The undersigned are well aware that this protest will
be altogether unavailing with the majority of this
body. The blow has already fallen; and we are
compelled to stand by, the mournful spectators of the
ruin it will cause.
[Sidenote: Ford’s “History,”
p. 221.]
It will be easy to ridicule this indignant protest
as the angry outcry of beaten partisans; but fortunately
we have evidence which cannot be gainsaid of the justice
of its sentiments and the wisdom of its predictions.
Governor Ford, himself a Democratic leader as able
as he was honest, writing seven years after these
proceedings, condemns them as wrong and impolitic,
and adds, “Ever since this reforming measure
the Judiciary has been unpopular with the Democratic
majorities. Many and most of the judges have
had great personal popularity—so much so
as to create complaint of so many of them being elected
or appointed to other offices. But the Bench
itself has been the subject of bitter attacks by every
Legislature since.” It had been soiled by
unclean contact and could not be respected as before.
EARLY LAW PRACTICE
During all the years of his service in the Legislature,
Lincoln was practicing law in Springfield in the dingy
little office at the corner of the square. A
youth named Milton Hay, who afterwards became one of
the foremost lawyers of the State, had made the acquaintance
of Lincoln at the County Clerk’s office and
proposed to study law with him. He was at once
accepted as a pupil, and his days being otherwise
employed he gave his nights to reading, and as his
vigils were apt to be prolonged he furnished a bedroom
adjoining the office, where Lincoln often passed the
night with him. Mr. Hay gives this account of
the practice of the law in those days:
“In forming our ideas of Lincoln’s growth
and development as a lawyer, we must remember that
in those early days litigation was very simple as
compared with that of modern times. Population
was sparse and society scarcely organized, land was
plentiful and employment abundant. There was
an utter absence of the abstruse questions and complications
which now beset the law. There was no need of
that close and searching study into principles and
precedents which keeps the modern law-student buried
in his office. On the contrary, the very character
of this simple litigation drew the lawyer into the
street and neighborhood, and into close and active
intercourse with all classes of his fellow-men.
The suits consisted of actions of tort and assumpsit.
If a man had a debt not collectible, the current phrase
was, ‘I’ll take it out of his hide.’
[Illustration: LINCOLN AND STUART’S LAW-OFFICE,
SPRINGFIELD.]
