President Lincoln vignettes in F.B. Carpenter's "Six Months at the White House"

[David Lockmiller]

In Lincoln's War Cabinet, at page 89, is a short account by the author Burton Hendrick regarding Judge David Davis:

Great public questions never much interested [Judge David] Davis; the slavery issue aroused only perfunctory attention, and he hated abolitionists with fervor worthy of his Southern origin. Politics, in his view, amounted simply to spoils. Davis had the personal qualities essential to success in this field. He was jovial, interested in people, Lincolnian in his love of laughter and yarn-swapping. In court one day, one of the ornaments of the bar burst out into a loud guffaw -- Lincoln had just told him in whispers a side-splitting story. His Honor promptly fined the offender for contempt of court. After adjournment he called the disrespectful person to the bar. "What was the story Lincoln told you?" he asked. On hearing it Davis himself doubled up with mirth. "Fine remitted!" he shouted in appreciation.