The Life of Abraham Lincoln (Holland)/Chapter VII

The time had come with Mr. Lincoln for translation to a new sphere of life. By the scantiest means he had wrested from the hardest circumstances a development of his characteristic powers. He had acquired the rudiments of an English education. He had read several text books of the natural sciences, with special attention to geology, in the facts and laws of which he had become particularly intelligent. He had read law as well as he could without the assistance of preceptors. He had attended a few sessions of the courts held near him, and had become somewhat familiar with the practical application of legal processes. He had, from the most discouraging beginnings, grown to be a notable political debater. He had had experience in legislation, had received public recognition as a man of mark and power, had been accepted as one of the leaders of an intelligent and morally influential political party, and had fairly outgrown the humble conditions by which his life hall hitherto been surrounded.

At this time he received from his Springfield friend, Major Stuart, a proposition to become his partner in the practice of the law. Mr. Lincoln's influence in securing the transfer of the capital from Vandalia to Springfield had already given him a favorable introduction to the people of the city; and on the 15th of April, 1837, he took up his abode there. He went to his new home with great self-distrust and with many misgivings concerning his future; but Springfield became his permanent home. He had been admitted to the bar during the autumn of 1836, and went to his work with the ambition to be something, and the determination to do something.

It must have been with something of regret that he turned his back upon New Salem, for he left behind him a town full of friends, who had watched his progress with the friendliest interest, aided him when he needed aid, and appreciated him. He left behind him all the stepping-stones by which he had mounted to the elevation he bad reached--the old store-house where he had been a successful clerk, the old store-house where he had been an unsuccessful principal, the scenes of his wrestling-matches and foot-races, the lounging-places where he had sat and told stories with a post-office in his hat, the rough audience-rooms in which he had "practiced polemics," the places where he had had his rough encounters with the Clary's Grove Boys, and, last, the old oak tree whose shadow he had followed to keep his law text out of the sun. But these things could have touched him but little when placed by the side of a few cabin homes, presided over by noble women who, with womanly instinct, had detected the manliness of his nature, and had given him a home "for his company," as they kindly said, when he needed one in charity. He never forgot these women, and occasion afterward came to show the constancy of his gratitude and the faithfulness of his friendship. Arriving in Springfield he became a member of the family of Hon. William Butler, afterward treasurer of the state, and here came under influences which, to a man bred as he had been, were of the most desirable character.

Mr. Lincoln's business connection with Mr. Stuart must have been broken and brief, for he was still a member of the legislature, which was summoned to a special session on the July following his removal to Springfield, and Mr. Stuart, himself, was soon afterwards elected to, and took his seat in, Congress. Still, the connection was one of advantage to the young lawyer. Mr. Stuart's willingness to receive him as a partner was an indorsement of his powers and acquisitions that must have helped him to make a start in professional life. This life the people of Springfield, who gratefully remembered his services to them in the legislature, would not permit him to pursue without interruption. They kept him upon the legislative ticket in 1838, and he was re-elected. On the assembling of this legislature, Mr. Lincoln was at once recognized to be the foremost man on the whig side of the house, and was brought forward, without any dissent, as their candidate for speaker. The strength of this legislature was pretty evenly divided between the two parties. A great change, indeed, had occurred in the state. The financial crash of 1837 had prostrated industry and trade, and the people had, either justly or unjustly, held the dominant party responsible for the disasters from which they had suffered. Anti-slavery agitation had been voted down in Congress by the friends of Mr. Van Buren, who came into the presidential office during the previous year. All papers relating to slavery were, by solemn resolution of Congress, laid on the table without being debated, read, printed or referred. With financial ruin in the country, and a gag-law in Congress, the democratic party had a heavier load than it could carry. This was felt in Illinois, where the old democratic majority was very nearly destroyed. Colonel W.L.D. Ewing was the candidate of the democrats for speaker, in opposition to Mr. Lincoln, and was at last elected by a majority of one vote. Mr. Lincoln took a prominent part in all the debates of the session. Some of them were political, and were intended to have a bearing upon the next presidential election, and especially upon the politics of the state; but the most of them related to local and ephemeral affairs which will be of no interest to the general reader.

