Thomas A. Marshall to Abraham Lincoln, 29 August [1858]1
Springfield Aug. 29Dear LincolnIf you are able to stand the Labor, you must fill your appointments, at Monticello & at Paris, on the 6th & 7th2 Get from Bloomington or Clinton to Monticello by private Conveyance. Monday after noon after speaking, go to Bement take the night train to Tolono.3 The morning train will take you to Mattoon. There you will have to remain untill one oclock, when you can get to Paris so as to arrive at half past 2 oclock, a little Late it is true, but time
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enough, if they know you are coming–4 By this plan, you will be at Mattoon from 6 oclock A.M to one oclock. While there you can give them a talk if you feel able, & presuming that you will,
& that you must be there at this time, I will let the Mattoon people know it– If when
you get there you cant speak, why you can show your self.
Douglas spoke at Mattoon, & it will have a good effect for you to speak there too.5 If they know you will speak they can get you
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a good audience
Prospects are bright6
Yours Respy[Respectfully]T. A Marshall<Page 4>
[Envelope]
Hon A. LincolnTremont
Forwd by Judge Kellogg
2Abraham Lincoln’s scheduled appointments had him in Bloomington on September 4, Monticello
on September 6, and both Mattoon and Paris on September 7. Marshall had previously
written Lincoln on August 27 about his travel itinerary and speaking appointments at Mattoon
and Paris.
Marshall, a Republican, was the successful candidate vying for the Illinois Senate in 1858 from the counties of Coles, Cumberland, Edgar and Vermilion.
Because the Illinois General Assembly elected the state’s representatives in the U.S. Senate at this time, the races for the Illinois House of Representatives and Senate were important to Lincoln, whose was running against incumbent Democrat Stephen A. Douglas to represent Illinois in the U.S. Senate. Lincoln and Douglas both focused their campaign efforts on the
former Whig stronghold of central Illinois, where the state legislative races were the closest. See 1858 Illinois Republican Convention; 1858 Federal Election.
Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 2 September 1848, 3:1; Illinois Senate Journal. 1859. 21st G. A., 5; Allen C. Guelzo, “Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the
Political Landscape of 1858,” The Journal of American History 94 (September 2007), 392-401; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:457-58, 476-77; John Clayton,
comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 219.
3Lincoln returned to Springfield after speaking at Bloomington on September 4. On September
6, he was met on the Bement road by 300 people who escorted him to Monticello, where
he spoke for nearly three hours to approximately three thousand spectators.
The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, 4 September 1858, https://thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-09-04; 6 September 1858, https://thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-09-06.
4On the morning of September 7, Lincoln spoke to around one thousand attendees in Mattoon,
Illinois. He then traveled by train to Paris, Illinois, where he spoke for two more
hours.
The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, 7 September 1858, https://thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-09-07.
5Douglas arrived in Mattoon on July 30, 1858, on his way to speak in Paris on July
31. The people there demanded a speech, which was “well received and vociferously
applauded,” according to one newspaper.
Paul M. Angle, ed., The Complete Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 88; The Weekly Chicago Times (IL), 12 August 1858, 1:4.
6In the local elections of 1858, Republicans won a majority of all votes cast in Illinois,
but pro-Douglas Democrats retained control of the General Assembly, and Douglas won
reelection.
Allen C. Guelzo, “Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political Landscape of
1858,” 414-16; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 1:546-47.
Autograph Letter Signed, 4 page(s), Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress (Washington, DC).