973.7L63 B6Hhl*a Hertz, Emanuel Abraham Lincoln: His law partners, clerks and office boys LINCOLN ROOM UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY MEMORIAL the Class of 1901 founded by HARLAN HOYT HORNER and HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER Abraham Lincoln: His Law Partners, Clerks and Office Boys By EMANUEL HERTZ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://www.archive.org/details/abrahamlincolnhisiOOhert WARD HILL LAMON 'The rehabilitated partner" — body guard, companion, entertainer and friend. Abraham Lincoln: His Law Partners, Clerks and Office Boys By EMANUEL HERTZ To THOMAS F. MADIGAN, ESQ., who has a peculiar genius of finding new and un- published Lincoln material, which he ever permitted me to broad- cast in my pamphlets — this one is gratefully dedicated By The Author. Abraham Lincoln: His Law Partners, Clerks and Office Boys By Emanuel Hertz Of the three partners associated with Abraham Lincoln throughout his career at the Bar of Illinois, a good deal has been written. Stuart, Logan and Herndon are well known to us from different memoirs, diaries, addresses and articles to be found in the various magazines both in and outside of Illi- nois, to say nothing of the more definitive treatises by Fred- erick Trevor Hill and John T. Richards, as to Lincoln the lawyer. Other biographies, too, generally allot a chapter or two in their more extended works, to the influences of these three men on Lincoln's life. Dr. Newton's fine volume on Lincoln & Herndon does full justice to the junior partner who remained loyally by the side of his chief through good report and ill for sixteen years, and kept the office in readiness, awaiting the return of the senior partner when his work in Washington shall have been com- pleted, as he promised 'Billie,' and reiterated to his wife, that when his second term is completed "we will return to Spring- field and continue the practice of law as though nothing had interrupted it." We have been told how he had been educated by the con- descending Stuart, and trained by the superior Logan, in the practice of the law — practical men both, who would never have associated themselves with Lincoln solely for his own benefit — both convinced that he was a valuable ally, who would add to their prestige and to their income. It is more than a twice-told tale how he failed to appreciate the real value of his own services as a lawyer, and charged less than any other practitioner of his ability and station, to the great annoyance of partners and other practitioners alike. 787415 D ABRAHAM LINCOLN His famous causes, or most all of them, have been listed and enumerated, and an entire literature has sprung up about many of them; but one phase of his practice which took him on the Circuit for months at a time, has somehow been overlooked, land this omission has to do with some of the local partners he had in different points in Illinois — particularly in the Eighth Circuit. One partnership, particularly, has been continuously omitted, or intentionally overlooked, until lately, and that is the partner- ship with Ward H. Lamon, although Lamon himself ever pro- claimed it — in season and out of season — only to be ignored by the two chroniclers of Lincoln at the Bar of Illinois who un- ceremoniously brush aside his claims and simply refer to him as having retained Lincoln on special occasions. Not only did this partnership exist, but it was advertised in the local papers, and if unfounded, Lincoln could have made short work of it. A card and an advertisement are to be seen in the files of the local paper, which read as follows : APRAM LINCOLN, W. H. LAMON, Springfield. Danville. Lincoln & Lamon. ATTORNEYS AT LAW, HA VI NO formed a copartnership, will practice in the Courts of the Eighth Ju- dicial Circuit, and tho Superior Court, and all business entrusted to them will be attended to with promptness and fidelity. %^* Office on the second floor of the •'Bar- nura Building/' over Whitcomb's Store. Danville, Nov. JO, 18521 2 1G ly LINCOLN AND LAMON's PROFESSIONAL CARD. From " The Iroquois Journal " of July 6, 1853, published at Middleport, Iroquois County, Illinois. Lincoln's cus- tom of forming partnerships with young lawyers at differ- ent county-seats in the Eighth Circuit explains why so large a number of his survivors claim to have been law partners. It remained for Mr. Paul M. Angle of Springfield, to come to the rescue of the discarded partner in the person of the redoubtable Ward Hill Lamon, by pointing to and reprinting HIS LAW PARTNERS, CLERKS AND OFFICE BOYS / the notice in the Iroquois Journal at Middleport, 111., on Novem- ber 10, 1852, that "Lincoln & Lamon, Attorneys at Law, having formed a co-partnership, will practice in the Courts of the Eighth Judicial Circuit and the Superior Court, and