An amazing archive and more amazing combination of signatures. Having anything signed by the two political giants Lincoln and Douglass, is quite scarce. In fact, a copy of the debates, if you could find one can fetch $400,000!
Although they were political rivals as early as the 1830s, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglass (1813-1861; then spelling his name with two s's) shared many common friends in central Illinois. One of them was Jacksonian Democratic Congressman and fellow attorney William L. May. In 1838, while May was still a Congressman, Douglass witnessed the original mortgage deed that May signed to secure a loan of $6,000 from the State Bank of Illinois. Fewer than four years later, May chose Abraham Lincoln to represent his interests as one of three appraisers of the land that he had mortgaged to the State Bank before its sale to pay the debt he owed. Another mutual friend of Lincoln and Douglass was Springfield attorney Samuel H. Treat (1811-1887), who also served as a witness to the deed in 1838 and by 1841 was the judge who heard the case to foreclose the mortgage that the State Bank held on May.
This collection of eight documents from a single case file illustrates one non-litigation role that Lincoln fulfilled during his quarter-century law practice. The courts of central Illinois often called upon citizens, including attorneys, to appraise property for the court to ensure fairness. In this case, the plaintiff chose one appraiser, May chose Lincoln, and the court-appointed commissioner chose a third appraiser to view the land and offer a statement of its value.
In August 1838, William L. May borrowed $6,000 from the State Bank of Illinois. He gave the bank a promissory note, promising to repay the loan and to make semi-annual payments of 10 percent interest. To secure the loan, he gave the bank a mortgage on a total of 3,186 acres of land that he owned in Sangamon County. Douglas and Treat signed the mortgage deed as witnesses. Douglas hoped to succeed May in Congress but lost to Abraham Lincoln's first law partner John T. Stuart by a 36-vote margin.
May failed to pay back the loan from the State Bank of Illinois, and by August 1841, the $6,000 principal and $1,295 of interest remained unpaid. The President and Directors of the State Bank of Illinois retained Jesse B. Thomas Jr. (1806-1850), who had served as Illinois attorney general and as a circuit judge, to sue May to foreclose on the mortgage. In 1839, Logan County had been created out of Sangamon and Tazewell counties, and some of the land that May had mortgaged was by then in Logan County. In addition, since 1838, May had given other mortgages on some of the property to two other firms and had conveyed some of the property or an interest in it to Joshua F. Speed and Timothy Childs. Thomas requested that the ten partners in the two firms and Speed and Childs also be made defendants in the suit. Joshua F. Speed (1814-1882) was an early friend of Abraham Lincoln with whom Lincoln lived when he first moved to Springfield. Speed's brother would later be President Lincoln's second attorney general. One of the principal partners in one of the firms was Edward D. Baker (1811-1861), another close friend of Lincoln and the namesake of Abraham and Mary Lincoln's second son Edward Baker Lincoln (1846-1850).
In August 1841, Thomas also informed the court that several of the defendants lived outside of Illinois, including Joshua F. Speed, who had returned to Kentucky in 1841. To notify them of the pending suit, Thomas had a notice inserted in the Illinois State Register, the Democratic newspaper in Springfield, for four weeks in September and October in preparation for the court term in November 1841.
In November, Samuel H. Treat, who had signed the original mortgage bond, was the judge of the Sangamon County Circuit Court. May offered no defense, as he owed the debt, and retaining another attorney to represent him would have only increased his expenses. On December 1, 1841, Judge Treat rendered a default judgment for the State Bank of Illinois for $7,295 plus 6 percent interest until the land could be sold to satisfy the judgment. He appointed state's attorney David B. Campbell (d. 1855) as a special commissioner to sell enough of May's land as necessary to satisfy the judgment. Campbell first had three appraisers examine the lands that May had mortgaged. The State Bank of Illinois, as plaintiff, chose John Constant (1797-1866) as an appraiser, the defendants chose Abraham Lincoln, and Campbell selected Philip C. Latham (1804-1844). Together, they determined that the cash value of the property was $11,206.83, or $3.50 per acre. They signed a statement of their appraisal on February 19, 1842.
One week later, on February 26, Campbell offered the property for sale at auction at the state house in Springfield. The highest bidders were the President and Directors of the State Bank of Illinois. Campbell sold 1,720 acres of land for $2.34½ per acre.
[ABRAHAM LINCOLN.] Case File of Legal Documents from the case of State Bank of Illinois v. May et al., 1838-1842, Springfield, Illinois. 34 pp.
Contents William L. May, Autograph Document Signed, Promissory Note to repay $6,000 to State Bank of Illinois, August 29, 1838. 1 p., 8" x 6". Short tear on one fold; very good.
- William L. May and Caroline May, Document Signed, Mortgage Indenture to State Bank of Illinois for 3,186 acres in Sangamon County, Illinois, August 29, 1838. Signed by Stephen A. Douglass, Samuel H. Treat, and Nicholas G. Williamson as witnesses; certification written and signed by circuit clerk Marvelous Eastham; relinquishment of dower written and signed by Nicholas G. Williamson as mayor of Wilmington, Delaware, November 17, 1838; certification of recording deed written and signed by recorder Benjamin Talbott, September 4, 1838; certification of recording relinquishment of dower written and signed by recorder Benjamin Talbott, December 3, 1838. 10 pp., 7.75" x 10". Attached at top with wax seal; very good.
