With Malice Towards None: A Biography of Abraham Lincoln

It is the last Sunday of the month which means it is time to learn about another president, and going in order it is time for the 16th President, Abraham Lincoln, making this week’s book of the week With Malice Towards None: A Biography of Abraham Lincoln by Stephen B Oates.

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, on the south fork of Nolin Creek in Kentucky, to Nancy Hanks Lincoln and Thomas Lincoln, and the family was dirt poor, and largely illiterate, with Nancy not able to read at all, and Thomas able but too busy scratching out a living to do much of it. The family eventually moved to Indiana in 1816. About a year later his mother died of the milk sick, which is essentially poison by proxy: cows will eat white snakeroot plant, which the cows can digest just fine, but it makes their meat and milk toxic to humans, resulting in death.

Two years later Thomas Lincoln remarried a widower Sarah Bush Johnston, aka Sally, and she became the mother that Lincoln knew and remembered as he grew up. Regardless of which mother was in charge, both mothers Lincoln knew wanted him to at least be able to read and write and do math, and so they insisted he attend the local schools, and Thomas never said anything against it. But when not in school, Lincoln worked local farms and was a tall, wiry youth with whipcord strength. The legends about his log splitting capabilities have a solid basis in fact, as do the legends of his wrestling abilities. Also, he had a real tendency to make friends in his youth, as those he wrestled with and against tended to become his biggest champions.

Up until he reached his majority at 21 years old, any money Lincoln earned legally belonged to his father, and the family moved several more times, eventually settling in Illinois. And no matter where they moved, Lincoln worked hard. But when he reached 21, he had an opportunity to travel with a cargo boat to Louisiana and return with freight for a shop in New Salem, Illinois. Lincoln proved himself so well that the shop owner hired him to watch the shop and eventually Lincoln owned the New Salem shop along with his friend William Berry. They two of them had a grand time with the shop but were horrendous bookkeepers and ended up losing the shop due to their inability to pay their creditors. Berry by this time had crawled into a whiskey barrel and never crawled out, leaving Lincoln the option of declaring bankruptcy and fleeing Illinois, which is what many bankrupts did, or figuring out a way to pay his debts. He chose the latter option and began building a reputation as a highly ethical man, a man of his word.

During this time, he was endlessly fascinated with politics and the law and ultimately ended up teaching himself the law. Literally. This was an option in the 19th century. You didn’t have to go to law school. You didn’t have to study with other lawyers. You could simply pick up Blackstone’s Law, memorize the damn thing, and pass the bar, which is what Lincoln did. He also entered state politics, becoming a member of the Illinois House of Representatives as a member of the Whig Party.

His first real courtship was with Mary Owens, who he sort of remembered from a Kentucky connection and who a mutual friend said, hey, if I get her to come to Illinois, would you marry her? Lincoln initially said yes, but when she got there, there were no sparks. They sort of courted in a lackluster fashion, but ultimately, Lincoln’s reception of her was so ungentlemanly that when he sent her a sort of half assed hey, my word is my bond, if you still want to get married, lets do this, she left Illinois insulted. Which I guess worked out better for Lincoln, since he then met Mary Todd and those two fell in love and married, despite the objections of her well to do family. They had four children, Robert, Edward, Willie, and Tad.

Their initial marriage bed was living in a tavern as this was all Lincoln could afford since he was still paying of his creditors from his New Salem store. This left Mary with an absolute dread of poverty, but no real sense of a budget and how to manage one. Lincoln did ultimately pay off his all his debts and became a highly successful lawyer and legislature, serving 8 years in the Illinois legislature before dedicating a few years to national politics. No, he did not serve a few years in national politics, but he did become a guiding voice in the Whig party in the 1840’s, brokering a compromise deal wherein several leading Whigs would each serve one term in the US House of Representatives, allowing each to get the experience, himself included, and his term was from 1847 to 1849, and he was in the house the day that John Quincy Adams had his stroke in Congress, and also made cutting remarks against the Mexican/American War, challenging President Polk to show exactly where American blood had been spilled that justified this action.

