Lincoln's Legal Career

I made my way over to the Rare Book & Manuscript Library and was astounded by how nice my shoes sounded on the third floor of the Main Library. It must have been from the silence echoing through the deserted hallway. I thought this over for a long while.

As I entered into the room I was impressed by the layout of the conjoining rooms. I assumed that they were viewing rooms. There were large glass windows with empty tables behind them. Being rare books and manuscripts they want to make sure people don't damage them or steal them. Constant surveillance. But it makes for a sexy library.

A man from the library introduced the lecturer, Guy Fraker, and put in a lot of Lincoln humor. "Lincoln's birthday was eight score and six days ago." "Buy this postcard set, it will only set you back a Lincoln (aka $5)." I thought it was funny. Oh yes, it was also President's Day. Everyone in the room was a total Lincoln-phile. President's Day is like their Christmas.

So Guy Fraker (who got a BA and JD at UIUC) started to introduce himself and talked about his admiration for the library at UIUC and how he is a lawyer not a writer so he needed a lot of help writing his book. Eventually he started to talk about Lincoln. Fraker stated that the mission of his book was to give Central Illinois credit for putting Lincoln in the White House.

The rest played out as a very specific history lesson. Let me summarize into the things I found most interesting:

- Lincoln cared about keeping the Union alive and abolishing slavery. When he said Union he meant democracy more so than just a group of states. Also, it is a misconception that Lincoln didn't care about slavery. Lincoln's views on equal rights for all races was a little less equal but he did view the act of owning another person as evil and immoral.

- Lincoln was one of the few lawyers who went on the whole county circuit. Most would hit up one or two counties, but he hit up all 14(?) counties. He would be gone for eleven weeks, twice a year, so twenty-two weeks total. Many thought he did this because he didn't like staying at home with his wife, Mary. She had to raise the kids all on her own. Then she went crazy.

- The county circuit was Springfield - Tazwell - Woodford (where I'm from) - McClean - Lacon - Monticello - Champaign - Danville - Paris - Shelby - Sullivan - Decatur - Taylorville. From this I learned that Champaign County was the second smallest until the railroads and the University were built.

- Also, alcohol was a bigger issue than slavery in Illinois because no one in Illinois owned slaves. Most of his circuiting was for alcohol distribution rights.

- A lot of the people he knew on the circuit court encouraged him and helps get him votes to become President. 

Really this was just a fun little history lesson about Lincoln's time in Illinois. They had cake, but I didn't eat any. I was definitely one of two people that were not librarians, histories, or some other form of high scholar. I made a swift getaway.

They were selling his book. I did not drop any Lincolns for it though...