Chicago soon grew to be one
of the largest and richest and certainly the most intensely active city
on the continent, and if any of my professional friends here had gone
there in Lincoln's later years, to try or argue a cause, or transact
other business, with any idea that Edinburgh or London had a monopoly of
legal learning, science, or subtlety, they would certainly have found
their mistake.
In those early days in the West, every lawyer, especially every court
lawyer, was necessarily a politician, constantly engaged in the public
discussion of the many questions evolved from the rapid development of
town, county, State, and Federal affairs. Then and there, in this regard,
public discussion supplied the place which the universal activity of the
press has since monopolized, and the public speaker who, by clearness,
force, earnestness, and wit; could make himself felt on the questions of
the day would rapidly come to the front. In the absence of that immense
variety of popular entertainments which now feed the public taste and
appetite, the people found their chief amusement in frequenting the
courts and public and political assemblies.
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