Elihu B. Washburne to Abraham Lincoln, 2 May 18581
Private,
Washington, D.C. May 2. 1858.My Dear Sir:
I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter from Urbanna.2 I have never occupied but one position in regard to our State matters, and I have never been misunderstood except by those determined to misunderstand
and misrepresent me. I have here, and in all my letters home, invariably taken the
ground that the republican party in Illinois must stand by their principles and their men— that for Senator I was for you against
the field— that the party was bound by every obligation of honor and fair dealing
to elect you, if it had the strength to elect anybody. Yet John Wentworth has been persistently repre-
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senting the contrary, probably to prejudice me. He, of course, wrote you the letter an extract of which you send. No other man could have written it. Of course, I never wrote such a letter. He
referred to a letter I wrote to Wilson of the Chicago Journal, and^but^ no such idea was conveyed in the letter, or ever entered my head.3 You seem to be in doubt about it, and think the language was misconstrued. Wilson
writes me that he stated to you, I quote his language, that he “had re- received no letter which did not in the strongest terms advocate his (your) election,” &c.[etc.]4 My letter to him was marked private, so that he might not print it, but I do not
recollect anything in it that I would not have any good republican see. I spoke of
Douglas as probably being with the republicans hereafter, and for one I should
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welcome him as a valuable and indomitable ally, and so I shall if he came to us, but
I had no idea of making him Senator, or making him a leader. I perceive that an idea
has been industriously circulated in our State, that the republicans outside the State
were wanting to sell us out in Illinois5 Let me assure you such stuff ought not to be believed for a moment. Perhaps individuals
have said something like it, but I have seen no disposition by any body representing the party to interfere in our matters, and even if they there were any such disposition, I take it, it would very soon be ascertained that
we should settle our matters in our own way, “subject only to the constitution.”6 We have nothing to do, but to push the Republican column right on, turning neither to the right nor to the left.7 The Douglas men will be with us— those who are
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in earnest I mean— the others will go back to their vomit.8 I want to leave the doors of our party wide open so that all can come in who desire
it, and I would cordially welcome them. I see no policy in abusing the Douglas men
now— they are certainly not dangerous to us, and will be the lesser faction of the
party by the time of the election.9 I do not believe our party is so large that it cannot hold any more.
Where Douglas and his few remaining followers here are to go I cannot now say. What
his views are I am not advised, but the practical result will be he must go back to
the administration, or come to us. A Douglas party, per se, would amount to nothing now.
I have felt somewhat indignant at the misrepresentations of my views. I claim neither
influence or importance in the State– I am a republican, “pure and simple,” devoted
to the success of the party, and to the elevation of its early, steadfast and consistent
friends. I stand on the Phila Platform “without change or shadow of turning.”10 I am for Seward for President and Lincoln for U.S. Senator from Illinois, and “more hereafter.” My paper is out and I will
close. Excuse this very hastily written letter,
I am Truly, Yrs.[Yours]E B Washburne11Hon. A. Lincoln.
2Abraham Lincoln wrote Washburne from Urbana on April 26, 1858, regarding a the rumor that one of the Republican
members of the U.S. Congress from Illinois had written a letter which encouraged Illinois Republicans to support
Stephen A. Douglas’ bid for reelection to the U.S. Senate in the election of 1858. Lincoln assured Washburne, who was implicated as a possible author of the supposed
letter, that he was confident the matter was a misunderstanding.
Douglas had criticized the Lecompton Constitution and President James Buchanan’s support of it in December 1857, causing a rift in the Democratic Party. Some Republicans were excited by Douglas’ repudiation of the Lecompton Constitution
to the extent that they considered backing him for reelection to the U.S. Senate in
1858. Although Douglas later denied it, he courted Republican support. Lincoln and
other Republicans were concerned by these developments and urged fellow party members
to remain loyal in the upcoming election.
Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:445-50.
3The letter causing the controversy was written by Washburne to Charles L. Wilson on April 12, 1858. In it, Washburne wrote that in light of Douglas’ differences with
the Democratic Party, he would consider welcoming him as an ally to the Republican
Party, but that Lincoln must be the Republican Party’s candidate for the U.S. Senate
in Illinois in 1858. Wilson wrote to Washburne on May 3, 1858, explaining that he
had only shown the letter in controversy to two people, both of whom he trusted, and
blaming John Wentworth for misrepresenting the contents of the letter and stirring
up trouble to ingratiate himself with Lincoln.
