Announcer 1 and you are watching live coverage of a symposium all day on Abraham Lincolns life, career, and legacy here on American History tv. It is being held at ford theater. The next speaker will be Douglas Wilson, who is the coeditor of herndon on lincoln. William herndon was lincolns law but law partner and biographer. After this will be a Speakers Panel featuring the presenters responding to questions from the audience and from one another. They had been indicating a fair amount of interest in each others books and writings as the day has gone on. We are live at ford theater in washington dc. [background chatter] i take great pleasure in introducing a longtime friend wilson. Eague, douglas he is the lawrence distinguished professor of english, not at knox of English College in galesburg, illinois. He currently codirects the lincoln study center at knox college along with his longtime colleague rodney davis. Rodney was stricken severely with parkinsons and is unable to be here. Is a two timeon winner of the prestigious lincoln book prize, which is awarded annually by the American Institute of history. As wilson first one this prize in 1999 when his book, honors with, and in 2007 lincolns sword. In the middle of his academic career, professor wilson served for four years as the founding director of the robert h. Smith in International Studies virginia. I recall with some nostalgia visiting with professor wilson and his wife, sharon, at the home they rented in near monticello, because it has the birdseye view of jeffersons original home. Following dr. Wilsons return to knox college after the tenure in charlottesville, he organized the lincoln studies center. And i interrupted that, the plan they had for a series of publications, because as serving as the curator for the library of congress where i have been two years, i was given a grant the library was given a grant, the promise of 1 million to digitize president lincolns president ial papers. And knowing the diligence with which both rod and professor wilson did their research and academic writings, i asked them if they would take on the project, digitizing newspapers. They did so, and i think it through them off course for about three years, but they were very racist about it and did a marvelous job. And gracious about it, and did a marvelous job. And someone wrote a book from australia using the digitized papers through the internet. Professor wilson is a laureate of the Lincoln Academy of illinois, which awarded him the order of lincoln, the states highest honor. He holds a number of honorary degrees from down college, knox college. Degrees fromed Lincoln Memorial university, the civil war roundtable of new york, the Lincoln Group of new york, and this organization, the Abraham Lincoln institute. I will spare you the recitation of his publications, which run on for four pages, and end by saying the Research Skills by which doug and rod demonstrated during their work in research at the library of congress was absolutely unsurpassed. With accuracy, with diligence, just tenacity. I was deeply impressed. We have been friends for a long time, and i take great pride in introducing the vessel or introducing professor douglas l. Wilson. [applause] Douglas Wilson thank you very much. Thank you, john. He behaved himself better this time. [laughter] Douglas Wilson he once introduced me to the library of congress, and he says, i have visited in dougs home. He lives in a Beautiful House in a shady street. He said, when we drove up there, i looked up at his wife, and she is up on a ladder painting the house. [laughter] Douglas Wilson i dont think that did me any good with the feminists. ,onger ago than i can remember i spent several years very happily studying and writing about thomas jefferson. When i was unexpectedly followed by the lincoln whale. Here is how it happened. I wanted to write something about the remarkable role reading played in jeffersons former said years formative years, looking for something that made a good comparison. The example of Abraham Lincoln made a special appeal because of the strike the sharp contrast of the hardscrabble life on the frontier with it less than a year of schooling and jimerson jeffersons privileged upbringing. He had tutors, went to boarding school and went to college. And aggressive readers, but lincoln lived in a place where there were very few books to be had while jefferson was said to have read all of the books in his Fathers Library of several dozen books by the time he was five. I already knew a lot about , so i was hoping to find material for an instructive comparison between the two future president s. I read my way through the microfilm of the massive archive on the life of Abraham Lincoln compiled by his law partner, william h. Herndon. This proved to be something of a transformative experience, for it caused me ultimately to virtually abandoned my work on jefferson and provided the impetus for forming an Editorial Partnership with my knox college avis, toe, rodney o. D publish and make accessible in scholarly editions what herndon called his lincoln record. We began this project almost 30 years ago, and so far we have published an edition of letters and interviews that herndon received from others about lincoln. This is called herndons informants. That laid the groundwork for the next one, and annotation of a famous biography, herndons lincoln. The latest volume in the series is the first of a twopart editorial work called herndon on lincoln. First volume, long in preparation, and devoted to his letters about his law partner, was finally published last year, which is the reason i was invited to speak here today. Work,cond volume of the herndons lectures and other writings about lincoln. It is reasonable to ask, if herndon wrote a biography of his law partner that has been called the most influential life of ,incoln ever rented written what could justify waiting through a substantial volume of his letters on the same subject . The answer, the answer to this question lies in the letters themselves. It was pointed out long ago by herndons most knowledgeable critic and biographer david dunn. Donald was the first scholar to make a thorough examination of the entire