Lincoln, Abraham

Fragmentary autograph legal document signed ("Lincoln & Herndon p.d."), about one hundred words in Lincoln's hand, being a portion of a brief filed in the case of John Williams v. Ulysses Lindley and The🧸odore Baker i🥃n Sangamon Circuit Court

Half-page (198 x 131 mm, irregular) on a large slip 🔥of paper cut from a sheet of blue wove paper, [Springfield, Illinois?, filed 31 March 18✱55]; neatly rebacked.

In the present fragment, the partnership of Lincoln and Herndon enters a plea of actio non on the last day of the spring circuit court term on behalf of the defendants,😼 stating, "they say that at and before the time when said Mechanic's and Farmer's Bank assumed to assign said note by their President, said Bank had, on lawful demand, failed and refused to redeem in lawful money of the United States one of the circulating notes, made by said Bank, countersigned and registered according to law; and this the defendants are ready to verify. …" The Sangamon court awarded the plantiff, John Williams, damages of $1,014.48; Lincoln and Herndon took an appeal to the Supreme Court.

Lincoln had at this time turned his attention fully back to his legal practice after an unsuccessful campaign as the Whig candidate for United States Senator in an 8 February 1855 election. On 10 March he wrote to Messrs. Sandford, Porter & Striker of New York apologizing for having neglected a request they had first sent the preceding December: "When I received the bond, I was dabbling in politics; and, of course, neglecting business. Having since been beaten out, I have gone to work again" (Collected Works, ed. Basler, 2: 308).

REFERENCE:

Lincoln Day by Day, p. 141 (31 March 1855)

PROVENANCE:

Western Historical Reserve Society (Christie's New York, 13 December 2000, lot 358). Please note: when sold in 2000, this was a complete legal brief signed five times by Lincoln and included three further pleas of actio non on behalf of Lindley and Baker; subseque𒅌ntly it was evidently dissected by an avaricious vendor.