The Lincolns in Kentucky -Video

[Gene C]

I haven't watched all of it yet, what I've seen is good, and the comments are very favorable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQnl5TY2eh8

[RJNorton]

Excellent, Gene! For those folks interested in Lincoln's years in Kentucky I would recommend a little-known book entitled Lincoln's Mothers by Dorothy Clarke Wilson. The book is historical fiction but very well-researched IMO.

[Steve]

Thanks for the video suggestion Gene! It looks interesting, hopefully I can find a free hour after dinner to watch the whole thing!

[AussieMick]

Extremely well produced video. The in-depth details seem to be very well researched and I'd challenge anybody to find fault.
The scenery around Lincoln's childhood home is fantastic.

This is high quality.

[mbgross]

Does anyone know of the primary source that the Lincoln people printed counterfeit tickets to gain access into the Wigwam during the nominating convention?

[Anita]

(06-09-2024 02:36 PM)mbgross Wrote:  Does anyone know of the primary source that the Lincoln people printed counterfeit tickets to gain access into the Wigwam during the nominating convention?

An excellent article in the Rail Splitter by Dan Ackerman "The Long Search is Over" July 4, 2021. He addresses the counterfeit issue.

The convention is described in detail in Stefan Lorant’s 1951 tome “The Glorious Burden”. The chapter on the election of 1860 seems to be the basis for the “legend” that Lincoln’s handlers printed up counterfeit admission tickets and “packed the seats” with Lincoln partisans. The Seward supporters “overshot” a parade and, returning to the Wigwam, found themselves “shut out” of the gallery seats and forced to mill about outside the hall. We find this story highly suspect. It assumes, number one, that tickets for the gallery seats were issued and, number two, that it was possible to identify 1,000 Lincoln supporters, give them bogus tickets, assemble them all in one place at a chosen time, and get them all seated prior to the arrival of the Seward men. It doesn’t make sense. They had enough on their minds without having to dream up and implement a political “dirty trick” of this type.
https://railsplitter.com/articles/the-lo...h-is-over/

I read the Chapter in Lorant's "The Glorious Burden" and he didn't provide a primary source.

[RJNorton]

One of my favorite Lincoln biographies, David Herbert Donald's Lincoln, says, "After the first day, when it seemed likely that Seward men would pack the Wigwam, Jesse W. Fell and Ward Hill Lamon oversaw the printing of duplicate tickets and made sure they went to Lincoln men who would come early and occupy the seats before the Seward backers arrived."

[David Lockmiller]

(06-10-2024 03:26 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  One of my favorite Lincoln biographies, David Herbert Donald's Lincoln, says, "After the first day, when it seemed likely that Seward men would pack the Wigwam, Jesse W. Fell and Ward Hill Lamon oversaw the printing of duplicate tickets and made sure they went to Lincoln men who would come early and occupy the seats before the Seward backers arrived."

For those interested in more detail, the quote cited by Roger is at page 248 of David Herbert Donald's Lincoln and the section of the book making reference to the convention is at pages 243-250.

I thought one of the most interesting parts of this discussion was the role of money in presidential politics, then and now [ironic thanks to the Republican Supreme Court's role in Citizens United v. FEC] at page 243, and was also an affirmation of Lincoln's personal integrity:

When one enterprising Illinois Republican suggested that [Lincoln] ought to have a campaign chest of $10,000, Lincoln replied that the proposal was an impossibility: "I could not raise ten thousand dollars if it would save me from the fate John Brown. Nor have my friends, so far as I know, yet reached the point of staking any money on my chances of success." To a request for money from Mark W. Delahay, an old and somewhat disreputable Illinois friend who hoped to be a delegate to the Republican National Convention in order to promote his chance of being elected senator from Kansas, Lincoln responded: "I can not enter the ring on the money basis--first, because, in the main, it is wrong; and secondly, I have not, and can not get, the money." Yet, admitting that "in a political contest, the use of some [money], is both right, and indispensable," he offered to furnish Delahay $100 for his expenses in attending the convention. (As it turned out, Delahay was not chosen as a Kansas delegate but went to Chicago anyhow to root for Lincoln, who paid him the money he had promised.)

[mbgross]

Thank you, Anita, Roger, and David! One of the many things I love about this site is the wise, informed and insightful comments that so many experts' supply.

Anita, the Lorant angle is fascinating! I want to read that part of Lorant's book. Thanks for sharing that and the article.

Rodger, I too, greatly admire Professor Donald. How you could come up with that information so quickly is amazing to me!

David, Thanks for the reference. I wished Donald had left a source for that. Delahay, was a colorful figure!

The reason for my interest in this subject is because I am reading an excellent book, that I can highly recommend "The Lincoln Miracle: Inside the Republican Convention That Changed History" by Edward Achorn.

In it, he explains that Whitney and Lamon hint at something happening but don't go into detail. He mentions Rufus Rockwell Wilson as mentioning counterfeit tickets, in his book "Intimate Memories of Lincoln" p.5. Below, hopefully is a link.

https://archive.org/details/intimatememo...4/mode/2up

Thanks again!

