LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

returned to his seat in the Senate at Washington without making a settlement. Like some other great men, Douglas was very careless about money matters, and, after appealing to him again and again, Brokaw employed David Davis to bring suit against the Senator. Being an intimate friend and fellow-Democrat, Davis disliked to appear in the case, and by his advice Brokaw engaged the services of Lincoln. The latter wrote to Douglas at Washington that he had a claim against him for collection and must insist upon prompt payment. Douglas became very indignant and reproached Brokaw for placing such a political weapon in the hands of an abolitionist. Brokaw sent Douglas's letter to Lincoln, and the latter employed "Long John" Wentworth, then a Democratic member of Congress from Chicago, as an associate in the case. Wentworth saw Douglas, persuaded him to pay the money, and forwarded five hundred dollars to Lincoln, who, in turn, paid it to Brokaw and sent him a bill of three dollars and fifty cents for professional services.

      Lincoln's greatest legal triumph was the acquittal of an old neighbor named Duff Armstrong, who was charged with murder, and several witnesses testified that they saw the accused commit the deed one night about eleven o'clock. Lincoln attempted no cross-examination, except to persuade them to reiterate their statements and to explain that they were able to see the act distinctly because of the bright moonlight. By several of the prosecuting witnesses he proved the exact position and size of the moon at the time of the murder. The prosecution there rested, and Lincoln, addressing the court and the jury, announced that he had no defence to submit except an almanac, which would show that there was no moon on that night. The State's attorney was paralyzed, but the court admitted the almanac as competent testimony, and every witness was completely impeached and convicted of perjury. The verdict was not guilty.

      One of the most important cases in which Lincoln was ever engaged involved the ownership of a patent for the reaping machines manufactured by Cyrus H. McCormick, of Chicago, who sued John Manny, of Rockford, for infringement. McCormick was represented by E. N. Dickerson and Reverdy Johnson. Manny was represented by Edwin M. Stanton, who was afterwards Lincoln's Secretary of War; Peter H. Watson, who was afterwards Assistant Secretary of War; and George Harding, of Philadelphia. The case was tried in Cincinnati, and, to his intense disappointment and chagrin, Lincoln was not allowed to make an argument he had prepared because the court would not permit four arguments on one side and only two on the other. Lincoln was extremely anxious to meet in debate Reverdy Johnson, of Baltimore, who was then regarded by many as the leader of the American bar; but he accepted the situation gracefully though regretfully, watched the case closely as it proceeded, took careful notes which he furnished Mr. Harding, and gave the latter the benefit of his written argument, but requested him not to show it to Mr. Stanton. There is no doubt that he felt that Mr. Stanton had been guilty of professional discourtesy in refusing to insist that the court hear Lincoln as well as himself, believing that this concession would have been granted if the demand had been pressed, or if Mr. Stanton had proposed that the time allowed for argument be divided. Mr. Stanton was not unaware of Lincoln's wishes, for they were fully explained to him by Mr. Harding, who urged him to give Lincoln an opportunity to speak, but, being the senior counsel in the case, he assigned Mr. Harding, who was a patent expert, to submit the technical side of the case, and assumed the entire responsibility of making the legal argument himself.

      This incident is particularly interesting in connection with the future relations between the two men, and it is certain that Lincoln was profoundly impressed with Mr. Stanton's ability in the presentation of his case. The matter was never alluded to by either during their long and intimate association at Washington. A young lawyer from Rockford who had studied with Lincoln was in Cincinnati at the time and attended the trial. When the court adjourned after Stanton's argument they walked together to their hotel. Mr. Emerson says that Lincoln seemed dejected, and, turning to him suddenly, exclaimed in an impulsive manner—

      "Emerson, I am going home to study law."

      "'Why,' I exclaimed, 'Mr. Lincoln, you stand at the head of the bar in Illinois now! What are you talking about?'

      "'Ah, yes,' he said, 'I do occupy a good position there, and I think I can get along with the way things are done there now. But these college-trained men, who have devoted their whole lives to study, are coming West, don't you see? And they study their cases as we never do. They have got as far as Cincinnati now. They will soon be in Illinois.' Another long pause; then stopping and turning towards me, his countenance suddenly assuming that look of strong determination which those who knew him best sometimes saw upon his face, he exclaimed, 'I am going home to study law! I am as good as any of them, and when they get out to Illinois I will be ready for them.'"

      While Mr. Lincoln was not a sensitive man in the ordinary sense of that term, he felt keenly his own deficiencies in education; nor did he lose this feeling when his ability as a statesman was recognized by the entire universe and he held the destiny of a nation in his grasp. Once, when a famous lawyer called at the White House and referred courteously to his eminent position at the bar, he replied, "Oh, I am only a mast-fed lawyer," referring to his limited education. "Mast" is a kind of food composed of acorns, grass, and similar natural substances which was commonly given to cattle and hogs in Indiana and other frontier States when he was a boy.

       Conscious of his deficiencies, he never ceased to be a student. Until the very day of his death he was eager to acquire knowledge, and no new subject was ever presented to him without exciting his inquisitiveness and determination to learn all there was to know about it. Of this characteristic he once remarked to a friend—

      "In the course of my law reading I constantly came upon the word demonstrate—I thought at first that I understood its meaning, but soon became satisfied that I did not. I consulted Webster's Dictionary. That told of certain proof, 'proof beyond the probability of doubt;' but I could form no sort of idea what sort of proof that was.

      "I consulted all the dictionaries and books of reference I could find, but with no better results. You might as well have defined blue to a blind man. At last I said, 'Lincoln, you can never make a lawyer if you do not understand what demonstrate means;' and I left my situation in Springfield, went home to my father's house, and stayed there until I could give any proposition in the six books of Euclid at sight. I then found out what demonstrate meant, and went back to my law studies."

      He met every new question with the same disposition, and nobody ever knew better how to dig for the root of a subject than he. When his children began to go to school, he used to study with them, and frequently referred to the many interesting points of information and the valuable knowledge he acquired in that way. The lawyers who were associated with him upon the circuit relate how often he was accustomed to pull a book from his pocket whenever he had an idle moment, and it was quite as frequently a treatise on astronomy or engineering or a medical lecture as a collection of poems or speeches.

      But, with all his modesty and diffidence, he never hesitated to meet with confidence the most formidable opponent at the bar or on the stump, and frequently, when reading accounts of litigation in which famous lawyers were engaged, he would express a wish that he might some time "tackle" them in a court-room. He once said that in all his practice at the bar he had never been surprised by the strength of the testimony or the arguments of his adversary, and usually found them weaker than he feared. This was due to a habit he acquired early in his practice of studying the opposite side of every disputed question in every law case and every political issue quite as carefully as his own side. When he had an important case on hand he was accustomed to withdraw himself into a room where he would not be disturbed, or, what he liked better, to get out into the fields or the woods around Springfield where there was nothing to distract his thoughts, in order to "argue it out in my own mind," as he put it; and when he returned to his house or his office he would usually have a clear conception of his case and have formed his plan of action.

      He argued great causes in which principles were involved with all the zeal and earnestness that a righteous soul could feel. Trifling causes he dismissed with the ridicule in which he was unsurpassed, and his associates relate many incidents when a verdict was rendered in a gale of laughter because of the droll tactics used by Lincoln. He never depended upon technicalities or the tricks of the profession. He never attempted to throw obstacles in the way of justice, or to gain an unfair advantage of his adversaries, but was capable of executing legal manœuvres with as

Скачать книгу