Abraham Lincoln to Alexander Sympson, 12 December 18581
Springfield, Dec. 12, 1858.Alexander Sympson, Esq.[ESQUIRE]:My Dear Sir:I expect the result of the election went hard with you.2 So it did with me, too, perhaps not quite so hard as you may have supposed. I have
an abiding faith that we shall beat them in the long run.3 Step by step the objects of the leaders will become too plain for the people to
stand them. I write merely to let you know that I am neither dead nor dying.4 Please give my respects to your good family, and all inquiring friends.
Yours as ever,A. Lincoln.2Lincoln references the state and federal elections in Illinois, held on November 2, 1858. Lincoln, a Republican, challenged Stephen A. Douglas, the incumbent Democrat, for the latter’s seat in the U.S. Senate. Both men canvassed the state throughout the summer and fall of 1858, delivering speeches in support of candidates
for the Illinois General Assembly in their respective parties. Members of the General Assembly voted for and elected
the state’s representatives in the U.S. Senate at the time; therefore the outcome
of the races for the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois Senate were critical to the race for the Senate seat. Lincoln and Douglas also debated at seven Illinois towns during the campaign. See 1858 Federal Election; 1858 Illinois Republican Convention.
Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 3 November 1858, 2:1; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:458-60, 492-540; Allen C.
Guelzo, “Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political Landscape of 1858,” The Journal of American History 94 (September 2007), 392-94; George Fort Milton, "Lincoln-Douglas Debates," Dictionary of American History, rev. ed. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1976), 4:155-56.
3In the state’s local elections as a whole, Republicans won a majority of all votes
cast in the state, but pro-Douglas Democrats retained control of the General Assembly
and Douglas ultimately won reelection to the U.S. Senate. Douglas's victory was confirmed
in the election held on January 5, 1859. Although Douglas defeated Lincoln, his position
on popular sovereignty was controversial within the Democratic party. Southern Democrats
opposed any policy that could threaten the expansion of slavery into newly added states
and territories while more moderate Northern Democrats supported Douglas’s popular
sovereignty principle. This division became evident during the Democratic nomination conventions in 1860. The two Democratic National Conventions held in 1860 were highly contentious, with
Northern Democrats supporting Douglas and Southern Democrats seeking alternatives
unless Douglas modified his position on slavery. The Charleston Convention ended in deadlock after fifty-seven unsuccessful ballots to nominate a presidential
candidate, and many Southern Democrats walked out of the first convention. A second convention was held in Baltimore in which Southern Democrats boycotted the proceedings and held their own convention, also in Baltimore. The Northern Democratic Convention successfully nominated Douglas for president. The Southern Democrats nominated John C. Breckinridge as their presidential candidate. Breckenridge’s nomination would create a major split
in the Democratic Party during the 1860 Presidential Election.
Allen C. Guelzo, Lincoln and Douglass: The Debates that Defined America, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2008), 298-307; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 1:556-57, 597-99, 629-30; John L. Moore, Jon P. Preimesberger, and David R. Tarr,
eds., Congressional Quarterly’s Guide to U.S. Elections, 4th ed. (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2001), 1:456-57; Allen C. Guelzo, “Houses Divided:
Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political Landscape of 1858,” 414-16; Illinois Senate Journal. 1859. 21st G. A., 30; Illinois House Journal. 1859. 21st G. A., 32.
Printed Transcription, 1 page(s), Ida M. Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln (New York: Doubleday & McClure, 1900), 2:335.