Abraham Lincoln to Henry Asbury, 19 November 18581
Springfield, Novr 19 1858Henry Asbury, Esq[Esquire]My dear SirYours of the 13th was received some days ago– The fight must go on– The cause of civil liberty must
not be surrendered at the end of one, or even one hundred defeats–2 Douglas had the ingenuity to be supported in the late contest both as the best means to break down, and to uphold the Slave interest– No ingenuity can keep those antagonistic elements in harmony
long– Another explosion will soon come–3
Yours trulyA. Lincoln–[ endorsement
]
On the 13 I had written him a cheerful letter telling him not to give ^it^ up so The above is his glorious answer
Henry Asbury42Lincoln was the Republican candidate from Illinois for the U.S. Senate in 1858. He ran against, and lost to, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, the incumbent. See 1858 Illinois Republican Convention; 1858 Federal Election.
Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:457-85.
3The issue of slavery and its expansion to U.S. territories served as a focal
point of the Senate race. In December 1857, Douglas delivered a speech criticizing
President James Buchanan’s support for the Lecompton Constitution. While Douglas’s stance caused a rift in the Democratic Party, it also fueled rumors
that Douglas might soon defect to the Republican Party. His commitment to popular
sovereignty, whereby the people of a territory could vote on whether to legalize slavery,
became a recurring issue during the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. On August 27, during the second debate at Freeport, Illinois, Lincoln posed four questions concerning the admission of Kansas to the Union and the expansion of slavery. In his second question, Lincoln asked
Douglas whether the people of a territory could, in light of the Dred Scott decision, “exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a state constitution?”
Douglas responded by establishing what became called his “Freeport Doctrine.” Douglas
answered yes, citizens could exclude slavery by local legislation. “Slavery cannot
exist a day or an hour anywhere,” Douglas famously retorted, “unless it is supported
by local police regulations, furnishing remedies and means of enforcing the right
to hold slaves.” Douglas’s Freeport Doctrine proved distasteful to national Republican
leaders who had previously pondered the benefits an alliance with him. It did, however,
resolve the inconsistency between popular sovereignty and the Dred Scott decision,
thereby satisfying his Illinois supporters.
Douglas’s anti-Lecompton position also helped to charm some former Central Illinois
Whigs whose votes Lincoln and the Republicans sought to sway. Douglas argued that popular
sovereignty aligned with the principles of the late renowned Whig Henry Clay. In October 1858, T. Lyle Dickey published a letter from John J. Crittenden, another notable former Whig, that effectively amounted to an endorsement of Douglas.
In a letter to Crittenden on November 4, Lincoln credited the use of Crittenden’s name as a
contributing factor in his defeat.
All of these factors coalesced to assure Douglas’s reelection to the Senate. His continued
defense of popular sovereignty during the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, however, further
alienated Southern pro-slavery Democrats. This ultimately dented his position in
the national party and his chances in the American South in the presidential election of 1860.
Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 1:553-57; Allen C. Guelzo, “Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political
Landscape of 1858,” The Journal of American History 94 (September 2007), 395, 403, 414-17; Frank L. Dennis, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (New York: Mason & Lipscomb, 1974), 84-85; Paul M. Angle, “Freeport Doctrine,” Dictionary of American History, rev. ed. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1976), 3:109; Carl Brent Swisher, "Dred
Scott Case," Dictionary of American History (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1940), 2:167-68.