The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1931-01-30
BY ELMO SCOTT WATSON

III E of 1861 to 1865, when the
81 North was array ed
against the South, a
IL SOutherner was the COM
mander in chief of the
Northern forces. For
Abraham Lincoln was native of
a Southern state, Kentucky. More
than that, his wife was a SOutherner,
and that fact undoubtedly not only
profoundly Influenced his career but it
shaped American history as well.
There is an "if' in American his
tory, too, and one of the most inter-
esting is this: If Abraham Lincoln
had not married Mary Todd of Lex
ington, KY, it is possible that he
would never have been President of
the United States, and thereby be
called upon to lead the armed strength
of the nation against his own peo-
pie. When the Republican party in
1860 was considering possible candi-
dates for the Presidential nomination,
their choice upon Lincoln depended
partly upon the fact that he was a
conservative in regard to the ''domi-
nant question" Of slavery. This con-
servatism brought to him the powerful
support of the Border states delegates
who believed that he possessed SYM
pathetic understanding Of their prob
lem and could deal with it better than
any other candidate before the con-
vention.
He had this sympathetic under
standing because his marriage to Mary
Todd gave him an opportunity to see
both sides of the question. 1t was in
Lexington, in the heart of the largest
Lincoln saw at close range the more
favorable patriarchal elements of the
institution. His father-in-law owned
slaves, cared for them well and made
a resolution, which he always kept,
never to sell a slave and thus risk
bringing suffering to a human being
who had a claim, through faithful
service, to his affection. In the home
of the Todds and Of their friends he
saw negro slaves, well-fed, well-housed
and kindly treated-the institution of
slavery at its best.
But there in the chivalrous and ro-
mantle Blue Grass region, Lincoln also
saw slavery at its worst. Some of the
masters there abused their slaves;
only a short distance from where
Mary Todd was born stood a notorious
slave prison; and in Cheapside, the
of nP
a day passed without seeing the public
sale of black men and women.
More than that, in the town of Lex
ington there was miniature repro
ductiOn of the tempest which was
rocking the nation-the slavery dis
pute 1t was on the borderland and
in it were pro-slavery and anti-slavery
factions, both strong. The leader of
the most radical prO-slavery men was
Robert Wickliffe, father of two Of
Mary Todd's girlhood chums and the
husband of her fathers cousin. Lead
ers among the anti-slavery men were
Robert ]. Breckenridge and Cassius
N. Clay, both personal and political
friends of his father-in-law. So when
Lincoln made his famous "house-divid-
ed-against-itself" speech, he could
have pointed to the homes of dozens
of families in or near Lexington, Ky,
as concrete examples of his symbol.
1t is such facts as these that William
III. Townsend, q citizen of Lexington,
has brought out in an important study
of Lincoln-the book, Lincoln and His
Wife's Home Town." published recent
ly by the Bobbs-Merrill company. In
the preface Mr.. Townsend says: "The
name of Abraham Lincoln is forever
associated with slavery in the United
States. Biographies have traced the
gradual development of Lincoln's
views on the subject from his first
public utterance in the Illinois legis-
lature down to the Emancipation
Proclamation twenty-five years later.
The sources, however, from which his
convictions on the great issue largely
sprung, have not been hitherto re-
vealed. 1t is the purpose of this book
to show Lincolns personal contacts
with slavery which gave him a first
hand knowledge of the peculiar in
stitution' that he could have acquired
In no other way.
Lincoln and Mary Todd were mar
ried in 1912 and soon afterwards Lin
coin was elected to congress, his first
appearance upon the national stage,
a position which brought him into
more direct contact with the all-im-
DertaA1 question was SO soon to be