WHEREIN ABE LINCOLN REVEALS HIS METHOD OF CONDUCTING A LAWSUIT IN THE
CASE OF HENRY BRIMSTEAD ET AL., VS. LIONEL DAVIS.
They found many of Davis's notes in Tazewell County. Abe Lincoln's
complaint represented seven clients and a sum exceeding twenty thousand
dollars.
"Now, Harry, you don't like Davis and I can't blame you for it," said
Honest Abe before they parted. "Don't spoil our case by trying to take it
out of his hide. First we've got to take it out of his pocket. When I get
through there may not be any hide on him worth speaking of, but if there
is you can have it and welcome."
With the papers in his pocket Harry went on to the Honey Creek
settlement. There he found that the plague had spent itself and that Bim
had gone to a detention camp outside the city of Chicago. He rode on to
the camp but was not permitted to see her, the regulations having become
very strict. In the city he went to the store of Eli Fredenberg. The
merchant received him with enthusiasm. Chicago had begun to recover from
the panic. Trade was lively. Eli wanted Harry to go to work in the store
until he was prepared for the law.
"You must stay here until you haf got a wife already," said the
thoughtful Eli. "It is bat for you and Bim to be not marrit so much."
The young man favored both the commercial and the sentimental suggestions
of Eli. He had long felt the lure of that promising little city on the
lake shore.
"I wish you'd take this complaint and serve it on Davis," he said. "I
don't want to see him if I can help it. If you don't mind, you can tell
him that I've come to life and am here in the city and that if he kills
me again he'd better do it while I'm looking. It would be more decent."
Eli was delighted with a task which promised a degree of discomfort to
the man who had endeavored to ruin him. Harry spent the afternoon with
Mrs. Kelso and Bim's baby boy. The good woman was much excited by the
arrival of the young soldier.
"We have had a terrible year," she said. "We couldn't have lived through
it without the help of a friend. Bim went away to take care of the sick
in the smallpox neighborhood. She was rather discouraged. Our friend, Mr.
Davis, is in love with her. She promised to marry him. It seemed to be
the only way out of our troubles. But she will not even write to him
now. I think that she is very unhappy."
"I shall not try to increase her troubles, but I shall prevent her from
marrying Davis if I can," said Harry.
"Why?"
"Because I think he is dishonest."
"He has convinced me that all the reports are wrong," Mrs. Kelso
declared. "I think that he is one of the kindest and best of men."
"I shall not argue with you as to the character of my rival," Harry
answered. "The facts will be on record one of these days and then you can
form your own judgment. I hope you won't mind my coming here to see you
and the baby now and then."
"You are always welcome. But Mr. Davis comes often and feeling as you do
it might be unpleasant for you to meet him."
"It would. I'll keep away until the air clears," said Harry.
He wrote a very tender letter to Bim that day. He told her that he had
come to Chicago to live so that he might be near her and ready to help
her if she needed help. "The same old love is in my heart that made me
want you for my wife long ago, that has filled my letters and sustained
me in many an hour of peril," he wrote. "If you really think that you
must marry Davis, I ask you at least to wait for the developments of a
suit which Abe Lincoln is bringing in behalf of many citizens of Tazewell
County. It is likely that we shall know more than we do now before that
case ends. I saw your beautiful little boy. He looks so much like you
that I long to steal him and keep him with me."
In a few days he received this brief reply:
* * * * *
"Dear Harry: Your letter pleased and pained me. I have been so tossed
about that I don't know quite where I stand. My brain is like a bridge
that has been washed out by floods. I am picking up the fragments and
trying to rebuild it. For a long time my life has been nothing but a
series of emotions. What Honest Abe may be able to prove I know not, but
I am sure that he can not disprove the fact that Mr. Davis has been kind
and generous to me. For that I can not ever cease to be grateful. I
should have married him before now but for one singular circumstance.
My little boy can not be made to like him. He will have nothing to do
with Mr. Davis. He will not be bribed or coerced. Time and kindness do
not seem to diminish his dislike. My soul has been drugged with argument
and--I can not help saying it--bribed with favors. But the boy has been
steadfast. He has kept his frankness and honesty. I saw in this a
prophecy of trouble. I left home and went down into the very shadow of
death. It may be that we have been saved for each other by the wisdom of
childhood. I must not see you now. Nor shall I see him until I have found
my way. Even your call can not make me forget that I am under a solemn
promise. I must keep it without much more delay unless something happens
to release me.
