In this approval the candid historian cannot concur, yet he hesitates to condemn. The demoralized condition of our currency throughout the Mississippi Valley for over half a century, the bewildering variety of counterfeit bills, to say nothing of wildcat notes, in circulation, and the scarcity of good money, left people small choice but to accept at varying discounts—unless too obviously spurious—what they were offered, and pass it along again with as little loss as possible.[i-25] One aspect of the trouble was later humorously set forth by Lincoln himself, in his story of the steamboat captain who, running short of fuel on the river, steered to a woodpile alongshore.
“Is that your wood?” he inquired of a man near by.
“Yes,” was the answer.
“Do you want to sell it?”
“Certainly.”
“Will you accept wildcat currency?”
“Certainly.”
“How will you take it?”
“Cord for cord.”[i-26]
The passing of depreciated or fraudulent currency, in the ordinary course of business, was evidently not regarded, during those days of loose financiering, with the severity of more recent times.[i-27] Indeed, after Lincoln had become a lawyer, though the clients that offered themselves were accepted or rejected with scrupulous discrimination, he on one occasion employed his wit and ability to secure the acquittal of a man charged, under suspicious circumstances, with passing counterfeit money. “There was a pretty clear case against the accused,” said Adlai E. Stevenson, who attended the trial, “but when the chief witness for the people took the stand, he stated that his name was J. Parker Green, and Lincoln reverted to this the moment he rose to cross-examine:—Why J. Parker Green?—What did the J. stand for?—John?—Well, why didn’t the witness call himself John P. Green?—That was his name, wasn’t it?—Well, what was the reason he did not wish to be known by his right name?—Did J. Parker Green have anything to conceal; and if not, why did J. Parker Green part his name in that way?—and so on. Of course the whole examination was farcical,” Mr. Stevenson continued, “but there was something irresistibly funny in the varying tones and inflections of Mr. Lincoln’s voice as he rang the changes upon the man’s name; and at the recess the very boys in the street took it up as a slogan, and shouted, ‘J. Parker Green!’ all over the town. Moreover, there was something in Lincoln’s way of intoning his questions which made me suspicious of the witness, and to this day I have never been able to rid my mind of the absurd impression that there was something not quite right about J. Parker Green. It was all nonsense, of course; but the jury must have been affected as I was, for Green was discredited, and the defendant went free.”[i-28] Perhaps, too, some of the twelve good men and true, like the highly respected counsel for the defense, could have severally recalled times when the exigencies of trade had wafted into their hands worthless bank-bills that, somehow, did not remain there.