CDV – Charles Chiniguy – Represented By Abraham Lincoln in a Early Libel Suit

CDV – Charles Chiniguy – Represented By Abraham Lincoln in a Early Libel Suit.  Possibly signed but likely identification by owner.

Chiniquy was born in 1809 in the village of .Kamouraska, Quebec.  As a young man, Chiniquy studied to become a Catholic priest and was ordained in 1833 and spent a good deal of time preaching temperance.

He moved to Illinois in 1855, Chiniquy was sued by a prominent Catholic layman named Peter Spink in Kankakee, Ill. the court was moved to Urbana, Ill., where Chiniquy hired the then-lawyer Abraham Lincoln, to defend him. The court experience was the highest profile libel suit in Lincoln’s career. His trouble would continue with the Catholic Church looking to excommunicate him in the late 1858, and then left the church and converted to Protestant Christianity, becoming a Presbyterian minister in 1860.

He asserted that Catholicism was pagan, that Catholics worship was anti-Christian. He warned of plots by the Vatican to take control of the United States by importing Catholic immigrants from Ireland, Germany and France.  This was at a time of high immigration rates from those countries, in response to social and political upheaval (the Great Famine in Ireland and revolutions in Germany and France). Chiniquy claimed that he was falsely accused by his superiors (and that Abraham Lincoln had come to his rescue), that the American Civil war was a plot against the United States by the Vatican, and that the Vatican was behind the Confederate cause, and the the later assassination of President Lincoln. and that Lincoln’s assassins were faithful Catholics ultimately serving Pope Pius IX.

Later, he continued his war of words with the Catholic Church, and wrote several books on the subject, and made many speeches concerning his anti-Catholic beliefs. Chiniquy died in Montreal in 1899.

The seated image was taken by Wenderoth & Taylor, Philadelphia.

Very good condition.

From the Smith Family Archive of Allegheny, Pennsylvania.