Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

James M. Hosford to Abraham Lincoln, 11 October 18581
Geneseo Henry Co Oct 11. 1858Hon Abrahm LincolnDear Sir–
The Geneseo Republican Club respectfully represent– That Stephen A Douglass is to address the Citizens of Henry Co. on the 28th at this place, and of Rock Island Co at R I on the 29th Inst[Instant],2 and that the most extraordinary efforts are being made by the Douglass party to elect a Representative from this (the 28th) Dist[District].3 On the other hand it cannot be denied, but that general apathy and an utter want of enthusiasm pervades the Republican Party. Our Candidate is said to be a very worthy man & popular at home (Mercer County) but he is wholly unknown to us and for some reason or other we cannot obtain his consent to visit us nor even get a reply to an invitation for him to meet Judge Kellogg

<Page 2>
here this week.4

Our “Republican Paper” has gone into the hands of the enemy and is quietly tho’[though] thoroughly at work for Douglass–5 We have but a very few Buchan men in this Dist6 & they are only so on a/c[account] of the Loaves & Fishes–7

In /56 The Repubilc were awake and carried this County handsomely–8 Last year we fell on sleep and were badly beaten on County Tickets and we still seem to sleep on.9 That is to say the masses are asleep and need your voice & presence to wake them up. It is thought by our best judges that Judge Gilmore & Judge Gould will come out of Rock Island & Mercer Counties into Henry even, and that Henry Co must decide the battle. Hence the importance of your coming. We will make all necessary arrangements for you and do all in our power to render your visit of great interests to the cause

<Page 3>
and also of comfort to yourself.10

I shall be very happy to consider you as my Guest and to make my house your home so long as you can tarry here; unless your inclinations are to stop at Hotel–
Respectfully–J M Hosford
Prest.[President] Gen. Rep Club.11

<Page 4>

1James M. Hosford wrote and signed this letter.

2Abraham Lincoln was at this time running against incumbent Democrat Stephen A. Douglas to represent Illinois in the U.S. Senate. See 1858 Illinois Republican Convention; 1858 Federal Election.
Douglas spoke in Geneseo on October 28, 1858 as announced, with a critical notice in the Chicago Tribune reporting that fewer than three hundred people attended. The following day he spoke outside the court house in Rock Island.
Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:457-58; Geneseo Republic and Henry County News (IL), 27 October 1858, 2:1; Chicago Daily Press and Tribune (IL), 30 October 1858, 2:4; Daily Islander and Argus (Rock Island, IL), 30 October 1858, 1:2-4.

3Because the Illinois General Assembly elected the state’s representatives in the U.S. Senate at this time, the races for the Illinois House of Representatives and Illinois Senate were important to Lincoln’s campaign. Henry, Mercer and Rock Island counties in northwestern Illinois constituted not the Twenty-Eighth, but the Forty-Eighth Illinois House of Representatives District, which was considered strongly Republican at this time. Lincoln and Douglas both focused their campaign efforts on the former Whig stronghold of central Illinois, where the state legislative races were the closest. In the election of 1858 Republican Ephraim Gilmore, Jr. won election in the Illinois House of Representatives race in the Forty-Eighth District, garnering 5,199 votes and defeating Douglas Democrat John M. Gould, who received 3,317 votes.
Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 1:476-77; Allen C. Guelzo, “Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political Landscape of 1858,” The Journal of American History 94 (September 2007), 392-94, 400-401; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 220, 222; Geneseo Republic and Henry County News (IL), 22 September 1858, 2:1; 29 September 1858, 2:1; Chicago Daily Press and Tribune (IL), 1 November 1858, 2:4; The Weekly Chicago Times (IL), 11 November 1858, 2:6; 18 November 1858, 3:3.

