Lincoln's Greatest Case: The River, the Bridge, and the Making of America

by Brian McGinty

10 Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life 1:67.

  11 CWL 3:512.

  12 HI, 362.

  13 Donald, Lincoln, 45.

  14 CWL 1:510.

  15 Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life 1:71.

  16 See discussion in chapter 2.

  17 VanderVelde, Mrs. Dred Scott, 74–75. Fehrenbacher, The Dred Scott Case, 244, says that the slave built a cabin for Dr. Emerson on the opposite side of the river (now Iowa). VanderVelde, 75, 345n50, says it is more likely that the cabin was built by a hired man who was also a friend of Dr. Emerson and who stayed there after Emerson left.

  18 “An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States Northwest of the River Ohio, adopted by the Congress under the Articles of Confederation, July 13, 1787, sec. 4, provided: “There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” The legal principle that a slave became free when taken by his or her owner to a jurisdiction where slavery was not authorized by law derived from the English case of Somerset v. Stewart, in which Lord Chief Justice Mansfield said that the status of a slave was “so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law.” Somerset v. Stewart, Lofft 1, 19, (K.B. 1772). If the law of the place did not sanction slavery, it was deemed illegal. See Fehrenbacher, The Dred Scott Case, 53–56. For the long history and complex permutations of Mansfield’s decision in England and the United States, see Wiecek, “Somerset: Lord Mansfield and the Legitimacy of Slavery in the Anglo-American World,” 86–147. For Dred Scott’s origins and travels with his master, see Fehrenbacher, The Dred Scott Case, 239–49.

  19 3 Stat. 545–48, sec. 8, providing: “That in all that territory ceded by France to the United States, under the name of Louisiana, which lies north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude, not included within the limits of the state, contemplated by this act [Missouri], slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise than in punishment of crimes, whereof the parties shall have been duly convicted, shall be, and is hereby forever prohibited.”

  20 Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. [19 Howard.] 393, 407 (1857).

  21 See discussion in chapter 13. For a more extensive review of the Dred Scott case and Lincoln’s criticism of it, see McGinty, Lincoln and the Court, 38–64.

  22 House Executive Document No. 51, 35th Congress, 2nd Session, 1859, 3, as quoted in Agnew, “Jefferson Davis and the Rock Island Bridge,” 4–5.

  23 10 Stat. 28–29.

  24 Private Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed by the Eighteenth General Assembly, Convened January 3, 1853 (Springfield: Lanphier and Walker, 1853), 329–30. The charter was reprinted in RIA, April 17, 1857, 2.

  25 Private Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed by the Eighteenth General Assembly, Convened January 3, 1853 (Springfield: Lanphier and Walker, 1853), 329–30.

  26 McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. [4 Wheaton] 316, 405 (1819).

  27 Ibid., 421.

  28 Ibid.

  29 Pennsylvania v. Wheeling and Belmont Bridge Company, 54 U.S. [13 Howard.] 518, 558 (1852).

  30 Monroe, The Wheeling Bridge Case, 3.

  31 Pennsylvania v. Wheeling and Belmont Bridge Company, 54 U.S. [13 Howard] 518, 568 (1852).

  32 Ibid., 578.

  33 Ibid., 591.

  34 Ibid., 603.

  35 10 Stat. 110–12.

  36 Monroe, The Wheeling Bridge Case, 150.

  37 Pennsylvania v. Wheeling and Belmont Bridge Company, 59 U.S. [18 Howard] 421, 430–31 (1855).

  38 Act of March 19, 1847, as quoted in Pennsylvania v. Wheeling and Belmont Bridge Co., 54 U.S. [13 Howard] 518, 565 (1852).