all business entrusted to them will be attended to with promptness and fidelity." So much for Lincoln's Vermilion County partner. But this was not the first of similar advertisements. On April 12, 1837, the Sangamo Journal carried the following notice : "J. T. Stuart and A. Lincoln, attorneys and counsellors at law, will practice conjointly in the Courts of this judicial circuit. Office No. 4 Hoffman's Row, up stairs." The fact remains that this was not the only local partnership of this kind. To those who state that he was retained as special counsel in other cases, and acted as such exclusively, it might be suggested that that was true on many occasions, and the printed records in the cases in the Supreme Court and Federal Courts completely justify this claim; but that is true only in such cases where the recital is clear that he, or his firm, were associated only in the case at bar, and the fact is thus reported ; and there were quite a number of such cases. Take cases like : Hancock v. Hodgson (4 111. 329) ; Mason v. Park (4 111. 432) ; Martin v. Dryden (6 111. 187) ; Parker v. Smith (6 111. 411) ; Cook v. Hall (6 111. 575) ; Broadwell v. Broadwell (6 111. 599) ; Frisby v. Ballance (7 111. 141) ; City of Springfield v. Hickox (7 111. 241); McNamara v. King (7 111. 432); Kincaid v. Turner (7 111. 618) ; Cunningham v. Fithnan (7 111. 650) ; Wil- son v. Van Winkle (7 111. 684) ; Roney v. Monaghan (8 111. 85) ; Garrett v. Stevenson (8 111. 261) ; Henderson v. Welch (8 111. 340) ; Wilcoxon v. Roby (8 111. 475) ; Webster v. French (11 111. 254) ; Smith v. Dunlap (12 111. 184) ; McArtee v. Engart (13 111. 242) ; Ross v. Irving (14 111. 171) ; Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Road v. Isaac G. Wilson (17 111. 123); Meyers v. Turner (17 111. 179); Hildreth v. Turner (17 111. 184) ; Illinois Central Railroad Co. v. County of McLean (17 111. 291) ; Phelps v. McGee (18 111. 155) ; Illinois Central R. R. v. Morrison (19 111. 136) ; Illinois Central R. R. v. Hays (19 111. 166) ; Sprague v. Illinois River R. R. Co. (19 111. 174) ; 8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN McDaniel v. Correll (19 111. 226); People v. Bissell (19 111. 229) ; Wade v. King (19 111. 301) ; Laughlin v. Marshall (19 111. 391) ; Constant v. Matteson (22 111. 546) ; Miller v. Whit- taker (23 111. 400) ; State of Illinois v. Illinois Central R. R. Co. (27 111. 64); Forsyth v. Reynolds (15 Howard 358)— in all of these cases it appears clearly that Lincoln, or his firm, were specially retained. In this entire list of cases, it is made to appear clearly that Lincoln, or Lincoln & Herndon, were either counsel or asso- ciated with the other counsel enumerated in the statement of the case or preceding the brief resume of the legal points they urged, and which precede the opinion of the Court. No one can, by any stretch of the imagination, read the fact that a partnership existed in these cases as between the lawyers who appeared with Lincoln and his firm. They filed separate briefs, as well as separate appearances, and the Court reporter invari- ably makes a clear record of the facts of the separate appear- ances of these different advocates. But now we come to a series of eases where the appearances are not noted or reported, as were the appearances in the fore- going list of cases, but the documents recite that Lincoln's ap- pearance is that of a member of a firm whose name is fully subscribed as a firm, and very frequently in Lincoln's own hand- writing. A great many of these documents are new and have not been published, and they have attracted little attention. That may be one reason for not having -been cited or mentioned ( in the list of cases generally referred to in the volumes and articles that have to do with Lincoln as a lawyer and with Lin- coln's law practice. And then, too, the biographers have pre- ferred to refer to and reproduce documents from some of his better known cases only. Perhaps a letter, very rarely re- ferred to and found neither in Nicolay and Hay's collection nor in the Tandy edition of Lincoln's works, may throw some light on the underlying reason for his practice or for having partners in different localities of the gigantic Eighth Circuit which he had to cover. He was the only lawyer who travelled over the entire Circuit, for his practice extended throughout HIS LAW PARTNERS, CLERKS AND OFFICE BOYS 9 the entire Circuit ; whereas other lawyers practiced in but a limited number of the counties which made up the Eighth Circuit. To James S. Irwin he writes in 1842 as follows : "Springfield, November 2, 1842 Jas. vS. Irwin, Esq: Owing to my absence, yours of the 22nd ult. was not received till this moment. Judge Logan and myself are willing to attend to any business in the Supreme Court you may send us. As to fees, it is impossible to