The requirements of the lawyer in that part of the country, at that
date, were different from the requirements in any part of the world at
the present date. The Hon. Joseph H. Choate, in a lecture at Edinburgh,
November 13, 1900, said: "My professional brethren will ask me how
could this rough backwoodsman ... become a learned and accomplished
lawyer? Well, he never did. He never would have earned his salt as a
writer for the 'Signet,' nor have won a place as advocate in the Court
of Session, where the teachings of the profession has reached its
highest perfection, and centuries of learning and precedent are
involved in the equipment of a lawyer."

The only means we have of knowing what Lincoln could do is knowing what
he did. If his biography teaches anything, it teaches that he never
failed to meet the exigencies of any occasion. The study of his life
will reveal this fact with increasing emphasis. Many a professional
brother looked on Lincoln as "this rough backwoodsman," unable to
"become a learned and accomplished lawyer," to his own utter
discomfiture. We are justified in saying that if he had undertaken the
duties of the Scots writer to the "Signet," he would have done them
well, as he did every other duty.

When Douglas was congratulated in advance upon the ease with which he
would vanquish his opponent, he replied that he would rather meet any
man in the country in that joint debate than Abraham Lincoln. At
another time he said: "Lincoln is one of those peculiar men who perform
with admirable skill whatever they undertake."

Lincoln's professional duties were in the Eighth Judicial Circuit,
which then comprised fifteen counties. Some of these counties have
since been subdivided, so that the territory of that district was