Abraham Lincoln to Mark W. Delahay, 1 February 18591
Springfield, Ills. Feb. 1. 1859
M. W. Delahay, Esq[Esquire]
My dear Sir:Yours of the 22nd of January is received–2 I do expect to visit Council Bluffs some time between this, and next summer; and I should be pleased if I could arrange
it so as to meet a Republican mass convention at your city–3 Until the Legislature shall adjourn, no one can tell what will be the time of holding court in any county—a
thing I must keep my eye on this year, as I lost prety nearly all of the last–4 When I can speak more definitely I will write again. Let me say now, however, that
I think the latter in
Yours very trulyA. Lincoln<Page 2>
May the better, unless you could defer until the last half of June, which would be
the very best for me– I am obliged to be here the first half of June–5<Page 3>
<Page 4>
3During the political turbulence and violent confrontations associated with “Bleeding Kansas,” people of the Kansas Territory had no strong allegiance to any of the national political parties. Politics centered
on local issues, particularly the status of slavery and Kansas statehood. Pro-slavery
and free state groups fought for supremacy. After the debacle of the Lecompton Constitution, political division along these lines began to disintegrate. The pro-slavery coalition
collapsed, with the Democratic Party absorbing its remnants and organization. With the pro-slavery party gone, the
free state organization considering dissolving and moving into the Republican Party.
Mark W. Delahay and Republicans wanted hold an organizing convention to counter both
Democrats and Free Staters opposed to joining the Republicans .
Mark W. Delahay to Abraham Lincoln; Martin F. Conway to Abraham Lincoln; A. T. Andreas, History of the State of Kansas (Chicago: A. T. Andreas, 1883), 1:172.
4Lincoln “lost” nearly all of 1858 to his campaign for U.S. Senate as the Republican Party’s candidate against Stephen A. Douglas, the Democratic incumbent. From August to November 1858, Lincoln devoted himself
to politics. He put his legal work, and his income, on pause during the campaign,
missing the fall sessions of the courts of the Eighth Judicial Circuit and Illinois Supreme Court. Lincoln took a short break after the election campaign before resuming his legal
work on November 6, 1858. He commented to friends after the election that his financial
position meant that he would need to concentrate on his law practice. See 1858 Federal Election.
Prior to its adjournment on February 24, 1859, the Twenty-First Illinois General Assembly enacted laws changing the composition and time of holding courts in many of Illinois’s
circuit courts.
Harry E. Pratt, The Personal Finances of Abraham Lincoln (Springfield, IL: Abraham Lincoln Association, 1943), 105-6;
The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, 6 November 1859, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-11-06&r; Abraham Lincoln to Norman B. Judd; Abraham Lincoln to Norman B. Judd; Abraham Lincoln to William M. Morris; Abraham Lincoln to William M. Morris; Illinois House Journal. 1859. 21th G. A., 883, 899; Illinois Senate Journal. 1859. 21th G. A., 579, 582; Laws of Illinois (1859), iv-v, 48-70.
5Delahay responded to this letter on February 8, 1859. He accepted Lincoln’s offer to make an appearance
in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and then travel on to Leavenworth, Kansas, to attend the Republican convention in that city scheduled for the middle of May.
Lincoln responded on March 4, stating that Martin F. Conway had informed Horace White in a letter dated February 18, that the Republicans in the Kansas Territory had issued a call
for a convention to be in Osawatomie, Kansas, on May 18. Lincoln admitted that change would make it much more difficult for
him to attend “without injury to my own business,” but he promised to try. Delahay
responded March 15, that there would be two conventions, one Leavenworth a short time before
the one in Osawatomie. On May 14, Lincoln wrote Delahay that it would be impossible for him to attend the convention at Osawatomie.
Republicans held their convention in Osawatomie on May 18 and 19. The purpose of
this convention, in the words of The Topeka Tribune, was “to secure harmony and co-operation in the future amongst all who labored in
the past in Kansas to make it a heritage for freemen for all generations to come,
and all who approve their course and rejoice in their success.” Delegates selected
officers and established committees to formally organize the Republican Party in the
territory. They also adopted a platform centered on opposition to the extension of
slavery to Kansas and other territories. A plank specific to local conditions called
upon delegates to the upcoming constitutional convention in Wyandotte to include in the bill of rights a provision that “neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude shall ever exist in Kansas, except in punishment of crime.” Horace Greeley was the principle speaker at the convention.
Lincoln would travel to Iowa in August 1859, speaking in Council Bluffs on August 13, and in December 1859, he
toured the Kansas Territory, aiding local Republicans in state elections.
The Topeka Tribune (KS), 12 May 1859, 2:1; 26 May 1859, 2:3-4; A. T. Andreas, History of the State of Kansas, 1:172; Harry E. Pratt, The Personal Finances of Abraham Lincoln, 106; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:575-77; Summary of Speech at Council Bluffs, Iowa; The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, 13 August 1859, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1859-08-13; December 1859, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarMonth&year=1859&month=12.
Autograph Letter Signed, 4 page(s), Volume Volume 2, Herndon-Weik Collection of Lincolniana, Library of Congress (Washington, DC).