Slavery

NYDave669 · March 21, 2001, 1:49am

Did Abe Lincoln ever represent a slave owner in court?

Ice_Wolf · March 22, 2001, 11:56am

Apparently so.

From http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/news/trip.htm
“The Heroic Mr. Lincoln? In the Matter of Jane, A Woman of Color Reconsidered” by Mark E. Steiner, South Texas College of Law (and formerly with Lincoln Legal Papers). Lincoln defended a slave owner in Charleston, Illinois. While Lincoln lost the case as the owner had no case to make (and not, as some have alleged, because he didn’t try hard enough), the talk focused more on the apparent contradictions involving Lincoln’s having taken on such a case given his well known opposition to slavery. Lincoln apparently said on a later occasion that it was a lawyer’s duty to represent the causes of those whose causes of those who had hired him. The point I got from the talk was the belief Lincoln could only take on the case because he was able to suspend his moral judgment.

and