Q&A Question & Answer



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26 February 1999 Illinois Issues


Susan Mogerman on the Lincoln Presidential Library

As director of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency during outgoing Gov. Jim Edgar's tenure, Susan Mogerman witnessed some false starts on the Lincoln Presidential Library. Now the project appears to be underway. Commitments have been made for half of the construction costs. An architect has been chosen, as well as an exhibit designer. And a panel of historians is at the ready. Peggy Boyer Long talked with Mogerman about what's in store for the project.

Q. It's been a long haul for this idea. What was the hang-up?

I think for a long time people thought it would be easy.

When I worked for [former Gov.] Jim Thompson as a press aide, people used to regularly march into our office and say, "We need to have a Lincoln presidential library. What is wrong with this state?" And we'd say, "Yeah, it's a really good idea. How will we finance that?" They'd say, "You have the [federal] Presidential Library Act." And when you'd inform them that Lincoln doesn't fall under that act, that it starts with [late 19th century President Rutherford B.] Hayes, they would immediately leave the office.

Other than that, I think the concern locally has been the involvement of the federal government. They really did not want the federal government involved in this project. There's a long memory of how the Lincoln Home [in Springfield] was transferred to the federal government. And a lot of people who had worked long and hard over decades to preserve that home were kind of frozen out. There was this fear that if the library was turned over to the feds the community would be frozen out again.

Q. How many presidential libraries are there?

There are 12, if you don't count — and I imagine no one does — the [President of the Confederacy] Jeff Davis Library, which opened last year.

Q. You got a chance to take tours. What worked and what didn't?

What the other presidential libraries do is very different from what we intend to do.

They are all the destination. And for the most part, there's not a lot more to see. It's a library and museum exhibits. And some of them have the burial place of the president and his family. But that's pretty much it.

We have a city that is chock-full of things to see related to Abraham Lincoln. We have a region of the state where you practically can't walk a mile without hitting on something that was walked or attended to by Abraham Lincoln. And we have a state that, from end-to-end, is filled with Lincoln and his history. So what we're proposing is an introduction to all the rest. This is meant to be a gateway, not the end of the visit.

In truth, what we'd like it to be, eventually, is the beginning of a regional visit, because we have a three-state pact with the tourism entities in Kentucky and Indiana.

Q. What kinds of things do you envision this library doing?

There are some givens.
In terms of the archival part, we're also different. Most of these libraries deal only with the presidential papers. We have a state [historical] library [beneath the Old State Capitol in Springfield] that is going to move [into the new library]. When you talk to people who do research on Lincoln, the fact that we have [Lincoln research materials] as part of the state historical library is an enormous boon.

We recently got a letter from [scholar] Michael Burlingame, who had spent almost all of last summer with us doing research for a multivolume Lincoln biography that he's working on. And he said it is wonderful to be able to get so much background information at the same place, so you're not going from building to building, town to town, state to state.

If you want the demographics of Illinois at the time Lincoln was a legislator in Vandalia, or in Springfield, or when he was in New Salem, all of that information is here. All of the information about the people that he knew and worked with when he was in Illinois, and beyond that, is here.

So that will all be part of the new center.

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Q. Will there he access for members of the general public who want to do research?

Absolutely. There are certain materials that will not be available to everyone, obviously, and we'll need to know you have a need to handle these rare materials. But this library has always been open to the public.

A large part of the population that visits are not Lincoln researchers. A large part of them are genealogists and students and people who just love history.

So we have, maybe, a broader patronage than the other presidential libraries as well.

Q. So there are two parts. There's the research part. Then there's a center for the public. What do you see in that?

That's a more public space. That's the space where people will start their journey and get an overall picture.

You know, we're 150 years later, now. The story has been told and told and told and told. And it's still being told and reinterpreted. There's certainly no diminishment of the interest in Lincoln and the Civil War and the principles that he espoused.

