Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

Owen Lovejoy to Abraham Lincoln, 4 August 18581
Princeton Aug 4^th 1858My dear Sir
Yours of 2 inst is before me.2 In reply I would say that I do not know of any Douglas Republicans in this county unless it means Douglas men who are becoming Republicans which I think is the tendency at present. This county will send a clean Republican to the Legislature.3 Whatever his antecedents, I am assured that Lasalle is all right. I think the rumors that are afloat are but efforts to secure the nomination & that when the nominations are made the people will sustain them whatever a few may say or do. I mean to try & keep my district all right & the counties connected with it. I was at Clinton & our friends assumed me that D. lost ground while there.4

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I showed up Dred Scottism & P. S.[Popular Sovereignty] as irreconcilably opposed as well as I could.5 I had a cordial reception. I believe that the bugaboo of Negro Equality has pretty much lost its power.6 I leave for Danville tomorrow where they have a Senatorial Convention on Saturday.7

I am Sorry to see that they have defeated Frank Blair.8 Is it true that Crittenden is exerting his influence for Douglas.9 K. Ns it seems to me have played the fool long enough
Yours for "ultimate extinction of Slavery".Owen LovejoyI think you said the whole in a word when you said that the mistake of Judge D. was that he made slavery a little thing when it was a great thingL

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[Envelope]
O Lovejoy
MC[Member of Congress]
FREE
Hon A. LincolnSpringfieldSangamon CoIllsPRINCETON Ill[Illinois].
AUG[AUGUST] 5 1858

1Owen Lovejoy wrote and signed this letter, including the address on the envelope.

2A letter from Abraham Lincoln to Lovejoy dated August 2, 1858, has not been located.

3Abraham Lincoln had written Burton C. Cook on August 2, 1858, relaying a rumor of a movement to challenge Republican candidates in Bureau and La Salle counties in the state and federal election of 1858 by running independent candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives and Illinois General Assembly. Lincoln himself had 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 races for the Illinois House of Representatives and Illinois Senate were of particular importance to Lincoln’s campaign.
Bureau County comprised the Forty-Seventh Illinois House District, where Republican John H. Bryant was elected in 1858.

John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 220; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 4 November 1858, 3:2; 13 November 1858, 2:3; Allen C. Guelzo, “Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political Landscape of 1858,” The Journal of American History 94 (September 2007), 392-94; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:457-58.

4La Salle County was in the Forty-Third Illinois House District, in which Republicans Alexander Campbell and Richardson S. Hick won their races. The incumbent Republican in the Third Congressional District of Illinois, Lovejoy won his reelection bid for the U.S. House of Representatives, which included both Bureau and La Salle counties.
In Clinton County, Democrat Charles Hoiles won the Illinois House seat, and in the Illinois Senate, Democrat Elzey C. Coffey held over in 1858.
Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 4 November 1858, 3:2; 13 November 1858, 2:3; Howard W. Allen and Vincent A. Lacey, eds., Illinois Elections, 1818-1990 (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992), 10, 11, 142.

5Republicans, including Lincoln, opposed the decision in the Dred Scott case, which effectively barred any current or future emancipated slave from the right of United States citizenship and solidified the right of American citizens to transport their property wherever they wished—including taking an enslaved individual into a free state—without feared loss of that property. The outcome essentially invalidated the concept of popular sovereignty, which Stephen A. Douglas argued allowed territorial and state governments to either allow or prohibit slavery as they saw fit. Lincoln’s main concern with popular sovereignty had been its power to “allow the people of a Territory to have Slavery if they want to, but does not allow them not to have it if they do not want it.” The Scott decision proved Lincoln’s assertion, to which he remarked, “as I understand the Dred Scott decision, if any one man wants slaves, all the rest have no way of keeping that one man from holding them.”
Carl Brent Swisher, "Dred Scott Case," Dictionary of American History, rev. ed. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1940), 2:167-68; First Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Ottawa, Illinois; First Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Ottawa, Illinois; First Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Ottawa, Illinois.

6One of Douglas’s methods of attack on Republicans, particularly Lincoln, was the charge of supporting the equality of the races. In the first Lincoln-Douglas Debate, the Democrat said of his opponents, “He and they maintain that negro equality is guarantied by the laws of God.” Lincoln’s rebuttal categorically denied ever expressing such a sentiment, but he maintained that, “there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
First Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Ottawa, Illinois; First Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Ottawa, Illinois; First Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Ottawa, Illinois.

