Clifton H. Moore, Barzilla Campbell, and Lawrence Weldon to Abraham Lincoln, 23 August
18581
Clinton IllsAugust= 23= 1858=Hon A Lincoln—Dr[Dear] Sir=
We are making preparations for a barbacue &c[etc.] on the 2d of September.2 We will announce on our bills that you Trumbull & Palmer will be here= We have recvd[received] a letter from Mr Trumbull saying that he does not believe he can be with us at that
time= We wish you would write to him for us, and ask it as a special favor that for the republicans of this county that he consent to address them on the 2d We want him to come very much=3 The contest is going off fine The Nationals are more enthusiastic than ever= They say Coler is going to withdraw and give the trick to them=4 Judge Dickeys manifesto comes to DeWitt "still born" It meets with no favor except from those who all the time have been strong Dougls men=5 Please write=6
yours| C H Moore | } | |
| B Campbell | Com.[Committee] on [In?] | |
| L. Weldon |
<Page 2>
[Envelope]
CLINTON Ills[Illinois]
AUG[AUGUST] 24Hon A LincolnSpringfieldIll=
AUG[AUGUST] 24Hon A LincolnSpringfieldIll=
1Lawrence Weldon wrote and signed this letter, including the address on the envelope.
Clifton H. Moore and Barzilla Campbell signed their own names.
2Abraham Lincoln spoke in Clinton on September 2 after an introduction by Weldon. He 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.
Summary of Remarks to Lawrence Weldon at Clinton, Illinois; 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.
3No letter from Lincoln to Senator Lyman Trumbull regarding a Clinton speech has been found. Trumbull is not mentioned in the detailed
description of the Clinton event in the September 8 edition of The Weekly Pantagraph.
The Weekly Pantagraph (Bloomington, IL), 8 September 1858, 1:2-4.
4Weldon references the spilt in the Democratic Party into factions supporting James Buchanan and Douglas. The split occurred after Douglas, in December 1857, spoke out against
the Lecompton Constitution and criticized President Buchanan for supporting it.
The Democrats of the Thirty-Sixth District of the Illinois House of Representatives,
which included Champaign, DeWitt, Macon, and Piatt counties, nominated Douglas Democrat William N. Coler in 1858. Coler and Buchanan Democrat candidate William Prather lost to Republican candidate Daniel Stickel on November 2 by several hundred votes.
Henry C. Whitney to Abraham Lincoln; Henry C. Whitney to Abraham Lincoln; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 3 November 1858, 2:1-2; The Central Transcript (Clinton, IL), 28 October 1858, 2:3; Weekly Central Transcript (Clinton, IL), 12 November 1858, 1:2; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 220, 222.
5T. Lyle Dickey, a former Henry Clay Whig who opposed abolition, broke with the Republican Party when he announced in
August 1858 that he was joining the Democratic Party, spurred in part by Owen Lovejoy’s 1858 nomination to run as the Republican candidate for reelection to the U.S. House of Representatives in the Third Congressional District of Illinois. During the election of 1858 Dickey
denounced Lincoln for his abandonment of the Whig principles of Clay and campaigned
on behalf of Douglas.
Leonard Swett, Remembrances of T. Lyle Dickey ([Chicago]: Barnard & Gunthorp, [1885?]), 19-20; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 1:424, 454, 456-57, 542-44, 548.
Autograph Letter Signed, 2 page(s), Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress (Washington, DC).