establish a rule that will apply in all, or even a great many cases. We believe we are never accused of being very unreason- able in this particular; and we would always be easily sat- isfied, provided we could see the money — but whatever fees we earn at a distance, if not paid before, we have noticed, we never hear of after the work is done. We, therefore, are growing a little sensitive on that point. Yours, etc. A. Lincoln." But when he had someone on the spot, even though only a temporary partner, he had no such apprehension about the pay- ment of fees, as the "local" partner would no doubt look after that — not altogether unimportant — part of the practice. And so we find quite a list of such partnerships in different parts of the State, and the documents in the cases bear the im- print of such partnership relationships. We find, among others; Swett & Lincoln, Harlan & Lincoln, Ficklin & Lincoln, Harris & Lincoln, Lincoln & Lamon, Goodrich & Lincoln, Lincoln & Thomas, McW'illiams & Lincoln, Edwards & Lincoln, Williams, Lincoln & Herndon and Ferguson, Logan, Lincoln & Herndon — appearing for clients as law firms, and not as asso- ciates. These may have been some of Lincoln's temporary partnerships with lawyers in various County seats, but partner- ships they were — at least in these particular cases. 10 ABRAHAM LINCOLN In the case of the Goodrich partnership we find that he was one of the leaders of the Illinois Bar, and at one time actually proposed a permanent partnership with Lincoln to include the Springfield office, but which Lincoln declined. He remained loyal to Herndon. James Harlan, another of these temporary partners, became a member of the United States Senate, and the friendship thus formed during the temporary or local partnership lasted to the end of Lincoln's life. Robert Lincoln subsequently married the daughter of Senator James Harlan. Ficklin and Harris were afterwards candidates for Congress. Ficklin was elected a year later, while Harris was unsuccessful in his candidacy — both against Lincoln in 1848 and against Yates in 1850. Richard S. Thomas was another special partner, and there is a long correspondence between the two dealing with a number of cases disposed of and of fees divided. Lincoln was seeking business in this manner for many years. His Springfield prac- tice, alone, could not support him. One of his early letters in 1846 to Andrew Johnston, ends as follows : "Give my respects to Mr. Williams, and have him, to- gether with yourself, to understand that if there is any- thing I can do, in connection with your business in the courts, I shall take pleasure in doing it, upon notice." "The foregoing," says Johnston, "was written by Abraham Lincoln, Esq., from Springfield, Illinois, to me at Quincy, Illi- nois at the time of its date." William Fishback must have been another such local part- ner, although no document has as yet appeared, aside from a number of letters, to establish the fact. Some years after this correspondence we actually find Williams retaining the firm of Lincoln & Herndon, and signing the legal document in question as Williams, Lincoln & Herndon, and appearing together under this special or temporary arrange- HIS LAW PARTNERS, CLERKS AND OFFICE BOYS 11 ment in 1855. The cases Lincoln tried, either in the Trial Terms or on appeal, were numerous, and these eleven additional firm names subscribing legal documents, are certainly novel, most of them new and never printed or published before. This practice, while it might be frowned upon in these days, worked out to the entire satisfaction of all parties concerned, and in many cases gave Lincoln the opportunity of helping young lawyers in their trial or appellate work, on this basis of a tem- porary or special partnership. Here is a partial list of such local partnerships ; even though the case in question is the only one in which the temporary part- nership existed, the name of Lincoln does appear as associated in some partnership relation with the other lawyer or lawyers, as the case might have been. The list is not complete, but it will serve as a guide to a full and complete treatise on the sub- ject of Lincoln's law practice in the different Counties of the Eighth Circuit : Logan County Lincoln & Goodrich Young & Jones, Lincoln & Stuart Lincoln, Stuart, Wyatt & Jones Lincoln & Thorpe Thornton & Lincoln Benedict & Lincoln Emerson & Lincoln Lincoln & Lacey Menard County Harris & Lincoln Lincoln & Baker Bledsoe & Lincoln Robbins & Lincoln Campbell & Lincoln Lamborn & Lincoln Baker, Matheny & Lincoln Macon County Post & Lincoln Christian County Mason & Lincoln Rountree & Lincoln Stuart, Edwards & Lincoln Lincoln & Thornton Vandeveer & Lincoln May & Lincoln Woodford County Lincoln, Clark & Hewes Haskill, Brown & Lincoln Holmes & Lincoln Lincoln & Jones Clark, Lincoln & Manning Lincoln & Shope 12 ABRAHAM LINCOLN Gridley & Lincoln Davidson & Lincoln Lincoln, Gridley & Wickizer Lincoln & Clark Gridley, Clark & Lincoln Shope, Powell & Lincoln Purple, Sanger, Thorpe & Lincoln Lincoln, Thorpe & Cooper Lincoln & Peters Brown & Lincoln Ramsay & Lincoln Lincoln & Merryman Lincoln & Bemis Fenn & Lincoln Vermilion County Lincoln & Davis Lincoln & Peters Murphy & Lincoln Lincoln, Lamon & Davis Fletcher, Lincoln & Lamon Pearson & Lincoln Drake & Lincoln Lincoln & Lamon Harmon & Swett Lincoln & Allen Harmon, Beckwith & Lincoln Sloan, Lincoln & Lamon Chandler, Lincoln & Lamon Pearson, Lincoln & Lamon Lincoln & Lamon, Allen & Chandler Fletcher, Jones, Chandler, Davis & Lincoln Cullom & Lincoln Piatt County Moore & Lincoln Lincoln & Post Emerson & Lincoln Champaign County Lincoln, Swett, Orme & Whitney Whitney & Lincoln Davis, Swett, Lincoln & Whitney Coler, Sim & Lincoln Somers, Somers & Lincoln Lincoln, Coler, Sim & Sheldon Edgar County Lincoln & Dill Blackburn & Lincoln Benedict & Lincoln Lincoln, Dill, Emerson & Steele Lincoln, Linder & Dill Lincoln & Linder Shelby County Moulton & Lincoln Thornton & Lincoln DeWitt County Weldon & Lincoln Moore & Lincoln Lincoln & Gridley McLean County Weldon & Lincoln HIS LAW PARTNERS, CLERKS AND OFFICE BOYS 13 U. S. Court, Springfield Browning & Bushnell Lincoln & Taylor Lincoln, Logan & Gillespie Clark & Lincoln Ketchum, McClernand & Purple & Lincoln Lincoln Gillespie & Lincoln How important these occasional or temporary partners be- came to Lincoln, and what an important part they played, may be seen from the association with Usher F. Linder, one of the leading lawyers of the Eighth Circuit. Lincoln and Linder met quite frequently on opposite sides ; occasionally they ap- peared as partners. During the Lincoln-Douglas Joint Debates Linder became famous by the telegram which he received from Douglas, calling for his assistance. The telegram was turned over to the Lincoln managers, and henceforth he was known as "For God sake Linder." On March 8, 1853, Lincoln wrote him the following cordial letter : "Springfield, March 8, 1853. Dear Linder — The change of circuits prevents my attending the Edgar court this Spring, and perhaps generally hereafter. There is a little Ejectment case from Bloomfield, in which the name of Davidson figures, but in which a couple of men by the name of Bailey are interested ; and for defending which I have been paid a little fee. Now I dislike to keep the money without doing the service, & I also hate to disgorge ; and I therefore request of you to defend the case for me ; & I will, in due time, do as much or more for you. Write me whether you can do it. Yours as ever, A. LINCOLN." Five years before that he wrote Linder in reply to one which Linder wrote him, which is a remarkable document and shows us the amazingly able political controversialist, who was even then going through the political training which was going to help him with Douglas and when he finally reached the helm of the Union : 14 ABRAHAM LINCOLN "Washington, March 22, 1848. Friend Linder : Yours of the 15th is just received, as was a day or two ago, one from Dunbar on the same subject — Although I address this to you alone, I intend it for you, Dunbar, and Bishop, and wish you to show it to them — In Dun- bar's letter, and in Bishop's paper, it is assumed that Mr. Crittenden's position on the war is correct — Well, so I think — Please wherein is my position different from his ? Has he ever approved the President's conduct in the beginning of the war, or his mode or objects in prosecuting it? Never — He condemns both — True, he votes sup- plies, and so do I — What, then, is the difference, except that he is a great man and I am a small one? Towards the close of your letter you ask three questions, the first of which is "Would it not have been just as easy to have elected Genl. Taylor without opposing the war as by opposing it?" I answer, I suppose it would, if we could do neither — could be silent on the question; but the Locofocos here will not let the whigs be silent. Their very first act in Congress was to present a preamble declaring that war existed by the act of Mexico, and the whigs were obliged to vote on it — and this policy is followed up by them, so that they are compelled to speak and their only option is whether they will, when they do speak, tell the truth, or tell a foul, villainous, and bloody falsehood — But, while on this point, I protest against your calling the condemnation of Polk "opposing the war" — In thus assuming that all must be opposed to the war, even though they vote supplies, who do not now endorse Polk, with due deference I say I think you fall into one of the artfully set traps of Locofocoism — Your next question is "And suppose we could succeed in proving it a wicked and