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documents. We have had few trial lawyers in the United 
States who were his equal, but he was never given a national 
opportunity either before juries or before courts. Yet his 
work in Illinois and his arguments in other than lawsuits 
demonstrates that he was in ability one of the greatest law- 
yers of the United States, and that if he had had the same op- 
portunity he would have made a record equal to that of 
Webster or Marshall. Except for some further study in 
middle life, his general education was obtained from reading 
the Bible, Aesop's Fables, Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrim's Prog- 
ress, Shakespeare, Weem’s Life of Washington, and a history 
of the United States, and his legal education from reading 
Blackstone’s Commentaries. 
There have been many other great practitioners, judges, 
and law teachers and writers in the United States, but the 
limits of this treatise forbid any more than a mere mention 
of their names. Among those who must be thus recognized 
at least are Patrick Henry (1786-1799), noted for his 
eloquence and his “liberty or death” speech; William Wirt 
(1772-1834), celebrated for his speech in the prosecution of 
Aaron Burr; Joseph Hopkinson (1770-1842) of Pennsylvania 
and Luther Martin (1744-1826) of Maryland, both of whom 
could hold their own with any of the great lawyers of their 
day; Rufus Choate (1799-1859) of Massachusetts, William M. 
Evarts (1818-1901) of New York, Jeremiah S. Black (1810- 
1888) of Pennsylvania, and Joseph H. Choate (1832-1917) of 
New York and a cousin of Rufus Choate, all leaders of the 
bar of the United States in their day; Elihu Root (1845-), 
the head of the bar of the United States today and an advocate 
of the reform of legal procedure; Charles Doe (1830-1896), 
a great judge of New Hampshire who is noted for what he 
did for legal procedure in that state; Isaac P. Christiancy 
(1812-1890) and James V. Campbell (1823-1890), two judges 
associated with Judge Cooley and almost his equal; John B. 
Winslow (1851-1920), a great judge of Wisconsin; Learned 
Hand (1872-) of New York, probably the greatest federal 
district judge of the present time; David Dudley Field (1805- 
1894), a lawyer of wide reputation and author of the New 
York codes of civil and criminal procedure of 1848-1850, the 
Field penal, civil, and political codes of 1857-1865, and a draft 
outline of an international code (1873) ; Stephen Field (1816- 