"I'm glad you like the boy. He is a wonderful child. I named him Nehemiah
for his grandfather. We call him Nim and sometimes 'Mr. Nimble' because
he is so lively. I'm homesick to see him and you. I am going to Dixon to
teach and earn money for mother and the baby. Don't tell any one where I
am and above all don't come to see me until in good heart I can ask you
to come.
"God bless you!
"Bim."
* * * * *
In a few weeks the suit came on. It was tried in the new brick
Court-House in Chicago. Davis's defense, as given in the answer, alleged
that the notes were to be paid out of the proceeds of the sale of lots
and that in consequence of the collapse of the boom there had been no
such proceeds. His claim was supported by the testimony of his secretary
and another and by certain letters of his, promising payment as soon as
the land was sold, and by letters from the plaintiffs allowing that
grace. As to the understanding upon which the notes were drawn, there was
a direct issue of veracity for which Abe Lincoln was exceedingly well
prepared. He had gained possession of many facts in the history of the
young speculator, including the important one that he had been convicted
of fraud in New Orleans. Mr. Lincoln's cross-examination was as merciless
as sunlight "falling round a helpless thing." It was kindly and polite in
tone but relentless in its searching. When it ended, the weight of
Davis's character had been accurately established. In his masterly
summing up Mr. Lincoln presented every circumstance in favor of the
defendant's position. With remarkable insight he anticipated the
arguments of his attorney. He presented them fairly and generously to the
court and jury. According to Samson the opposing lawyers admitted in a
private talk that Lincoln had thought of presumptions in favor of Davis
which had not occurred to them. Therein lay the characteristic of Mr.
Lincoln's method in a lawsuit.
* * * * *
"It was a safe thing for him to do for he never took a case in which
justice was not clearly on his side," Samson writes. "If he had been
deceived as to the merits of a case he would drop it. With the sword
of justice in his hand he was invincible."
* * * * *
First he put the thing to be weighed on the scale fully and fairly. Then,
one by one, he put the units of gravity on the other side so that the
court and jury saw the turning of the balance.
He covered the point at issue with a few words "every one of which drew
blood," to quote a phrase from the diary. He showed that the validity of
such claims rested wholly on the character of the man who made them,
especially when they were opposed to the testimony of people whose
honesty had been questioned only by that man.
"Now as to the secretary," said Mr. Lincoln, "I honestly regret that he
has disagreed with himself. A young man ought not to disagree with
himself as to the truth and especially when he contradicts the oath of
witnesses whom we have no reason to discredit. I want to be kind to him
on account of his youth. He reminds me of the young man who hired out to
a Captain in Gloucester and shipped for the China coast and learned
presently that he was on a pirate vessel. He had been a young man of good
intentions but he had to turn to and help the business along. When the
ship was captured he said:
"I didn't want to be a pirate, but there was only one kind o' politics on
that ship and the majority was so large I thought that the vote might as
well be unanimous. At first I was in favor of reform but the walkin' was
that bad I had to decide between a harp and a cutlass.'
"This parable serves to illustrate the history of most young men who fall
into bad company. The walking becomes more or less bad for them. They get
into the bondage of Fear. We know not how it may have influenced the
action of Cap'n Davis's First Mate. Probably since the hard times began,
the walking has looked bad to him but still there was walking. I am sorry
it must be said that there was walking and I hope that he will now make
some use of it."
He did and in time confessed to Samson Traylor that Mr. Lincoln's
reproach had been the saving of him. A judgment was rendered in favor of
the plaintiffs for the full amount of their claim with costs. The
character of Lionel Davis had been sufficiently revealed. Even the
credulous Mrs. Kelso turned against him. Mr. Lincoln's skill as a lawyer
was recognized in the north as well as in the middle counties. From
that day forth no man enjoyed a like popularity in Tazewell County.
When Samson and Harry Needles left the Court-House, there seemed to be no
obstacle between the young man and the consummation of his wishes.
Unfortunately, as they were going down the steps Davis, who blamed Samson
for his troubles, flung an insult at the sturdy Vermonter. Samson, who
had then arrived at years of firm discretion, was little disturbed by the
anger of a man so discredited. But Harry, on the sound of the hateful
words, had leaped forward and dealt the speculator a savage blow in the
face which for a few seconds had deprived him of the power of speech.
