William H. Carlin to Abraham Lincoln, 29 December 18581
Quincy IllinoisDec 29th 1858A Lincoln Esqr[Esquire]Dr[Dear] Sir
Your favor of the 24th inst is at hand and in reply I have to state, that my health was so infirm that I only
made one speech during the last canvass, and that was not published.2 Several notices of it, and some extracts from it, were published in the Quincy Whig & Republican, but nothing like a corrected or perfect copy3 Urgent solicitations for a copy for publication, were pressed upon me at the time
and I promised to prepare one, but did not find time to do so before the election
and then concluded it would be unnecessary to trouble my self about it
There are some reasons however, which render it desirable, that ^a^ record of that canvass should be kept, and if you conclude to publish your "scrap book" from my notes (which I have retained) I can and will prepare you a copy of my speech4 I hope to see you in Springfield in a few days5
very respectfullyW. H. Carlin<Page 2>
[Envelope]
QUINCY ILL.[ILLINOIS]
DEC[DECEMBER] 30 1858Hon A LincolnSpringfieldIllinois
DEC[DECEMBER] 30 1858Hon A LincolnSpringfieldIllinois
1William H. Carlin wrote and signed this letter. He also wrote Abraham Lincoln’s name
and address on the envelope.
2On December 24, Lincoln wrote Carlin to request a copy of one of Carlin’s speeches to add to a “Scrap-book of the late political campaign.” Lincoln had been the Republican candidate from Illinois for U.S. Senate in 1858. In the summer and fall of that year, Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, his Democratic opponent and the incumbent, canvassed the state 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 this time, so the races for the
Illinois House of Representatives and Illinois Senate were highly relevant to the outcome of the U.S. Senate race. Lincoln and Douglas
also debated one another in seven locations throughout the state. Douglas, however, did not carry
the full backing of every Illinois Democrat. His criticism of President James Buchanan’s support for the Lecompton Constitution caused a rift in the party. Consequently, some Buchanan supporters opposed Douglas’s
reelection to the U.S. Senate. Carlin, a Democrat member of the Illinois Senate from
Adams County, initially favored Douglas, but by September 1858 had changed sides and ran for reelection
as a Buchanan Democrat. Though both Lincoln and Carlin lost their respective races,
the Lincoln-Douglas Debates received national coverage and boosted Lincoln’s standing
in the national Republican Party. Following the campaign, Lincoln wrote Carlin, Sidney Breese, Charles H. Ray, and Henry C. Whitney to collect copies of the debates and other political speeches. See 1858 Illinois Republican Convention; 1858 Federal Election.
Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 22 April 1858, 2:4; 9 September 1858, 2:2; 7 October 1858, 2:3; 3
November 1858, 2:2; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 221, 222; The Daily Quincy Herald (IL), 4 November 1858, 3:1; The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, 24 December 1858, https://thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-12-24; Lincoln-Douglas Debates Scrapbook; Sidney Breese to Abraham Lincoln; Abraham Lincoln to Charles H. Ray; Abraham Lincoln to Henry C. Whitney; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:455, 457-85, 556-57; Allen
C. Guelzo, “Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political Landscape of 1858,”
The Journal of American History 94 (September 2007), 394-96.
3Carlin spoke about the history of the Democratic Party in Illinois at the Quincy courthouse on October 20, 1858. The Quincy Whig & Republican published a partial summary in its October 22nd edition. According to that account,
Carlin spoke ill of Douglas’s influence on the party’s policies--especially his role
in garnering support for the Illinois Internal Improvement System.
Quincy Daily Whig and Republican (IL), 22 October 1858, 2:2, 3.
4No further correspondence between Lincoln and Carlin has been found. The scrapbook
Lincoln compiled of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, however, later served as the source
for the first publication of the debates in 1860.
Political Debates Between Hon. Abraham Lincoln and Hon. Stephen A. Douglas (Columbus: Follett, Foster, 1860), iii-iv.
5Carlin was in Springfield in the first week of January 1859 to attended meetings
of the Illinois Supreme Court and the U.S. Circuit Court, Southern District of Illinois, which opened on January 4, 1859.
The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, 4 January 1859, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1859-01-04.