Oscar F. Harmon to Abraham Lincoln, 23 August 18581
Danville Illinois23 August 1858.Sir.
Our central committee & a large number of republican friends, desire you & Judge Trumbull to address a a mass meeting, to come off, either before or after Judge Douglass speaks here, on the 21st sept[september]. Can you come? If so, please fix the time, & we will give notice accordingly.
We are entitled to & fully expect a visit from you & Judge Trumbull, and we wish to
have you set the time, when it will be most convenient for you.
Please to let me hear from you, as Soon as may be
Yours RespectfullyO. F. Harmon for Committee.Hon Abrm LincolnSpringfieldIlls<Page 2>
P.S. If you come, it would Suit us to have your meeting very near the 21st sept, so as to counteract Judge Douglass' meeting2O. F. H.<Page 3>
[Envelope]
2It does not appear that Abraham Lincoln replied to this letter, as Harmon wrote Lincoln again on September 1 reiterating his requests. Lincoln was away from Springfield,
Illinois, traveling between the date of this letter and September 1, then was only
in Springfield for the day before traveling again from that evening until September
5. Both Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas were crisscrossing the state during the summer and fall of 1858, delivering public addresses in support of candidates
for the Illinois General Assembly in their respective political parties. Douglas was running for reelection as U.S.
senator for Illinois and Lincoln was running as the Republican Party’s candidate to supplant him. Lincoln
and Douglas were each highly attuned to the state legislative races in 1858 because
members of the Illinois General Assembly voted for and elected the state’s representatives
in the U.S. Senate at the time; therefore the outcome of the races for the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois Senate were critical to the race for the senate seat. See the 1858 Illinois Republican Convention.
Hiram W. Beckwith and William Fithian also wrote Lincoln letters requesting that he speak in Danville, Illinois. Lincoln
responded to Fithian’s letter and asked that Fithian share his response with both Beckwith
and Harmon. Lincoln was scheduled to speak and did speak in Danville on September
22, the day after Douglas delivered a public address there. Lyman Trumbull did not
speak alongside Lincoln in Danville. He was scheduled to deliver speeches in Jerseyville, Illinois, on September 20 and Warsaw, Illinois, on September 25.
In Illinois’s local elections of 1858, Republicans ultimately 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.
The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, August 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarMonth&year=1858&month=8; September 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarMonth&year=1858&month=9; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:458, 556-57; Allen C. Guelzo,
“Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political Landscape of 1858,” The Journal of American History 94 (September 2007), 392, 394; Hiram W. Beckwith to Abraham Lincoln; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 2 September 1858, 3:1; 3 September 1858, 3:1; 27 September 1858, 2:3;
Daily Illinois State Register (Springfield), 23 September 1858, 2:1-2.
Autograph Letter Signed, 3 page(s), Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress (Washington, DC). .