"Despite Americans' supposed resistance to the trappings of European royalty, we have always yearned for political dynasties, hoping that the qualities admired in one leader will be replicated in the leader's progeny," presidential historian Michael R. Beschloss said in The New Yorker magazine in 1994 when he wrote the definitive recounting of Abe's tragedy-plagued bloodline, "Last of the Lincolns," which is a primary source for this story. It was in that article that Beschloss revealed the million-dollar payoff.