CHAPTER XI LINCOLN'S ENGAGEMENT TO MARY TODD-BREAKING OF THE ENGAGEMENT-LINCOLN-SHIELDS DUEL Busy as Lincoln was with law and politics the first three years after he reached Springfield, he did not by any means fail to identify himself with the interests of the town and of its people. In all the intellectual life of the place he took his part. In the fall of 1837 with a few of the leading young men he formed a young men's lyceum. One of the very few of his early speeches which has been preserved was delivered before this body, its subject being the Perpetuation of our Political Institutions. At the request of the members of the Lyceum this address was published in the "Sangamon Journal" for February 3, 1838. The most pleasing feature of his early life in the town was the way in which he attracted all classes of people to him. He naturally, from his political importance and from his relation to Mr. Stuart, was admitted to the best society. But Lincoln was not received there from tolerance of his position only. The few members left of that interesting circle of Springfield in the thirties are emphatic in their statements that he was recognized as a valuable social factor. If indifferent to forms and little accustomed to conventional usages, he had a native dignity and self-respect which stamped him at once as a superior man. He had a good will, an easy adaptability to people, which made him take a hand in everything that went on. His name appears in every list of banqueters and merrymakers reported in the Springfield papers. He even served as committeeman for cotillion parties. "We liked Lincoln though he was not gay," said one charming and cultivated old lady to me in Springfield. "He rarely danced, he was never very attentive to ladies, but he was always a welcome guest everywhere, and the centre of a circle of animated COTILLION PARTY, my The pleasure of your Compais respectfully solicited at a Cotillion Party, to be given at the American House," on to-morrow evening at 7 i'clock, P. M. December 16th, 1839 TACSIMILE OF INVITATION TO A SPRINGFIELD COTILLION PARTY. talkers. Indeed, I think the only thing we girls had against Lincoln was that he always attracted all the men around him." Lincoln's kindly interest and perfectly democratic feeling attached to him many people whom he never met save on the streets. Indeed his life in the streets of Springfield is a most touching and delightful study. He concerned himself in the progress of every building which was put up, of every new street which was opened; he passed nobody without recognition; he seemed always to have time to stop and talk. He became, in fact, part of Springfield street life, just as he did of the town's politics and society. In 1840 Lincoln became engaged to be married to one of the favorite young women of Springfield, Miss Mary Todd, the sister-in-law of one of his political friends, a member of the "Long Nine" and a prominent citizen, Ninian W. Edwards. Miss Todd came from a well-known family of Lexington, Kentucky; her father, Robert S. Todd, being one of the leading citizens of his State. She had come to Springfield in 1839 to live with her sister, Mrs. Edwards. She was a brilliant, witty, highly-educated girl, ambitious and spirited, with a touch of audacity which only made her more attractive, and she at once took a leading position in Springfield society. There were many young unmarried men in the town, drawn there by politics, and Mr. Edwards's handsome home was opened to them in the hospitable Southern way. After Mary Todd became an inmate of the Edwards house, the place was gayer than ever. She received much attention from Douglas, Shields, Lincoln, and several others. It was soon apparent, however, that Miss Todd preferred Lincoln. As the intimacy between them increased, Mr. and Mrs. Edwards protested. However honorable and able a man Lincoln might be, he was still a "plebeian." His family were humble and poor; he was self-educated, without address or polish, careless of forms, indifferent to society. How could Mary Todd, brought up in a cultured home, accustomed to the refinements of life, ambitious for social position, accommodate herself to so grave a nature, so dull an exterior? Miss Todd knew her own mind, however. She loved Lincoln, and seems to have believed from the first in his future. Some time in 1840 they became engaged. But it was not long before there came the clashing inevitable between two persons whose tastes and ambitions were so different. Miss Todd was jealous and exacting; Lincoln thoughtless and inattentive. He frequently failed to accompany her to the merry-makings which she wanted to attend and she, naturally enough, resented his neglect interpreting it as a purposed slight. Sometimes in revenge she went with Mr. Douglas or some other escort who offered. Reproaches and tears and misunderstandings followed. If the lovers made up, it was only to fall out again. At last Lincoln became convinced that they were incompatible, and resolved that he must break the engagement. But the knowledge that the girl loved him took away his courage. He felt that he must not draw back, and he became profoundly miserable. "Whatever woman may cast her lot with mine, should any ever dc so, it is my intention to do all in my power to make her happy and contented; and there is nothing I can imagine that would make me more unhappy than to fail in the effort," Lincoln had written Miss Owens three years before. How could he make this brilliant, passionate creature to whom he was betrothed happy? A mortal dread of the result of the marriage, a harrowing doubt of his own feelings, possessed him. The experience is not so rare in the history of lovers that it should be regarded, as it often has been, as something exceptional and abnormal in Lincoln's case. A reflective nature founded in melancholy, like Lincoln's, rarely undertakes even the simpler affairs of life without misgivings. He certainly experienced dread and doubt before entering on any new relation. When it came to forming the most delicate and intimate of all human relations, he staggered under a burden of uncertainty and suffering and finally broke the engagement. So horrible a breach of honor did this seem to him that he called the day when it occurred the "fatal first of January, 1841," and months afterward he wrote to his intimate friend Speed: "I must regain my confidence in my own ability to keep my resolves when they are made. In that ability I once prided myself as the only or chief gem of my character; that gem I lost-how and where you know too well. I have not yet regained it, and, until I do, I cannot trust myself in any matter of much importance." The breaking of the engagement between Miss Todd and Mr. Lincoln was known at the time to all their friends. Lincoln's melancholy was evident to them all, nor did he, indeed, attempt to disguise it. He wrote and spoke freely to his intimates of the despair which possessed him, and of his sense of dishonor. The episode caused a great amount of gossip, as was to be expected. After Mr. Lincoln's assassination and Mrs. Lincoln's sad death, various accounts of the courtship and marriage were circulated. It remained, however, for one of Lincoln's law partners, Mr. W. H. Herndon, to develop and circulate the most sensational of all the versions of the rupture. According to Mr. Herndon, the engagement between the two was broken in the most violent and public way possible, by Mr. Lincoln's failing to appear at the wedding. Mr. Herndon even describes the scene in detail: "The time fixed for the marriage was the first day of January, 1841. Careful preparations for the happy occasion were made at the Edwards mansion. The house underwent the customary renovation; the furniture was properly arranged, the rooms neatly decorated, the supper prepared, and the guests invited. The latter assembled on the evening in question, and awaited in expectant pleasure the interesting ceremony of marriage. The bride, bedecked in veil and silken |