Lincoln was himself, according to certain colleagues, occasionally stopped from the bench, but for quite a different reason. His mere statement of a matter sounded so clear and convincing that judges would, at times, interpose before he could go on to his argument, with some such words as: “If that is the case, Brother Lincoln, we will hear the other side.”[iii-22]
Nor was he less felicitous in putting a winning touch to the confidence of juries. When he faced them, at last, his lucid, even-handed methods produced their strongest effects. “If I can free this case,” he was wont to say, “from technicalities and get it properly swung to the jury, I’ll win it.”[iii-23] To that end, the essential facts were so cogently presented that they became almost self-evident. And the jurymen, following a train of thought which reduced simplicity to its lowest terms, easily fancied themselves in the speaker’s place, as though they, not he, were making the statement. His anxiety to be right quickened their anxiety to do right. It was seemingly their trial, not his; and he conducted himself as if he were only assisting them to do their duty. Every one of the twelve “free and lawful men,” even those who were least intelligent, appear to have felt this. Indeed, throughout what Lincoln said in addressing them, may be discerned a purpose, above all things, to impress the truth upon that most important of all the personages in a court, the dullest occupant of the jury-box. And how well he succeeded, on the whole, is a matter of common repute. Some contemporaries went to the extreme of saying—if we may credit one of them—that they could not “expect a favorable verdict in any case where Lincoln was opposing counsel, as his simple statements of the facts had more weight with the jury than those of the witnesses.”[iii-24]
Such a result did, it is true, come about in at least one instance—the trial of a tramp accused of murder. No one had seen the deed, but the evidence, which proved to be purely circumstantial, pointed strongly toward the prisoner. As the crime was of a brutal nature, feeling ran high against him. A friendless stranger, in the midst of popular clamor, his conviction appeared to be a foregone conclusion; and Lincoln, who was appointed to defend, seemingly made but little headway. He contented himself with eliciting from the witnesses full statements of what they saw or knew. Evading nothing, suppressing nothing, making no attempt to confuse those who testified or to present matters other than they were, he helped the prosecuting attorney to bring out all the facts. When his time came for addressing the jury, he called attention to the absence of direct evidence. Frankly reviewing all the circumstances, and weighing what seemed to prove the defendant’s guilt with what made for his innocence, he concluded in about the following language: “I have looked this matter over fully, candidly; and while I concede that the testimony bears against my client, I am not sure that he is guilty. Are you?”
The prisoner was acquitted, and properly so, for some time thereafter the real criminal was brought to justice.
“How different would have been the conduct of many lawyers!” exclaimed the late Justice Brewer, of the United States Supreme Court, as he told his story. “Some would have striven to lead the judge into technical errors, with a view to an appeal to a higher court. Others would have become hoarse in denunciation of witnesses, decrying the lack of positive testimony and dwelling on the marvelous virtue of a reasonable doubt. The simple, straightforward way of Lincoln, backed by the confidence of the jury, won.”[iii-25]
That combination was hard to beat. Frequent repetitions of it gave Lincoln, in time, a reputation which seems almost unique. There have been advocates with more notable gifts of learning and eloquence, than he could command; but few among them, if any, moved through our courts with so large a measure of esteem. Yet it is going too far to say, as Judge Caton did, that “no one ever accused him of taking an underhanded or unfair advantage, in the whole course of his professional career.”[iii-26] True, he was a general favorite on the circuit. His fair, not to say generous, tactics made for good feeling; and to him, perhaps, least of all that eager company, could have been applied the ancient aspersion of the lawyer as a brawler for hire. Moreover, the “I am holier than thou” pose, whereby the honored counselor sometimes seeks to place less reputable opponents at a disadvantage, was wholly absent from his demeanor. No practitioners, however low or discredited, met here with discourtesy. Indeed, unless an adversary misbehaved in the particular case on trial, Lincoln never uttered a word of personal reproach which might unduly prejudice the jury. “Hence,” we are told, “the meanest man at the bar always paid great deference and respect to him.”