ministration to procure for him a desirable presidential appointment.

It is said with a show of probability that the President tendered him the governorship of the territory of Oregon, as well as the choice of some other Western appointments. Acceptance would have required, however, his removal from Springfield. It is said that the decisive vote was finally cast by Mrs. Lincoln, and the country will never know how much it may be indebted to Mrs. Lincoln for this veto.

CHAPTER VII

LINCOLN THE LAWYER

ASIDE from a few military heroes, and one or two other notable exceptions, the lawyer has been the occupant of the White House from the birth of the nation until the present hour.

He has constituted the potential and generally the numerical majority in both houses of Congress; of necessity he has occupied the Federal bench to the exclusion of all other professions. And what has been true in the nation has been true in a more or less degree in most of the several States, so that, for good or ill, we have had very largely a government by lawyers.

For twenty-four years before becoming President Abraham Lincoln was engaged in the practice of law in both State and Federal courts at Springfield, Illinois. His preparation for his chosen profession should be of intense interest, not only to the layman but to his fellow lawyers as well.

His biographers generally agree that the first lawbook ever coming into his hands was the "Revised Statutes of Indiana," which he borrowed while living in Indiana from the township constable, one David Turnham.

This volume contained not only the statutes of Indiana but also the Constitution of Indiana, the Constitution of the United States, the Declaration of Independence, the Ordinance of 1787.

That he read and reread, studied, and literally devoured this book there can be no doubt.

The book itself, now treasured by Mrs. Emma Winters, of Brooklyn, the wife of a former librarian of the New York Law Institute, attests hard service.

Turnham himself is authority for the statement that this book had much to do with influencing the boy to study law as his chosen profession. We are not advised as to when this was, but it must have been some time prior to his majority.

Some biographers have made light of the influence of this volume on the mind of young Lincoln. But inasmuch as it was his perverse habit to devour practically every book that he could get his hands on, it is not improbable that this volume suffered the same fate.

One thing is quite sure, that the Declaration of Independence therein found became finally the warp and woof of all his political ideas and inspirations. This fact is more than confirmed in his many addresses, especially in his speech at Philadelphia, which will be referred to in the chapter of Lincoln's Interpretation of the Declaration of Independence.

The very scarcity of his books enhanced their value to him, and it is not difficult to presume that this book, at least upon constitutional law, State and federal, the Declaration of Independence, and the Ordinance of 1787 furnished much food for his hungry and precocious mind.

The next book he read was Blackstone, and this while clerking in the store for Offut, at New Salem, and also when a merchant on his own account in partnership with Berry.

Tradition at least records that some traveller came that way who had a surplus barrel of junk which he no longer cared to carry. He sold it to Lincoln for

fifty cents, barrel and contents. At the bottom of this barrel were two volumes of Blackstone.

At all events, he read Blackstone while at New Salem. He not only read it, he studied it, he mastered it, he knew it from cover to cover. Much of his clear, concise legal style is readily attributable to his familiarity with Blackstone's legal English.

In his campaign for the legislature he met Major John T. Stuart, of Springfield, one of the leading lawyers of Illinois. Stuart encouraged him in the study of law and loaned him a number of law-books, which Lincoln took with him from Springfield back to New Salem.

Lincoln himself has spoken upon this subject in the following words:

"I began to read those famous works (Blackstone's 'Commentaries') and I had plenty of time, for during the long summer days when the farmers were busy with their crops, my customers were few and far between. And the more I read the more intensely interested I became. Never in my whole life was my mind so thoroughly absorbed. I read until I devoured them."

Some years afterward Lincoln was asked by a young man as to how to study law, to which inquiry he responded:

"Get books and read and study them carefully. Begin with Blackstone's Commentaries, and after reading carefully through, say twice, take Chitty's Pleadings, Greenleaf's Evidence, and Story's Equity in succession. Work, work, work is the main thing."

One can but regret that so many of our so-called modern schools of law have omitted from their course of educational training such standard works as Lin

coln mentions, works that deal scientifically with the fundamental and philosophical principles of the law.

These masterpieces of legal logic and language have been supplanted by a number of so-called "case books," a mere collection in more or less abbreviated form of the judgments pronounced by some judge or court.

Now every judge of experience well knows that the primary idea in the opinion of the judge speaking for the court is to support and sustain the judgment entered in the particular case, with a view of discussing only the questions raised in that particular case. Beyond that it is a mere obiter dictum.

The judge rendering the opinion is primarily not concerned with an orderly scientific discussion of the fundamental principle involved, its origin, history, and development. He applies it only to the particular case in defense of the particular judgment.

"Case law" is fast becoming the great bane of the bench and bar.

Our old-time great thinkers and profound reasoners who conspicuously honored and distinguished our jurisprudence have been succeeded very largely by an industrious, painstaking, far-searching army of sleuths, of the type of Sherlock Holmes, hunting some precedent in some case, confidently assured that if the search be long enough and far enough some apparently parallel case may be found to justify even the most absurd and ridiculous contention.

Case after case is piled, Ossa on Pelion, and about an equal number can be found on each side; then the court is expected to strike the balance and decide according to the preponderance of cases, rather than the preponderance of reason and justice.

After all, the case is at most an illustration of some