The officer did not dare approach him.

"Call a posse," said the judge, "and arrest him." But they also shrank with fear from the ruffian.

"Call me, then," said Jackson; "this court is adjourned for five minutes." He left the bench, walked straight up to the man, and with his eagle eye actually cowed the ruffian, who dropped his weapons, afterward saying: "There was something in his eye I could not resist." Lincoln never shrank from espousing an unpopular cause when he believed it to be right.

At the time when it almost cost a young lawyer his bread and butter to defend the fugitive slave, and when other lawyers had refused, Lincoln would always plead the cause of the unfortunate whenever an opportunity presented.

"Go to Lincoln," people would say, when these bounded fugitives were seeking protection; "he's not afraid of any cause, if it's right." Abraham Lincoln's boyhood was one long struggle with poverty, with little education and no influential friends.