Abraham Lincoln's law office in Springfield, Illinois was on the floor above the local courtroom. His office had a secret entrance, a trap door in the floor of his office which was the ceiling of the courtroom.
I learned of this secret entrance when I visited Springfield and saw it. I cannot imagine that Lincoln used the entrance often. Judges and juries would not think highly of a lawyer who entered the courtroom by dropping from the ceiling. Springfield in Lincoln's time was a small town, not a small city. Word spread fast. Honorable reputations mattered.
I think that Lincoln reserved use of the trap door for emergencies which were clearly emergencies. For example, one recorded use of it came when several people shouted death threats at a friend of Lincoln's in the courtroom. Lincoln swung down through the secret entrance, landed on his feet, and announced to everyone listening that they would have to go through him if they wanted to harm his friend, the story goes. And no-one harmed his friend.
This was a quality of character that Abraham Lincoln displayed as President, for example, when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. He did not sign an order to round up all the Confederates who, after all, had publicly vowed to overthrow the United States with enslavement. Rather, he issued the Proclamation to make positive thoughts real, as a war measure to win the war and to do good at the same time by emancipating enslaved people held by the Confederates.
On February 12 this year, we should recall many things that Lincoln said and did. These things stand out among the rest in our own times.
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