"In 1847, in a small rural courthouse in Coles County, Illinois, Abraham Lincoln represented a Kentucky slave owner named Robert Matson in his attempt to recover a runaway slave woman and her four children. Most Americans have never heard of this court case. Lawyer and historian Charles R. McKirdy discusses why Lincoln chose to advocate property rights grounded in a system that he claimed to abhor and why he chose to pursue the continued enslavement of five of its most vulnerable and sympathetic victims"--From p. [4] of cover.
