In May 1856, Billy Herndon slams The Sangamo Journal down on my desk. “Did you see this?”
I read the headline. President Pierce Gives Recognition to Walker’s Nicaragua Filibuster Regime!
I look up from studying the paper. “It says Walker has called an election for July to set himself up as Nicaragua’s president. He plans to reinstate Black slavery there and encourage southern plantation owners to immigrate so they can benefit from his government’s new policies.”
Billy’s face is red. “Next he’ll want his little kingdom to be annexed into the Union as a slave state.”
I fold my arms across my chest. “Is that what Douglas is plotting? Mercenaries like William Walker carving new territories out of Central American nations and bringing them into the Union as slave states under Popular Sovereignty? He’ll flood the Senate with pro-slavery men and outnumber us in the House as well.”
Billy throws up his hands. “Why stop at Central America?”
I pound my fist on the desk. “It’s no longer a fight to keep slavery out of Nebraska and Kansas. We must stop it from spreading over the entire hemisphere. As the soils continue to give out along the coastal plains, more eastern plantations will turn to breeding slaves for sale into new territories. After Nicaragua, they’ll set out to conquer Mexico, Panama, Colombia, Argentina, and more. The demand for slaves will never die out.”
At the end of the month, Billy and I go up to Bloomington for the first state convention of the fledgling Republican Party. Many old Whigs, principally abolitionists and anti-Nebraska men, have been lining up with free-soilers and anti-slavery Democrats to form the new party. Those who believe its platform is too radical have remained Whigs or declared themselves as independent. I’ve tried to walk a thin line, but with blood flowing over the slavery question in Kansas and elsewhere, even in Central America, it’s time to act.
The first to address the convention is my friend O.H. Browning, whose speech fails to excite. When he’s finished, the crowd begins calling out, “Lovejoy” and “Lincoln.” My pulse quickens. Lovejoy glances over at me and I nod, deferring to him. Owen Lovejoy, the brother of the martyred abolitionist editor, is a popular politician throughout the state. He stirs the audience with his oratory, bringing them to their feet with applause.
At his conclusion, the delegates chant my name again. I steady my pulse, unfold myself from my chair, and amble up to the platform. I begin my speech standing at the back of the stage with my hands stuffed into my pockets. “I had picked up a speech in Springfield that I had intended to deliver here, but Browning and Lovejoy stole it from me. Now with what they have added, I give the whole thing when I get back to Springfield. Down there, they will think that it is a great speech.”
Laughter erupts from the crowd.
Without consulting prepared notes, I move forward on the stage as I stress the logic of fighting slavery and declare the eternal rightness of our cause. I make a sweeping gesture with my hand to punctuate my insistence that we restore the Missouri Compromise because it embodies the great principles of American republicanism.
Delegates move from their seats, drawing closer to the platform, some standing at the foot of the stage. I urge the new party to bridle their emotions and fight with the ballot box, not with bullets. I demand that we keep slavery out of Kansas because human bondage is a great evil that is tearing our Union apart. Slapping my hand on the podium, I shout, “We will say to Southern disunionists: We won’t go out of the Union, and you Shan’t.”
My words are met with a thunderous ovation and later, Billy, who is often reserved in his assessment of my speeches, gives me unbridled praise. He tells me, “The flame that has been smoldering has finally broke out. You are now baptized, fresh born with the fervor of a new convert. You spoke with the force of a soul maddened by wrong. Now you have found the cross you’ve been seeking—your great purpose.”
In the lobby, I’m congratulated for helping weld the discordant factions into a vigorous party. My face is warm, not from the fire on the hearth or from drink, but from pride. As we walk back to the inn after a night of celebrating, my steps are buoyant.
Weeks later, at the first national convention of the Republican Party, my name is put forward as a candidate for vice president. Though the honor doesn’t fall on me, I join the national canvass, promoting General Fremont’s presidential aspirations. On my return from a spate of out-of-town speeches, Mother is exceptionally cross with me. I also learn she unleashed her belligerence on our neighbor Jacob Taggart in my absence. When he comes to me and demands that I rebuke her, I say, “Friend, can’t you endure this one wrong done to you without much complaint, for old friendship’s sake? Why, I have had to bear it without complaint or murmur for lo these last fifteen years.”