unconstitutional war, do we not thereby strip Taylor and Scott of more than half their laurels?" Whether it would so strip them is not matter HIS LAW PARTNERS, CLERKS AND OFFICE BOYS 15 of demonstration, but of opinion only; and my opinion is that it would not ; but as your opinion seems to be different, let us call in some others as umpire — There are in this H. R. some more than forty members who support Genl. Taylor for the Presidency, every one of whom has voted that the war was "unnecessarily and unconstitutionally com- menced by the President" every one of whom has spoken to the same effect, who has spoken at all, and not one of whom supposes he thereby strips Genl. of any laurels — More than this ; two of these, Col. Haskell and Major Gaines, themselves fought in Mexico ; and yet they vote and speak just as the rest of us do, without ever dreaming that they "strip" themselves of any laurels — There may be others, but Capt. Bishop is the only intelligent whig who has been to Mexico, that I have heard of taking different ground — Your third question is "And have we as a party, ever gained any thing by falling in company with abolitionists ?" Yes — We gained our only national victory by falling in company with them in the election of Genl. Harrison — Not that we fell into abolition doctrines ; but that we took up a man whose position induced them to you as in his 1 election — But this question is not so significant as a ques- tion, as it is as a charge of abolitionism against those who have chosen to speak their minds against the President — As you and I perhaps would again differ as to the justice of this charge, let us once more call in our umpire — There are in this H. R. whigs from the slave states as follows : one from Louisiana, one from Mississippi, one from Flor- ida, two from Alabama, four from Georgia, five from Ten- nessee, six from Kentucky, six from North Carolina, six from Virginia, four from Maryland and one from Dela- ware, making thirtyseven in all, and all slaveholders, every one of whom votes the commencement of the war "unnec- essary and unconstitutional" and so falls subject to your charge of abolitionism ! — 16 ABRAHAM LINCOLN "En passant" these are all Taylor men, except one in Tenn — two in Ky, one in N.C. and one in Va — Besides which we have one in Ills — two in la, three in Ohio, five in Penn — four in N J. and one in Conn — While this is less than half the whigs of the H.R. it is three times as great as the strength of any other one candidate. Your are mistaken in your impression that any one has communicated expressions of yours and Bishop's to me — In my letter to Dunbar, I only spoke from the impression made by seeing in the paper that you and he were, "in the degree, though not in the extreme" on the same tack with Latsham— Y ours as ever A. Lincoln." As a result of these many associations with lawyers who had all manner of cases, Lincoln's law practice was of the most comprehensive nature and brought him in contact with legal problems as wide as the whole field of the law. Some of the subjects may be of interest: jurisdiction of justice of the peace, the validity of a slave as the consideration for a promissory note, enforcement of gambling debts, seduction, fraud, sale of real estate of decedent, guardianship, mortgage and mechanic's lien foreclosure, divorce, specific performance, suretyship, county seat wars, ejectment, wills, the defense and sometimes the pros- ecution of crimes, damages for personal injuries, for prairie fires, rescission, slander, fees and salaries, mandate, quo war- ranto, injunction, replevin, patents, taxation, insurance, carriers, partition, liquor questions, political questions, statute of frauds, railway stock subscriptions, eminent domain, trusts and trustees, questions of constitutional law, and procedure at law and in chancery. In the circuit courts, where Lincoln was often em- ployed at the time the case was called for trial no case seemed too small to command his service. The trials in that day indi- cated a litigious disposition in the community which has happily disappeared with the advance of civilization. Here is one of the many cards which were printed and used bv Lincoln while at the bar of Illinois : HIS LAW PARTNERS, CLERKS AND OFFICE BOYS 17 A. LINCOLN Attorney and Counsellor at Law Springfield, 111. -0- To Whom It May Concern My old customers and others are no doubt aware of the terrible time I have had in Crossing The Stream, and will be glad to know that I will be back on the same side from which I started on or before the 4th of March next, when I will be ready to Swap Horses, Dispense Law, Make Jokes, Split Rails, and perform other matters in a small way. That some of these partnerships were serious affairs, may be seen from a letter of J. P. Usher, Secretary of the In- terior