“I shall never forget my experience with him. I was subpœnaed in a case brought by one Paullin against my uncle, and I knew too much about the matter in dispute for my uncle’s good. The case was not of vital importance, but it seemed very serious to me, for I was a mere boy at the time. Mr. Paullin had owned a bull which was continually raiding his neighbor’s corn, and one day my uncle ordered his boys to drive the animal out of his fields, and not to use it too gently either. Well, the boys obeyed the orders only too literally, for one of them harpooned the bull with a pitchfork, injuring it permanently, and I saw enough of the occurrence to make me a dangerous witness. The result was that Paullin sued my uncle, the boys were indicted for malicious mischief, Mr. Lincoln was retained by the plaintiff, who was determined to make an example of somebody, and I was subpœnaed as a witness.
“My testimony was, of course, of the highest possible importance, because the plaintiff couldn’t make my cousins testify, and I had every reason to want to forget what I had seen, and though pretty frightened, I determined, when I took the stand, to say as little as possible. Well, as soon as I told Mr. Lincoln my full name he became very much interested, asking me if I wasn’t some relative of his old friend John Hoblit who kept the halfway house between Springfield and Bloomington; and when I answered that he was my grandfather, Mr. Lincoln grew very friendly, plying me with all sorts of questions about family matters; which put me completely at my ease, and before I knew what was happening, I had forgotten to be hostile and he had the whole story. After the trial he met me outside the court-room and stopped to tell me that he knew I hadn’t wanted to say anything against my people, but that though he sympathized with me, I had acted rightly and no one could criticize me for what I had done. The whole matter was afterward adjusted, but I never forgot his friendly and encouraging words at a time when I needed sympathy and consolation.”[iii-3]
Of course, all opposing witnesses were not so pliant. They failed frequently to give Lincoln the answers that he sought; yet his patience and courtesy lost nothing of their fine flavor, as long as the man on the stand appeared to be telling the truth. There were no efforts made to confuse him by artfully framed questions, or to entrap him into seeming contradictions. Above all, he was safe from brow-beating, because this level-headed advocate apparently never committed the fault of harassing an honest witness. Lincoln’s spirit of fair play forbade any such behavior, even if the spirit of wisdom had not taught him, from the very beginning, what so many learned gentlemen at the bar fail, throughout their entire careers, to grasp, that the art of cross-examination rarely consists in examining crossly.
But there came a time, now and then, when this even-tempered giant, with his homely, magnetic smile, did become cross—how cross, only those who caught the direct impact of his anger fully realized. Let some scamp try to tell him a lie from the witness-chair, and the fellow’s troubles began. He could hardly have brought his spurious wares to a less profitable market. For, slow as Lincoln generally was to doubt another’s probity, so quick was he to detect false values when that probity fell under suspicion. And cunningly woven, indeed, must have been the web of perjury which his logical mind—once it set about the task—could not unravel. He had a disconcerting way of stripping unsound testimony, with one searching question after another, until the futile cheat lay exposed in all its nakedness. Then his contempt for the discredited witness knew no bounds. Kindness gave way to severity. Words that scorched came hot and fast. It was as if some sacred thing had been violated. And what happens after one arouses the fury of a patient man, received uncommonly vivid illustration.
He was once trying a railway case for the defense, when the plaintiff, testifying in his own behalf, flagrantly misstated certain facts. The perjurer’s attorney, on addressing the jury, tried to excite prejudice against the defendant company by making the trite charge that on one side was “a flesh-and-blood man,” with a soul such as the jurymen had, while on the other was a soulless corporation. To which Lincoln indignantly replied: “Counsel avers that his client has a soul. This is possible, of course, but from the way he has testified under oath in this case, to gain, or hoping to gain, a few paltry dollars, he would sell, nay, has already sold, his little soul very low. But our client is but a conventional name for thousands of widows and orphans whose husbands’ and parents’ hard earnings are represented by this defendant, and who possess souls which they would not swear away as the plaintiff has done for ten million times as much as is at stake here.”[iii-4]
It would be wrong to infer that Lincoln’s scorn for untruthfulness on the stand was visited upon the heads of opposing witnesses only. His own witnesses, when they sulked under cross-examination or tried to mislead counsel on the other side, had a taste of his quality in this respect. He even went so far, at times, as to rebuke them in open court for their misbehavior.
An occurrence of this character—there are said to have been several—is related by a colleague of Lincoln, Anthony Thornton, who says: “On one occasion he and I were associate counsel in an important lawsuit, when he exhibited his love of right and fairness in a remarkable manner. John T. Stuart, of Springfield, was counsel for the opposite party. It was a trial by jury. I examined the witnesses and Mr. Lincoln attended to the legal questions involved. I had examined an intelligent witness whose testimony was clear and satisfactory, and readily given. When the cross-examination commenced, this witness hesitated, manifested reluctance to answer, and was evasive in his replies. Mr. Lincoln arose and addressed the court, and publicly and severely reprimanded the witness. It was a dangerous experiment which might have brought discredit on our most important witness. His object, however, was accomplished, and the witness answered promptly all questions on cross-examination.”[iii-5]
This act is perhaps unique in the annals of the American bar. At all events, its fellow—if there ever was one—has not become known to general literature. Nor is this surprising, for there have not been many Lincolns, and reputable lawyers of to-day hardly see fit to follow such an example. A pleader who would do so—in fact, one who generally speaking would employ that remarkable man’s methods with success—must not only have faith in the merits of his cases, but he must be efficiently honest, too, to the backbone. For Lincoln’s plan of conduct rested upon the single virtue which, in the nature of things, is least easily simulated. Had he failed at crucial points to be straightforward, without shuffling or reserve, had the delicate image of truth, which he sought to rear, leaned ever so little out of true, to the north or the south or the east or the west, that entire fair fabric would, at the first jolt, inevitably have fallen to the ground in ruins before the very eyes of the jury.
How well this advocate stood the test in doubtless many trying situations, judges and lawyers have admiringly recounted. Justice Breese spoke, as it were, for the bench when he said that Lincoln practiced “none of the chicanery of the profession to which he was devoted, nor any of those mean, and little, and shuffling, and dishonorable arts all do not avoid.”[iii-6] The judgment of the bar was as comprehensively summed up in these words of Mr. Whitney: “Unlike the average lawyer, he would not do anything mean, or which savored of dishonesty or sharp practice, or which required absolute sophistry or chicanery in order to succeed.”
Turning up a leaf in his own early experiences, that same associate says: “When I was new to the bar, I was trying to keep some evidence out, and was getting along very well with the court, when Lincoln sung out, ‘I reckon it would be fair to let that in.’ It sounded treasonable, but I had to get used to this eccentricity.”[iii-7]