Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 1

by Michael Burlingame

  In federal court, Lincoln and his partners were involved in two dozen patent cases, including Parker vs. Hoyt, an 1850 action he successfully argued in Chicago involving infringement of a patented waterwheel. Lincoln thought of his triumph as one of the high points of his legal career. He was especially interested in the issues involved, for he had long ago worked at a sawmill where he learned much about waterwheels. His co-counsel, Grant Goodrich, said Lincoln “had a great deal of Mechanical genius, could understand readily the principles & mechanical action of machinery, & had the power, in his clear, simple illustrations & Style to make the jury comprehend them.”142

  In 1855, another patent case took Lincoln to Cincinnati for a major trial that would affect his future. The McCormick Reaper Company sued the John H. Manny Company of Rockford, Illinois, for infringing its patent. Because the case was originally scheduled to be tried in Illinois before Judge Thomas Drummond, Manny hired Lincoln as associate counsel, paying him a retainer of $1,000 to keep McCormick from employing him. Lincoln’s name was suggested because he knew Judge Drummond and because the firm wanted to have local talent on the legal team. But the lead attorney for Manny, George Harding of Philadelphia, was unenthusiastic about Lincoln; his choice for co-counsel was Pittsburgh attorney Edwin M. Stanton. Reluctantly, Harding dispatched an associate, Peter Watson, to consult with Lincoln. When Watson knocked on the door of the house at Eighth and Jackson Streets, Mary Lincoln poked her head out of a window and asked, “Who is there?”

  Watson explained that he had come from Philadelphia to see her husband.

  “Business or politics?” she queried.

  “When told it was business, she (Mrs. Lincoln) indicated her satisfaction by the modified tone in which she shouted, ‘Abe, here is a man wants to see you on business.’ ”

  Dressed casually, Lincoln opened the door and invited Watson into the parlor, which his guest found unprepossessing. As Harding related, “Watson was satisfied that he was not the associate we wanted, but, after some conversation, concluded that Lincoln had qualities which might be rather effective in that community, that it would be unwise to incur his hostility by turning him down after consulting him, and paid him a retainer (at which he seemed much surprised), arranged for quite a substantial fee to be paid at the close of the litigation, and left him under the impression that he was to make an argument and should prepare himself for it.”

  When Watson reported back to Harding, however, they agreed that Lincoln would not in fact help present the argument but that Stanton would be hired to do so. Lincoln would be sidetracked, but he was not informed of this altered plan. When the trial was moved from Chicago to Cincinnati, to suit the convenience of Justice John McLean, who was to preside instead of Drummond, the need for Lincoln’s services as local talent disappeared. Instead of letting him go, Harding and Watson allowed him to proceed writing his brief. As Lincoln worked away, he looked forward to jousting with some of the finest legal minds in the country.

  When he arrived in the Queen City, Lincoln was surprised to discover that he would not help present the argument. The sophisticated Stanton and Harding, for their part, were taken aback when they first beheld their unprepossessing co-counsel, whose clothes fit him badly. After being introduced, Lincoln suggested that they proceed to the court “in a gang.” Stanton pulled Harding aside and said, “Let that fellow go with his gang. We’ll walk up together.” And so they did, snubbing Lincoln. At the courthouse, Stanton emphatically announced that only he and Harding would be arguing their client’s case.143

  Throughout the trial, Harding and Stanton continued to ignore their associate. When Lincoln asked Watson to present Harding with a copy of the argument he had laboriously prepared, the Philadelphia attorney returned it unopened. Harding remembered that “in all his experience he had never seen one man insult another more grossly, and that too without reason, than Stanton insulted Lincoln on that occasion.” Stanton “conducted himself toward Lincoln in such a way that it was evident that he, Stanton, thought Lincoln was of no importance, and deserved no consideration whatever from himself, and he refused to talk with him, and told Harding that it was shameful that such a low-down country lawyer should be sent to associate with them.” Stanton “refused to walk with Lincoln or to be seen on the street with him.” In court, Stanton “refused to talk with, or say anything to Lincoln, but utterly ignored him, even refusing to take from Lincoln’s hands one of the models used in the case.”144 Stanton, who referred to Lincoln as a “giraffe” and a “long-armed baboon,” once rudely jerked him by the coattails and told him to step aside as lawyers examined the reapers on display.145 Thereafter, Stanton “did not attempt to conceal his unkind feelings” toward Lincoln until he was appointed secretary of war in 1862.146 (Later Stanton said, “What a mistake I made about that man when I met him in Cincinnati.”)147

