Lincoln's Greatest Case: The River, the Bridge, and the Making of America

by Brian McGinty

  22 Paludan, The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln, 303.

  23 Paludan, “‘Dictator Lincoln’: Surveying Lincoln and the Constitution,” 8, 10.

  24 Neely, Lincoln and the Triumph of the Nation, 110–11.

  25 Ibid., 209.

  26 Ibid., 111.

  27 Dirck, “A. Lincoln, Respectable ‘Prairie Lawyer,’” 73.

  28 Dirck, Lincoln the Lawyer, 142.

  29 Holzer, “Reassessing Lincoln’s Legal Career,” 8, 10, 15.

  30 Williams, “Lincoln’s Lessons for Lawyers,” 19–36.

  31 Ibid., 36.

  32 Typed transcript in RHP, as printed in PAL:LDC 3:360.

  33 Daniel W. Stowell, editor of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln, to author, March 7, 2013.

  34 The Papers of Abraham Lincoln is a long-term project to identify, image, and publish all documents written by or to Lincoln during his lifetime. See Papaioannou and Stowell, “Dr. Charles A. Leale’s Report on the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln,” 40n1.

  1. A GREAT HIGHWAY OF NATURE

  1 Rivers vary in length and width as they meander or straighten and as soil is added to or eroded from their banks or deltas. The figures given here are from National Park Service, Mississippi River Facts, http://www.nps.gov/miss/riverfacts.htm, accessed November 23, 2012.

  2 Monette, “The Progress of Navigation and Commerce,” 480.

  3 Twain, Life on the Mississippi, 1.

  4 Ibid., 2.

  5 Anfinson, The River We Have Wrought, 15; Tweet, History of Transportation on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, 9.

  6 Anfinson, The River We Have Wrought, 16.

  7 SLMR, September 20, 1857, 1.

  8 Petersen, “The ‘Virginia,’ the ‘Clermont’ of the Upper Mississippi,” 351–53.

  9 Anfinson, The River We Have Wrought, 16; Fremling, Immortal River, 184; Beltrami, Pilgrimage in America, 159–60.

  10 Hunter, Steamboats on the Western Rivers, 43–45; Tweet, History of Transportation on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, 19.

  11 Tweet, History of Transportation on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, 19.

  12 Ibid., 44.

  13 Primm, Lion of the Valley, 149 (by 1837, Duncan’s Island was a two-hundred-acre island covered with cottonwood trees; there was a mere trickle of water between it and the shore).

  14 Tweet, History of Transportation on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, 44–45; Thomas, Robert E. Lee: A Biography, 90–91, 94–96; Primm, Lion of the Valley, 151 (by 1855 Duncan’s Island “was a memory”).

  15 Hunter, Steamboats on the Western Rivers, 61–120 (structural evolution of the western steamboat).

  16 Page, “The Effie Afton Case,” 3.

  17 Latrobe, The First Steamboat Voyage on the Western Waters, 6–32; Kane, The Western River Steam-Boat, 45.

  18 Dorsey, Master of the Mississippi, 89–90; American Telegraph [Brownsville, Pa.], December 14, 1814.

  19 Lloyd’s Steamboat Directory, 44–45; Tweet, History of Transportation on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, 13.

  20 Tweet, History of Transportation on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, 13–14; Primm, Lion of the Valley, 108.

  21 Cincinnati: A Guide to the Queen City and Its Neighbors, 57.

  22 Trescott, “The Louisville and Portland Canal Company, 1825–1874,” 686–708.

  23 Cincinnati: A Guide to the Queen City and Its Neighbors, 58.

  24 Fowle, “A Famous Interference Case: Lincoln and the Bridge,” 614–15.

  25 Campanella, Lincoln in New Orleans, 10–13.

  26 Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life 1:42.

  27 Campanella, Lincoln in New Orleans, 27–29.

  28 Rice, Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln, 270–80.

  29 Campanella, Lincoln in New Orleans, 31.

  30 PAL:LDC 3:322n41; Campanella, Lincoln in New Orleans, 35–141.

  31 Campanella, Lincoln in New Orleans, 128–33.

  32 CWL 4:63.

  33 CWL 1:320, 4:63.

  34 HI, 17, 34, 44; Campanella, Lincoln in New Orleans, 148–49.

  35 Donald, Lincoln, 43–44; HI, 34, 442, 639.

  36 CWL 3:29. Holzer, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, 36–37, points out that the phrase “beau ideal of a statesman” has been quoted so many times “it has entered the historical language,” but he cautions that it may not be precisely what Lincoln said in this debate, for the Chicago Times’s published version of this quote was that Lincoln called Clay “my beau ideal of a great man [emphasis added],” not “statesman.”

