Dear Sir: Yours of the 24th, asking “the best mode, of obtaining a thorough knowledge of the law,” is received. The mode is very simple, though laborious and tedious. It is only to get the books and read and study them carefully. Begin with Blackstone’s “Commentaries,” and after reading it carefully through, say twice, take up Chitty’s “Pleadings,” Greenleaf’s “Evidence,” and Story’s “Equity,” etc., in succession. Work, work, work, is the main thing. Yours very truly,
A. Lincoln.
[i-59] The Revised Laws of Illinois, edition of 1833, pp. 99-102, §1 and §9. Hill (57-58) is the only writer on Lincoln that has taken notice of this prohibition.
[i-60] There appears to be some ground for controversy as to when Lincoln was admitted to the bar. He, himself, preparing notes of his life for the Scripps biography, sometime during 1860, wrote: “In the autumn of 1836 he obtained a law license.” (See Works, vi, 33.)
And Jesse W. Weik, Herndon’s collaborator, referring to the records, states (Century Magazine, June, 1904, p. 279): “The first step in Lincoln’s legal career is thus set forth in an entry found in the records of the Circuit Court of Sangamon County, Illinois, dated March 24, 1836. ‘It is ordered by the Court that it be certified that Abraham Lincoln is a person of good moral character.’ After this necessary preliminary, as appears from the records of the clerk of the Supreme Court, he was on September 9 duly licensed to practise in all the courts of the State.”
But Hill (61) asserts: “He was legally qualified on March 24, 1836, and his professional life properly dates from that day.”
Reaffirming this conclusion, Mr. Hill writes to the author: “There is no doubt that Lincoln was legally admitted to practice March 24, 1836, as is shown by the papers on file; but casting back to find out when he was admitted to the bar, Lincoln undoubtedly relied upon the rolls of attorneys for the year 1836, in which his name appeared September 9th of that year.”
Summarizing the facts, Judge John P. Hand, of the Illinois Supreme Court, said in a Lincoln memorial address delivered on February 11, 1909: “He was licensed as an attorney, September 9, 1836, enrolled March 1, 1837, and commenced practice April 21, 1837.” (See Illinois Reports, ccxxxviii, 13; and MacChesney, 204.)
Yet beyond a doubt, Lincoln appeared as an attorney in actions at law, previous to April 21, 1837. Following the rather offhand ways of the day, he tried some cases at the bar, as we have seen, before all the requirements for his admission had been complied with. The present writer ventures the opinion that, according to statute, three steps must have been taken before a person was, at this period, legally qualified to practice as an attorney or counselor at law, within the State. First, he had to obtain a certificate “of his good moral character,” from a County Court; second, he had to secure a license signed by two justices of the Supreme Court; and third, having taken the oath of office, he had to have his name entered on the roll kept by the clerk of that court. It was not, therefore, until Lincoln had been formally enrolled that his career as a lawyer may correctly be said to have begun. (See Revised Laws of Illinois for 1833, pp. 99-100; and a decision of the Supreme Court, December Term, 1840, in the matter of E. C. Fellows, an attorney who had failed to have his name enrolled—Illinois Reports, iii, 369.)