Edwin M. Stanton was one of the attorneys in the great “reaper patent”
case heard in Cincinnati in 1855, Lincoln also having been retained.
The latter was rather anxious to deliver the argument on the general
propositions of law applicable to the case, but it being decided to have
Mr. Stanton do this, the Westerner made no complaint.
Speaking of Stanton’s argument and the view Lincoln took of it, Ralph
Emerson, a young lawyer who was present at the trial, said:
“The final summing up on our side was by Mr. Stanton, and though he took
but about three hours in its delivery, he had devoted as many, if not
more, weeks to its preparation. It was very able, and Mr. Lincoln was
throughout the whole of it a rapt listener. Mr. Stanton closed his
speech in a flight of impassioned eloquence.
“Then the court adjourned for the day, and Mr. Lincoln invited me to
take a long walk with him. For block after block he walked rapidly
forward, not saying a word, evidently deeply dejected.
“At last he turned suddenly to me, exclaiming, ‘Emerson, I am going
home.’ A pause. ‘I am going home to study law.’
“‘Why,’ I exclaimed, ‘Mr. Lincoln, you stand at the head of the bar in
Illinois now! What are you talking about?’
“‘Ah, yes,’ he said, ‘I do occupy a good position there, and I think
that I can get along with the way things are done there now. But these
college-trained men, who have devoted their whole lives to study, are
coming West, don’t you see? And they study their cases as we never do.
They have got as far as Cincinnati now. They will soon be in Illinois.’
“Another long pause; then stopping and turning toward me, his
countenance suddenly assuming that look of strong determination which
those who knew him best sometimes saw upon his face, he exclaimed, ‘I am
going home to study law! I am as good as any, of them, and when they get
out to Illinois, I will be ready for them.’”
“THE ‘RAIL-SPUTTER’ REPAIRING THE UNION.”
The cartoon given here in facsimile was one of the posters which
decorated the picturesque Presidential campaign of 1864, and assisted
in making the period previous to the vote-casting a lively and memorable
one. This poster was a lithograph, and, as the title, “The Rail-Splitter
at Work Repairing the Union,” would indicate, the President is using the
Vice-Presidential candidate on the Republican National ticket (Andrew
Johnson) as an aid in the work. Johnson was, in early life, a tailor,
and he is pictured as busily engaged in sewing up the rents made in the
map of the Union by the secessionists.
Both men are thoroughly in earnest, and, as history relates, the torn
places in the Union map were stitched together so nicely that no one
could have told, by mere observation, that a tear had ever been made.
Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln upon the assassination of the
latter, was a remarkable man. Born in North Carolina, he removed to
Tennessee when young, was Congressman, Governor, and United States
Senator, being made military Governor of his State in 1862. A strong,
stanch Union man, he was nominated for the Vice-Presidency on the
Lincoln ticket to conciliate the War Democrats. After serving out his
term as President, he was again elected United States Senator from
Tennessee, but died shortly after taking his seat. But he was just the
sort of a man to assist “Uncle Abe” in sewing up the torn places in the
Union map, and as military Governor of Tennessee was a powerful factor
in winning friends in the South to the Union cause.
“FIND OUT FOR YOURSELVES.”
“Several of us lawyers,” remarked one of his colleagues, “in the eastern
end of the circuit, annoyed Lincoln once while he was holding court for
Davis by attempting to defend against a note to which there were many
makers. We had no legal, but a good moral defense, but what we wanted
most of all was to stave it off till the next term of court by one
expedient or another.
“We bothered ‘the court’ about it till late on Saturday, the day of
adjournment. He adjourned for supper with nothing left but this case to
dispose of. After supper he heard our twaddle for nearly an hour, and
then made this odd entry.
“‘L. D. Chaddon vs. J. D. Beasley et al. April Term, 1856. Champaign
county Court. Plea in abatement by B. Z. Green, a defendant not served,
filed Saturday at 11 o’clock a. m., April 24, 1856, stricken from the
files by order of court. Demurrer to declaration, if there ever was one,
overruled. Defendants who are served now, at 8 o’clock p. m., of the
last day of the term, ask to plead to the merits, which is denied by the
court on the ground that the offer comes too late, and therefore, as
by nil dicet, judgment is rendered for Pl’ff. Clerk assess damages. A.
Lincoln, Judge pro tem.’
“The lawyer who reads this singular entry will appreciate its oddity
if no one else does. After making it, one of the lawyers, on recovering
from his astonishment, ventured to enquire: ‘Well, Lincoln, how can we
get this case up again?’
“Lincoln eyed him quizzically for a moment, and then answered, ‘You have
all been so mighty smart about this case, you can find out how to take
it up again yourselves.”’