LiòÑ⁄Ωò LeàÃ¥ BräÜáü - The Papers of Abraham Lincoln

LiòÑ⁄Ωò LeàÃ¥ BräÜáü
A Quarterly Newsletter of The Lincoln Legal Papers
A Documentary History of the Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln, 1836-1861
January — March 2006
Number 77
Unknown Cache of Lincoln Legal Documents Emerges
W
ithin a month after publication in 2000 of The
Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete
Documentary Edition on three DVD-ROMs, the
project found a new Lincoln legal document. Over
the past six years, private collectors or auction houses
have frequently alerted the project to documents in
their possession. Since publication, we have added
more than two hundred new legal documents. Staff
members have accessioned these documents and will
add the data and images to a second
edition of Lincoln’s legal papers.
In February of this year, Heritage
Auction Galleries sold a portion of the
Henry E. Luhrs Collection. The auction
house, based in Dallas, Texas, was kind
enough to provide the project with highresolution .tiff images of all of the
documents. The collection contained
many documents and artifacts, including
seventy-seven legal documents relating
to cases that Abraham Lincoln and his
partners handled. Luhrs was a collector
of manuscripts in the mid-twentieth
century. He helped to organize the Shippensburg
Public Library in Pennsylvania, the Lincoln
Fellowship of Pennsylvania, and the Shippensburg
Historical Society. He particularly enjoyed collecting
Lincolniana because of his fascination with the
sixteenth president. Luhrs probably purchased most
of his Lincoln legal documents in the 1940s and
1950s. He died in 1962.
Of the seventy-seven legal documents,
thirteen had already been published in The Law
Practice of Abraham Lincoln. Fifty-three of the
documents were new documents that belonged with
cases the project had already identified. Most
importantly, eleven documents related to new cases.
Five new cases came from the circuit court in
Tazewell County, two in Edgar County, two in
Champaign County, and two in Sangamon County.
In one of the new Champaign County cases,
Joseph T. Everett sued Albert Evans in an action of
trespass quare clausum fregit, which is an action to
recover damages against a person who unlawfully
entered another person’s land. The reason for and
outcome of this case is still unknown pending a return
to Urbana to find the additional case documentation,
Image courtesy of Heritage Auction Galleries.
such as entries in the court record. In the plea
presented above and written and signed by Lincoln,
Lincoln pleaded not guilty for his client. What is
unusual is that someone, perhaps Lincoln, scratched
out Lincoln’s name.
After its ten-year search for Lincoln legal
documents across the country, the Lincoln Legal
Papers never claimed to have found everything.
Documents still remain unknown to us in attics, safedeposit boxes, frames on walls, and other places. We
especially appreciate the efforts of collectors, dealers,
and auction houses, particularly Heritage Galleries,
to notify us when they find a new Lincoln legal
document.
Staff News
A
s is the case every February, members of the
staff gave presentations about Abraham Lincoln
to various groups in Illinois.
John Lupton made a presentation to the
Lincoln-Douglas Inn of Court, an organization of
attorneys and judges in central Illinois. He talked
about Stephen Douglas’s career as an attorney, circuit
judge, and Illinois Supreme Court justice and how
Douglas’s legal career was similar to and different
from Abraham Lincoln’s legal career.
Erika Nunamaker made a presentation to
advanced-placement history students at Mundelein
High School. She spoke with the students, who are
studying American history and the Civil War, about
Lincoln and the Papers of Abraham Lincoln.
Stacy McDermott spoke to a group of fifth
graders for their living history program at Iles
Elementary School in Springfield. She made a
presentation about Lincoln’s legal career and the
practice of law in the nineteenth century.
As part of a series of events at the Abraham
Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, Daniel
Stowell made a presentation about the major
discoveries of the Lincoln Legal Papers.
At “Pike County Day,” an adult education
program hosted by John Wood Community College,
in Pittsfield, Christopher Schnell made a presentation
about Lincoln’s legal cases in the Pike County Circuit
Court.
Stacy McDermott spoke to a group of fifth
graders at Dubois Elementary School in Springfield.
She made a presentation about women’s rights and
the history of women’s suffrage for the school’s
annual living history program.
John Chapin, Long-time Advisory
Board Member, Has Died
Spink v. Chiniquy
J
ohn R. Chapin, a Springfield attorney for fifty
years, died in March at the age of eighty-seven. A
history buff and Lincoln enthusiast, Chapin was a
member of Lincoln Legal Papers Advisory Board
since the beginning of the project in 1985, serving
as chairman for fifteen years. He was also a member
of the boards of the Abraham Lincoln Association
and the Sangamon County Historical Society. Chapin
was a major donor (Senior Contributing Partner)
when private donations were critical to the survival
of the project. Over the years, he also recruited
outstanding donors and members of the advisory
board from both the legal and financial sectors.
