Summary of Remarks at Atlanta, Illinois, 17 July 18581
The Pantagraph gives a continuation of the journey southward. The paper says, at Atlanta the “reception” of Judge Douglas must have been rather mortifying to his feelings. There was a “balk” when he arrived—
the committee of arrangements apparently not knowing what to do with themselves or
the Judge— and the most stupid observer in the crowd saw that a screw was loose somewhere.2 The committee finally “fixed things” to their liking, and one of their number introduced
the Judge to a very respectable crowd of persons.
Douglas addressed the assemblage in a speech which was “faintly applauded.”
“When the Judge retired from the stand, vociferous calls were made for ‘Lincoln!’ ‘Lincoln!!’ ‘Lincoln!!!’ Mr. L. appeared before the audience, and remarked that feelings of delicacy prompted him to refrain from addressing them.3 He said he appreciated the kindness which induced his friends to call him out, but
he hoped they would not insist on a speech from him on that occasion. As Mr. L. made a move to leave the stand, one of the crowd called in a loud voice
for ‘three times three for the Hon. Abraham Lincoln!’— and nine such cheers as followed
have not been heard by us since the hard cider campaign of eighteen hundred and forty.4 Mr. Lincoln appeared to be deeply affected by the enthusiasm which was evinced for
him by the people of Atlanta.5
1The Daily Illinois State Journal extracted this summary of remarks by Abraham Lincoln from the original printed version which appeared in the Bloomington Daily Pantagraph on July 19, 1858. The Daily Illinois State Journal preceded these remarks with a summary of Stephen A. Douglas’ recent public appearances
as he traveled from Chicago to Springfield, in which the newspaper painted his early efforts in the senatorial campaign of 1858 as unsuccessful. The newspaper then included a brief description of Douglas’ July
16, 1858 arrival and speech in Bloomington, followed by a report of remarks made by Lincoln at that speech. No manuscript version of Lincoln’s remarks
at Atlanta has been located.
Lincoln had recently been nominated at the 1858 Illinois Republican Convention to run against incumbent Douglas to represent Illinois in the U.S. Senate. At this time the Illinois General Assembly elected the state’s representatives in the U.S. Senate, thus the outcome of races
for the Illinois House of Representatives and Illinois Senate were of importance to Lincoln’s campaign. Lincoln and Douglas both focused their
efforts in the 1858 election campaign on the former Whig stronghold of central Illinois, where the state legislative races were the closest.
Lincoln had traveled from Springfield to Bloomington on the day preceding this and
attended Douglas’ speech in Bloomington that evening. After attending the speech by
Douglas in Atlanta on July 17 at which he made these remarks, Lincoln returned to
Springfield, where he delivered a speech of his own in the evening.
Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:457-58, 476-77; Allen C.
Guelzo, “House Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political Landscape of 1858,” The Journal of American History 94 (September 2007), 392-94, 400-401; The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, 16 July 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-07-16; 17 July 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-07-17; Report of Remarks at Bloomington, Illinois; Report of Remarks at Bloomington, Illinois; Speech at Springfield, Illinois; Report of Speech at Springfield, Illinois; Report of Speech at Springfield, Illinois.
2In this context, to have a screw loose means to have a weakness in an arrangement.
J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner, eds., The Oxford English Dictionary, 2d ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 14:728.
3When similarly pressed to speak following Douglas’ speech in Bloomington on the preceding
day, Lincoln stated that he felt it improper to address a meeting that had been called
by his opponent’s supporters.
4Log cabins and hard cider were symbols adopted by the campaign of William Henry Harrison during the 1840 presidential election.
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), 89, 106.
5Following this summary of Lincoln’s remarks in Atlanta, the Daily Illinois State Journal included an anecdote from the Bloomington Daily Pantagraph’s description of Douglas’ appearance in Atlanta, and summarized further campaign
appearances by Douglas in a disparaging tone.
The Daily Pantagraph (Bloomington, IL), 19 July 1858, 3:2.
Printed Document, 1 page(s), Daily Illinois State Journal, (Springfield, IL), 21 July 1858, 2:1.