during Lincoln's Administration. He writes to Lamon on May 20, 1885 : "You were his partner for years in the practice of law, his confidential friend during the time he was President. " Usher came from Kansas, and seemed to remem- ber this partnership so distinctly, although neither Hill nor Richards, who wrote of Lincoln the lawyer, as much as mention his name in connection with his law partnerships on the Circuit. Whitney, in his book 'Lincoln on the Circuit', does reproduce a document in which Swett & Lincoln appear as the attorneys with Whitney & Davis, and all the four names are signed by Lincoln to the Declaration which was all written by Lincoln, a facsimile of which may be found in Whitney's valuable work 'Lincoln on the Circuit'. Rankin came to the Lincoln & Herndon law office rather late and at a time when Lincoln was beginning his last political cam- paign which led to the White House; hence he has nothing to say about any but the last of Lincoln's partners, Herndon. Jesse W. Weik certainly has no word for any of these, particu- larly for Lamon whom he actually charges with advertising himself as Lincoln's law partner : "Lamon lived in Danville and 18 ABRAHAM LINCOLN was a mediocre lawyer. He suffered himself in later years to be advertised to the world as Lincoln's law partner, and he was sometimes associated in lawsuits with Lincoln, as the records of the courts in Vermilion, and also in McLean County, 111., indi- cate; but the partnership was invariably limited to the case in hand." Lamon is one of the trio, the other two being Delahay and Simon Cameron, whom Weik dislikes — and quoting Horace White, says : "Cameron's appointment was the most colossal blunder of Lincoln's public life, — moral obtuseness of the same kind as his intimacy with Lamon, Delahay, et al.," — not a very reliable authority as to the legal relationships of Lincoln & Lamon, years before Weik finally concluded to write his 'Real Lincoln'. There may have been no exclusive or continuous partnerships for any long period in most of these associations of Lincoln and other lawyers, but one can well understand that in the re- mote counties like Woodford and Edgar, he had need of similar arrangements as he had in Vermilion County, and that there is a great deal of justification for the claim of some who say: "My grandfather was Lincoln's law partner in Shelbyville," or "My greatuncle was the partner of Abraham Lincoln when in Edgar County," certainly more justification than for the ipse dixit of the biographers who limit Lincoln's partners to the three partners of longer duration. Add to these family claims, the documents here published, and there is more justification that Lincoln was given to these local, temporary partnerships which yielded revenue, and a local partner to look after the case, as well as after the payment of the fees when the work in the case was completed. And as Lincoln concluded his work in one county, he was prepared to meet his new work and new partner in the next county to which Judge and lawyers proceeded in the legal caval- cades which were the order of the day in the frontiers of the western countrv. his law partners, clerks and office boys 19 Lincoln's Office Boys What an interesting law office Lincoln's must have been, can and may be discerned from the fact that quite a number of young men who studied in his office and who came under his influence achieved success in various stations of life. Every one of them achieved distinction, every one of them displayed the result of the benign influence of the senior member of that firm of lawyers — Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, the many sided genius — the young man who gave so much promise to all who knew him that his loss was equivalent to the loss of an entire army division. The letter Lincoln wrote to Ellsworth's parents is one of the finest gems of epistolary literature that man ever wrote. And another student in the office was John Hay. More fortunate by far than Ellsworth, for he lived through the great adventure, he became the biographer and historian of Lincoln and his inseparable companion, and later the friend of Robert T. Lincoln. Hay, after the War, travelled in foreign lands, edited newspapers, wrote excellent poetry and even better prose, be- came a great ambassador at the Court of St. James where he easily equalled the best and surpassed all others, and concluded a notable career in diplomacy as Roosevelt's great Secretary of State ; and there was no greater Secretary of State from the days of Jefferson to Hughes. John H. Littlefield, another student, whose brother asked Lincoln that his younger brother, John, be taken into Lincoln's office, met Lincoln at Ottawa in 1858 : "All right, send him down and we will take a look at him." Wnen he came Lin- coln said : "Arrange the