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By John A. Lupton, Assistant Director & Assistant Editor, The Papers
of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln practiced law for nearly twenty-five years in the Illinois courts. Other than part-time service
in the Illinois legislature and the United States Congress, law was his full-time occupation. Lincoln handled cases in almost
all court levels: justice of the peace, county, circuit, appellate, and federal. He had three successive formal partnerships:
junior partner to John Todd Stuart (1837-1841), junior partner to Stephen T. Logan (1841-1844), and senior partner to William
H. Herndon (1844-1861). Like many of his colleagues at the bar, Lincoln was a general practice attorney and represented clients
in a variety of civil and criminal actions including debt, slander, divorce, dower and partition, mortgage foreclosure, and
murder.
While Lincoln lived in New Salem, Illinois, from 1831 to 1837, he had various encounters with the legal system.
He wrote legal documents for Bowling Green, the local justice of the peace, appeared in several lawsuits as a witness, and
was the defendant in several cases in which creditors sued him to collect debts. Lincoln considered a career in law after
he lost the 1832 election for the Illinois General Assembly, but, according to his 1860 campaign autobiography, decided against
a legal career because he thought he needed more education to succeed as a lawyer. In 1834, Lincoln won election as a representative
for Sangamon County to the state legislature. When he attended legislative sessions in Vandalia, fellow representative John
Todd Stuart encouraged him to study law.
Aspiring attorneys typically studied with established members of the
bar or served as clerks in law offices to prepare for a legal career. Lincoln had no such opportunity in New Salem. Instead,
he borrowed law books from Stuart’s law office in Springfield, twenty miles away, and read them while the legislature
was not in session. Lincoln read Blackstone’s Commentaries and legal pleading and practice treatises to become familiar
with the forms of action and the legal system. On March 24, 1836, the Sangamon County Circuit Court in Springfield certified
that Lincoln was a person of good moral character. This certification was the first of several necessary steps to become a
lawyer in Illinois. On September 9, 1836, the Illinois Supreme Court examined Lincoln and issued him a license to practice
law in all of the courts in the state, which was the final step to become an attorney.
By the spring of 1837, Lincoln had moved to Springfield and accepted Stuart’s offer to become his junior
law partner. Stuart was mainly interested in politics and gave Lincoln little legal instruction. Consequently, Lincoln had
to learn the practice of law by trying cases in court. In November 1838, Stuart won election to the United States House of
Representatives and left Lincoln to handle the legal partnership business alone. Stuart remained in Congress until March 1843.
Stuart
and Lincoln’s practice consisted primarily of debt-related matters in the various court s in which they practiced. They also handled a variety of legal actions in the criminal , common law, and chancery divisions
of law. Stuart and Lincoln both traveled the First Judicial Circuit. When Sangamon County became part of the newly formed
Eighth Judicial Circuit in 1839, Lincoln began to ride that circuit. Stuart and Lincoln concentrated their legal practice
in Sangamon, Tazewell, Logan, and McLean counties, but they handled cases elsewhere as well.
The Stuart and Lincoln
law office was in an upstairs room along Hoffman’s Row, a group of buildings on Fifth Street in Springfield, one block
north of the public square. After the state legislature voted to move the state capital from Vandalia to Springfield in February
1837, the city donated the public square for the new statehouse. As part of their office work, Stuart and Lincoln kept an
office fee book as a record of their legal fees from handling cases and nonlitigation activities. On April 14, 1841,
Stuart and Lincoln formally dissolved their legal partnership. Stuart had won election to a second term in Congress, and Lincoln
was unable to maintain the partnership by himself.
Early in the spring of 1841, Lincoln and Stephen T. Logan had begun practicing law together. Logan introduced
Lincoln to new areas of law. After Springfield officially became the Illinois state capital in 1839, the federal court and
the Illinois Supreme Court, both of which had m et in Vandalia, moved to Springfield. In response to the Panic of 1837, the United States Congress passed the Bankruptcy Act
in 1841 granting relief to debtors, the first such federal legislation in nearly forty years. Logan and Lincoln handled many
bankruptcy cases before the federal court during the brief time that the act was in effect. During his partnership with Logan,
Lincoln increased his caseload before the Illinois Supreme Court and handled appeals from all areas of the state.
Logan
stopped circuit traveling when Lincoln became his partner. Logan remained in Springfield, while Lincoln traveled the Eighth
Judicial Circuit. Lincoln expanded his legal practice outside of the Eighth Circuit as well, routinely traveling to Coles
County, where his father lived, to try cases. He also ventured as far as Clark County, on the Indiana border, and Madison
County, on the Missouri border. Most of his circuit traveling took place in the spring and fall terms in each of the counties
on the Eighth Circuit.
