[iii-2] Herndon, ii, 3; Whitney, 251.
[iii-3] Hill, 225-26.
[iii-4] Whitney, 259; Whitney’s Life, i, 177.
[iii-5] Anthony Thornton, in the Chicago Tribune, February 12, 1900, p. 14.
[iii-6] Illinois Reports, xxxvii, 15.
[iii-7] Whitney, 262-63; Whitney’s Life, i, 196.
These tributes to Lincoln’s honorable methods again recall the principles that contributed not a little toward Horace Binney’s preëminence. In the review of his career he wrote: “I at all times disdained to practise any stratagem, trick or artifice for the purpose of gaining an advantage over my adversary; and unless I thought him unfair, I was generally willing that he should see all my cards while I played them. I can truly say that I am not conscious of having lost anything by this candor; but, on the contrary, have repeatedly gained by it. If my client was at any time suspected, I had no reason to think that I was, by either the Court or the bar; and how many balancing cases, in the course of thirty-five years’ practice, this sort of reputation assisted, I need not say.” (Binney, 443.)
[iii-8] Herndon, i, 326-28; Atlantic Monthly, April, 1867, p. 412.
Whatever the practice at the Springfield bar may have been, Lincoln’s objection to the making of a fictitious plea was of course not finical. No less an authority than Chief Justice Holt had said: “The attorney, if he puts in a false plea to delay justice, breaks his oath, and may be fined for putting a deceit on the Court.” (Pierce vs. Blake, Salkeld’s Reports, ii, 515. See, also, Johnson vs. Alston, Campbell’s Reports, i, 176.)