Edwin M. Stanton was one of the attorneys in the great “reaper patent” case heard in Cincinnati in 1855, Lincoln also having been retained. The latter was rather anxious to deliver the argument on the general propositions of law applicable to the case, but it being decided to have Mr. Stanton do this, the Westerner made no complaint.
Speaking of Stanton’s argument and the view Lincoln took of it, Ralph Emerson, a young lawyer who was present at the trial, said:
“The final summing up on our side was by Mr. Stanton, and though he took but about three hours in its delivery, he had devoted as many, if not more, weeks to its preparation. It was very able, and Mr. Lincoln was throughout the whole of it a rapt listener. Mr. Stanton closed his speech in a flight of impassioned eloquence.
“Then the court adjourned for the day, and Mr. Lincoln invited me to take a long walk with him. For block after block he walked rapidly forward, not saying a word, evidently deeply dejected.
“At last he turned suddenly to me, exclaiming, ‘Emerson, I am going home.’ A pause. ‘I am going home to study law.’
“‘Why,’ I exclaimed, ‘Mr. Lincoln, you stand at the head of the bar in Illinois now! What are you talking about?’
“‘Ah, yes,’ he said, ‘I do occupy a good position there, and I think that I can get along with the way things are done there now. But these college-trained men, who have devoted their whole lives to study, are coming West, don’t you see? And they study their cases as we never do. They have got as far as Cincinnati now. They will soon be in Illinois.’
“Another long pause; then stopping and turning toward me, his countenance suddenly assuming that look of strong determination which those who knew him best sometimes saw upon his face, he exclaimed, ‘I am going home to study law! I am as good as any, of them, and when they get out to Illinois, I will be ready for them.’”
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