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In the mid to late 1850s Lincoln was a prominent railroad lawyer. His clients included the Illinois Central, which at the time was the largest corporation in the world. In 1857 he represented the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, which was owned by four men who would later become infamous as "robber barons" for receiving – and squandering – millions of dollars in federal subsidies for their transcontinental railroad. Granting these men their subsidies would become one of the first orders of business in the Lincoln administration.

DiLorenzo bump

This emailed posted on the LRC Blog was the inspiration for this article:

John V. Denson writes to Thomas DiLorenzo:

"Enjoyed listening to the tape of your Lincoln program in Richmond, Virginia, and also purchased the work book which I look forward to reading along with watching the video.

"In preparation for a train vacation, I purchased a book entitled Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow. I did not expect to find any particular information about Lincoln but there is a nugget that I think will serve as another arrow in your quiver to help deflate the false mythology surrounding Lincoln.

"At the time the first railroad bridge was proposed to cross the Mississippi River the steamboat business objected that it was were interfering with a navigable river. The bridge was built and a steamboat crashed into it and this resulted in the famous Rock Island Bridge case. The railroad hired Abraham Lincoln to represent them in a Chicago trial in 1857. Lincoln's close connection to the railroad allowed him to get inside information on where the railroad might go and so Lincoln purchased land at Council Bluffs. When Lincoln became president he was able to make sure that the railroad would go near his land, causing him to reap immense profits.

"The whole railroad story is one of corruption, death, and destruction. There is much here about how the Union army was used through General Sherman and General Sheridan to exterminate the Indians and to trick them out of their land. The whole railroad picture was governed by a partnership between big business (the railroads) and government in the name of internal improvements. The two main obstructions to the great fortunes that were to be made in the railroads were the political power of the South to fight this phase of mercantilism, and the Indians and their possession of the land where they wanted the railroads to go. The Union army wiped out both obstacles and huge profits were made by those politically connected to Lincoln and his administration, which of course included Lincoln himself."