all it the Lincoln phoenix story, after the mythical bird that rises from its own ashes. Abe Lincoln takes up the practice of law in 1837, settles into domestic life in Springfield, and spends two years in Washington as an undistinguished US congressman. Frustrated by not getting a government appointment he wants from President Zachary Taylor, he abandons politics and resumes the law in Illinois. In 1854 he emerges as a new being: an astonishingly eloquent antislavery politician.
This tale, often recycled in the Lincoln literature, ignores important factors that made this a period not of political flameout and sudden resurrection but rather of steady growth toward antislavery flowering. Between 1837 and 1854, Lincoln became engaged with American culture on a number of vital levels in ways that would shape him into the Lincoln of history.
As a lawyer and a politician, he demonstrated an unusual ability to corral dizzying cultural forces at a time when national unity, his highest goal, was threatened by the growing tensions over slavery. His nearly twenty-five years as a lawyer enriched him by exposing him to both popular culture and elite culture. Party politics—including, during these years, three terms in the Illinois state legislature, campaigning for two Whig presidential candidates, and a term in the US House of Representatives—stabilized him until the early 1850s, when the Whig Party disintegrated and the Democratic Party aligned with conservatism. By then, Lincoln was prepared to offer a cohesive antislavery vision that would become the bulwark of the Republican Party, a vision distilled from cultural and political phenomena he had witnessed during this crucial interregnum.
AN UNLAWERLY LAWYER
Biographers have long sought ways of integrating Lincoln’s long law career into his political evolution. It is often said that his courtroom appearances honed his persuasive skills, which he put to use in his major political speeches. Also frequently mentioned are the many contacts he made—with Illinois lawyers, politicians, and potential voters—who later proved instrumental to his political rise.
All of this is true, but the law influenced him in other ways that were even more important than these. To understand how, it helps to look at his successive law partnerships with John Todd Stuart (1837–42), Stephen T. Logan (1841–44), and William H. Herndon (1844–61). The three partnerships are usually said to have followed a pattern of decline, from the suave, savvy Stuart to the brilliant but idiosyncratic Logan to the inexperienced, volatile Herndon.
Actually, though, the path from Stuart to Herndon steadily opened vistas on culture that contributed to Lincoln’s maturation. His association with Stuart nurtured his self-reliance, while that with Logan cultivated his negotiating skills and ethical sense, and the Herndon connection sharpened his awareness of social injustice. All three partnerships created a relaxed atmosphere that allowed Lincoln to escape the confines of standard law practice and maintain contact with vibrant American culture.
The Kentucky-born, college-educated John Todd Stuart, who was Mary Todd’s first cousin, was a tall, handsome man described as “the soul of southern courtliness—the ‘compleat gentleman,’” the essence, that is, of Southern chivalry: the Cavalier.1 He had met Lincoln, two years his junior, during the Black Hawk War, and they subsequently served together as Whigs from Sangamon County in the state legislature. Stuart had helped tutor Lincoln in the law before inviting him to join him as his partner. Their partnership lasted from April 1837 to April 1841. Their office, on Hoffman’s Row just west of Springfield’s public square, was cramped and sparsely furnished, with a table, a couch, a few chairs, and a small bookcase.
They were both unmethodical, and papers tended to disappear after being tucked away in random places, including in Lincoln’s hat. In a note from 1839, Lincoln reported to his partner that “Old Mr. Wright . . . is teasing me continually about some deeds which he says he left with you, but which I can find nothing of. Can you tell where they are?”2 In the same letter, playing on Stuart’s
pro-Southern sympathies, Lincoln wrote, “A d—d hawk billed yankee is here, besetting me at every turn I take, saying that Robt Kinzie never received the $80. to which he was entitled. Can you tell any thing about the matter?”
The partners’ looseness paralleled Lincoln’s open attitude toward the law. A skilled case lawyer, he studied legal writings and precedents for the cases he handled but otherwise relied mostly on common sense. He developed a strong sense of independence during his affiliation with Stuart, who was busy pursuing a political career. In 1838 and 1840, Stuart was elected to the US House of Representatives, and he spent the better part of his time in Washington as a Whig representative from Illinois. His absences left Lincoln virtually on his own for much of the term of their partnership.
