Abraham Lincoln in Dwight, Illinois at 7:00 PM, September 21, 2013

Well, today is the day.  Every year my little town has a festival, Dwight Harvest Days.  We draw tens of thousands of visitors from all around for parades, a flea market, a craft show, rides, a 5k run, and many, many other events.

This year, I have arranged, well I should say the Dwight Rotary Club, of which I have been a member for 28 years, has arranged, for Michael Krebs and Debra Ann Miller to bring their presentations of Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln to the Dwight High School Auditorium, 801 South Franklin Street in Dwight on September 21, 2013, tonight, at 7:00 PM.  The presentation is free and I think we will have a huge turnout, especially among students.

I have long followed the career of Mr. Krebs and I believe he is the king of Lincoln presenters.  Some samples of his work:

I am looking forward to this immensely.  It speaks well of the Great Emancipator in our national memory that he is by far the President most portrayed by historical re-enactors.  Lincoln calls to something very deep in the American soul.  Men portraying Lincoln go back to the first decade of the last century, while men and women who knew Lincoln were still alive, but were rapidly departing this vale of tears.  They kept alive a memory of Lincoln as a man and not just a mere statue or a historical personage trapped in books.  Those early Lincoln presenters gave the models by which Lincoln was portrayed in the new technology of film.  Through the efforts of the Lincoln presenters the memory of Lincoln is kept ever green.

Like most counties in Central Illinois, we have our Lincoln sites, places Lincoln visited while he was riding the circuit as a lawyer. In those more civilized days, courts in most areas only operated part time. On a court day, the judges and attorneys would arrive at a county seat, and the trials on the court’s docket would be called and tried. So it was on May 18, 1840 when Lincoln and his fellow attorneys rode into Pontiac, the then tiny county seat of Livingston County, for the first ever session of the Circuit Court in Livingston County.

Lincoln by this time was beginning to be well known in Central Illinois. He was a member of the Illinois House of Representatives, and was one of the leaders of the Whig Party in Central Illinois. He was only 31 and was clearly a young man on his way up in the world.

Lincoln was not the only celebrity attorney present that day in Pontiac. Stephen A. Douglas, Lincoln’s great antagonist, was also present. Only 27, Douglas was already famous throughout the State. Douglas was a fervent Democrat and one of the great orators of his day. Already he had been Attorney General of the State, and a member of the Illinois House of Representatives. Later that year he would be appointed Secretary of State, and in 1841 he would be appointed a Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court, the youngest man ever to serve on that tribunal. Douglas was also clearly a young man rising swiftly in the world.

However, on May 18, 1840 Lincoln and Douglas were not concentrating on grand issues or the future. Their attention was riveted on the case of William Popejoy vs. Isaac Wilson, the first case filed in the Circuit Court in Livingston County. Wilson had accused Popejoy of stealing meat from a Sarah McDowell, and Popejoy was suing him for slander. Slander lawsuits were not uncommon in Central Illinois of that period, and Lincoln, as was the case with most attorneys, represented quite a few clients in regard to such cases.

There was no love lost between Popejoy and Wilson. Wilson had previously sued Popejoy for the death of a horse of his that Wilson had allowed him to borrow. The horse had died and Wilson, represented by Stephen A. Douglas, had sued for $300.00 in damages. Lincoln had represented Popejoy. The jury had returned a verdict for Wilson, but assessed damages at $70.25.

In the current lawsuit for slander, Lincoln again represented Popejoy and Douglas again represented Wilson. Lincoln won the case, with the Jury deliberating on a pile of sawlogs on the bank of the Vermilion River which winds through Pontiac.

After the trial Lincoln and Douglas debated the political issues of the day before an appreciative audience. This type of activity was not unusual on a court date. People from all over a county would be in a county seat on court day and a carnival atmosphere would often ensue. Listening to speeches was a popular amusement and attorneys and politicians, then as now, love to give speeches.

We do not have a record of what was said. My guess is that it was probably a pretty low key debate. Lincoln and Douglas were not opponents seeking an office, and they knew each other and respected each other. Good humor probably persisted throughout under the holiday like atmosphere of a court date in Pontiac, with members of the audience joining in with comments from the sidelines. The upcoming Presidential election was probably one of the subjects touched upon, an election that William Henry Harrison, the Whig candidate was destined to win, denying President Van Buren a second term. Thus did Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, one hundred and seventy three ago in Pontiac, Illinois, unknowingly rehearse for future debates between them when the entire State of Illinois, and the nation, would be paying rapt attention.