  Understandably, Lincoln felt so badly treated and so humiliated, and was so deeply disappointed, that he told Ralph Emerson, an officer of the Manny Company who had suggested that Lincoln be hired, that he planned to quit. Only persistent lobbying by Emerson and Watson persuaded him to stay on. As Lincoln closely observed the proceedings, he looked depressed but was fascinated by the dueling high-powered attorneys. He sat directly behind Harding as the Philadelphian held forth, following each step of the argument.

  As he left town, Lincoln told his hostess, “You have made my stay here most agreeable, and I am a thousand times obliged to you; but in reply to your request for me to come again I must say to you I never expect to be in Cincinnati again. I have nothing against the city, but things have so happened here as to make it undesirable for me ever to return here.”148

  When Lincoln received a check for his services, he returned it, insisting that since he had not made the argument he deserved no more than he had been given as a retainer. The check was once again sent to Springfield with the explanation that Lincoln had prepared a case and was entitled to a fee as though he had delivered it. Eventually Lincoln accepted both the argument and the money.

  Murder Cases

  Although 95 percent of the documented cases that Lincoln and his partners handled were civil, they participated in several trials for murder and assault with intent to murder. One of the more controversial murder cases was that of Isaac Wyant, who attacked his neighbor Ason Rusk with a knife. In self-defense, Rusk shot his assailant in the arm, which was subsequently amputated. In 1855, thirsting for revenge, Wyant shot Rusk to death in cold blood. Lincoln helped prosecute the case. (He substituted as prosecutor sometimes when the state’s attorney was absent; at other times he was hired by interested parties to assist the prosecutor, who was often young and inexperienced.) Leonard Swett defended Wyant with the novel insanity plea and won despite Lincoln’s best efforts. Later, when informed by authorities at the state insane asylum that Wyant was truly deranged, Lincoln expressed regret for having prosecuted him so vigorously. Lincoln helped prosecute another murder case, The People vs. Denton and Denton. The defendants, James and George W. Denton, accused of murdering their brother-in-law with axes, were found not guilty.

  One murder case held such a special fascination for Lincoln that he published a long account of it anonymously. James H. Matheny called it “the most remarkable trial that ever took place in Springfield.”149 Lincoln, Logan, and Baker defended Archibald and William Trailor, who were charged with the murder of Archibald Fisher. A coerced confession from a brother of the accused men, along with suspicious circumstantial evidence, seemed to establish their guilt. Some residents of Springfield were in the mood to lynch the alleged felons. After the prosecution presented what seemed an airtight case, Lincoln called only one witness, who testified that Fisher was alive and staying with him, sound in body if not in mind. He suffered from amnesia and could not recall where he had been recently. The case was dismissed.

  According to Governor Thomas Ford, “in all cases of murder arising from heat of blood or in [a] fight it was impossible to convict. The juries were willin
g enough to convict an assassin or one who murdered by taking a dishonorable advantage, but otherwise if there was a conflict and nothing unfair in it.”150 That proved untrue in the case of William Fraim, a client of Lincoln’s who was convicted of stabbing to death an opponent in a drunken brawl. He was hanged after Lincoln had exhausted all legal remedies.