James Buchanan, a Democrat, is inaugurated president on March 4, 1857. His election is made possible by the disintegration of the old Whig Party, leaving only the nascent Republican movement to contest him.
I read Buchanan’s Inaugural Address in The Sangamo Journal and say to Simeon Francis, the editor, “How does he plan to go about putting an end to the agitation over slavery, patching up the country’s divisions, and beginning to heal the nation?”
Two days later, Francis bursts into my office with a dispatch. The Federal Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Taney, has rendered a decision in the Dred Scott matter, saying Negroes do not, and cannot, have rights as citizens of the several states. They do not distinguish between free and slaves. Furthermore, Taney says neither Congress, nor any territorial legislature, may deprive its citizens of the right to hold slaves.
Francis shakes his head. “Buchanan says this is the final answer to the slavery question. But in truth, he’s been handed a powder keg.”
I press my palm to my forehead. “This so-called Dred Scott Decision will inflame even the most passive abolitionists. Their anger will sweep across the Northern region like a dry prairie wind fanning a wild fire.”
In the fall, with the U.S. Senate contest still a year away, I succumb to personal and business pressures and return to the Circuit. In Danville one day during an afternoon court recess, Hill Lamon and a visiting lawyer remove their coats and agree to a wrestling match in the town square. After a time of pulling, grappling, and tearing up sod, Hill downs his opponent. Once he takes the top position, he strains to pin the visitor’s shoulders to the ground, and the seam of his trousers gives way. At that very moment, Judge Davis calls us to the next case.
Given no time to change his pants, Hill dons his long-tailed coat and returns to the courtroom. All is well until Hill stoops over to recover a document he has dropped on the floor. His secret now being out, another attorney comes to his aid with a hastily prepared document soliciting funds to purchase a new pair of trousers.
Several other attorneys offer various exorbitant sums for Hill’s relief before the document is laid before me. I wipe my spectacles and peruse its language in detail, as if studying an opposing attorney’s brief. After I digest the matter with all due care, I scribble on it, “I can contribute nothing to the end in view.” Laughter ripples through the courtroom as my reply is passed among the other lawyers.
One evening near the conclusion of our session in Danville, Judge Davis convenes what he calls an “Orgmathorial Court” to deal with my supposed breach of the Circuit code. The offense is charging too little in fees. Earlier in the day, Hill and I are representing a man named Scott, the guardian of a girl who suffers from persistent seizures. We win his case in twenty minutes, and he is so cheerful he pays up immediately. I watch as Hill accepts our fee, and my jaw nearly comes unhinged.
I ask, “How much did you charge that man?”
“Two-hundred and fifty,” he says.
“Hill, that’s all wrong. The service was not worth that sum. Give him back at least half of it.”
“The fee was fixed in advance, and the man is happy.”
“That may be so, but I am not satisfied. This is positively wrong. Go, call him back and return half the money at least, or I will not receive one cent of it for my share.”
Hill follows my instructions, but our conversation doesn’t escape Judge Davis’ ears.
The Judge’s voice booms from the bench. “Lincoln, I have been watching you and Lamon. You are impoverishing this Bar by your picayune charges of fees, and the lawyers have reason to complain of you. You are almost as poor as Lazarus, and if you don't make people pay you more for your services you will die as poor as Job's turkey!”
I glare at him. “That money comes out of the pocket of a poor, demented girl, and I would rather starve than swindle her in this manner.”
When the Orgmathorial Court convenes, I am found guilty and fined for my offense against the pockets of my brethren of the Bar. Unshaken, I tell everyone, “Never during its life, or after its dissolution, shall my firm deserve the reputation enjoyed by those shining lights of the profession, ‘Catch ’em and Cheat ’em.’”
On October 10, 1857, I’m at the Woodford County Courthouse in Metamora defending an elderly woman named Melissa Goings, who’s charged with murdering her abusive husband. She has been free on bail since April; even several of her dead husband’s relatives contributed to the one-thousand dollar bond. The whole town believes she killed the old man in self defense. Her principal antagonist is Judge James Harriott.
When the trial commences, Harriott revokes her bond, making it clear he wants to get to the hanging straight away.
