AL and God

[RJNorton]

(11-28-2014 10:09 PM)Linda Anderson Wrote:  Emerson goes on to say that, "While Abraham Lincoln clearly was a champion of labor, Robert Lincoln was clearly a champion of big business."

Another author agrees. In his biography of Robert John S. Goff writes, "One may presume that he (Robert Lincoln) was in agreement with Pullman's stand since he was close to Pullman during this time."

Goff adds that Robert only wrote something on the relationship of employer and employee on one occasion. This was in relation to the issue of workmen's compensation. In a letter to Charles L. Strobel dated November 14, 1907, Robert wrote:

"I may agree that the State must not permit to starve a worthy man of his working class, but I am not moralized up to the point of thinking it right that if my chauffeur at $90 a month who calls himself skilled, is injured by his lack of skill (not "carelessness") in his first week, I may have to pay him $45 a month for the rest of his life. It is true that the accident had caused a loss, but should I (guiltless) stand it all? If the answer is that insurance is cheap, why could not the employee pay this insurance himself, as I do for myself."

[HerbS]

Linda,Please tell me what your point is about RTL.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thanks Linda and Roger. 90$ in 1907 would equal 2216.50$ nowadays. (I wonder what Robert's income was!) However, when it comes to $$$ I feel he wasn't very moralized at all, right the opposite of his father.

[L Verge]

I think Robert inherited the upper-class values and personality of the Todds. Coupled with that, I doubt that he had ever known want. While the early years as a lawyer were probably tough on Abe and Mary, they were nothing compared to the working class of laborers. This is being brought home to me even more as I read the British book on How to Be a Victorian. The Brits should never have judged Americans on the issue of slavery when you read the statistics about labor issues (especially child labor) across The Pond. (And don't hand me the "freedom" argument because there are much more awful ways to enslave a soul.)

Back to the Lincolns: We also know that both of his parents idolized their children and indulged them in their desires. After the deaths of Eddie and Willie - and knowing the limitations of Tad - I'm sure that Robert was the favored child and was expected to achieve greatness (by the world as well after 1865). We could also discuss the influence of his wife, who had led a privileged life also. I think all of these elements combined to make Robert a high commodity in the business field and probably a stodgy personality in the social realm.

[loetar44]

Robert was always in the unwanted spotlight that followed him throughout his whole life. What I mean to say is that he never escaped the shadow of his father and when your father eliminates slavery, pens one of the greatest speeches ever written and navigates the country through a bloody civil war, you've got to have feet the size the U.S.S. Nimitz to fill those shoes. And Robert’s feet never grew to that inhuman proportions. Certainly the situation with his mother could have been handled much better, but he was never a second Abraham Lincoln, so we can not judge Robert in that way. He had an own personality and carved his own career.

[Linda Anderson]

(11-29-2014 07:27 AM)HerbS Wrote:  Linda,Please tell me what your point is about RTL.

Hi Herb. Eva asked for more information about Robert Lincoln and the Pullman porters and I remembered seeing the "Many Voices" exhibit when I visited Hildene last spring and being surprised that the porters' story was included at RTL's home. I found more info on it which I provided in the links.

My info about RTL was taken from Emerson's book which states, "Many have said, then and now, that Abraham Lincoln would have been ashamed of his son for siding with the Pullman Company." Emerson goes goes on to say that Robert was a lawyer who served his clients as did Abraham Lincoln when he defended slave owners but adds, as Laurie said in her post, that RTL's upbringing was totally different from his father's. RTL "believed in the superiority of the educated management, the essential ignorance in administrative affairs of the lower-class wage workers, and the seditious and undemocratic influences of the meddling labor unions."

My point was to show how different RTL was from his father. Considering Abraham Lincoln's upbring, I find Robert's stance ironic but I also know how easy it is to rationalize one's beliefs to suit one's circumstances.

[RJNorton]

(11-29-2014 11:39 AM)L Verge Wrote:  I think all of these elements combined to make Robert a high commodity in the business field

(11-29-2014 02:32 PM)loetar44 Wrote:  He had an own personality and carved his own career.

In Lincoln's Sons Ruth Painter Randall writes that during the 1890s Robert lost his interest in the law. She continues, "Robert was cut out for a businessman and business claimed him from that time on...He succeeded so well that in 1897 he was made president of the Pullman Company. By that time he had become one of the nation's well-known financiers and business leaders. He was spoken of as a "Captain of Industry" and associated with the other men of money and power in the United States. The son of the President who had been born in a log cabin was a millionaire."

[HerbS]

Laurie and Roger,I agree with you 100%.Linda,Thank you very much!

[LincolnMan]

Lincoln attended a Baptist church as a boy. Like many children who grow up in church, he may have had a belief in God. As a young man he became a skeptic. As an older man he turned towards a belief in God. Was he a Christian- in the sense that he believed in Christ as his Savior? Certainly some some he was. Others say "no." He writings contain references to God. He sure knew his Bible! Again, this is another question we will not know the answer to. Oftentimes frustrating but always fun to speculate!

[Eva Elisabeth]

(11-30-2014 07:03 AM)LincolnMan Wrote:  ... but always fun to speculate!

Yes - and IMO interesting and educational! And if there was a clear, well-established answer to all questions - what would there be left for discussion?

(11-26-2014 04:54 PM)HerbS Wrote:  $$$$ was RTL's faith!

