Tell it slant

I was inspired to pick up Doris Goodwin’s Team of Rivals again after watching Lincoln. (As a side note, the book is a great way to endear yourself to middle-aged white men on the plane). Of all of Lincoln’s extraordinary gifts, I was struck most by his willingness, time and time again, to sacrifice his ego in pursuit of the greater good, even in interactions with those who routinely discounted his ability, challenged his authority, and questioned his character. Always the first to forget past offenses, Lincoln’s magnanimity, combined with his superb judgment, enabled him to make controversial decisions while earning not only the respect, but the adoration, of a nation torn apart by the moral issue of slavery. My favorite story from the book:

In the summer of 1855, disappointment piled upon disappointment. Six months after his loss to Trumbull, Lincoln’s involvement in a celebrated law case forced him to recognize that his legal reputation, secure as it might have been in frontier Illinois, carried little weight among the preeminent lawyers in the country.

The story began that June with the arrival in Springfield of Peter Watson, a young associate in the distinguished Philadelphia firm headed by George Harding, a nationally renowned patent specialist. Harding had been hired by the John Manny Company of Rockford, Illinois, to defend its mechanical reaping machine against a patent infringement charge brought by Cyrus McCormick, the original inventor of the reaper. McCormick v. Manny, better known as the “Reaper” suit, was considered an important test case, pitting two outstanding patent lawyers, Edward Dickerson of New York and former Attorney General Reverdy Johnson for McCormick, against Harding for Manny. Since the case was to be tried before a judge in Chicago, Harding decided to engage a local lawyer who “understood the judge and had his confidence,” though, from his Eastern perspective, he condescendingly expressed doubt he could find a lawyer in Illinois “who would be of real assistance” in arguing the case.

Watson was sent to Springfield to see if Abraham Lincoln, whose name had been recommended, was the right man for the position. His initial impression was not positive. Neither the small frame house on Eighth Street nor Lincoln’s appearance at the door with “neither coat nor vest” indicated a lawyer of sufficient standing for a case of this magnitude. After talking with Lincoln, however, Watson decided he might be “rather effective” after all. He paid Lincoln a retainer and arranged a substantial fee when the work was completed. Lincoln was thrilled with both the fee and the opportunity to test himself with the renowned Reverdy Johnson. He began working on the legal arguments for the case, understanding that Harding would present the scientific arguments.

Not long after Watson’s Springfield visit, Harding received word that the case had been transferred from Chicago to Cincinnati. The change of venue to Ohio “removed the one object” for employing Lincoln, allowing Harding to team up with the man he had wanted in the first place–the brilliant Edwin Stanton. Unaware of the changed situation, Lincoln continued to develop his case. “At our interview here in June,” he wrote Watson in late July, “I understood you to say you would send me copies of the Bill and Answer . . . and also of depositions . . . I have had nothing from you since. However, I attended the U.S. Court at Chicago, and while there, got copies . . . I write this particularly to urge you to forward on to me the additional evidence as fast as you can. During August, and the remainder of this month, I can devote some time to the case, and, of course, I want all the material that can be had. During my day at Chicago, I went out to Rockford, and spent half a day, examining and studying Manny’s machine.”

Though Lincoln never heard from Watson, he pieced together what he needed and in late September set out for Cincinnati with a lengthy brief in his hands. Arriving at the Burnet House where all the lawyers were lodged, he encountered Harding and Stanton as they left for the court. Years later, Harding could still recall the shock of his sight of the “tall, rawly boned, ungainly back woodsman, with coarse, ill-fitting clothing, his trousers hardly reaching his ankles, holding in his hands a blue button umbrella with a ball on the end of the handle.” Lincoln introduced himself and proposed, “Let’s go up in a gang.” At this point, Stanton drew Harding aside and whispered, “Why did you bring that d—-d long armed Ape here . . . he does not know any thing and can do you no good.” With that, Stanton and Harding turned from Lincoln and continued to court on their own.

In the days that followed, Stanton “managed to make it plain to Lincoln” that he was expected to remove himself from the case. Lincoln did withdraw, though he remained in Cincinnati to hear the arguments. Harding never opened Lincoln’s manuscript, “so sure that it would be only trash.” Throughout that week, though Lincoln ate at the same hotel, Harding and Stanton never asked him to join them for a meal, or accompany them to or from court. When Judge John McLean hosted a dinner for the lawyers on both sides, Lincoln was not invited.

The hearing continued for a week. The sophisticated arguments were “a revelation” to Lincoln, recalled Ralph Emerson, one of Manny’s partners. So intrigued was he by Stanton’s speech, in particular, that he stood in “rapt attention . . . drinking in his words.” Never before, Emerson realized, had Lincoln seen anything so finished and elaborated, and so thoroughly prepared.” When the hearing was over, Lincoln told Emerson that he was going home “to study law.” Emerson did not understand at first what Lincoln meant by this, but Lincoln explained. “For any rough-and-tumble case (and a pretty good one, too), I am enough for any man we have out in that country; but these college-trained men are coming West. They have had all the advantages of a life-long training in the law, plenty of time to study and everything, perhaps, to fit them. Soon they will be in Illinois . . . and when they appear I will be ready.”

As Lincoln prepared to leave Cincinnati, he went to say goodbye to William Dickson, one of the few people who had shown him kindness that week. “You have made my stay here most agreeable, and I am a thousand times obliged to you,” Lincoln told Dickson’s wife, “but in reply to your request for me to come again I must say to you I never expect to be in Cincinnati again. I have nothing against the city, but things have so happened here as to make it undesirable for me ever to return here.”

After returning to Springfield, Lincoln received a check in the mail for the balance of his fee. He returned it, saying he had not earned it, never having made any argument. When Watson sent the check a second time, Lincoln cashed it.

Unimaginable as it might seem, after Stanton’s bearish behavior, at their next encounter six years later, Lincoln would offer Stanton “the most powerful civilian post within his gift”—the post of secretary of war. Lincoln’s choice of Stanton would reveal, as would his subsequent dealings with Trumbull and Judd, a singular ability to transcend personal vendetta, humiliation, or bitterness. As for Stanton, despite his initial contempt for the “long armed Ape,” he would not only accept the offer but come to respect and love Lincoln more than any person outside of his immediate family.

I can’t end this post without a tribute to Lincoln’s incredible literary skills. His Gettysburg Address is profound lyrical magic fashioned out of just over 260 words. You can’t do it justice without reading it aloud. If you’re a real nerd and have a bit of time to kill, try committing it to memory (who does that anymore??):

Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives, that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here, have, thus far, so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.