That evening a friend of Davis called at the City Hall with a challenge.
The hot-blooded young soldier accepted it against the urgent counsel of
Samson Traylor, Mr. Lincoln having left the city. It was a fashion of the
time for gentlemen to stand up and shoot at each other after such a
quarrel. But Davis, since the trial, had no character to defend and
therefore no right to enter the field of honor with a man of Harry's
standing. But the young officer had promised to fight and was not to be
dissuaded.
As to the details of the tragic scene that followed next day, the
writer has little knowledge. Samson was not the type of man for such
a chronicle. The diary speaks of his part in it with shame and sorrow
and remorse. His mind seems to have been too much engaged with its own
fears and thoughts to take note of the color. We may infer from one
remark in it that the sky was clear. We know, too, that it was
at day-break when he and Harry rode to a point on the prairie "something
more than a mile from the city limits." There he tells us they met Davis
and one friend of the latter and two surgeons who had driven to the scene
in a box wagon. It is evident, too, that great secrecy had been observed
in the plan and its execution and that, until sometime after the last
act, Lincoln knew nothing of the later developments in the drama of
Davis's downfall. For the rest of the deplorable scene the historian must
content himself with the naked details in the diary of a puritan pioneer.
They are, at least, direct and derive a certain vividness from their
haste to be done with it as a proceeding of which the less said the
better.
* * * * *
"I went because there was no escape from it and with the shadow of God's
wrath in my soul," Samson writes. "The sun rose as we halted our horses.
We paced the field. The two men took their places twenty yards apart.
Harry was a little pale but he stood up as straight and steady as a
hitching post. The pistols rang out at the command to fire and both men
fell. Davis had been hit in the left shoulder. My handsome boy lay on his
face. The bullet had bored through his right lung. Before I could reach
him he had risen to his feet ready to go on with the battle. Davis lay
like one paralyzed by the shock of the bullet. His seconds declared they
were satisfied. The surgeons began their work. I saw them take the bullet
out of Harry's back where it had lodged under his skin. I helped them put
the wounded men into the wagon and rode to the house of one of the
doctors near the city wherein were rooms for the accommodation of
critical cases, leading Harry's horse and praying for God's help and
forgiveness. I took care of the boy until Steve Nuckles came to help me.
Bim arrived when Harry was out of his head and didn't know her. She was
determined to stay and do the nursing but I wouldn't let her. She did not
look strong. I loaned her the money to pay the debt to Davis and
persuaded her to go back to her work in Dixon. She went and was rather
heart-broken about it.
"As she was leaving she looked into my face and said: 'Don't tell him or
any one what has happened to me. I want to tell him.'
"I promised to keep her secret and did it. Soon I learned that she was
down sick of her worries. I sent her mother to her and kept the small boy
with me.
"The surgeon said that Harry would live if lung fever didn't set in. It
set in but he pulled through. He mended slowly. I had some fear of arrest
but the conspiracy of silence kept the facts under cover. It was partly
due, I guess, to the friendship of John Wentworth for me and Honest Abe.
He kept it out of the papers. There were no complaints and the rumors
soon fell into silence. I spent about six weeks at Harry's bedside and in
the store which has begun to prosper.
"The boy, 'Mr. Nimble,' is a cunning little man. When he began to get
better, Harry loved to play with him and listen to his talk about
fairies. The young man was able to leave his bed, by and by, but he
didn't get over his weakness and pallor. He had no appetite. I sent him
with Nuckles into the Wisconsin woods to live in the open. Then I took
the small boy to Dixon with me in the saddle. Bim had just got back to
her work. She was distressed by the news of Harry's condition.
"'I fear he has got his death-blow,' she said with a sad look in her
face. 'I had hoped that we could be married this autumn. But something
comes between us always. First it was my folly and now it is his folly.
It seems as if we hadn't sense enough to get married when there's nothing
in the way of it.'
"She told me that Eliphalet Biggs had been there. He had heard of the boy
and wished to see him and demanded to know where he was. For fear that
Biggs would try to get possession of 'Mr. Nimble' I took him with me to
Springfield in the saddle.
"I learn that Davis has recovered his health and left the city. A man can
not do business without friends and after the trial Chicago was no place
for him."