Norman B. Judd to Abraham Lincoln, September 18581
Dear LincolnI go home this afternoon and sorry that I could not see you. So soon as Judge Trumbull and yourself arrange your appointments send me a list of them I want to publish them
in connection with the congressional appointments and make a [flair?] of them in the news papers.2 Of course in your arrangements you will leave sometime for my unexpected but necessary
call
Allow me to suggest that in your next joint debate where you have the opening you make your entire opening a Series of Charges
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against Douglass leaving all statement of your own views for your reply. There is no danger now of
your personal position's being mistaken
And I want one general indictment against Douglass beginning with the repeal of the Missouri Compromise3
Yr[Your] friendN B Judd<Page 3>
[Envelope]
Hon. A. LincolnSpringfield
1Norman B. Judd wrote and signed this letter. He also wrote Abraham Lincoln’s name
and address on the envelope.
Judd does not date this letter. Docketing on the envelope lists the date as September
1858. Republican papers in Illinois began publishing a list of Lyman Trumbull’s speaking engagements in September 1858,
giving credence to a September date for this letter.
Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 2 September 1858, 3:1; Chicago Daily Press and Tribune (IL) 9 August 1858, 1:1; 6 September 1858, 2:1.
2Judd may be referring to Lincoln’s and Trumbull’s speaking schedules during the political
campaign of 1858. Lincoln was the Republican candidate from Illinois for the U.S. Senate in 1858, hoping to unseat Stephen A. Douglas, the Democratic incumbent. 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. Trumbull, a sitting Republican senator from Illinois
and former antislavery Democrat, also delivered public speeches in support of Lincoln’s
campaign. Trumbull returned to Illinois from serving in the U.S. Senate on August
6, 1585, and delivered his first speech of the campaign on August 7 in Chicago. Republican officials arranged an itinerary for Trumbull to stump the state.
Lincoln’s reply to Judd’s request for a list of appointments, if he wrote one, has
not been located. In addition to their individual campaign events, Lincoln and Douglas
agreed to a series of debates in seven of the nine congressional districts in Illinois. Once Lincoln and Douglas
agreed on the dates of the debates, Republican newspapers in Springfield and Chicago published these dates and Lincoln’s list of speaking engagements. The
Daily Illinois State Journal in Springfield first published Lincoln’s schedule on August 6; the Chicago Daily Press and Tribune followed suit on August 9. The Daily Illinois State Journal first published Trumbull’s list of appointments on September 2; the Chicago Daily Press and Tribune did likewise on September 6, publishing Trumbull’s engagements alongside the appointments
of Owen Lovejoy, Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in the Illinois Fourth Congressional District. See 1858 Federal Election.
Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:457-85; Stephen A. Douglas to Abraham Lincoln; Abraham Lincoln to Stephen A. Douglas; Abraham Lincoln to Stephen A. Douglas; Mark M. Krug, “Lyman Trumbull and the Real Issues in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates,”
Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 4 (Winter 1964), 384-88; Allen C. Guelzo, “Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and
the Political Landscape of 1858,” The Journal of American History 94 (September 2007), 392-99; Ralph J. Roske, His Own Counsel: The Life and Times of Lyman Trumbull (Reno, NV: University of Nevada Press, 1979), 47-51; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 6 August 1858, 2:1; 2 September 1858, 3:1; Chicago Daily Press and Tribune (IL) 9 August 1858, 1:1; 6 September 1858, 2:1; Howard W. Allen and Vincent A. Lacey,
eds., Illinois Elections, 1818-1990 (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992), 11.
3As chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Territories, Douglas introduced the
Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. The bill effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820. In 1856,
Senator Trumbull won approval among Illinois Republicans for denouncing the Kansas-Nebraska
Act and the popular sovereignty principles upon which it was based. His debates with
Douglas in the Senate later helped inform some of Lincoln’s arguments against Douglas
in 1858.
Lincoln and Douglas agreed that Douglas would open at Ottawa (August 21), Jonesboro (September 15), Galesburg (October 7), and Alton (October 15); Lincoln would open at Freeport (August 27), Charleston (September 18), and Quincy (October 15). The next debate where Lincoln opened after the publication of Trumbull’s
schedule would have been at Charleston on September 18. Lincoln commenced the debate
at Charleston with a brief defense of his position on racial equality, followed by
a repetition of Trumbull’s charge, made in his speech on August 7, that Douglas had
altered a bill in the U.S. Senate by Robert A. Toombs in such a manner as to deny popular sovereignty to the people of the Kansas Territory as they sought statehood.
Ultimately, in the local elections of 1858, Republicans won a majority of all votes
cast in Illinois, but pro-Douglas Democrats retained control of the Illinois General
Assembly, and Douglas won reelection. 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.
Graham A. Peck, Making an Antislavery Nation: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Battle over Freedom (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2017), 114-15; Mark M. Krug, “Lyman Trumbull
and the Real Issues in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates,” 383-85; Horace White, The Life of Lyman Trumbull (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1913), 94; Ralph J. Roske, His Own Counsel: The Life and Times of Lyman Trumbull, 48; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 1:517-19, 556-57; Allen C. Guelzo, “House Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political
Landscape of 1858,” 414-16; Stephen A. Douglas to Abraham Lincoln; Abraham Lincoln to Stephen A. Douglas; Abraham Lincoln to Stephen A. Douglas; Abraham Lincoln to Stephen A. Douglas; Fourth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Charleston, Illinois; Fourth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Charleston, Illinois;Fourth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Charleston, Illinois.
Autograph Letter Signed, 3 page(s), Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress (Washington, DC).