  37 Holt, Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party, 2; see Speech of Henry Clay on American Industry, in the House of Representatives, March 30 and 31, 1824, in F. W. Taussig, State Papers and Speeches on the Tariff (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1893), 252–316.

  38 Meyers, The Jacksonian Persuasion, 10–14; Magliocca, Andrew Jackson and the Constitution, 48–60.

  39 Magliocca, Andrew Jackson and the Constitution, 29–33; Holt, Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party, 66.

  40 Heidler and Heidler, Henry Clay, 229.

  41 CWL 2:221.

  42 Zobrist, “Steamboat Men versus Railroad Men,” 160.

  43 Laws of the State of Illinois, Tenth General Assembly, at their Session Commencing December 5, 1836, and ending March 6, 1837 (Vandalia: William Walters, Public Printer, 1837), 121–51.

  44 HL, 128.

  45 Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life 1:114–22, 144. Boritt, Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream, 9, says that Lincoln was not the leader, but he was one of the important champions, of the 1837 improvement system.

  46 Angle, “Here I Have Lived,” 83–90.

  47 James K. Polk, Veto Message, August 3, 1846, in Messages and Papers of the Presidents, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=67936. Presidential vetoes of internal improvement plans were based on constitutional objections. Boritt, Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream, 4.

  48 “Speech of Mr. Lincoln of Illinois,” SLMR, July 12, 1847, 2.

  49 CWL 1:480–90.

  50 There were at least forty-nine such cases. PAL:LDC 3:321.

  51 Ibid.

  52 S. F. Dixon, Substituted Liabilities: A Treatise on the Law of Subrogation (Philadelphia: George W. Childs, 1862), 151.

  53 Columbus Insurance Company v. Peoria Bridge Company, 6 McLean 70–76 (7th Cir. 1853); an earlier opinion was rendered in the same case sustaining a demurrer to the defendants’ claim that, because the bridge was authorized by an act of the Illinois legislature, the bridge company could not be liable. See Columbus Insurance Co. v. Curtenius, 6 McLean 209-221 (7th Cir. 1853). The act of the legislature was dated January 26, 1847.

  54 PAL:LDC 3:205–24.

  55 Emerson, Lincoln the Inventor, 4; Temple, Lincoln’s Connections with the Illinois and Michigan Canal, His Return from Congress in ’48, and His Invention, 35.

  56 HL, 188–89; Emerson, Lincoln the Inventor, 6, 83n18.

  57 The attorney was Zenas C. Robbins. Emerson, Lincoln the Inventor, 15–17.

  58 CWL 2:33.

  59 Neely, Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia, 162; Emerson, Lincoln the Inventor, 27, 33.

  2. NO OTHER IMPROVEMENT

  1 Boorstin, The Americans, 18.

  2 Frey, Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography: Railroads in the Nineteenth Century, 20–21; Stover, Routledge Historical Atlas of the American Railroads, 13.

  3 Frey, Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography: Railroads in the Nineteenth Century, 1988.

  4 McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 12.

  5 CWL 1:5–6.

  6 Laws of the State of Illinois, Tenth General Assembly, at their Session Commencing December 5, 1836, and ending March 6, 1837 (Vandalia: William Walters, Public Printer, 1837), 121–51.

  7 Starr, Lincoln and the Railroads, 25–31.

  8 Ibid., 31.

  9 Ibid., 34; Angle, “Here I Have Lived,” 144.

  10 Starr, Lincoln and th
e Railroads, 33.

  11 Angle, “Here I Have Lived,” 152–53; see Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed by the Fifteenth General Assembly, at Their Session, Begun and Held in the City of Springfield, December 7, 1846 (Springfield: Charles H. Lanphier, Public Printer, 1847), 109–11.

  12 Starr, Lincoln and the Railroads, 38.

  13 Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life 1:253–57; Starr, Lincoln and the Railroads, 47.

  14 Although he offers no particular evidence, Starr, Lincoln and the Railroads, 48, says that the Lincolns traveled by stage from Lexington to Covington, Virginia, and then on to Winchester, Virginia, where the Winchester and Potomac Railroad took them north to Harpers Ferry and a connection with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. DeRose, Congressman Abraham Lincoln, 75, says that the Lincolns traveled by stage to Winchester, Virginia, and thence by train to Washington. Temple, “Mary Todd Lincoln’s Travels,” 181, states that the Lincolns left Lexington for Maysville, Kentucky (on the Ohio River), whence they went up the river to Wheeling, and then took the National Road (a stagecoach road) to its connection with the Baltimore and Ohio. Riddle, Congressman Abraham Lincoln, 12, states that it is probable that the Lincolns took the river route.