4Republican William Kellogg was running for reelection as the incumbent member of the U.S. House of Representatives in the Fourth Congressional District of Illinois, which included Henry County. The Geneseo Republic announced that Kellogg and Owen Lovejoy would speak at a Republican rally in Geneseo on October 13, 1858 but made no mention of any planned attendance by Illinois House of Representatives candidate Gilmore. Kellogg ultimately won 52.8 percent of the vote in 1858 and defeated Douglas Democrat James W. Davidson, who received 45.7 percent.
Howard W. Allen and Vincent A. Lacey, eds., Illinois Elections, 1818-1990 (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992), 11, 142; Geneseo Republic and Henry County News (IL), 13 October 1858, 2:1.

5Editorship of the Geneseo Republic and Henry County News had changed twice in 1858, with founding editor Isaac S. Hyatt losing the paper to bankruptcy early in the year, and editorship again passing from his assignees, James M. Allan and Orrin A. Turner, to Merritt Munson in March of 1858. Hyatt had advocated Republican candidates in the newspaper beginning in 1856, its initial year of publication. Allan and Turner were also both Republicans. Munson was reputed to have operated the newspaper as politically neutral and during the election campaign of 1858, which occurred during his editorship, the newspaper advertised that it would print notices of events for all political parties, “without distinction or partiality.” Munson himself, however, was a Democrat and a supporter of Stephen A. Douglas.
Geneseo Republic and Henry County News (IL), 10 July 1856, 2:1; 10 March 1858, 1:1; 24 March 1858, 1:1; 13 October 1858, 2:1; Portrait and Biographical Album of Henry County, Illinois (Chicago: Biographical, 1885), 286, 324; The Geneseo Republic (IL), 5 November 1897, 5:1; Henry L. Kiner, History of Henry County Illinois (Chicago: Pioneer, 1910), 1:264.

6Douglas had criticized the Lecompton Constitution and President James Buchanan’s support of it beginning in December 1857, causing a rift in the Democratic Party. Among Illinois Republicans there was hope that the division in the Democratic Party, which resulted in competing Democratic candidates in some races, would improve the chances of Republican candidates in the election of 1858.
Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 1:445-48, 455-56.

7To be motivated by a desire for loaves and fishes is to be motivated by the possible material benefits to be derived in a situation, in allusion to the biblical story of crowds following Jesus Christ not for spiritual benefit, but for the loaves and fishes he distributed.
E. Cobham Brewer, A Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (London, Cassell, 1923), 677.

8The Republican candidates for national, state, and local offices all won a majority of the votes in Henry County in the election of 1856.
Geneseo Republic and Henry County News (IL), 11 November 1856, 2:2; The Weekly Chicago Times (IL), 13 November 1856, 3:3-4.

9In the 1857 election in Henry County, Democrats Matthew B. Potter and Daniel Bonar were elected judge and clerk respectively, having run on a “people’s ticket” along with Republican candidates for other county offices.
Geneseo Republic and Henry County News (IL), 11 November 1857, 2:2; 25 November 1857, 2:1; Daily Islander and Argus (Rock Island, IL), 13 November 1857, 3:1; 30 November 1857, 2:2; 8 December 1857, 2:2.

10No evidence has been found that Lincoln made a campaign visit to Geneseo in 1858 following receipt of this letter. He had also previously been invited to speak in Cambridge in Henry County, but is not known to have appeared there. Towards the end of the campaign Lincoln made brief remarks at the train station at the town of Kewanee in the county.
Other Republicans are known to have spoken in Geneseo in the wake of Douglas’ appearance there, however. Later in the day on October 28, Joseph Knox and John H. Howe addressed a crowd of Republicans in the town and on October 30, Salmon P. Chase arrived and spoke, accompanied by Lovejoy.
The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, 28 October 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-10-28; Geneseo Republic and Henry County News (IL), 27 October 1858, 2:2; Chicago Daily Press and Tribune (IL), 30 October 1858, 2:4; Daily Islander and Argus (Rock Island, IL), 1 November 1858, 1:4.

11No response to this letter has been located. It may have been the letter enclosed to Lincoln by Norman B. Judd in the latter’s letter of October 15, 1858. In his letter, Judd commented that there was no trouble in the district under discussion in the missive he enclosed, and he advised that Lincoln should not change his arrangements.