Chapter 6: Abe Starts His Own Law Firm

Lincoln’s early success riding the 8^th Illinois Circuit convinces him to resign from Stephen Logan’s firm in 1844 and start his own practice.

In search of a junior partner, he hires 25 year old William Herndon, who was also working for Logan. Together they take on both civil and criminal cases, from suits involving debt and home foreclosures, slander and divorce, and even some of the early twenty-five murder trials Lincoln will handle. The firm’s more lucrative cases involving the Illinois Central Railroad come later, around 1853.

Herndon remains the inside man, gathering research on statutes and precedents, and feeding them into Lincoln as litigator. Abe later refers to Billy as: “my man always above all other men on the globe.”

But Herndon’s impact on Lincoln goes beyond the law and into the arena that will shape his destiny, that being slavery. Billy is dead set on ending it and debates Abe over its history and outlook in America.