Cyrenius B. Denio to Ozias M. Hatch, 27 September 18581
Galena Sept 27th 1858Mr O HatchDear SirI supose you have heard of the result of our senatorial Convention John H Adams the present Senator was nominated..2 I think that it was not the Strongest nomination that Could have been made, and if
we Elect him we have got to be up and dancing every Moment Some of our would be grate Men have done what they thought best I have no doubt but they have imposed upon us
a berable job to Elect our Senator.
But we will try and do it at all hasards.
But Strankey will run like the Devel and there is no use in disguseing the fact.3 Our Man Washburn and his friends went to Stepenson Co and promised that they should have the senator if Washburn was nominated for Congress and I think that they have no business to do so.4 you may tell Lincon that nothing that I Can do shall be wanting to Secure a vote for him from this Decctrict5 I start in the morning and I shall besett every School House in the 2 counties and have got ready to besett the Priest6 and get permission to Lie from now till the 2nd of November and to drink [Laeyer?] I shall do all that I Can
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but rember what I tell you if we Elect our senator we have all got to work Strankey has been filled with Money and he is spending freely there is grate fears of the Dutch going with him7I will write you again in 3 or 4 days8
I am yours TrulyC B Denio2Illinois’s Fourth Senatorial District at the time was comprised of Jo Daviess and Stephenson counties. Republican delegates to the district’s 1858 convention nominated incumbent John H. Addams for
reelection to the Illinois Senate.
John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac 1673-1968
(Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 219; The Rockford Republican (IL), 30 September 1858, 2:1.
3Frederick A. Strocky was the Fourth Illinois Senate District’s pro-Stephen A. Douglas Democratic candidate for the Illinois Senate in 1858. (The Democratic Party had split into pro-Douglas
and pro-James Buchanan factions after Douglas, in December 1857, spoke out against the Lecompton Constitution and criticized President Buchanan for supporting it.)
Freeport Weekly Bulletin (IL), 14 October 1858, 2:1; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 3 November 1858, 2:2; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:445.
4Elihu B. Washburne was up for reelection to the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1858 Federal Election. The First Congressional District of Illinois, which Washburne represented, had a
number of prospective Republican candidates for the position, so the nomination was
highly competitive. On August 12, delegates to the Republican Congressional Convention
for the First Congressional District nominated Washburne as their candidate for
the U.S. House, although not without some controversy. Voters in Illinois’s First
Congressional District ultimately reelected Washburne to the U.S. House of Representatives
in 1858, awarding him 69.8 percent of the vote.
Howard W. Allen and Vincent A. Lacey, eds., Illinois Elections, 1818-1990 (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992), 10-11; Freeport Weekly Bulletin (IL), 8 July 1858, 2:1; 29 July 1858, 2:4; 19 August 1858, 2:1-3; Rock River Democrat (Rockford, IL), 17 August 1858, 2:3.
5Lincoln was the Illinois Republican Party’s candidate for the U.S. Senate in the 1858 Federal Election. He was running against Douglas, who was the Democratic
incumbent. Denio’s reference to securing votes for Lincoln is a reference to Denio
working hard to get Republican candidates elected to the Illinois General Assembly. At the time, members of the General Assembly voted for and elected the state’s representatives
in the U.S. Senate. Both Lincoln and Douglas also worked hard to get candidates from
their respective parties elected to the General Assembly, traveling throughout the
state in the summer and fall of 1858 and delivering speeches on behalf of candidates
for the Illinois House of Representatives and Illinois Senate. See the 1858 Illinois Republican Convention.
Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 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.
7Strocky was of Dutch ancestry, leading some in the Republican Party to believe that
Dutch voters in the state would be loyal to him and ensure his election over Addams.
Freeport Weekly Bulletin (IL), 14 October 1858, 2:2.
8If Lincoln replied to this letter, his response has not been located. No other correspondence
between Denio and Lincoln has been located for all of 1858.
In Illinois’s local elections of 1858, Republicans won a majority of all votes cast
in the state. Voters in Illinois’s Fourth Senatorial District elected Addams to the
Illinois Senate. In Stephenson County, Addams won with 2,168 votes to Strocky’s 1,453.
A third candidate, pro-Buchanan Democrat John C. Kane, won just seventeen votes. In
Jo Daviess County, Addams triumphed over Strocky by a much smaller margin: 1,879 votes
to Strocky’s 1,538 votes.
In the 1858 federal election, Addams cast his ballot for Lincoln. In the end, however,
because pro-Douglas Democrats retained control of the Illinois General Assembly, Douglas
won reelection to the U.S. Senate. Yet through the campaign—and in particular through
his participation in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates—Lincoln gained recognition and respect within the national Republican Party.
John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac 1673-1968, 222; The Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 17 November 1858, 2:4; Freeport Weekly Bulletin (IL), 4 November 1858, 2:5-6; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 3 November 1858, 2:2; The Weekly Chicago Times (IL), 11 November 1858, 2:5; Illinois Senate Journal. 1859. 21st G. A., 30; 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, 2 page(s), Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress (Washington, DC). .