Thomas J. Turner to Abraham Lincoln, 27 July 18581
| THOS. J. TURNER, | } | TURNER & INGALLS, | |
| FRED’C C. INGALLS. | Law Office. |
Your letter of the 20th inclosing receipt is at hand–2 Some time after you had been employed by Adams & Bovey to assist in those suits— they (A & B) came to me very much discouraged and offered me Two Hundred acres of the land if
I could carry on the suits the land was hilly and at that time worth but little I objected somewhat to taking my fees in that way They seemed to attribute my reluctance to a want of faith in the result and we finally
struck a bargain whereby I agreed to carry on the suits at my own costs and they were
to deed me the land if I succeeded in removing the incumbrance and pay me $250– They
had I believe at that time paid you the $100– The land is now worth ten dollars
per acre— probably— and they refuse to deed it to me or to pay me anything alleging
that the suits were unusually delayed &c &c[etc etc] Now if ^will^ you will be kind enough to write me and let me know at what time they
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paid you the $100– I offered to refund it to them if it was paid for services rendered
after the date of our contract which was the3If you will do me this favor you will much oblige
Your friendThos J Turner4Politically everything is right up here5T. J. T.<Page 3>
[Envelope]
FREEPORT Ill.[Illinois]
JUL[JULY] 28 1858Hon A LincolnSpringfieldIll
JUL[JULY] 28 1858Hon A LincolnSpringfieldIll
2Neither Abraham Lincoln’s letter to Turner of July 20, 1858, nor the receipt it enclosed
has been located. The receipt may have been related to a note for $400 that Turner
gave Lincoln on July 16, 1858.
Harry E. Pratt, The Personal Finances of Abraham Lincoln (Springfield, IL: Abraham Lincoln Association, 1943), 137.
3Turner is referencing the recently concluded case of Kemper v. Adams & Bovey, in which he and Lincoln had served as attorneys for the defendants. The lawsuit
stemmed from a judgment recovered by John H. Kemper against William F. Bradshaw, following which the marshal sold land owned by Bradshaw in Ogle County, Illinois to satisfy the judgment. Bradshaw, however, conveyed the land claimed by Kemper under
the judgment to Adam Adams and John Bovey. Kemper, represented by Stephen T. Logan, sued Adams and Bovey in an action of ejectment in the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Illinois to remove them from the property. Adams and Bovey contended that the time during
which Kemper could sue had expired. The court found in favor of Kemper and Adams and
Bovey motioned for a new trial. The court granted the motion and a jury found for
Kemper. Adams and Bovey apparently sued Kemper for an injunction to stop the execution
of the judgment, and in March 1858, the U.S. Circuit Court for the Northern District of Illinois ruled for Adams and Bovey.
As indicated in an earlier letter from Lincoln to Turner, Lincoln first became involved in the lawsuit in December
1849. He wrote multiple letters to the parties involved in this case prior to its
conclusion in 1858. For the letters related to this case, see Kemper v. Adams & Bovey, Martha L. Benner and Cullom Davis et al., eds., The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete Documentary Edition, 2d edition (Springfield: Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, 2009), http://www.lawpracticeofabrahamlincoln.org/Details.aspx?case=140935.
5Lincoln 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 1858 Federal Election.
The more northern counties of Illinois were assumed to be safely Republican in the election of 1858, and that proved to be the case in Turner’s home county of Stephenson. In the Fifty-Second Illinois House of Representatives District, which was composed
solely of Stephenson County, Republican John A. Davis was reelected in 1858, defeating Democrat Francis W. S. Brawley by a vote of 2,131 to 1,500. Stephenson and Jo Daviess counties constituted the Fourth Illinois Senate District, where Republican John H. Addams was reelected, earning more votes than his opponents, Douglas Democrat Frederick
A. Strockey and Buchanan Democrat John C. Kean, combined.
In the 1858 race for the U.S. House of Representatives in Illinois’ First Congressional District, Republican Elihu B. Washburne easily won reelection, with a majority of votes in Stephenson County as well as in
all seven of the other counties that constituted the district.
Allen C. Guelzo, “House Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political Landscape of
1858,” The Journal of American History 94 (September 2007), 392-94, 400-401; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:457-58, 476-77; John Clayton,
comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac, 1673-1968
(Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 219-22; Freeport Weekly Bulletin (IL), 30 September 1858, 2:1; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 4 November 1858, 3:2; The Weekly Chicago Times (IL), 11 November 1858, 2:5, 4:3; Howard W. Allen and Vincent A. Lacey, eds., Illinois Elections, 1818-1990 (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992), 10-11, 141-42.
Autograph Letter Signed, 3 page(s), Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress (Washington, DC).