Allusion has already been made to Mr. Lincoln's ingenuity--his quickness, at expedients. One of his modes of getting rid of troublesome friends, as well as troublesome enemies, was by telling a story. He began these tactics early in life, and he grew to be wonderfully adept in them. If a man broached a subject which he did not wish to discuss, he told a story which changed the direction of the conversation. If he was called upon to answer a question, he answered it by telling a story. He had a story for everything--something had occurred at some place where he used to live, that illustrated every possible phase of every possible subject with which he might have connection. His faculty of finding or making a story to match every event in his history, and every event to which he bore any relation, was really marvelous. That he made, or adapted, some of his stories, there is no question. It is beyond belief that those which entered his mind left it no richer than they came. It is not to be supposed that he spent any time in elaborating them, but by some law of association every event that occurred suggested some story, and, almost by an involuntary process, his mind harmonized their discordant points, and the story was pronounced "pat," because it was made so before it was uttered. Every truth, or combination of truths, seemed immediately to clothe itself in a form of life, where he kept it for reference. His mind was full of stories; and the great facts of his life and history on entering his mind seemed to take up their abode in these stories, and if the garment did not fit them it was so modified that it did.

A good instance of the execution which he sometimes effected with a story occurred in the legislature. There was a troublesome member from Wabash County, who gloried particularly in being a "strict constructionist." He found something "unconstitutional" in every measure that was brought forward for discussion. He was a member of the Judiciary Committee, and was quite apt, after giving every measure a heavy pounding, to advocate its reference to this committee. No amount of sober argument could floor the member from Wabash. At last, he came to be considered a man to be silenced, and Mr. Lincoln was resorted to for an expedient by which this object might be accomplished. He soon afterwards honored the draft thus made upon him. A measure was brought forward in which Mr. Lincoln's constituents were interested, when the member from Wabash rose and discharged all his batteries upon its unconstitutional points. Mr. Lincoln then took the floor, and, with the quizzical expression of features which he could assume at will, and a mirthful twinkle in his gray eyes, said: "Mr. Speaker, the attack of the member from Wabash on the constitutionality of this measure reminds me of an old friend of mine. He's a peculiar looking old fellow, with shaggy, overhanging eyebrows, and a pair of spectacles under them.  (Everybody turned to the member from Wabash, and recognized a personal description.)  One morning just after the old man got up, he imagined, on looking out of his door, that he saw rather a lively squirrel on a tree near his house.  So he took down his rifle, and fired at the squirrel, but the squirrel paid no attention to the shot.  He loaded and fired again, and again, until, at the thirteenth shot, he set down his gun impatiently, and said to his boy, who was looking on, 'Boy, there's something wrong about this rifle.'  'Rifle's all right, I know 'tis,'  responded the boy, 'but where's your squirrel?'  'Don't you see him, humped up about half way up the tree?' inquired the old man, peering over his spectacles, and getting mystified. 'No, I don't,' responded the boy; an then turning and looking into his father's face, he exclaimed, 'I see your squirrel! You've been firing at a louse on your eyebrow!'"

The story needed neither application nor explanation. The House was in convulsions of laughter; for Mr. Lincoln's skill in telling a story was not inferior to his appreciation of its points and his power of adapting them to the case in hand. It killed off the member from Wabash, who was very careful afterwards not to provoke any allusion to his "eyebrows."