Why is that? I mean there are more than 16,000 titles concerning Lincoln. More than any other American. The third most written about person in all of human history. So I think it's our obligation to explore that. What is the legacy? What is the relevance in your life today, to the third-grade student and seventh-grade student and college student and Mr. and Mrs. Smith from Des Moines and people who are coming from Amsterdam and the Orient.

Why are they coming? I think people are searching for information, searching for principles and ideas of what his life meant, what his contributions meant, what his martyrdom meant. And what would have happened had he not been here. And what would have happened if the union had been lost. And what does it mean to emerging democracies? And what does it mean to you and me?

So we want to tell that story. We want to tell it in a way that is engaging. Which means that it's more than just displaying things in glass boxes.

Sometimes it's interactive. And sometimes it's emotional. And sometimes it's just seeing the real thing that I think has more wallop than anything else you can do.

We have a lot of "stuff," as we call it technically. Historical stuff that's packed away that people don't get to see. And they should be able to see it. It's their history. It's their heritage.

Q. History is becoming more of a tourism draw. Has there been a discussion about how to balance scholarship with tourism?

Springfield has always dealt with that. And central Illinois and the other locations that deal with Lincoln have always been concerned with both things.

It most certainly is a tourism draw. It's a big business in Illinois, a huge business in Illinois. And growing.

And I think the way that you handle it is by making it engaging but accurate. And to that end, we have a wonderful panel of historians that is going to be working with us — both in person, coming to meetings — and those who will be reviewing texts [for exhibits] as they are written.

So I'm very confident that we're going to be able to protect the accuracy and the historical content. But still make it wonderfully interesting and fun.

Q. History is, essentially, a construct. There was the real Lincoln. And then there is the historical Lincoln. There are many historical Lincolns. Granted, you'll have a panel of historians who will have different interpretations of Lincoln. But what do you see as the way to present Lincoln in this presidential library environment?

Well, I think we want, to the best of our ability, to present all of the Lincolns. Both the Lincoln of lore, of popular culture. The Lincoln of historical interpretation. The Lincoln that is still in question. Because there are still many, many questions that are being asked and reasked. And we want to deal with some of the negatives. As long as you label them as such. Lincoln was known for this and such. What is the truth of this?

And you don't always have the answers. Sometimes what you have are questions. And sometimes those are the best things to present because it keeps people thinking about it after they leave.

And really, that's what you want to do. You want to whet their appetite. You want people to leave here thinking, "Oh, I think I'll visit more places. And read more books." If you give them all the answers, then maybe they don't do that when they leave.

So I think it's important to pose questions that we don't answer as well as some that we do.

Rodney O. Davis and Douglas L.Wilson of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College in Galesburg were among the historians assembled. The state could foot as much as $20 million of the estimated $60 million construction costs. The city of Springfield has promised another $10 million if the library is located in a Tax Increment Financing district. Meanwhile, state officials are hoping to raise another $30 million from the federal government. The state, which will operate the library, must also establish an endowment for operating costs. Architect Gyo Obata of the St. Louis firm, Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum, was scouting possible sites for the library.

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Books

DEAR ABE

Excerpts from The Lincoln Mailbag:

America Writes to the President, 1861-1865

Edited by Harold Holzer Published by Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, 1998

From time immemorial, newly elected officials have faced requests from favor-seekers. No sooner do politicians settle into office, it seems, than the public comes calling. Citizens want the trappings of celebrity in the form of photographs or autographs. And they want the benefits that flow from power, be it endorsements for causes or commitments of time. And, most especially, they want jobs.

That was no less true for Abraham Lincoln. But knowing that somehow makes him seem more human, more in scale than the outsized image we have of our Civil War president from Illinois. Indeed, Harold Holzer's latest collection of letters — with the original grammar and punctuation — helps put this state's, perhaps the nation's, most exalted politician into perspective.

