Judging Lincoln

3. Abraham Lincoln: Commander in Chief or “Attorney in Chief”?

Originally published by Mercer University Press, , and reprinted with permission of the publisher from Lincoln and His Contemporaries, ed. Charles Hubbard (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, ).© Mercer University Press. This essay was first presented at Lincoln Memorial University in April  as part of the conference “Lincoln and His Contemporaries.” 3 Abraham Lincoln: Commander in Chief or “Attorney in Chief”? B more is now known about Abraham Lincoln’s legal practice than ever before, historians risk the temptation to focus too much on his legal career and not enough on the fact that, for Lincoln, the law was in many respects a means to politics, his first love. It is necessary to remember that the sixteenth president is unique among the forty-three men who have served in the Oval Office: He ran for political office at a younger age than any other lawyer who became president, and he was one of the few who ran for office before he became a lawyer. Although he was defeated in his first effort to become a state legislator, the effort signaled that Lincoln’s greatest satisfaction in life ultimately would come from working on political problems facing his community. It is ironic that the youthful Lincoln initially attempted to emulate George Washington, his first political hero, by running for office during military service. In the end, he spent too little time on his first campaign because, like Washington, he was attempting to gain military experience while competing for public office. He never repeated that mistake. Lincoln would take a different road to political success. According to Thomas A. Bailey’s study of presidential greatness, “The American people admire a chieftain who can command their allegiance, inspire them to greater patriotism, and arouse them with a challenge that will appeal to their better selves.”1 All of this Lincoln did successfully, using skills he honed in the courtroom. He never wavered from his desire to exercise political leadership. He used the law as a springboard to reach his political   goals, and this contributed to his later success as president and commander in chief. Lincoln was able to blend the traditional differences between the law and politics into a singular democratic vision. By temperament he was not an activist like Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, who was willing to undo congressional compromises. Nor was he a lazy lawyer-president like James Buchanan. Lincoln was a full-fledged politician who was willing to find solutions to Abraham Lincoln Revised Statutes of the State of Illinois, . William Walters, printer, Springfield, . Book, ⫻⅝ ⫻¼ inches. This book once sat in the Lincoln and Herndon law offices in downtown Springfield. William H. Herndon, Lincoln’s longtime law partner, signed the book in eight places. From The Frank and Virginia Williams Collection of Lincolniana; photograph by Virginia Williams. public policy issues—including the divisive issues of civil war and slavery— when Taney and others would provoke them due to their ideological extremism , narrow legal approach, and lack of political experience. Lincoln the Warrior Apart from showing that Lincoln did indeed adopt George Washington as a role model, Lincoln’s military experience in a way encouraged him to pursue a legal career as a means to further his political ambitions. During the Black Hawk Indian War, he met his future law partner, John Todd Stuart, who later became a state legislator. Election as a captain in the state militia by his men provided Lincoln his public acceptance—a validation that he would seek continually in political life. Although the Black Hawk Indian War provided Lincoln a minimally challenging military experience, especially compared with Washington’s, it linked him to a successful military campaign, even if his personal contribution to it came mostly, he admitted, in fighting mosquitoes.2 Importantly, Lincoln’s active military service encouraged him to study the law as a means to further his political ambition. Lincoln the Lawyer Lincoln did not practice law and then become a politician. Not only was he a politician first; he was always both a politician and a lawyer simultaneously. This differentiates him from many politicians and lawyers. There can be little question that Lincoln’s long, arduous, and intensive legal career at the Bar of Illinois, along with his political career, constituted his principal schooling and prepared him for later presidential duties, including the role of commander in chief. It proved dynamic training. His twenty-four-year legal-political career before assuming the presidency taught him...