[iii-19] Herndon, ii, 3; Whitney, 251.

[iii-20] Lincoln to Linder, February 20, 1848, Works, ii, 3.

[iii-21] Herndon, ii, 7.

[iii-22] Arnold, 84. See, also, Whitney’s Life, i, 173; Oldroyd, 37; Nicolay and Hay, i, 307.

[iii-23] Herndon, ii, 7.

[iii-24] Gibson W. Harris, quoted in Browne, 220.

[iii-25] Letter of Justice David J. Brewer to the author; and an article by him in the Atlantic Monthly, November, 1906, p. 591.

[iii-26] Caton, 13; Illinois Reports, xxxvii, 13.

[iii-27] A statement made by Judge David Davis.

[iii-28] Hill, 211-12.

[iii-29] Letter of Hon. Shelby M. Cullom to the author; Bateman, 13-15. See, also, Hill, 236-37; and T. W. S. Kidd, the crier of the court, in Tarbell, i, 273-75.

[iii-30] Judge Lawrence Weldon, quoted in Hill, 212-15.

[iii-31] A letter said to have been written by Lincoln to Mrs. Armstrong, offering her his services, is published in Selby (254), and Hobson (41-42); yet neither of these writers, responding to inquiries by the author, has been able to throw any light on the question of its authenticity. According to other biographers, a communication of such a nature was received by Mrs. Armstrong, who stated, as they allege, that it had been lost. On the other hand, “Duff” himself, in his detailed narrative, makes no reference to a letter from Mr. Lincoln; and John, his younger brother, in an equally full account of the affair, taken down for the author by Thomas D. Masters of Springfield, Illinois, expresses the opinion that no written message on the subject was ever received. The Masters notes concerning this topic read:—

“Mr. Armstrong has no recollection of hearing of any letter being written by Mr. Lincoln to his mother, at the time his brother got into the trouble in question; and he requests me to say to you that he is quite sure that had such a letter been written he would have known of it. He points out to me that his mother was unable to read, and in that early day, had she received a letter from a man such as Lincoln then was,—a much-talked-about lawyer in Springfield,—that by reason of the exigencies of the occasion, and the interest such a letter would have excited in the household, he certainly would have known of it. His recollection is that his mother, probably after the cause was venued to Cass County, made a trip to Springfield, of course, knowing Mr. Lincoln, and feeling friendly to him, and having confidence in him, for the purpose of employing him to assist in the defense of her son at Beardstown.”

[iii-32] A singular parallel presents itself in ancient Athenian history, where Alcibiades and his friends were charged, as Plutarch relates, with mutilating the images of Mercury, on a certain night. When one of the informers was asked how he managed to recognize the features of the accused in the darkness, he answered,—“I saw them by the light of the moon,”—a palpable misstatement, as the affair happened at the time of a new moon which gave practically no light. This anecdote, however, could hardly have prompted Lincoln to consult an almanac in the Armstrong case, because he had not read Plutarch’s Lives at the time of that trial, and only did so two years later.

[iii-33] Judge Abram Bergen, quoted by James L. King, in the North American Review, February, 1898, pp. 193-94. Bergen’s testimony should be supplemented by a statement which “Duff” Armstrong himself made, in his respectable old age, to J. McCan Davis. It was published in the New York Sun of June 7, 1896. According to this report Armstrong then declared: “The almanac used by Lincoln was one which my cousin, Jake Jones, furnished him. On the morning of the trial I was taken outside the court-room to talk to Lincoln. Jake Jones was with us. Lincoln said he wanted an almanac for 1857. Jake went right off and got one, and brought it to ‘Uncle Abe.’ It was an almanac for the proper year, and there was no fraud about it.”

[iii-34] Ram, 269-70, note, 505. It is interesting to note that a somewhat similar tale is frequently met with among the anecdotes of the English bar. A barrister at the “Old Bailey,” according to this version, secured the acquittal of a client charged with highway robbery by introducing an almanac to prove that there was darkness on a certain night, instead of the bright moonlight, in which the prosecuting witness claimed to have distinguished the prisoner’s features. The almanac, however, as afterwards transpired, had been fraudulently so printed for that occasion.

