It was undoubtedly to his handling of the grandfather's evidence that Harrison's acquittal was due.

A class of legal work which Lincoln enjoyed particularly was that in which mathematical or mechanical problems were involved. He never lost interest in his youthful pot-boiling profession of surveying, and would go out himself to make sure of boundaries if a client's case required particular investigation. Indeed, he was generally recognized by his fellow lawyers as an authority in surveying, and as late as 1859 his opinion on a disputed question was sought by a convention of surveyors who had met in Springfield. One of the most interesting cases involving mechanical problems which Lincoln ever argued was that of the Rock Island Bridge. It was not, however, the calculations he used which made it striking. The case was a dramatic episode in the war long waged by the Mississippi against the plains beyond. For decades the river had been the willing burden-bearer of the West. Now, however, the railroad had come. The Rock Island road had even dared to bridge the stream to carry away the traffic which the river claimed.

In May, 1856, a steamboat struck one of the piers of the bridge, and was wrecked and burned. One pier of the bridge was also destroyed. The boat owners sued the railroad company. The suit was the beginning of the long and violent struggle for commercial supremacy between St. Louis and Chicago. In Chicago it was commonly believed that the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce had bribed the captain of the boat to run upon the pier; and it was said that later, when the bridge itself was burned, the steamers gathered near and whistled for joy. The case was felt to involve the future course of western commerce; and when it was called in September, 1857, at Chicago, people crowded there from all over the West. Norman B. Judd, afterwards so prominent in the politics of the State, was the attorney of the road, and he en

gaged Lincoln, among others, as counsel. Lincoln made an address to the jury which those who remember it declare to have been one of his strongest legal arguments.

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The two points relied upon by the opponents of the bridge," says Judge Blodgett of Chicago, "were:

"First. That the river was the great waterway for the commerce of the valley, and could not legally be obstructed by a bridge.

"Second. That this particular bridge was so located with reference to the channel of the river at that point as to make it a peril to all water craft navigating the river and an unnecessary obstruction to navigation.

"The first proposition had not at that time been directly passed upon by the Supreme Court of the United States, although the Wheeling Bridge case involved the question; but the court had evaded a decision upon it, by holding that the Wheeling Bridge was so low as to be an unnecessary obstruction to the use of the river by steamboats. The discussion of the first proposition on the part of the bridge company devolved mainly upon Mr. Abraham Lincoln.

"I listened with much interest to his argument on this point, and while I was not impressed by it as a specially eloquent effort (as the word eloquent is generally understood), I have always considered it as one of the ablest efforts I ever heard from Mr. Lincoln at the bar. His illustrations were apt and forcible, his statements clear and logical, and his reasons in favor of the policy (and necessarily the right) to bridge the river, and thereby encourage the settlement and building up of the vast area of fertile country to the west of it, were broad and statesmanlike.

"The pith of his argument was in his statement that one man had as good a right to cross a river as another had to sail up or down it; that these were equal and mutual rights which must be exercised so as not to interfere with each other, like the right to cross a street or highway and the right to pass along it. From this undeniable right to cross the river he then proceeded to discuss the means for crossing. Must it always be by canoe or ferryboat? Must the products of all the boundless fertile country lying west of the river for

all time be compelled to stop on its western bank, be unloaded from the cars and loaded upon a boat, and after the transit across the river, be reloaded into cars on the other side, to continue their journey east? In this connection he drew a vivid picture of the future of the great West lying beyond the river, and argued that the necessities of commerce demanded that the bridges across the river be a conceded right, which the steamboat interests ought not to be allowed to successfully resist, and thereby stay the progress of development and civilization in the region to the west.

"While I cannot recall a word or sentence of the argument, I well remember its effect on all who listened to it, and the decision of the court fully sustained the right to bridge so long as it did not unnecessarily obstruct navigation."

All the papers in regard to the trial are supposed to have been burned in the Chicago fire of 1871, but the speech, which was reported by Congressman Hitt of Illinois, at that time court stenographer, was published on September 24, 1857, in the Chicago "Daily Press," afterwards united with the "Tribune."

According to this report the first part of the speech was devoted to the points Judge Blodgett outlines; the second part was given to a careful explanation of the currents of the Mississippi at the point where the bridge crossed. Lincoln succeeded in showing that had the pilot of the boat been as familiar as he ought to have been with the river, he could easily have prevented the accident. His argument was full of nice mathematical calculations clearly put, and was marked by perfect candor. Indeed, the honesty with which he admitted the points made by the opposite counsel caused considerable alarm to some of his associates. Mrs. Norman B. Judd (Mr. Judd was the attorney of the road) says that Mr. Joseph B. Knox, who was also engaged with Mr. Lincoln in the defence, dined at her house the day that Lincoln made his speech. "He sat down at the dinner table in great excite

ment," writes Mrs. Judd, "saying, 'Lincoln has lost the case for us. The admissions he made in regard to the currents in the Mississippi at Rock Island and Moline will convince the court that a bridge at that point will always be a serious and constant detriment to navigation on the river.' 'Wait until you hear the conclusion of his speech,' replied Mr. Judd; 'you will find his admission is a strong point instead of a weak one, and on it he will found a strong argument that will satisfy you.'" And as it proved, Mr. Judd was right.

The few cases briefly outlined here show something of the range of Lincoln's legal work. They show that not only his friends like Hannah Armstrong believed in his power with a jury, but that great corporations like the Illinois Central Railroad were willing to trust their affairs in his hands; that he was not only a "jury lawyer," as has been often stated, but trusted when it came to questions of law pure and simple. If this study of his cases were continued, it would only be to accumulate evidence to prove that Lincoln was considered by his contemporaries one of the best lawyers of Illinois.

It is worth notice, too, that he made his reputation as a lawyer and tried his greatest cases before his debate with Douglas gave him a national reputation. It was in 1855 that the Illinois Central engaged him first as counsel; in 1855 that he went to Cincinnati on the McCormick case; in 1857 that he tried the Rock Island Bridge case. Thus his place was won purely on his legal ability unaided by political prestige. His success came, too, in middle life. Lincoln was forty years old in 1849, when he abandoned politics definitely, as he thought, for the law. He tried his greatest cases when he was from forty-five to forty-eight.

CHAPTER XVII

LINCOLN RE-ENTERS POLITICS

FROM 1849 to 1854 Abraham Lincoln gave almost his entire time to his profession. Politics received from him only the attention which any public spirited citizen without personal ambition should give. He kept close watch upon Federal, State and local affairs. He was active in the efforts made in Illinois in 1851 to secure a more thorough party organization. In 1852 he was on the Scott electoral ticket and did some canvassing. But this was all. He was yearly becoming more absorbed in his legal work, losing more and more of his old inclination for politics, when in May, 1854, the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused him as he had never been before in all his life. The Missouri Compromise was the second in that series of noble provisions for making new territory free territory, which libertyloving men have wrested from the United States Congress, whenever the thirst for expansion has seized this country. The first of these was the "Ordinance of 1787," prohibiting slavery in all the great Northwest Territory. The second the Missouri Compromise, passed in 1820, was the result of a struggle to keep the Louisiana Purchase free. It provided that Missouri might come in as a slave State if slavery was never allowed north of 36° 30′ north latitude. The next great expansion of the United States after the Louisiana Purchase resulted from the annexation of Texas, and of the territory acquired by the Mexican War. The North was determined that this new territory should be