by Hugh P. Williamson

Editor’s Note: In February, the nation marked the birth of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States. The following article, describing a rare Lincoln interaction with the State of Missouri, originally appeared in the January 1955 issue of the Journal of The Missouri Bar. It was written by Hugh P. Williamson, a member of the Callaway County Bar.

Buried deep in the archives of the State Department of Missouri, and seemingly forgotten since 1838, is a document of singular historical interest.

It came into being as a result of the misadventures of one J. Massie, a resident of Sangamon County, Illinois, who, early in the year 1836, arrived in St. Louis, Missouri, on a steamboat, from which, on disembarking, he took some “articles of very trivial value” but to which he had no scintilla of title.

Very soon thereafter, the forces of law and order moved into action, and “he was taken into custody, asleep and in liquor, within a few steps of the boat. The property was in his trunk by his side.”

Forthwith he was brought into the Circuit Court of St. Louis and “was tried, as appears from the record, within a very few days of his arrest, without the presence of his friends (not without enemies) without means to employ counsel, and destitute of the knowledge to conduct a defense if innocent.” He was found guilty; he was sentenced to a term of six years in the Missouri State Penitentiary; and was incarcerated therein, where, we may assume, he languished in a state of considerable misery.

But J. Massie, hard as was his lot in Missouri, was not without friends in the place of his abode, for in August, 1837, fifty-five citizens of Sangamon County signed and forwarded to the Governor of Missouri, a petition respectfully requesting that the prisoner be pardoned. The seventh name which appears on this list of signers is A. Lincoln, followed by that of J.R. Herndon, a brother of W.D. Herndon, who was Lincoln’s law partner, and whose signature also appears.

The petition reads:

“Springfield, Illinois
August 1837

To His Excellency the Governor of the State of Missouri.

The undersigned citizens of the County of Sangamon would most respectfully represent that in the early part of 1836 J. Massie, a citizen of this county, of very respectable connections, and as many of us know, and all of us believe, heretofore of good character and conduct, was convicted in the St. Louis Circuit Court of the crime of larceny, upon three indictments, for stealing property of very trivial value, and was sentenced to the penitentiary for six years, where he has ever since been confined.

We are unwilling from the circumstances of the transaction to attach deliberate guilt to his conduct. The articles were, as we are informed, alleged to have been taken from a steamboat, on which he was employed. He was no doubt intoxicated. The hands, who were witnesses, and himself had quarreled, and he was taken into custody, asleep and in liquor, within a few steps of the boat. The property was within his trunk by his side. Such we are informed were the circumstances. He was tried, as appears from the record, within a very few days of his arrest, without the presence of his friends – not without enemies, without means to employ counsel and destitute of the knowledge to conduct a defense if innocent.

We incline to believe, from his friends, his early associations, the manner in which he has been brought up, his previous fair character, and from the facts to which we have alluded, that he has been more imprudent than guilty, and more unfortunate than criminal, but if guilty he has suffered a long confinement, and we most respectfully suggest that he be considered, by the uncertainty of his guilt and the certainty of his punishment, a fit subject for the exercise of that clemency which your Excellency is so happy as to be able to apply. We are respectfully your obedient servants.”

The matter of paramount interest to this writer, in respect to the above document, is whether it was the product of Lincoln’s mind and pen. To determine whether Lincoln actually wrote this petition would require an examination of it by an expert in chirography. Such a service is not immediately available, and hence no opinion is advanced upon this point. If this document was not written by Lincoln, it seems most probable that it was a copied from a draft prepared by him or that it was written by another at his dictation, for who else among the signers would have been capable of such literary fineness and beauty? Furthermore, every phrase of the Massie petition is in the style and manner, and seems to foreshadow, Lincoln’s splendid literary masterpieces, the First Inaugural and the Gettysburg Address, both written nearly a quarter of a century later.

It would also appear probable that Lincoln took the initiative in the matter of this pardon, not alone because it would have been wholly inconsistent with his later life of humanitarianism for him to have done so, but in view of the fact, as indicated in the petition, that before it was drawn the record of the Massie case, on file in the Circuit Court of St. Louis, was studied. This would, in all likelihood, have been done by a lawyer. Whether there were lawyers, other than Lincoln and Herndon, among the signers, does not appear.

The reader will no doubt be glad to learn that this petition, so beautifully phrased, so perfect in its appeal to sympathy, was also effective, and that written upon the back of it are the following lines:

“Let a writ issue granting a full pardon to the within-named Massie.

L.W. Boggs
March 8, 1838
Writ issued 8th March, 1838.
P.G.G.”

Among the many momentous events with which the later life of Abraham Lincoln was so full, and with which they whole world is familiar, this early unselfish effort to extricate a suffering fellow human being from the troubles which engulfed him, has apparently been forgotten. That it foreshadowed the life of one whose names has become a symbol for mercy, compassion, and love of humanity, seems manifest.