If a client was poor he charged him accordingly, and if he was unable to pay asked nothing for his services. It was one of his theories that a lawyer, like a minister of the Gospel or a physician, was in duty bound to render service whenever called upon, regardless of the prospects of compensation, and in several cases he offered his services without compensation to people who had suffered injustice and were unable to pay. As a rule, his fees were less than those of other lawyers of his circuit. Justice Davis once remonstrated with him, and insisted that he was doing a grave injustice to his associates at the bar by charging so little for his services. From 1850 to 1860 his income varied from two to three thousand dollars, and even when he was recognized as one of the ablest lawyers of the State his fee-book frequently shows charges of three dollars, five dollars, and one dollar for advice, although he never went into court for less than ten dollars. During that period he was at the height of his power and popularity, and lawyers of less standing and talent charged several times those amounts. But avarice was the least of his faults. While he was President a certain Senator was charged with an attempt to swindle the government out of some millions. Discussing the scandal one day with some friends, he remarked that he could not understand why men should be so eager after wealth. "Wealth," said he, "is simply a superfluity of what we don't need." An examination of the dockets of the Illinois Supreme Court shows that during a period of twenty years, beginning with 1840 and ending with his election to the Presidency, he had nearly one hundred cases before that court, which is an unusual record and has been surpassed by few lawyers in the history of the State and by none of his contemporaries. It was declared, in an oration delivered by one of his associates, that "In his career as a lawyer he traversed a wide range of territory, attended many courts and had a variety of cases, and in all his conflicts at the bar he was successful in every case where he ought to have been." When he went to Washington to become President his debts were entirely paid and he was worth about ten thousand dollars in real estate and other property. [Illustration: Copyright, 1900, by McClure, Phillips & Co. ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN THE SUMMER OF 1860 From a negative taken for M. C. Tuttle, of St. Paul, Minnesota, for local use in the presidential campaign]