A man who practiced law in Illinois in the earlier years of the state "rode the circuit," a proceeding of which the older communities of the East know nothing. The state of Illinois, for instance, is divided into a number of districts, each composed of a number of counties, of which a single judge, appointed or elected, as the case may be, for that purpose, makes the circuit, holding courts at each county seat. Railroads being scarce, the earlier circuit judges made their trips from county to county on horseback, or in a gig; and, as lawyers were not located in each county, all the prominent lawyers living within the limits of the circuit made the tour of the circuit with the judge. After the business of one county was finished, the judge and all the lawyers mounted their horses or their gigs and pushed on to the next county-seat, and so repeated the process until the whole circuit was compassed; and this is what is known in the western states as "riding the circuit."

Mr. Lincoln rode the circuit; and it was upon these long and tedious trips that he established his reputation as one of the best lawyers in Illinois, and, in some respects, the superior of any lawyer in the state. It is doubtful whether he was ever regarded by his professional brethren as a well-read lawyer. Toward the latter part of his life, he had, by his own powers of generalization and deduction, become versed ia the principles of law, and was coming to be recognized by the best lawyers as their peer; but his education was too defective at the first to make him anything better than what is called "a case lawyer." He studied his cases with great thoroughness, and was so uniformly successful in them that the people regarded him as having no equal. He had been engaged in practice but a short time when he was found habitually on one side or the other of every important case in the Circuit. The writer remembers an instance in which many years ago, before he had risen to political eminence, he was pointed out to a stranger, by a citizen of Springfield, as "Abe Lincoln, the first lawyer of Illinois." He certainly enjoyed great reputation among the people.

Mr. Lincoln was a very weak lawyer when engaged by the weak side. This side he never took, if, by careful investigation of the case, he could avoid it. If a man went to him with the proposal to institute a suit, he examined carefully the man's grounds for the action. If these were good, he entered upon the case, and prosecuted it faithfully to the end. If the grounds were not good he would have nothing to do with the case. He invariably advised the applicant to dismiss the matter, telling him frankly that he had no case, and ought not to prosecute. Sometimes he was deceived. Sometimes he discovered, in the middle of a trial, by the revelation of a witness, that his client had lied to him. After the moment that he was convinced that justice was opposed to him and his client, he lost all his enthusiasm and all his courage. Indeed, he lost all interest in the case. His efforts for his client after that moment were simply mechanical, for he would not lie for any man, or strive to make the worse appear the better reason for any man. He had a genuine interest in the establishment of justice between man and man. As a citizen, as a lover of good order, as a man who believed in truth and justice, he was, by every instinct of his nature, opposed to the success of villainy and the triumph of wrong, and he would not sell himself to purposes of injustice and immorality. He repeatedly refused to take fees on the wrong side of a case. When his clients had practiced gross deception upon him, he forsook their cases in mid-passage; and he always refused to accept fees of those whom he advised not to prosecute. On one occasion, while engaged upon an important case, he discovered that he was on the wrong side. His associate in the case was immediately informed that he (Lincoln) would not make the plea. The associate made it, and the case, much to the surprise of Lincoln, was decided for his client. Perfectly convinced that his client was wrong, he would not receive one cent of the fee of nine hundred dollars which he paid. It is not wonderful that one who knew him well spoke of him as "perversely honest."

This "riding the circuit" was, in those early days, a peculiar business, and tended to develop peculiar traits of character. The long passages from court-house to court-house, the stopping at cabins by the way to eat, or sleep, or feed the horse, the evenings at the country taverns, the expedients resorted to to secure amusement, the petty, mean and shameful cases that abounded, must have tended to make it a strange business, and not altogether a pleasant one. These long passages while riding the circuit were seasons of reflection with Mr. Lincoln. An amusing incident occurred in connection with one of these journeys, which gives a pleasant glimpse into the good lawyer's heart. He was riding by a deep slough, in which, to his exceeding pain, he saw a pig struggling, and with such faint efforts that it was evident that he could not extricate himself from the mud. Mr. Lincoln looked at the pig and the mud which enveloped him, and then looked at some new clothes with which he had but a short time before enveloped himself. Deciding against the claims of the pig, he rode on, but he could not get rid of the vision of the poor brute, and, at last, after riding two miles, he turned back, determined to rescue the animal at the expense of his new clothes. Arrived at the spot, he tied his horse, and coolly went to work to build of old rails a passage to the bottom of the hole. Descending on these rails, he seized the pig and dragged him out, but not without serious damage to the clothes he wore. Washing his hands in the nearest brook, and wiping them on the grass, he mounted his gig and rode along. He then fell to examining the motive that sent him back to the release of the pig. At the first thought, it seemed to be pure benevolence, but, at length, he came to the conclusion that it was selfishness, for he certainly went to the pig's relief in order (as he said to the friend to whom he related the incident,) to "take a pain out of his own mind." This is certainly a new view of the nature of sympathy, and one which it will be well for the casuist to examine.

