"Great God Almighty"

"What are you studying?"

Russell Godbey spotted Abraham Lincoln straddlinga woodpile one day in the early 1830s, readinga book. It was an odd sight in New Salem—an Illinoisvillage peopled by farmers who by and large weren't avid readers—thoughmaybe not so much for Lincoln. People had grown usedto seeing him here and there, propped up and down and around atstrange angles, nose buried in a newspaper or book.

Godbey was a stout farmer with a goatee he liked to wear long, aclear, open stare, and a large mouth that turned downward at the ends,the combination of which gave him an almost severely frank countenance—thekind of man who did not mince words and did not likenonsense. In a few years he would make a smart sale of some horsesto buy livestock, farmland, and eventually a decent degree of prosperity,settling into a comfortable, balanced life: family of eight (four sonsand four daughters), church deacon, state militia captain, a gold watchchain curving out from a slowly increasing paunch. The very pictureof respectability was Russell Godbey.

He was a Jackson man—like most people in New Salem—whereLincoln was a Whig. Godbey looked, dressed, and acted the part of amiddle-class farmer; he would not have been very distinguishable froma half-dozen other Russell Godbeys in the area. Lincoln, on the otherhand, stuck out like a sore thumb, a big one, with his towering height,ill-fitted clothes, and curious mannerisms. Still, Godbey liked Lincoln,who was if nothing else a good storyteller. He had once hired Lincoln tosurvey some land, and later voted for him despite his Whig politics.

"Abe, what are you studying?"

Lincoln looked up, the clouds of concentration drifting away from hiseyes as he brought Godbey into focus. He furrowed his thick eyebrows.His head had been deep into the book, and his answer was uncharacteristicallyterse. "Studying law."

Godbey could not have been more surprised if Lincoln had told himhe was reading up on moonbeams. He could only splutter, "Great GodAlmighty!"

Lincoln went back to his book.

He never really explained why he wanted to become a lawyer. Perhaps—aswith so many other aspects of his professional life—the reasonswere so pedestrian that they blended almost unnoticeably intothe general background of his life. But the decision itself required effortand diligence, and careful thought. As Godbey's reaction suggests,it was not a natural fit.

People become lawyers for many different reasons. Some want topromote social justice, and decide (rightly or wrongly) that the courtroomis the best place to promote, on the practical level of dispute resolution,high ideals of justice and the greater good. "Where can I workwhere it will make a difference to society?" is a common question posedto modern-day law school deans. Journalist-turned-law-student ChrisGoodrich wrote of a friend at Yale Law School in the late 1980s who,when asked why she was there, answered simply, to "help people."

Others think the law is a good place to feed their competitive spirit,which tends to be highly developed in the legal profession. Courtroomsappeal to some aspiring lawyers as a great place to feed theirappetite for (relatively) bloodless forensic combat. Goodrich also remembereda fellow student named Denise, who "liked nothing betterthan a good argument ... or a bad argument, so long as her positionwas winning." Recalling his days growing up in tiny Kinsman, Ohio,renowned early-twentieth-century lawyer Clarence Darrow noted thatthe local tinsmith doubled as justice of the peace and wrote, "I nevermissed a chance to go over to his shop when a case was on trial. Ienjoyed the way the pettifoggers abused each other."

Still others just need a good job. The law "affords fewer prospects ofmaking great estates," Daniel Webster observed, "but more certaintyof earning a comfortable living." The law offers a generally lucrativeand accessible path to middle- and upper-class comforts for peoplewho might not otherwise bring to their pursuit of happiness anythingmore than a sharp mind. It was "a means to a livelihood," early-twentieth-centurylawyer and poet Archibald MacLeish explained, though healso admitted that "it was a very exciting intellectual discipline." "Lawhas always meant brains, money, security, and respect," observed onerecent law student.

Those who in Lincoln's day contemplated the law as a possible occupationfaced somewhat different circumstances. In an age when reformwas so tightly wound around religious people and institutions,the profession seems to have attracted relatively few genuine socialreformers. Its competitive aspects were appealing to those with highpolitical ambitions: Lincoln's longtime rival Stephen Douglas, for example,who used his relatively brief stint at the bar to propel himselfinto the state attorney general's seat in 1834, a judgeship, and eventuallythe U.S. Senate.

Antebellum men could also look upon the bar as a good place to earnmoney and a respectable living. This was more than just a paycheck;it was an identity within which was bound up much of what it meantto be a man. In Lincoln's father's day, manhood had been a function offarming and agriculture, occupations where the lines between work,home, and family were so blurry as to be almost irrelevant. But byLincoln's time, the relatively new concept of a profession—a lawyer, adoctor, a minister—involved separating one's way of earning a livingfrom domestic life, and investing the workplace with an extraordinaryamount of prestige and importance. "In what condition is a man placed,who has no regular calling or profession?" asked a commentator in1852, "Certainly without any definite object or aim. He must either givehimself up to indolence and ease, or else employ himself about manythings and no one thing in particular." Young men knew they werecrossing a line into full-blown manhood when they received whatevertraining was necessary to ply their profession. Future president RutherfordB. Hayes described the start of his legal studies as "enter[ing]the portals of the profession in which is locked up the passport whichis to conduct me to all I am destined to receive in life."

What about Lincoln?

If a desire to promote some abstract sense of justice was a motivatingfactor in Lincoln's pursuit of a legal career, there is no record ofthe fact. In his "notes for a law lecture," Lincoln mentioned diligence,thrift, industry, and personal honesty as necessary character traitsfor a good lawyer, but he did not argue for a lawyer's place as an agentof the good society. Lincoln did place moral truth and its pursuit at thecenter of his political philosophy, speaking of the "moral lights aroundus" and "the light of reason and the love of liberty in this Americanpeople." But as an attorney Lincoln gave no indication that he felt itwas his duty to nurture the moral lights in a courtroom.

He did have a competitive nature, as witnessed by his love of wrestlingand games:...