[iii-35] Those who wish to collate what has been published about the Armstrong affair may find these references of service: Gridley’s Defense, 3-23; Hill, 229-34; Hobson, 40-50; Tarbell, i, 270-73; Lamon, 327-31; Arnold, 87-89; Onstot, 98-100; Irelan, xvi, 142-44; Oldroyd, 213-15; Herndon, ii, 26-28; Barrett, 63-66; Barrett (New), i, 152-54; Holland, 128-29; Browne, 224-27; Brockett, 82-85; Selby, 94-97, 254; Phillips’s Men Who Knew, 62-63; Stoddard, 157-60; Raymond, 29-31; Brooks, 127-29; French, 75-76; Whipple, 261-65; Bartlett, 111-15; Curtis’s Lincoln, 75; Coffin, 162-63; Stowe, 23-25; Morgan, 102-03; Nicolay’s Boy’s Life, 94-97; Hanaford, 44-48; Pratt, 78-82; Thayer, 285-93; McClure’s Stories, 97-99; Williams, 68-73; Lincolnics, 64-66; Jones, 15; Master, 20-22; New York Sun, June 7, 1896; North American Review, February, 1898, pp. 191-95; Kankakee (Ill.) Republican, February 12, 1909, Bloomington (Ill.) Pantagraph, January 20, 1912; also Eggleston’s The Graysons, in which the trial and the almanac incident are used by the novelist with good effect.

[iii-36] Tarbell, i, 265; Emerson, 5.

[iii-37] From an unpublished manuscript entitled “Lincoln on the Stump and at the Bar,” by Judge Scott, quoted in Tarbell, i, 253-54.

[iii-38] Judge William M. Dickson, in Harper’s Magazine, June, 1884, p. 63; Barrett (New), i, 121-22. See, also, Alban J. Conant, in Liber Scriptorum, 175-76, and in McClure’s Magazine, March, 1909, p. 516; Chauncey M. Depew, in Rice, 432; Browne, 229-30; Curtis’s Lincoln, 85; McClure’s Yarns, 457; McClure’s Stories, 92; Pratt, 59-60.

[iii-39] Collated from accounts by George W. Minier, in Oldroyd, 187-89, and in Herndon, ii, 327-28; also: Arnold, 85-87; Brooks, 122-24; Coffin, 108; Pratt, 68-69.

[iii-40] Binney, 444.

[iii-41] Lincoln would doubtless have approved of David Hoffman’s rule on this subject. It read: “I will never plead or otherwise avail of the bar of infancy against an honest demand. If my client possesses the ability to pay, and has no other legal or moral defense than that it was contracted by him when under the age of twenty-one years, he must seek for other counsel to sustain him in such a defense. And although in this, as well as in that of limitation, the law has given the defense, and contemplates in the one case to induce claimants to a timely prosecution of their rights, and in the other designs to protect a class of persons who by reason of tender age are peculiarly liable to be imposed on, yet in both cases I shall claim to be the sole judge (the pleas not being compulsory) of the occasions proper for their use.”

[iii-42] Remarks of Justice David Davis in the Federal Circuit Court at Indianapolis, May 19, 1865.

[iii-43] It may be of interest to note that these same revolutionary properties, and the same stage-setting of frozen ground flecked with the blood of patriots’ unshod feet, had served Patrick Henry, many years before, in the defense of John Venable, Commissary of the Continental Army, sued by John Hook, a Tory, for the value of some steers seized to feed the hungry troops. But Henry’s eloquence had not prevailed as fully as Lincoln’s did; for the jury found a verdict, though in a nominal sum, against the great Virginian’s client.

[iii-44] Herndon, ii, 9-11; see, also, Holland, 127. For brief accounts and comments based on Herndon’s and on Holland’s narratives the reader is referred to: Hapgood, 108; Browne, 162-63; Hill, 215-16; Coffin, 104-05; Tarbell, i, 250; Pratt, 74-76; Selby, 97-98; McClure’s Stories, 101.

[iii-45] Herndon, i, 328-30.

