Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Abraham Lincoln at the Bar of Illinois: An Address Delivered Before the Chicago Bar Association, Thursday Evening, February 11th, 1909
The case of Bailey vs. Cromwell, reported in the 3rd of Scammon, in which Lincoln appeared for the appellant, is of peculiar interest to us. It was de cided at the J uly Term, 1841. The case was an action of assumpsit on a promissory note and was tried in the Circuit Court of Tazewell County, where Lin coln represented the defendant. Lincoln had pleaded the general issue, and filed among other special pleas, a plea of total failure of consideration, in which he set out that the note was given for the pur chase of a negro girl, sold by Cromwell to Bailey, and who was represented to Bailey at the time of the purchase, to be a slave and servant, when in fact shewas free; that Cromwell agreed to furnish Bailey with proof that the girl was a slave, which he had failed to do, and that, therefore, the consideration had wholly failed. A finding and judgment was rendered in the Circuit Court, for on the note, .which was reversed by the Supreme Court, where it was held that the defendant, having shown that the girl was the consideration for the note, and the presumption of law being that she was free, and the sale of a free person being illegal, in the absence of proof to rebut the presumption that she was free, there was no valid consideration for the note.
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