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| A scene from the 1939 film, Young Mr. Lincoln (probably his Almanac Trial). It was directed by John Ford and starred Henry Fonda [left] as Lincoln) |
Abraham Lincoln’s legal career in Illinois is often praised as a prelude to his moral leadership during our country’s only civil war. But the deeper you dig, the more complicated it gets. And the real rub—the exception that historians and Lincoln critics often point to—is this:
Lincoln helped free a slave first. Then, six years later, he defended a slaveholder.
If the order were reversed, we might chalk it up to early-career pragmatism. But Lincoln was already on record as despising slavery. He’s even remembered as the Great Emancipator.
And that’s the heart of it, isn’t it? That sequence matters. Defending a slave first, then a slaveholder—it feels like regression, not evolution. It challenges the tidy narrative of Lincoln as a steadily ascending moral figure. You’re right to feel the rub of that inconsistency.
Historians often offer this defense to justify Lincoln's ambiguity:
“As a lawyer, Lincoln believed in the right to legal representation—even for clients whose views he didn’t share.” [1]
But that explanation doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. From the heart of those two pivotal cases—Bailey v. Cromwell and Matson v. Bryant—a deeper truth emerges. What some dismiss as “pragmatism” was actually something more principled: Lincoln’s unwavering commitment to the law, even when the law lived in tension with justice.
Let's break it down.
🕊️ Bailey v. Cromwell (1841): The Illegality of Sale
In 1841, Lincoln helped secure the freedom of Nance Legins-Costley, a young Black woman who had been bought, sold, mortgaged, and jailed. His legal argument didn’t hinge on abolitionist sentiment—it rested on Constitutional clarity:
“The presumption [is] ... every person was free, without regard to race ... the sale of a free person is illegal.” [2]
Lincoln didn’t need to prove Nance’s humanity. He proved the transaction—the sale itself—violated Illinois law. It was a legal win grounded in Constitutional obedience—a theme Lincoln would echo throughout his life.
⚖️ Matson v. Bryant (1847): The Boundaries of Residence
Six years later, Lincoln defended slaveholder Robert Matson. Not because he believed in slavery, or that he'd regressed from his previous opinions about slavery—but because he believed in legal process. Matson had brought enslaved people from Kentucky to Illinois, and Lincoln argued they were in transit, not "residents"—so Illinois’s free soil protections didn’t apply.
This was not a moral defense of slavery. It was a jurisdictional argument. Lincoln lost the case because the Bryant family had lived in Illinois for two years, clearly establishing residency. [3]
🔍 The Consistency Beneath this Contradiction
At first glance, Lincoln's actions in these cases seem contradictory. But Lincoln’s logic was consistent across both cases:
In Bailey, he used Illinois law to invalidate a sale.
In Matson, he tested the limits of that same law to defend a client’s rights.
In both, he respected precedent, jurisdiction, and constitutional boundaries.
Lincoln’s fidelity to law—even in morally fraught cases like these—was the throughline.
Lincoln believed that law was the only stable path to justice. Even as president, he framed the Emancipation Proclamation as a war power, not a moral decree. His reverence for legal structure never wavered.
📍 Sidebar: Echoes of Dred Scott
The legal tension Lincoln argued in Matson—whether temporary residence in a free state conferred freedom—would later explode across the nation in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857). Chief Justice Taney ruled that transit through free soil did not change a slave’s status.
Lincoln’s argument in Matson was narrower and state-based, but it reveals how deeply embedded this issue was—and how Lincoln’s legal reasoning foreshadowed the constitutional crisis to come.
🧩 The Rub Reframed
So the sequence of Lincoln's choice of cases to represent isn’t a moral inconsistency—it’s a legal consistency in morally fraught terrain. Lincoln didn’t bend the law to fit his beliefs. He bent his beliefs to fit the law—and trusted that justice would follow. He believed the law was the only stable path to justice—even when justice demanded more than the law allowed. [4*]
That’s a richer, more honest portrait of Lincoln.
And these often-cited cases from the archives—despite what many historians and critics have long noted—do not diminish the legend of Abraham Lincoln, Storyteller.
They deepen it.
Mac
🎩 Hooked on Honest Old Abe’s courtroom drama? Here are three of his murder tales from the docket on Abraham Lincoln, Storyteller:
Abe's first murder trial back in 1838 was a surprise to the courtroom spectators—and to Lincoln himself! [Read: A Rookie's Bold Debut]
A fatal stabbing, a family feud, and a press war—Lincoln’s last murder trial ad it all. [Read: A Knife, A Grudge, and a Political Storm]
An abused woman and a murder charge—how did Lincoln help poor, old Mrs. Goings? [Read: The Day his Actions Spoke Louder Than His Words]
📚 Works Cited
[1] Burlingame, Michael. Abraham Lincoln: A Life. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.
[2] Bailey v. Cromwell, 4 Ill. 70 (1841). Illinois Supreme Court.
[3] “Matson Trial.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation. Accessed 21 Sept. 2025.
[4*] Herndon, William H., and Jesse W. Weik. Herndon's Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life. D. Appleton and Company, 1889. Hearndon actually wrote of Lincoln:
“He had faith in the law as the best expression of the will and wisdom of the people.”
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