Logan and Lincoln first had a law office on the opposite side of Fifth Street from Hoffman’s
Row. In August 1843, they moved to the Tinsley building, which was located on the southeast corner of the public square across
Adams Street from the statehouse. The Tinsley building also housed the local post office and the federal courtroom. Logan
heightened Lincoln’s awareness of legal fees, and they sued several delinquent clients. Logan and Lincoln dissolved
their partnership in December 1844. Logan wanted to practice law with his son David, and Lincoln wanted to begin his own law
firm.
Following the dissolution of the Logan-Lincoln partnership, Lincoln asked William H. Herndon, a young law clerk
in the Logan and Lincoln law office, to be his junior partner. Initially, Lincoln and Herndon remained in Logan and Lincoln’s
 old office in the Tinsley building. After Lincoln left for Washington in October 1847 to serve a term in the United States
House of Representatives, Herndon moved to a smaller office in the same building. Upon Lincoln’s return to Springfield
in 1849, they continued to practice law in the smaller office. In 1852, they moved to the northwest side of the state capitol
square on Fifth Street and remained there until Lincoln left Springfield in February 1861 to become president. Herndon mainly
traveled to neighboring counties around Sangamon County. He maintained a large and steady practice in Menard County, which
was northwest of Sangamon, even though it was not on the Eighth Circuit throughout most of the 1840s and 1850s.
Lincoln
intensified his interest in law after returning from Congress in 1849. He continued to handle cases before the Illinois Supreme
Court during the winter and before the federal court and the Sangamon County Circuit Court during the summer. Lincoln occasionally
traveled to Chicago when the federal court held terms there in the 1850s. He interspersed regular court appearances with justice
of the peace cases and nonlitigation activities.
Lincoln was away from Springfield for nearly six months of the year, three months each spring and each fall
riding the circuit. He had traveled the Eighth Judicial Circuit in the past but began to spend even more time on the
circuit after his return from Congress. By 1849, the circuit had fourteen counties in central Illinois, and Lincoln
was the only attorney, besides the state’s attorney and the jud ge, who traveled the entire circuit. After one county circuit court concluded its business, the circuit judge and the state’s
attorney left to hold court at the next county seat. Circuits usually consisted of four to ten counties, and a court term
lasted from a few days to a few weeks. At its peak from 1841 to 1847, the Eighth Judicial Circuit consisted of fifteen counties.
Roads were difficult to travel during rainy weather. Itinerant court members traveled on horseback or by horse and buggy.
While in a county seat, they stayed at local taverns, ate at common tables, and shared beds. When travel was particularly
hazardous or lengthy, the group stayed at rural farmhouses along the way. By the end of the 1850s, railroads had become a
popular mode of transportation, and Lincoln was able to travel to each of the county seats by rail. Many county seats along
rail lines had grown in population and had hotels in which traveling lawyers and judges stayed.
Lincoln did not have any formal partnerships on the circuit. When he reached a county seat, local attorneys
asked Lincoln to assist them with a case, or litigants themselves sought his services. Lincoln handled the business as it
came to him. Generally, he chose neither clients nor co-counsels along partisan lines. In Macon County, Lincoln and Democrat
Joel Seth Post argued fifteen cases together and opposed each other in fifteen cases. In Vermilion County, Lincoln and Ward
Hill Lamon had a de facto partnership and advertised it in local newspapers. However, this arrangement did not prevent Lincoln
from opposing Lamon in a few cases.
Lincoln maintained one of the largest appellate practices in the state. Attorneys living in counties far away
from Springfield often referred their Illinois Supreme Court cases to Lincoln. His residence in the state capital helped him
build a strong appellate practice. Lincoln continued to handle a large number of cases before the Illinois Supreme Court during
the first few years of his partnership with Herndon. After 1849, the Illinois Supreme Court held court at three different
locations–Ottawa, Springfield, and Mt. Vernon. Lincoln maintained his appellate practice in Springfield and occasionally
traveled to Ottawa for a supreme court session. During his twenty-five-year law practice, Lincoln and his partners handled
411 cases before the state's highest court.
Lincoln did not practice exclusively in state courts and maintained a substantial practice in the federal courts
in Illinois. The federal courts in Illinois generally ruled on disputes between citizens of different states. Out-of-state
residents or businesses attempting to collect debts from Illinois residents often sued them in the federal courts if the amount
in controversy exceeded $500. In such cases, Lincoln represented out-of-state residents as often as Illinois residents. Clients
from major commercial centers such as New York, Boston, St. Louis, and Philadelphia retained Lincoln to represent them in
Illinois courts. Lincoln argued one case before the United States Supreme Court when he was in Congress in 1849, and served
as the attorney of record in four more throughout the 1850s. Lincoln probably had a substantial practice before the federal
courts, but the Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed almost all of the Illinois federal records prior to 1855, so it is difficult
to estimate the full extent of this aspect of his practice.
