Life of Abraham Lincoln | Page 8

had acted fraudulently, he left the courtroom and when the judge sent for him, he sent word back that he "had gone to wash his hands." He had too much human sympathy to be the most effective prosecutor unless there was a clear case of Justice on his side; and he was too sympathetic to make money--for his charges were so small that Herndon and the other lawyers and even the judge expostulated with him. Though his name appears in the Illinois Reports in one hundred and seventy-three cases,--a record giving him first rank among the lawyers of the state, his income was probably not much over two or three thousand a year. And he was engaged in some of the most important cases in the state, such as Illinois Central Railroad Company v. The County of McLean, in which he was retained by the railroad and successfully prevented the taxation of land ceded to the railroad by the State,--and then had to sue to recover his modest fee of five thousand, which was the largest he ever received. In the McCormick reaper patent litigation he was engaged with Edwin M. Stanton, who treated him with discourtesy in the Federal Court at Cincinnati, called him "that giraffe," and prevented him from delivering the argument which he had so carefully and solicitously prepared. Such an experience was, of course, very painful to his sensitive nature, and it shows how great he was that he could forgive the injury entirely as he did later when he appointed Stanton as his Secretary of War, despite the protest of friends who recalled it all to him.
In one of his most notable murder cases he defended William or "Duff" Armstrong, the son of his old friend, Jack Armstrong. It was a desperate case for William and for his mother Hannah, who had also been a warm friend to Lincoln when he was young. The youth was one of the wildest of the Clary's Grove boys, and a prosecuting witness told how, by the light of the moon, he saw the blow struck. Lincoln subjected the witness to one of his dreadful cross-examinations and then confronted him with the almanac of the year in which the crime was committed to show that the moon had set at the hour at which the witness claimed to have seen the blow struck by Armstrong. The boy was acquitted and Lincoln would accept no fee but the tears and gratitude of his old friends.
Another interesting case was one in which a principal witness was the aged Peter Cartright who had more than ten years before waged a campaign against Lincoln for Congress. Cartright was the grandfather of "Peachy" Harrison who was charged with the murder of Greek Crafton. It was a dramatic moment when the old Methodist minister took the stand in front of Lincoln, and as his white head bowed, Lincoln had him tell how, as Greek Crafton lay dying, among his last words were "I want you to say to the man who killed me that I forgive him." After such a dying declaration and such a scene Lincoln was sure to make a speech that would move the hearts of any jury with pity and forgiveness such as he himself always felt for all souls in trouble; and Harrison was acquitted. It was such experiences at the bar that made him the great lawyer that he was; and the great advocate of whatever he believed to be right; and prepared him to win the great cause of humanity before the whole people of the nation and of the world.
In 1852 Lincoln campaigned for Scott. In 1854 he seemed to be losing interest in politics when the news of the abrogation of the Missouri Compromise aroused him. This had been brought about by Douglas, the new leader of the Democrats, then one of the most influential men in Congress, and after the days of Webster, Clay and Calhoun, one of the foremost politicians in America. Douglas came back to Illinois to find many of his constituents in the North displeased with what they thought he had done to please the Democrats of the South. They thought that he was sacrificing the ideal of limiting slavery in order to advance his ambitions to become President. He set about to win back his state. He spoke in Springfield; and a few days later, Lincoln replied in a speech that delighted his friends and convinced them that in him they had a champion afire with enthusiasm for the cause of freedom.
Somewhat against his will he was nominated and elected to the legislature in the fall of 1854, but when he saw the dissatisfaction in the Democratic party he was encouraged to resign from the legislature and become a candidate for