In one of his many stories of Lincoln, his law partner, W. H. Herndon, told this as illustrating Lincoln’s shrewdness as a lawyer:
“I was with Lincoln once and listened to an oral argument by him in which he rehearsed an extended history of the law. It was a carefully prepared and masterly discourse, but, as I thought, entirely useless. After he was through and we were walking home, I asked him why he went so far back in the history of the law. I presumed the court knew enough history.
“‘That’s where you’re mistaken,’ was his instant rejoinder. ‘I dared not just the case on the presumption that the court knows everything—in fact I argued it on the presumption that the court didn’t know anything,’ a statement, which, when one reviews the decision of our appellate courts, is not so extravagant as one would at first suppose.”
HANDSOMEST MAN ON EARTH.
One day Thaddeus Stevens called at the White House with an elderly woman, whose son had been in the army, but for some offense had been court-martialed and sentenced to death. There were some extenuating circumstances, and after a full hearing the President turned to Stevens and said: “Mr. Stevens, do you think this is a case which will warrant my interference?”
“With my knowledge of the facts and the parties,” was the reply, “I should have no hesitation in granting a pardon.”
“Then,” returned Mr. Lincoln, “I will pardon him,” and proceeded forthwith to execute the paper.
The gratitude of the mother was too deep for expression, save by her tears, and not a word was said between her and Stevens until they were half way down the stairs on their passage out, when she suddenly broke forth in an excited manner with the words:
“I knew it was a copperhead lie!”