Extra Credit Questions

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thanks, Roger, the prize is most appreciated, I hope it will arrive soon! While we enjoyed a gorgeous spring and promising early summer two weeks ago the dreamy weather bid farewell.

[RJNorton]

Who said this about Abraham Lincoln?

"Lincoln could not hold a lengthy conversation with a lady – was not sufficiently educated & intelligent in the female line to do so."

[Eva Elisabeth]

Elizabeth Edwards!!

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(Please allow me to remark I will most appreciate if the prize is NOT participation in a speed dating event...)

[Gene C]

Herndon
(he probably picked it up from Elizabeth Edwards)

[RJNorton]

Kudos, Eva. Indeed it was Elizabeth Edwards. And, Gene, you win as you also mentioned the right answer.

You both win a beautiful August weekend.

There are some unique stories regarding Lincoln and women. Here is one:

"Lincoln was fully capable of depicting women, or at least some of them, as ridiculous creatures. One day when the streets of Springfield were even more a muddy hog-wallow than usual, Lincoln and a friend amused themselves by watching a woman with flowing skirts and a fancy, plumed hat trying to make her way across the avenue by Hoffman’s Row. After initial success, she slipped and fell backward in the mire. At this point Lincoln quipped, ‘Reminds me of a duck.’ His companion, playing the straightman, inquired ‘How is that?’ Lincoln replied: “Feathers on her head and down on her behind."

Source: Joseph E. Suppliger, The Intimate Lincoln, p. 81.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thanks, Roger.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Ops, sorry - I just noticed I posted my latest trivia question (What was Abraham Lincoln's "certificate of moral character"?) on the wrong thread (small mobile phone screen...):
http://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussio...ge-19.html
I continue here as Mary might be too specific a topic for some to check out.

Good idea, Roger, but Mentor Graham had nothing to do with it.

[RJNorton]

Can you say if this was something an admiring friend gave to him?

[Eva Elisabeth]

No, this wasn't given to him by a friend (nor by an admirer).

[Anita]

I remember reading that in order to become an attorney and practice in Illinois your had to present a letter of good moral character usually from the person you studied under. I'm on ice at physical therapy so I can't double check but I think that's what you may be referring to Eva.

[RJNorton]

I hope your physical therapy is successful, Anita.

Eva, I second Anita. Abraham Lincoln became a lawyer under an Illinois law enacted in 1833. This law stated that to be a lawyer someone had to "obtain a certificate procured from the court of an Illinois county certifying to the applicant's good moral character."

Lincoln actually went to the Illinois Supreme Court to get his certificate. On September 9, 1836, a license to practice law was issued to Lincoln by two of the justices of the Illinois Supreme Court. Later, in a more formal session, on March 1, 1837, Lincoln appeared before the clerk of the Illinois Supreme Court and took an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and of Illinois. Lincoln swore he would "in all things faithfully execute the duties of Attorney and Counselor at Law." Lincoln was then formally enrolled as an attorney licensed to practice law in all the courts of the state of Illinois.

It was not until 1841 that prospective lawyers in Illinois had to pass an examination to be admitted to the bar.

[Eva Elisabeth]

A brilliant gues and explanation, Anita and Roger, but this is not either what Abraham Lincoln's words referred to.

The bar exam requirements reminds me of Gustav Koerner's assessment...

[Gustav Koerner was a refugee from Germany. He had met Mary Todd when he was a student at Transylvania University in Lexington - he had already earned a doctorate at the University of Heidelberg. He moved to Illinois, became the law partner of James Shields, and then a Supreme Court Justice in Illinois before whom Abraham Lincoln practiced in the 1840s.]

I quote Koerner's thoughts in context from M. Burlingame's Vol.I:

"1836, Lincoln took some of the necessary formal steps to become a lawyer. In March, he obtained a certificate of good moral character from Stephen T. Logan, and six months later he received his license from the Illinois Supreme Court. After another six months, a clerk of that court officially enrolled him as a lawyer.[lxix] No record survives of the required examination that Lincoln took, but it probably resembled the one administered to John Dean Caton by Justice Samuel D. Lockwood of the Illinois Supreme Court. (According to his family tradition, Lockwood examined Lincoln by taking him out for a walk and questioning him as they strolled along.)[lxx]
The judge asked Caton what books he had read and how long and with whom he had studied. Then he 'inquired of the different forms of action, and the objects of each, some questions about criminal law, and the law of the administration of estates, and especially of the provisions of our statutes on these subjects.' The exam lasted no more than half an hour, after which Lockwood told Caton that 'he would give me a license, although I had much to learn to make me a good lawyer, and said I had better adopt some other pursuit, unless I was determined to work hard, to read much and to think strongly of what I did read; that good strong thinking was as indispensable to success in the profession as industrious reading; but that both were absolutely important to enable a man to attain eminence as a lawyer, or even respectability.' [lxxi] Gustave Koerner remembered undergoing a similarly casual examination, after which he and another candidate for the bar treated their examiners to a round of brandy toddies. Koerner found this quite a contrast to the bar exam he had taken in his native Germany, where leading jurists grilled him for four hours in Latin. [lxxii]"

Sources:
[lxix] Statement by J. McCan Davis, clerk of the Illinois supreme court, Springfield, 15 March 1909, Joseph B. Oakleaf Papers, Indiana University.
[lxx] Mary King Porter to Bernard J. Cigrand, Washington, D.C., n.d., quoted in an article by Cigrand, Chicago Daily News, 12 February 1916, clipping in William E. Barton’s scrapbooks, University of Chicago, “Abraham Lincoln,” vol. 1.
[lxxi] John Dean Caton, Early Bench and Bar of Illinois (Chicago: Chicago Legal News, 1893), 170-71.
[lxxii] Thomas J. McCormack, ed., Memoirs of Gustave Koerner, 1809-1896 (2 vols.; Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Torch Press, 1909), 1:373-76.

Back to the trivia - hint #1: Abraham Lincoln's words referred to something later than his admission to the bar.

[Anita]

Thanks Roger for your good wishes. I'm back home and cheated by doing a search.

Try number two. Lincoln's missing First Inaugural Address. At Harrisburg he'd entrusted a satchel containing the address to son Robert. Robert couldn't remember what he'd done with the satchel. Lincoln told Lamon, "I'm afraid I've lost my certificate of moral character, written by myself." https://books.google.com/books?id=mGMDAA...er&f=false

[Eva Elisabeth]

...Bob has lost my gripsack containing my inaugural address."

Good, Anita, you win tickets for the Trocks (Trockaderos de Monte Carlo), now - who is cheating here, and why?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tQU7ZZ2i7Lg
...and Roger is a winner, too.

PS: I had forgotten - the very best recovery wishes from me, too!

[RJNorton]

(08-10-2016 06:23 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Carlo), now - who is cheating here, and why?

I have no idea, but the men are pretending to be women. Are they doing it to see if they can fool the audience?