Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

Thomas A. Marshall to Abraham Lincoln, 2 June 18581
Charleston, Ils. June. 2. 1858Dear Lincoln
I write to inform you that Dr Chambers of this place will be in your town on Thursday or Friday of this week– He is you will remember a prominent Filmore man of this county. He is well disposed towards yourself & us, & a little bit of attention to him such as going to the Hotel to see him or some thing of the kind might have a good effect. You will find him a very sociable clever gentleman–2 I think matters are in a good train here

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my name has been announced as a candidate for the senate— apparently with the concurrence of every body we could expect to get, except my own– Our friends think that I am a hundred or two votes stronger in this county than any body else, & that here is the principal fighting ground of the district–3

I expect to be at Springfield on 16^th
Yours &c[etcetera]T. A. Marshall

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[Envelope]

CHARLESTON [Ill[Illinois]]
[JUN[June] 2]Hon. A. LincolnSpringfieldIllinois

[ docketing ]
Lincoln, Abraham (President)

T. A. Marshall4

1Thomas A. Marshall wrote and signed this letter, including the address on the envelope.

2Thursday and Friday of that week were June 3 and 4, respectively. Although Abraham Lincoln was in Springfield on those days, there is no record that he met with William M. Chambers.
Chambers and other former members of the American Party, often referred to colloquially as "Fillmore Men" because the national party backed Millard Fillmore in the presidential election of 1856, were an important source of votes for both Democrats and Republicans in the state and federal elections of 1858, and both sides worked to garner their support.
The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, June 1858, http://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarMonth&year=1858&month=6; Stephen Hansen and Paul Nygard, “Stephen A. Douglas, the Know-Nothings, and the Democratic Party in Illinois, 1854-1858,” Illinois Historical Journal 87 (Summer 1994), 123-29; Tyler Anbinder, Nativism & Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings & the Politics of the 1850s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 246-78.

3Marshall is referring to the election for the Illinois Senate in the Eighteenth District comprised of Edgar, Vermilion, Coles, and Cumberland counties. In a letter to Marshall dated April 23, 1858, Lincoln asked Marshall, George W. Rives, and Oliver L. Davis to collaborate to find a candidate to run for the Illinois Senate in the Eighteenth District. Lincoln was looking for supporters to assist him in his candidacy for the U.S. Senate against Stephen A. Douglas, the incumbent. At the time, state legislatures chose members of the U.S. Senate; therefore, the races for the Illinois House of Representatives and Illinois Senate were important for Lincoln's candidacy. In the end, Marshall became the candidate and won the seat. Democrats retained a majority in both chambers, however, allowing Douglas to win reelection to the U.S. Senate
John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac, 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 219; Allen C. Guelzo, “Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political Landscape of 1858,” The Journal of American History 94 (September 2007), 392, 394, 416-17; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:547; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 4 November 1858, 2:3; The Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 17 November 1858, 2:4.

4Lincoln wrote this docketing.