A brief and less picturesque account of the incident was furnished to the author, about half a century after the event, by the Honorable Shelby M. Cullom, one of the counsel for the defense. He wrote: “During the trial, a question was raised as to the admissibility of certain testimony, which was very important to the defense. The Judge took an hour to come to a conclusion as to what he ought to do; and when he began to decide the question, he seemed to be leaning against the admissibility of the testimony. Lincoln saw that he was inclined that way, and sprang upon his feet, and manifested such intense earnestness that it appeared to change the Judge’s disposition, and he decided in favor of the admissibility of the testimony.”

Still, Herndon probably did not overstate the case. For the official crier, Captain Thomas W. S. Kidd, referring to that same episode, said: “Mr. Lincoln made a display of anger, the like of which I never saw exhibited by him before or after. He roared in the excess of his denunciation of the action of the Court.” (Rochester Herald, January 17, 1904. See Kidd, also, in Tarbell, i, 251-52.)

[iv-1] Though under very different circumstances, Lincoln’s elation seems not unlike that of another famous man whose later life touched his at several points. The first dollar earned by Frederick Douglass, on free soil, in New Bedford, was paid to him, as he tells us, for stowing away a pile of coal for Mrs. Ephraim Peabody, the wife of a Unitarian minister. “I was not long in accomplishing the job,” runs his story, “when the dear lady put into my hand two silver half-dollars. To understand the emotion which swelled my heart as I clasped this money, realizing that I had no master who could take it from me,—that it was mine,—that my hands were my own, and could earn more of the precious coin,—one must have been in some sense himself a slave.” (Douglass, 210.)

[iv-2] Lamon, pointing out some inconsistencies in the details of this anecdote as it is generally quoted, expresses doubts concerning its authenticity. He evidently did not know how often Lincoln had told the story to different persons. Their versions, as might be expected, vary somewhat, but they agree in the essential facts. See: Carpenter, 96-98; William D. Kelley, in Rice, 279-80; Leonard Swett, in Rice, 457-58; Holland, 33-34; Brooks, 38; Pratt, 16-18; Morgan, 27-28; Lamon, 72; McClure’s Stories, 17-18; Hanaford, 156-58; Boyden, 83-84; Irelan, xvi, 62-64; Tarbell, i, 38-39; Browne, 72-73; Banks, 14-16; Ward, 277-78; Thayer, 169-71; Ludlow, 66-68; Curtis’s Lincoln, 24-25; Whipple, 62-63; Selby, 52-53; Raymond, 754; Onstot, 51-52; Egbert L. Viele, in Scribner’s Magazine, October, 1878, p. 817; Alban J. Conant, in McClure’s Magazine, March, 1909, p. 514; interview with Governor Frank Fuller, in the New York Times, October 1, 1911, p. 10.

[iv-3] Browne’s Lincoln and Men, i, 259-61, 356; ii, 90-91.

[iv-4] Holland, 93.

[iv-5] See Lincoln to Speed, June 19, 1841, in Works, i, 168-75, and in Lamon, 318-19; also, Gibson W. Harris, in Columbia (Ky.) Spectator, January 27, 1905.

[iv-6] Oldroyd, 394-95.

[iv-7] Onstot, 41-44.

[iv-8] Lincoln to Whitney, December 18, 1857, in Works, xi, 103.

[iv-9] Brockett, 702-03; McClure’s Yarns, 341-42; Barrett (New), i, 154-55; interview with Mrs. Rose Linder Wilkinson, in Chicago Times-Herald, September 11, 1895.

[iv-10] The nature of these kindnesses may be inferred from the following despatch:—

[iv-11] Boston Advertiser, February 12, 1909, p. 7.

[iv-12] Stowe, 21; Carpenter, 245; Browne, 229; French, 80; McClure’s Stories, 89-91; Thayer, 284-85; Gallaher, 39-40.

[iv-13] Gibson W. Harris, in Browne, 220.

[iv-14] Koerner, ii, 112.

[iv-15] Caroline H. Dall, in Atlantic Monthly, April, 1867, p. 413.

[iv-16] Tarbell, i, 267-68; Curtis’s Lincoln, 74-75; Thomas Lewis, in Leslie’s Weekly, February 16, 1899.

[iv-17] Browne, 224.

