Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

Gustave P. Koerner to Abraham Lincoln, 30 September 18581
Belleville. Sept. 30. 58Dear Sir
on the 13 in. I wrote to you to Charleston & Springfield desiring you to visit our place on 16^th octob.[october] after the Alton debate.2 Having received no answer I again write. If you come, we want to make some preparations & give timely notice.3 Write me back instanter.4 Things go well here. An attempt on the part of democratic leaders to rescuscitate the Americans as an organisation & get them pledged for their candidates failed legally. I think we will elect 2 republicans here easy.5
Yours very sincerelyG KoernerHon A. Lincoln.

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[Envelope]

BELLEVILLE Ill[Illinois].
OCT[OCTOBER] 1Hon. Abraham LincolnSpringfieldIll

[ docketing ]
Lincoln, Abraham (President)

Hon G. Koerner6

1Gustave P.Koerner wrote and signed this letter, including the address on the envelope.

2On September 13, Abraham Lincoln spoke in Greenville, Illinois. Lincoln was the Republican candidate from Illinois for the U.S. Senate. 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. Lincoln campaigned extensively in Illinois in the summer and fall of 1858, delivering speeches and campaigning on behalf of Republican candidates for the General Assembly. He and his opponent, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, the incumbent, both focused their campaign efforts on the former Whig stronghold of central Illinois, where the state legislative races were the closest. Lincoln and Douglas debated in Alton, Illinois, on October 15, in the seventh and last of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. In local elections, Republicans gained a majority of the votes, but Pro-Douglas Democrats retained control of the General Assembly, and Douglas won re-election. See 1858 Illinois Republican Convention; 1858 Federal Election.
Gustave P. Koerner to Abraham Lincoln; Gustave P. Koerner to Abraham Lincoln; The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, 13 September 1858, https://thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-09-13; 15 October 1858, https://thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-10-15; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:457-61, 476-77, 513-14, 546-47; Allen C. Guelzo, “Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political Landscape of 1858,” The Journal of American History 94 (September 2007), 392-99, 400-401, 414-16.

3Lincoln did not visit Belleville or St. Clair County on October 16. He started the day in Springfield before traveling by train to Lincoln, Illinois, where he made a two-hour speech.
The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, 16 October 1858, https://thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-10-16.

4No response from Lincoln has been found.

5Voters in St. Clair County, which constituted Illinois House of Representatives District Twelve, reelected Republican Vital Jarrot in 1858, and elected Republican John Scheel, who replaced outgoing Democrat William W. Roman. William H. Underwood held over from 1856 as the member of the Illinois Senate representing St. Clair and Monroe counties. Although Underwood joined ranks with the Republican Party later in life, at the time he was elected to this Illinois Senate seat in 1856, he was a Democrat.
John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 219, 221, 222; Chicago Daily Press and Tribune (IL), 5 November 1858, 1:3; The Weekly Chicago Times (IL), 27 November 1856, 4:2; Illinois Weekly State Journal (Springfield), 29 September 1875, 2:1.

6Lincoln wrote this docketing.