Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

Elisha P. Ferry to Abraham Lincoln, 28 August 18581
Waukegan Augst 28/58My Dear Sir:
Our republican friends in this part of the state, are very anxious to hear you, during the present canvass.2

Many of them, also, have a strong desire to make your personal acquaintance

They think, that they have been slighted during the past four years never having had a Republican speech except by residents of the County.

An audience of at least three or four thousand, could easily be gathered at this point, and although we are here strongly Republican, yet there are a few Democrats who need conversion.3
yours very trulyE. Peyn FerryToHon A LincolnBloomington

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[Envelope]

WAUKEGAN Ill.[Illinois]
AUG[AUGUST]
28Hon Ab LincolnBloomingtonIll

[ docketing ]
Lincoln, Abraham (President)

E. P. Ferry.4

1Elisha P. Ferry wrote this letter, including the address on the envelope.

2Abraham Lincoln was the Republican candidate from Illinois for the U.S. Senate. In the summer and fall of 1858, he crisscrossed Illinois delivering speeches and campaigning on behalf of Republican candidates for the Illinois General Assembly. 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. He ran against, and lost to, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, the incumbent. See 1858 Illinois Republican Convention; 1858 Federal Election.
Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:457-85, 557; Allen C. Guelzo, “Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political Landscape of 1858,” The Journal of American History 94 (September 2007), 392.

3There is no record of Lincoln visiting Waukegan or Lake County in 1858.
Republicans in Lake County ran successful campaigns for the Illinois General Assembly in 1858, with Henry W. Blodgett capturing the seat in Second Illinois Senate District, which included Lake and McHenry counties, and Elijah M. Haines winning in the Fifty-Fifth Illinois House District, which encompassed only Lake County.
Chicago Daily Press and Tribune (IL), 4 October 1858, 2:3; Waukegan Weekly Gazette (IL), 30 October 1858, 2:2-3; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 219, 222-23.

4Lincoln wrote this docketing.