rable point; but
this was the exception, and generally he went straight to the citadel of
a cause or a question, and struck home there, knowing if that were won
the outwork would necessarily fall. He could hardly be called very
learned in his profession, and yet he rarely tried a cause without fully
understanding the law applicable to it. I have no hesitation in saying
he was one of the ablest lawyers I have ever known. If he was forcible
before the jury he was equally so with the court. He detected with
unerring sagacity the marked points of his opponents' arguments, and
pressed his own views with overwhelming force. His efforts were quite
unequal, and it may have been that he would not on some occasions strike
one as at all remarkable; but let him be thoroughly aroused, let him
feel that he was right and that some great principle was involved in his
case, and he would come out with an earnestness of conviction, a power
of argument, and a wealth of illustration, that I have never seen
surpassed.... Simple in his habits, without pretensions of any kind, and
distrustful of himself, he was willing to yield precedence and place to
others, when he ought to have claimed them for himself. He rarely, if
ever, sought office except at the urgent solicitations of his friends.
In substantiation of this, I may be permitted to relate an incident
which now occurs to me. Prior to his nomination for the Presidency, and,
indeed, when his name was first mentioned in connection with that high
office, I broached the subject upon the occasion of meeting him here.
His response was, 'I hope they will select some abler man than myself.'"

Mr. C.S. Parks, a lawyer associated with Lincoln for some years,
furnishes the following testimony concerning his more prominent
qualities: "I have often said that for a man who was for a quarter of a
century both a lawyer and a politician he was the most _honest_ man I
ever knew. He was not only morally honest, but intellectually so. He
could not reason falsely; if he attempted it, he failed. In politics he
would never try to mislead. At the bar, when he thought he was wrong, he
was the weakest lawyer I ever saw."

Hon. David Davis, afterwards Associate Justice U.S. Supreme Court and
U.S. Senator, presided over the Eighth Judicial Circuit of Illinois
during the remaining years of Lincoln's practice at the bar. He was
united to Lincoln in close bonds of friendship, and year after year
travelled with him over