Abraham Lincoln to Daniel A. Cheever, 25 July 18581
Springfield, July 25– 1858D. A. Cheever, Esq[Esquire]My dear Sir.
On reaching home last evening I found yours of the 20th3 It is my purpose to visit Tazewell before long; but I can not yet tell when– When I can determine, I will write you again–4 In the mean time let the friends be fixing things up as well as they can–
Yours very trulyA. Lincoln<Page 2>
1Abraham Lincoln wrote and signed this letter.
At the foot of this page is an undated endorsement by Daniel A. Cheever’s son, Washington
Irving Cheever, written sometime after the elder Cheever’s death in 1890, which notes
that this letter was one of four from Lincoln found among Daniel A. Cheever’s effects.
The Champaign Daily Gazette (IL), 5 September 1890, 1:3.
3Lincoln had reached home on July 24, 1858, after having been in Chicago from about July 21. Lincoln had recently been nominated at the 1858 Illinois Republican Convention to run against incumbent Stephen A. Douglas to represent Illinois in the U.S. Senate. While in Chicago he consulted with fellow Republicans on challenging Douglas to debate, and ultimately wrote to Douglas suggesting a series of debates.
Cheever’s letter of July 20, 1858, invited Lincoln to speak at a Republican meeting in Tazewell County
sometime in the next month. 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 in the election of 1858 were of importance to Lincoln’s campaign. Lincoln and Douglas both focused their
campaign efforts on the former Whig stronghold of central Illinois, where the state legislative races were the closest.
Abraham Lincoln to Stephen A. Douglas; Abraham Lincoln to Stephen A. Douglas; The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, 21 July 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-07-21; 22 July 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-07-22; 24 July 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-07-24; Allen C. Guelzo, “House Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political Landscape of
1858,” The Journal of American History 94 (September 2007), 394, 400-401; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:457-58, 476-77.
4Lincoln wrote again to Cheever on August 9 to say that he could not speak in Tremont on August 14 as had been proposed in a letter from Cheever of August 3, 1858, which
has not been located. The Republicans of Tazewell County ultimately held their convention
in Tremont on the morning of August 30, and Lincoln gave a two-hour speech there at
the mass meeting that followed in the afternoon. Notice of the meeting was spread
by announcement as early as August 19.
The result of the 1858 race for Illinois House of Representatives in Tazewell County
was that Democrat Robert B. M. Wilson garnered 1,955 votes, defeating Republican Richard N. Cullom who received 1,783 votes. Tazewell County was in the Seventeenth Illinois Senate
district, where Democrat Samuel W. Fuller held over in the 1858 election.
Chicago Daily Press and Tribune (IL), 21 August 1858, 2:5; 27 August 1858, 1:1; 5 November 1858, 1:3; The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, 30 August, 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-08-30; Summary of Speech at Tremont, Illinois; Summary of Speech at Tremont, Illinois; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac, 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 222; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 4 November 1858, 3:2; The Weekly Chicago Times (IL), 11 November 1858, 2:5; The Biographical Encyclopedia of Illinois of the Nineteenth Century (Philadelphia: Galaxy, 1875), 481-82.
Autograph Letter Signed, 2 page(s),
Rosenbach Museum and Library (Philadelphia, PA).