Even while he was teaching school, Douglass found time to practice law in a modest way before the justices of the peace; and when the first of March came, he closed the schoolhouse door on his career as pedagogue. He at once repaired to Jacksonville and presented himself before a justice of the Supreme Court for license to practice law. After a short examination, which could not have been very searching, he was duly admitted to the bar of Illinois. He still lacked a month of being twenty-one years of age.[34] Measured by the standard of older communities in the East, he knew little law; but there were few cases in these Western courts which required much more than common-sense, ready speech, and acquaintance with legal procedure. _Stare decisis_ was a maxim that did not trouble the average lawyer, for there were few decisions to stand upon.[35] Besides, experience would make good any deficiencies of preparation. * * * * * FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: There can be little doubt that he supplied the data for the sketch in Wheeler's Biographical and Political History of Congress.] [Footnote 2: See Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society, 1901, pp. 113-114.] [Footnote 3: Vermont Historical Gazetteer, III, p. 457.] [Footnote 4: Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society, 1901, p. 115.] [Footnote 5: Mr. B.F. Field in the _Vermonter_, January, 1897.] [Footnote 6: For many facts relating to Douglas's life, I am indebted to an unpublished autobiographical sketch in the possession of his son, Judge R.M. Douglas, of Greensboro, North Carolina.] [Footnote 7: Wheeler, Biographical History of Congress, p. 61; also MS. Autobiography.] [Footnote 8: Troy _Whig_, July 6, 1860.] [Footnote 9: MS. Autobiography.] [Footnote 10: _Ibid._] [Footnote 11: MS. Autobiography; see Wheeler, Biographical History, p. 62.] [Footnote 12: _Ibid._] [Footnote 13: _Vermonter_, January, 1897.] [Footnote 14: MS. Autobiography.] [Footnote 15: This story was repeated to me by Judge Douglas, on the authority, I believe, of Senator Lapham of New York.] [Footnote 16: This is the impression of all who knew him personally, then and afterward. See Arnold, Reminiscences of the Illinois Bar.] [Footnote 17: MS. Autobiography.] [Footnote 18: MS. Autobiography.] [Footnote 19: MS. Autobiography.] [Footnote 20: Kirby, Sketch of Joseph Duncan in Fergus Historical Series No. 29; also Historic Morgan, p. 60.] [Footnote 21: _Ibid._] [Footnote 22: Speech at Jonesboro, in the debate with Lincoln, Sept. 15, 1858.] [Footnote 23: MS. Autobiography.] [Footnote 24: Kirby, Joseph Duncan.] [Footnote 25: James S. Anderson in Historic Morgan.] [Footnote 26: Peck, _Gazetteer of Illinois_, 1834.] [Footnote 27: MS. Autobiography.] [Footnote 28: _Ibid._] [Footnote 29: MS. Autobiography.] [Footnote 30: _Ibid._] [Footnote 31: Letter of E.G. Miner, January, 1877, in Proceedings of the Illinois Association of Sons of Vermont.]