Johnson H. Jordan to Abraham Lincoln, 24 August 18581
Cincinnati. Aug. 24/58.Hon Abram Lincoln. I have just read your Speech at Ottawa in reply to Douglas— in the “Press & Tribune” of yesterday.2 It is good: But you too mild I fear, on the fellow. You should be more severe. You have the lead at Freeport— give him fits from the word go!3
If it be true, as the P. & Tribune says— that those “resolutions” which he read & palmed off as the Ills. Repub. Platform, be a forgery—or which is as bad—were the Resolutions of some other gathering— why
then you have got him!4
You Know Douglas is libeling you—misrepresenting you, and slandering you! Why dont you come down on him in a style that he deserves! As Trumbull said— “cram the lie down his
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throat!” Give him fits!!
Dont forget that charge of altering Toombs’ Bill— taking out the “Popular Sovereignty”– It is true— therefore make him eat it!5
I expect to be present with you at your Charleston meeting— and may be others.6
Yours TrulyJ. H. Jordan7P. S. There is really nothing in those Ottaw “Aurora Resolutions” very dangerous, or that any one need be afraid of; but that he should
drag them in, and palm them off as the Rep. State Resolutions, (if they are not) will play the devil with him!8 Hold him to the question!—<Page 3>
[Envelope]
CINCINNATI. O.[OHIO]
AUG[AUGUST] 24Hon. Abram Lincoln—FreeportStephenson Co.Illinois.9
AUG[AUGUST] 24Hon. Abram Lincoln—FreeportStephenson Co.Illinois.9
2Jordan is referring to Lincoln’s response to Stephen A. Douglas at the first Lincoln-Douglas Debate, held at Ottawa, Illinois, on August 21, 1858, which was published in the Chicago Tribune of August 23, 1858, along with Douglas’ speeches at the debate. Lincoln was at this
time running against incumbent senator Douglas to represent Illinois in the U.S. Senate, having been nominated at the 1858 Illinois Republican Convention. As proposed by Douglas, the debates followed a format of one candidate speaking for an hour,
followed by a one and a half hour response by the other candidate, and finally a half
hour rebuttal by the first speaker. Douglas and Lincoln would alternate who spoke
first, with Douglas speaking first at the odd numbered debates and Lincoln at the
even. At the Ottawa debate, Douglas spoke first, followed by a reply from Lincoln,
then a final rebuttal by Douglas. See the 1858 Federal Election.
Chicago Daily Press and Tribune (IL), 23 August 1858, 1:3-9, 4:1; 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; The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, 21 August 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-08-21; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:457-58.
3The Lincoln-Douglas Debate held in Freeport on August 27, 1858, was the second in
the series, and thus it was Lincoln’s turn to speak first.
Second Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Freeport, Illinois; Second Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Freeport, Illinois; Second Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Freeport, Illinois; The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, 27 August 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-08-27.
4In his opening speech at the Ottawa debate, Douglas charged Lincoln with having helped
to draft an antislavery Republican Party platform in Springfield in October of 1854. In making this allegation, Douglas mistakenly quoted a more radical
platform passed at a Republican meeting in Aurora, Illinois, that same year rather than the actual Springfield platform. In his response at Ottawa,
Lincoln denied having assisted in composing the Springfield platform, not realizing
that Douglas was quoting the incorrect platform. The Chicago Daily Press and Tribune pointed out the error, calling the resolutions as cited by Douglas “FRAUDS AND FORGERIES
FROM FIRST TO LAST” and alleging that the substitution was intentional and that Douglas
“basely, maliciously and wilfully LIED.”
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; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 1:490-92; Chicago Daily Press and Tribune (IL), 23 August 1858, 1:1, 1:2.
5Jordan is quoting from a speech given by Lyman Trumbull in Chicago on August 7, 1858, on his return to Illinois following the adjournment of the U.S.
Senate. In this speech Trumbull pledged to “cram the truth down any honest man’s throat,
until he cannot deny it” and stated that for anyone who denied the charge in question,
he would “cram the lie down his throat, until he shall cry enough.”
The claim that Trumbull promised in this speech to so forcefully argue was that Douglas
had altered a bill introduced to the U.S. Senate in June of 1856 by Robert A. Toombs,
and that he did so in a manner that denied popular sovereignty to the people of Kansas Territory. Toombs’ bill provided for a path to a state constitutional convention for Kansas.
When the bill was reported by the U.S. Senate Committee on Territories, of which Douglas
was chairman, it no longer included a provision for the residents of Kansas to vote
on any proposed constitution, and Trumbull alleged that Douglas had removed this provision.
In the fourth Lincoln-Douglas Debate in Charleston on September 18, 1858, Lincoln shifted tactics on this subject from simply attesting
to Trumbull’s honesty, to arguing that Douglas had made the change.
Ralph J. Roske, His Own Counsel: The Life and Times of Lyman Trumbull (Reno, NV: University of Nevada Press, 1979), 38, 47-51; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 1:519; Speech of Hon. Lyman Trumbull, of Illinois, at a Mass Meeting in Chicago, August 7,
1858 (Washington, D.C.: Buell & Blanchard, 1858), 5; Fourth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Charleston, Illinois; Fourth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Charleston, Illinois; Fourth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Charleston, Illinois; The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, 18 September 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-09-18.
6Rather than attend the Lincoln-Douglas Debate in Charleston on September 18, 1858,
Jordan instead seems to have attended that in Jonesboro on September 15, traveling from Centralia to Jonesboro and back again in Lincoln’s company.
Johnson H. Jordan to Abraham Lincoln; The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, 14 September 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-09-14; 15 September 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-09-15; 16 September 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-09-16; 18 September 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-09-18.
8The resolutions from the 1854 Aurora Republican meeting highlighted by Douglas at
the Ottawa debate included an intention to restore the Kansas and Nebraska territories to free status, as well as resolutions to repeal the Fugitive Slave Act, to limit slavery to the states where it already existed, to prohibit the admission
of additional slave states, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, to exclude slavery from U.S. territories, and to resist the addition of further
territories unless slavery was prohibited there. In contrast, the platform adopted
by the Illinois Republican Party at Springfield in 1854 included resolutions recognizing
the right and duty of the federal government to prohibit slavery in territories, arguing
that the doctrines of non-intervention and popular sovereignty introduced by the Kansas Nebraska Act threatened to undo federal limits on slavery and make it a national, rather than
a local institution, and stating that any absence in the law in regard to slavery
presumed the existence of a freedom, as slavery existed solely by virtue of positive
law.
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; Chicago Daily Press and Tribune (IL), 23 August 1858, 1:1.
9Jordan directed this letter to Lincoln at Freeport in anticipation of the latter’s
arrival there on August 27 for the second Lincoln-Douglas Debate.
The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, 27 August 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-08-27.
Autograph Letter Signed, 3 page(s), Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress (Washington, DC).