Lincoln had a grueling schedule that cultivated his ability to adapt to quickly changing situations. For example, on November 23, 1839, he handled eleven different cases in Sangamon Circuit Court at a time when he was coming off a hectic political season that saw him running, successfully, for a fourth term in the state legislature and campaigning for the Whig presidential candidate, William Henry Harrison.3
Lincoln’s largely single-handed pursuit of the law fostered what many said was one of his major attributes: self-reliance. At the same time that the Concord, Massachusetts, philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson was developing his notion of self-reliance, to be expressed in his famous 1841 essay of that name, Lincoln gained mental independence as an Illinois lawyer. Just as Emerson called for readers to reject traditions and authority, Lincoln, as a friend noted, “could act no part but his own. He copied no one either in manner or style”—an assessment seconded by a fellow attorney, who said that Lincoln “pursued his own independent course.”4 Other lawyers similarly testified that they “never knew him in trying a law-suit to ask the advice of any lawyer he was associated with” and that there was not “a single circumstance tending to show that he was influenced in his judgment or conduct by any of his associates.”5
When Stuart was reelected to Congress, Lincoln realized he could not carry on the firm’s burdensome duties alone. The partnership was dissolved on April 14, 1841. Lincoln had already begun collaborating on law cases with Stephen T. Logan, and after he split with Stuart, he began a partnership with Logan. Their first office was on Fifth Street across from Hoffman’s Row; after two years, the pair moved into a third-floor office in the Tinsley Building, an imposing new structure on Sixth and Adams Streets that also housed a store, a post office, and the US District and Circuit Court.6 Lincoln’s knowledge of the law grew markedly during his affiliation with Logan. Born in Franklin County, Kentucky, in 1800, Logan had worked for ten years as a lawyer in his native state before moving in 1832 to Springfield, Illinois, where he continued as an attorney and served for two years as a circuit court judge. A short, wizened man, Logan had a shrill voice, nervous mannerisms, and a sweeping mane of light hair. Unlike Stuart, he was a master of the law and was nitpicking in its application. He had admired Lincoln ever since he saw him give a political speech in 1834. On the platform, Logan reported, Lincoln appeared “very tall and gawky and rough looking,” with “pantaloons that didn’t reach his feet by six inches,” but he gave “a very sensible speech.”7 Logan had witnessed Lincoln’s rise as a politician and lawyer, and asked him to join his law office in 1841. “Lincoln’s knowledge of law was very small when I took him in,” he later recalled. But “Lincoln was growing all the time,” and through careful study of individual cases, “he got to be quite a formidable lawyer.” Logan found that Lincoln was especially effective with juries, as he “seemed to put himself at once on an equality with everybody.”
Besides helping Lincoln become a more knowledgeable lawyer, Logan trained him in an area that would have lasting importance for the future president: negotiating between conflicting points of view and pursuing honesty. Logan, while adept at challenging opponents in court, preferred to resolve disagreements between warring parties outside the courtroom. A fellow attorney said of Logan, “He was not a promoter of litigations. He settled more controversies than he brought suits. He was a peace-maker.”8 Lincoln adopted the same attitude. In notes for a lecture on the law that he wrote in 1850, he advised, “Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can.”9 There was no one, he wrote, who was “more nearly a fiend” than a lawyer who was wont “to stir up litigation.”
Logan’s ethical practice of the law also influenced Lincoln. Weaned, like Lincoln, in the British common-law tradition, Logan accepted Blackstone’s fundamental axiom that human law is based on moral rules. “He understood that all just laws recognize and enforce moral principles,” a eulogist said of Logan, and that “the common law, constitutional law, and statute law—all justice and all equity—are expressions of the moral sense of the law-makers.” The eulogist added, “The appeal was always to [Logan’s] sense of right—his conscience
This emphasis on ethics clearly appealed to Lincoln, who wrote that “a moral tone ought to be infused into the profession” of law.11 In making this point, he directly challenged a widely held animus against lawyers. There was a “common, almost universal” belief, Lincoln wrote, “that lawyers are necessarily dishonest,” and this “impression of dishonesty is very distinct and vivid” among most Americans. He was right. A journalist of the time generalized, “There is a strong prejudice against lawyers as a class.”12 There was a popular antilawyer story, reprinted in many nineteenth-century newspapers, that had originated with the pioneering Methodist clergyman Jesse Lee, who told of once walking between two lawyers and telling them of a verbal mistake he had made in a recent sermon. He had intended to say, “The devil is the father of liars” but had instead said “the father of lawyers.” He let the error stand because “it was so nearly true, I didn’t think it was worthwhile to correct it.” Insulted, the two lawyers wondered aloud whether Lee was a greater fool or knave. Turning from one lawyer to the other, Lee said mischievously, “Neither; I believe I’m between the two.”13
To counteract this widespread mistrust of lawyers, Lincoln put great emphasis on honesty. He went so far as to advise against taking up the law if it meant sacrificing one’s honesty. “If in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer. Choose some other occupation” rather than “consent to be a knave.”14
Several factors contributed to the breakup of the Lincoln-Logan partnership in December 1844: the irritable Logan and the humorous Lincoln were constitutionally different; there may have been tension over pay, with Logan getting an unfair share of the firm’s earnings; and the political ambitions of the men may have clashed.15 Logan, however, gave a benign explanation for the split: “I wished to take my son David with me who had meanwhile grown up, and Lincoln was perhaps by that time quite willing to begin on his own account. So we talked the matter over and dissolved the partnership amicably and in friendship.”16
Lincoln now had the opportunity to assume a senior position in a partnership. He took on the twenty-six-year-old William Herndon, nine years his junior. Lincoln and Herndon remained in the Tinsley Building until 1852, when they moved diagonally across the public square to an office at 103 South Fifth Street.
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