The Bixby Letter

[Houmes]

(04-09-2013 11:01 PM)Gene C Wrote:  Well, whoever wrote it, it's a classy letter. I think it clearly expresses the spirit and attitude of President Lincoln.
He created an environment around him where those sentiments existed not only in himself, but also reached out into those who worked closely with him. Hay may have penned the words, but it was Lincoln who's fundamental beliefs dictated the personality of the letter.

For an interesting read on the subject, see: Emerson, Jason. "New Evidence from an Ignored Voice: Robert Todd Lincoln and the Authorship of the Bixby Letter." The Lincoln Herald, Vol 110, No. 2, Summer 2008. pp 86-116.

[Steve]

(07-12-2017 05:24 PM)Houmes Wrote:  For an interesting read on the subject, see: Emerson, Jason. "New Evidence from an Ignored Voice: Robert Todd Lincoln and the Authorship of the Bixby Letter." The Lincoln Herald, Vol 110, No. 2, Summer 2008. pp 86-116.

Here's a link to the Emerson article if anybody is interested:

http://cdm15995.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/c...st/id/1946

[Gene C]

Thanks for sharing Steve.
I've read part of the article. I won't spoil the ending.

[Steve]

This article by Joe Nickell in the Winter 1989 Lincoln Herald, although having a few problems, is the best study of the language of the letter with a comparison to the styles of Lincoln and Hay that I've seen:

http://cdm15995.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/c...3761/rec/1

Based on its comparisons of Lincoln's and Hay's syntax and the letter, I tend to agree with Nickell's assessment that Lincoln is the author. Michael Burlingame's 1995 article in the Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Journal Association:

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/262986...w=fulltext

seems to be a lot better known than Nickell's article and comes down on the side of Hay being the author.

[RJNorton]

"Seven years later Rollo Ogden of the New York Times asserted that the Bixby letter "was doubtless signed by Lincoln and is certainly characteristic of his language; but it was actually written by John Hay." When queried about his source, Ogden replied, "I know of no scrap of documentary evidence, but Mr. Hay in his lifetime told more than one person that he really wrote the letter which Lincoln signed. Among others he confided this fact to ... W. C. Brownell, who told me of it at the time"

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"The letters quoted prove not only that Robert Lincoln believed his father had written the Bixby letter but also that John Hay himself told Robert he’d had nothing to do with it."

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The above are quotes from the links in the postings above. It seems clear Hay told different information to different people. Did he tell Robert what he thought Robert wanted to hear? If Hay told a bunch of folks that he wrote the letter, but told Robert what he thought his friend would want to hear about his father, then I might begin to agree with Burlingame's analysis. I have always thought Lincoln wrote the letter, but at this moment I am divided. I do find it somewhat strange that Hay apparently told several people he was the author, but he never told his own family.

[Steve]

(07-13-2017 04:35 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  "Seven years later Rollo Ogden of the New York Times asserted that the Bixby letter "was doubtless signed by Lincoln and is certainly characteristic of his language; but it was actually written by John Hay." When queried about his source, Ogden replied, "I know of no scrap of documentary evidence, but Mr. Hay in his lifetime told more than one person that he really wrote the letter which Lincoln signed. Among others he confided this fact to ... W. C. Brownell, who told me of it at the time"

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"The letters quoted prove not only that Robert Lincoln believed his father had written the Bixby letter but also that John Hay himself told Robert he’d had nothing to do with it."

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The above are quotes from the links in the postings above. It seems clear Hay told different information to different people. Did he tell Robert what he thought Robert wanted to hear? If Hay told a bunch of folks that he wrote the letter, but told Robert what he thought his friend would want to hear about his father, then I might begin to agree with Burlingame's analysis. I have always thought Lincoln wrote the letter, but at this moment I am divided. I do find it somewhat strange that Hay apparently told several people he was the author, but he never told his own family.

The problem with all of the accounts of Hay claiming authorship listed by Burlingame, is that none of them come from somebody who specifically claimed to have spoken to Hay himself about the letter. The only such account is from Robert Lincoln who claimed the opposite. The accounts listed by Burlingame which specifically say that Hay claimed authorship are all by somebody who claimed that years earlier somebody else told them that decades earlier Hay had told them he wrote the letter. But all those accounts were written down after the claims of Hay authorship of the letter were already circulating among scholars and the media. The accounts all share a "whisper down the lane" quality where they could've been distorted by transmission from person to person or by the passage of time on memory (not to mention the effects of speculation about Hay being the author possibly further distorting that memory).

Hay's secretary, Spencer Eddy, did tell his sister of his belief that Hay wrote the letter but that didn't say if the claim had originated with a conversation with Hay or not.

Also, I'd like to point out the accounts of Nicholas Murray Butler and the Rev. G. A. Jackson seem suspiciously similar to one another, down to Hay revealing his authorship after the other person is admiring a framed copy of the letter on the wall. I suspect one of the two men made up his account after reading the other man's account. This may be a shot in the dark, but does anybody know anything about the Rev. G. A. Jackson and his character? I have a copy of Michael Rosenthal's biography of Butler, Nicholas Miraculous, which I'll look over to see if it has any relevant information.

[RJNorton]

(07-13-2017 06:43 PM)Steve Wrote:  Also, I'd like to point out the accounts of Nicholas Murray Butler.

Regarding Butler...There was at one time a story that circulated which indicated that Robert Lincoln had discovered some written evidence (in his father's papers) concerning the assassination but decided to burn it rather then reveal its contents. I believe Butler was the one who told the story about the burning of the papers. I think historians have discredited Butler's story. I am curious if there is relevant information about this story in Nicholas Miraculous.

