I assured him, perhaps as a sort of defence against the eloquent condemnation implied in my fashionable clawhammer, that I had done a deal of hard manual labor in my time. Much amused at this solemn declaration, Mr. Lincoln said: "Oh, yes; you Virginians shed barrels of perspiration while standing off at a distance and superintending the work your slaves do for you. It is different with us. Here it is every fellow for himself, or he doesn't get there."
Mr. Lincoln soon learned, however, that my detestation of slave labor was quite as pronounced as his own, and from that hour we were friends. Until the day of his death it was my pleasure and good fortune to retain his confidence unshaken, as he retained my affection unbroken.
I was his local partner, first at Danville, and afterward at Bloomington. We rode the circuit together, traveling by buggy in the dry seasons and on horse-back in bad weather, there being no railroads then in that part of the State. Mr. Lincoln had defeated that redoubtable champion of pioneer Methodism, the Rev. Peter Cartwright, in the last race for Congress. Cartwright was an oddity in his way, quite as original as Lincoln himself. He was a foeman worthy of Spartan steel, and Mr. Lincoln's fame was greatly enhanced by his victory over the famous preacher. Whenever it was known that Lincoln was to make a speech or argue a case, there was a general rush and a crowded house. It mattered little what subject he was discussing—Lincoln was subject enough for the people. It was Lincoln they wanted to hear and see; and his progress round the circuit was marked by a constantly recurring series of ovations.
Mr. Lincoln was from the beginning of his circuit-riding the light and life of the court. The most trivial circumstance furnished a back-ground for his wit. The following incident, which illustrates his love of a joke, occurred in the early days of our acquaintance. I, being at the time on the infant side of twenty-one, took particular pleasure in athletic sports. One day when we were attending the circuit court which met at Bloomington, Ill., I was wrestling near the court house with some one who had challenged me to a trial, and in the scuffle made a large rent in the rear of my trousers. Before I had time to make any change, I was called into court to take up a case. The evidence was finished. I, being the Prosecuting Attorney at the time, got up to address the jury. Having on a somewhat short coat, my misfortune was rather apparent. One of the lawyers, for a joke, started a subscription paper which was passed from one member of the bar to another as they sat by a long table fronting the bench, to buy a pair of pantaloons for Lamon—"he being," the paper said, "a poor but worthy young man." Several put down their names with some ludicrous subscription, and finally the paper was laid by some one in front of Mr. Lincoln, he being engaged in writing at the time. He quietly glanced over the paper, and, immediately taking up his pen, wrote after his name, "I can contribute nothing to the end in view."
Although Mr. Lincoln was my senior by eighteen years, in one important particular I certainly was in a marvelous degree his acknowledged superior. One of the first things I learned after getting fairly under way as a lawyer was to charge well for legal services—a branch of the practice that Mr. Lincoln never could learn. In fact, the lawyers of the circuit often complained that his fees were not at all commensurate with the service rendered. He at length left that branch of the business wholly to me; and to my tender mercy clients were turned over, to be slaughtered according to my popular and more advanced ideas of the dignity of our profession. This soon led to serious and shocking embarrassment.
Early in our practice a gentleman named Scott placed in my hands a case of some importance. He had a demented sister who possessed property to the amount of $10,000, mostly in cash. A "conservator," as he was called, had been appointed to take charge of the estate, and we were employed to resist a motion to remove the conservator. A designing adventurer had become acquainted with the unfortunate girl, and knowing that she had money, sought to marry her; hence the motion. Scott, the brother and conservator, before we entered upon the case, insisted that I should fix the amount of the fee. I told him that it would be $250, adding, however, that he had better wait; it might not give us much trouble, and in that event a less amount would do. He agreed at once to pay $250, as he expected a hard contest over the motion.
The case was tried inside of twenty minutes; our success was complete. Scott was satisfied, and cheerfully paid over the money to me inside the bar, Mr. Lincoln looking on. Scott then went out, and Mr. Lincoln asked, "What did you charge that man?" I told him $250. Said he: "Lamon, that is all wrong. The service was not worth that sum. Give him back at least half of it."
I protested that the fee was fixed in advance; that Scott was perfectly satisfied, and had so expressed himself. "That may be," retorted Mr. Lincoln, with a look of distress and of undisguised displeasure, "but I am not satisfied. This is positively wrong. Go, call him back and return half the money at least, or I will not receive one cent of it for my share."
I did go, and Scott was astonished when I handed back half the fee.
This conversation had attracted the attention of the lawyers and the court. Judge David Davis, then on our circuit bench, called Mr. Lincoln to him. The judge never could whisper, but in this instance he probably did his best. At all events, in attempting to whisper to Mr. Lincoln he trumpeted his rebuke in about these words, and in rasping tones that could be heard all over the court room: "Lincoln, I have been watching you and Lamon. You are impoverishing this bar by your picayune charges of fees, and the lawyers have reason to complain of you. You are now almost as poor as Lazarus, and if you don't make people pay you more for your services you will die as poor as Job's turkey!"
Judge O. L. Davis, the leading lawyer in that part of the State, promptly applauded this malediction from the bench; but Mr. Lincoln was immovable. "That money," said he, "comes out of the pocket of a poor, demented girl, and I would rather starve than swindle her in this manner."
That evening the lawyers got together and tried Mr. Lincoln before a moot tribunal called "The Ogmathorial Court." He was found guilty and fined for his awful crime against the pockets of his brethren of the bar. The fine he paid with great good humor, and then kept the crowd of lawyers in uproarious laughter until after midnight. He persisted in his revolt, however, declaring that with his consent his firm should never during its life, or after its dissolution, deserve the reputation enjoyed by those shining lights of the profession, "Catch 'em and Cheat 'em."
In these early days Mr. Lincoln was once employed in a case against a railroad company in Illinois. The case was concluded in his favor, except as to the pronouncement of judgment. Before this was done, he rose and stated that his opponents had not proved all that was justly due to them in offset, and proceeded to state briefly that justice required that an allowance should be made against his client for a certain amount. The court at once acquiesced in his statement, and immediately proceeded to pronounce judgment in accordance therewith. He was ever ready to sink his selfish love of victory as well as his partiality for his client's favor and interest for the sake of exact justice.
In many of the courts on the circuit Mr. Lincoln would be engaged on one side or the other of every case on the docket, and yet, owing to his low charges and the large amount of professional work which he did for nothing, at the time he left Springfield for Washington to take the oath of office as President of the United States he was not worth more than seven thousand dollars—his property consisting of the house in which he had lived, and eighty acres of land on the opposite side of the river from Omaha, Neb. This land he had entered with his bounty land-warrant obtained for services in the Black Hawk War.[1]
Mr. Lincoln was always simple in his habits and tastes. He was economical in everything, and his wants were few. He was a good liver; and his family, though not extravagant, were much given to entertainments, and saw and enjoyed many ways of spending money not observable by him. After all his inexpensive habits, and a long life of successful law practice, he was reduced to the necessity of borrowing money to defray expenses for the first months of his residence at the White House. This money he repaid after receiving his salary as President for the first quarter.
A few months after meeting Mr. Lincoln, I attended an entertainment given at his residence in Springfield.