Summary of Speech at Augusta, Illinois, 25 August 18581
Macomb, McDonough County, Aug. 25, 1858.At two 0’clock the people flocked over to a beautiful grove near the village, where a stand for speaking and seats for a portion of the crowd were prepared.
Had it been a Douglas meeting his Arab reporters would have stated the number at 2,500 to 3,000.2 It was fully as large as Dug’s “3,000 meetings,” though I do not put the number of voters present higher than
1,200. Mr. Lincoln spoke about two hours in an earnest, calm, convincing manner. The bulk of his audience
were from the Slave States—and two-thirds of them had been Clay Whigs. The first hour of his speech was devoted to an examination of Clay’s principles
on the Slavery question, and to repelling the charges, made against the speaker, that
he was an “Abolitionist,” in favor of “negro equality” and “amalgamation.”3 He made clean work of these points as he went along, and I don’t think there was
a man on the ground but he satisfied, and pleased, and there were hundreds who voted
for Fillmore in 1856.4 The last hour he spent in showing up the great conspiracy in which Douglas is engaged
to Nationalize slavery and Africanize this continent.5 I will not attempt to give even a synopsis of his arguments. Suffice it to say
that he drove home conviction of the truth of his charges into the minds of almost
every man who listened to him. His speech will do great good in this section of country.
I believe that every Fillmore man left the ground resolved to support Lincoln. But his gains are not confined to them
alone. Quite a number of Democrats have expressed their purpose to go no farther with the pro-slavery party. They have
remained with it since 1854 because they supposed that Popular Sovereignty was one of the planks of its platform;
but since Douglas and Buchanan have both abandoned it, and adopted the odious Dred Scott decision they can follow that party no farther, and now go for Lincoln and true Democracy. They say that if the Old
Clay Whigs are such splendid fellows as Douglas is now saying they are, and as these
old fellows are all going for Lincoln they want to get into good company, and therefore
go along with them.6
1On August 28, 1858, the Chicago Daily Press and Tribune published this summary of a speech at Augusta that Abraham Lincoln delivered on August
25. The newspaper also published a report of Lincoln’s speech in Macomb on that same day.
Chicago Daily Press and Tribune (IL), 28 August 1858, 1:2.
2The author is likely using the term “Arab” as a pejorative, perhaps to accuse the
pro-Stephen A. Douglas journalists as being homeless or shiftless. In addition, Little Egypt was a popular nickname for southern Illinois and a particular stronghold of the Democratic Party. Denizens of areas in portions
of the Ottoman Empire, including Egypt, were referred to colloquially as Arabs. As such, the author may be referencing
Douglas’s supporters in the press from southern Illinois, labeling them “Arab,” while
simultaneously accusing them of inflating crowd numbers at Douglas’s speeches.
Lincoln had been nominated at the 1858 Illinois Republican Convention to run against incumbent Democrat 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 during the campaign of 1858 on the former Whig Party stronghold of central Illinois, where the state legislative races were the closest.
The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 1:597; George W. Smith, When Lincoln Came to Egypt (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2016), xvii, 3; Allen C. Guelzo,
“Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political Landscape of 1858,” The Journal of American History 94 (September 2007), 392-94, 400-401; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:152, 457-58, 476-77.
3In his July 9 speech in Chicago, Douglas accused Lincoln of fomenting a sectional war, declaring, “this government
was made by the white man, for the benefit of the white man, to be administered by
white men... I am opposed to negro equality.” This ran in opposition to Lincoln, according
to Douglas, who wanted to afford “the negro of the privileges, immunities and rights
of citizenship.” Douglas then detailed the rights that only white men should hold,
including the right to vote, hold office, or serve on a jury.
In the first debate between Douglas and Lincoln on August 21, Lincoln argued, "I have no purpose directly
or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it
exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do
so. I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white
and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment
will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality,
and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference. I, as well
as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position.
I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this,
there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights
enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness."
Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 468; Chicago Daily Press and Tribune (IL), 10 July 1858, 1:4; First Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Ottawa, Illinois; First Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Ottawa, Illinois; First Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Ottawa, Illinois.
4Reference to adherents of the American Party, who supported Millard Fillmore in the presidential election of 1856. Former members of the American Party were an important source of votes for both
Democrats and Republicans in the state and federal elections of 1858, and both Lincoln
and Douglas worked hard to garner their support.
Stephen Hansen and Paul Nygard, “Stephen A. Douglas, the Know-Nothings, and the Democratic
Party in Illinois, 1854-1858,” Illinois Historical Journal 87 (Summer 1994), 123-29; Tyler Anbinder, Nativism & Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings & the Politics of the 1850s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 246-78.
5Lincoln believed that the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, establishing popular sovereignty as a means of deciding slave status for
southwestern territories, was part of a larger conspiracy to make slavery perpetual
and national. During his nomination at the 1858 Illinois Republican Convention, Lincoln
delivered an address—widely known as his “House Divided” speech—in which he charged
that Douglas was part of a plot or conspiracy to nationalize slavery. Lincoln argued
that the plot began with Douglas’ Kansas-Nebraska bill, which President Franklin Pierce supported, then was advanced by both the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Dred Scott case—handed down by Roger B. Taney—and by President James Buchanan’s call to support the court’s decision. Lincoln warned
his audience that, if Douglas were not defeated and the slave power not overthrown,
another Supreme Court ruling could build upon the Dred Scott decision and proclaim
that the U.S. Constitution prohibited states from excluding slavery within their own
borders.
Report of Speech at Springfield, Illinois; Report of Speech at Springfield, Illinois; Fragment of A House Divided Speech at Springfield, Illinois; Report of Speech at Springfield, Illinois; David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York: Touchstone, 1995), 206-9.
6Despite the optimism of this correspondent, Douglas Democrats were ultimately successful
in the Hancock County, home to Augusta, in the Illinois General Assembly elections of 1858. In the Thirty-First
District of the Illinois House, which consisted solely of Hancock County, William H. Roosevelt won election with 2,389 votes, defeating Republican George Rockwell who earned 2,032 votes, and Buchanan Democrat William F. Frazee who garnered 44 votes. Hancock, Henderson, and Schuyler counties constituted the Eleventh Illinois Senate District, where John P. Richmond earned 4,578 votes and defeated Republican John C. Bagby who received 4,112 votes, and Buchanan Democrat William C. Wagley who earned 207
votes.
In the state elections of 1858, Republicans won a majority of all votes cast in Illinois,
but pro-Douglas Democrats retained control of the General Assembly. In the election for senator, Lincoln received forty-six votes in the General Assembly, but Douglas received fifty-one
votes and retained the Senate seat. Roosevelt and Richmond both voted for Douglas
for U.S. Senate.
Th. Gregg, History of Hancock County, Illinois
(Chicago: Chas. C. Chapman, 1880), 511-12; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac 1673-1968
(Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 219, 220, 222; Chicago Daily Press and Tribune (IL), 1 November 1858, 2:4; The Weekly Chicago Times (IL), 11 November 1858, 2:6; 18 November 1858, 3:3; Illinois House Journal. 1859. 21st G. A., 32; Allen C. Guelzo, “Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the
Political Landscape of 1858, 414-16; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 546-47.
Printed Document, 1 page(s), Chicago Daily Press and Tribune , (Chicago, IL) , 28 August 1858, 1:2.