Lincoln handled many different categories of litigation during his career. Debt-related issues filled the court
system during the antebellum period, and the majority of Lincoln’s legal cases consisted of debt collection. In this
type of litigation, he represented both creditors and debtors. As plaintiff attorney for creditors, he won the majority of
cases because many defendants failed to appear and defaulted. As defendant attorney for debtors, he lost the majority of cases
because the legal system favored creditors over debtors. He also handled cases relating to land titles, inheritance, patents,
and railroads.
In the 1850s, the Illinois legislature chartered railroads, and many of them began construction.
These events increased litigation over issues of right of way, stock subscriptions, fencing, and damages to real property.
Lincoln generally supported the development of railroads all over the state, but that did not prevent him from opposing the
railroad companies in the courtroom. He became involved in railroad litigation and represented individuals nearly as often
as railroad corporations. The Illinois Central Railroad secured his legal services more often than any other railroad, and
Lincoln opposed them in only a few cases.
Lincoln’s legal career did not consist solely of litigation. He maintained an office practice that included
writing deeds, registering land, paying taxes, receiving money, and giving legal advice. Herndon had served in various capacities
during his partnership with Lincoln as a deputy clerk for the Illinois Supreme Court and also as city attorney for Springfield.
Lincoln and Herndon also maintained a law library in their office, and in one Illinois Supreme Court case, Lincoln loaned
one of the law books from his office to the court for use in its opinion.
According to entries in their fee book, Stuart and Lincoln generally received $5 to $10 for legal fees, but
in People v. Truett, an 1838 murder case, they received $500. Stuart and Lincoln generally divided fees equally. On average,
Lincoln and Herndon charged a typical client $5 to $20. However, there were several occasions when Lincoln either charged
his clients nothing or charged them a substantial amount. There are only a few years in which Lincoln and his partners documented
legal fees. Lincoln was sometimes careless in obtaining payment, but in a few instances, Lincoln sued clients who had failed
to pay him or sued estates of clients to recover legal fees. Lincoln’s federal practice probably supplied him with much
of his income. A case could not be heard in the U. S. Circuit Court unless it involved a dispute exceeding $500. As a result,
Lincoln charged his federal clients higher fees. He probably charged clients less while practicing in the state circuit courts
because disputes involved lesser amounts.
Lincoln personally did not aspire to any judicial or legal offices. He often wrote letters of endorsement for
friends who sought judgeships. When Judge David Davis of the Eighth Judicial Circuit had to leave court during a session,
he appointed an attorney to sit as judge for a few cases or even for a few days. Davis asked Lincoln to act as judge several
times in the 1850s. However, Lincoln was not the only person whom Davis appointed. Clifton Moore of De Witt County and Oliver
L. Davis of Vermilion County substituted for Davis several times as well. Judge Charles Emerson of the neighboring Seventeenth
Judicial Circuit often filled in for Davis. Lincoln never sought the position of state’s attorney either, though he
did assist David Campbell and Ward Hill Lamon, when these men served as state’s attorneys on the Eighth Circuit. Lincoln
wrote indictments, served as co-counsel to the state’s attorney, or acted as state’s attorney pro tem in several
criminal cases.
During various times in his legal career, Lincoln suspended the practice of law in favor of his political career.
During election years in the 1840s, Lincoln stumped for the Whig Party in various regions of the state. However, in a few
instances, Lincoln combined his political and legal careers. For example, while campaigning for the Whigs in southern Illinois
in 1840, he gave a political speech in Jefferson County and while court was in session argued a case in the Jefferson County
Circuit Court. During his term in Congress, Lincoln did not handle any cases in Illinois but argued one case and became involved
in two others before the United States Supreme Court. After losing the 1854 Senate election, Lincoln wrote to some clients
in March 1855, that he had dabbled in politics and neglected business, and that since he had lost, he had to go back to work.
During his 1858 Senatorial campaign against Stephen A. Douglas, Lincoln did not practice law for much of the summer and fall.
After his loss, he returned to law but maintained active political correspondence, which eventually helped him garner support
for the presidential election in 1860.
The Republican National Convention nominated Lincoln for president in May 1860.
He continued to handle several cases during the summer term of the federal court in Springfield. It is unlikely that he represented
any more clients after the summer. In November 1860, Lincoln won the election for the presidency over his political rival
Stephen A. Douglas and two other candidates. During the winter, Lincoln wrapped up his legal business with Herndon, and left
for Washington in February 1861. According to Herndon's biography of his famous law partner, Lincoln wanted the partnership
sign to hang undisturbed and “give our clients to understand that the election of a President makes no change in the
firm of Lincoln and Herndon.” He told Herndon that if he returned he wanted to resume their practice of law “as
if nothing had ever happened.”
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