“Your Honor,” I say, rising from my seat at a table provided for the parties at trial. “May I prevail on the court for a short recess to allow me to get acquainted with my client and the particulars of her case?”
“Granted,” he says, glaring down from the bench.
I look over my shoulder as we leave the upstairs courtroom and notice the sheriff is lingering behind the bar rather than following us. Since Mrs. Goings is technically in the sheriff’s custody, I consider we are liberated by his negligence. On reaching the front lobby I direct her out the door toward the large public square. We converse for a brief time, after which I return upstairs to the courtroom.
When Judge Harriott gavels the court back into session, Prosecutor Hugh Fullerton jumps to his feet. “Your Honor,” he says pointing to the counsel’s table where I’m seated with my co-counsel. “Where’s the defendant?”
I rise and stare at the judge.
“Well, Lincoln,” says Harriott.
“Sir?”
The judge’s face is bright red, and his jugulars are bulging. “Where is Mrs. Goings?”
I look over to the sheriff. “As I last recall, she was in the sheriff’s custody.”
The sheriff bounces to his feet. “Your Honor, she was in Mr. Lincoln’s charge, not mine.”
Harriott asks again of Mrs. Goings’ whereabouts.
“Your Honor, when she was last with me, she complained of being thirsty and asked where she could find some water. I told her I understand they have mighty fine drinking water down in Tennessee. What the sheriff did with his charge after that I am unaware.”
The spectators in the courtroom begin hooting as they would at an Independence Day parade. Judge Harriott pounds his gavel and mutters, “Next case.”
On accepting Fullerton’s congratulations, I shake his hand and say, “Sometimes justice is a higher law than the statutes we make on its behalf.”
During Congress’ Christmas recess, Senator Trumbull travels back from Washington City and calls on me. Though our wives are still not cordial, we’ve enjoyed a collegial relationship since I paved the way for him to claim Shields’ U.S. Senate seat in 1854.
“Lincoln,” he says, “things might be looking in our favor, at least as far as the next Senate election is concerned. Douglas made a speech on the Senate floor defying President Buchanan on the Kansas Constitution. The Little Giant complains that accepting the LeCompton version, which Buchanan supports, goes against Popular Sovereignty; it was passed without support from a majority of voters. Douglas has spent years rallying his party around the Popular Sovereignty banner, and he’s not going to let that ground slip away without a fight. Now Buchanan has little Douglas in his sights and means to take him out.”
I hand him the Chicago Tribune and ask, “Have you seen this? The opinion page says that Douglas will gradually drift toward the Republican side and eventually join the party in 1860.”
Trumbull clutches the back of his neck. “With this feud between Douglas and Buchanan, the Democrats are coming apart at the seams. I hear Douglas demanded that the national Republicans force you to stand down from challenging his re-election to the Senate. When word of a deal got out, the story changed. Now Douglas says he’ll let you have the Senate if Republicans allow him to run unopposed for the House seat in his home district of Chicago.”
I shake my head. “What’s his angle? He must have some trick up his sleeve.”
“Don’t know. That’s a mystery so far.”
I pick up a copy of the New York Tribune laced with praise for Douglas. “This doesn’t look like he has any plans to give me a clear path to the Senate seat.”
Trumball takes the paper.
I don’t wait for him to finish reading. “Shouldn’t a Republican editor like Horace Greeley be on my side?”
He shrugs as he hands the paper back to me.
I throw the paper down on my desk and glare at him. “Does Greeley speak for the national Republicans? Have they concluded their cause can be best promoted by sacrificing us in Illinois? If that’s so, I’d like to know it at once. It will save us a great deal of labor to surrender now.”
Trumbull waves off my complaint. “Before coming down from Chicago, I met with Norman Judd, the Republican’s state committee chairman. He agrees that Greeley has done us some injury, but he’s not alarmed.”
“Should I find solace in his lack of alarm?”
He shakes his head. “We should always be on guard, especially when it comes to Douglas.”
“Will you take a message to Judd for me? Tell him I’m the only one who can beat Douglas.”
“He already knows that, and he’s more devoted to Illinois than he is to the national Republicans.”
When Trumbull leaves, I send Billy Herndon to Washington to ask Douglas about his intentions with regard to the Senate.
