Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

Henry C. Whitney to Abraham Lincoln, 26 August 18581
Chicago August 26. 1858Honl[Honorable] A LincolnDear Sir
Gus Herrington who is one of Douglas’ intimate friends told me that Dug had made elaborate preparations to meet you in debate at Ottowa and that he ^Dug^ was highly pleased with the result:= that Dug had now got you where he wanted you= that you had dodged on the platform= that even if, you replied to the platform query at Freeport &c.[etc.] it would be too late.= you had dodged and he had got you;= this ^& other things^ indicates ^to me^ that they are much chagrined at the mode in which you disposed of the platform query:=2 Gus has repeated to me frequently since that you could have vanquished “Dug” by dissenting from and disapproving of all of that platform that D. read and taking bold ground against its propositions;= he thinks you should have done so & then have said to the Abolitionists that you was the leader & they must obey;= it is evident to me that D^s object (and that it was a matter of grave deliberation in which Dickey was consulted)3 to drive

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you from a Conservative position to one or the other extremes;= my view is that it was devised with care & caution & that they will try it every where I also think that they were much disappointed at not trapping you at Ottowa;= at the risk of being presumptious I will suggest that in opening at Freeport you should not allude to Douglas’ catesc^c^hism of the platform but if he alludes to it as he will probably shut him up as ^on^ it as you did at Ottowa4 and by adding that at the State Convention which nominated you a platform was laid down which asserted your principles ^fully^ & beyond that it was no ones business to inquire;=5 you ought also in the opinion of your friends to [ring?] in the Trumbull argument in to him as to striking out the submission clause;=6 Your friends also think that you ought not to treat him tenderly;= he is going to try to intimidate you;= you have got to treat him severely and the sooner you commence the better & easier;= I don’t of course mean that you ought to call him a liar or anything of that sort but that you ought to let him know that you are “terribly in earnest
In Haste Yr[Your] FriendH C Whitney.=7

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[Envelope]

Honl A. LincolnFreeportIllinois8
pr[per] favor
M. R. M. Wallace

[ endorsement ]
Lincoln, Abraham (President)

H. C Whitney.9

1Henry C. Whitney wrote and signed this letter, including the address and delivery information on the envelope.

2Whitney is referring to the first Lincoln-Douglas Debate, held at Ottawa on August 21, 1858. Lincoln was at this time running against incumbent senator Stephen A. Douglas to represent Illinois in the U.S. Senate. In his opening speech at the Ottawa debate, Douglas charged Lincoln with having helped to draft an antislavery Republican Party platform at a meeting in Springfield in October of 1854. In making this allegation, Douglas mistakenly quoted a more radical platform passed at a Republican meeting in Aurora that same year rather than the actual Springfield platform. Douglas also posed a series of questions to Lincoln in Ottawa aimed at forcing Lincoln to endorse or repudiate the antislavery positions of the Aurora platform. In his response at Ottawa, Lincoln denied having assisted in drafting the Springfield platform, not realizing that Douglas was quoting the incorrect platform.
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, 490-92; Chicago Daily Press and Tribune (IL), 23 August 1858, 1:1, 2.

3T. Lyle Dickey, a former Henry Clay Whig who opposed abolition, had recently broken with the Republican Party. He announced in August of 1858 that he was joining the Democratic Party, spurred in part by Owen Lovejoy’s 1858 nomination to run for reelection as the Republican candidate for 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.

4Between the first Lincoln-Douglas Debate in Ottawa on August 21 and the second debate in Freeport on August 27, Lincoln consulted with allies on how to address Douglas’ list of queries regarding his position on the antislavery resolutions of the 1854 Aurora platform. Despite Whitney’s advice in this letter, Lincoln began his opening speech at the Freeport debate by responding point by point to Douglas’ questions, then elaborated on his positions. At Freeport Lincoln also pointed out that the platform Douglas challenged him on was from the Republican meeting in Aurora in 1854 and not that held in Springfield the same year, and stated that he had failed to realize this because he had not been involved with either meeting.
Abraham Lincoln to Ebenezer Peck; Joseph Medill to Abraham Lincoln; 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.

5At the Freeport debate Lincoln stated that from the organization of the Republican Party in Illinois at the 1856 Illinois Anti-Nebraska Convention onwards he had felt himself bound by the platforms of the Republican Party, and asserted that if to any extent he went beyond the scope of these platforms in answering Douglas’ pointed questions, he was solely responsible. See 1856 Illinois Anti-Nebraska Convention; 1858 Illinois Republican Convention.
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.

6Lyman Trumbull gave a speech in Chicago on August 7, 1858, in which he claimed that Douglas had altered a bill introduced to the U.S. Senate in June of 1856 by Robert A. Toombs, and that he had done 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 any proposed constitution to be submitted to the residents of Kansas for a vote, 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.

7No response to this letter by Lincoln has been located. Lincoln and Whitney exchanged numerous letters regarding the election of 1858.
Henry C. Whitney to Abraham Lincoln; Abraham Lincoln to Henry C. Whitney; Henry C. Whitney to Abraham Lincoln; Henry C. Whitney to Abraham Lincoln; Henry C. Whitney to Abraham Lincoln and William H. Herndon; Abraham Lincoln to Henry C. Whitney; Henry C. Whitney to Abraham Lincoln; Henry C. Whitney to Abraham Lincoln; Henry C. Whitney to Abraham Lincoln.

8Whitney 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, 26 August 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-08-26; 27 August 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-08-27.

9Lincoln wrote this docketing.