The Lincoln Myth (59 page)

The Washington, D.C., temple is a prominent Maryland landmark (
chapters 50
,
59
). The Salt Lake temple (described in
chapter 14
) is an iconic monument, as is Temple Square surrounding it (
chapter 61
). The song quoted in
chapter 11
is real, and where the prophet lives in Salt Lake City is accurately noted.

The record stone (mentioned in
chapter 14
) was excavated from the Salt Lake temple in 1993. Inside were various objects, left there by Brigham Young in 1867. The inventory provided in
chapter 14
is accurate, except for the addition of Young’s message. History notes that Joseph Smith first glimpsed the golden plates inside a stone box. On October 2, 1841, Smith placed the original manuscript of Book of Mormon inside the Nauvoo Hotel cornerstone. What Brigham Young did—sealing objects, documents, and gold coins inside stone—became a sign of reverence (
chapter 70
), repeated at temples across the globe. That’s why it made sense to seal the collateral Lincoln sent west within the stone plaque Young donated to the Washington Monument (
chapter 70
). That gift is still there, mounted inside at the 220-foot level.

The murder of Joseph Smith and his brother on June 27, 1844, is fact (
chapter 16
). Edwin Rushton also existed, as did his journal. The White Horse Prophecy, quoted throughout (
chapters 17
,
18
), was once part of Mormon folklore. No one knows when the prophecy was first memorialized, but most agree that it was long after its
first utterance by Joseph Smith in 1843. The text in
chapter 17
is quoted from Rushton’s journal, dated in the 1890s. The prophecy itself is so accurate, so detailed, that it begs the question of whether it was embellished after the fact. No matter, it was repudiated by the church in the early part of the 20th century (
chapter 52
), though mentions of it still exist in various Mormon texts.

What Brigham Young said in
chapter 51
—
Will the Constitution be destroyed? No. It will be held inviolate by this people and, as Joseph Smith said, “The time will come when the destiny of the nation will hang upon a single thread. At that critical juncture, this people will step forth and save it from the threatened destruction”
—is true. As is the prophecy of John Taylor, first announced in 1879 (
chapter 51
), which is also uncannily on target.

The original 1830 Book of Mormon described in
chapters 20
and
30
is rare and valuable. The 1840 edition found in the Library of Congress (
chapter 41
) is there. Lincoln remains the first (and only) president to read it, and the dates of him having the book in his possession (noted in
chapter 41
) were taken from the records of the Library of Congress. All of the handwritten notes added to that book are fictional, but the passages quoted in
chapter 43
are exact. The visit by Joesph Smith to President Martin Van Buren happened as told (
chapter 21
).

Salzburg is a marvelous city. The Goldener Hirsch has welcomed guests for many centuries (
chapter 27
), and the Hohensalzburg fortress still keeps guard overhead (
chapter 30
). St. Peter’s graveyard, the catacombs, and the Gertraude Chapel are accurately portrayed (
chapters 34
,
37
), as is the towering Mönchsberg (
chapter 48
). Dorotheum (
chapters 20
,
30
) is an actual European auction house of long standing.

Mary Todd Lincoln was dealt many tough blows. She lost nearly all of her children and her husband to early deaths. Her letter contained in
chapter 28
is false, but its wording is drawn from her actual correspondence. Lincoln’s watch (as described in
chapter 47
) is on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. The inscription noted within was found when the watch was opened in 2009. The addition of a second timepiece was my
creation. Salisbury House, in Des Moines, Iowa, is truthfully described—its grounds, geography, and furnishings (
chapters 53
,
58
). Only the addition of the garden cottage is fictional. Likewise, Blair House in Washington, D.C., exists, as does the parlor with the Lincoln portrait (
chapters 55
,
60
).

Richard Nixon did meet privately with the leadership of the Mormon church in July 1970 (
chapter 31
). An unprecedented thirty-minute session behind closed doors. No one to this day knows the substance of that conversation, and all of its participants are deceased.

Montpelier, its garden temple, and its ice pit are real (
chapters 33
,
35
,
40
,
42
). The pit itself is sealed, and I could find no photographs of its interior. So the addition of Roman numerals there was easy to concoct.

The Rhoades gold mine is, to this day, a part of Mormon history. The story of the mine, how it was found and exploited, is faithfully told in
chapter 61
. Such legend is attached to the mine that it’s hard to know what, if anything, is real. The map shown in
chapter 18
is one of countless versions of the “real thing.” The story of Brigham Young melting all of the Mormons’ gold and transporting it west to California (
chapter 61
) for safekeeping is fact. Those 22 wagons did disappear. For this novel I merged the Rhoades Mine with the story of the lost Mormon gold and hypothesized that Brigham Young simply confiscated that wealth and recycled it back into the community (
chapter 61
), using the mine as a cover. It seemed logical, but there is no way to know if it is true. Gold coins, like the one described in
chapter 61
, were minted and still exist today. The place known as
Falta Nada
is wholly my creation.

This book deals with secession, an issue upon which the U.S. Constitution is silent. No mention is made anywhere of how a state could leave the Union. The definitive record of the constitutional convention is James Madison’s
Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787
. The speeches quoted in
chapter 46
are from those notes. The wording is 90 percent accurate, the only addition being comments of a way out of the Union.

But Madison’s notes are indeed suspect.

