Evolution of Emancipation

Be it known that I, Abraham Lincoln, of Springfield, in the county of Sangamon, in the

state of Illinois, have invented a new and improved manner of combining adjustable buoyant air
chambers with a steam boat or other vessel (Lincoln, Application for Patent). By the time
Abraham Lincoln filed this patent application in 1849 he was a well-known and accomplished
lawyer with a thriving legal career. In fact, the 1850s would prove to be his business and most
successful state of his legal career. However, the lawyer could still not keep his mind confined to
strictly legal matters. In March 1849, Lincoln wrote to the US Patent Office in an attempt to
patent a buoyancy apparatus for steamboats. While most of the letter is mired in technical
rhetoric, the letter itself testifies to Lincolns own rural upbringing and the era of the Triple
Revolution he was writing during.
Lincoln was living in an age of invention in the United States, and in 1849, Robert
Fultons steamboat had only been in existence for forty years. Lincolns adopted home of Salem,
IL owed its very existence to a shoal on the Sangamon River where a mill was erected and laid
the foundation of commerce in the town. Lincoln hoped to create buoyancy chambers created by
doors that open and close manually to take on or expel water, much like modern hydraulics in
boats and suspension systems work. Such chambers would, in theory, allow the boat to float
higher in the water when encountering a sandbar or other impediment. In the patent application,
Lincoln maintained that such buoyancy would enable to crafts to pass over brs, or through
shallow water, without discharging their cargoes (Lincoln, Application of Patent). Like many of
the other inventions of his era, Lincolns buoyant chambers would improve travel but have
practical commercial applications, if it was successful.

Even as a young man, Lincoln had wanted to establish a connection with rivers and
navigation. Lincoln was a westerners, born and bred in the hardscrabble life of the Ohio and
Mississippi River valleys. Historian James Emmerson notes that Lincoln had grown up as a
pioneer farmer and boatman and ...knew the necessity for reliable transportation not just for
travel but also to take farm products to market, and he hoped his invention would help facilitate
river navigation (Emerson 13). In his First Campaign Statement from March 9th, 1832, Lincoln
told voters that he had built a float boat himself and took it out on the Sangamo River, claiming
that these circumstances are sufficient evidence, that I have not been very inattentive to the
states of the water (Lincoln, First Campaign Statement). This experience at a young age no
doubt inspired Lincolns patent 17 years later and reflects his continued interest in water
navigation. R. Gerald McMurtry claims that Captain James Rileys Narrative of the Loss of the
American Brig Commerce was one of the most influential books Lincoln read (McMurtry 133).
McMurtry points to the Scripps biography that Lincoln personally authorized, revised, and
endorsed as proof that Lincoln had read the wildly popular book (McMurtry 134). The book
gives an account of Captain Riley and his crews shipwreck in Africa, their enslavement, and
journeys through the continent. McMurtry points to the book as shaping Lincolns convictions
against slavery, but it also would have highlighted at a young age the dangers of shipwrecks.
Lincoln understood the importance of water navigation for western farmers to bring their goods
to market. It makes sense that a self-educated man, such as Lincoln, would have no qualms about
presenting a patent for an innovation without hands-on working experience and based on theory
alone. In this document, Lincoln tried his hand at becoming a renaissance man as he crafted
mechanical improvements to the steamboat. Although most likely not feasible, the invention was
an expression of Lincolns own upbringing as well as his continued interest in transportation.

Lincolns application for a steamboat buoyancy mechanism was well situated in the
transportation revolution on the early 19th century. The Transportation Revolution and era of
ingenuity in the US had started in the 1800s and 1810s in the US and were still going strong by
the 1840s and 1850s when the railroad rose to prominence before the Civil War. Although
Andrew Jackson had done severe damage to the Whig platform of nationally funded internal
improvements, investment in transportation improvements were championed instead by private
industry. Although Lincoln lived in the metropolitan capitol of Springfield by 1849, the river was
still an essential part of farming and commerce in the mid-1800s. Lincoln himself was a lobbyist
for the railroad industry in the state and worked for the advancements of canals and railroads
within the state. The era was rife for ingnue designers. The Lowell Mills of Massachusetts had
been built by a runaway apprentice and fortunes were being built by investors in railroads
throughout the United States. Lincolns foray into engineering was not completely unheard of at
this time as men throughout the United States were surrounded and taken by these new technical
advancements.
Lincolns interest in mechanic and engineering did not end with his patent. During the
Civil War, Lincoln was involved in the testing and improvement of weapons, going so far as
testing them (Roe 184 - 185). When a contractor delivered unworkable gun during the Civil War,
Lincoln revived his role as lawyer to issue the contract interpretation for payment, expanding the
role of the executive in the patent process, acting as the first, modern Board of Contract
Appeals (Roe).
Lincolns Application for Patent from 1849 tells the modern reader much about Lincolns
personal context and well as the historical context of the era, but without giving many clues to
subtext. Written in a technically and highly legal manner, the patent was granted, which given

Lincoln the distinction of being the only president to have been granted a patent. Overall,
Lincolns letter demonstrates an earnest respect for the constitution and the Patent Office and the
varied intellectual talents Lincoln possessed.

Works Cited
Emerson, Jason. Lincoln the Inventor (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2009).
Lincoln, Abraham. First Campaign Statement (March 9, 1832). House Divided Project. Ed.
Matthew Pinsker. Dickinson College, n.d. Web. 7 July 2016.
<http://housedivided.dickinson.edu/sites/lincoln/first-campaign-statement-march-91832/>.
Lincoln, Abraham. Application for Patent (March 10, 1849). House Divided Project.
Ed. Matthew Pinsker. Dickinson College, n.d. Web. 19 July 2016.
<http://housedivided.dickinson.edu/sites/lincoln/application-for-patent-march-10-1849/>.
McMurtry, R. Gerald. "The Influence of Riley's Narrative upon Abraham Lincoln." Indiana
Magazine of History June ser. 30.2 (1934): 133-38. Print.
Roe, Austin G. "The First Board of Contract Appeals." Public Contract Law Journal December
ser. 8.2 (1976): 179-87. Print.