import, viewing them, as we can now, in connection with his later life. One of the first in which he appeared before the Illinois Supreme Court involved the freedom of a negro girl called Nance. In spite of the fact that Illinois had been free since its admission as a state, many traces of slavery still remained, particularly in the southern and central parts of the state. Among the scattered slaveholders was one Nathan Cromwell of Tazewell County, who for some years had in his service a negro girl, Nance. He claimed that Nance was bound to him by indenture, and that he had the right to sell her as any other property, a right he succeeded finally in exercising. One of his neighbors, Baily by name, bought the girl; but the purchase was conditional: Baily was to pay for his property only when he received from Cromwell title papers showing that Nance was bound to serve under the laws of the state. These papers Cromwell failed to produce before his death. Later his heirs sued Baily for the purchase price. Baily employed Lincoln to defend him. The case was tried in September, 1839, and decided against Baily. Then in July, 1841, it was tried again, before the Supreme Court of the state. Lincoln proved that Nance had lived for several years in the state, that she was over twenty-one years of age, that she had declared herself to be free, and that she had even purchased goods on her own account. The list of authorities he used in the trial to prove that Nance could not be held in bondage shows that he was already familiar with both Federal and state legislation on the slavery question up to that 'date. He went back to the Ordinance of 1787 to

show that slavery was forbidden in the Northwest Territory; he recalled the Constitution that had made the state free in 1818; he showed that by the law of nations no person can be sold in a free state. His argument convinced the court; the judgment of the lower court was overruled, and Nance was free.

After Lincoln's return from Congress in 1849, he was engaged in some of the most important cases of the day. One of these was a contest between the Illinois Central Railroad, at that time building, and McLean County, Illinois. This road had been exempted by the legislature from all state taxation on condition that it pay perpetually into the state treasury seven per cent. of its annual gross earnings. When the line was laid in McLean County the county authorities declared that the state legislature could not excuse the railroad company from paying county taxes; accordingly the company's property was assessed and a tax levied. If this claim of the county could be sustained, it was certain to kill the railroad; and great preparations were made for the defence. The solicitor of the Illinois Central at that time was General Mason Brayman, who retained Lincoln. The case was tried at Bloomington, before the Supreme Court, and, largely through the efforts of Lincoln, was won for the road. According to Herndon, Lincoln charged for his services a fee of two thousand dollars. Going to Chicago he presented his bill. "Why," said the officer to whom he applied, “this is as much as a first-class lawyer would have charged."

Stung by the ungrateful speech, Lincoln withdrew the bill, left the office, and at the first opportunity

LINCOLN'S OFFICE BOOK-CASE, CHAIR, AND INK STAND.

(In the Lincoln collection of Mr. William H. Lambert of Philadelphia, Pa.)

They formerly belonged to the Lincoln Memorial Collection of Chicago. Accompanying the ink stand is a letter saying that Mr. Lincoln wrote from it the famous "house-divided-against-itself" speech.

submitted the matter to his friends. Five thousand dollars, they all agreed, was a moderate fee, considering what he had done for the road, and six leading lawyers of the state signed a paper in which they declared that such a charge would not be "unreasonable." Lincoln then sued the road for that amount and won his case. "He gave me my half," says Herndon; "and as much as we deprecated the avarice of great corporations, we both thanked the Lord for letting the Illinois Central Railroad fall into our hands."

The current version of this story names General George B. McClellan as the testy official who snubbed Lincoln when he presented the bill. This could not have been. The incident occurred in 1855; that year Captain McClellan spent in the Crimea, as one of a commission of three sent abroad to study the European military service as displayed in the Crimean War. It was not until January, 1857, that McClellan resigned his commission in the United States army to become the chief engineer, and afterwards vicepresident, of the Illinois Central Railroad. It was when an officer of the Illinois Central, however, that McClellan first met Lincoln. "Long before the war,' he says, in "McClellan's Own Story," "when vicepresident of the Illinois Central Railroad, I knew Mr. Lincoln, for he was one of the counsel of the company. More than once I have been with him in out-of-theway county-seats where some important case was being tried, and, in the lack of sleeping accommodations, have spent the night in front of a stove, listening to the unceasing flow of anecdotes from his lips.