Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

Fleming R. Payne to Abraham Lincoln, 10 August 18581
Marshall Ills
Aug 10^th 1858Hon A LincolnD^r[Dear] Sir
We are very anxious to have this county thoroughly canvassed & hope you will not fail to include Clark in your list of appointments.2 If we can get the people to understand the true issues now presented to the county Douglas & Buchanan will both go down & there is a disposition manifested in the minds of our people to examine before they vote The Democrats are united on Douglas but many are not firm a change of 160 will give us the county & we know many who are now with

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us that were vs us in /56[1856]3 The Americans will all vote our ticket in fact they are now good republicans.4 Don't fail to look to this county we hope that it can be carried & that is a well grounded hope. We cannot without an effort but that effort must be made
Yours TrulyF R Payne
Chairman of Clark County Central Committee

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[Envelope]

MARS[HALL] Ill.[Illinois]
AUG[AUGUST] 13Hon A LincolnSpringfieldIlls

[ docketing ]
Lincoln, Abraham (President)

F. R. Payne
Clark Co.[County]5

1Fleming R. Payne wrote and signed this letter, including the address on the envelope.

2There is no record of Abraham Lincoln visiting Marshall, or Clark County, Illinois, in 1858. Four days after this letter was written, on August 14, John A. Whitlock also wrote to Lincoln, asking him if he would visit Clark County. A response from Lincoln has not been found.
Lincoln was 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 1858 Illinois Republican Convention; 1858 Federal Election.
Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:457-85, 547, 557; Allen C. Guelzo, “Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political Landscape of 1858,” The Journal of American History 94 (September 2007), 392.

3In the 1856 Federal Election, Clark County overwhelming went for Democrat James Buchanan with 55.9 percent of the vote. Republican candidate John C. Fremont received 30.1 percent of the vote, and Millard Fillmore, the American Party candidate, received 14 percent. In 1858, Clark County sent Democrat Joseph P. Updegraff to the Illinois House over Republican FLeming R. Payne, the author of this letter. In addition, Clark voted for Democrat James C. Robinson over Richard J. Oglesby, a Republican, as a part of Illinois’ Seventh Congressional District.

Howard W. Allen and Vincent A. Lacey, eds., Illinois Elections, 1818-1990 (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992), 11, 136; The Weekly Chicago Times (IL), 11 November 1858, 2:6; The Weekly Pantagraph (Bloomington, IL), 3 November 1858, 2:4; Alton Daily Courier (IL), 2 November 1858, 2:1.

4The American Party was an important source of votes for both Democrats and Republicans in the state and federal elections of 1858, and both sides worked to garner former members’ support.
Stephen Hansen and Paul Nygard, “Stephen A. Douglas, the Know-Nothings, and the Democratic Party in Illinois, 1854-1858,” Illinois Historical Journal 87 (Summer 1994), 123-29.

5Lincoln wrote this docketing. His reply, if he penned one, has not been found.