im for fifteen hundred dollars, and the rise.

TO WILLIAM GRIMES.

SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, August, 1857

DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 14th is received, and I am much obliged for the
legal information you give.

You can scarcely be more anxious than I that the next election in Iowa
should result in favor of the Republicans. I lost nearly all the working
part of last year, giving my time to the canvass; and I am altogether
too poor to lose two years together. I am engaged in a suit in the United
States Court at Chicago, in which the Rock Island Bridge Company is a
party. The trial is to commence on the 8th of September, and probably will
last two or three weeks. During the trial it is not improbable that
all hands may come over and take a look at the bridge, and, if it were
possible to make it hit right, I could then speak at Davenport. My courts
go right on without cessation till late in November. Write me again,
pointing out the more striking points of difference between your old and
new constitutions, and also whether Democratic and Republican party
lines were drawn in the adoption of it, and which were for and which were
against it. If, by possibility, I could get over among you it might be of
some advantage to know these things in advance.

Yours very truly,

A. LINCOLN.

ARGUMENT IN THE ROCK ISLAND BRIDGE CASE.

(From the Daily Press of Chicago, Sept. 24, 1857.)

Hurd et al. vs Railroad Bridge Co.

United States Circuit Court, Hon. John McLean, Presiding Judge.

13th day, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 1857.

Mr. A. Lincoln addressed the jury. He said he did not purpose to assail
anybody, that he expected to grow earnest as he proceeded but not
ill-natured. "There is some conflict of testimony in the case," he said,
"but one quarter of such a number of witnesses seldom agree, and even if
all were on one side some discrepancy might be expected. We are to try and
reconcile them, and to believe that they are not intentionally erroneous
as long as we can." He had no prejudice, he said, against steamboats or
steamboat men nor any against St. Louis, for he supposed they went about
this matter as other people would do in their situation. "St. Louis," he
continued, "as a commercial place may desire that this bridge should not
stand, as it is adverse to her commerce, diverting a portion of it from
the river; and it may be that she supposes that the additional cost of
railroad transportation upon the productions of Io