On February 15, 1853, Abraham Lincoln wrote to John A. Rockwell to inform him he had failed to secure a coal mining charter. Coal was becoming increasingly important to the modernization of America because it was replacing wood as fuel for steamships and railroads. Rockwell and his associates had set up a corporation called the “Vermillion Coal and Manufacturing Company.” As with all companies at the time, it had to be incorporated by the Illinois state legislature.
Lincoln had served four terms – eight years – in the state legislature but had been working as a lawyer for over a decade since that time, so he had state senator Asahel Gridley introduce the bill on February 5th. It was passed by the Senate on February 9th but died in the House upon adjournment. Lincoln was, at least in part, at fault. In his letter to Rockwell, he notes:
I have failed to get your Coal Mining Charter. Being very busy in the Courts when your letter reached me, I let a few days slip before attending to it. A little more than a week before the close of the Session, I got a Bill for the Charter howsoever into the Senate, which Body it passed in about five days. It then went to the H. R. and was lost for want of time. No one was opposed to it, but every one was much more anxious about some other Bill, so it became evident a large proportion of all would be lost.
Lincoln gives some indication of the vagaries of state legislature life, which was a part-time job.
With us there is no lengthening out the Session, over a day, to get through with business. The New Constitution, adopted in 1848, limits the pay of members to two dollars per day for the first six weeks, and to one dollar per day afterwards. The practical result is they never sit a day over the six weeks.
While there was no opposition to the bill, “there was an objection to allowing you to connect by railroads with the Canal and Rock Island roads, all three.” Lincoln got around this by framing the bill to authorize Rockwell “to make only one of such connections, with the option however, as to which one.” He added, “If you continue to desire it, I will get it passed at the next Session.”
According to the bill, the company would have been able to “engage in the business of the mining of coal, iron, clays, and other minerals; and of welling for salt.”
Lincoln was intensely aware of the importance of mineral wealth, and it became a particular interest of his over the course of his legal career. Coal and other mined resources also played critical roles in the Civil War, everything from railroads, steam-powered blockade ships and ironclads, niter for gunpowder, the infamous Trent affair that almost started a war with England, and the rapid acceptance of Nevada as a state just days before the 1864 presidential election.
I take a deeper dive into all of these facets in Lincoln: The Fire of Genius, now available for pre-order.
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David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.
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[Photo from https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/minewars/]
