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Lincoln's Last Trial: The Murder Case That Propelled Him to the Presidency

“Makes you feel as if you are watching a live camera riveted on a courtroom more than 150 years ago.” —Diane Sawyer The true story of Abraham Lincoln’s last murder trial, a case in which he had a deep personal involvement—and which played out in the nation’s newspapers as he began his presidential campaign At the end of the summer of 1859, twenty-two-year-old Peachy Quinn Harrison went on trial for murder in Springfield, Illinois. Abraham Lincoln, who had been involved in more than three thousand cases—including more than twenty-five murder trials—during his two-decades-long career, was hired to defend him. This was to be his last great case as a lawyer. What normally would have been a local case took on momentous meaning. Lincoln’s debates with Senator Stephen Douglas the previous fall had gained him a national following, transforming the little-known, self-taught lawyer into a respected politician. He was being urged to make a dark-horse run for the presidency in 1860. Taking this case involved great risk. His reputation was untarnished, but should he lose this trial, should Harrison be convicted of murder, the spotlight now focused so brightly on him might be dimmed. He had won his most recent murder trial with a daring and dramatic maneuver that had become a local legend, but another had ended with his client dangling from the end of a rope. The case posed painful personal challenges for Lincoln. The murder victim had trained for the law in his office, and Lincoln had been his friend and his mentor. His accused killer, the young man Lincoln would defend, was the son of a close friend and loyal supporter. And to win this trial he would have to form an unholy allegiance with a longtime enemy, a revivalist preacher he had twice run against for political office—and who had bitterly slandered Lincoln as an “infidel…too lacking in faith” to be elected. Lincoln’s Last Trial captures the presidential hopeful’s dramatic courtroom confrontations in vivid detail as he fights for his client—but also for his own blossoming political future. It is a moment in history that shines a light on our legal system, as in this case Lincoln fought a legal battle that remains incredibly relevant today.


Authors:

  • Dan Abrams
  • David Fisher

Narrators:

  • Dan Abrams
  • Adam Verner

Format:

  • Audiobook

Duration:

  • 9 h 41 min

Language:

English

Categories:

  • Biographies
  • History, politics, and warfare
  • True stories
  • True crime
  • History
  • United States of America
  • Society and Social Sciences
  • Politics

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  • 5 books

    Dan Abrams

    Dan Abrams is the chief legal affairs anchor for ABC News and CEO and founder of Abrams Media. He is also the host of top-rated Live PD on A&E Network and The Dan Abrams Show: Where Politics Meets the Law on SiriusXM. A graduate of Columbia University Law School, he is the author of the Washington Post bestseller Man Down and has written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Yale Law & Policy Review, among many others. He lives in New York.

    Read more

  • 10 books

    David Fisher

    David Fisher has dedicated his life to eliminating hypocrisy at a profit. He is a man of intrigue and mystery. He is the author of the prize-winning novella Conversations with My Cat, Hard Evidence: Inside the FBI’s Sci-Crime Lab, as well as the bestsellers Gracie with George Burns, The Empire Strikes Back with Ron Luciano, and the reference book What’s What. He lives in New York City with his fantasies.

    Read more

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