6
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BAR EXAMINER
Henry S. Greene
Image courtesy of E. R. Pritchard, ed., Illinois
of To-Day and Its Progressive Cities (Chicago:
First National Bank, 1897), 159.
Clifton H. Moore to Abraham Lincoln
January 19, 1860
Image courtesy of Robert Todd Lincoln Collection of Abraham Lincoln
Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
It is customary for an attorney to display his credentials
prominently on an office wall. Law diplomas from Harvard
or Yale attract particular attention. How many attorneys,
however, can claim that Abraham Lincoln played a key role
in their admission to the bar? The Papers of Abraham Lincoln
has evidence that links Lincoln to nineteen such individuals.1
Documents associated with two future lawyers shed light on
the early days of Illinois’s bar admission process.
On January 31, 1859, a triumphant Henry J. Atkins
wrote from Springfield, Illinois, to his brother Howard M.
Atkins, of Jacksonville, Illinois, and reported, “I have become
a lawyer at last!” He explained, “I was licensed to practice
law in all the Courts of this state this P.M. by the Supreme
Court of Ills. I passed a thorough examination…before three
of the best lawyers in Illinois…Abe Lincoln, B[enjamin]. S.
Edwards, & M[ilton]. Hay & only missed one question &
that was a trivial mistake. The committee complimented me
very highly and said it had been a long time since a student
had passed so good an examination before them.”2 Lincoln
and the other attorneys attested that Atkins was “qualified to
practice law, and recommend that he be licensed.”3
Lincoln also participated in the bar exam of Henry
S. Greene, whose story is particularly intriguing to scholars
in search of long-lost Lincoln documents. In an 1899 obitu-ary
for Greene, a Springfield newspaper recapped his long
and distinguished career. The paper traced Greene’s rise
from humble beginnings when he emigrated with his wid-owed
mother from Ireland to Canada, until his death, which
prompted an ad-mirer
to remark, “He
was a great lawyer
and one of the best
men that ever lived.
I have never met his
superior as a law-yer.”
4
On January
19, 1860, attorney
Clifton H. Moore,
of Clinton, Illinois,
wrote to Lincoln and
explained that
Greene had
completed more
than two years of
study with Moore
and another lawyer.
Moore wrote, “I am
satisfied that there is something of him. I want to send him
down to you & you have him ‘put through’ He is not afraid
of a rigid Examination please get a time set & write you
^me^ say 4 or 5 days before hand.”5
Lincoln received Moore’s letter, as he endorsed the
envelope with a brief file note, but his response to Moore
has not surfaced. However, Greene’s obituary referenced
the letter’s contents. The obituary noted, “Mr. Moore wrote
to Mr. Lincoln that young Greene was ready for examination,
and asked that he be notified when his presence would be
required. Mr. Lincoln replied that the young man might come
to Springfield any day after the following Tuesday, and that
he (Lincoln) ‘would get him through.’ This letter, after being
lost for over twenty years, is now framed in Judge Greene’s
office.”6
Indeed, Greene was prepared. On January 28, 1860,
Lincoln wrote, “We, the undersigned, report that we have
examined Mr. Henry S. Greene and find him well qualified
to practice as an attorney and counselor at law. We therefore
recommend that he be licensed as such.”7 Lincoln, Lewis
W. Ross, and Orville H. Browning signed the note. When
the location of this examiners’ report was last documented
