Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

Fragment of Opinion regarding Illinois Election Laws, [October 1858]1

It is made a question whether, under our laws, a person offering to vote, and being challenged, and having taken the oath prescribed by the act of 1849,2 is then absolutely entitled to vote, or whether his oath may be disproved, and his vote thereon lawfully rejected–

In Purple's Statutes Vol. 1. all our existing election laws are brought together commencing on page 514 and extending to page 532–3 They consist of acts and parts of acts passed at different times–

The true way of reading so much of the law as applies to the above question, is to first read (64) Sec[Section]. X–, including the form of the oath, on page 528– Then turn back and read (19) Sec. XIX on page 518–4

If it be said that the Section last mentioned is not now in force, turn forward to (75) Sec. XXI, on page 530, where it is expressly declared to be in force–5

The result is that when a person has taken the oath, his oath may still be proved to be false, and his vote thereupon rejected– It may be proved to be false by cross examining the proposed voter himself, or by any other person, or competent evidence ^testimony.^, known to the general law of Evidence

On page 532 is an extract of a Supreme Court decision on the very Sec. 19— on page 518, in which, among other things, the Court say:

"If such person takes the oath prescribed by law, the Judges must receive his vote, unless the oath be proved false. Something of a definition of residence is also therein given–6

1Abraham Lincoln wrote this fragment, but did not date it. Roy P. Basler, editor of The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, gave the item a tentative date of October 15, 1858. He surmised that Lincoln probably wrote the fragment sometime before the 1858 Federal Election and potentially “as a guide for the editors of the Illinois State Journal.” The Journal’s November 1, 1858 edition contains an editorial entitled, “To the Judges and Clerks of Election,” which follows Lincoln’s line of thought, arguments, and sources in this fragment as it explains to readers the responsibilities and duties of judges and clerks related to voting and preventing voter fraud, per Illinois law. Lincoln ran in the 1858 federal election as the Republican Party’s candidate to supplant Democratic incumbent Stephen A. Douglas in the U.S. Senate. He was concerned about Democratic voting fraud throughout the 1858 campaign season, and wrote Norman B. Judd and at least one other political ally about these concerns.
The editors agree with Basler’s assessment regarding the likely relationship between the content of this fragment and the November 1 Journal article, but give the fragment the more generous tentative date of October 1858 since there is no way to know for certain if Lincoln penned this text mid-month or not.
Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), 3:325-26; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:458; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 1 November 1858, 2:1-2; Abraham Lincoln to Norman B. Judd; Abraham Lincoln to Norman B. Judd; Abraham Lincoln to Norman B. Judd; Abraham Lincoln to Gustave P. Koerner.

2This is a reference to the election law of 1849, which the Illinois General Assembly enacted on February 12 of that year. It provided the method for voting by ballot as well as the manner in which ballots were to be returned, collected, canvassed, and verified. Section ten prescribes the qualifications for voters and the oath required of voters if election judges suspected a person was not a qualified voter. The oath reads, “You do solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be,) that you are a resident of this precinct, place, or township, that you are a citizen of this state, and have resided herein one year preceding this election, or that you was an inhabitant of this state on the first day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-eight, that you are above the age of twenty-one years, and that you have not voted at this election, so help you God.”
“An Act to Provide for the Mode of Voting by Ballot, and for the Manner of Returning, Canvassing and Certifying Votes,” 12 February 1849, Laws of Illinois (1849), 71-75.

3Lincoln is referring to Norman H. Purple’s A Compilation of the Statutes of the State of Illinois.
N. H. Purple, comp., A Compilation of the Statutes of the State of Illinois, 2 vols. (Chicago: Keen & Lee, 1856).

4As Lincoln indicates above, Purple compiles all existing election laws in Illinois, grouping them under chapter thirty-seven of his first volume. Lincoln references two of those laws: the election law enacted on March 3, 1845, and the aforementioned election law of 1849. Sections one through fifty-three of Purple’s chapter on elections encompasses the 1845 law; sections fifty-five to seventy-six comprises the 1849 law. “(64) Sec. X” used by Lincoln collates with Purple’s nomenclature: Section sixty-four in Purple’s compilation is section ten in the 1849 law. Section ten in the 1849 law summarizes the qualifications of voters, notes that judges of the election were required to administer the aforementioned oath, and provides the text of that oath. Section nineteen in Purple’s compilation is section nineteen in the 1845 election law. This section stipulated any person who offered to take such an oath had to be received, unless evidence contradicting the statements in the oath be proved to a majority of the election judges, and that any who refused to take the oath would have their vote rejected. In addition, anyone who knew such an oath to be false with regard to themselves would be guilty of “willful and corrupt perjury, and punished accordingly.”
N. H. Purple, A Compilation of the Statutes of the State of Illinois, 1:514-15, 518, 526, 528, 531; “An Act to Provide for the Mode of Voting by Ballot, and for the Manner of Returning, Canvassing and Certifying Votes,” 12 February 1849, 72-73; “Chapter XXXVII: Elections,” 3 March 1845, Revised Statutes of Illinois (1845), 213, 217, 224.

5Section seventy-five of Purple’s chapter on elections—section twenty-one in the 1849 law—covers sections of 1845 election law that the Illinois General Assembly repealed with the 1849 law. Section nineteen of the 1849 law was not one of the sections repealed.
N. H. Purple, A Compilation of the Statutes of the State of Illinois, 1:530; “An Act to Provide for the Mode of Voting by Ballot, and for the Manner of Returning, Canvassing and Certifying Votes,” 12 February 1849, 75.

6At the end of his chapter on elections, Purple lists prior election laws between 1819 and January 1845 and Illinois Supreme Court decisions on election law. Lincoln references an extract of the decision in Spragins v. Houghton issued during the December 1840 term of the court. This decision and Purple’s extract thereof not only contains the above, just as Lincoln notes; it also defines a resident as one “who has taken up his permanent abode in the State” and who “has resided in the State six months immediately preceding an election, and is a resident of the county where he votes.”
In Illinois’s local elections of 1858, Republicans won a majority of all votes cast in the state, but pro-Douglas Democrats retained control of the Illinois General Assembly and Douglas ultimately won reelection to the U.S. Senate. Although there were widespread reports of Democratic voting fraud in the state elections, no solid evidence emerged in the months following the elections that widespread voting fraud actually occurred.

Despite his loss, Lincoln’s participation in the senate race—and in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates in particular—propelled him to national prominence and helped him win the presidential contest of 1860.
N. H. Purple, A Compilation of the Statutes of the State of Illinois, 1:518, 531-32; Spragins v. Houghton, 3 Ill. (2 Scammon) (1840), 377-417; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 1:546, 556-57; Warren Independent (IL), 29 October 1858, 2:3, 5; Daily Islander and Argus (Rock Island, IL), 2 November 1858, 2:5; Alton Daily Courier (IL), 15 November 1858, 2:2; Allen C. Guelzo, Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates that Defined America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), 289; Allen C. Guelzo, “Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political Landscape of 1858,” The Journal of American History 94 (September 2007), 414.