Lincoln's yarns and stories : $b A complete collection of the funny and witty anecdotes that made Lincoln famous as America's greatest story tellerMcClure, Alexander K. (Alexander Kelly)
History
Lincoln's yarns and stories : $b A complete collection of the funny and witty anecdotes that made Lincoln famous as America's greatest story teller
McClure, Alexander K. (Alexander Kelly)
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 -- Anecdotes
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account