By Stephen Anderson

A bronze likeness of Abraham Lincoln by sculptor John McClarey was installed in front of the Shelby County Courthouse on April 15, but it represents only half of a commemorative project.

When completed, the installation will include a statue of Anthony Thornton, the founding president of the Illinois State Bar Association.

Elected during the first meeting of the association on Jan. 4, 1877, in Springfield, Thornton served three consecutive terms. His primary goal was to get the General Assembly to make needed changes in the state’s judicial structure.

He and his colleagues on a committee of eight were successful. In April, a probate system was enacted, and by June an appellate court system had been established.

The Shelbyville statuary will memorialize a debate between Lincoln and Thornton that took place there on Aug. 9, 1856. At issue was the presidential campaign between Republican John E. Fremont and Democrat James Buchanan.

That summer, Thornton and Lincoln had both left the Whig Party - Thornton becoming a Democrat, and Lincoln choosing the new Republican Party.

“This debate helped to cut Lincoln’s Republican teeth,” said Shelbyville attorney Whitney D. Hardy, “and ignite the political fires of freedom for the Union in his soul, eventually propelling him to the presidency.”

Although Lincoln spoke in 51 different locations that summer and fall, including out-of-state appearances, his encounter with Thornton, his friend and fellow Kentuckian, was his only debate in 1856.

Since 1991, that event has been recreated frequently, with Shelbyville residents portraying the debaters. The most recent one took place Aug. 9 in the courthouse, with a minimum donation of a Lincoln $5 bill.

Whitney Hardy has been cast as Thornton every year. Four years ago, he founded Shelby County Lincoln Heritage to keep alive the historic event.

During his research, Hardy discovered that his Kentucky birthplace and that of Thornton were only 100 miles apart. Both were graduates of Miami University of Ohio, which will celebrate the bicentennial of its charter next Feb. 21.

“I was born exactly one century after Thornton and Lincoln were admitted to the practice of law in Illinois in 1836,” Hardy noted.

Kentucky to Illinois

After he graduated from Miami of Ohio in 1834, Anthony Thornton returned to his hometown of Paris, Ky., to study law with an uncle, John R. Thornton. He was admitted to the Kentucky bar in August 1836.

En route to Missouri for better opportunities, he stopped in Shelbyville for a visit with a cousin, Gen. William F. Thornton. He liked the community and settled there, gaining admission to the Illinois bar on Dec. 13, 1836.

Thornton developed a friendship with Abraham Lincoln during their journeys in the 16 counties of the 8th Circuit.

“Of all the lawyers whom I ever met, Lincoln was the most marked for his fairness and honesty,” Thornton said. “He was always earnest and forcible, and could manage and present a good case with as much power and clearness as any man I ever saw.”

Thornton was a leader of the profession in Illinois before he was the first leader of its bar association. He was a delegate to Constitutional Conventions in 1847 and 1862, a state representative from 1850 to 1852, and a member of Congress in 1864.

After reforms of the 1870 Constitution, he served on the Illinois Supreme Court from 1870 to 1873.

Who won the debate?

There seems to be no record of whether Thornton or Lincoln prevailed in their 1856 debate in Shelbyville, but James Buchanan won the election. He received 174 electoral votes to 114 for John Fremont.

Lincoln had stumped for Fremont in August 1856 during speeches in the Illinois cities of Paris, Grandview and Charleston, and the Shelbyville debate.

“Our whole trouble along there has been and is Fillmoreism,” he wrote to Senator Lyman Trumbull on Aug. 11, referring to the third candidate, former President Millard Fillmore.

Previously a Whig, Fillmore was supported by Whigs as the candidate of the American (Know-Nothing) Party. In the election, he received only eight electoral votes, but his involvement affected the Fremont candidacy.

“I think we shall ultimately get all the Fillmore men, who are really anti-slavery extension,” Lincoln told Trumbull. “The rest will probably go to Buchanan where they rightfully belong; if they do not, so much the better for us.”

The prediction turned out to be accurate. Buchanan received 493,727 more popular votes than Fremont, but Fillmore received 873,053 votes that could have gone to either of the two major party candidates.

In his letter to Trumbull, Lincoln said that the people of Shelbyville and the other cities “were tolerably well satisfied with my work.”

The Thornton project

The Illinois Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission has endorsed the efforts in Shelby County to complete the Lincoln-Thornton statuary, which is about $15,000 short of its goal.

Anthony Thornton lived in Shelbyville from 1836 until 1879, when he completed his third term as ISBA president, then for two years in Decatur before returning. He died Sept. 10, 1904.

Whitney Hardy says he will “continue to play the role of Thornton, helping to make history come alive for all to learn and enjoy.” He and the present “Mr. Lincoln” take their portrayals into schools, civic programs and other venues.

Tax-deductible contributions toward completion of John McClarey’s statue of Thornton may be mailed to Shelby County Lincoln Heritage Inc., P.O. Box 392, Shelbyville, Ill. 62565.

Bronze maquettes of the statuary and framed reproductions of a painting of the debate are available at specific levels of support. For details, contact Hardy at hardylaw@consolidated.net.