Hiram W. Beckwith to Abraham Lincoln, 31 August 18581
Danville IllsAug 31st 1858Mr Abraham LincolnSir
Can you find it within your convenience (I almost had said within your power) to address
the People of this County in the month of September, or at furthest, in the early part of ^October^ September? Knowing your hands to be already full, and your whole time, as it were, burthened with the labour of the campaign in other locallities, the central committee have tried to procure other speakers but without success.
We deem it of paramount pollicy to have a mass convention in Vermilion; many who were with us in /56 are now luke-warm, whome it will take a demonstration to warm, many who were against us in /56[1856] are now ready to cooporate with us if the issues of the day were only laid open to them2
I am yours truly &c[etc.]H. W. Beckwith for the Central Committee<Page 2>
Judge Douglas is to be here on the 21st sep.[september] and we are afraid his demonstration will ^have^ an influence on the “weak sisters” which will be injurious to us. We want to get
up a meeting before, or immediately after, that of the Democracy. Your popularity with the masses (and I know the feeling, for I have enquired) would
ten give what you might say more influence in the right direction than the speaking in
of any other man in the field. If you find it beyond your reach to be here about the
time proposed, please inform us whome we can get.3<Page 3>
[Envelope]
DANVILLE Ill.[Illinois]
AUG[AUGUST] 31 1858Mr. Abraham LincolnClintonDe. Witt CountyIllinois
AUG[AUGUST] 31 1858Mr. Abraham LincolnClintonDe. Witt CountyIllinois
1Hiram W. Beckwith wrote and signed this letter. He also wrote Abraham Lincoln’s name
and address on the envelope shown in the third image. He addressed the letter to Lincoln
in Clinton, Illinois, because, at the time, Lincoln was traveling throughout Illinois delivering speeches in support of Republican candidates for the Illinois General Assembly and was scheduled to speak in Clinton on September 2.
During the 1858 Illinois Republican Convention, delegates had unanimously nominated Lincoln as the party’s candidate for the U.S. Senate. He was running against Democratic incumbent Stephen A. Douglas. Because members
of the Illinois General Assembly voted for and elected the state’s representatives in the U.S. Senate at the time, the outcome of the races for the
Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois Senate were critical to the Senate race. Both Lincoln and Douglas traveled extensively throughout the state during the summer
and fall of 1858, speaking on behalf of candidates for the legislature in their respective parties.
Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:458; Allen C. Guelzo, “Houses
Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political Landscape of 1858,” The Journal of American History 94 (September 2007), 392, 394; Chicago Daily Press and Tribune (IL) 31 August 1858, 2:1.
2In 1856, former members of the largely defunct Whig Party drifted between the Republican Party, the American Party, and, to a lesser extent, the moderate wing of the Democratic Party. See the 1856 Federal Election. By 1858, former members of the Whig Party as well as the American Party were an
important source of votes for both Democrats and Republicans in Illinois’s local and
federal elections, and both Lincoln and Douglas worked throughout the campaign season
to garner their support.
Stephen Hansen and Paul Nygard, “Stephen A. Douglas, the Know-Nothings, and the Democratic
Party in Illinois, 1854-1858,” Illinois Historical Journal 87 (Summer 1994), 117-29.
3No response from Lincoln has been located. Oscar F. Harmon and William Fithian also wrote Lincoln letters requesting that he speak in Danville, Illinois. Lincoln
responded to Fithian’s letter and asked that Fithian share his response with both Beckwith
and Harmon. Lincoln was scheduled to speak and did speak in Danville on September
22, the day after Douglas delivered a public address there. Lyman Trumbull did not
speak alongside Lincoln in Danville. He was scheduled to deliver speeches in Jerseyville, Illinois, on September 20 and Warsaw, Illinois, on September 25.
In Illinois’s local elections of 1858, voters in the Eighteenth Illinois Senate District,
which included Vermilion, Cumberland, Edgar, and Coles counties, elected Republican Thomas A. Marshall, formerly a Whig, over Democrat Usher F. Linder. Vermilion County was also part of the Thirty-Seventh Illinois House District, and
voters there elected Harmon, a Republican. In the local elections as a whole, Republicans
won a majority of all votes cast in the state, but pro-Douglas Democrats retained
control of the Illinois General Assembly and Douglas ultimately won reelection to
the U.S. Senate. Marshall and Harmon both cast their ballots for Lincoln. Through
the campaign, however, and in particular through his participation in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, Lincoln gained recognition as well as standing within the national Republican Party.
Oscar F. Harmon to Abraham Lincoln; Oscar F. Harmon to Abraham Lincoln; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 13 August 1858, 3:2; 2 September 1858, 3:1; 3 September 1858, 3:1;
27 September 1858, 2:3; Daily Illinois State Register (Springfield), 23 September 1858, 2:1-2; Chicago Daily Press and Tribune (IL), 1 November 1858, 2:4; The History of Coles County, Illinois (Chicago: Wm. Le Baron, Jr., 1879), 526; The Weekly Chicago Times (IL), 11 November 1858, 4:2; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac 1673-1968
(Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 219-20, 222; Illinois Senate
Journal. 1859. 21st G. A., 30; Illinois House Journal. 1859. 21st G. A., 32; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 1:556-57; Allen C. Guelzo, “Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political
Landscape of 1858,” 414.
Autograph Letter Signed, 3 page(s), Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress (Washington, DC). .