  39 PJD 5:249.

  40 Ibid.

  41 Ibid.

  42 Agnew, “Jefferson Davis and the Rock Island Bridge,” 7.

  43 Ibid., 9.

  44 DG, August 21, 1854.

  45 Ibid.

  46 PJD 5:142.

  47 New York Herald, November 29, 1854, quoted in PJD 5:23n1.

  48 PJD 5:250; Opinions of the Attorneys General 6:670–79.

  49 Nothstein, “The First Railroad Bridge to Cross the Mississippi,” 7.

  50 “Rock Island Bridge,” American Railroad Journal, September 30, 1854, 615, reporting from St. Louis Intelligencer.

  51 “Rock Island Bridge,” American Railroad Journal, September 9, 1854, 573.

  52 PJD 5:89–90.

  53 Bill of complaint, quoted in Zobrist, “Steamboat Men versus Railroad Men,” 164.

  54 Agnew, “Jefferson Davis and the Rock Island Bridge,” 9-10; PAL:LDC 3:310.

  55 United States v. The Railroad Bridge Company, 6 McLean 517, 525 (7th Cir. 1855).

  56 Ibid., 536.

  57 Ibid., 539.

  58 Ibid., 538.

  5. A COLLISION OF INTERESTS

  1 SLMR, September 20, 1857.

  2 Petersen, “The Rock Island Comes,” 293.

  3 PAL:LDC 3:326n50.

  4 Brayton, “The Crossing of the River,” 49; Riebe, “The Government Bridge,” 70; Hayes, Iron Road to Empire, 45.

  5 PAL:LDC 3:341n83.

  6 Fowle, “The Original Rock Island Bridge across the Mississippi River,” 59; The Rail-Roads, History and Commerce of Chicago, 55.

  7 Starr, Lincoln and the Railroads, 92.

  8 The Rail-Roads, History and Commerce of Chicago, 11.

  9 The bridge measurements varied slightly, depending on who gave them. These were taken from the careful study done by William Riebe. See Riebe, “The Government Bridge,” 70. When Benjamin B. Brayton testified in open court, he stated that the width of the draw on the Illinois side was 116 feet and that on the Iowa side was 111 feet. See discussion in chapter 10.

  10 The Rail-Roads, History and Commerce of Chicago, 11.

  11 Brayton, “The Crossing of the River,” 49.

  12 Ibid.

  13 Hayes, Iron Road to Empire, 44–45.

  14 Downer, History of Davenport and Scott County 1:334.

  15 Hayes, Iron Road to Empire, 45.

  16 Nothstein, “The First Railroad Bridge to Cross the Mississippi,” 9.

  17 RIA, April 23, 1856.

  18 Agnew, “Jefferson Davis and the Rock Island Bridge,” 13.

  19 Tweet, History of Transportation on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, 21.

  20 Primm, Lion of the Valley, 164.

  21 Ibid., 192.

  22 Zobrist, “Steamboat Men versus Railroad Men,” 161.

  23 See discussion in chapter 2.

  24 Page, “The Effie Afton Case,” 3.

  25 PAL:LDC 3:310n8.

  26 SLMR, September 13, 1857; Page, “The Effie Afton Case,” 3.

  27 Page, “The Effie Afton Case,” 3–4; PAL:LDC 3:310–11.

  28 SLMR, September 14, 1857.

  29 The author acknowledged the naming of the boat in a letter to the Cincinnati Commercial in December 1855. See Elwin L. Page, “Who Was ‘Effie Afton’?” 2.

  30 Ibid., 1.

  31 For a good summary of the life and career of Sarah Elizabeth Harper Monmouth and her connection to the Effie Afton, see Elwin L. Page, “Who Was ‘Effie Afton’?”

  32 SLMR, September 12, 1857.

  33 Page, “The Effie Afton Case,” 3.

  34 Ibid., 3–4.

  35 Ibid., 4.

  36 Ibid.

  37 “My first acquaintance with the navigation of the Upper Mississippi river was in May 1856.” Deposition of Jacob S. Hurd, October 5–8, 1858, in James Ward v. The Mississippi and Missouri Railroad Company, United States District Court, Southern District of Iowa, RG 21, National Archives, Central Plains Region, Kansas City, MO, hereafter cited as Ward.