Lincoln got plenty of letters from Illinoisans. In early 1861, Joseph Peters of Danville sought a post out West. "My Dear old Friend," he began. "I have not had the pleasure of seeing you since your nomination to the position you now so Honorably Fill; I have Been Rather unfortunate in my attempts to see you." Apparently, Peters had taken sick February 11, the day President-elect Lincoln stopped in Danville to give a brief speech before heading on to Washington, D.C.

After assuring the new president that he has always been "an uncompromising Lincoln man & undoubtedly will Remain so," Peters got to the point. "I have Some Desire to Emigrate west and I therefore ask of you to give me an associate Judge Ship in one of the Territories in which a Territorial Government has Been Recently Established."

Then, just in case Lincoln's memory needed jogging: "you are acquainted with me & have Been for Twenty years & have Been a citizen of Illinois for Twentyfive years and if in your kindness & goodfeeling to me you can give me Such an appointment it will help me very much & will be greatfully Received & you Shall never have any cause of Regret so far as I am concerned."

Holzer, who credits William W. Layton of Washington, D.C., for bringing the letter to his attention, notes there is no record of a reply — or of an appointment for Peters.

Of course, Lincoln couldn't satisfy every job-seeker, even if he restricted himself to "Dear old Friends" from back home. But William G. Flood was likely one lucky Illinoisan who secured patronage — and all the more surprising because he was a Democrat. Flood wrote to Lincoln in the fall of 1861, asking to be appointed Pay Master in the Army. His letter is part of the collection at the Illinois State Historical Library. "I feel competent to perform the duties of that office entirely to your satisfaction and will be much gratified to receive the appointment," Flood wrote. "But if there should be obstacles in the way I shall feel grateful for whatever."

According to Holzer, Flood was a longtime supporter of Lincoln rival Stephen A. Douglas. But, he writes, "Lincoln evidently had a soft spot for Flood." A day after getting the letter, he endorsed it to Secretary of War Simon Cameron. "The writer," argues the note over Lincoln's signature, "is a good Unionman though not a Republican. He was with me in the Ills. Legislature more than 25 years ago. he is a reliable man, and if there were a place for him he would fill it well." Holzer notes that no record of Flood's appointment has been found, "but there's no reason to believe that he was not awarded a job of some kind."

In fact, paymaster appears to have been a popular request. But at least one writer had eclectic interests. In October 1861, B.J.F. Hanna of Alton sent the new Republican president "A List of Offices Any One of which I shall be very glad to accept."

His options were as follows:

1.— Secretary of the Territory of Nebraska.

2. — Consulship of Glasgow, Scotland

3. — Congressional Librarian.

4. — Indian Agency at Omaha, Nebraska

5. — Commissioner of Public Buildings, Washington

6. — Assistant Congressional

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Librarian

7. — Captain of the Capitol Police

8. — Any $2,000 a year Consulship in Scotland, England, or Ireland.

9. — A Clerkship in Washington — 3rd or 4th Class preferred"

"Among the innumerable requests for jobs Lincoln received in the early months of his administration," Holzer adds, "few were as thorough as this list of ever-declining expectations from a citizen of his home state. There is no record of a reply."

Jobs weren't the only favors writers wanted from Lincoln. They requested his autograph, a profile appropriate to put on a medal and snips of his hair. And they sought to enlist him in their causes. Some of them personal, and highly creative.

In January 1864, Geo. W. Walter wrote:
"I propose giving a concert in yr city about Easter for my own benefit having never asked the Public aid before during my life, & shall feel most proud & happy that you would permit the use of yr honored name, & that of yr. most estimable wife, as consenting to be present by invitation."

By way of further encouragement: "I intend offering to my Washington Friends, a combination of talent, such as has not been heard before in yr city."

There's no evidence Lincoln went or answered the letter. But Walter's wasn't the only request of a commercial nature. In fact, 20th century readers might be amused to know that even Lincoln got junk mail. One Boston publisher sent the president a copy of a prospectus for a book on French history, offering to add his name to the subscriber list. The note recommends that he simply "clip off the lower part of the last page with your signature, if you kindly accede to our solicitation, — & mail it to us."