While Mr. Lincoln was not regarded by his professional associates as profoundly versed in the principles of law, he was looked upon by them as a very remarkable advocate. No man in Illinois had such power before a jury as he. This was a fact universally admitted. The elements of his power as an advocate were perfect lucidity of statement, great fairness in the treatment of both sides of a case, and the skill to conduct a common mind along the chain of his logic to his own conclusion. In presenting a case to a jury, he invariably presented both sides of it. After he had done this, there was really little more to be said, for he could state the points of his opponent better generally than his opponent could state them for himself. The man who followed him usually found himself handling that which Mr. Lincoln had already reduced to chaff. There was really no trick about this. In the first place he would not take a case in which he did not believe he was on the side of justice. Believing that the right was with him, he felt that he could afford to give to the opposing counsel everything that he could claim, and still have material enough left for carrying his verdicts. His fairness was not only apparent but real, and the juries he addressed knew it to be so. He would stand before a jury and yield point after point that nearly every other lawyer would dispute under the same circumstances, so that, sometimes, his clients trembled with apprehension; and then, after he had given his opponent all he claimed, and more than he had dared to claim, he would state his own side of the case with such power and clearness that that which had seemed strong against him was reduced to weakness, that which had seemed to be sound was proved to be specious, and that which had the appearance of being conclusive against him was plainly seen to be corroborative of his own positions on the question to be decided. Every juror was made to feel that Mr. Lincoln was an absolute aid to him in arriving at an intelligent and impartial verdict. The cunning lawyers thought that Mr. Lincoln was very cunning in all this--thought that his fairness was only apparent and assumed for a purpose--but it has already been stated that cunning was not an element of his nature. He had no interest in the establishment of anything but justice, and injustice, even if it favored him, could give him no satisfaction. The testimony of the lawyers who were obliged to try cases with him is that he was "a hard man to meet."

Coming from the people, and being perfectly familiar with the modes of thought and mental capacity of the men who generally composed his juries, he knew all their difficulties, knew just what language to address to them, what illustrations to use, and how to bring his arguments to bear upon their minds. This point is well illustrated by the details of a case in the Coles Circuit Court.

The controversy was about a colt, in which thirty-four witnesses swore that they had known the colt from its falling, and that it was the property of the plaintiff; while thirty swore that they had known the colt from its falling, and that it was the property of the defendant. It may be stated, at starting, that these witnesses were all honest, and that the mistake grew out of the exact resemblances which two colts bore to each other. One circumstance was proven by all the witnesses, or nearly all of them, viz: that the two claimants of the colt agreed to meet on a certain day with the two mares which were respectively claimed to be the dams of the colt, and permit the colt to decide which of the two he belonged to. The meeting occurred according to agreement, and, as it was a singular case and excited a good deal of popular interest, there were probably a hundred men assembled on their horses and mares, from far and near. Now the colt really belonged to the defendant in the case. It had strayed away and fallen into company with the plaintiff's horses. The plaintiff's colt had, at the same time, strayed away and had not returned, and was not to be found. The moment the two mares were brought upon the ground, the defendant's mare and the colt gave signs of recognition. The colt went to its dam, and would not leave her. They fondled each other; and, although the plaintiff brought his mare between them, and tried in various ways to divert the colt's attention, the colt would not be separated from its dam. It then followed her home, a distance of eight or ten miles, and, when within a mile or two of the stables, took a short cut to them in advance of its dam. The plaintiff had sued to recover the colt thus gone back to its owner.

