Preponderance of the Evidence in a Civil Trial

[David Lockmiller]

(03-25-2020 06:44 PM)Steve Whitlock Wrote:  David,

Scripps’s letter was not a surprise to Herndon. According to Herndon, sometime in the early 1850’s, while he and Lincoln were riding together to a court case that involved inheritance, Lincoln said to Herndon something like this:

Billy, I’ll tell you something, but keep it a secret while I live. My mother was a bastard, was the daughter of a nobleman, so called, of Virginia. My mother’s mother was poor and credulous, and she was shamefully taken advantage of by the man. My mother inherited his qualities and I hers. All that I am or hope ever to be I get from my mother, God bless her. Did you never notice that bastards are generally smarter, shrewder, and more intellectual than others? Is it because it is stolen?

Herndon’s account of this statement by Lincoln has been challenged, and even deemed “doubtful” as a genuine statement by Lincoln.
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Steve W.

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The letter that Rich referred to from Scripps to Herndon would be this:

Northern Illinois University

Digital Library

39. John L. Scripps to William H. Herndon.

Chicago June 24th 1865

[For clarity of thought, I abbreviate the letter that Steve posted.]

My Dear Herndon:

Mr. Lincoln communicated some facts to me concerning his ancestry which he did not wish to have published, and which I have never spoken of or alluded to before. I do not think, however, that Dennis Hanks, if he knows anything about these matters, would be very likely to say anything about them. At all events, if his statements conflict with those of the biography, it is a question of veracity or of memory between him and Mr Lincoln.

To show you how careful I was in the matter let me relate an incident:

When the pamphlet was printed, I sent a few copies to Mr. Lincoln, and in an accompanying note, I said to him, I was in doubt only as to one statement I had made — and that was as to whether or not he had read "Plutarchs Lives". I had trusted somewhat to my memory on the subject of his early reading; and while I was not certain he had enumerated this book among them he had read in his boy hood, yet as I had grown up in about such a settlement of people as he had in Indiana, and as I had read Plutarch in my boy-hood, I presumed he had had access to it also. If I was mistaken in this supposition, I said to him, it was my wish that he should at once get a copy, and read it, that I might be able to testify as to the perfect accuracy of the entire sketch. Mr Lincoln did not reply to my note, but I heard of his frequent humorous allusions to it.

Very Truly Yours
J. L. Scripps.

Library of Congress: Herndon-Weik Collection. Manuscript Division. Library of Congress. Washington, D.C. 2207 — 8; Huntington Library: LN2408, 2:289 — 92

The source of Herndon's Lincoln story "while he and Lincoln were riding together to a court case that involved inheritance" is not specifically cited in Steve's post.

The following is another version of the same story that was authored by Herndon and published in Herndon's Life of Lincoln, as originally written by Herndon and Weik with introduction and notes by Angle; Albert & Charles Boni, New York (1930), pages 2-3:

What the facts referred to by Mr. Scripps were we do not know; for he died several years ago without, so far as is known, revealing them to anyone.

On the subject of his ancestry and origin I only remember one time when Mr. Lincoln ever referred to it. It was about 1850, when he and I were driving in his one-horse buggy to the court in Menard County, Illinois. The suit we were going to try was one in which we were likely, either directly or collaterally, to touch upon the subject of hereditary traits. During the ride he spoke, for the first time in my hearing, of his mother, dwelling on her characteristics, and mentioning and enumerating what qualities he inherited from her. He said, among other things, that she was the illegitimate daughter of Lucy Hanks and a well-bred Virginia farmer or planter; and he argued that from this last source came his power of analysis, his logic, his activity, his ambition, and all the qualities that distinguished him from the other members and descendants of the Hanks family. His theory in discussing the matter of hereditary traits had been, that, for certain reasons, illegitimate children are oftentimes sturdier and brighter than those born in lawful wedlock; and in his case, he believed that his better nature and finer qualities came from this broad-minded, unknown Virginian. The revelation-painful as it was-called up the recollection of his mother, and, as the buggy jolted over the road, he added ruefully, "God bless my mother; all that I am or ever hope to be I owe to her," and immediately lapsed into silence. Our interchange of ideas ceased, and we rode on for some time without exchanging a word. He was sad and absorbed. Burying himself in thought, and musing no doubt over the disclosure he had just made, he drew round him a barrier which I feared to penetrate. His words and melancholy tone made a deep impression on me. It was an experience I can never forget.

Mr. Lincoln spoke again of his mother to Herndon in 1851. An excerpt from page 14 of the same Herndon book reads as follows:

Mr. Lincoln himself said to me in 1851, on receiving the news of his father's death, that whatever might be said of his parents, and however unpromising the early surroundings of his mother may have been, she was highly intellectual by nature, had a strong memory, acute judgment, and was cool and heroic.