a battery
of lawyers whom he thought invincible--William H. Seward, E. M. Dickerson,
and Senator Reverdy Johnson. Manny made a giant effort at self-defence by
hiring Abraham Lincoln, Edwin M. Stanton, Stephen A. Douglas, Peter H.
Watson, George Harding, and Congressman H. Winter Davis.

From first to last it was a lawyers' battle, and McCormick was finally
defeated by Stanton, who made an unanswerably eloquent speech. For this
speech Stanton received $10,000, and Lincoln, who had made no speech at
all, was given $1,000. Yet, in the long run, the man who profited by this
lawsuit was Lincoln; for it was this money that enabled him to carry on
his famous debate with Douglas, and thus made him the inevitable candidate
of the Republican Party.

McCormick's most disastrous lawsuit was with D. M. Osborne and the Gordon
brothers, of Rochester. In 1875 the Gordons had invented an attachment
for a wire self-binder, and in a careless moment McCormick had signed a
contract promising to make these self-binders and to pay $10 royalty on
every machine. Then a man named Withington appeared with a much better
self-binder. McCormick at once began to make the Withington machine and
was sued by the Gordons.

At this time McCormick was over seventy years of age, and crippled with
rheumatism; but he believed that the Gordons had deceived him and he
fought them sternly as long as he lived. After his death, his eldest son,
Cyrus, consented to a compromise, whereby Osborne, who was owner of a
share in the Gordon concern, and the Gordons were to be paid $225,000. But
in order to impress upon them the enormity of this amount, he prepared the
money for them in small bills. When they called at the McCormick office in
Chicago, they were taken to a small room on the top floor and shown a
great pyramid of green currency.

"There is your money," said McCormick's lawyer. "Kindly count it and see
if it is not a quarter of a million dollars."

The three men gasped with mingled ecstasy and consternation. "B--b--but,"
stammered one of them, "how can we take it away? Can't you give us a
cheque?"

"That is the right amount, in legal money, gentlemen," replied the lawyer.
"All I will say is that there are a couple of old valises in the
closet--and I wish you good afternoon."

For several hours Osborne and the Gordons literally waded in affluence,
counting the money and packing it in the valises. By the time they had
finished, it was eight o'clock. The