Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

Hugh G. Seymour to Abraham Lincoln, 11 August 18581
Carlisle Pa Aug 11^th/58Dear Sir.
Having had the pleasure of reading portions of your reply to Judge Douglas delivered at Chicago allow me to express my admiration of the handsome manner in which you handled him and his arguments and my gratification that the standard of Illinois Republicanism has fallen in such able hands.2 Allow me Sir to express the ardent hope that you may be successful in the great campaign not only for your individual good but

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for the advancement of the great Republican principles. Your reference to the course of the idol of Democracy,— Gen Jackson— in opposition to the opinion of the Supreme court must stagger the "unterrified Democracy"3 Allow me to mention in the possibility of your not having the fact now in your mind of a case fit to place beside it. "The expulsion of the Indian Tribes from the Southern States, in violation of the faith of Treaties and in open disregard of the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States as to their obligation" which took place I think in the ^last^ term of Gen Jackson or in that of Mr Van Buren.4

Pennsylvania

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will try and redeem her character this fall and with good hope of success. The Democracy expect a defeat I believe.5
Yours Respectfully Hugh Gordon SeymourTo Hon A. LincolnIllinois.

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[Envelope]

[C]ARLISLE Pa[Pennyslvania]
AUG[AUGUST] 18 1858Hon A. LincolnOttawaIllinois.

[ docketing ]
Lincoln, Abraham (President)

H. G. Seymour6

1Hugh G. Seymour wrote and signed this letter. He also wrote Abraham Lincoln’s name and address on the envelope shown in the fourth image.

2Lincoln delivered a speech in Chicago, Illinois, on July 10, 1858. Stephen A. Douglas had delivered a speech in Chicago the previous day. In the 1858 Federal Election, Lincoln was running against Democratic incumbent Douglas as the Illinois Republican Party’s candidate for the U.S. Senate. Both men canvassed the state throughout the summer and fall of 1858, delivering speeches in support of candidates for the Illinois General Assembly in their respective parties. At the time, members of the General Assembly voted for and elected the state’s representatives in the U.S. Senate, so the races for the Illinois House of Representatives and Illinois Senate were highly relevant to the outcome of the state’s race for the U.S. Senate seat. See the 1858 Illinois Republican Convention.
The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, 9 July 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-07-09; 10 July 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-07-10; Report of Speech at Chicago, Illinois; Report of Speech at Chicago, Illinois; Report of Speech at Chicago, Illinois; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:458; Allen C. Guelzo, “Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political Landscape of 1858,” The Journal of American History 94 (September 2007), 392, 394.

3During his July 10 speech in Chicago, Lincoln addressed Douglas’s criticisms of him as well as other members of the Republican Party for disagreeing with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Scott v. Sandford. Lincoln reminded his audience that Douglas had previously praised Democratic President Andrew Jackson for defying the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the 1819 case McCulloch v. Maryland, when the court declared that the U.S. Congress had the power to create a national bank.
Report of Speech at Chicago, Illinois; Report of Speech at Chicago, Illinois; Report of Speech at Chicago, Illinois; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 1:470.

4Seymour is referring to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Worcester v. Georgia, which the court rendered in 1832—during Jackson’s tenure as president—and which Jackson also famously defied. In the case, the court upheld the sovereignty of tribal nations, recognizing that they possessed the same broad inherent powers as other nations and therefore had significant independence from state law. Jackson disagreed with the court’s ruling and did nothing to induce the state of Georgia to yield to the court’s decision and submit to law, even as Georgia’s defiance of the ruling nearly caused a crisis between federal and state authorities.
There is no evidence that Lincoln adopted Seymour’s suggestion to include Jackson’s disdain for Worcester v. Georgia in either his 1858 political speeches or in his debates with Douglas. See the Lincoln-Douglas Debates.
Harold A. Ranquist, “The Winters Doctrine and How It Grew: Federal Reservation of Rights to the Use of Water,” in John R. Wunder, ed., Native Americans and the Law: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives on American Indian Rights, Freedoms, and Sovereignty (New York and London: Garland, 1996), 30; Robert V. Remini, Andrew Jackson: The Course of American Freedom, 1822-1832 (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981, repr. 1998), 2:276-78.

5In the 1856 Federal Election, Pennsylvania’s voters had awarded Democratic presidential candidate James Buchanan a majority of their votes and sent Democrat William Bigler as well as Republican Simon Cameron to the U.S. Senate. Although both Bigler and Cameron served in the U.S. Senate until March 1861, the state elections of 1858 marked a turning point in politics for Pennsylvania. In 1856, 50.1 percent of Pennsylvania’s state offices went to Democratic candidates; in 1858, that number fell to just 46.3 percent. In 1856, Democrats held fifteen seats and Republicans ten in the Pennsylvania congressional delegation; in 1858, Republicans held twenty seats and Democrats five. This shift was sufficient to break the Democratic Party’s hold on the state, which in turn decreased the party’s share of electoral college votes and national influence.
Ultimately, in Illinois’ local elections of 1858, Republicans won a majority of all votes cast in the state, but pro-Douglas Democrats retained control of the Illinois General Assembly and Douglas won reelection to the U.S. Senate. Through the campaign, however, and in particular through his participation in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, Lincoln gained recognition as well as standing within the national Republican Party.
Yanek Mieczkowski, The Routledge Historical Atlas of Presidential Elections (New York and London: Routledge, 2001), 50; Biographical Directory of the American Congress 1774-1996 (Alexandria, VA: CQ Staff Directories, 1997), 661, 771; Bruce Collins, “The Democrats’ Loss of Pennsylvania in 1858,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 109 (October 1985), 499-500; John L. Moore, Jon P. Preimesberger, and David R. Tarr, eds., Congressional Quarterly’s Guide to U.S. Elections, 4th ed. (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2001), 2:887-88; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 1:556-57.

6Lincoln wrote this docketing vertically on the left side of the envelope shown in the fourth image.