Augustus Adams to Abraham Lincoln, 17 December 18541
Elgin Dec 17th 1854Hon A LincolnDear SirYours of the 5th inst was recd[received] about a week after it was written but I have not been able to find leisure to reply
to it sooner.2
Like yourself “I very much desire that some good Anti-Nebraska man may be elected to the U.S. Senate” But the term “Anti-Nebraska” in the present condition of affairs is not sufficiently expressive of what we wish
to know now of the political position of a candidate for that important position So far as relates to the atrocious wrong, the Repeal of the Missouri compromise, the act has been perpetrated, and as the Senate is at present constituted and likely
to remain, cannot be Re-enacted till both Kansas & Nebraska will be asking admission as States The first question of importance then that presents its self to us is, how shall we undo the wrong that has already been perpetrated and guard
against the recurrence of similar acts in the future Shall we compromise again and allow Kansas to come in as a slave state that Nebraska
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may come in free? Give up a part of what is clearly our own for the sake of being
allowed to retain the balance? What guarantee shall we have that we shall not ultimately
have to give up the remainder?
In all this compromising and Union saving the demands of the slave interest satisfi[...?] ^have never^ been satisfied, Agitation quieted or harmony promoted, but as often as the interests
of free labor have been compromised and its friends retreated they have been followed
by a “fire in the Rear” until they are brought to a stand and compelled to turn round
and ask what more is wanted, and when further demands are made they must again “Compromise”
by given all that is demanded and receiving nothing or comparatively nothing in return For myself I am sick of all this temporizing policy I would like to have the man I support for Senator willing to give the slave states
all their just rights, leave slavery to be managed by the states in which it exists
in their own way, but I would have the General Government absolved from all participation
in sustaining or extending it and in
...?] ^abettors^ in making their bids for the presidency have volunteered to overthrow compromises
I hope the fugitive Slave law if not wholly repealed may be so modified as to divest it of its most arbitrary and
odious features, particularly that which requires individuals not officers of the
law, to aid in the capture of fugitive slaves, under severe penalties when called
upon to do so
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my judgment there will never be a more favorable time than the present to take a stand
against the admission of any more slave states and thus let the question be settled
now and forever whether slavery shall be restricted to its present limits, or whether
by the annexation of Cuba, by appropriating our own territory once consecrated to freedom, & by the ^conquest of,^ Mexico or other territory extend the Area of slavery indefinitely until it obtains a preponderating
influence in the councils of the Nation And since Douglas and his abbet[I fully appreciate the difficulties to which you allude growing out of
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the discordant elements of which the Anti-Nebraska majority in the Legislature is composed Entertaining my own opinions firmly I can yet see that much of conciliation & concession
will be requisite to succeed in an election and so much cons^c^ession as is necessary to effect the object I am prepared to make provided it does
not compromise the measure on which I had supposed the majority were united— viz—
The restoration of the Missouri compromise line or measures equivalent theretoAs to yourself personally from the sleight acquaintance we have had and a knowledge of your course while in Congress, I have entertained so favorable an opinion on your integrity and firmness that I
am free to say that my preferences are in your favor yet I do not I do not wish to be considered as fully committed until I have an opportunity to
learn more fully the views of the different candidates3 There are some that express a preference for Yates for the reason that Douglass & co[company] made so great an effort to defeat “the Damned little pup”4 but5 ^so far as I have been able to learn the expression of the majority of Anti-Nebraska
men in this part of the state is in your favor Very Respectfully yoursAugustus Adams^
2Abraham Lincoln’s letter to Adams of December 5, 1854 has not been located but it
was likely similar to others that Lincoln wrote in November and December of 1854 soliciting
the support of newly-elected members of the Illinois General Assembly for his potential candidacy for U.S. Senate.
Passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and its effective repeal of the Missouri Compromise had reawakened Lincoln’s passion
for politics, and he threw himself into the congressional election campaign in the
fall of 1854, crisscrossing Illinois to deliver speeches against the Kansas-Nebraska
Act and in support of anti-Nebraska candidates. He even allowed himself to become
a candidate for the Illinois General Assembly (albeit reluctantly at first). As the
election campaign reached its climax, Lincoln’s name began to circulate as a possible
nominee for one of the state’s U.S. Senate seats. Lincoln won election to the Illinois
House of Representatives in the 1854 election, but declined the seat in late November
in order to run for U.S. Senate. See the 1854 Federal Election.
Abraham Lincoln to Hugh Lamaster; William H. Randolph to Abraham Lincoln; Robert Boal to Abraham Lincoln; John E. McClun to Abraham Lincoln; Abraham Lincoln to Thomas J. Henderson; Thomas J. Turner to Abraham Lincoln; Abraham Lincoln to Noah W. Matheny; David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York: Touchstone, 1995), 167-73; Autobiography of Abraham Lincoln Written for John L. Scripps
3The General Assembly met in a joint session on February 8, 1855 to make their selection
for the U.S. Senate. In the first round of voting, Lincoln received forty-five of
the ninety-nine votes cast, but as no candidate received a majority of votes, several
more rounds of balloting ensued. Adams voted for Lincoln in the first seven rounds
of voting, then switched his support to anti-Nebraska Democrat Lyman Trumbull. After the ninth vote, with his share of votes declining, Lincoln dropped out of
contention and urged his remaining supporters to vote for Trumbull to ensure that
an anti-Nebraska candidate would be elected. Adams continued his support of Trumbull
through the tenth and final vote when Trumbull earned a majority of votes and was
elected Illinois’s next U.S. Senator.
Illinois Senate Journal. 1855. 19th G. A., 1st sess., 242-55; Abraham Lincoln to Elihu B. Washburne.
4Richard Yates had recently lost his bid for reelection to the U.S. House of Representatives in Illinois’s Sixth Congressional District. Douglas had campaigned vigorously for
Yates’s opponent, Democrat Thomas L. Harris. Yates was ultimately not nominated in the Illinois General Assembly’s election
of U.S. Senator in February 1855.
Howard W. Allen and Vincent A. Lacey, eds., Illinois Elections, 1818-1990 (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992), 9, 10; Robert
W. Johannsen, Stephen A. Douglas (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), 460; Illinois Senate Journal. 1855. 19th G. A., 242-55.
Autograph Letter Signed, 4 page(s),
Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress (Washington, DC).