And after his term in Washington was up, he returned to Illinois and dedicated himself to being a lawyer. And he was an excellent lawyer, able to represent all sides of a matter. There are at least two cases in regard to slavery where the facts were very similar. In one case, Lincoln argued that the slave in question should go free, and he won his case. In the other case, he argued the slave in question should remain in bondage, and he won his case.

On the question of slavery, Lincoln did believe slavery was a great sin and should not exist in a free country. The record and history are very clear on this. It is also very clear that he was not an abolitionist, as those were seen as entirely too radical for mainstream America, and also, he did not for even a second believe that black people were equal to white people. Just because he didn’t think they should be slaves, did not mean he thought they were equal. He emphatically did not. This is very important to the points leading up to and during the Civil War.

Now, in 1850, while successfully lawyering up and down Illinois, their second born Eddie, died at 3 years old, specific cause of death unknown, but listed as like consumption, which was kind of a catch all term for wasting diseases in the 19th century. Mary was devastated and sort of started the slow slide off her rocker. Not like Jane Pierce, where she just remained in mourning, but like talking to the dead kind of off her rocker. It didn’t really take hold until later, but Mary also sort of subscribed to retail therapy. Her morbid fear of the poor house was not enough to curtail some pretty hefty spending habits, which would cause friction off and on in the marriage for the duration.

In 1854, the Whig party basically gasped it’s last dying breath and Lincoln quickly joined the Republican party, in time to stump for John C. Fremont as the first candidate, up against James Buchanan. And when the Senator-ship from Illinois came up for election in 1858, Lincoln put his name up as a possible candidate, even campaigning for it, even though at this point in US History, senators were selected by the states individual houses, not by the direct election of the people. And Lincoln got a taste of disappointment because even though he won the popular vote for Senator in Illinois, the democratically controlled Illinois house of representatives once more sent Stephen Douglas back to DC.

And Lincoln at this point was pretty sure he was done with politics. Until all the speeches he made while debating Douglas came to the attention of the national Republicans, who approached Lincoln to be their candidate for the 1860 presidential race. Which he won quite handily when Stephen Douglas split the Democrat ticket.

And as discussed last month, the day he won, South Carolina seceded. Which is really dumb. Know what was NOT in last months book? I know, cause I double checked when I read it in this months book. The thirteenth amendment. No, not the one that Lincoln got passed shortly before meeting his fate. The one the republican controlled congress passed trying to save the union and which Buchanan signed. The one that only needed to be ratified by the states to enshrine slavery as a constitutional right forever. No joke, google Buchanan 13th amendment. If the south hadn’t thrown a fit, if they had kept their feet’s in the Union game until Lincoln’s inauguration in March 1861, THAT version of the 13th amendment would have been ratified handily by states that desperately did not want a Civil War and armed insurrection by angry red necks.

And because it would have been legally passed under the tenants of the Constitution, Lincoln would have done nothing about it. As he said and is known to have said and is quoted in this book “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.”

For Lincoln, emancipation was NOT the end goal. Preserving the Union was the name of the game. For Lincoln. For the South…well, their snit was unquestionably about slavery and property rights, specifically, the right to own people.

So, immediately after his election, Lincoln of course began picking his cabinet, and his first and best cabinet pick was William H Seward, who was his secretary of state. At first, it is not obvious that Seward was a good pick. Seward seemed to believe he would basically be running the country. Lincoln quickly disabused him of this notion and once the power structure was firmly established, with Lincoln sitting at the top of the pyramid, they became excellent friends. The rest of his cabinet kind of came and went throughout his tenure in the White House, but Seward remained unchanged and steady.

What also changed were the generals during the Civil War. Look, I’m reading a book specifically on the Civil War next month, so I’m hoping there will be more detail in that. But seriously. George McClellen was a nightmare. All of them were nightmares. Except for Ulysses S. Grant. Like, how the hell did the Union WIN the Civil War? Grant wasn’t made General of the Union troops until like 1863. The first two years, Lincoln gave McClellan chance after chance to actually get his ass in gear and engage General Lee. After the first two years, Lincoln began replacing generals like they were tic tacs he’d dropped on the ground. Except for Grant. He liked Grants style, liked that Grant kept the army moving by using the country they were traveling through for supplies, rather than sticking to a home base, and liked that Grant never asked for reinforcements. Grant was a guy who got shit done. So, Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General and put in charge of all the armies.

