IV. LINCOLN’S FIRST LAW CASES
One of the first important law cases of Lincoln in its claims sounds remarkably like the unsolved problems of today, and shows how rights have to be developed year by year, how the public mind has to be built up from idea to idea like an individual mind.
A public-spirited attempt was made to build a bridge across the upper Mississippi. The boatmen declared it to be an invasion of human rights, as they had vested interests at stake in the business they had built up, ferrying people across the river. They declared that a man was an enemy of the people who would try to destroy business. But Lincoln won the case against them in favor of building the bridge for the larger interest of the people.
In another significant case he set a legal precedent. A negro girl had been sold in the free territory of Illinois. A note had been given for her but the maker of the note could not pay it when it became due and was sued for it.
Lincoln defended the maker of the note on the ground that the note was invalid because a human being could not be bought and sold in Illinois. The case was carried to the Supreme Court, where it was decided that Lincoln’s view of the case was correct law.
Another experience has still greater significance as to the professional character of Lincoln. He was engaged as counsel in a reaper patent case. It was to be tried at Cincinnati. The opposing counsel was an eminent lawyer from the East. Lincoln’s friends were eager for him to win this case, as it would give him great renown and prestige.
His client had four hundred thousand dollars at stake, an enormous sum at that time, and the capitalist became frightened at the great talent arrayed against Lincoln. He called in the services of a correspondingly great Eastern lawyer, Edwin M. Stanton. This eminent man was shocked at the sight of his colleague, Lincoln. He took entire control of the case and not only ignored Lincoln, but openly insulted him. Lincoln, through an open door in the hotel, heard Stanton scornfully exclaim to the client who had employed Lincoln, “Where did that long-armed creature come from and what can he expect to do in this case?”
At another time Stanton spoke of Lincoln as “a long, lank creature from Illinois, wearing a dirty linen duster for a coat, on the back of which the perspiration had splotched wide stains that resembled a map of the continent.”
Lincoln, completely discouraged and thrown out of any possible council with a man thus against him, quit the case and sorrowfully returned to Illinois.
And yet, only a few years later, in the great crisis of approaching disunion, Lincoln became President of the United States and he made Stanton his Secretary of War. Very soon Stanton learned to prize “the long-armed creature” as one of the noblest and greatest men in the world. No one of Lincoln’s colleagues ever questioned his superior leadership as the supreme chief in a struggle profoundly affecting all civilization and human government.
When we consider how Lincoln worked his way up, through such destitution of knowledge and means, in twenty-five years, from a five-dollar suit before a justice of the peace to a five-thousand-dollar fee before the Supreme Court of the United States, we know that such progress does not come about by accident nor political fortunes, but by sheer interest and work.