By Allen D. Spiegel

Abraham Lincoln and assault, battery, bestiality, medical malpractice, uncollected debts, divorce, expert witnesses, patent infringement, sexual slander, personal damages, corporate clients, and the first use of the temporary insanity plea in a US courtroom

After considerable scouring of musty and dusty files in courtroom storage cellars, the research project in Springfield, Illinois discovered more than 70,000 documents directly linked to Abraham Lincoln’s twenty-four years as a practicing lawyer. Having access to that wealth of information, A. Lincoln Esquire: A Shrewd, Sophisticated Litigator presents unique insight into Lincoln’s legal career in a distinctive book that presents detailed stories about Lincoln’s cases using actual trial document, uses Lincoln’s cases to examine the social and political climate of the time, shows how relationships between Lincoln and his clients changed over time, and is the first book to use the newly discovered Lincoln Legal Papers primary source data.

In contrast to the mythical image of Lincoln as a country lawyer, he was actually among the top leaders of the Illinois bar. This book details more than fifty of Lincoln’s legal cases and activities such as assault and battery, bestiality, a wrongful dismissal, medical malpractice uncollected debts, the insanity plea in a murder case, divorce, the selection of expert witnesses, patent infringement, sexual slander, personal damages, corporate clients, and the first use of the temporary insanity plea in a US courtroom, and set the precedent for using expert witnesses. Lincoln even defended an Illinois Supreme Court justice against an impeachment charge.

Allen D. Spiegel is professor of preventive medicine and community health at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Brooklyn, New York. He has authored and edited over twenty books and numerous articles and book chapters.

Titles of Related Interest

Lincoln and his Contemporaries

When the Bells Tolled for Lincoln

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