“You are nearly ruined.”
“What happens if you lose your cause?”
“You are quite ruined.”
[ii-10] Browne’s Lincoln and Men, i, 338; Browne, 220.
[ii-11] For a few of these stories the reader is referred to Onstot, 20; Stringer, i, 218; McClure’s Yarns, 380; Gallaher, 46-47; Lincolnics, 30-31; MacChesney, 299-300; Depew’s Speech, February 12, 1909, pp. 6-7; Dr. George M. Angell, in Bloomington (Ill.) Pantagraph, February 12, 1909.
Lincoln was not the only great lawyer concerning whom such anecdotes might be told. The eminent New England advocate, Jeremiah Mason, is said to have been equally successful in bringing about compromises. “Mr. Mason,” writes one who knew him well, “magnified his position by exerting all his influence to prevent litigation, or the commencement of suits upon mere quibbles, or for the purpose of procrastination, or to gratify personal vindictiveness, or retaliation. He was eminently a peacemaker, and was instrumental in healing many a wound, and in preventing the useless expenditure of money, by a set of litigants, who were in the habit of annoying (employing?) lawyers to aid them in schemes of malice or revenge.” (John P. Lord, quoted in Hillard’s Memoir and Correspondence of Jeremiah Mason, 46.)
[ii-12] Browne’s Lincoln and Men, i, 339.
[ii-13] Herndon, ii, 14.
[ii-14] Browne, 218-19. Lincoln’s expedient for preventing trivial litigation was similar in its essence to that of the New York attorney concerning whom Edwards, in his Pleasantries about Courts and Lawyers, tells this anecdote:—
“In a certain part of our State, two Dutchmen, who built and used in common, a small bridge over a little stream which ran through their farms, had a dispute concerning certain repairs which it required. One of them declined to bear any portion of the expense necessary to the purchase of two or three planks. The aggrieved party went to a neighboring attorney and placing ten dollars, in two notes of five dollars each, in his hand, said—