Letters also sought Lincoln's endorsement for social causes. Two Chicago groups hoped to get the support of the president from Illinois, one apparently without success.

In May 1861, Frederic Hudson and George Charles Betts wrote that they were about to form "a Band of Hope & Union, an organization for the enrolment of the young under the standard of Total Abstinence, to teach them the outside of the public house is the best side and knowing your principles and the potency of a great and good name, we earnestly and respectfully solicit yours, as the Patron of our Temperance Union." There's no record of a reply. While interested in the temperance movement, Lincoln was not obsessed with it.

But one other request from the Midwest did get results, after some persistence. Mrs. D. P. Livermore succeeded in getting Lincoln's help in October 1863 on behalf of the Chicago Sanitary Commission, a branch of the U.S. Sanitary Commission. She proposed that Lincoln donate an item for sale at a fair sponsored by "the patriotic women of the Northwestern States" to benefit sick and wounded soldiers. They "confidently hope," she wrote, "to realize from $25,000 to $50,000."

"The greatest enthusiasm prevails in reference to this Fair, which is now only two weeks distant. There are very few towns in Northern Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Iowa that are not laboring for it. Artists are painting pictures for it, manufacturers are making elegant specimens of their handiwork for the occasion, tradesmen are donating the choicest of their wares, while women are surpassing their ordinary ingenuity and taste in devising beautiful articles for sale, or decorations for the walls of the four spacious halls we are to occupy.

"The Executive Committee have been urgently requested to solicit from Mrs. Lincoln and yourself some donation to this great Fair — not so much for the value of the gift, as for the eclat which this circumstance would give to the Fair. It has been suggested to us from various quarters that the most acceptable donation you could possibly make, would be the original manuscript of the proclamation of emancipation. and I have been instructed to ask for this, if it is at all consistent with what is proper, for you to donate. There would be a great competition among buyers to obtain possession of it, and to say nothing of the interest that would attach to such a gift, it would prove pecuniarily [sic] of great value. We should take pains to have such an arrangement made as would place the document permanently in either the State or the Chicago Historical Society.

"There would seem great appropriateness

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in this gift to Chicago or Illinois, for the benefit of our Western Soldiers, coming as it would from a Western President. We hope it may be possible for you to donate it to us.

"But if it be not possible, then allow us to ask for some other simple gift, from Mrs. Lincoln and yourself — sufficient to show that you are cognizant of our efforts and are interested in them."

Because Lincoln did not reply immediately, the fair organizers enlisted the aid of U.S. Rep. Isaac N. Arnold of Chicago. Arnold sent a telegraph urging Lincoln to send the Proclamation. And on the eve of the fair, Lincoln sent a reply to the "Ladies having in charge of the North Western Fair" that reveals something of himself, and of the federal bureaucracy.

"According to the request made in your behalf, the original draft of the Emancipation proclamation is herewith enclosed. The formal words at the top, and the conclusion, except the signature, you perceive, are not in my hand-writing. They were written at the State Department by whom I know not.The printed part was cut from a copy of the preliminary proclamation, and pasted on merely to save writing.

"I had some desire to retain the paper; but if it shall contribute to the relief or comfort of the soldiers that will be better."

He signed, "Your obt. Servt. A. Lincoln."

Holzer notes that the Proclamation was sold at the fair for $3,000, earning Lincoln a gold watch for being the largest contributor. The document was deposited in the Chicago Historical Society, as promised. But it, along with Lincoln's cover letter, were destroyed in the Great Fire of 1871.

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The Ladies of the Chicago Sanitary Commission had sufficient cause, and clout, to get the attention of a president distracted by the details of a nation in turmoil. Thousands of others did not. And for good reason. No one, according, to Holzer, knows how many letters Lincoln received. Estimates range from 250 to 500 pieces a day. But even if he has nothing else to do, no public official can respond to every letter from the public.