In the presentation of this case to the jury, there were thirty-four witnesses on the side of the plaintiff; while the defendant had, on his side, only thirty witnesses; but he had on his side the colt itself and its dam--thirty-four men against thirty men and two brutes. Here was a case that was to be decided by the preponderance of evidence. All the witnesses were equally positive, and equally credible. Mr. Lincoln was on the side of the defendant, and contended that the voice of nature in the mare and colt ought to outweigh the testimony of a hundred men. The jury were all farmers, and all illiterate men, and he took great pains to make them understand what was meant by the "preponderance of evidence." He said that in a civil suit, absolute certainty, or such certainty as would be required to convict a man of crime, was not essential. They must decide the case according to the impression which the evidence had produced upon their minds, and, if they felt puzzled at all, he would give them a test by which they could bring themselves to a just conclusion. "Now," said he, "if you were going to bet on this case, on which side would you be willing to risk a picayune? That side on which you would be willing to bet a picayune, is the side on which rests the preponderance of evidence in your minds.  It is possible that you may not be right, but that is not the question.  The question is as to where the preponderance of evidence lies, and you can judge exactly where it lies in your minds, by deciding as to which side you would be willing to bet on."

The jury understood this. There was no mystification about it. They had got hold of a test by which they could render an intelligent verdict. Mr. Lincoln saw into their minds, and knew exactly what they needed; and the moment they received it, he knew that his case was safe, as a quick verdict for the defendant proved it to be. In nothing connected with this case was the ingenuity of Mr. Lincoln more evident, perhaps, than in the insignificance of the sum which he placed in risk by the hypothetical wager. It was not a hundred dollars, or a thousand dollars, or even a dollar, but the smallest silver coin, to show to them that the verdict should go with the preponderance of evidence, even if the preponderance should be only a hair's weight.

If it was the habit of Mr. Lincoln to present both sides of his cases to the jury, it was, of course, his habit to study both sides with equal thoroughness. He was called slow in arriving at the points of a case. It is probably true that his mind was not one of the quickest in the processes of investigation. He certainly exercised great care in coming to his conclusions. It was then, in the days of his legal practice, his habit to argue against himself, and it always remained the habit of his life. He took special interest in the investigation of every point that could be made against him and his positions. This habit made his processes of investigation slower than those of other men, while the limited range of his legal education rendered it necessary that he should bestow more study upon his cases than better educated lawyers found it necessary to bestow.

One of the most even-tempered men that ever lived, Mr. Lincoln was the subject of great varieties of mood, and extremes of feeling. His constitution embraced remarkable contradictions. Oppressed with a deep melancholy at times, weighed down by the great problems of his own life and of humanity at large, assuming and carrying patiently the most important public burdens, he was as simple as a boy, took delight in the most trivial things, and with the subtlest and quickest sense of the ludicrous, laughed incontinently over incidents and stories that would hardly move any other man in his position to a smile. At one time, while riding the circuit with a friend, he entered into an exposition of his feelings touching what seemed to him the growing corruption of the world, in politics and morals. "Oh how hard it is," he exclaimed, "to die, and not to be able to leave the world any better for one's little life in it!" Here was a key to one cause of his depression, and an index to his aspirations. After this conversation and the ride were over, he probably arrived at a country tavern, and there spent the evening in telling stories to his brother lawyers, and in laughing over the most trifling incidents.

