David Herbert Donald: Lincoln loved to ride the circuit over many counties, all over central Illinois. He turned up at circuit after circuit. This was not altogether enjoyment. This is the way he made his living, and often he was away from his wife and his family for weeks at a time. And poor Mary suffered as a result, but this is the way he made his living. It was very important for him to be able to go into a county that he didn’t live in, quickly identify himself, and have young attorneys come up to him and say, “I have this kind of case, and I am not sure about my brief. Would you be co-defendant with me?” And he would pick it up, and within a day, he would have a marvelous way of putting the issues so the judge would be able to follow. Now, this gave him, first of all, a very wide constituency. In central Illinois, there was hardly a person who did not know Abraham Lincoln, at least by sight, and in turn, Lincoln had a very wide following of people that he knew. He had a tenacious memory so that he would encounter somebody in the streets of Springfield and say, “Oh, I remember, we were in Logan County together, weren’t we?” And the fellow would say, so proud, “Mr. Lincoln remembers me.” All of this built up a constituency for him. He understood very well that a public man has to have that kind of following. And he had it as a lawyer; he had it as a state representative; he had it as he ran for the Senate; and especially, after he became president.