File:Biographies and stories of Abraham Lincoln (1865) (14784953983).jpg

Identifier: biographiesstor00linc (find matches)
Title: Biographies and stories of Abraham Lincoln
Year: 1886 (1880s)
Authors: Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection
Subjects: Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 Presidents
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Contributing Library: Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection
Digitizing Sponsor: Friends of The Lincoln Collection of Indiana, Inc.

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ld be-come. One of the endur-ing myths about Lincoln the lawyer is thisheroic image of a guy who would only takeclients and causes with which he wasphilosophically and politically comfort-able, says Davis, which is nonsense.Lincoln represented people across thephilosophical and political spectrum—from murderers to farmers fighting overcows, from adulterers to doctors accusedof malpractice. In one celebrated case in1847, he even defended a Kentucky slaveowner who wanted to keep some of hisslaves in Illinois, where slavery was ille-gal. Lincoln lost. But again, he seems to have gainedsomething of great value from this period.An advantage of traveling the circuit courtup to six months a year, as Lincoln wasdoing in the 1850s, was the opportunity tomeet a lot of people. His name was soonknown throughout the state. Lincoln mayhave taken on dubious clients, but some ofthem—several high-profile railroad com-panies, in particular—brought him na-tional attention. Its one of those histor-
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Although scholars can now tell us more about the man behind the myth, the myth remains strong. ical coincidences, saysDavis: Lincoln just hap-pened to be working in Illi-nois when the railroadscame through needinglegal counsel. But this is the first time hewas noticed by the people in Baltimore,New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. Theexposure would come in handy later. As Lincoln pondered another run atpolitics, there is no doubt he was con-scious of his own weaknesses. Lincolnhimself was deeply aware of how im-perfect he was and how limited he was,says Joshua Wolf Shenk, author of anupcoming book on Lincolns melancholy.But for todays historians, it is the exis-tence of a more complicated Lincoln—riddled with doubt as a young man, in-ured to the sordid political games of hisera, a man who used his law practice innot entirely principled ways—that makeshis rise so impressive. He was, in theend, thoroughly human. And yet, unlike so many other thor-oughly human men, when push came tosh

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