Published May 27, 2012
By Chuck Radel
“He was an intimate personal and
political friend of Abraham Lincoln and was the man who framed for him the four
questions propounded to Stephen A. Douglas at Freeport in the famous debates in
1858.”
— Quincy Daily Journal, Nov. 20, 1896
Among the charter members of the Quincy Historical Society, founded in
1896 — today’s Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County — was Henry
Asbury. He was a Quincy lawyer, historian, and author. He also was one of the
first Republicans to suggest in 1858 that his friend Abraham Lincoln had the
makings to be the young party’s presidential candidate in 1860.
Never elected to an executive office — in fact, he was
elected to only two offices in the 28 years before 1860, Lincoln was at best a
long shot for the presidency. But Asbury’s musings were realized when Lincoln
won his party’s nomination, then defeated the former Quincy Democrat, U.S.
Stephen A. Douglas, for the nation’s highest office.
Henry Asbury was born in Harrison
(now Robertson) County, Kentucky on August 10, 1810, and came to Illinois in
1834, traveling on horseback and arriving in Quincy when it was “a thicket of
hazel brush.” His first home was a log cabin on the southeast corner of Seventh
and Hampshire.
Asbury began the study of law in 1834 with Quincy lawyer Orville
H. Browning and was admitted to the bar in 1837. In 1843 he opened a law
partnership with Abraham Jonas, whose friendship with Lincoln enabled Jonas to
make the arrangements for the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas Debate in Quincy. For a time
Asbury was a law partner of Col. Edward D. Baker, a Lincoln favorite, later
U.S. senator from Oregon and killed at Ball’s Bluff, Va., in 1862 during the
Civil War.
Asbury was elected a justice of the peace in Quincy in 1836.
In an 1841 election favoring a proposal to move the county seat from Quincy to
Columbus, Justices of the Peace Asbury and W.D. McCann certified the election
results, which were appealed and stopped by a majority of Adams County
commissioners. In 1842 Dr. Richard Eells was caught helping an escaped slave,
arrested, and charged with harboring and secreting a fugitive slave under the
Illinois Criminal Code. Eells was brought before Asbury, who ordered him bound
for trial, a case heard the next year by Quincy Judge Stephen A. Douglas.
President Zachary Taylor appointed Asbury register of the
federal land office in Quincy in 1849. In 1864 President Lincoln, who was his
close personal friend, appointed Asbury the Quincy District provost marshal,
which made him responsible for arresting deserters and investigating alleged
acts of treason during the Civil War. He thereby obtained the title of
“Captain,” by which he became widely known. The position was not without its
dangers, as a number of guards were shot outside his door. Asbury’s success can
be measured by the thousands of troops he recruited during the later years of
the Civil War. Capt. Asbury later served for several years as registrar in
bankruptcy at Quincy, his last official position.
Originally a Whig, Asbury was one of the founders of the
Republican Party in Illinois along with Quincyans Abraham Jonas, Archibald
Williams, Nehemiah Bushnell, and O. H. Browning and Abraham Lincoln, with whom
he was a frequent correspondent. Horace Greeley, New York editor and prominent
Republican, in Quincy on a speaking engagement met in the offices of Asbury and
Jones with a group of local Republicans in December 1858. The discussion
focused on Republican presidential candidates in 1860. Asbury suggested Lincoln’s
name as a possible candidate and the idea was endorsed by Jonas. This
was one of the first endorsements by the local Republican
power base, an important step if Lincoln was to become a presidential
candidate.
