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we do not know; for he died several years ago without, so far as is known, revealing them to anyone.
On the subject of his ancestry and origin I only.
remember one time when Mr. Lincoln ever referred to it. It was about 1850, when he and I were driving in his one-horse buggy to the court in Menard county, Illinois.
The suit we were going to try was one in which we were likely, either directly or collaterally, to touch upon the subject of hereditary traits.
During the ride he spoke, for the first time in my hearing, of his mother,1 dwelling on her characteristics, and mentioning or enumerating what qualities he inherited from her. He said, among other things, that she was the illegitimate daughter of Lucy Hanks and a well-bred Virginia farmer or planter; and he argued that from this last source came his power of analysis, his logic, his mental activity, his ambition, and all the qualities that distinguished him from the other members and descendants of the Hanks family.
His theory in discussing the matter of hereditary traits had been, that, for certain reasons, illegitimate children are oftentimes sturdier and brighter than those born in lawful wedlock; and in his case, he believed that his better nature and finer qualities came from this broad-minded, unknown Virginian.
The revelation
1 Dennis and John Hanks have always insisted that Lincoln's mother was not a Hanks, but a Sparrow. Both of them wrote to me that such was the fact. Their object in insisting on this is apparent when it is shown that Nancy Hanks was the daughter of Lucy Hanks, who afterward married Henry Sparrow. It will be observed that Mr. Lincoln claimed that his mother was a Hanks.
The Herndon's Lincoln Pubishing Company, Springfield, Ill., 1888.
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