  38 Page, “The Effie Afton Case,” 4.

  39 Testimony of Ozias Blinn, SLMR, September 11, 1857.

  40 Deposition of Jacob S. Hurd, October 5–8, 1858, in Ward; SLMR, September 14, 1857.

  41 SLMR, September 14, 1857; Daily Illinois State Register, May 12, 1857; Deposition o
f Jacob S. Hurd, October 5–8, 1858, in Ward.

  42 Deposition of Jacob S. Hurd, October 5–8, 1858, in Ward.

  43 SLMR, September 11, 1857.

  44 Ibid.

  45 The Afton overtook and passed the Carson in such a way “as to draw attention to her.” RIA, September 12, 1857.

  46 Ibid.

  47 RIA, May 7, 1856.

  48 RIA, May 8, 1856.

  49 St. Louis Intelligencer, May 12, 1856, reprinted in RIA, May 17, 1856, 2, and RIA (weekly edition), May 21, 1856.

  50 RIA (weekly edition), May 21, 1856.

  6. THE SUIT IS FILED

  1 CWL 4:67.

  2 10 Stat. 277.

  3 CWL 4:67.

  4 CWL 7:281.

  5 Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life 1:377.

  6 CWL 2:255.

  7 Donald, Lincoln, 183–84.

  8 Ibid., 184.

  9 Washburne, “Abraham Lincoln in Illinois,” 316.

  10 CWL 2:307.

  11 Whitney, Life on the Circuit with Lincoln, 150.

  12 HI, 510.

  13 Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life 1:339.

  14 Parkinson, “The Patent Case That Lifted Lincoln into a Presidential Candidate,” 107–8.

  15 Dickson, “Abraham Lincoln at Cincinnati,” 62.

  16 Parkinson, “The Patent Case That Lifted Lincoln into a Presidential Candidate,” 122.

  17 Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life 1:340; see also Parkinson, “The Patent Case That Lifted Lincoln into a Presidential Candidate,” 118.

  18 McCormick v. Talcott, 61 U.S. [20 Howard] 402 (1857).

  19 Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life 1:341.

  20 CWL 2:342.

  21 See Finkelman, “John McLean: Moderate Abolitionist and Supreme Court Politician,” 539–63.

  22 Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life 1:421.

  23 Finkelman, “John McLean: Moderate Abolitionist and Supreme Court Politician,” 532.

  24 Donald, Lincoln, 193.

  25 Ibid., 193–94.

  26 CWL 2:323.

  27 CWL 2:385.

  28 1 Stat. 73–93 (Judiciary Act of 1789).

  29 Palmer, Bench and Bar of Illinois, 1:315–20.

  30 “In Memoriam: Corydon Beckwith,” 133 Illinois Reports, 9–19.

  31 Greve, Centennial History of Cincinnati and Representative Citizens, 2:619–22.

  32 “A. Lincoln v. Timothy D. Lincoln,” 4.

  33 SLMR, July 14, 1857 (Wead says that “this suit was commenced in October last”). The newspaper account is the best source for the commencement of the suit and the contents of the court pleadings, since the original documents were lost in the Chicago fire of 1871.

