in your own judgment, you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to
be honest without being a lawyer. Choose some other occupation
rather than one in the choosing of which you do, in advance,
consent to be a knave."

While becoming a lawyer, Lincoln still remained a politician. In
those early days in the West, the two occupations went hand in
hand, almost of necessity. Laws had to be newly made to fit the
needs of the new settlements, and therefore a large proportion of
lawyers was sent to the State legislature. In the summer these
same lawyers went about the State, practising before the circuit
courts, Illinois being divided into what were called judicial
circuits, each taking in several counties, and sometimes covering
territory more than a hundred miles square. Springfield and the
neighboring towns were in the eighth judicial circuit. Twice a
year the circuit judge traveled from one county-seat to another,
the lawyers who had business before the court following also. As
newspapers were neither plentiful nor widely read, members of the
legislature were often called upon, while on these journeys, to
explain the laws they had helped to make during the previous
winter, and thus became the political teachers of the people.
They had to be well informed and watchful. When, like Mr.
Lincoln, they were witty, and had a fund of interesting stories
besides, they were sure of a welcome and a hearing in the
courtroom, or in the social gatherings that roused the various
little towns during "court-week" into a liveliness quite put of
the common. The tavern would be crowded to its utmost--the judge
having the best room, and the lawyers being put in what was left,
late comers being lucky to find even a sleeping-place on the
floor. When not occupied in court, or preparing cases for the