[Steve]

(06-11-2024 06:48 AM)mbgross Wrote:  David, Thanks for the reference. I wished Donald had left a source for that. Delahay, was a colorful figure!

It's from a March 16, 1860 letter Lincoln wrote to Delahay:

https://books.google.com/books?id=LQjla5...22&f=false

[mbgross]

Steve, Sorry, I wasn't very clear. I was referencing the Donald statement about Lamon and Fell overseeing the printing of bogus tickets.

[Gene C]

(06-11-2024 06:48 AM)mbgross Wrote:  The reason for my interest in this subject is because I am reading an excellent book, that I can highly recommend "The Lincoln Miracle: Inside the Republican Convention That Changed History" by Edward Achorn.

In it, he explains that Whitney and Lamon hint at something happening but don't go into detail. He mentions Rufus Rockwell Wilson as mentioning counterfeit tickets, in his book "Intimate Memories of Lincoln" p.5. Below, hopefully is a link.

https://archive.org/details/intimatememo...4/mode/2up

Thanks again!

Thanks for the link for Intimate Memories of Lincoln.
I just glanced through the table of contents and this looks like a very interesting book.

I've got Whitney's book "Life On The Circuit with Lincoln". I'll dig through it tonight and see if he has anything to say about the bogus tickets.

[David Lockmiller]

(06-11-2024 07:10 AM)Steve Wrote:  

(06-11-2024 06:48 AM)mbgross Wrote:  David, Thanks for the reference. I wished Donald had left a source for that. Delahay, was a colorful figure!

It's from a March 16, 1860 letter Lincoln wrote to Delahay:

https://books.google.com/books?id=LQjla5...22&f=false

Thanks, Steve, for the post. It discloses an interesting disparity with the letter and the conditional promise that Lincoln made in the March 16, 1860 letter. Lincoln wrote to Delahay: "If you shall be appointed a delegate to Chicago, I will furnish one hundred dollars to bear the expenses of the trip." Factually speaking, Lincoln did much more than keeping his promise.

My post #8 reads: "(As it turned out, Delahay was not chosen as a Kansas delegate but went to Chicago anyhow to root for Lincoln, who paid him the money he had promised.)"

[Rob Wick]

To add a few points.

On November 16, 1896, John Hartman wrote to Ida Tarbell, discussing the ticket printing scheme. Here is the link to Hartman's letter.

https://dspace.allegheny.edu/items/f145e...92db2ca9a0

I found no response from Tarbell to Hartman, but if she did respond, the carbon of the letter was likely destroyed when McClure's Magazine was sold in 1917. Much of the magazine's archive was destroyed, to Tarbell's chagrin, after the sale. Tarbell hints at the confusion surrounding the convention and discusses a project that was worked on overnight but never comes out and says that this is what happened. I checked this in the 1924 edition of her Lincoln biography, which was the last one she updated.

Michael Burlingame discusses the various schemes and the many fathers who claimed credit in the Knox College edition of his biography. Especially interesting is his footnote. (page 1695, footnote 235)

https://www.knox.edu/documents/LincolnSt...Chap15.pdf

An interesting-looking book that, unfortunately, I don't have is The Great Comeback: How Abraham Lincoln Beat the Odds to Win the 1860 Republican Nomination." Gary Ecelbarger is the author. It shows up on the Internet Archive but is unavailable for borrowing.

After reading the article Anita referenced, I was skeptical that it took place, but given the large number of people who said it did and were in a position to know, I'm not so sure now. Of course, it could be like numerous other Lincoln stories where one or two sources are repeated over the years, allowing each subsequent generation to point to those works as "proof."

Best
Rob

[RJNorton]

(06-11-2024 02:03 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  An interesting-looking book that, unfortunately, I don't have is The Great Comeback: How Abraham Lincoln Beat the Odds to Win the 1860 Republican Nomination." Gary Ecelbarger is the author. It shows up on the Internet Archive but is unavailable for borrowing.

Rob (and everyone)...here is what Gary Ecelbarger says in the book cited by Rob:


Page 264

7. This ticket story has been considered apocryphal and too unreliable to be universally accepted in the Lincoln literature. The original source is from a letter written by Henry C. Fell (son of Jesse Fell) to his sisters on February 10, 1909 (reproduced in Luthkin, Lincoln’s First Campaign, p. 161). Although the source is a secondary one from fifty years after the fact, its accuracy should be reevaluated. It is inconceivable that the son of Jesse Fell made up the story, so the reliability lies with its originator, Jesse Fell (who must have relayed this story to his son). I have deemed this story feasible based on four premises: (1) Jesse Fell could have embellished it but would have had no reason to fabricate the entire account to his son; (2) Jesse Fell was in a position and had the skills to oversee the production of these tickets; (3) it is logical to conclude that members of the Republican State Central Committee would have taken advantage of their roles as the hosts to tweak the system in favor of the home crowd, particularly to offset what they feared were extra tickets carried by the Seward supporters; and (4) there apparently was a disproportionately large pro-Lincoln crowd in the building on Friday, which would have been the natural side effect of the additional tickets.