  In 1859, Lincoln represented Melissa Goings, a 77-year-old woman accused of murdering her husband; she claimed she had acted in self-defense. During a recess in the trial, she fled Illinois, eventually winding up on the Pacific coast. When the court bailiff charged that Lincoln had suggested she flee, he replied: “I didn’t run her off. She wanted to know where she could get a good drink of water, and I told her there was mighty good water in Tennessee.”151

  In another murder case in 1859, Lincoln’s client, Thomas Patterson, was found guilty of manslaughter in the death of Samuel DeHaven. The deceased, while drunk, had tried to buy a hatchet on credit at Patterson’s store. When Patterson refused him, the enraged DeHaven picked up a spade and approached the storekeeper, who flung a 2-pound lead weight at Dehaven, killing him. Lincoln and Leonard Swett were unable to persuade the jury that the well-to-do Patterson acted in self-defense. According to Henry C. Whitney, who was also part of the defense team, Lincoln made “a very poor” closing speech. Whitney personally thought that Patterson, whom he characterized as “a worthless doggery keeper,” was guilty of murder.152 Lincoln seems to have shared Whitney’s feelings about their client, and that doubt undermined his advocacy. Swett argued so effectively that it seemed as if Patterson would be acquitted. But the next day Lincoln undid all the good that Swett had done, and Patterson was convicted and sentenced to three years in jail. Feeling responsible for the outcome, Lincoln successfully appealed to the governor for a pardon, and Patterson was released after spending one year in the penitentiary.

  In his best-known murder case, the “Almanac Trial,” Lincoln defended William “Duff “ Armstrong, 24-year-old son of his good friends from New Salem days, Hannah and Jack Armstrong. In September 1857, the defendant was accused of killing James Preston “Pres” Metzker, a 28-year-old father of three. Along with several other young men, including Armstrong, Metzker had been drinking on the outskirts of a camp meeting near Hiawatha in Mason County. Around 10 P.M., the inebrieated Armstrong lay down to sleep not far from the impromptu bars that were a common feature at camp meetings. Suddenly the much taller and stronger Metzker, also intoxicated, awoke him and picked a fight. After they battled, Metzker similarly provoked 27-year-old James Norris. Not long thereafter, Armstrong and Norris attacked him. The latter clubbed Metzker from behind, fracturing his skull. Armstrong was accused of hitting Metzker in the eye with a kind of blackjack called a slungshot. Somehow Metzker managed to mount his horse and ride home, where he died three days later.

  Norris and Armstrong were arrested, jailed in nearby Havana, and indicted for murder. Armstrong’s family hired the local firm of Dilworth & Campbell, which successfully moved for a change of venue. Unfortunately for Norris, his court-appointed attorney failed to do the same; in November he was swiftly tried, convicted of manslaughter, and sentenced to eight years at hard labor. It seemed likely that Armstrong would meet a similar fate when tried in Beardstown that same month. Public sentiment ran strongly against Armstrong, whose rather wild behavior, including quarrels with schoolmates, was well known and exaggerated. The possibility of a lynching hung heavy in the air. Compounding the Armstrongs’ woes, Jack suddenly died in November, leaving Hannah a poor widow.

  One of the Clary’s Grove gang, Thomas S. Edwards, sought out Lincoln. “I set down and told him all about the boy’s fix and the widder’s trouble, and asked what could be done. He set there a minute, pushing his gold specks up into his hair, looking kind o’ serious at the floor. I imagined that, like the balance of the lawyers, he was thinking about his fee.” Edwards assured Lincoln that he would be paid. The attorney then “looked up, smiling quietly, a way he has got, more with his eyes than his mouth, and says: ‘You Ed’ards! you ought to know me better than to think I’d take a fee from any of Jack Armstrong’s blood.’ Then he laid his hand on my shoulder in his old fashion, and says: ‘Why, bless your soul, I’ve danced that boy on my knee a hundred times in the long winter nights by his father’s fire, down in old Howard. I wouldn’t be worthy to take your hand, Tom, if I turned on him now. Go back and tell old Hannah to keep up a good heart, and we will see what can be done.’ ”153

  In November, while in Beardstown representing a client, Lincoln called on Armstrong’s lawyer, Caleb J. Dilworth of Havana, who filled him in on the facts of the case. To Dilworth’s delight, Lincoln volunteered to help defend the lad. That night they interviewed some witnesses. When the prosecution won a continuance, Lincoln had more time to prepare his defense. He visited Hannah at her home in Mason County, traversed the scene of the crime, inspected records of the Norris trial, unsuccessfully requested that Armstrong be released on bail, and interviewed witnesses.