Jesse B. Thomas Jr., Autograph Document Signed, Affidavit of Non-residence, August 13, 1841. 1 p., 7.625" x 11.5". Tears and separations on folds, with minimal effect on text.
Jesse B. Thomas Jr., Partially Printed Document Signed, Bill in Chancery on behalf of the State Bank of Illinois v. William L. May and others, filed August 15, 1841. 8 pp., 7.75" x 12.25". Attached at top with ribbon; some loss of text at separation on folds; several tape repairs to separations with minimal effect on text.
Manuscript Document, Generic Decree of Foreclose Mortgage for Cases in Favor of the State Bank of Illinois, n.d. [ca. 1841]. 3 pp., 8" x 13". Several separations on folds, some partially repaired with tape.
Marvelous Eastham, Partially Printed Document Signed, Subpoena in Chancery for William L. May, et al., to Sangamon County Sheriff William F. Elkin, October 11, 1841; sheriff's return written and signed by William F. Elkin, November 1, 1841. 2 pp., 7.75" x 12.375". Tears and separations on folds, with minimal effect on text.
William Walters and George Richard Weber, Autograph Document Signed, Publisher's Certificate for Illinois State Register, November 15, 1841. 1 p., 7.5" x 5.625". Semicircular loss at bottom, not affecting text; very good.
Manuscript Document, Decree of Samuel H. Treat in Sangamon County Circuit Court, in Chancery in case of State Bank of Illinois v. May et al., December 1, 1841. Appraisement signed by John Constant, Abraham Lincoln, and Philip C. Latham, February 19, 1842; Certificate of Sale, written by [David B. Campbell?], February 26, 1842. 8 pp., 8" x 12.75". Attached at top with wax seals; very good.
Historical Background.
After two earlier state banks had proved failures, the Illinois General Assembly established a third State Bank of Illinois in 1835. The directors and headquarters of the bank were in Springfield, but the bank also established branches in Alton, Chicago, Galena, Jacksonville, and Vandalia. The following year, it opened more branches. The legitimacy of federal and state banks was a divisive political issue in politics. The Panic of 1837 forced the bank to suspend specie payments when it was unable to redeem its bank notes with gold or silver. In 1839, hostile Democrats in control of the General Assembly demanded an investigation, found the bank's management poor, suspended any new business, and closed the Springfield branch. In 1843, the legislature forced the bank to liquidate all of its assets within five years.
As a member of the Illinois General Assembly in January 1840, Abraham Lincoln was a member of a joint committee to report on the condition of the State Bank of Illinois. According to the committee's report, the State Bank had engaged in some imprudent actions but noted, "If there is any one subject of which the people are more easily excited than any other—an in regard to which their jealousy never slumbers, it is as to the privileged and powers of Banks, therefore every precaution should be used by those institutions to guard against such charges or at least to furnish them no foundation to rest upon." The report also detailed that the State Bank had $440,182.10 loaned to individuals and secured by mortgages on real estate, which included the $6,000 loaned to William L. May.
This case to foreclose William L. May's mortgage was one of many that the State Bank undertook in the early 1840s. Abraham Lincoln and his partners were involved in about a dozen such cases between 1838 and 1842 and a handful of other cases that emerged from competing claims to land mortgaged to the State Bank.
William L. May (ca. 1793-1849) was born in Kentucky. He moved to Edwardsville, Illinois, where he was appointed a justice of the peace for Madison County in 1817. He later moved to Jacksonville, where he served as a justice of the peace for Morgan County from 1827 to 1829. He served as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives in 1828. President Andrew Jackson appointed him as receiver of public monies at the United States Land Office in Springfield, and he moved to that city, where he studied law and gained admission to the bar. He initially practiced law with Stephen T. Logan, who was later Abraham Lincoln's second law partner. In 1834, he was elected as a Jacksonian to the Twenty-third Congress to fill a vacancy caused by the resignation of Joseph Duncan (1794-1844), who had been elected governor without campaigning or even returning to Illinois. May was reelected to the Twenty-fourth Congress as a Jacksonian and the Twenty-fifth Congress as a Democrat, serving from December 1834 to March 1839. In 1837, he married Caroline Rodney, the daughter of former U.S. Senator and diplomat Caesar A. Rodney (1772-1824) and the grand-niece of Caesar Rodney (1728-1784), who signed the Declaration of Independence for Delaware. After serving in Congress, May returned to Illinois and continued the practice of law, for a time in partnership with Jesse B. Thomas Jr. May won election as mayor of Springfield in May 1841 and served a one-year term. He later moved to Peoria, Illinois. In 1849, he went to California during the gold rush and died a few days after arriving in Sacramento in September 1849.
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