Stephen A. Douglas began studying law in New York but moved west to avoid the required four-years of apprenticeship. He had a brief stay in Ohio where they maintained a one-year apprenticeship, and finally he settled in Illinois in 1833 where there was no such requirement. Much like Lincoln, Douglas attached himself to an established local lawyer (Murray McConnell of Jacksonville), borrowed books from him, and studied on his own while he pursued his political career.
There were three basic steps to becoming a lawyer in antebellum Illinois. First came the certificate of good moral character and proof of residency, second the exam, and last an oath of office (and fee payment). A lawyer could practice locally with the first two, but he wasn’t officially enrolled statewide until he came to Springfield during the Supreme Court session, provided proof of his exam, took the oath office, and paid a small fee.
Illinois statutes required an aspirant lawyer to provide a certificate of good moral character to be entered into the record in his local circuit court. Typically, a mentor or member of the local bar stood and certified the student’s good moral character. While the statutes are silent on the content or requirements for this certificate, it was probably a carryover from earlier (eastern and southern) practices, and thus left to local control. In the face-to-face world of the nineteenth century, newcomers needed letters of introduction, diplomas, and personal contacts to enter society (a similar thing may be said for debutant balls—a coming out for young people). A certificate of good moral character indicated the aspirant’s aptitude (assessed by local qualifiers) to serve the public as a practitioner. In other words, the certificate answered the question as to whether this person would fit as a member of the local bar. There is evidence that this certificate was an actual piece of paper, a motion, filed with the court before it was entered on the record. Lincoln, for example wrote such a certificate for his third law partner William H. Herndon.
When he joined Stuart as a partner he joined a thriving practice. One of his new clients, David Wooldridge, in many ways typified early Sangamon County residents. He was born in Kentucky and came north across the Ohio River to the Sangamon country to take advantage of cheap and fertile federal land—the common-man’s answer to getting ahead in the early nineteenth century. Wooldridge owned a farm in Sangamon County near Springfield, more land than he could cultivate on his own. He rented ground to tenant farmers, and held undeveloped land as well. When one of his tenants, James Hawthorn, fell behind on rent Wooldridge offered him an opportunity to earn extra money breaking prairie sod on some his undeveloped land. This agreement embodied a typical transaction during Lincoln’s day, a land owner solving the expensive and labor-intensive problem of developing land (improving on his investment) while a farm laborer or tenant farmer earned cash for his time (cash being a rare commodity in a developing market economy).
As with many of Lincoln’s cases throughout his career, the transaction between two parties—land owner and laborer—went wrong. When Wooldridge refused to pay Hawthorn $50 he owed him for his labor (and to allow him to cultivate part of the newly developed land) the two men met in a physical confrontation. This confrontation was also in many ways typical of Lincoln’s era, Wooldridge’s Kentucky was famous for its brawling and many early settlers of Illinois carried this tradition with them. Indeed, many of Lincoln’s cases begin with such attempts at pre-judicial conflict resolution. The fighting tradition of the 19th century American upland South is replete with stories of gory conflict, the ultimate prize for the winner being to gouge the eyes of his assailant. It appears from Sangamon County court documents that such a conflict happened near Springfield in June 1836 as Wooldridge and Hawthorn had it out over unpaid contracts and rent. Wooldridge apparently won the fight and Hawthorn sought redress in the Sangamon County Circuit Court. This case, Hawthorne v. Woolridge, is frequently cited by historians as being Lincoln’s first official case as an attorney. It is listed among the cases within the Sangamon County Minute Book although there is no specific reference to Mr. Lincoln.
Partially blind and wounded Hawthorn hired a local attorney and sued Wooldridge in two separate actions: assumpsit (a form of debt and damages collection) for $100 on the unpaid labor contract; and trespass vi et armis (“with force of arms” a charge of assault and battery in civil court) for $500 in damages for medical care and lost wages due to his incapacity to work during the agricultural season.
Wooldridge responded by hiring John T. Stuart and Abraham Lincoln (Henry Dummer, Stuart’s partner immediately prior to Lincoln joining the firm, was also involved initially). Stuart and Lincoln immediately asked the court to offset any judgement in assumpsit with Hawthorn’s unpaid rent (over $300 at the time of the suit) and the two men and their attorneys managed to hammer out an agreement out of court leading to a dismissal of Hawthorn’s case.
The trespass case went to trial with both men likely testifying in court about their differing perspectives. The jury found in Hawthorn’s favor, but as in so many of Lincoln’s cases, a positive verdict often rendered mitigating damages. In this case the jury awarded only $36 damages to Hawthorn who initially sought $500. One view of this case was that Lincoln and his client lost but compared to a possible $500 in damages, paying $36 was probably a good outcome.
Nineteenth-century juries and judges often used verdicts and damages in civil actions as separate indicators of right in order to restore damaged reputations and feelings. It is also likely the verdict took into consideration any wounds Hawthorn inflicted on Wooldridge during their fight as well as his debt in rent while knocking down the damage amount. Hawthorn could return to his community with his reputation intact (he stood his ground on his labor contract but lost a fight) and Wooldridge who should have probably seen harsher penalties (even criminal charges) for his disruptive behavior in the community was able to walk away with his reputation intact. In both Hawthorn v. Wooldridge cases Lincoln received an early dose of conflict resolution that he as a lawyer would have to address as his career developed. He also encountered the common land and labor interests that drove Illinois into the growing northern, national market economy of antebellum America.
Beyond the entry acknowledging Mr. Lincoln as a man of good moral character, one of the earliest direct references to Lincoln occurs in the case of White v. Harris et al. This was an uncontested lawsuit that occurred during the October 1837 term of the Sangamon County Circuit Court. Craig White held a right to two of five shares in a piece of land (314 acres) in Sangamon County. He held a claim alongside other heirs including William Nelson who was a minor at the time of the case (for a male this was younger than 21 years old). White’s petition to partition the land included a request that the judge assign a guardian for Nelson to represent his interests. This was a procedure to ensure the partition could be accomplished without contest (and without extra expense). The judge assigned the role of guardian to Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln signed off on the partition, the adult defendants also did not contest the petition and the court gave the case over to three independent commissioners to partition the land among the shareholders. In the commissioners’ report White received 158.74 acres and Nelson received 65.5 acres with the remainder going to the other adult defendants.
Lincoln’s role as a guardian ad litem in this case was fairly typical of this stage of his career, but it would be a role he would undertake in at least 42 other instances from throughout his twenty-four year practice. Illinois statutes required that minor defendants (without a father to represent their interests in court) had to be assigned an independent guardian to look after their interests. Thus, the appearance of his name in this book was on purpose and to fulfill a statutory requirement and protected the judgement from being contested on appeal. There is some evidence Lincoln would have received a small fee for his role, typically $2-$5 drawn from the accounts of a deceased person’s estate (the minor being an heir to the estate).
Submitted on January 21, 2018 by Christopher A. Schnell, Ph.D, Curator, Manuscripts Department, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library