The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1897-02-20
fiincoin in ,he.Whi.e house.

Harper,s Magazine. l. y
Washington in 1861 was essentially
southern in all Its qualifications. In
politics and social life the capital was
decidedly, even aggressively, pro-slav-
cry. Under these conditions the occu-
pancy of the White House by a BLACK
republican" president and his wife was
a peculiarly hateful event to a large
proportion of its society. Society was,
in fact. torn up, root and ranch by the
impending civil war; everything vas
chaos and had to be ~reorganiZed from
the foundation.
1t was under these adverse circurn-
stances that Mrs. Lincoln became mis-
tress of the White House. Every in
genuity of malice was resorted to to dis
credit the new regime. Both the presl-
dem and his wife We're mercilessly lam
pooned, and yet Mrs. Lincoln was the
peer of any woman In Washington in
education and character, as we'll as the
barren ideality" of birth. w. o. Stod-
dard. one OF the private secretaries, and
a keen observer. in his little book, IN
side the White House in War Times"
says thai Mrs. Lincoln was prepared to
assume a leading part. AS her lieuten-
ant in the official household, he noted
that she was an authoritative mistress,
but listened patiently to sensible rep
reservations, and oftentimes yielded her
Judgment; that her Instructions were
given in a kindly and vivacious Manner;
that h was a pleasant looking woman
bright, cheerful, almost merry"
sometimes. The always spoke
of her as the madam" Says Stoddard:
"As You look at her and talk with her
the fact that she has SO many enemies
strikes you as II of the moral curiosl-
ties of this venomous time"
She dressed well, even extravagantly.
In her little book. Behind the Scenes"
Mrs. heckley. who was Mrs. Lincoln's
dressmaker, speaks of having made ff.
teen dresses for her in three or -four
months. This authority says no queen
could have comported herself with more
dignity than Mrs. Lincoln at all public
functions.
Yet this woman was stiematiZed by a
certain class of Washington society as
low, vulgar and wen Recommendations
any qualifications for the high station
to which she had been called.
The calumny which wounded her most
deeply was her alleged sympathy With
the rebellion. which had its sole founda-
tioi III LIE ldCt tldt uST NellluchS nan
brothers We're confederates, although
she held no intercourse with them since
her childhood. 1t was said and believed
that she hampered her husband in every
possible way in the prosecution of the
war. In self protection she wished Mr..
Stoddard to examine all her correspond
ence. 1t is certain that she loyalty de-
sired the success of her husband and
the great cause he SO ably directed. In
a printed letter to Mrs. keckley, Mrs.
Lincoln asserts positively that her SYM
pathies We're strongly with the north
during the war n always. II have
failed to urge my husband TO be
an extreme republican, AS Lincoln al
ways consulted and relied upon her
Judgment, it is hardly probable ne would
have taken the advanced republican,
ground against slavery in his house
divided-agalnsr-itself speech in 1855
without her approval, which strongly
corroborateS her claim.