pencil point may also have clippedLincoln‘s wings in the process, keepinghim earthbound for the ages.WHO WAS CORPORAL JAMES TANNER?James Tanner was born at Richmondville, New York, on April 4, 1844. Hewas a teacher when the Civil War beganand he enlisted in September 1861 in the87th New York Volunteer Infantry. Heserved as a Corporal with that unitthrough the Peninsula Campaign, AprilJuly 1862, and at the Battle of SecondBull Run (Manassas), August 29-30, receiving wounds which required the amputation of both legs just below theknees.On the evening of April 14, 1865, hearing that President Lincoln had been shot,he hurried to Ford’s Theater and remained there throughout the night withSecretary of War Edwin Stanton. Hetook complete shorthand notes as thesearch for the assassin was planned andcarried out. His record of events thatevening at the Peterson House remainthe most comprehensive record of theevents that followed the President’sshooting.Tanner was fitted with two wooden prostheses and learned how to walk with hisartificial legs. In 1863, he was appointedUnder-Doorkeeper of the New York StateLegislature. He studied stenography andin 1864 he obtained a clerkship in theWar Department in Washington.At the end of the Civil War, Tanner studied law in New York and in 1869 wasadmitted to the Bar. From 1869 to 1877he held posts in the New York CustomsHouse and from 1877 to 1885 was TaxCollector in Brooklyn, New York. HeJames Tanner, circa 1866Collection of Michael Robert Patterson(Continued on page 7)

FOR THE PEOPLEA NEWSLETTEROFTHE ABRAHAM LINCOLN ASSOCIATIONlater founded a Veteran’s organization andspoke at the dedication of the ConfederateMemorial in Arlington National Cemetery.his office’s budget. At length, Secretary ofthe Interior John W. Noble, of whose Department the Pension O

a surrogate son. Later, David would name his son Bruce Randall Donald in memory of the Randalls. As a research assistant to Randall, Donald greatly benefited from his time at the University of Illinois. His resulting dissertation on William Herndon was published as a book and remains the definitive study of Lincoln‘s third law partner.