Russell K. Nelson, “The Early Life and Congressional Career of Elihu B. Washburne”
(PhD dissertation, University of North Dakota, August 1953), 159-62; Charles L. Wilson
to Elihu B. Washburne, 3 May 1858, E. B. Washburne Papers: Bound Volumes, Letters Received; 1857, Aug. 10-1858, Aug.
8, Manuscript/Mixed Material, https://www.loc.gov/resource/mss44651.003/?sp=203&st=image, accessed 22 February 2024.
4No letter from Wilson to Washburne matching this description has been located. It
is unknown when Wilson spoke to Lincoln on the subject of Washburne’s controversial
letter, although the two men were both present at an April 21, 1858 meeting of Republican
leaders in Springfield at which the topic came up.
The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, 21 April 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-04-21; Abraham Lincoln to Charles L. Wilson; Russell K. Nelson, “The Early Life and Congressional Career of Elihu B. Washburne,”
160-61; Charles H. Ray to Elihu B. Washburne, 2 May [1858], E. B. Washburne Papers: Bound Volumes, Letters Received; 1861; Mar. 21-May 31, Manuscript/Mixed Material, https://www.loc.gov/resource/mss44651.017/?sp=227&st=image, accessed 22 February 2024.
5Among the Republicans whose support Douglas courted following his break with the Buchanan
administration were prominent easterners like Horace Greeley and William H. Seward. They, along with other eastern Republican leaders and newspaper
editors urged Illinois Republicans to back Douglas. In a subsequent letter to Wilson, Lincoln acknowledged the influence of these outside Republicans while
agreeing there was likely no conspiracy on their part to elect Douglas.
Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 1:446-48; Abraham Lincoln to Charles L. Wilson.
6Washburne references the Kansas-Nebraska Act and popular sovereignty. The Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the portion of the Missouri Compromise which had prohibited slavery north of latitude 36° 30′. According to the language
of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the true intent of the act admitting Missouri into the Union was not to either legislate or exclude slavery from any state or
territory, but to leave the citizens of such entities free to regulate their own institutions,
subject only to the constitution.
“An Act to Organize the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska,” 30 May 1854, Statutes at Large of the United States
10 (1855):283, 289; “An Act to Authorize the People of the Missouri Territory to Form
a Constitution and State Government, and for the Admission of such State into the
Union on an Equal Footing with the Original States, and to Prohibit Slavery in Certain
Territories,” 6 March 1820, Statutes at Large of the United States 3 (1846):548.
7The biblical book of Proverbs advises keeping to a straight path, turning neither
to the right nor to the left.
Proverbs 4:26-27.
8In the Bible, a fool repeating their folly is likened to a dog returning to its own
vomit.
Proverbs 26:11.
9Not long before the date of this letter, the Douglas Democrats in Illinois had demonstrated
their relative strength. The two wings of the Democratic Party held their state conventions
simultaneously in the Illinois State House on April 21 and the meeting of Douglas’
supporters garnered more attendees than the convention of Buchanan Democrats. Far
from being the lesser faction of the Democratic Party at the time of the 1858 election,
the Douglas Democrat candidates for Illinois House of Representatives garnered 166,374 votes total, while the Buchanan Democrat candidates earned 9,951
votes. Similarly the Douglas Democrat candidates for Illinois Senate won 44,750 votes and the Buchanan Democrat candidates received 1,308. The Republican
candidates in the Illinois General Assembly races received the highest total votes, but due to the manner in which legislative
districts were apportioned, they did not elect a majority to the state legislature.
As the Illinois General Assembly elected the state’s representative to the U.S. Senate
at this time, this meant that Douglas won reelection to the U.S. Senate in 1858, defeating
Lincoln.
Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 22 April 1858, 2:1-5; Chicago Daily Tribune (IL), 23 April 1858, 2:1-4; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 1:546; Allen C. Guelzo, “Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political Landscape
of 1858,” The Journal of American History 94 (September 2007), 394, 414-16.
10The author of the biblical book of James ascribes every perfect gift as coming from
God, the Father of Light, who is immutable and who is characterized by neither change
nor shadow of alteration.
James 1:17.
Autograph Letter Signed, 4 page(s), Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress (Washington, DC).