Lawyer Lincoln: A Biography

(Paperback)

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Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States in 1860. By then he had been a farm laborer, hostler, boatman, and store clerk; a land surveyor, legislator, political stump speaker, and congressman. And he had been practicing law in the Illinois bar for twenty-three years.
Lawyer Lincoln, a classic in the field of Lincoln biography, examines those twenty-three years. It follows Lincoln into the courts and onto judicial circuits, where the practice of law continually broadened his intellectual faculties, developed his forensic skills, honed his wit, enlarged his sympathy, and deepened his understanding of human nature. It views Lincolns legal career not as a mere backdrop to the story of his Civil War presidency but as experience vital to his evolution from a shrewd practitioner of frontier justice into a chief executive capable of leading his nation through the most challenging period in Americas history. It strives not only to illuminate Lincolns legal intelligence or moral courage or love of justice but also to comprehend more fully the nature his singular genius.
This classic biography rescues Lincoln from schoolbook myths of Honest Abe. Anecdotal and penetrating, it portrays Lincoln the trial lawyer, the brief lawyer, the appellate lawyer, the railroad and big business lawyer, and for a time the judge. It follows him, too, into his Civil War presidency to attest to his status as one of the worlds truly great legal minds.

Reviews

"We will never be able to supply a real picture of Lawyer Lincoln unless we continue to do what the author of this book has done ... and thus be sustained by Lincoln's legacy of inspiration." --The New York Times

Author Bio

Albert Woldman was a lawyer and Lincoln scholar. He served on Ohio's state cabinet under Governor Lausche and was vice president of the Abraham Lincoln Association of Ohio. He died at his home in Beachwood, Ohio, in 1971.