It will perhaps be as well, at this point of his history as elsewhere, to allude to his habit of telling stories that it would not be proper to repeat in the presence of women. It is useless for Mr. Lincoln's biographers to ignore this habit, for it was notorious. The whole West, if not the whole country, is full of these stories; and there is no doubt at all that he indulged in them with the same freedom that he did in those of a less exceptionable character. Good people are at a loss to account for this apparent love of impurity, in a man of such exalted aims, such deep truthfulness, such high aspirations. The matter is easily explained.

Those who have heard these stories will readily admit that they are the wittiest and most amusing of their kind, and, when they have admitted that, they have in their minds the only reason of Mr. Lincoln's indulgence in them. It was always the elements of wit and humor that captivated him. He was not an impure man in his life, or in his imaginations. For impurity's sake, he never uttered an impure word, or made an impure allusion, but, whenever he found anything humorous, ludicrous or witty, he could not resist the inclination to use it, whatever the incidents might be with which it was associated. Anything that was morally beautiful touched him to tears. He was equally sensitive to all that was heroic, beautiful, grand, sweet, ludicrous and grotesque in human life. He wept as readily over a tale of heroic self-devotion, as he laughed over a humorous story.

It is also to be said that the habit of telling these exceptionable stories was the habit of his profession, in his region of country, at the time he was engaged in practice there. He indulged in them no more than his brother lawyers, and he excelled them in his stories no more than he did in everything else. It is to be said, further, that there is something in the practice of the law that makes these stories more tolerable in the legal profession, even when the members of it are Christian men--men of pure morals and pure instincts--than in any other profession in the world. The legal profession brings men into constant association with impurity, with the details or cases of shame, with all the smut and dirt that can be raked from the haunts of vice, with all the particulars of prurient dalliance and bestial licentiousness. With this habitual--this professional--familiarity with impurity, it is not strange that the sense of propriety in language becomes deadened; and none know better than lawyers that there is in their profession, in the older parts of the country as well as in the newer, great laxity of speech, touching subjects which they would blush to introduce--which would cost them their self-respect and the respect of the community to introduce--among women. Mr. Lincoln was not a sinner in this thing above other men, equally pure and good in his profession. It is not a habit to be justified in any man. It is not a habit to be tolerated in any man who indulges in it to gratify simply his love of that which is beastly. In Mr. Lincoln's case, it is a habit to be explained and regretted. His whole life had been spent with people without refinement. His legal study and practice had rendered this class of subjects familiar. It was the habit of his professional brethren to tell these objectionable stories, and, even if his pure sensibilities sometimes rebelled--for he possessed and always maintained the profoundest respect for women--the wit and humor they contained overtempted him.

One of the most beautiful traits of Mr. Lincoln was his considerate regard for the poor and obscure relatives he had left, plodding along in their humble way of life. Wherever upon his circuit he found them, he always went to their dwellings, ate with them, and, when convenient, made their houses his home. He never assumed in their presence the slightest superiority to them, in the facts and conditions of his life. He gave them money when they needed and he possessed it. Countless times he was known to leave his companions at the village hotel, after a hard day's work in the court room, and spend the evening with these old friends and companions of his humbler days. On one occasion, when urged not to go, he replied, "Why, aunt's heart would be broken if I should leave town without calling upon her;" yet he was obliged to walk several miles to make the call.

A little fact in this connection will illustrate his ever-present desire to deal honestly and justly with men. He had always a partner in his professional life, and, when he went out upon the circuit, this partner was usually at home. While out, he frequently took up and disposed of cases that were never entered at the office. In these cases, after receiving his fees, he divided the money in his pocket book, labeling each sum (wrapped in a piece of paper,) that belonged to his partner, stating his name, and the case on which it was received. He could not be content to keep an account. He divided the money, so that if he, by any casualty, should fail of an opportunity to pay it over, there could be no dispute as to the exact amount that was his partner's due. This may seem trivial, nay, boyish, but it was like Mr. Lincoln. But we must set aside the professional man for a while, to notice other affairs which mingled in his life.