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 Abraham
Lincoln an unscrupulous lawyer? That was one of the charges made against him
in his senatorial race against Steven Douglas and later again in his run for
the presidency. Lincoln, so it was claimed, had altered the almanac used so
successfully in his most famous trial - a murder trial in 1858. It was a
serious charge against anyone but especially against a man well known for his
integrity.
The initial source for this scurrilous claim
was apparently someone - a Douglas democrat - who was on the jury for the
murder trial. A man who voted to acquit Lincoln's client - Duff Armstrong -
and who then felt deceived by Duff's attorney. Lincoln had taken this case at
the request of Duff's mother, Hannah, the newly widowed wife of his old friend
Jack. It was Jack he had bested in a wrestling match in his early days in New
Salem. Lincoln called the match a "turning point in his life."
Jack's friendship with Lincoln after his win led to Lincoln's acceptance into
the community.
Duff and another man named Norris were
accused of killing a man in a drunken brawl in August of 1857. In a separate
trial, Norris was convicted of manslaughter for hitting the man in the back of
the head with a weapon. Now Duff would be tried for hitting the man in the
front of the head with a weapon. Although already preparing for his run for
the Senate against Steven Douglas, Lincoln could not say no to his friend
Hannah and took the case - pro bono.
Lincoln, at that time was known as one of the
best lawyers in Illinois but his reputation was made in civil cases. He had,
in his over 20 years in practice, handled over 4000 civil cases and just a few
hundred criminal cases. Roughly a dozen of these involved murders and he lost
half of them.
Obviously Abe Lincoln was not Perry Mason but
it was a "Perry Mason" moment - crushing an opposing witness - that
created the impression in the minds of some that false evidence had been
introduced in what became known as "The Almanac Trial." The trial's
defining moment - it's turning point - came when Lincoln, after a series of
questions setting up the prosecution's eye witness, Charles Allen, with his
testimony on how much moonlight there was that fateful August night and how
far he could see because of it, introduced an almanac for 1857 showing the
time the moon had set that night. It is popularly believed - probably because
that's the way it's been dramatized over the years - that the almanac showed
there was no moon that night. It merely showed that the "moonset"
that night was three minutes after midnight.
The time of the assault was about 11:00 PM so
the moon could not have been overhead, as the witness had testified. When
Lincoln read the facts from the almanac, a "roar of laughter' rose from
the spectators and some of the jurors - the witness had been discredited.
Despite the fact that a moon an hour before setting would have been high
enough to provide all the illumination needed, the impression Lincoln had
created in the minds of the jury and those in attendance was that there was
not enough light to see what the witness said he saw especially in the detail
that Lincoln had him testify to in setting him up. Lincoln had not altered the
almanac, he had skillfully altered the perception of the witness' testimony in
the minds of the jurors and no words by the prosecutor were able to change
that perception. It was only later, when people began to look at the almanac
for themselves, and saw that there was almost a full moon that night, that
they thought that Lincoln had used an altered almanac.
 It
was a ridiculous claim. Even if Lincoln were unethical and stupid enough to
try such a trick it would not have worked. Lincoln had three copies of the
almanac with him that day. He gave one to the judge, one to the prosecutor and
one to the jury after he read from it. The prosecutor immediately sent his
assistant out to buy more almanacs. He did and returned with several copies of
two published by other companies - they agreed with Lincoln's almanac to the
time of moonset within a minute or two - as if further proving Lincoln was
right and the witness was wrong. (Over time various enterprising people
clumsily changed 1857 almanacs to show there was no moon that night and then
claimed their almanac was the one Lincoln used in the trial.)
A good lawyer, Lincoln did not rely on just
his almanac to defend his client. Before recalling the state's star witness to
discredit him with the almanac, he called a witness who testified the weapon
that Duff allegedly used belonged to him and not Duff. (A potentially
dangerous witness since he told Lincoln he, Lincoln, did not wish to hear all
he saw that night). Lincoln also found a doctor to testify as an expert
witness that the blow to the back of his head could have caused the wound at
the front of the victim's head. (And they had already convicted the man who
delivered that blow, hadn't they). Finally and maybe most importantly Lincoln
in his closing argument in his shirt sleeves, pulling on his knitted braces
told a somewhat exaggerated story of his relationship with the Armstrong
family and how much they meant to him - it was as if Lincoln were personally
vouching for the boy on trial. How could anyone from a family so loved by Abe
ever do anything so wrong? No wonder Duff was acquitted.
While Lincoln was innocent of the campaign
charge that he had fixed the almanac, a charge that he had violated his
principles in taking and trying this case would have been true. Lincoln was
known for only accepting cases he believed in and he could not have believed
in this one. There was sufficient evidence to prove that Duff was as guilty as
his convicted partner that night - even Lincoln's own witness if asked could
have testified to that - but, in a test of friendship vs. principle, Lincoln
chose friendship. Maybe what he was really doing in his closing remarks was
making his friendship argument to himself in front of the jury trying to
convince himself that he had made the right choice. (Although he never talked
about the trial, at least publicly, as president he had friends in Illinois
start the wheels rolling to have Norris released early on parole.)
 Note:
For more on this subject, read Moonlight: Abraham Lincoln and the Almanac Trial
by John Evangelist Walsh published by St. Martin's Press
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