Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

John H. Bryant to Abraham Lincoln, 1 September 18581
Princeton Sept 1^st 1858Hon A LincolnDear Sir
Bureau County is safe for a handsome majority for the Republican ticket in Nov[November]: but I fear the people will not all become sufficiently interested in the election to turn out and give us a full vote and as large a majority as we are entitled to unles[s] something is done to stir them up2

Knowing you to be pretty fully occupied in doubtful districts I do not feel that those should be neglected in the least; but it occurred to me that you migh[t] possibly slip in a day sometime when you are in this part of the State and give us a talk at Princeton.3 I see that you are to be at Galesburg Oct 7th and it occurred to I think perhaps you can

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make it convenient to speak here either the day before or the day following your Galesburg talk–4 If however any other time either earlier or later would suit yo[u] better it will make no particular diff with us Please answer at your earliest convenience–

With the best wishes for your welfare and success5
I remain
Yours trulyJohn H. Bryant

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[Envelope]

PRINCETON ILL[ILLINOIS].
SEP[SEPTEMBER] 1 1858Hon Abraham LincolnSpringfieldIllinois

[ docketing ]
Lincoln, Abraham (President)

J. H. Bryant–6

1John H. Bryant wrote and signed this letter. He also wrote Abraham Lincoln’s name and address on the envelope shown in the third image.

2Bryant is referring to Illinois’s upcoming local elections of 1858, during which voters would select their representatives in the Illinois General Assembly. Bryant was running as the Republican candidate for the Forty-Seventh Illinois House of Representatives District. At the time of this letter, Lincoln was the Illinois Republican Party’s candidate to replace Democratic incumbent Stephen A. Douglas in the U.S. Senate. He and Douglas both canvassed the state throughout the summer and fall of 1858, delivering speeches in support of candidates for the Illinois General Assembly in their respective parties. Members of the General Assembly voted for and elected the state’s representatives in the U.S. Senate; therefore, the races for the Illinois House and Illinois Senate were highly relevant to the outcome of the U.S. Senate race.
Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 3 November 1858, 2:2; 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), 392-94.

3Princeton is in northern Illinois. Northern Illinois was a Republican stronghold at the time, while southern Illinois was staunchly Democratic. Both Douglas and Lincoln focused their campaign efforts on central Illinois, where competition for voters was high.
Allen C. Guelzo, “Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political Landscape of 1858,” 392-94, 400-401; Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary, 3rd ed. (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1997), 511.

4Lincoln was scheduled to debate Douglas in Galesburg, Illinois, on October 7 as the fifth installment of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates.
Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 2 September 1858, 3:1.

5If Lincoln replied to this letter his response has not been located.
Lincoln and Douglas debated one another in Galesburg on October 7, but Lincoln did not deliver a public address in either Princeton or anywhere in Bureau County, Illinois in October 1858.

Bureau County was in the Seventh Illinois Senate District. In Illinois’s local elections, Bureau County’s voters elected Bryant to the Illinois House, and Republican Burton C. Cook held over from 1856 in the Illinois Senate. Both men cast their ballots for Lincoln in the 1858 Federal Election. In the local elections as a whole, Republicans won a majority of all votes cast in the state, but because pro-Douglas Democrats retained control of the Illinois General Assembly, Douglas ultimately won reelection to the U.S. Senate. Through the campaign, however, and in particular through his participation in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, Lincoln gained recognition and respect within the national Republican Party.
The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, October 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarMonth&year=1858&month=10; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 219-20, 222; The Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 17 November 1858, 2:4; 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.

6Lincoln wrote this docketing vertically on the envelope shown in the third image.