When RTL was at Exter Academy and learned that his father was offered $200 to speak at the Cooper Union, he said to a fellow student: "I will have to write home for a check before he spends all the money in the campaign."

[HerbS]

Bill,Thank you for your clarification-point well taken!

[Eva Elisabeth]

(11-29-2014 11:39 AM)L Verge Wrote:  After the deaths of Eddie and Willie - and knowing the limitations of Tad - I'm sure that Robert was the favored child and was expected to achieve greatness.

There is IMO some indication he overall maybe was not and they had a rather cool relationship:

- Robert himself stated: "My Father's life was of a kind, which gave me but little opportunity to learn the details of his early career. During my childhood and early youth he was almost constantly away from home, attending courts or making political speeches. In 1859 when I was sixteen and when he was beginning to devote himself more to practice in his own neighborhood, and when I would have had both the inclination and the means of gratifying my desire to become better acquainted with the history of his struggles, I went to New Hampshire to school and afterward to Harvard College, and he became President. Henceforth any great intimacy between us became impossible. I scarcely even had ten minutes quiet talk with him during his Presidency, on account of his constant devotion to business."

- ...and related the following incident:
"I returned [after graduating] from college in 1864 and one day I saw my father for a few minutes. He said: 'Son, what are you going to do now?' I said: 'As long as you object to my joining the army, I am going back to Harvard to study law.' Lincoln cooly replied, 'If you do, you should learn more than I ever did, but you will never have so good a time.' Robert added resentfully,'That is the only advice I had from my father as to my career.'"

- On another occasion, Robert boasted to John Nicolay: “Well, I have just had a great row with the President of the United States!”

- Herndon (who disliked all the Lincolns' kids though) wrote: "Bob...is his mother’s ‘baby’ all through. Years older than Willie and Tad, he seemed jealous and resentful of the way Lincoln fawned over them, which only added to Robert’s alienation."

- When Robert was three, his father remarked: “I sometimes fear he is one of the little rare-ripe sort, that are smarter at about five than ever after.”

- AFAIK, Robert is the only of Lincoln's children ever reportedly being slapped by him. At his farewell reception, "the house grew so crowded that some guest had to wait twenty minutes just to get through the front door. Willie and Tad viewed the event merrily, causing havoc wherever and whenever they could but earning no reprimand from their parents, as usual. But when Bob managed to squeeze into the receiving line in the parlor, he had far worse luck trying to amuse his parents. Attempting a joke, Bob greeted his father as if he were a stranger 'Good evening Mr. Lincoln!' he announced gravely. For this, in front of all the guest, 'his father gave him a gentle slap in the face'." (H. Holzer: "Father Abraham's Sons")

If A. L. had any favorite child, it was, I think, Willi as he was the closest to his father in mind. Lincoln himself once said:
“I know every step of the process by which that boy arrived at his satisfactory solution of the question before him, as it is by just such slow methods I attain results.”

One friend of the Lincoln family in Springfield, Joseph R. Kent, recalled “that... Will was the true picture of Mr. Lincoln, in every way, even to carrying his head slightly inclined toward his left shoulder.”

After Willie's death, it was certainly Tad who took his place, not Robert. Once he said of Tad: "I want to give him all the toys I did not have, and all the toys that I would have given the boy who went away."

[HerbS]

Thank you Eva,Your research gave me much needed insight about AL and realationships with his sons.

[STS Lincolnite]

The question of AL’s religion is a large one.

I think Gene’s statement in a previous post - “The tough part with this subject (at least for me) is to not take our own personal beliefs and make them his too.” – is so important. I think so many people, both now and in the past, have so admired and respected Lincoln that they want to see their own ideas and beliefs reflected in him. It builds, to them, a more tangible connection to a great man. Unfortunately, some also surreptitiously try to co-opt Lincoln’s ideas and beliefs only to advance their own agendas.

In attempting to be objective, I do think that Lincoln was in fact a religious man. Religion, in this case, being defined as a belief in a power greater than mankind or belief in a higher order of existence, if you will. However, I think that his religious beliefs defy easy categorization. As was true with many other topics/subjects, Lincoln’s ideas and beliefs were fluid and evolved over time. They were influenced by his personal experiences and ongoing study and examination. To place him strictly in one camp or another 150 years after the fact just doesn’t work (heck people tried when Lincoln was alive and it didn’t work then either). Furthermore, it probably isn’t fair to Mr. Lincoln.

Thomas Jefferson, like Lincoln, has had his religious beliefs studied and scrutinized over and over again with every imaginable conclusion being drawn. Jefferson, like Lincoln kept his own beliefs very close to the vest. He was continually pressed to declare his religious beliefs, and in a letter to Ezra Stiles Ely dated 25 June 1825 he wrote: “I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know.” I think that Lincoln, a great admirer of Jefferson, probably felt much the same way about his own religious beliefs.

In the end, whatever Lincoln’s religion was or was not, he was able to rise above great suffering, criticism and many other setbacks in his life. Still he persevered. He persevered to guide this nation through arguably its darkest hour. Whatever well spring he drew strength from should be respected for that in and of itself without necessarily needing to categorize it. Maybe the reason that so many see their own beliefs and ideas in Lincoln’s is that he shared elements of all of them.

[L Verge]

What a beautifully worded statement! Thank you, Scott.