  15 Stover, Routledge Historical Atlas of the American Railroads, 18.

  16 Holzer, Lincoln President-Elect, 305–96.

  17 Angle, “Here I Have Lived,” 152.

  18 Ibid., 162–63.

  19 Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed by the Ninth General Assembly, at their Second Session, Commencing December 7, 1835, and ending January 18, 1836 (Vandalia: J. Y. Sawyer, Public Printer, 1836), 129–38.

  20 PAL:LDC 4:358; Starr, Lincoln and the Railroads, 40–41; Stover, Routledge Historical Atlas of the American Railroads, 32.

  21 9 Stat. 466–67.

  22 PAL:LDC 2:373; 4:358.

  23 Private Laws of the State of Illinois Passed at the First Session of the Seventeenth General Assembly, Begun and Held at the City of Springfield, January 6, 1851 (Springfield: Lanphier and Walker, 1851), 61–74.

  24 Frey, Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography: Railroads in the Nineteenth Century, 193; PAL:LDC 2:374.

  25 Stover, Routledge Historical Atlas of the American Railroads, 23.

  26 Steiner, An Honest Calling, 63–64.

  27 PAL:LDC 2:307n10.

  28 PAL:LDC 2:209.

  29 PAL:LDC 2:448.

  30 Illinois Const., Art. 9, sec. 5 (1848).

  31 Private Laws of the State of Illinois Passed at the First Session of the Seventeenth General Assembly Begun and Held at the City of Springfield, January 6, 1851 (Springfield: Lanphier and Walker, 1851), 71–72.

  32 Illinois Central Rail Road v. County of McLean, 17 Ill. 291 (1856).

  33 HL, 218. According to Herndon, the official who declined to pay the bill was “supposed to have been the superintendent George B. McClellan who afterwards became the eminent general.” However, McClellan did not begin his employment at the Illinois Central until January 1857. His initial post was chief engineer; he was promoted to vice president in 1858. The railroad’s refusal to pay the bill was before January 1857, when Lincoln filed his suit against it. HL, 281n20, says: “McClellan could not have been the official involved.”

  34 PAL:LDC 2:406–11.

  35 Ibid.

  36 Ibid.

  37 Dooley, “Lincoln and His Namesake Town,” 136.

  38 See Emerson, Giant in the Shadows, 29.

  39 Frey, Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography: Railroads in the Nineteenth Century, 111, 118.

  40 Private Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed at the First Session of the Seventeenth General Assembly, Begun and Held at the City of Springfield, January 6, 1851 (Springfield: Lanphier and Walker, 1851), 47–50.

  41 Petersen, “The Rock Island Comes,” 293; Larkin, John B. Jervis, 8–14, 60, 89–91, 169n12, 170n27.

  42 Hayes, Iron Road to Empire, 12–30; Petersen, “The Rock Island Comes,” 287–300; Frey, Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography: Railroads in the Nineteenth Century, 119.

  43 The Rail-Roads, History and Commerce of Chicago, 10.

  44 Hayes, Iron Road to Empire, 29–30.

  45 Peterson, “The Grand Excursion of 1854,” 313.

  46 Sedgwick, “The Great Excursion to the Falls of St. Anthony,” 321.

  47 Hayes, Iron Road to Empire, 31–32.

  48 Private Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed by the Eighteenth General Assembly, Convened January 3, 1853 (Springfield: Lanphier and Walker, 1853), 329–30.

  49 Rock Island’s Family Tree, http://home.covad.net/~scicoatnsew/rihist1.htm#2_5_1853.

  50 Frey, Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography: Railroads in the Nineteenth Century, 436–37.

  51 Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, 257–58.

  52 Ibid., 257.

  53 See letter from Jefferson Davis to William R. Cannon, December 7, 1853, in PJD 5:142. See also discussion in chapter 4.

  54 10 Stat. 1031–37.

  55 Faulk, Too Far North, Too Far South, 131–39.

  3. HIS PECULIAR AMBITION

  1 See Pratt, “The Genesis of Lincoln the Lawyer,” 3–10, tracing Lincoln’s interest in the law from his early days in Indiana to his residence in New Salem, Illinois, and stating: “For years he had been attracted to the law.”

  2 Borrett, Out West: Letters from Canada and the United States, 253.

  3 Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life 1:7.

