An Honest Calling: The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln practiced law for nearly twenty-five years, five times longer than he served as president. Nonetheless, this aspect of his life was known only in the broadest outlines until the Lincoln Legal Papers project set to work gathering the surviving documentation of more than 5,600 of his cases. One of the first scholars to work in this vast collection, Mark E. Steiner goes beyond the hasty sketches of previous biographers to paint a detailed portrait of Lincoln the lawyer.

This por...