Fine Printed Books & Manuscripts, Including Americana

Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas Face Off in Court Two Decades Before Their Famous Debates

Schuyler County, Illinois, August 17, 1839. One-page autograph legal document in the hand of Abraham Lincoln, and signed by him ("A. Lincoln for plff") and Stephen A. Douglas ("SA Douglass for Deft"). Creasing from old folds; short separation in bottom right side fold. 5 7/8 x 7 1/2 in. (149 x 190 mm). Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln 87202

During the slander trial of Stephen T. Logan vs. James Adams (March 1838-March 1841), opposing attorneys Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas agree to postpone the case until the Spring term of 1840. This litigation grew out of the bitter campaign in 1837 between Democrat James Adams, who sought reelection as probate judge in Springfield, and Whig Anson G. Henry. At this time, Lincoln, a fellow Whig and Henry ally, represented Mary Anderson, a poor widow who accused Adams of fraudulently claiming title to her land in Springfield. Despite Lincoln's multiple attacks bringing Adams' purported misdeeds to the public, Adams handily won reelection. The local Whigs, Lincoln included, refused to give up the fight, and over the following months, "a bewildering succession of charges, counter-charges and denials" were lobbed between the two factions relating to the matter. "Into it were drawn Elijah Iles, Benjamin Talbott, [Stephen T.] Logan, [John T.] Stuart and A.G. Herndon. Bitter animosities developed; friendships of long duration were broken." (Angle, Here I Have Lived, p. 70).

During this controversy, Adams defended himself against the fraud charges by claiming that Stephen T. Logan, a respected lawyer and future partner of Lincoln's, had "forged the assignment that was the basis for Adams' claim to Anderson's land, and Adams claimed Logan forged the document to destroy Adams' character, the two being enemies." (Fraker, Lincoln's Ladder to the Presidency, pp. 22-23). Logan then sued Adams for slander in the Sangamon County Circuit Court and requested $10,000 in damages. Lincoln appeared as a witness for Logan, in addition to serving as his attorney, while Douglas joined other Democratic attorneys in defending Adams. Adams motioned for a change of venue, and the court granted a change to the Schuyler County Circuit Court. After 22 witnesses and litigation that stretched to nearly three years, the parties reached an agreement, in which Adams stated that he never intended to charge Logan with forgery. The court then dismissed the case (LPAL L00410).

By the summer of 1839, Lincoln and Douglas were in the formative stages of their careers and political lives, and had already established a nascent political rivalry in Illinois. At 30 years old, Lincoln was four years Douglas's senior, and serving his third term in the state legislature, where he had become a leader of the central Illinois Whigs. Douglas, also in the Illinois legislature as a leader of the Democrats, was on the cusp of his meteoric rise to national political prominence, which would in short order would see him elected to the Illinois Supreme Court (1841), the United States House of Representatives (1842-47), and then the United States Senate (1847-61), where he would become one of most powerful political figures in antebellum America. Short, boisterous, and intemperate, compared to Lincoln's tall stature and self-contained and melancholic nature, Douglas would gain the nickname the "Little Giant" for his powerful demeanor and political shrewdness that belied his physical shortcomings.

In these early days, the two men often faced each other in court, typically on opposite sides of the aisle, with the exception of the People v. Truett murder trial in 1838, where they worked together for the defense. While cordial outside the political arena and courtroom—they both were fixtures of Joshua Speed’s store and social gatherings—the stage for their rivalry traces its origins to this period, including the above Adams controversy, as well as to the 1838 U.S. House election. During that election Lincoln had campaigned on behalf of his mentor John T. Stuart in his narrow electoral victory over Douglas, and it was during this that Lincoln and Douglas held their first-ever debate, portending their classic confrontation nearly 20 years later.

Rare, this is almost certainly the only extant document in private hands to bear the signatures of both Lincoln and Douglas.

Provenance:

Louise Taper, Beverly Hills, California

Exhibition:

The Last Best Hope of Earth: Abraham Lincoln and the Promise of America, at the Huntington Library, October 1993-August 1994