Henry C. Whitney to Abraham Lincoln, 23 July 18581
July 23d at MonticelloHonl[Honorable] A Lincolnthe most perfect harmony:= not one discordant voice McKinley & Weldon Dr Johns and all united & more than united;= Dr Hull had every delegate but he is not eligible on account of not having resided here long
enough and Daniel Stickel a farmer of Piatt Co. substituted & nominated by acclamation:— large convention & immense enthusiasm &
perfect unity2 Stickel will get as large a vote as Hull= he was Hulls choice & the choice of Piatt;=
H. C. Whitneymore that J. W. Sim J. T. Miller and J. B. McKinley.=6<Page 2>
Hull says Piatt is good for 200 maj[majority]:= Oglesby says Macon is good for 150 maj:= Delegates from DeWitt say that there is no doubt of that Co. & Champaign is unquestionable:=3 every thing right Oglesby is now making his first speech in his Congressional canvas and is doing well:=4 set your mind entirely at rest about this district:= will write tomorrow in full5<Page 3>
[Envelope]
MONTICELLO Ills.[Illinois]
JUL[JULY] 24Honl Abraham LincolnSpringfieldIllinois
JUL[JULY] 24Honl Abraham LincolnSpringfieldIllinois
2Whitney is discussing the Republican district convention held at Monticello on this day for the purpose of selecting a
candidate to run in the Thirty-Sixth Illinois House of Representatives District, which included Champaign, DeWitt, Macon, and Piatt counties.
Abraham Lincoln had recently been nominated at the 1858 Illinois Republican Convention to run against incumbent Stephen A. Douglas to represent Illinois in the U.S. Senate. 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. Lincoln and Douglas both focused their
campaign efforts on the former Whig stronghold of central Illinois, where the state legislative races were the closest.
See the 1858 Federal Election.
Peter K. Hull was found to be ineligible to run for the Illinois House of Representatives
as he had not lived in the state of Illinois for three consecutive years, as required
by article three, section three of the 1848 Illinois Constitution.
The Central Transcript (Clinton, IL), 2 July 1858, 2:1; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac, 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 220; Chicago Daily Press and Tribune (IL), 28 July 1858, 2:4; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 30 July 1858, 2:2; Allen C. Guelzo, “House Divided: Lincoln, Douglas,
and the Political Landscape of 1858,” The Journal of American History 94 (September 2007), 392-99, 400-401; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:457-58, 476-77; Ill. Const.
of 1848, art. III, § 3.
3Daniel Stickel ultimately won the race for Illinois House of Representatives in the
Thirty-Sixth District on November 2, 1858, defeating Douglas Democrat candidate William N. Coler, and Buchanan Democrat candidate William Prather by several hundred votes overall. The county results predicted here did not prove
to be accurate, however. While Stickel defeated Coler by a 339-vote majority in DeWitt
County and a 375-vote majority in Champaign County, Stickel came out ahead by only
forty-three votes in Piatt County, and Coler won Macon County by 179 votes.
John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac, 1673-1968, 222; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 3 November 1858, 2:1-2; The Central Transcript (Clinton, IL), 28 October 1858, 2:3; Weekly Central Transcript (Clinton, IL), 12 November 1858, 1:2, 2:4-5; The Weekly Chicago Times (IL), 11 November 1858, 2:7.
4Republican Richard J. Oglesby was running for the U.S. House of Representatives in Illinois’ Seventh Congressional District. His candidacy was discussed as early
as May of 1858 alongside that of fellow Republican Henry P. H. Bromwell, with Oglesby promoted in the press as a candidate at the beginning of July 1858.
The Republicans of the Seventh Congressional District of Illinois apparently never
held a formal convention to select a candidate for the race and around this time Bromwell
declined to run against Oglesby. Oglesby ultimately received 46.3 percent of the vote
and lost to Democrat James C. Robinson, who garnered 53.5 percent.
One newspaper account of this speech made by Oglesby at the Monticello district convention
praised it as “very eloquent and argumentative” and stated that in it Oglesby “showed
up the objects and aims of the slave driving and slavery extension Democracy”. A letter
published in the Chicago Tribune describing the speech reported that Oglesby used the speeches of Henry Clay to demonstrate that the Republican Party’s views aligned with those of Clay and that
Oglesby denounced the Dred Scott decision in his oration.
George W. Rives to Abraham Lincoln; The Central Transcript (Clinton, IL), 4 June 1858, 2:4; Olney Times (IL), 2 July 1858, 2:1; 3:1; Daily Galena Courier, 28 July 1858, 2:2; The Ottawa Free Trader (IL), 21 August 1858, 2:1; Howard W. Allen and Vincent A. Lacey, eds., Illinois Elections, 1818-1990 (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992), 11, 142-43;
Urbana Union (IL), 29 July 1858, 2:6; Chicago Daily Press and Tribune (IL), 28 July 1858, 2:4.
5In addition to Whitney’s promised letter of July 24, 1858, in which he further discussed the convention at Monticello and
local politics, Whitney and Lincoln exchanged numerous other letters regarding the
election of 1858.
Henry C. Whitney to Abraham Lincoln; Abraham Lincoln to Henry C. Whitney; Henry C. Whitney to Abraham Lincoln and William H. Herndon; Abraham Lincoln to Henry C. Whitney; Henry C. Whitney to Abraham Lincoln; Henry C. Whitney to Abraham Lincoln; Henry C. Whitney to Abraham Lincoln; Henry C. Whitney to Abraham Lincoln.
Autograph Letter Signed, 3 page(s), Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress (Washington, DC).