This is the fifth installment in a series presenting
interesting Lincoln cases that will not appear in the
forthcoming four-volume book edition.
P
eter Spink’s slander suit against Charles
Chiniquy, a Catholic priest, in the Kankakee
County and Champaign County Circuit Courts is an
interesting example of antebellum slander cases.
Chiniquy was a rather famous French Canadian who
settled in Illinois, founded the Christian Catholic
Church, and later became a Presbyterian. He was
involved in the temperance movement and became
an outspoken, anti-Catholic crusader. Although there
is no historical evidence to support it, Chiniquy
claimed that there was a Catholic plot to assassinate
President Lincoln. Chiniquy’s notoriety, the
Donors
alleged plot, and his legal connection to
he project acknowledges with deep appreciation the Lincoln have piqued the interests of Lincoln
generosity of the following contributors:
scholars and amateur historians alike.
In the 1830s and 1840s, Charles
Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon S. Cohen
Mr. and Mrs. Cullom Davis in memory of John Chapin Chiniquy preached total abstinence from
alcohol, a position that was not popular with
Professor and Mrs. Robert W. Johannsen
Catholics. Pressure from his bishop in Quebec
Bruce Hart
forced Chiniquy, then forty-two years old, to
Stephen Mudge
leave Canada. He settled in Kankakee in 1851.
F. John Taylor in memory of John Chapin
F. John Taylor in memory of James Hickey
T
Two Lincoln Documents
from Spink v. Chiniquy
L
ast October, members of the project
traveled to the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign to digitize Lincoln
documents held at the Illinois Historical Survey.
The Survey is located in the Graduate Library.
Four documents held there are related to Spink
v. Chiniquy, including the two documents
written by Lincoln presented here. The
document at right is an order regarding the
agreement between Spink and Chiniquy to
dismiss the suit. The document below is a
promissory note, signed by Chiniquy, agreeing
to pay Lincoln $50 for his legal services.
Document images
courtesy of the
Illinois Historical
Survey, University
of Illinois at
UrbanaChampaign.
A number of his followers moved to Illinois around
the same time.
In January 1854, in a sermon before his
congregation, Chiniquy declared in French that
“There is one amongst you (said Spink meaning) who
has gone and perjured himself before Esquire Smith
at Spring Creek lately.” During the next year,
Chiniquy continued publicly to accuse Peter Spink
of perjury. Spink took exception to the accusations
and hired attorney Charles R. Starr. In May 1855, he
filed a slander suit against Chiniquy in the Kankakee
County Circuit Court, requesting $10,000 in
damages. Spink argued that Chiniquy’s words against
him damaged his “standing in the community in
which he lives...and his good reputation amongst his
neighbors for integrity and truthfulness has been
greatly impaired.” Chiniquy retained John W.
Paddock, J. A. Ward, and Uri Osgood. In November,
Spink filed a petition for a change of venue. He
argued that he could not receive a fair trial in
Kankakee County. The court granted Spink a change
of venue to the Champaign County Circuit Court,
where Chiniquy retained the legal services of
Abraham Lincoln.
In April 1856, Chiniquy gave a temperance
lecture in Springfield just before his case in
Champaign County Circuit Court was continued to
the next term. Chiniquy agreed to pay Lincoln $50
in legal fees. The case was continued again in June.
However, the case ended somewhat quietly in
October. At that time, Chiniquy declared that “he now
disclaims any belief in the truth of such charge [of
perjury] against said Plaintiff.” As a result of
Chiniquy’s declaration of Spink’s innocence, the
parties agreed to settle the suit and pay their own
costs.
Despite the simplicity of this slander case and
its rather anti-climatic dismissal, Chiniquy
embellished the case and Lincoln’s role in it. During
his life, Chiniquy wrote a number of books, including
Fifty Years in the “Church” of Rome. In the book,
he included a chapter recounting Spink’s slander suit
against him. He provided dialogue between himself
continued on page 4...
and Lincoln, remembering Lincoln to say: “My dear
Mr. Chiniquy, I feel proud and honored to have been
called to defend you. But I have done it less as a
lawyer than as a friend.” Chiniquy also wrote:
“Abraham Lincoln had not only defended me with
the zeal and talent of the ablest lawyer I have ever
known, but as the most devoted and noblest friend
I ever had.” There is no evidence to suggest that
Lincoln and Chiniquy were friends, and to Lincoln,
Chiniquy was probably nothing more than a legal
client.
