Lincoln, Abraham | Lincoln as lawyer

Lincoln, Abraham

Autograph letter signed ("A. Lincoln"), to Joseph Jackson Grimshaw, suggesting a resolution to a pending legal case

One page (202 x 127 mm) on a leaf of blue-ruled paper, Springfield, 27 March 1858; very short separations at head and foot of central vertical crease. Matted, framed, and glazed.

Less than three months before his nomination as a candidate for the United States Senate by the Illinois Republican Convention, Lincoln seeks a settlement in a pending legal matter. "Herewith I send you a sketch [not present] for an agreement in the case we spoke of—You see I ask you to admit more points for me, than I admit for you; but if you have any more merely labor-saving points (as mine are) admitted, add them, sign the paper & send it to me and I also sign it.

"I forget the names of the parties to the suits; but you and I will have dispute about that.

"The copy of the Will I have duly authenticated from Barton, but being a copy, it has not note of its record in Adams County, though my man says it is recorded there. The death of an Executor can also be proved. … Answer soon."

Jackson Grimshaw was a prominent Illinois attorney, in practice first with his brother, William, in Pittsfield, but moving to Quincy in 1857. He was closely associated with Lincoln, sometimes acting as co-counsel and sometimes, as here, standing in an adversarial position. Grimshaw, like Lincoln, deserted the Whigs for the nascent Republican party, and he strongly supported Lincoln's senatorial and presidential campaigns. Lincoln inscribed one of his author's copies of Political Debates Between Hon. Abraham Lincoln and Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, In the Celebrated Campaign of 1858, in Illinois to Grimshaw.

This letter is not included The Collected Writings of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Basler, but its existence was assumed from a reference in Grimshaw's reply, 3 April 1858.

PROVENANCE

The Elsie O. and Philip D. Sang Foundation (Sotheby Parke Bernet, 20 June 1979, lot 752)