Several days later, Billy returns and tells me the little bantam leaned back in his oversized chair, propped his feet on top of his massive desk and lit a cigar. With a grin stretching across his face he said, “Tell Lincoln I have crossed the river and burned my boat. I do not intend to oppose him.”
While in Washington City, Billy also learned that Buchanan is pushing a candidate to oppose Douglas for their party’s Senate nomination. The “Buchaneer” candidate, Judge Sidney Breese, feeds Billy a juicy morsel. He claims he was told by Senator George Jones of Iowa that Douglas has made a deal with the national Republicans. According to the deal, Seward will be the party’s candidate for president in 1860, and Douglas will get the nomination in 1864. He’ll be allowed to stay in the Senate in the meantime.
Billy reminds me of something I said during the Senate race I lost to Trumbull. “The race of ambition has been a failure for me—a flat failure. For Douglas it has been one splendid success after another. His name fills the nation and is not unknown even in foreign lands.”
I could have added that Mother must regret that she did not choose Douglas as her husband when she had the chance.
Sweat runs down the back of my neck as I climb down off my horse in Beardstown. It’s unseasonably hot and muggy for early May. That means the courthouse will be stifling for the trial of twenty-four-year-old Duff Armstrong who’s accused of murder. Duff’s sweet mother Hannah has asked me to defend him. She and his recently deceased father, my dear friend Jack, gave me shelter and fed me when I was a penniless lad in New Salem.
Judge Harriott, a “hanging judge” of mature years who attempted to try Mrs. Goings for murder in Metamora last fall, is to preside over the case. When I greet him in the lobby of Tom Beard’s City Hotel, his hard, cold eyes have softened, and his beard is noticeably greyer than a few months ago. His recent trip to Iowa to recover the body of his own son—a young doctor who was killed by Dakota Indians during the Spirit Lake Massacre—has subdued his countenance.
I also find Hugh Fullerton, the slick-sure prosecutor, lounging by the empty fireplace. The fire in his eyes must account to some small degree for the abnormally warm temperatures. I suppose he’s still angry with me over Mrs. Goings slipping out of his clutches over in Metamora. Hugh tells me his key witness, Charles Allen, is missing, and the trial will not proceed without him. I want to tease him about losing a defendant and now a witness, but I bite my lip. Instead, I hurry off and locate Hannah to explain that Duff will remain in jail for another six months if Allen is not found and brought to testify.
Not wanting any more delays, she sends two of her nephews out to the town of Virginia where they have sequestered Allen in hopes his absence would avert Duff’s conviction. By morning they return with Allen and the trial moves forward.
Allen, a rough-edged, middle-aged house painter from Petersburg, remains calm and confident as he gives testimony under questioning by Fullerton. Allen contends that Duff hit William Metzker in the head using a slung shot, a lead ball cradled in a leather thong. He says the blow killed Metzker. Allen claims he was able to see the weapon clearly in Duff’s hand from a distance of around a hundred feet because the moon was almost directly overhead in the sky.
During his testimony, I sit back, staring at a fixed spot on the blank ceiling, only breaking my gaze a few times to stand and ask the witness to repeat the position of the moon at the time of the assault. The sweat Fullerton daubs off his forehead is only partly due to the weather. My interruptions bring him closer to a boiling point.
On cross examination, instead of haranguing Allen with the kind of invective I often use against opponents, I produce an almanac and turn to the page for the date of the assault.
“Charles,” I say. “Can you read here where it tells us the time when the moon set that night?”
Allen reads the entry in the almanac and looks up at me, wide-eyed.
“Is something the matter?”
He looks down at the page. “It … it says … it says the moon was setting….”
“I’m sorry. Can you say that a little louder so that the jurymen can hear?”
He looks up. “It says the moon was setting when Metzker was killed.”
Fullerton jumps to his feet. “Your Honor?”
Harriott calls us forward to the bench, asking to see the almanac. When he finishes reading it he hands it to the prosecutor.
Fullerton studies it, glares at me, and hands it back to the judge.
“Mr. Lincoln,” says Harriott, glaring down at me. “You’re mistaken. The moon was just coming up instead of going down.”
