Mrs. Abraham Lincoln: A Study of Her Personality and Her Influence on Lincoln

9. Financial Security and Insecurity

CHAPTER NINE Financial Security and Insecurity The horse doth with the horseman run away. - ABRAHAM COWLEY CHAPTER NINE Financial Security and Insecurity J\ S THE RESULT OF THE 1875 TRIAL OF MRS. LINCOLN~ fi the jury wrote into the verdict the following: 1 ". • • to show cause, if any she has or can show, why a conservator should not be appointed to manage and control her estate." Her son, Robert T. Lincoln, was appointed conservator, and shortly thereafter the estate was turned over to him. Much of the testimony in this first trial had been to the effect that Mrs. Lincoln was not mentally in condition to manage her business affairs. The result of the 1876 trial was a verdict 2 which read in part: "Mary Lincoln is restored to reason and is capable to manage her estate." This decision was responsive to testimony the jurors had heard from Ninian W. Edwards, the only witness who testified. In accordance with it Robert T. Lincoln filed his report, which was approved, and the conservator was dischatged. That these sanity trials should have tevolved round matters of money was natural, since aberrations on this subject were an outstanding quality of Mrs. Lincoln's thinking at the time of her court appearances and fat many years prior thereto. W ony about finances. was not the fundamental cause of her mental disturbance, but financial worries largely contributed to the process of change through which her mind and personality went. Many of her great difficulties . 1 Bibliography, No. 46, 1875. 2 Ibid., 1876. 233 FINANCIAL SECURITY AND INSECURITY arose out of controversies over money and property. When her intellectual processes had become disordered, money and property dominated her talk, her letters, and her acts. Though they did not originate her trouble, they contributed to it and finally characterized it. Levi, her grandfather, and Robert S. Todd, her father, appear to have had property acquisitive qualities of mind of no small order, but these functioned easily and always within the limits of normalcy. Levi, having returned from war, acquired fine farming properties in the Blue·Grass region of Kentucky and owned a good home property adjoining that' of Henry Clay, in the close vicinity of Lexington. Robert S. Todd was a banker, a merchant, a manufacturer, a farmer, and a politician. He was a good illustration of the H business man in politics." He frequently held offices of profit, and there was never a charge that he did not know and did not always respect the laws of it meum et tuum" in his business relations. He wanted what was coming to him, but he respected the rights of others. Mrs. Lincoln's grandfather on her mother's side willed his considerable property to his widow, but entailed it to his descendants. 'fhe widow handled the property well. At her death the heirs fell into dispute, and litigation over the estate followed. And about this time the Robert S. Todd heirs - some of them also Parker heirs - were quarreling and litigating over their father's estate. This somewhat different behavior or mental quality, as well as the financial happenings themselves, is significant in a study of the pet-sonality and mentality of Mrs. Lincoln. We know nothing positive about Mary Todd's finances when she lived in Lexington, and such consideration as is given them must be based on inference. Robert S. Todd, her father, was a business man of standing, who lived in a good house and moved in the best circles. He certainly earned enough to keep his family well and to accumulate property. 234 FINANCES IN LEXINGTON AND SPRINGFIELD The children of the first wife spent some of their time in the very fine home of their mother's mother, the" Widow" Parker. Her grandmother was fond of Mary and doubtless gave her much. However, the Todd family was a large one; there were fourteen children who were reared, supported, educated, and established by their father. The scale of living in Lexington, in the social group in which the Todds moved, was high for that time, though it would not be now; society was not then on a basis of competitive expenditure. We can infer that Mary Todd the child and Mary Todd the young woman never suffered for the comforts of life; always had plenty of food and good clothing, and the privilege of buying what she needed. She should never...