“Roger Billings provides a new examination into an unexplored aspect of Lincoln’s legal career. Legal ethics was less structured in Lincoln’s time than the codified rules of today. Modern legal practitioners and Lincoln historians will gain a deeper insight into Lincoln’s law practice generally and legal ethics specifically.”
—John A. Lupton, Executive Director, Illinois Supreme Court Historic Preservation Commission

“We have capable studies of Lincoln’s legal career and thoughtful analyses of his ethics, but heretofore no attempt has been made to combine those two perspectives. In this innovative work, Roger Billings dexterously fills that gap in the literature, assessing how well Lincoln, during his quarter-century at the bar, lived up to the ethical standards of his time and judging how he looks measured by today's standards.”
—Michael Burlingame, author of Abraham Lincoln: A Life

“With the fine historical prose and the deep knowledge of a law professor, Roger Billings gives readers a new perspective of Lincoln’s career as a lawyer, showing both the highs and the lows of Honest Abe’s path in the law.”
—Jonathan W. White, author of A House Built by Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House

“In a meticulously researched, wisely argued book, Roger Billings explores the roots of an ethical and savvy presidency by re-evaluating the record of an ethical and savvy attorney. Abraham Lincoln emerges as a man of both character and, when called for, cunning: an innovative lawyer who becomes a barrier-breaking executive, willing to follow and, when called for, test the limits of the law. Billings gives us a new way to see Lincoln, and it is well worth the view.”
—Harold Holzer, winner of the Lincoln Prize

“Roger Billings’s book is an original treatment of an essential element of Lincoln’s law practice. This subject has never been dealt with in the focused manner of this important book.”
—Guy C. Fraker, author of Lincoln’s Ladder to the Presidency: The Eighth Judicial Circuit