For his part, Grant is the only general Lincoln had who did not feel he was allowed to question the politicians every move. His job was to win. And he did. Boy did he win. Some defeats, but overall, once Grant came into play, the Union started winning.

For his part, Lincoln issued his famous Emancipation Proclamation. This has been carefully misunderstood by people seeking to lionize Lincoln for well over a century at this point. The Emancipation Proclamation did NOT free the slaves. It freed the slaves in any state in rebellion. This is an important distinction to make, because not every single slave owning state was IN rebellion. Notably, Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, and Delaware were border states where slavery was allowed, but did not rebel. So, slavery in those states remained intact.

Prior to this, Lincoln had issued an edict that any slaves in the confederacy who were working for the Confederate army were contraband and could be seized as contraband. Still did not see them as people. The Emancipation Proclamation opened the door for Black people to fight for the Union and fight they did. By the end of the Civil War, approximately 10% of the Union Army were black men. Thanks to the Emancipation Proclamation. But Lincoln still did not see them as equal and paid them less than he paid white enlisted.

Back in Washington, Lincoln had to open a draft, requiring enlistment with the Union Army. This caused rioting, especially in northern States who thought slavery was evil, but were unwilling to die for the cause. The race riots in New York were horrifying, requiring National Guard troops to be called into action to defend black communities from irate Irish who did not feel they should have to die for the freedom of black men. As an added sticking point, politically, Lincoln had excused his oldest son Robert from serving at Mary’s request. Their third child, Willie, had died while Lincoln was in the White House, and Mary could not bear the thought of losing another child, and begged Lincoln to keep Robert out of the war, which he did.

Mary, prior to this, had used retail therapy to refurbish the White House. Which was fine, as far as that goes, Congress had appropriated $20,000 for the project, and Mary spent that gladly. Then spent $7,000 more and had to ask Lincoln to cover the short fall, which he was beyond angry at. By this time, corruption in the War Department had been uncovered with Lincoln’s first Secretary of War Simon Cameron, who was involved in repeated shady dealings with purchasing subpar supplies from favored vendors, rather than accepting multiple bids for supplies. Cameron was quietly shuffled off to become the minister of Russia. However, Lincoln was enraged that Mary had overspent the budget when the military was so shoddily supplied, with boots and knapsacks falling apart in the rain. Congress stepped in and appropriated more funding, but Mary took her shopping underground. Like a wife that opens an Amazon card without telling her husband, Mary managed to accumulate $27,000 in debt to various merchants over the next several years. Since Lincolns salary was $25,000 per year and he was expected to pay the salary of his staff out of that budget, Mary was frantic that he did not find out about her profligate spending. Which I don’t’ think he did. A bullet saved Mary the mortification, but she honestly would have preferred the embarrassment over the loss of her husband.

Lincoln was not popular in his day. The Republicans hated him, the Democrats hated him, he wasn’t even sure if he would be nominated for a second term. Since Andrew Jackson, no president had sat for more than one term. And it is probably accurate to say that people voted against George McClellan rather than voted for Abraham Lincoln in 1864. But ultimately Lincoln did win a second term, which he saw as vindication of both his emancipation of the slaves in the rebelling states, and of his reconstruction plan, which required 10% of the voting populace to swear loyalty to the Union as well as a state constitution which did not allow for slavery.

And of course, Lincoln was shot in the head on April 14, 1865, by John Wilkes Booth, becoming the first president to be assassinated. Lincoln was briefly brought back by an army doctor who happened to be in the theater, but he never recovered consciousness after being shot, dying roughly eleven hours later, on April 15, 1865.

Lincoln…. I think, obviously, he was in a tough spot. I think the Civil War was inevitable. The slavery question had become so contentious, I think it would have happened regardless. Because even though Lincoln didn’t see black men and women as equal, enough American’s did, that this was an inevitable conflict. I’ll explore that more later next month when I read Battle Cry of Freedom next month. But I do think that war was inevitable.

