When Abraham Lincoln was elected President, he was gifted two kittens from Secretary of State William Seward in August of 1861. The President doted on the cats, which he named Tabby and Dixie, so much so that he once fed Tabby from the table during a formal dinner at the White House. Embarrassed by Abe's action, Mary Todd Lincoln told him it was "shameful in front of their guests." The President replied, "If the gold fork was good enough for former President James Buchanan, I think it is good enough for Tabby." Lincoln's friend Caleb Carman recalled how the President would pick up one of the cats and "talk to it for half an hour at a time." The cats apparently won the President over with their quiet adoration. At one point during his first term, Lincoln said in frustration, "Dixie is smarter than my whole cabinet! And... furthermore... she doesn't talk back!"
Information Source: Digital Research Library of Illinois History