herndon archive. In addition to the abundant material that herndon collected in addition to the abundant material herndon collected from others, there is a substantial number of very valuable letters that herndon wrote to the young man who would become his wyke,borator, jesse w. Whose name is on the title page, the coauthor of her did lincoln. If you take the trouble to study the letters, the letters he collaborator, his it became clear he wrote very little of the text of his own biography, and that both the theof the book and design of the book and its firstperson narration is herndon speaking about lincoln. All of that was exclusively the work of jesse white. When the book was completed, wyke even proposed naming himself as the actual author of the book. Herndon, who usually let wyke have his own way, retorted if he the principal author, they would think the book was fiction and would not read it. Herndon was probably right about this, but he never protested or wyke hadd what written. Their papers leave no doubt that when herndon protested, he protested often in the later phase of the collaboration, wyke, who lived in another state, ignored the changes and corrections. In there many changes text of the biography that simply do not reflect herndons own knowledge or appeals for which wyke is responsible. Particularly glaring example that i have pointed out elsewhere is weik s treatment of lincolns fatalism. Declared in a number of letters the most important thing about lincoln, it is unrecognized by his admiring public was that lincoln was an embittered fatalist. One of the quotes given from leonard sweat by an earlier speaker makes that point, gives that point of view. Herndon believed and declared it a number of letters. S task,rast, weik following as it does the earlier work, dismisses lincolns gloomy forebodings as quote, the delusions of the fatalist. That is all he has to say on the subject. The upside of all of this is the way lincoln is represented in the biography and the way herndon represents him and the letters are decidedly different, which is why david donald wrote this caveat to understand herndons own peculiar approach to lincolns biography. One must go back to his letters. Difference . Isbegin with, the biography gracefully written and an agreeable read whereas herndons prose is plagued by verbal mannerisms, idiosyncrasies that are often both awkward and annoying. By contrast, bibliographys firstperson biographys firstperson narrative is nothing like herndons own voice and is like something you find in a vault novel rather than biography. Consider the way the book opens. After relating the difficulty of a campaign biographer, getting lincoln to talk about his early life, the narrator observed that is supposed to be herndon on the subject of his ancestry and origin, i only remembered one time when mr. Lincoln ever referred to it. I was about 1850 when he and were driving in his one worse buggy to the court horse buggy to the court in minard, illinois. The suit we were going to try was one in which we were likely directly or collaterally to touch upon the subject of hereditary traits. During the ride, he spoke for the first time in my hearing of his mother, dwelling on her characteristics and mentioning or enumerating what qualities he had inherited from her. He said among other things that she was the illegitimate child of lucy hayes, a well bred farmer or planter. He argued that from this last source came his power of analysis, his logic, his mental activity, his ambition, and all the qualities that distinguish him from the other members and descendents of the hayes family. Was,ation, painless as it called up the regulation of his mother recollection of his mother. And as the buggy tilted over the road, he added ruefully, god bless my mother. All that i am or ever hope to be, i owe to her, and immediately collapsed into silence lapsed into silence. We rode on for some time without exchanging a word. He was sad and absorbed, burying himself in thought and using no doubt what disclosure he had just made, he drew around him a barrier which i feared to penetrate. His words and mullen told and melancholy tone made a deep impression on me. As we neared the town of petersburg, we were overtaken by an old man who rode beside us for a while and entertained us with reminiscences of days on the frontier. Lincoln was reminded of several indiana stories. By the time we reached the unpretentious courthouse in our destination, his sadness had passed away. Letters oniving lincoln that we were able to include in our volume, herndon tells of lincolns disclosure about his mothers illegitimacy, no less than a dozen times by my count. Two of these were in letters to weik, but he does not say in either of them when it happened or where or what the sinister what the circumstances were, or how lincoln was affected by this disclosure. This does not mean weik made up the story about the buggy ride to petersburg. In fact, one of her dead letters later contains some of the same elements used by weik, who may well have heard the same story and conversation from herndon. But the student of lincolns letters is enabled to see that the biographers way of telling the story is weiks not herndons, who has no gift for narrative. Herndons attempt to dramatize anecdotes are usually ineptly drawn out and result in tedium. Touch centersve the jolting of the buggy as lincoln speaks of his mother is completely foreign to him. And while he several times describes how lincoln pulled himself out of depressive moods stories,g nostalgic but timely appearance of the mounted traveler, who sets the scene for the return of lincolns. , is a narrative lincolns device. Is a narrative if you ask what is wrong with dramaticking herndons narrative, the answer is the devil is in the details. S description is wellcrafted, well paced, creates and affecting scene, and it does so without doing violence to the burden of herndons known testimony. So much to the good. But at the same time, it artfully fictionalize his some undocumented fictionalizes some undocumented minor details that makes the past see more credible but at the expense of being imaginary rather than accurate. If this were the only such case or one