preliminaries with Billy and go ahead." Then came William Fishback and Henry B. Rankin. William Fishback, after helping Lincoln out in minor cases, went to Arkansas, and in time became Governor; and his son is now one of the Federal Judges of the Arkansas Judicial Dis- 20 ABRAHAM LINCOLN trict. William withstood Lincoln's urgings to return to Spring- field. Rankin contributed a great deal of valuable Lincoln ma- terial which fills many a hiatus in the life of Lincoln. His writings are valuable and display a fine loyalty to his great chief. The greater part of his life seems to have been spent in contemplating and writing about his contact with Lincoln and his office. And next comes Henry C. Whitney. Lincoln liked Whitney and wanted to do much for him. He asked him to pick some position in the Federal service to which he could designate him. Lincoln even suggested that he be government surveyor. Whit- ney followed him on the Circuit and saved for posterity some important facts about Lincoln's life which are much needed to complete his eventful life on the Circuit. Of course, a great many others claim the distinction of having been students and clerks in the office, but their stay was so short that they occupy somewhat the same position as the local and official partners. But these six were known to all as students in that office. These six were in the office and were some of the many who came in and became attached to that great figure, then in the making. You can easily see the results of the association. They followed him to the end, like Ellsworth, whom an entire nation mourned at the outbreak of the War. You can easily tell the Lincoln influence in that great life of John Hay, who filled a number of great careers — poet, author, journalist, diplomat and statesman of the first order. Whitney and Rankin were over- whelmed by the influence and kept on telling and writing to a wondering world what Lincoln was to them and to their generation. But these boys were all heirs to the noble spirit of Lincoln, which had no fear and which knew no fear. A truly great lot of law students they were. What other law office of his day can boast such an array of splendid lawyers, statesmen and soldiers? HIS LAW PARTNERS, CLERKS AND OFFICE BOYS 21 Charles S. Zane came in 1856 and applied to become a law student in the office of Lincoln & Herndon. Herndon received him cordially, in the absence of Lincoln, but somehow he never became part of the office. So he did the next best thing and settled down in the same building and on the same floor. After Lincoln's election he became a partner of Herndon's under the name of Zane & Herndon, and subsequently became a Justice of the Supreme Court of Utah. The chance meeting of Abraham Lincoln and the schoolboy, Gibson Harris, in the old log school house at Albion, appears to have aroused mutual admiration. At any rate, five years later (1845) young Harris entered the law office of Lincoln & Herndon at Springfield, as law student and private secretary to the firm. When Lincoln became a candidate for Congress in the old Springfield district in 1846, the task of writing a personal letter to every man of prominence in the district fell to the lot of the young private secretary. Years later, when on the way to Washington, the family stopped in Cleveland when Harris had become a prosperous merchant, and Lincoln invited Harris and his family to meet him, and offered to ap- point him to an important Federal position, which Harris grate- fully declined. This seemed to have been one of Lincoln's noble impulses — calling the young men whom he had come to know from his law office to the service of the nation, which needed the best talent available. One of Gibson Harris' most highly prized relics of his association with the martyred President, was a copy of his favorite poem O Why Should the Spirit of Mortal be Proud, written down by Mr. Harris as dictated to him by Lincoln. In later years these local partners and law students and clerks and office boys and secretaries helped Lincoln in his political ambitions, and when he rose to the dizzy heights of leading a nation's fight for life, he called for these local partners and law students of his early years, and gave them an opportunity 22 ABRAHAM LINCOLN to be and remain junior partners and associates in the greatest cause in which he engaged and to which his whole life was but a prelude, and to which he gave his heart and his mind and his life. Lincoln might well be proud of all his partners, all his clerks, all his secretaries, both permanent and temporary. They constituted a fine galaxy of patriotic workers, all needed to make this nation endure. February 12th, 1930. UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 973.7L63B6H44A C001 ABRAHAM LINCOLN: HIS LAW PARTNERS, CLERK 3 0112 031799403