  34 RIA, July 17, 1857, reprinting article from SLMR.

  35 RIA (weekly edition), December 25, 1856.

  36 Zobrist, “Steamboat Men versus Railroad Men,” 167.

  37 Ibid.

  38 Rock Island’s Family Tree, http://home.covad.net/~scicoatnsew/rihist1.htm#2_5_1853.

  39 Jackson, Rails across the Mississippi, 3, 5.

  40 RIA, February 23, 1857, quoting from CT, February 12, 1857.

  41 Ibid.

  42 Jackson, Rails across the Mississippi, 3.

  43 RIA, February 25, 1857, quoting from SLMR.

  44 See, e.g., RIA, April 11, 1857; May 23, 1857.

  45 RIA, April 15, 1857, quoting from Galena Courier.

  46 RIA, April 21, 1857, quoting from St. Louis Democrat, April 17, 1857.

  47 RIA, June 17, 1857.

  7. PREPARING THE GROUND

  1 United States v. Railroad Bridge Company, 6 McLean 517–39 (7th Cir. 1855); see discussion in chapter 4.

  2 PAL:LDC 4:361.

  3 See, e.g., Miers, Lincoln Day by Day 1:132, 241.

  4 PAL:LDC 3:314n22, 4:344.

  5 SLMR, July 13, 1857.

  6 Ibid.

  7 Nevins, “Seventy Years of Service: From Grant to Gorman,” 17; Starr, Lincoln and the Railroads, 94–95; Duff, A. Lincoln: Prairie Lawyer, 129; see Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life 1:337 (quoting part of this conversation).

  8 Nevins, “Seventy Years of Service: From Grant to Gorman,” 17.

  9 RIA, September 1, 1857.

  10 Lincoln deposited the $4,800 in the Springfield Marine and Fire Insurance Co. in Springfield on August 12, 1857. Pratt, Personal Finances of Abraham Lincoln, 54.

  11 Ibid., 54, 77–79, 137.

  12 Andreas, History of Chicago, 1:180.

  13 Hurlbut, Chicago Antiquities, 542.

  14 Andreas, History of Chicago, 1:180.

  15 Saltonstall, “A Recollection of Lincoln in Court,” 636.

  16 Andreas, History of Chicago, 1:180.

  17 A deposition is a written record of out-of-court oral testimony. Black’s Law Dictionary, 8th ed., ed. Bryan A. Garner (St. Paul, MN: Thomson West, 1999), 472.

  18 SLMR, July 13, 1857; RIA, July 18, 1857.

  19 SLMR, July 13, 1857; RIA, July 20, 1857.

  20 5 Stat. 176–78.

  21 SLMR, July 14, 1857; RIA, July 20, 1857.

  22 5 Stat. 176–78.

  23 Pennsylvania v. Wheeling and Belmont Bridge Company, 54 U.S. [13 Howard] 518, 579 (1852).

  24 United States v. Railroad Bridge Company, 6 McLean 517, 539 (7th Cir. 1855). See discussion in chapter 4.

  25 CWL 2:342.

  26 CWL 4:36, 40, 46.

  27 See McGinty, Lincoln and the Court, 23.

  28 Swisher, Taney Period, 48.

  29 Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. [19 Howard] 393, 529–64 (1857).

  30 CWL 2:400.

  31 HI, 644–45; HL, 220.

  32 Cahan, A Court That Shaped America, 40.

  33 PAL:LDC 4:345; McGinty, Lincoln and the Court, 105, 110, 112, 114.

  34 PAL:LDC 4:345.

  35 SLMR, July 14, 1857; RIA, July 20, 1857.

  36 Ibid.

  37 Holzer, Lincoln-Douglas Debates, 11.

  38 Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life 1:497–98.

  39 Ibid. 1:497. Founded in 1847, the Chicago Tribune merged with the Chicago Press (sometimes called the Chicago Democratic Press) in 1858 and became known as the Chicago Press and Tribune. After November 1860, it resumed its name as the Chicago Tribune. For the reporting of Henry Binmore and Robert Hitt of the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, see chapter 8.

  40 PAL:LDC 3:316n26.

  41 Ibid. The other two cases were People v. Peachy Quinn Harrison, a murder trial that Lincoln tried in the Sangamon County Circuit Court in 1859 (see PAL:LDC 4:137–92) and Johnston v. Jones and Marsh, an important real estate ejectment case (popularly called the Sand Bar case) that he tried in the U.S. Circuit Court in Chicago in 1860 (see PAL:LDC 3:384–453 and discussion in chapter 13).