[iv-18] G. W. Nance, in Oldroyd, 557.

[iv-19] Charles W. Moores, in American Law Review, January-February, 1911, p. 92.

[iv-20] Henry Rickel, in Cedar Rapids Gazette, February 6, 1909, p. 1.

[iv-21] Ward, 242-46; Jennings, 93-98.

[iv-22] Father Chiniquy reproduces in his book an engraved facsimile of the due-bill, dated May 23, 1856. It is undeniably in Lincoln’s handwriting, but no explanation has been offered to reconcile the date with the priest’s statement that the paper was written in October, at the time of the second trial. The author based his narrative of this affair upon Chiniquy, 566, 620-67; Whitney, 53-55, 136-37; and a brief of the Circuit Court records at Urbana, Illinois, made for the writer by Judge Joseph O. Cunningham.

[iv-23] George P. Floyd, in McClure’s Magazine, January, 1908, p. 303.

[iv-24] Lamon’s Recollections, 17-19; see, also, Browne’s Lincoln and Men, i, 348-51. There are a few other examples, in legal history, of high-minded lawyers rejecting what they regarded as excessive fees. One notable English instance is thus related by Lord Brougham concerning Topping:—

“A general retainer of a thousand guineas was brought to him to cover the Baltic cases then in progress. His answer was, that this indicated either a doubt of his doing his duty on the ordinary terms known in the profession (one guinea particular, and five guineas general retainer)—or an expectation that he should, on being thus retained, do something beyond the line of his duty; and therefore he must decline it. His clerk then accepted of the usual sum of five guineas, and he led on those important cases, for the defendants.”

So also Charles O’Conor, leader for many years of the New York bar, subordinated money-making to a sense of professional propriety. His friend, William H. Winters, Librarian of the Law Institute, relates that a client once urged the famous pleader, with some insistence, to accept a very much larger fee than the lawyer had charged. O’Conor, becoming indignant, manifested in his own forcible way how this annoyed him. He denied the right of any one to dictate what his pay for legal services should be, and dismissed the presumptuous client without ceremony.

[iv-25] There is a companion tale current among English lawyers concerning another member of the bar, at an earlier period, who was accused by his fellow barristers of having degraded their order by accepting payment for services in copper. Upon being arraigned for this offense at their Common Hall he defended himself,—so the tradition runs,—with the following plea in confession and avoidance: “I fully admit that I took a fee from him in copper, and not one but several, and not only fees in copper but fees in silver. But I pledge my honor, as a Sergeant, that I never took a single fee from him in silver until I had got all his gold, and that I never took a fee from him in copper until I had got all his silver,—and you don’t call that a degradation of our order.”

[iv-26] Whitney, 81.

[iv-27] Works, xi, 98-99.

[iv-28] E. S. Nadal, in Scribner’s Magazine, March, 1906, p. 368.

[iv-29] Herndon, i, 324-25.

[iv-30] That baffling question as to how the value of a lawyer’s services should be arrived at was thus stated in Lincoln’s trial brief: “Are or not the amount of labor, the doubtfulness and difficulty of the question, the degree of success in the result, and the amount of pecuniary interest involved, not merely in the particular case, but covered by the principle decided, and thereby secured to the client, all proper elements, by the custom of the profession to consider in determining what is a reasonable fee in a given case?”

For an answer that may serve, in part, at least, the reader is referred to an opinion, which had been delivered some years previously by Chief Justice John B. Gibson, of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Discussing the fees earned by an attorney in important litigation, he said: “It is not to be doubted that responsibility, in a confidential employment, is a legitimate subject of compensation, and in proportion to the magnitude of the interests committed to the agents.... A lawyer charged with particular preparations for a lawsuit, is not to be made responsible, or paid, as a porter or a shoemaker.” (Pennsylvania Reports, vii, 545-46.)

[iv-31] Lincoln’s attitude in this particular affords another striking contrast to that of David Hoffman, who lays down the rule: “I will charge for my services what my judgment and conscience inform me is my due, and nothing more. If that be withheld, it will be no fit matter for arbitration; for no one but myself can adequately judge of such services, and after they are successfully rendered they are apt to be ungratefully forgotten. I will then receive what the client offers, or the laws of the country may award, but in either case he must never hope to be again my client.”

