were scarce. But the people loved justice, upheld the law, and followed
the courts, and soon found their favorites among the advocates. The
fundamental principles of the common law, as set forth by Blackstone and
Chitty, were not so difficult to acquire; and brains, common sense, force
of character, tenacity of purpose, ready wit and power of speech did the
rest, and supplied all the deficiencies of learning.

The lawsuits of those days were extremely simple, and the principles of
natural justice were mainly relied on to dispose of them at the Bar and
on the Bench, without resort to technical learning. Railroads,
corporations absorbing the chief business of the community, combined and
inherited wealth, with all the subtle and intricate questions they breed,
had not yet come in--and so the professional agents and the equipment
which they require were not needed. But there were many highly educated
and powerful men at the Bar of Illinois, even in those early days, whom
the spirit of enterprise had carried there in search of fame and fortune.
It was by constant contact and conflict with these that Lincoln acquired
professional strength and skill. Every community and every age creates
its own Bar, entirely adequate for its present uses and necessities. So
in Illinois, as the population and wealth of the State kept on doubling
and quadrupling, its Bar presented a growing abundance of learning and
science and technical skill. The early practitioners grew with its
growth and mastered the requisite knowledge. 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.