  4 HI, 115; HL , 50.

  5 CWL 1:8.

  6 CWL 4:65.

  7 Madison “never joined the bar; he never had a client or a case.” Sarah Mary Bilder, “James Madison, Law Student and Demi-Lawyer” (2010), Boston College Law School Faculty Papers, paper 363, http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/lsfp/363.

  8 He was admitted to the bar of the Illinois Supreme Court in September 1836 but not officially enrolled until March 1, 1837. Steiner, An Honest Calling, 37; HL, 121; PAL:LDC 1:xxix–xxx.

  9 Rice, Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln, 240.

  10 Steiner, “Abraham Lincoln and the Rule of Law Books,” 1298–99.

  11 HI, 534; HL, 121; CWL 4:65.

  12 HI, 14.

  13 HI, 450; HL, 78–79.

  14 CWL 2:82.

  15 HL, 122. In the final tabulation, Stuart won his election over Douglas by only 36 votes out of a total vote of 36,405. Johannsen, Stephen A. Douglas, 68.

  16 Thomas, “Lincoln and the Courts,” 163.

  17 PAL:LDC 4:356.

  18 Daniel W. Stowell, editor of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln, to author, March 7, 2012; PAL:LDC 1:xii.

  19 Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life 1:36–37, 64–65.

  20 Robert T. Lincoln to John F. Dillon, January 5, 1901, as quoted in Emerson, Giant in the Shadows: The Life of Robert T. Lincoln, 33.

  21 HL, 194; Whitney, Life on the Circuit with Lincoln, 69.

  22 CT, December 29, 1895.

  23 PAL:LDC 1:xxxvi.

  24 Steiner, “Does Lawyer Lincoln Matter?” 49.

  25 Thomas, “Lincoln and the Courts,” 177.

  26 Lewis v. Lewis, 48 U.S. [7 Howard] 776 (1849); PAL:LDC 1:xxxix; Lupton, “Basement Barrister: Abraham Lincoln’s Practice before the United States Supreme Court,” 47–58; McGinty, Lincoln and the Court, 18.

  27 PAL:LDC 1:22.

  28 HI, 635–36.

  29 Whitney, Life on the Circuit with Lincoln, 233.

  30 Ibid., 233–34.

  31 PAL:LDC 4:291–95.

  32 Whitney, Life on the Circuit with Lincoln, 63.

  33 Ibid.

  34 PAL:LDC 4:224–26.

  35 HL, 194.

  36 For a comprehensive survey of Lincoln’s life on the Eighth Judicial Circuit and a compelling argument that the circuit and the lawyers Lincoln worked with there propelled him to the presidency, see Fraker, Lincoln’s Ladder to the Presidency.

  37 Dirck, Lincoln the Lawyer, 154.

  38 Whitney, Life on the Circuit with Lincoln, 62�
��63.

  39 HI, 349.

  40 Rice, Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln, 333–34.

  41 Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life 1:60.

  42 Donald, Lincoln, 537.

  43 Whitney, Life on the Circuit with Lincoln, 236.

  44 Ibid., 233.

  45 Ibid.

  46 Ibid., 236.

  47 Arnold, Life of Abraham Lincoln, 84.

  48 HL, 208–9.

  49 HI, 529.

  50 HL, 209.

  51 HL, 210.

  52 HL, 210–11. Before 1853, arguments in the Illinois Supreme Court were limited to two hours (three by special permission). In 1858, the time limit was set at one hour without special permission. Thomas, “Lincoln and the Courts,” 171.

  53 PAL:LDC 1:16.

  54 PAL:LDC 1:17.

  55 CWL 2:81.

  56 HL, 293–94.

  4. THE FIRST BRIDGE OVER THE FIRST RIVER

  1 Adams, History of Braintree, Massachusetts, 76.

  2 Wood, “New England Toll Bridges,” 164.

  3 Rock Island’s modern name is Arsenal Island. This was derived from the U.S. Army Arsenal built there during the Civil War and was thought to avoid confusion with the nearby city of Rock Island. The historic name is used in this book.

  4 Merrick, Old Times on the Upper Mississippi, 296.

  5 Fowle, “The Original Rock Island Bridge across the Mississippi River,” 58.

  6 Nothstein, “The First Railroad Bridge to Cross the Mississippi,” 1–2.

  7 The Autobiography of Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak, or Black Hawk, 57.

  8 Slattery, Illustrated History of the Rock Island Arsenal and Arsenal Island 1:36.

  9 William C. Davis, Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour, 49–51; Slattery, Illustrated History of the Rock Island Arsenal and Arsenal Island 1:39.