Richard B. Servant to Abraham Lincoln, 14 June 18581
Chester June 14/58Dear LincolnThis will be handed you by our Republican friend E. J. Montague, Esq[Esquire] Editor of the Chester Herald, and a delegate to the Rep. Convention
Any attention that you may pay him, will be gratefully remembered2
by Yr[Your] old friendR. B. ServantHon. A. LincolnSpringfield <Page 2>
[Envelope]
Hon. A. LincolnSpringfield
Per E. J. Montague Esq
2Elzy J. Montague represented Randolph County and Abraham Lincoln represented Sangamon County at the Illinois Republican State Convention. There is no evidence that Lincoln met
with Montague during the convention. No letters from Abraham Lincoln to Montague
have been found. Montague did not run for any state or federal office in 1858.
Delegates to the state convention unanimously nominated Lincoln as the Republican
candidate from Illinois for the U.S. Senate. In the summer and fall of 1858, he crisscrossed Illinois delivering speeches and
campaigning on behalf of Republican candidates for the Illinois General Assembly. At this time the Illinois General Assembly elected the state’s representatives in
the U.S. Senate, thus the outcome of races for the Illinois House of Representatives and Illinois Senate were of importance to Lincoln’s campaign. He ran against, and lost to, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, the incumbent. See the 1858 Illinois Republican Convention; 1858 Federal Election.
Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 17 June 1858, 2:4; Howard W. Allen and Vincent A. Lacey, eds., Illinois Elections, 1818-1990 (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992), 11; Michael
Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:457-85, 557; Allen C. Guelzo,
“Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political Landscape of 1858,” The Journal of American History 94 (September 2007), 392.
Autograph Letter Signed, 2 page(s), Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress (Washington, DC).