[iii-27] But he did not wholly escape the penalty of his successes. Some colleagues—and they should have known better—gave way to jealousy. Those who sit in the shadow of the prophet’s mantle do not always see the prophet. A few opponents were even known to question Lincoln’s sincerity. His candor was in their eyes a cloak for trickery, his unconventional manner a means of springing surprises on the unwary, and his apparent fair dealing a bait for luring unsuspecting adversaries to defeat. That an attorney smarting under a sense of failure might now and then have felt this way is not surprising. Fresh from the reading of Mr. Swett’s graphic little sketch, which left the vanquished one floundering “on his back in a ditch,” we can appreciate the full force of a statement made within recent years by Ezra Morton Prince, a Bloomington attorney. Referring to these scattering charges of unfairness, Mr. Prince, who attended many trials in the old circuit days, says: “The truth is that Mr. Lincoln had a genius for seeing the real point in a case at once, and aiming steadily at it from the beginning of a trial to the end. The issue in most cases lies in very narrow compass, and the really great lawyer disregards everything not directly tending to that issue. The mediocre advocate is apt to miss the crucial point in his case and is easily diverted with minor matters, and when his eyes are opened he is usually angry and always surprised. Mr. Lincoln instinctively saw the kernel of every case at the outset, never lost sight of it, and never let it escape the jury. That was the only trick I ever saw him play.”[iii-28]
If anybody knew Abraham Lincoln to do a dishonorable act, during all these busy years in the courts, evidence to prove it has not been forthcoming. And there have been iconoclasts enough at work on his record to insure the telling of the story, had such an incident taken place.
One opponent did, it must be said, in the heat of a certain famous trial, accuse him of duplicity. The case was that of young Quinn Harrison, sometimes called “Peachy,” arraigned for the murder of Greek Crafton, a student in Lincoln’s office. While quarreling over some political question, they had come to blows, and Crafton, sustaining a knife-wound, had died within a few days. The young men, besides being close friends, had been connected by marriage. Their families were highly regarded. The prisoner’s people especially enjoyed good repute, and that his grandfather was Dr. Peter Cartwright, the noted Methodist circuit-rider, added not a little to popular sympathy in his behalf. Notwithstanding all this, strenuous efforts were made to secure a conviction. The regular prosecuting attorney, Amzi McWilliams, was assisted by John M. Palmer and John A. McClernand. The defense had been entrusted to Abraham Lincoln, Stephen T. Logan, William H. Herndon, and Shelby M. Cullom. Able as the defendant’s counsel were, they achieved but slight progress, for a time, in overcoming the strong case made out against their client. It was only when Lincoln put Harrison’s grandfather on the stand that the tide seemed to turn. Under his examiner’s sympathetic guidance, the venerable preacher evinced how fondly he loved the unfortunate young man, and told the story of his own final interview with Crafton—a touching scene, in which the dying youth charged Cartwright to tell “Peachy” that he forgave him. This formed the basis of an appeal for mercy, in Lincoln’s closing argument. So wrought up was the speaker by the pathos of the whole affair that he put aside his dislike of such attempts to play on the sympathies of juries, and made an eloquent plea for a verdict which should not set at naught the slain man’s act of forgiveness. This speech made a profound impression. It had moved those who listened, in fact, to a degree which disquieted the prosecuting attorneys. One of them, as he arose to reply, was determined that the effect must be counteracted, at all hazards.
“Well, gentlemen,” said he, “you have heard Mr. Lincoln—‘Honest Abe Lincoln,’ they call him, I believe. And I suppose you think you have heard the honest truth—or at least that Mr. Lincoln honestly believes what he has told you to be the truth. I tell you, he believes no such thing. That frank, ingenuous face of his, as you are weak enough to suppose, those looks and tones of such unsophisticated simplicity, those appeals to your minds and consciences as sworn jurors, are all assumed for the occasion, gentlemen,—all a mask, gentlemen. You have been listening for the last hour to an actor, who knows well how to play the rôle of honest seeming, for effect.”
At this moment, amidst breathless stillness, Lincoln stood up. He was deeply moved. It seemed as if every line of his gaunt features twitched with pain. Facing the speaker he said: “You have known me for years, and you know that not a word of that language can be truthfully applied to me.”