Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [65]
Mary may have precipitated the break, influenced by the objections of her sister, Elizabeth, and her brother-in-law, Ninian Edwards, who believed she was marrying beneath her. Elizabeth warned Mary that she did not think that “Mr. L. & [she] were Suitable to Each other.” The couple considered that Mary and Abraham’s “natures, mind—Education—raising &c were So different they Could not live happy as husband & wife.” Mary had other suitors, including Edwin Webb, a well-to-do widower; Stephen Douglas, the up-and-coming Democratic politician; and, as Mary wrote her friend, Mercy Ann Levering, “an agreeable lawyer & grandson of Patrick Henry—what an honor!” Still, she insisted, “I love him not, & my hand will never be given, where my heart is not.” With several good men to choose from, Mary may have decided she needed time to think through her family’s pointed reservations about Lincoln.
Far more likely, Lincoln’s own misgivings prompted a retreat from this second engagement. Though physically attracted to Mary, he seemed to question the strength of his love for her as he approached a final commitment. Joshua Speed recalled that “in the winter of 40 & 41,” Lincoln “was very unhappy about his engagement to [Mary]—Not being entirely satisfied that his heart was going with his hand.” Speed’s choice of the same phrase that Mary used suggests that it must have been a common expression to indicate an embrace of marriage without the proper romantic feelings. “How much [Lincoln] suffered,” Speed recalled, “none Know so well as myself—He disclosed his whole heart to me.”
Recent scholarship has suggested that Lincoln’s change of heart was influenced by his affection for Ninian Edwards’s cousin Matilda Edwards, who had come to spend the winter in Springfield. “A lovelier girl I never saw,” Mary herself conceded upon first meeting Matilda. Orville Browning traced Lincoln’s “aberration of mind” to the predicament in which he found himself: “engaged to Miss Todd, and in love with Miss Edwards, and his conscience troubled him dreadfully for the supposed injustice he had done, and the supposed violation of his word.” While there is no evidence that Lincoln ever made his feelings known to Matilda, Browning’s observation is supported by an acquaintance’s letter describing the complicated situation. Though Lincoln was committed to Mary, Springfield resident Jane Bell observed, he could “never bear to leave Miss Edward’s side in company.” He thought her so perfect that if “he had it in his power he would not have one feature in her face altered.” His indiscreet behavior drew criticism from his friends, Bell claimed, who “thought he was acting very wrong and very imprudently and told him so and he went crazy on the strength of it.”
Possibly, Lincoln’s infatuation with Matilda was merely a distraction from the anxiety surrounding his impending marriage to Mary. According to Elizabeth Edwards, Lincoln was apprehensive about “his ability and Capacity to please and support a wife,” and doubtful about the institution of marriage itself. He likely feared that a wife and family would undermine his concentration and purpose. He would be responsible for the life and happiness of a woman accustomed to wealth and luxury; he would be unable to read late into the nights, pursuing new knowledge and the mastery of law and politics.
His fear that marriage might hinder his career was a common one. The uncertainties of establishing a legal practice in the new-market economy of the mid-nineteenth century caused many young lawyers to delay wedlock, driving up the marriage age. The Harvard law professor Joseph Story is famously quoted as saying that the law “is a jealous mistress, and requires a long and constant