of a small handful, it would be scarcely worth noticing, but our close examination of weiks narrative show he repeatedly took liberties with herndons source materials. So pervasive is this practice that one eventually is forced to conclude it was part of his editorial method. He apparently thought it was a part of his charge to improve the narrative by making whatever changes to the biographical. Vidence he deemed appropriate for example, in addition to correcting the spelling and grammar of herndons informants, he frequently rewrote it by adding or subtracting words, phrases, and sentences. In our edition of herndons lincoln, where we attempted to verify the sources employed in the book and as a result, our annotations is quite extensive, it is in fact replete with alerts to the reader in passage after passage that the testimony or written source material had been materially changed and to what affect. Here is an example of one of the most telling interviews herndon ever recorded. Agedwas with lincolns stepmother, on the question of the fathers attitude toward his obsessive reading, there are accounts said his father did not like the fact lincoln was always reading, and in fact, lincolns cousin said his father would slash him if he did not stop reading. So this is what this passage is all about. Here is what herndon wrote down after the interview. Sarah bushs of lincoln. As a usual thing, mr. Lincoln never made quit reading to do anything if he could avoid it. He would do it first himself. Thomas lincoln, the father, could read a little and could scarcely write his name, so he wanted to see himself be useful. His boy abraham was encouraged to learn in all the ways he could. Weiks version of that testimony. I induced my husband to permit a to read and abe to read and study at home. At first he was not easily reconciled to it, but finally he too seems willing to encourage him to a circuit extent certain extent. Was a dutiful son, and we took care when he was reading up to disturb him, to let him read on and on till he quit of his own accord. Very different passages, both in form and in substance, and each conveys something very different from the other. Now admittedly, herndons interview notes are not often rendered in conventional sentences, as his method was to catch the essential words and might seem ten please often might seem to call for revisions. It is also true that he ended his letters to weik by saying, please, i wrote this in haste. Please edit and improve. This is what he has done throughout the biography. But the problem is he could not refrain from overreaching and making changes that alter meaning. In the case of what lincolns step motor stepmother told about the attention of lincoln and his father by the obsessive reading, weik not only consciously upgraded her diction , he changed the sense of her testimony. This kind of invisible revision of the testimony, of the witnesses, which is evident throughout the biography, as even extended to his quotations of lincolns writing. He had the good grace to improve lincolns writing. Inaccurate testimony is bad enough, but the inevitable results of such license is out white outright factual heresy. Here is one such casualty to weiks rewritten testimony that i have seen more than once, unknowingly repeated by otherwise knowledgeable lincoln scholars attempting to make a point about the gun lincolns development younger lincolns development. There was a letter to david turnham, to the second of which questioneplied, second , so far as his being accustomed to deep thoughtfulness and lost to reflection. He never was, but on the contrary was always quick witted and ready with an answer. Weiks enhanced version of this he shot up,s, as says turnham, he seemed to change in appearance of action. Although quick when it and ready with an answer, he began to exhibit deep thoughtfulness and was often lost in steady reflection. We could not help noticing a strange turn in his actions. Rather than providing a possible beginning point for lincolns which fabled melancholy, weiks reaction seems to do and scholars picked up on, the actual reply to turn his question is unambiguous evidence to the contrary. Herndon did not have his gift for fluid prose, neither did he share the style at the expense of substance. He was duly concerned about the accuracy of what he added to his archive, and when he himself copied copied passages. His investigation made him privy to an on told number of stories to his law partner, but he admitted that he was directive and did not bother to include stories he did not believe. Here is the indicative thing about herndon as an investigator. He candidly admitted more than thatto his correspondents his hilliard to write down what he was told at the time deprived him of the record of testimony he later realized was a significant. He told his collaborator for example, i did not many times see the importance imparted to me till long after it was told to me. Never saw the importance of many things until they rounded up as a whole. This dimension of his correspondence in which he admits his own limitations and that of the lincoln record has received little recognition. A long history of being regarded as the bogeyman of lincoln studies. One of the chief complaints made against him is that he is selfimportant and claims to know more about lincolns in her makeup and thinking than is reasonable to credit. This is a criticism that is often illustrated by one of his hyperbolic remarks to the effect that he knew lincoln so well he could tell what he was thinking. The readers of the letters will indeed find a few of these. But they will also discover that what he usually said in this regard, and that he is really quite the opposite. Lincoln was so secretive, shut mouthed, and close minded as to be impenetrable. He says this too often to doubt that this sentiment trumps any ill considered hyperbole he couldve been guilty of. He even admitted later in life, man had to guess at the after years of acquaintance. And then you must look long and keenly before you guessed or you would make an ass of yourself. A related criticism of herndon is that he was smugly confident. He could explain lincolns motivation and behavior. But t