[iv-32] The most fruitful references on this topic are: Herndon, ii, 21-22; Whitney’s Life, i, 184-85; Hill, 250-54, 261, 316-19; Tarbell, i, 258-60; Works, ii, 288-89; Lincoln as Attorney, passim; Curtis’s Lincoln, 72; Illinois Reports, xvii, 291-99; Koerner, ii, 111-12.

[iv-33] Jesse W. Weik, in Century Magazine, June, 1904, pp. 282, 286; Herndon, i, 251.

[iv-34] Lincoln to Speed, July 4, 1842, in Lamon, 251; Works, i, 219.

[iv-35] Browne, 180-82; Coffin, 123; Gallaher, 31; Hapgood, 85; Jesse W. Weik, in Century Magazine, June, 1904, p. 280.

[iv-36] Four children, in all, were born to Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln. They were: Robert Todd, August 1, 1843; Edward Baker, March 10, 1846; William Wallace, December 21, 1850; and Thomas, April 4, 1853.

[iv-37] Some years after the purchase of this cottage, its modest dimensions were enlarged by the addition of another story to meet the requirements of an increased family.

[iv-38] Leonard W. Volk, quoted in the Outlook, February 13, 1909, p. 348.

[iv-39] Lincoln’s straightway habit of waiting on himself had striking illustration while he was in Congress. Calling for some law books at the library of the Supreme Court, as the librarian relates, he tied them in a huge bandana handkerchief which he took from his pocket, passed a stick, brought for the purpose, through the knotted ends, slung the bundle across his shoulder and carried it thus to his lodgings, whence the volumes were returned later in the same primitive fashion. When a still greater public honor than that of Congressman came to him, one of his neighbors in Springfield exclaimed: “What! Abe Lincoln nominated for President of the United States! Can it be possible? A man that buys a ten-cent beefsteak for his breakfast, and carries it home himself.”

[iv-40] Herndon, ii, 16.

[iv-41] Joseph Gillespie, in Oldroyd, 462. Still another one of the famous cavalcade, Leonard Swett, said: “Beds were always too short, coffee in the morning burned or otherwise bad, food often indifferent, roads simply trails, streams without bridges and often swollen, and had to be swum, sloughs often muddy and almost impassable, and we had to help the horses, when the wagon mired down, with fence-rails for pries, and yet I never heard Lincoln complain of anything.”

In the same vein, Henry C. Whitney wrote: “At the table, he ate what came first, without discrimination or choice. Whatever room at the hotel came handy, or whatever bed he came to first, he took without criticism or inspection.”

[iv-42] Quoted from manuscript of Ninian W. Edwards by Herndon, i, 186; also: Lamon, 190; French, 60; Coffin, 99; Browne, 138-39; Master, 55-56.

[iv-43] Whitney, 32; see, also, Herndon, ii, 15-16.

[iv-44] Schurz, ii, 90-91.

[iv-45] Chief Justice John Marshall, whom Lincoln resembled in not a few particulars, is said to have made a similarly unfavorable impression upon a prospective client, during his younger days at the Richmond bar. But in the Virginian’s case, the critical suitor discovered, even before the trial began, that a poorly dressed lawyer is not necessarily a poor advocate. So Marshall was retained, at the eleventh hour, to assist an immaculately attired colleague, whose ability was found to fall far short of the promise held forth by broadcloth and powdered wig.

[iv-46] Master, 224-25, 469.

[iv-47] Works, iv, 199.

[iv-48] Jayne, 11; and Dr. William Jayne to the author, October 2, 1912.

[iv-49] Gibson W. Harris, quoted in Columbia (Ky.) Spectator, January 27, 1905. The same witness, writing elsewhere (Browne, 219) on the same theme, says: “Mr. Lincoln had a heart that was more a woman’s than a man’s,—filled to overflowing with sympathy for those in trouble, and ever ready to relieve them by any means in his power.”

[iv-50] Mrs. Lincoln to Mrs. Keckley, November 15, 1867, in Keckley, 352.

[iv-51] John F. Mendonsa to the author, August 31, 1912.