  42 SLMR, July 14, 1857; RIA, July 20, 1857.

  43 SLMR, September 8, 1857.

  44 CWL 2:413.

  45 See, e.g., Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life 1:337; Duff, A. Lincoln: Prairie Lawyer, 337.

  46 See Russell, A-Rafting on the Mississip’, 70–71; PAL:LDC 3:326. Fraker, Lincoln’s Ladder to the Presidency, 104, says that Lincoln went to the bridge, hired a boat to pass under it, and floated debris past it as he studied the currents.

  47 In a letter to Frank F. Fowle dated February 28, 1928, Joseph Benjamin Oakleaf (1858–1930), a prominent collector of Lincolniana, expressed the categorical opinion that Lincoln did not visit the bridge. See Fowle, Correspondence relative to “A Famous Interference Case,” Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, Illinois. In Hell Gate of the Mississippi, 193–204, Larry Riney argues that Lincoln probably did not visit the bridge at all, at least not before the trial.

  48 RIA, September 1, 1857.

  49 “Lincoln’s Visit to the Rock Island Bridge.”

  50 A printed copy of the letter is in PAL:LDC 3:327.

  51 The text of the letter is set forth in PAL:LDC 3:327. CWL 2:414n2 says the letter is of “questionable authenticity.” Riney, Hell Gate of the Mississippi, 195–202, calls it “questionable.” But Judd ma
y not have known that Lincoln was already in Chicago when he wrote the letter, and he may have used a secretary to draft it.

  52 PAL:LDC 3:326. On September 20, 1857, Mrs. Lincoln wrote: “Mr. L. is not at home, this makes the fourth week, he has been in Chicago.” Miers, Lincoln Day by Day, 2:200. This indicates that he was in Chicago the first week in September.

  53 Brayton, “The Crossing of the River,” 49; Benjamin B. Brayton Jr. to Hilon A. Parker, Davenport, Iowa, February 10, 1903, Parker Papers, Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Brayton misremembered the year in which the visit took place as 1858 (it was 1857). But his recollections were recorded nearly fifty years after the event and, in such circumstances, misremembering the year is understandable. Young Brayton’s recollections were garbled and embroidered in later retellings of the events and eventually acquired the status of folklore. See, e.g., Nevins, “Seventy Years of Service: From Grant to Gorman,” 18; Botkin and Harlow, A Treasury of Railroad Folklore, 114. But many of the events of Lincoln’s life received similar treatment.

  8. A VERY SERIOUS OBSTRUCTION

  1 Binmore was identified only by the initial “B,” while Hitt was identified as R. R. Hitt.

  2 Palmer, Bench and Bar of Illinois, 1:513–14, 2:648–49.

  3 SLMR, September 10, 1857; CT, September 9, 1857.

  4 1 Stat. 73–92, sec. 29; see McDermott, The Jury in Lincoln’s America, 33–35 (bystanders commonly called on to serve as jurors in Illinois and neighboring states); Bryan A. Garner, ed., Black’s Law Dictionary, 8th ed. (St. Paul, MN: Thomson West, 2004) (talesman as person selected from among bystanders in court to serve as juror when original jury panel has become deficient in number).

  5 CT, September 9, 1857; SLMR, September 10, 1857.

  6 SLMR, September 10, 1857; CT, September 9, 1857.

  7 See McDermott, The Jury in Lincoln’s America, 11, 14, 26, 30, 49–50, 58–59.

  8 CT, September 9, 1857.

  9 CP, September 9, 1857.

  10 Ibid.; September 24, 1857.

  11 Palmer, Bench and Bar of Illinois 1:320.

  12 SLMR, September 11, 1857.

  13 Ibid.

  14 Precise measurements of the draw openings, like other components of the bridge, varied, depending on who was giving them.

  15 SLMR, September 11, 1857; a summation of “the points” of Wead’s statement is in CT, September 9, 1857.

  16 SLMR, September 11, 1857.

  17 Ibid.; CT, September 9, 1857.

  18 SLMR, September 12, 1857.