7Lovejoy addressed an audience on Saturday, August 7 in Danville. The local press reviewed his speech: “Republicans were delighted, conservative men were pleased, while a few ultra pro-slavery men swelled almost to the bursting point with pent-up rage.”
Also on August 7, an “American convention” was held in Danville with the purpose of attacking Lovejoy and proposing another convention to nominate an independent candidate to challenge him. The meeting was sparsely attended.
The Daily Pantagraph (Bloomington, IL), 13 August 1858, 2:1; The Weekly Pantagraph (Bloomington, IL), 18 August 1858, 1:2.

8 Francis P. Blair, Jr. ran against John R. Barret for the U.S. House in St. Louis in 1858. The Missouri Democrat supported Stephen A. Douglas and his opposition to election frauds in Kansas. However, when Douglas celebrated the election of Barret, a supporter of the Lecompton Constitution, the newspaper changed course. Barret had run as a regular Democratic nominee rather than as an anti-Lecompton Democrat, prompting one newspaper to claim that this proved that Douglas’s rejection of the Lecompton Constitution, “was but a ruse to pull the wool over the eyes of Republicans and Americans, and thus secure their votes for his re-election to the Senate.” Accusations of fraud soon appeared, and Blair contested Barret’s win. After a lengthy examination, the House of Representatives ordered a new election for the remainder of Barret’s term. While Barret remained in his seat to finish out his term per the new election, Blair defeated him for the next term in office.
Urbana Union (IL), 12 August 1858, 2:2; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 5 August 1858, 2:1-3; Biographical Directory of the American Congress 1774-1996 (Alexandria, VA: CQ Staff Directories, 1997), 622-23; La Grange Weekly National American (MO), 14 August 1858, 2:3; L. U. Reavis, Saint Louis: The Future Great City of the World, Biographical Edition (St. Louis: Gray, Baker, 1875), 169.

9John J. Crittenden wrote Lincoln on July 29, 1858, admitting that he and Douglas, though always belonging to different political parties and were "opposed, in politics, to each other," shared a strong aversion to the Lecompton Constitution. Buchanan administration's harsh response to Douglas and use of its power to prevent his reelection brought sympathy from Crittenden. He wrote of Douglas, "I could not but wish for his success— and his triumph over such a persecution– I thought that his re-election was necessary as a rebuke to the Administration, and a vindication of the great cause of popular rights & public justice." Expressing "no disposition for officious intermeddling" in his letter to Lincoln, Crittenden nonetheless became embroiled in the campaign for the U.S. Senate. On July 19, T. Lyle Dickey, a former Whig and Lincoln supporter who had defected to the Democrats and Douglas, wrote Crittenden requesting that he confirm a conversation with Dickey in April 1858 where Crittenden praised Douglas. On August 1, Crittenden wrote Dickey confirming the conversation and his praise for Douglas's service to Illinois and his principled position on the Lecompton Constitution. Not wishing to be appear "to be an officious intermeddler" in the election, Crittenden requested that Dickey, should he speak of the conversation or letter, "acquit me of any intermeddling, or of the presumption of seeking to obtrude myself or my sentiments upon the attention of the people of Illinois." Dickey kept the letter private until October 19, when he read it aloud in a speech denouncing Lincoln for abandoning Henry Clay and Whiggery. The Daily Illinois State Journal sought to mitigate the damage by claiming that Crittenden's letter to Dickey was a forgery and by suggesting the Crittenden had written Lincoln--presumably Crittenden's letter of July 29--supporting opposition against Douglas. The Daily Missouri Republican demanded that Lincoln publish this letter, which caused Crittenden, he wrote Lincoln on October 27, "much pain & surprise." The Illinois State Journal continued to misrepresent Crittenden's correspondence to Lincoln, prompting Owen G. Cates of St. Louis to write Crittenden asking if he wrote such a letter. On October 28, Crittenden responded in a telegram: "I have written no such letter." Crittenden's letter to Dickey, Dickey's speech, and Crittenden's subsequent telegram hurt Lincoln in the old Whig stronghold of central Illinois, contributing to Lincoln's loss to Douglas. David Davis, Henry C. Whitney, and others blamed Crittenden for Lincoln's defeat, and Lincoln himself, in a letter to Crittenden dated November 4, claimed that the use of Crittenden's name "contributed largely" to his loss.
Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 1:456-57, 542-43, 546-47; Allen C. Guelzo, Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates that Defined America(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008) , 273-76; The Louisville Daily Journal( KY) 26 October 1858, 2:1; Daily Missouri Republican (St. Louis), 25 October 1858, 2:1; 29 October 1858, 2:1; David Davis to Abraham Lincoln; Henry C. Whitney to Abraham Lincoln.