Lincoln's Kentucky Connections

"I, too, am a Kentuckian." -- Abraham Lincoln, 1861

Kentuckians played a major role in Lincoln’s life, even after he left Kentucky.  His Kentucky connections followed him long after he moved from the commonwealth.  Of greatest significance, Lincoln’s lifelong and intimate association with Kentuckians enabled him to understand their culture and politics, subjects critical to him and the nation during his presidency.

In a draft of an 1861 speech, Abraham Lincoln wrote, “I, too, am a Kentuckian.”  Although he only lived in the Bluegrass State as a child, Lincoln’s Kentucky connections were extensive.  His family, business, and political associations were closely aligned to the commonwealth, and Kentuckians influenced Lincoln throughout his life.

Abraham Lincoln’s grandfather, Captain Abraham Lincoln, moved to Kentucky in 1782.  Two years later, Captain Lincoln was killed by Indians near Hughes’ Station, twenty miles east of Louisville.  The family eventually relocated to present-day Washington County, and the future president’s parents were married in Springfield in 1806.  Three years later, on February 12, 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born near Hodgenville.  Here, Lincoln first attended school in a log schoolhouse near the family's farm.

Even after the family moved from Kentucky, Lincoln’s connections to the Bluegrass State continued.  Lincoln’s years in Indiana also reinforced his Kentucky heritage.  During his formative years, from age seven to twenty-two, Lincoln’s family was surrounded by numerous Kentuckians who had also moved to southern Indiana.  These Kentuckians included his mother’s aunt and uncle, Elizabeth and Thomas Sparrow, and Elizabeth’s nephew, Dennis Hanks.   These and other Kentuckians who lived around the Lincolns in Indiana were such an influence on Abraham that his Indiana world was little different from the milieu of Knob Creek, Kentucky.

After moving to Illinois, Lincoln’s best friend, Joshua Speed, was a Kentuckian. Although Speed eventually returned to his hometown of Louisville, he was a close confidant to the president during the Civil War.  In addition, Joshua Speed’s brother, James Speed, served as U. S. attorney general for the Lincoln administration.  The Speed brothers were two of his strongest supporters in Kentucky.  Other Kentuckians very important to Lincoln during the Civil War included Robert J. Breckinridge, an influential Presbyterian minister, and James Guthrie, a U. S. senator and secretary of the treasury.

Lincoln’s three law partners in Springfield, Illinois, were also native Kentuckians.

John Todd Stuart of Fayette County was Lincoln’s law partner from 1837 to 1841.  Stuart, a cousin to Mary Todd Lincoln, was the son of a Presbyterian minister.  His mother, Hannah Todd Stuart, was reputedly Mary Todd Lincoln’s favorite aunt.  John Todd Stuart and Lincoln met during the Black Hawk War, and Stuart encouraged Lincoln to run for the Illinois legislature and become a lawyer.  Lincoln borrowed Stuart’s law books when the future president studied for the profession.   During the Civil War, Stuart was elected to Congress, and, despite his friendship with Lincoln, eventually disagreed with many of the president’s policies.

Lincoln’s second law partner, Stephen T. Logan, was also born in Kentucky. Logan practiced law in the Bluegrass State for a decade before moving to Springfield, Illinois, in 1833.  Lincoln and Logan were law partners from 1841 to 1844.  Logan was also a distant cousin to Mary Todd Lincoln.

William H. Herndon was Lincoln’s third law partner.  Born in Green County, Kentucky, in 1818, Herndon’s family moved to Illinois when William was a toddler.  William studied law under Lincoln and Logan.  Many Springfield residents were surprised when Lincoln asked the inexperienced Herndon to become his law partner, but the two men formed an effective business partnership.  After Lincoln’s assassination, Herndon delivered lectures on Lincoln and coauthored Herndon’s Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life, which was published in 1889.

Lincoln’s political influences were built on a strong Kentucky foundation.  Lincoln’s political idol, Henry Clay, was a Kentuckian.  Clay was the founder of the Whig Party’s “American System,” which advocated higher tariffs, a national bank, and internal improvements, including roads and canals.  Clay and his supporters believed that these measures would spur economic development for the western states.  Clay, a lawyer from Lexington, served in the Kentucky legislature, the U.S. House of Representatives, and the U.S. Senate.  Clay unsuccessfully ran for president several times and was Kentucky’s most prominent nineteenth-century politician.  Clay was a good friend of Mary Todd Lincoln’s family, an alliance that impressed Lincoln when courting his future wife.

Lincoln's Kentucky connections persisted even after the president’s assassination. Joseph Holt, the prosecutor who tried and convicted the Lincoln assassination conspirators, was a Kentuckian.  Born in Breckinridge County in 1807, Holt attended Centre College in Danville.  Holt was a newspaper editor and a prominent Mississippi attorney.  By age thirty-five, he had amassed such a fortune that he retired to Louisville.  During the Civil War, Holt vigorously supported the Union cause, and, through speeches, pamphlets, and newspaper articles, he played an important role in keeping Kentucky in the Union.  In 1862, he became judge advocate general, and, by 1865, was a major general in charge of the Bureau of Military Justice.  After Lincoln’s assassination, Holt was the chief prosecutor of those who had conspired to kill the president.  Holt was judge advocate general until 1875.  He died in 1894.

Although Lincoln left Kentucky, Kentuckians never left him.  His associations with the commonwealth continued long after he departed the Bluegrass State.