Over the course of his presidency, Lincoln entrusted three aides with responsibility for his mail. These aides determined which letters Lincoln would see and which would be filed away. One was the young Illinois journalist William Osborne Stoddard, who in 1866 penned a story about his experiences for a New York newspaper. "As a general thing," he wrote, "during the war, we believed that so soon as a man went clean crazy his first absolutely insane act was to open a correspondence, on his side, with the President."

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Research

Stacy Pratt McDermott is a research associate with the Lincoln Legal Papers project, a joint effort of the University of Illinois at Springfield and the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. The project's mission is to collect and present all documents related to nearly 5,000 Lincoln cases. In December of 1997, McDermott gave a paper titled "In Tender Consideration," Women and Divorce in Sangamon County Illinois, 1837-1860 at the Illinois History Symposium sponsored by the agency. She is currently writing a chapter for a book to be published by the University of Illinois Press titled "In Tender Consideration": Women, Families and the Law in Abraham Lincoln's Illinois.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN,

DIVORCE ATTORNEY AT LAW

A historical researcher uses the Lincoln Legal Papers to assess attitudes toward family law on the Illinois frontier. And she found that Lincoln was apragmatist trying to make a living

by Stacy Pratt McDermott

Mary and Martin Beard were married in October 1851. After enduring repeated beatings from her husband, and witnessing his abuse of their 6-week-old son, she left him and filed for divorce in McLean County Circuit Court on the grounds of cruelty. Martin denied his wife's allegations, and the court moved the trial to Champaign, where Mary retained Abraham Lincoln as her attorney.

After hearing the evidence in the 1853 trial, a jury found Martin guilty of the abuse, granted Mary the divorce and gave her custody of the couple's young child.

Abraham Lincoln a divorce lawyer?
Yes. In fact, Lincoln's Illinois gave women greater access to divorce than their counterparts almost anywhere else in the United States. The Illinois legislature had given them the right to divorce earlier than other states, guaranteeing it in the state's first Constitution in 1818. Illinois judges not only granted divorces, they awarded women custody of their children. And Illinois women seeking to end unhappy marriages took advantage of these available legal avenues.

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In that context, Mary Beard's case was not unusual. Contrary to perception, divorce cases were not uncommon in Lincoln's time and Lincoln did not shy from handling them. Lincoln and his three law partners certainly saw their share of marital difficulties and family problems in representing more than 120 litigants in divorce cases throughout his nearly 25-year law practice. The Beards were only two of a growing number of people who were divorced in antebellum Illinois. Lincoln, as a respected man and adept lawyer, was a popular choice as counsel in legal issues regarding families, including the increasingly viable option of divorce.

The Plunketts are another case in point. After five years of marriage, Robert Plunkett retained Lincoln and his junior partner, William H. Herndon, in 1850 and filed for divorce from Ann Plunkett on the grounds of desertion. Ann then filed a crossbill for divorce against him. She alleged that Robert had married her because he thought she had a lot of money and deserted her when he discovered it wasn't as much as he had anticipated. She also accused him of adultery with the housekeeper. The court found Robert guilty of the charges, granted Ann the divorce and awarded her $100 in alimony After the judgment, Ann agreed to give up the alimony settlement if Robert agreed to relinquish all interest in the property Ann had brought to the marriage.

Had the Plunketts resided in a southern state such as South Carolina, where there was no provision for divorce until 1865, they would have had to continue the difficult union or choose to separate without the benefit of a legal dissolution of the marriage. Without a legal separation through an

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action of divorce, they would have been unable to legally remarry.