“Your Honor, it serves my purpose nonetheless—just coming up, or just going down. It was not overhead as the witness swore it was. I would like the almanac entered into evidence.”
Harriott looks at Fullerton. “Objections?”
“No, Sir.”
After dismissing Allen, Fullerton rests his case.
I produce eight witnesses. One of them is a doctor who testifies that the wound above the victim’s eye, which was allegedly made by a slung shot found near the scene of the fight, was not made by such a heavy object and couldn’t have been fatal. Another witness claims that the slung shot in question belonged to him and was in his possession, not Duff’s, at the time of the fight. The other witnesses say Duff hit Metzker with his fists after Metzker, the more powerful man, attacked him.
As I begin my closing argument, I remove my coat and vest. “Gentlemen, I admit that I have a personal investment in this case.” I gaze into each of their faces. They are all young men, most of them not yet thirty. I have encountered many of them as children as they’ve grown up here in Cass County. Their parents are well known to me as well. Some of the older ones such as Milt Logan, a farmer and leading citizen, have either been clients or adversaries in this very courtroom; if not that, we’ve crossed paths in politics. To a man, their expressions are warm and attentive.
I turn and fix my eyes on Duff Armstrong. “When I was not much older than this boy, I often sat on the floor of his mother’s home, rocking his cradle.” I gesture toward Hannah sitting next to me, wearing a large sunbonnet covering her silvery hair. “On one such occasion, she was mending the only tattered suit of clothes I owned. I was penniless and alone in a strange village. They were one of many families that gave me shelter and fed me.”
I turn back to the jurymen, removing my tie. “It would break his mother’s heart, and mine as well, to see him hanged for defending himself.” I dab tears with my tie and lay it on the witness chair. A juryman, Benjamin Eyre—the son of a plow and wagon manufacturer—swallows hard. Hannah begins to sob.
I take a kerchief from my trouser pocket and wipe my brow. I point to Duff; the suspender on my left shoulder slips off and hangs at my side. “This good boy is too bright to have attacked a man much larger than himself—Metzker weighing about two-hundred pounds while Duff is only one-hundred and forty. Had Duff done so, he would have armed himself first, even if under the influence of whiskey.
“Eight witnesses say Duff was unarmed. In fact, we are told that Metzker dragged Duff off of a bench, spat in his face and began to beat him. Only the witness Allen claims Duff was armed, but now he admits he could not have seen what he believes he saw due to darkness that evening. Furthermore, the alleged weapon was in someone else’s possession at the time of the fight.”
I step up to the jury box and lean in towards the twelve men seated there. One of them, a farmer’s son who’s no older than Duff, smiles. My voice cracks. “This boy’s father was my dear friend. He died while Duff was in jail awaiting trial. Poor Jack never knew what his boy’s fate would be, but he died knowing he’d raised a good boy who got caught up in circumstances that weren’t of his own making. Circumstances that might have cost him his life if he hadn’t defended himself. But in choosing to defend himself that night, he trusted his life would be safe in a courtroom in the hands of good men like yourselves.”
Again, I gaze into each of the jurymen’s faces. Not a single eye is dry. “I ask you, I plead with you to see the facts of this case clearly. If there be any doubt in your minds, consider a broken-hearted widow who needs her son back home to comfort her. Do not add the slightest blackness to her darkest hour.”
Finally, I turn to Duff. “I can assure you on my own honor that this boy will go from here to make a good man of himself, as good a man as his father was.” They all nod and several wipe tears from their eyes.
When Fullerton rises to make his summation, Hannah leaves the courtroom just as his ringing voice pronounces his greeting to the jury. I imagine she’s near the breaking point and can’t bear to hear what the prosecutor will say about her boy.
One hour later, when the jury returns with a verdict of “Not Guilty,” Duff throws his arms around me, burying his face in my coat. Barely audible through his weeping, he asks, “How can I ever pay you for what you’ve done?”
“You don’t owe me a thing, but I made a promise today, boy. Now it’s your job to keep it.”
He nods. “I will, Sir. I will.”
I smile. “You better. I whipped your pa many years ago, and don’t you think I can’t do the same to you, even in my mature years.”
With my arm draped over his shoulder, we head off to find Hannah and deliver the joyful news.