Illinois law did make it a crime, under certain circumstances, to be “born with a black skin.” Had he lost, Dungey would have been stripped of the right to vote and been subject to imprisonment, as he was married to a white woman. “My client is not a Negro,” he added, “though it is no crime to be a Negro-no crime to be born with a black skin.” Lincoln won the case, and Dungey received an award of $600. Dungey was actually Portuguese, Lincoln told the jury. In 1855, Abraham Lincoln, then making his living as an Illinois lawyer, represented William Dungey, a dark-complexioned man who was suing his brother-in-law for slander for referring to Dungey as “Black Bill, a Negro.” Lincoln challenged the veracity of defense depositions that claimed that Dungey was known to be of mixed racial ancestry.
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