[iv-52] Haynie, 7-8.

[iv-53] Fellowship, 1908, pp. 12-13; see, also, Works, ii, 313-14.

[iv-54] Lincoln to Johnston, January 12, 1851, Works, ii, 148.

[iv-55] Works, ii, 96.

[iv-56] This deed may be found in Coles County Deed Records, G, p. 5. Of the same date, October 25, 1841, entered in Mortgage Record, i, p. 43, is an instrument whereby Abraham Lincoln binds himself and his heirs to convey the property to John D. Johnston or his heirs, after the death of the parents, upon repayment of the two hundred dollars, without interest and without regard to any increase in the value of the tract.

[iv-57] For further light on these matters the reader is referred to the letters from Lincoln to Johnston in Works, ii, 135, 144-46, 147-53; and to the deed published in Gridley, 145-46.

[iv-58] Lincoln’s ownership of this land, in the town named for him, is further evidence of his ready amiability toward friends, where monetary matters were concerned. The lot, situated on the south side of the court-house square, had belonged to James Primm, a well-known court official and public man of Logan County. Finding himself in financial difficulties, he had borrowed four hundred dollars on his promise to pay, which Lincoln obligingly endorsed. But when the time for payment arrived, the maker of the note was unable to meet it, so the endorser had found himself obliged to pay. Lincoln did so, and some time later Primm, by way of reimbursement, had given him a deed of the lot. (See Stringer, i, 221-22.)

[iv-59] E. J. Edwards, in New York Times, January 24, 1909. For other accounts see: Raymond, 100; Browne, 314-15; Curtis’s Lincoln, 45; Ward, 281; Thayer, 313-14; Lincolnics, 93-94. As having a further bearing on the question of Lincoln’s estate in 1860, these references may be serviceable: Works, vi, 31; Arnold, 83, 154-55; Whitney, 26; Herndon, i, 91-92; Oldroyd, 32; Lamon, 472; Lamon’s Recollections, 20; Holland, 127; Hobson, 100-04; Browne, 200-01; Rice, 587; Curtis’s Lincoln, 74; McClure’s Magazine, March, 1909, pp. 514-15; New York Times, October 1, 1911, p. 10.

[v-1] Lamon, 126; Works, xi, 97; see, also, the Autobiography, in Works, vi, 31.

[v-2] Works, vi, 31.

[v-3] Address to the People of Sangamon County, March 9, 1832, in Works, i, 8.

[v-4] These scenes, until then happily without parallel in American history, recall the political slaughter with which Charles James Fox had seventy years before signalized a crushing victory in the British House of Commons. To quote his biographer: “The fight was over, and the butchery began. Every one who belonged to the beaten party was sacrificed without mercy, with all his kindred and dependents; and those public officers who were unlucky enough to have no political connections fared as ill as the civil population of a district which is the seat of war between two contending armies. Clerks, messengers, excisemen, coast-guardsmen, and pensioners were ruined by shoals because they had no vote for a member of Parliament, or because they had supported a member who had opposed the peace.” (Trevelyan’s Fox, 28.)

[v-5] Greeley, 20.

[v-6] During Lincoln’s first year in the Illinois Legislature he voted steadily with the minority against the adoption of resolutions which the Democratic majority had introduced to uphold President Jackson in his memorable struggle against the United States Bank. But when it came to voting on one resolution which condemned the National Senate for discourteous treatment of the old hero, and on another which commended the Illinois delegation in Congress for supporting the Administration, Lincoln turned away from his political associates, and had himself recorded, both times, in Jackson’s favor. (See Illinois House Journal, 1835, pp. 213-17, 258-63.)

[v-7] Works, vi, 31-32.

[v-8] The whole number of citizens who voted at New Salem, on August 6, 1832, amounted to 300; but as 10 of these refrained from expressing their preferences for Representatives, only 13 actually appear on the records as voting against Lincoln. No election-tickets or ballot-boxes were used in Illinois at this time. The viva-voce method was employed; and as each voter stated his choice, he saw it recorded opposite his name in the poll-book.

[v-9] It is interesting to add that in this election of 1832, the country at large gave Jackson 219 electoral votes, and Clay 49.