They were not published until 53 years after the convention, once every participant in that gathering had died, and Madison openly admitted that he altered the account (
chapter 25
). What actually happened at the Constitutional Convention we will never know. So to say that secession is unconstitutional, or that the founders did not contemplate such a possibility, would be wrong. Yet that is exactly what the U.S. Supreme Court said in
Texas v. White
(1869). The portions of that opinion quoted in
chapter 19
are excellent examples of this poorly reasoned opinion. But what else could the High Court have done? Rule the entire Civil War a waste of effort? That 600,000 people died for nothing?

Hardly.

The justices literally had no choice.

We, though, have a greater luxury.

The American Revolution was clearly a war of secession (
chapter 9
). The colonists’ goal was not to overthrow the British Empire and replace that government with something new. Instead, they simply wanted out. The Declaration of Independence was a statement of their secession (
chapter 26
). Why would the Founding Fathers fight a long bloody war and shake off the yoke of an autocratic king only to establish another autocracy under their new government?

The answer is clear.

They would not.

What preceded the Constitution was the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, which lasted from 1781 to 1789—when they were summarily discarded and replaced by the Constitution of the United States.

What happened to that
perpetual union
?

Even more telling, the new Constitution mentions nothing about
perpetual
. Instead, its Preamble states:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union
.

Was a
more perfect Union
meant to be nonperpetual?

An interesting question.

And, as noted in
chapter 26
, Virginia, Rhode Island, and New York, in their ratification votes for the new Constitution, specifically reserved the right to secede, which was not opposed by the other states.

Secession remains a hot topic, and all of the arguments Thaddeus Rowan considers in
chapter 26
make good sense. The language quoted there from a Texas petition, signed by 125,000 supporters, is exact. And 125,000 real Texans signed that document in 2012. All of the polls noted can be found in news accounts. The actual legal path to secession—how it might be accomplished, as well as its political and economic ramifications (as described in
chapter 50
), were drawn from authoritative texts that have considered the issue. If a state seceded there would indeed be another court fight, a test of
Texas v. White
, but a decision this time could be vastly different, especially without a personality as strong and determined as Abraham Lincoln to navigate the outcome.

Lincoln is truly a man more of myth than fact.

The quote in the
epigraph
of the novel is a good example. There, he made clear that
any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable—a most sacred right—a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit
.

Lincoln absolutely believed secession legal.

At least in 1848.

But the myths about him say otherwise.

Every schoolchild is told that Lincoln freed the slaves with his Emancipation Proclamation. But nothing could be farther from the truth. What is said in
chapter 7
about that effort is historical fact. At the time of that proclamation slavery was both recognized and condoned by the Constitution (
chapter 7
). No president possessed the
authority to alter that. Only a constitutional amendment could make that change. And one eventually did, the Thirteenth Amendment, ratified long after Lincoln’s death.

Then there is the reason why Lincoln fought the Civil War in the first place. Myth says it was to end slavery. But Lincoln made his position clear in 1862 when he said,
My task is to save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it. If I could save it by freeing all slaves, I would do it. If I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union. What I forbear, I forbear because I don’t believe it would help to save the Union
.

Again, his intent is beyond question.

And directly contrary to myth.

As president, Lincoln totally ignored what he said in 1848 and fought to establish, beyond question, that the South had no right to leave the Union. The peace talks referred to in
chapter 60
, at Hampton Roads in February 1865, happened. Lincoln himself was there, and when the South insisted on independence as a condition to peace he ended the discussion.

For Lincoln, the Union was non-negotiable.

John Kennedy said it best:
The greatest enemy of truth is often not the lie—deliberate, contrived and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive and unrealistic
.

The idea of an indivisible, perpetual union of states did not exist prior to 1861. No one believed such nonsense. States’ rights ruled that day. The federal government was regarded as small, weak, and inconsequential. If a state could choose to join the Union, then a state could choose to leave.

As noted in the prologue, James Buchanan, Lincoln’s predecessor, actually did pave the way for South Carolina to secede, blaming that act on the
intemperate interference of the northern people with the question of slavery
. Buchanan also voiced what many in the nation regarded as true: that slave states should be left alone to manage their domestic institutions in their own way. Northern states should also repeal all
laws that encouraged slaves to become fugitives. If not, then, as Buchanan said,
the injured states, after having first used all peaceful and constitutional means to effect redress, would be justified in revolutionary resistance to the government of the Union
.

Strong words from our 15th president.

But things quickly changed.

Our 16th president believed in a
perpetual union
. One from which no state was free to leave.

Here’s a fact, beyond the myth.

Lincoln did not fight the Civil War to
preserve
the union.

He fought that war to
create
it.

For Augustus Eli Reinhardt IV
A special young man

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you, Gina Centrello, Libby McQuire, Kim Hovey, Cindy Murray, Jennifer Hershey, Debbie Aroff, Carole Lowenstein, Matt Schwartz, Scott Shannon, and everyone in Art, Promotions, and Sales. The Random House team.

To Mark Tavani and Simon Lipskar, thank you for another great job.

A few special mentions: Grant Blackwood, a supertalented novelist, who helped with some of the early plotting; Meryl Moss and her extraordinary publicity team (especially Deb Zipf and Jeri-Ann Geller); Jessica Johns and Esther Garver, who continue to keep Steve Berry Enterprises running smoothly; John Cole at the Library of Congress for arranging an enlightening visit; and John Busbee, in Des Moines, who introduced me to Salisbury House. A special thanks to Shauna Summers, a fine editor at Random House, who helped with all things Mormon (though any mistakes that remain are mine).