[Steve]

(07-14-2017 03:52 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(07-13-2017 06:43 PM)Steve Wrote:  Also, I'd like to point out the accounts of Nicholas Murray Butler.

Regarding Butler...There was at one time a story that circulated which indicated that Robert Lincoln had discovered some written evidence (in his father's papers) concerning the assassination but decided to burn it rather then reveal its contents. I believe Butler was the one who told the story about the burning of the papers. I think historians have discredited Butler's story. I am curious if there is relevant information about this story in Nicholas Miraculous.

Neither the story about Robert Lincoln burning papers or anything about the Bixby Letter is in the book, as far as I can tell by the index. The book focuses more on Butler's political career (he was Taft's Vice Presidential running mate in 1912) than on academic debates he was involved in.

I did find another source that mentions the Robert Lincoln story. The notion that Robert burned papers that related to the assassination conspiracy was started by a conspiracy theorist named Philip Van Doren Stern who believed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton was involved in the assassination. In 1939, Butler tried to refute Stern's claims, saying that only private Lincoln family papers were burned by Robert:

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

I'll look over Nicholas Miraculous to see if there are any other stories that might be relevant.

[RJNorton]

Steve, many thanks for the clarification on Butler. I had previously thought it was he who connected Robert's alleged burning of papers with Stanton's alleged role in the assassination.

[Steve]

I found this anecdote in the book that might have some bearing about Butler's honesty in his Bixby letter story. In a luncheon in 1947, Butler claimed while he was on a diplomatic mission for the Harding administration in July 1921, he was invited to Lloyd George's home Chequers to meet with British Dominion premiers because New Zealand, Australia, and Canada were threatening to leave the British Empire. During the meeting, Butler claimed, he came up with the idea for the British Commonwealth of Nations. After his luncheon remarks, two of the premiers claimed Butler was lying.

https://books.google.com/books?id=HYIyBg...&q&f=false

(Unfortunately, the first page of this anecdote is not included in the Google Books preview)

I know the two stories aren't exactly equivalent, but it does seems like Butler might have had a tendency to exaggerate or make up anecdotes of events that happened many years earlier.

[RJNorton]

(07-16-2017 06:06 PM)Steve Wrote:  I know the two stories aren't exactly equivalent, but it does seems like Butler might have had a tendency to exaggerate or make up anecdotes of events that happened many years earlier.

I have read similar. I believe Butler claimed Robert burned the papers in 1923. But Robert no longer had his father's papers in 1923. He had deposited the papers at the LOC in 1919. Did Robert destroy any of the papers prior to 1919? Yes, probably. But, IMO, these were private family papers or papers that Robert regarded as useless to history. IMO, they were not papers that pointed to a Cabinet member being involved in the Lincoln assassination conspiracy.

[Steve]

(07-17-2017 04:01 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(07-16-2017 06:06 PM)Steve Wrote:  I know the two stories aren't exactly equivalent, but it does seems like Butler might have had a tendency to exaggerate or make up anecdotes of events that happened many years earlier.

I have read similar. I believe Butler claimed Robert burned the papers in 1923. But Robert no longer had his father's papers in 1923. He had deposited the papers at the LOC in 1919. Did Robert destroy any of the papers prior to 1919? Yes, probably. But, IMO, these were private family papers or papers that Robert regarded as useless to history. IMO, they were not papers that pointed to a Cabinet member being involved in the Lincoln assassination conspiracy.

I only meant to imply that Butler's anecdote in his autobiography of John Morley telling him that Hay had told Morley that he had written the Bixby Letter, with Morley subsequently extracting a promise from Butler not to reveal that until after Morley's death was completely made up by Butler. The 1946 luncheon took place the year after Lloyd George's death with him unable to confirm or refute Butler's claims on that story.

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Here's a 1947 Time magazine article that might shed some light on the Robert Lincoln story:

https://books.google.com/books?id=LUIEAA...rs&f=false

[RJNorton]

(07-17-2017 08:35 AM)Steve Wrote:  Here's a 1947 Time magazine article that might shed some light on the Robert Lincoln story:

https://books.google.com/books?id=LUIEAA...rs&f=false

"When Mr. Young remonstrated with Robert Lincoln, the President's son said that he was burning "the documentary evidence of the treason of a member of Lincoln's cabinet, and that he thought it best for all such evidence be destroyed."

I am sure Otto Eisenschiml loved this Life article!

John Hay and John Nicolay also had access to the Lincoln papers, yet they applauded Stanton for his "outspoken counsel and robust energy" and for his loyalty to Lincoln. This was many, many years before the alleged burning took place.

[Steve]

(07-17-2017 09:56 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  I am sure Otto Eisenschiml loved this Life article!

Whoops!

[Steve]

Here is a link to Butler's original account of the Morley-Hay story from his autobiography:

https://archive.org/stream/acrossbusyyea...0/mode/2up

Also, there's an error in the Burlingame article. The letter from G. A. Jackson was dated January 16, 1922, not from 1934:

https://books.google.com/books?id=BidaAA...Jackson%22

So, it predates all the other written accounts which claim Hay told somebody he was the author (and Butler's intimations to William E. Barton that Hay was the author). The 1934 book was a collection of newspaper letters. It looks like Burlingame just copied the citation from Lauriston Bullard's book without reading Jackson's letter in the original 1934 book.