Chiniquy’s book also recounts an alleged
Catholic plot to assassinate President Lincoln. In
his account, Chiniquy talks about his visit to Washington to warn Lincoln about the plan. He also condemns the Roman Catholic Church as an anti-democratic, anti-Lincoln threat to American government.
A comic book, entitled The
Big Betrayal, published in
1981, demonstrates the continued popularity of this conspiracy theory a century later.
It dramatizes Chiniquy’s life,
the slander trial, and the alleged assassination plot.
During his lifetime,
Chiniquy made much of his
connection to Lincoln.
Although there are two known letters from Chiniquy
to Lincoln during the Civil War, there is no evidence
that Lincoln ever wrote to or saw Chiniquy after the
court dismissed the slander suit against him.
By Stacy Pratt McDermott
Assistant Editor
Sources: Caroline B. Brettell, “From Catholics to
Presbyterians: French-Canadian Immigrants in Central
Illinois,” American Presbyterians 63 (Fall 1985): 285-98;
Edward R. Kantowicz, “A Fragment of French Canada on the
Illinois Prairies,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical
Society 75 (Winter 1982): 263-76; Joseph George Jr., “The
Lincoln Writings of Charles P. T. Chiniquy,” Journal of the
Illinois State Historical Society 69 (February 1976): 17-25;
John J. Duff, A. Lincoln: Prairie Lawyer (New York: Rinehart
& Company, 1960), 329-30; Albert A. Woldman, Lawyer
Lincoln (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1936), 97, 218; Charles
Chiniquy, Fifty Years in the “Church” of Rome (1886, reprint;
Chino: CA: Chick Publications, 1985); The Big Betrayal
(Chino, CA: Chick Publications, 1981); U.S. Census Office,
Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Kankakee County,
IL, 279; Affidavit of Peter Spink, 3 February 1855; Affidavit
of Peter Spink, 10 February 1855; John W. Paddock to Champaign
County Circuit Clerk Thomson R. Webber, 8 April 1856, all in
Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, Springfield,
IL; Promissory Note, Charles Chiniquy to Abraham Lincoln, 23
May 1856; Order, [October Term 1856], both in Illinois Historical
Survey, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL; Order, [May Term
1856], Champaign County Circuit Court Record A, 420; Order,
[June Term 1856], Champaign County Circuit Court Record A,
508; Order, [October Term 1856], Champaign County Circuit
Court Record B, 45, all in Urbana Free Library, Urbana, IL; Order,
[October Term 1856], Herndon-Weik Collection, Library of
Congress, Washington, DC; Abraham Lincoln to Abraham Jonas,
21 October 1856; Charles Chiniquy to Abraham Lincoln, 29
September 1862; Charles Chiniquy to Abraham Lincoln, 10 June
1864, all in the Robert Todd Lincoln Collection of Abraham
Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
The Lincoln Legal Papers
A Documentary History of the Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln, 1836-1861
A Project of
Cosponsors:
Abraham Lincoln Association
University of Illinois at Springfield
Project Staff:
Daniel W. Stowell, Director/Editor; John A. Lupton, Associate Director/
Associate Editor; Susan Krause, Assistant Editor; Stacy Pratt McDermott,
Assistant Editor; Christopher A. Schnell, Assistant Editor; Kelley Boston,
Research Associate; Erika Nunamaker, Research Associate; Carmen
Morgan, Secretary; Michael Kelley, Graduate Assistant; Jenifer Maseman,
Graduate Assistant.
This project has been supported by grants from the National
Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency, and
the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.
How You Can Help:,
•By advising project staff of known or reported Lincoln legal documents
in your locality. We are seeking photocopies of any document, record, letter,
contemporary printed account, or after-the-fact recollection that relates to
Abraham Lincoln’s entire law practice, 1836-1861.
•By making a tax-deductible donation to the Abraham Lincoln Association
in support of the project. Such gifts provide crucial support in furtherance
of the project’s objectives.
Please address inquiries and gifts to:
The Lincoln Legal Papers
#1 Old State Capitol Plaza, Springfield, IL 62701-1507
Phone: (217) 785-9130 Fax: (217) 524-6973
E-mail: cmorgan@papersofabrahamlincoln.org
Website: http://www.papersofabrahamlincoln.org
Printed by authority of the State of Illinois (3.8M—03-06)