"There is not a word of truth in it!" Mrs. Wallace broke out, impulsively, before the question about the non-appearance of Mr. Lincoln had been finished. "I never was so amazed in my life as when I read that story. Mr. Lincoln never did such a thing. Why, Mary Lincoln never had a silk dress in her life until she went to Washington."
From a daguerreotype owned by his son, Dr. T.W. Dresser, Springfield, Illinois. The Rev. Charles Dresser, who was the officiating clergyman at the wedding of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd, was born at Pomfret, Connecticut, February 24, 1800. He was graduated from Brown University in 1823, and went to Virginia, where he studied theology. In 1829 he became an ordained minister in the Protestant Episcopal Church. He was married in 1832 in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, to Louisa W. Withers. Upon his removal to Springfield, Illinois, in 1838, he became the rector of the Protestant Episcopal church there, and remained so until 1858, when failing health caused his retirement. In 1855, Jubilee College elected him Professor of Divinity and Belles-Lettres, but he held this position only a short time. He died March 25, 1865.--_J. McCan Davis._]
As Mr. Joshua Speed was, all through this period, Mr. Lincoln's closest friend, no thought or feeling of the one ever being concealed from the other, Mrs. Joshua Speed, who is still living in Louisville, Kentucky, was asked if she knew of the story. Mrs. Speed listened in surprise to Mr. Herndon's tale. "I never heard of it before," she declared. "I never heard of it. If it is true, I never heard of it."
In all of these cases the opinion of only those persons intimately connected with Mr. Lincoln and Miss Todd has been asked. Care has been taken, too, to apply only to persons whose character put them beyond the suspicion of distorting facts.
Quite unexpectedly, some months ago, a volunteer witness to the falsity of the story appeared. The Hon. H.W. Thornton of Millersburg, Illinois, was a member of the Twelfth General Assembly, which met in Springfield in 1840. During that winter he was boarding near Lincoln, saw him almost every day, was a constant visitor at Mr. Edwards's house, and he knew Miss Todd well. He wrote to this magazine declaring that Mr. Herndon's statement about the wedding must be false, as he was closely associated with Miss Todd and Mr. Lincoln all winter, and never knew anything of it. Mr. Thornton went on to say that he knew beyond a doubt that the sensational account of Lincoln's insanity was untrue, and he quoted from the House journal to show how it was impossible that, as Lamon says, using Herndon's notes, "Lincoln went crazy as a loon, and did not attend the legislature in 1841-1842, for this reason;" or, as Herndon says, that he had to be watched constantly. According to the record taken from the journals of the House sent us by Mr. Thornton, and which we have had verified in Springfield, Mr. Lincoln was in his seat in the House on that "fatal first of January" when he is asserted to have been groping in the shadow of madness, and he was also there on the following day. The third of January was Sunday. On Monday, the fourth, he appears not to have been present--at least he did not vote; but even this is by no means conclusive evidence that he was not there. On the fifth, and on every succeeding day until the thirteenth, he was in his seat. From the thirteenth to the eighteenth, inclusive, he is not recorded on any of the roll-calls, and probably was not present. But on the nineteenth, when "John J. Hardin announced his illness to the House," as Mr. Herndon says (which announcement seems not to have gotten into the journal), Lincoln was again in his place, and voted. On the twentieth he is not recorded; but on every subsequent day, until the close of the session on the first of March, Lincoln was in the House. Thus, during the whole of the two months of January and February, he was absent not more than seven days--as good a record as to attendance, perhaps, as that made by the average member.