]
[Illustration: COURT-HOUSE AT TREMONT WHERE LINCOLN RECEIVED WARNING
OF SHIELDS'S CHALLENGE.
Tremont was about fifty miles north of Springfield, in Tazewell
County. Although the internal improvements scheme of 1837 ran a
railroad through the town, it was only reached in 1842, at the time
of the Shields-Lincoln duel, by driving. The court-house is a fair
example of those in which Lincoln first practised law.]
No one can read this description in connection with the rest of Mr.
Herndon's text, and escape the impression that, if it is true, there
must have been a vein of cowardice in Lincoln. The context shows that
he was not insane enough to excuse such a public insult to a woman.
To break his engagement was, all things considered, not in any way
an unusual or abnormal thing; to brood over the rupture, to blame
himself, to feel that he had been dishonorable, was to be expected,
after such an act, from one of his temperament. Nothing, however,
but temporary insanity or constitutional cowardice could explain such
conduct as here described. Mr. Herndon does not pretend to found his
story on any personal knowledge of the affair. He was in Springfield
at the time, a clerk in Speed's store, but did not have then, nor,
indeed, did he ever have, any social relations with the families in
which Mr.
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