During the mid-1800s, family law was becoming a larger part of Illinois' circuit court dockets. Between 1836 and 1860, for example, 219 divorce cases appeared on the Sangamon County Circuit Court docket alone. Cases dealing with inheritance, dower, and child custody and maintenance were common. A growing number of women, children and families came through the court system, and Lincoln's law practice reflected that trend. Although Lincoln handled his share of sophisticated railroad cases, complicated tax cases and sexy murder cases, issues regarding families were the bread and butter of his legal practice. Within that context, divorce cases were, even for Lincoln, fairly ordinary.

A divorce was fairly simple to getin Illinois. Statutes allowed full divorce with the right to remarry and, by 1845, provided for divorce on the grounds of desertion, adultery, habitual drunkenness, repeated cruelty, impotence, bigamy and felony conviction. Plaintiffs in divorce cases simply had to file in the county circuit court of their residence, prove their spouses were guilty of one of the grounds cited in the statutes and pay court costs.

The legal structure of divorce and the dispositions of divorce cases is readily quantifiable, yet Lincoln left us few clues about his personal opinion on the subject.

Many years after Lincoln's death, Herndon wrote that Lincoln hated the business of divorce and viewed it as a necessary evil. Lincoln's personal views did not, however, change his commitment to clients who were seeking divorce. He maintained his role as advocate for whichever client walked through the office door and paid his fee.

Lincoln was a pragmatist trying to make a living, and it is difficult to extrapolate his personal feelings about divorce based on the nature of the divorce cases he handled. The dry, formulaic pleading documents filed in individual cases are unrevealing. However, looking across the case documentation, a vague sense of Lincoln's perspective on women emerges.

Let's take the case of Samuel and Polly Rogers. Samuel complained that Polly deserted him and that she was guilty of adultery. He retained the law partnership of John T Stuart and Abraham Lincoln in August 1838. Lincoln convinced his client that desertion was sufficient grounds for divorce and recommended the allegation of adultery against his wife be "muted ... through tender consideration to the said defendant's character." Lincoln was, in effect, sparing the defendant the embarrassment of the adultery allegation, but his decision was a legal blunder. For when the court granted the divorce, it ordered Samuel to pay Polly $1,000 in alimony, quite an exorbitant lump sum for the period.

In an attempt to reduce the alimony, Stuart and Lincoln filed an amended bill for divorce in which they added the adultery allegation. As well, Lincoln filed an affidavit attesting that his client had previously disclosed his wife's adultery. Upon reviewing the allegations against Polly, the court reduced the alimony to an initial payment of $ 126 and subsequent $39 biannual payments.

By rendering alimony settlements, even in cases in which the woman was at fault in the divorce, circuit courts throughout the state attempted to shelter women from the economic hardships often associated with divorce. Like Lincoln, who felt a paternalistic responsibility to protect Polly's reputation, the courts felt obligated to economically protect the "delicate sex" in divorce cases.

Alimony settlements were not uncommon. Although less frequent, and more poorly documented, child maintenance settlements were not either. Except in cases where the husband deserted the

Lincoln's Illinois gave women greater access to divorce than their counterparts almost anywhere else in the United States. And Illinois women seeking to end unhappy marriages took advantage of these available legal avenues.

family and his whereabouts were unknown, judges sought to evaluate the economic circumstances of female divorce litigants and render solutions to assist them.

While Lincoln may have been more respectful of women and more sympathetic to a woman's plight than many young attorneys on the circuit, most members of the bar, attorneys and judges alike, appreciated the potential economic difficulties divorced women faced. In 1827, the Illinois General Assembly had even included a provision that exempted poor women from paying the costs associated with divorce actions.

Lincoln's willingness to legally assist couples in bad marriages, despite his personal concerns about the issue, reflected society's changing attitudes about women's roles and the growing acceptance of divorce as a possible solution to some marital difficulties. Couples took advantage of Illinois' liberal attitude about divorce and filed for legal dissolutions of marriage. And Lincoln, perhaps shattering the age-old myth of the simple country lawyer fighting for justice, assisted them in that option.

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