Chester P. Dewey to Abraham Lincoln, 30 October, 18581
Rochester N.Y. Oct 30.Hon A. LincolnDear SirMy corresponding duties ceased in Illinois last week,2 & I came home a few days ago, & am here before going to New York. I send you Seward's recent speech here as being a sort of key note to his present & future position.3
I find that the N.Y. Republicans who were in love with Douglas, are rather more inclined to take a different view now. They find much to admire
& praise in your conduct of the campaign & be assured that you have made hosts of
warm friends at the East. God grant you come out ahead on Tuesday4
Respy[Respectfully] YoursC. P. Dewey.<Page 2>
[Envelope]
ROCHESTER N.Y.[New York]
OCT 30 1858Hon A. LincolnSpringfieldIllinois.
OCT 30 1858Hon A. LincolnSpringfieldIllinois.
2Dewey covered the Lincoln-Douglas Debates for the New York Evening Post . He present for the all the debates except the first, held in Ottawa, Illinois, on August 21, 1858, and the last, at Alton, on October 15. Ebenezer Peck introduced Dewey to Abraham Lincoln in a letter dated August 18, 1858.
E. B. Parsons, Obituary Record of the Alumni of Williams College 1885-6 (Baldwinsville, NY: Williams College, 1885), 160; Allen C. Guelzo, Lincoln and Douglas: the Debates that Defined America (New York NY: Simon & Schuster, 2008), 116; The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, 21 August 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-08-21; 15 October 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-10-15.
3William Seward, at the time a Senator from New York, delivered an anti-slavery speech in Rochester, New York, on October 25, 1858. He
echoed many of Abraham Lincoln’s arguments made in the debates, stating “...the United
States must and will, sooner or later, become entirely a slave-holding nation, or
entirely a free labor nation.” Arguing famously that there was “an irrepressible conflict”
between the slave and free states, he insisted that compromise was doomed to fail,
as compromise was an attempt to meet in the middle of an issue where only one side
could win. He made further claims that the Founding Fathers desired that the United
States become fully free and that their belief was that free labor would eventually
prevail based on their framing of America’s founding documents.
The New York Herald (NY), 30 October 1858, 1:6; 2:1-2.
4Dewey references the state elections in Illinois, which occurred on November 2, 1858. Abraham Lincoln, the candidate of the Republican Party, was challenging Stephen A. Douglas, the Democratic incumbent, for seat in the U.S. Senate. Both men 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 at the time; therefore the outcome
of the races for the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois Senate were critical to the race for the Senate seat. See 1858 Federal Election; 1858 Illinois Republican Convention.
In December 1857, Douglas had criticized the Lecompton Constitution and President James Buchanan’s support of it, causing a rift in the Democratic Party. Some Republicans in the
East were excited by Douglas’s repudiation of the Lecompton Constitution to the extent
that they considered supporting his bid for reelection. Although Douglas later denied
it, he courted Republican support—meeting in person with prominent men such as Horace
Greeley and hinting in correspondence with Republicans that he was finished with the
Democratic Party. Lincoln and other Republicans were concerned by these developments
and urged fellow party members to remain loyal in the upcoming election. In Lincoln’s
view, Douglas disagreed with the Buchanan administration over whether the Lecompton
Constitution accurately represented the will of Kansans, but did not repudiate the
overall goal of admitting Kansas as a slave state.
Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 3 November 1858, 2:1; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:445-50, 458-60, 492-540;
Allen C. Guelzo, “Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political Landscape of
1858,” The Journal of American History 94 (September 2007), 392-94.
In the state’s local elections as a whole, Republicans won a majority of all votes
cast in the state, but pro-Douglas Democrats retained control of the Illinois General
Assembly and 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 as well as standing within the national Republican Party.
Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 1:556-57; Allen C. Guelzo, “Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political
Landscape of 1858,” 414-16.
Autograph Letter Signed, 2 page(s), Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress (Washington, DC).