“She mentioned a very large sum. My father said: ‘You are greatly mistaken. He said to me, “Mr. Rickel, I will only charge you twenty-five dollars, and if you think that is too much, I will make it less.” ’ ”[iv-20]
As surprisingly small a fee—the same sum, in fact—contented Lincoln after another verdict of even more importance. This had been reached in what was called the Dungee slander suit. That it involved far heavier labors on his part, and that it may be classed among those triumphs in which a good round charge is peculiarly appropriate, appears to have made no difference. He had carried all before him through a hotly contested trial; but in the supreme hour, when nothing remained save to gather the fruits of victory, his hand fell limp at his side. It makes rather a long story, yet to appreciate fully what happened one must know the salient details.
To begin, this action was brought before Judge Davis, at Clinton, during the spring of 1856, after Lincoln had attained prominence as a lawyer. It grew out of a quarrel between two brothers-in-law, Jack Dungee and Joe Spencer. The former, a dark-complexioned Portuguese, had married the latter’s sister. How their broil originated is not now definitely known. When it was at its height, however, Spencer called Dungee a “nigger,” and followed this up, as they said, by adding “a nigger married to a white woman.” The words were slanderous because, under Illinois law, such a union constituted a crime. Laying his damages at several thousand dollars, the aggrieved man employed Mr. Lincoln to bring suit, whereupon the defendant enlisted the services of Clifton H. Moore and Lawrence Weldon. When the matter came up, these two able lawyers demurred to the complaint, on technical grounds; and their motion, to Lincoln’s great chagrin, was sustained by the court. It touched his professional pride to have a case thrown out, in that manner, because of faulty papers, as indeed it would any practitioner. Gathering himself together, he leaned across the trial table, and shaking a long bony finger toward his opponents, he exclaimed: “Now, by Jing, I’ll beat you boys!”
To make good that threat Lincoln appeared at the next term of court with amended pleadings. He threw himself into the trial with a mastery which gave evidence of painstaking preparation; while the logic, wit, and eloquence that marked his argument to the jury compelled the admiration of even his adversaries. After a hard-fought battle extending over two days, the case terminated in a heavy judgment for the plaintiff.
His counsel had said that Dungee sought vindication, not money; accordingly the defendant’s lawyers came and said: “Mr. Lincoln, you have beaten us, as you said you would. We want now to ground the weapons of our unequal warfare, and as you said your client did not want to make money out of the suit, we thought you might get him to remit some of the judgment. We know Spencer has acted the fool, but this judgment will break him up.”
“Well,” replied Lincoln, “I will cheerfully advise my client to remit on the most favorable terms. The defendant is a fool. But he has one virtue. He is industrious and has worked hard for what he has, so I am not disposed to hold him responsible. If every fool was to be dealt with by being held responsible in money for his folly, the poorhouses of the country would have to be enlarged very much beyond their present capacity.”
Guided by this benevolent spirit, Dungee consented to forego the whole judgment on condition that Spencer would defray all costs, and pay Mr. Lincoln’s bill. When the proposition had been eagerly accepted, a question arose as to what the bill should be. Lincoln referred this to Moore and Weldon, but they both insisted that he, not they, ought to fix the amount of his fee.
“Well, gentlemen,” came the response, after a few moments’ thought, “don’t you think I have honestly earned twenty-five dollars?”
What the gentlemen thought was thus expressed by Judge Weldon, in after life, when he told the story: “We were astonished, and had he said one hundred dollars it would have been what we expected. The judgment was a large one for those days. He had attended the case at two terms of court, had been engaged for two days in a hotly contested suit, and his client’s adversary was going to pay the bill. The simplicity of Mr. Lincoln’s character in money matters is well illustrated by the fact that for all this he charged twenty-five dollars.”[iv-21]
An equally striking undervaluation was remarked in another slander suit,—one of wide repute,—which took place at about the same period. This case is known as the Chiniquy affair. It was brought in the Circuit Court of Kankakee County, by Peter Spink, a prominent citizen of L’Erable, against Father Charles Chiniquy, the famous priest of St. Anne. That reverend gentleman had, in the course of a sermon, charged the plaintiff, one of his parishioners, with having committed perjury; and the object of this attack had lost no time in seeking reparation. His attorneys were Messrs. Starr, Norton & McRoberts. Chiniquy was represented by John W. Paddock and Uri Osgood. According to the defendant’s own overcharged, not to say hysterical, narrative, this prosecution had been set on foot at the instigation of his superior, Bishop O’Regan, with whom he then already waged the unequal warfare which later attracted so much attention. The merits of his polemic do not concern us here. Certain members of the church may, as the priest states in his book, have conspired to ruin him, and that particular diocese may, at the time, have harbored those shameful abuses which he decries; but what Chiniquy says about Spink’s suit should be received with caution, for it departs materially, at important points, from the official court records.