Abraham Lincoln to William Schouler, [8] August 18481
Washington, Aug: 1848Friend Schooler:I am remaining here for two weeks to frank documents— Now that the Presidential candidates
are all set, I will thank you for your undisguised opinion as to what New England generally, and Massachusetts particularly will do—2 Your opinion as to the nomination of Taylor held so good, that I have some confidence in your predictions—3
Very truly YoursA. Lincoln<Page 2>
[Envelope]
2Lincoln makes reference to the candidates for the 1848 presidential election: Zachary Taylor for the Whig Party, Lewis Cass for the Democratic Party, and Martin Van Buren for the nascent Free Soil Party.
Michael F. Holt, The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of
the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 319, 329, 339.
3William Schouler’s response to Lincoln’s plea for his opinion, if he penned one, has
not been located.
In September, Lincoln spent eleven days in Massachusetts stumping for Zachary Taylor.
Lincoln left Washington on Saturday, September 9 and arrived in Worcester, Massachusetts, on September 12.
In the voting on November 7, Massachusetts went for Taylor, but he failed to get an
absolute majority, garnering 45.3 percent of the vote. Van Buren received 28.4 percent,
running ahead of Cass, who got 26.2 percent.
In New England as a whole, Taylor won in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Vermont, with Cass winning in Maine and New Hampshire. Taylor only received an absolute majority, however, in Rhode Island, and Cass only
in New Hampshire. The Free Soil Party made significant inroads in their respective
majorities, indicating the growing influence of anti-slavery rhetoric in the region.
Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:280-84; The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, 9 September 1848, http://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1848-09-09; 12 September 1848, http://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1848-09-12; William F. Hanna, Abraham Among the Yankees: Abraham Lincoln’s 1848 Visit to Massachusetts (Taunton, MA: The Old Colony Historical Society, 1983); John L. Moore, Jon P. Preimesberger,
and David R. Tarr, eds., Congressional Quarterly’s Guide to U.S. Elections, 4th ed. (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2001), 1:650.
Autograph Letter Signed, 2 page(s), Massachusetts Historical Society (Boston, MA).