Asbury is given credit for framing the four questions Lincoln
asked Douglas to answer at Freeport during the second of their seven Great
Debates in 1858. Asbury believed his most important question was: “Can the
people of a United States territory in any lawful way against the wish of any
citizen of the United States exclude Slavery from its limits prior to the
formation of a state constitution?” In a letter to Asbury in 1858 Lincoln
acknowledged the importance of Asbury’s contribution: “The points you propose
to press upon Douglas, he will be very hard to get up to.” It was reported that
a number of Republican leaders came to Lincoln’s room the night before the
speech, however, and strongly advised him not to put the interrogatories to
Douglas, saying “If you do you can never be senator.” “Gentlemen,” replied
Lincoln, “I am killing larger game; if Douglas answers, he can never be
president, and the battle of 1860 is worth a hundred of this.” Asbury was proud
of his connection with that incident and believed he contributed greatly to the
election of Lincoln as president. He also prized his correspondence with
Lincoln and the letters he received from him.
Lincoln’s regard for Asbury is seen in his presidential
directive to Secretary of War Edward Stanton in December 1862 to have Asbury
and Jonas decide the fate of a St. Joseph, Mo., man arrested for disloyalty.
Lincoln described the character of his two Quincy friends “both of whom I know
to be loyal and sensible men.” Capt. Asbury often visited Lincoln in Washington
and is believed to have been there when four of the eight Lincoln assassination
conspirators were executed. Since he had been such an intimate friend of the
president, it is believed that he was able to obtain without difficulty the
relics connected with the assassination and now displayed in the Lincoln
Gallery of the Historical Society.
Asbury wrote Illinois Formbook, a method of procedure for
justice courts commonly referred to as Asbury’s Justice, and Reminiscences of
Quincy, Illinois, a history of the city’s early years. When the Historical Society
was formed, he was the first one selected as a corresponding member. Asbury
moved to Chicago in 1886 and lived in the home of his daughter until his death
on November 19, 1896. He is buried in Quincy’s Woodland Cemetery in a plot
adjoining the Browning family lot.
Chuck Radel is retired from the Quincy Public Schools and
taught history for 20 years. He is a local historian, president of the
Historical Society, and a member of the Lincoln-Douglas Debate Interpretive
Center Advisory Board.
Sources
Asbury, Henry. Reminiscences of Quincy, Illinois. Quincy, IL: D. Wilcox & Sons, 1882.
Basler, Roy P., Marion D. Pratt, and Lloyd D. Dunlap, eds. The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953-1955.
Bateman, Newton, and Paul Selby, eds. Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois. Vol. II. Chicago, IL: Munsell Publishing Co., 1915.
Browning, Orville H. The Diary of Orville Hickman Browning. Vol. I, 1850-1864. Ed. Theadore C. Pease and James G. Randall. Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library, Vol XX; Lincoln Series, Vol. II. Chicago, IL: Blakely Printing Co., 1927.
“Captain Asbury Is Dead.” Quincy Daily Herald. 20 Nov. 1896: 8, cols. 5-6.
“Dead Members of Bar: George C. McCrone and Henry Asbury Join the Majority.” Quincy Daily Herald. 21 Nov. 1896: 1, col. 5.
Frolick, David A. “From Immigration to Integration: Jewish Life in Quincy in the Nineteenth Century.” Illinois History Teacher 1998; Vol. 5, No. 1: 29-34.
“Henry Asbury Dead.” Quincy Morning Whig. 20 Nov. 1896: 8, col. 5.
Karp, Abraham J. From the Ends of the Earth: Judaic Treasures of the Library of Congress. DC: Library of Congress, 1991.
Landrum, Carl. “From Quincy’s past: Eighth and Hampshire background.” Quincy Herald-Whig 25 July 1971: A 5, cols. 3-6.
“Lincoln Relics.” Record from the files of the Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County. 23 April 2005.
The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln. 23 April 2005 .
“Pioneer of Quincy Dead.” Quincy Daily Journal. 20 Nov. 1896: 4, col. 4.
Richardson, William A., Jr. “The County Seat of Adams County.” Journal of the Illinois Historical Society 17 (October, 1924): 374.
“Valuable Abraham Lincoln Relics Pride of Quincy Historical Society.” Quincy Herald-Whig. 13 Dec. 1949: 24, cols. 2-7.
