William C. Hobbs to Abraham Lincoln, 2 August 18581
Bloomington Augt 2nd 1858.Hon. A. LincolnMy dear SirI did not recieve your note of the 30th Ult. until this evening–2 Upon pretty general consultation it is thought best to postpone your address at
Bloomington, to the 4th day of September, or to the 11th of that month if it will suit you better– The 4th is the Saturday before Court and the last day of our county fair and we think it would be more satisfactory to persons from remote parts of the
county, the 11th will be Saturday ending the 1st Week of court. You will greatly oblige us by designating the day as early as practicable–3 I mean which day in September– We have made extensive pledges to the people about
giving them notice in every corner of the county therefore next Saturday will not
do.4 The meeting for the 4th Sept.[September] can readily be so arranged as not to interfere with the fair
Very RespectfullyW. C Hobbs<Page 2>
[Envelope]
BLOOMINGTON Ill.[Illinois]
AUG[August] 3 1858Hon. A. LincolnSpringfield Illinois
AUG[August] 3 1858Hon. A. LincolnSpringfield Illinois
2Abraham Lincoln’s letter to Hobbs of July 30, 1858, has not been located, but it presumably
responded to Hobbs’ earlier letter of July 27, 1858, inviting Lincoln to speak in Bloomington.
3No response to this letter from Lincoln has been located, but he ultimately spoke
in Bloomington on September 4, 1858.
Lincoln had been nominated at the 1858 Illinois Republican Convention to run against incumbent Democrat 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
efforts during the campaign of 1858 on the former Whig Party stronghold of central Illinois, where the state legislative races were the closest.
The result of the 1858 race for the Thirty-Eighth Illinois House of Representatives
district, which consisted solely of McLean County, was that Republican Leonard Swett defeated Democrat John Gregory by a margin of around 600 votes. McLean County was
in the Sixteenth Illinois Senate district, where Democrat Joel S. Post held over in
the 1858 election.
Report of Speech at Bloomington, Illinois; The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, 4 September 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-09-04; Allen C. Guelzo, “Houses 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), 219-20, 222; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 4 November 1858, 2:3, 3:2; Chicago Daily Press and Tribune (IL), 5 November 1858, 1:3; The Weekly Pantagraph (Bloomington, IL), 10 November 1858, 1:2.
4In advance of Lincoln’s September 4 speech in Bloomington, the Lincoln Republican Club of McLean County printed a circular letter from Hobbs dated August 6, through which they notified
county residents of the speech. The circular letters were addressed to residents of
different jurisdictions in the county whom the Lincoln Republican Club appointed as
committees to publicize the meeting.
Martin A. Wyckoff and Greg Koos, eds., The Illustrated History of McLean County
(Bloomington, IL: McLean County Historical Society, 1982), 82.
Autograph Letter Signed, 2 page(s), Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress (Washington, DC).