It was not long before Lincoln became a favorite figure in Springfield. The skill, the courage, and the good-will he had shown in his management of the bill for the removal of the capital gave him at once, of course, special prominence. The entire "Long Nine," indeed, were regarded by the county as its benefactors, and throughout the summer there were barbecues and fireworks, dinners and speeches in their honor. "The service rendered Old Sangamon by the present delegation" was a continually recurring toast at every gathering. At one "sumptuous dinner" the internal improvement scheme in all its phases was toasted again and again by the banqueters, "'The Long Nine' of Old Sangamon—well done, good and faithful servants," drew forth long applause. Among those who offered volunteer toasts at this dinner were "A. Lincoln, Esq.," and "S.A. Douglas, Esq."
At a dinner at Athens, given to the delegation, eight formal toasts and twenty-five volunteers are quoted in the report of the affair in the "Sangamo Journal." Among them were the following:
A. Lincoln. He has fulfilled the expectations of his friends and disappointed the hopes of his enemies.
A. Lincoln. One of nature's noblemen.
By A. Lincoln. Sangamon County will ever be true to her best interests, and never more so than in reciprocating the good feelings of the citizens of Athens and neighborhood.
Lincoln had not been long in Springfield before he soon was able to support himself, a result due, no doubt, very largely to his personal qualities and to his reputation as a shrewd politician. Not that he made money. The fee-book of Lincoln and Stuart shows that the returns were modest enough, and that sometimes they even "traded out" their account. Nevertheless it was a satisfaction to earn a livelihood so soon. Of his peculiar methods as a lawyer at this date we know very little. Most of his cases are utterly uninteresting. The very first year he was in Springfield, however, he had one case which created a great sensation, and which, so far as we know, has been overlooked entirely by his biographers. It is an admirable example of the way Lincoln could combine business and politics as well as of his merciless persistency in pursuing a man whom he believed unjust.
It seems that among the offices to be filled at the August election of 1837 was that of probate justice of the peace. One of the candidates was General James Adams, a man who had come on from the East in the early twenties, and who had at first claimed to be a lawyer. He had been an aspirant for various offices, among them that of governor of the State, but with little success. A few days before the August election of 1837 an anonymous hand-bill was scattered about the streets. It was an attack on General Adams, charging him with having acquired the title to a ten-acre lot of ground near the town by the deliberate forgery of the name of Joseph Anderson, of Fulton County, Illinois, to an assignment of a judgment. Anderson had died, and the widow, upon going to Springfield to dispose of the land, was surprised to find that it was claimed by General Adams, and she employed Stuart and Lincoln to look into the matter. The hand-bill, which went into all of the details at great length, concluded as follows: "I have only made these statements because I am known by many to be one of the individuals against whom the charge of forging the assignment and slipping it into the general's papers has been made; and because our silence might be construed into a confession of the truth. I shall not subscribe my name; but hereby authorize the editor of the 'Journal' to give it up to any one who may call for it.".
After the election, at which General Adams had been elected, the hand-bill was reproduced in the "Sangamo Journal," with a card signed by the editor, in which he said: "To save any further remarks on this subject, I now state that A. Lincoln, Esq., is the author of the hand-bill in question." The same issue of the paper contained a lengthy communication from General Adams, denying the charge of fraud.
The controversy was continued for several weeks. General Adams used, mostly, the columns of the "Springfield Republican," filling six columns of a single issue. He charged that the assault upon him was the result of a conspiracy between "a knot of lawyers, doctors, and others," who wished to ruin his reputation. Lincoln's answers to Adams are most emphatic. In one case, quoting several of his assertions, he pronounced them "all as false as hell, as all this community must know." Adams's replies were always voluminous. "Such is the turn which things have lately taken," wrote Lincoln, "that when General Adams writes a book I am expected to write a commentary on it." Replying to Adams's denunciation of the lawyers, he said: "He attempted to impose himself upon the community as a lawyer, and he actually carried the attempt so far as to induce a man who was under the charge of murder to entrust the defence of his life to his hands, and finally took his money and got him hanged. Is this the man that is to raise a breeze in his favor by abusing lawyers? ... If he is not a lawyer, he is a liar; for he proclaimed himself a lawyer, and got a man hanged by depending on him." Lincoln concluded: "Farewell, General. I will see you again at court, if not before—when and where we will settle the question whether you or the widow shall have the land." The widow did get the land, but this was not the worst thing that happened to Adams. The climax was reached when the "Sangamo Journal" published a long editorial (written by Lincoln, no doubt) on the controversy, and followed it with a copy of an indictment found against Adams in Oswego County, New York, in 1818. The offence charged in this indictment was the forgery of a deed by Adams—"a person of evil name and fame and of a wicked disposition."
Lincoln's victory in this controversy undoubtedly did much to impress the community, not necessarily that he was a good lawyer, but rather that he was a clever strategist and a fearless enemy. It was not, in fact, as a lawyer that he was prominent in the first years after he came to Springfield. Reëlected to the Assembly in 1838, and again in 1840, his real impress on the community was made as a politician. The qualities which he had already shown in public life were only strengthened as he gained experience and self-confidence. He was the terror of the pretentious and insincere, and had a way of exposing their shams by clever tricks which, to voters, were unanswerable arguments. A case in point happened in 1840. It was considered necessary, at that day, by a candidate to prove to the farmers that he was poor and, like themselves, horny-handed. Those politicians who wore good clothes and dined sumptuously were careful to conceal their regard for the elegancies of life from their constituents. One of the Democrats who in this campaign took particular pains to decry the Whigs for their wealth and aristocratic principles was Colonel Dick Taylor, generally known in Illinois as "ruffled-shirt Taylor." He was a vain and handsome man, who habitually arrayed himself as gorgeously as the fashion allowed. One day when he and Lincoln had met in debate at a countryside gathering, Colonel Dick became particularly bitter in his condemnation of Whig elegance. Lincoln listened for a time, and then, slipping near the speaker, suddenly caught his coat, which was buttoned up close, and tore it open. A mass of ruffled shirt, a gorgeous velvet vest, and a great gold chain from which dangled numerous rings and seals, were uncovered to the crowd. Lincoln needed to make no further reply that day to the charge of being a "rag baron."
Lincoln loved fair play as he hated shams; and throughout these early years in Springfield are examples of his boldness in insisting that friend and enemy have the chance due them. A most dramatic case of this kind occurred at a political meeting held one evening in the Springfield court-room, which at that date was temporarily in a hall under Stuart and Lincoln's law office. Directly over the platform was a trap-door. Lincoln frequently would lie by this opening during a meeting, listening to the speeches. One evening one of his friends, E.D. Baker, in speaking angered the crowd, and an attempt was made to "pull him down." Before the assailants could reach the platform, however, a pair of long legs dangled from the trap-door, and in an instant Lincoln dropped down beside Baker, crying out, "Hold on, gentlemen, this is a land of free speech." His appearance was so unexpected, and his attitude so determined, that the crowd soon was quiet, and Baker went on with his speech.
In all the intellectual life of the town he took a place. With a few of the leading young men he formed a young men's lyceum. One of his speeches before this body has been preserved in full. Its subject is "The Perpetuation of our Political Institutions."[4] The speech has not, however, any of the peculiarly original style which usually characterized his efforts.