  One of those witnesses, Nelson Watkins, had been drinking with the others on the fatal night. He owned the homemade slungshot that Armstrong had allegedly used to strike and kill Metzker; it had been discovered near the scene of the crime. Armstrong denied ever having had possession of it. Shortly after the trial, Watkins told juror John T. Brady “that Mr. Lincoln … questioned him about the sling shot, and asked how it happened to be lost, and then found near the spot where Metzker was killed.” Watkins somewhat implausibly stated that he had gone to sleep under a wagon and had placed the weapon on its frame; the next morning he had forgotten about it, and it evidently fell off the wagon as it passed near the crime scene. Watkins then confided to Brady that “he told Mr. Lincoln that he (Lincoln) did not want to use him (Watkins) as a witness, as he knew too much, and he began to tell Lincoln what he knew, and Mr. Lincoln would not allow him to tell him anything and said to Watkins: ‘All I want to know is this: Did you make that sling-shot? and did Duff Armstrong ever have it in his possession?’ Watkins said he replied: ‘On cross-examination they may make me tell things I do not want to tell.’ ” Lincoln assured him that he would not be questioned about any subject other than the alleged murder weapon. Watkins further confided to Brady “that Duff Armstrong killed Metzker by striking him in the eye with an old fashioned wagon hammer and that he saw him do it.”154 It is not clear how Lincoln could guarantee that Watkins would not be asked damaging questions on cross-examination.

  Armstrong’s trial began in Beardstown on May 7, 1858. Taking charge of the jury selection for the defense, Lincoln exercised great care. From the first pool of potential jurors only four were chosen, so a second pool of fifty was brought in. Although Lincoln did not know the potential jurors personally, he sought to empanel young men on the assumption that they would be more sympathetic to Armstrong than older men would be. The dozen men finally chosen ranged in age from 24 to 38.

  Lincoln’s folksy approach to the trial was apparent when he examined the witness William Killian. Lincoln began by asking his name. “William Killian,” was the reply. “Bill Killian?” Lincoln repeated in a familiar way; “tell me, are you a son of old Jake Killian?” “Yes sir,” answered the witness. “Well,” said Lincoln, somewhat aside, “you are a smart boy if you take after your dad.”155

  Killian and another witness, William A. Douglas, testified that although Armstrong had behaved like a rowdy on occasion, he never did anything vicious. Lincoln summoned other witnesses who stated that Armstrong and Norris had not colluded and that Armstrong used only his fists against Metzker.

  Lincoln called an expert witness, Dr. Charles E. Parker, who stated that both of Metzker’s skull injuries could have been caused by the blow Norris had administered to the back of the victim’s head. Nelson Watkins swore that he owned the slungshot and that Armstrong had never possessed it. Then Charles Allen, the prosecution’s chief witness, took the stand. According to jury foreman Milton Logan, the questioning went something like this:

 
; Q. Did you see Armstrong strike Metzker?

  A. Yes.

  Q. About how far were you from where the affair took place?

  A. About 40 feet. I was standing on a knoll or hill looking down at them.

  Q. Was it a light night?

  A. Yes, it was.

  Q. Any moon that night?

  A. Yes, the moon was shining almost as bright as day.

  Q. About how high was the moon?

  A. About where the sun would be at 10 o’clock in the day.

  Q. Are you certain there was a moon that night?

  A. Yes, sir; I am certain.

  Q. You are sure you are not mistaken about the moon shining as brightly as you represent?

  A. No, sir; I am not mistaken.

  Q. Did you see Armstrong strike Metzker by the light of the moon and did you see Metzker fall?

  A. I did.

  Q. What did Armstrong strike him with?

  A. With a slingshot.

  Q. Where did he strike Metzker?

  A. On the side of the head.

  Q. About what time did you say this happened?

  A. About 11 o’clock at night.156

  Another juror remembered that “Lincoln was very particular to have him [Allen] repeat himself a dozen or more times during the trial about where the moon was located” and “was very careful not to cross Mr. Allen in anything, and when Allen lacked words to express himself, Lincoln loaned them to him.”157 The prosecutor, who had gone over the same ground eliciting the same testimony, felt confident that he would win.