I think Lincoln was desperate to preserve the Union. The grand experiment in self government was not even 100 years old when he was sworn in, how horrifying it would be to see the experiment end under his tenure. I do think, based on his later conversations with Frederick Douglass, that Lincoln may have come to see black men and women as equal, certainly helped along by Mary’s friend and seamstress Elizabeth Keckley, who was a former slave from Missouri, I think. But we’ll never know for sure.

One underlying theme was the mysticism. The author notes specifically that after his first election, Lincoln recorded a dream where he had two faces and which Mary interpreted to mean he would not live out a second term. And following his second election, Lincoln had a dream where he was attending a funeral and when he asked who died, was told it was the President of the United States.

Additionally, there is Mary, who was unquestionably a spiritualist. The deaths of her two middle children, Eddie and Willie, let her down the Spiritualist’s path, where she tried to connect with them, and she often had dreams of her two lost children. And who’s to say? Maybe the grim reapers stalking of our nation from 1861 to 1865 left the veil thinner, and maybe Mary was able to make contact. Or maybe she was a grief-stricken mother who’s sorrows were not yet over. It does seem, though, that Lincoln died before discovering Mary’s extreme shopping sprees in New York. And the author does not go into what happened there, pretty much ending the book with Lincoln’s return to Illinois, along with Willie, for burial in Springfield.

Lincoln was, basically, as racist as your average American in the 19th century. He disliked slavery but did not think black people were equal to white. His issuing of the emancipation proclamation was purely political. By suddenly pivoting and making the war not about the preservation of the Union but about slavery, he ensure England stayed out of the conflict and did not recognize the Confederacy as a sovereign nation. Although, and this is telling, it’s equally likely that the well-placed Charles Frances Adams, son of John Quincy and grandson of John, who was the minister to England during the Civil War, convinced England to stay out of it diplomatically. And the Adams’s were NEVER friends of slavery, being one of the only founding fathers and the two Adams’s were the only two of our first 10 presidents to never own slaves.

I think Lincoln did as well as he could, but I also think if he had cut McClellan loose at the first hint of refusal to fight, the war would have ended a lot sooner, and many hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved. And who knows how our country would have changed, with that many people contributing to our future.

This was a well written biography. It cut out a lot of the fluff, which biographers tend to include when writing about their pet topic, and kept it to the point. He did touch on the mysticism, but how not to when Mary was a known Spiritualist?

I think I’m gonna put Lincoln at 8, in my personal rankings. Middle of the pack, moving Polk down, but under the founding fathers. Look, Lincoln was unquestionably racist, and despite the emancipation proclamation, was NOT the great liberator the Republican’s like to sell him as. Everything he did was heavily politically motivated, including the freeing of the slaves and the passage of the 13th amendment, which was ratified after his death. It was not for the good of the slaves or former slaves, it was to ensure his own political power base. The fact that it benefitted approximately 4 million individual slaves was sheer coincidence since he did not intend for those slaves to then be enfranchised to vote. That was a natural consequence of reconstruction and the passage of the 13th amendment, as well as the diligent work of OTHER radical Republicans who DID think the black vote mattered.

The first several years of the war, Lincoln wanted to purchase all the slaves and resettle them in Haiti or Liberia. He abandoned those plans for two reasons. First: The vast majority of the former slaves did not want to go. Why would they? At this point most of them had been born in the US and knew nothing about Liberia or Haiti. The approximately 500 who did volunteer for resettlement to Haiti had to be rescued and brought back to the US during the Civil War after extreme mismanagement of funds by the white overseers of the program. Look, it’s not pretty, but it’s pretty disingenuous to pretend like racism wasn’t a thing. What shocks me is how anyone could look at the already existing programs regarding the Native American populations and think “oh yeah…we can totally make this work in a resettlement program for the black populations.” Even then highly corrupt Indian agents were a known quantity to be ousted when discovered. Frankly, his political naivete is a bit astounding at points.

Overall, this was a good book, and I’m going to spend August with the Civil War and aftermath, given that next month’s president is, of course Andrew Johnson, who inherited the position on Lincolns assassination. But next week, we’re going to read about Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy. Didn’t want to give him a last Sunday, like an actual president, but he’s important enough historically to rate his own book on the matter.

This book was originally reviewed on July 31, 2022 on YouTube, but is now available on Rumble and PodBean.