Hiram S. Thomas to Abraham Lincoln, 29 January 18591
Vermont Ills Jan 29th 1859Hon Abram LincolnWorthy SirI have frequently felt as though I must sit down and write you a line, but then it
would recur to me that hundreds perhaps would flood their feelings in onto you; some
lamenting, some rejoicing & others hoping for the future.2 We had a stormy day when you were here but I think you felt that you had an attentive
audience; you made a mark; you done it just right, it was what we wanted.3 In 1856 our vote was 114, now it was 225, and leaves us united.4
Your undertaking was a labori-
I remain TruelyH. S. Thomas<Page 2>
ous one and you necessarily had to work hard, but you have made a living Strong party.
I consider that your Campaign permanently established the Republican party. I see that Gov Seward espoused your ideas in various ways5 So has Greely adopted your thoughts and others your words6. But they Slayed us in voting, and we must abide the result. I was astonished at
Sangamon, Madison Jersey & Tazewell.7 Probably you were not. The Judge must feel quite vallient on his return from Cuba after Pine & comrades are confirmed in their Stations.8 I had hoped that we would carry the Legislature and then I could get my old post in the House.9 They I see have made the duties much
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easier by making additional help: paying off old scores. I have thought of proposing
to Gov Bissell to take the job of distributing the laws next summer if he has not already given
it out. If you have not already interested yourself for some one in this district, will you be willing to speak to his Excelency about it. The labors & expenses of elections you are aware always falls on a few;
I have had a large share to bear and if there is any proffit it the job of which I speak I would be pleased to secure it. I am not accustomed
to looking out for such things and therefore may be to late.10 Remember me to Mrs Lincoln and
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[Envelope]
Hon. Abram LincolnSpringfieldIllinois
1Hiram S. Thomas wrote and signed this letter. Thomas also wrote Abraham Lincoln’s
name and address on the envelope. See the fourth image.
2Lincoln, the candidate of the
Republican Party, had challenged Stephen A. Douglas, the
Democratic
incumbent, for a seat in the U.S. Senate in the 1858 Federal Election. Republicans had won the popular vote in the local and state elections held on November
2, 1858 but pro-Douglas Democrats retained control of the
Illinois General Assembly, which elected U.S. senators in those days, allowing Douglas to retain his seat.
Douglas's victory was confirm in the election held on January 5, 1859.
Lincoln’s defeat led to mixed reactions within the Republican Party. Reaction was
nearly universally negative, although his rise to prominence within the party led
to cautious optimism about his prospects and the Republican Party’s prospects in the
1860 presidential and general elections. David Davis was among Lincoln’s supporters who wrote Lincoln offering their condolences. Davis
wrote: “The result in Illinois has both astonished and mortified me beyond measure.” “The defeat of Mr. Lincoln
grieves me beyond measure,” Davis wrote his son on November 7. The Cincinnati Commercial opined that the “reputation of Mr. Lincoln has gone all over the country. It is in
extent, undoubtedly national. He has won high honors and made troops of friends.”
The Democratic-leaning Illinois State Register predicted: “If the Republican journals are to be taken as an index, Mr. Lincoln is
to be made a presidential candidate upon the creed which he enunciated here in his
June convention speech.” Despite his loss, Lincoln’s participation in the senate
race—and in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates in particular—propelled him to national prominence and helped him win the presidential contest of 1860.
Daily Illinois State Journal
(Springfield), 3 November 1858, 2:1; Allen C. Guelzo, “Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas,
and the Political Landscape of 1858,”
The Journal of American History
, 94 (September 2007), 392-94, 415-16; Allen C. Guelzo, Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates that Defined America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), 285, 287, 289; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:553-57; Illinois Senate
Journal. 1859. 21st G. A., 30; Illinois House
Journal. 1859. 21st G. A., 32; Cincinnati Daily Commercial (OH), 29 October 1858, 2:1; Daily Illinois State Register (Springfield), 1 December 1858, 2:2. For examples of letters offering Lincoln condolences,
see David Davis to Abraham Lincoln; Anson S. Miller to Abraham Lincoln; George W. Rives to Abraham Lincoln; Horace White to Abraham Lincoln; David Brier to Abraham Lincoln.
3Lincoln gave a speech to a small crowd in Vermont, Illinois, on October 26, 1858.
It was raining when he gave his speech. Lincoln was initially scheduled to speak
in Vermont on October 27, but in mid-October he changed his speaking schedule, moving
Vermont from October 27 to October 26 and adding Toulon, Illinois, on October 27.
The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, 26 October 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-10-26;
27 October 1858, https://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-10-27; Chicago Daily Press and Tribune (IL), 19 October 1858, 1:1; 20 October 1858, 1:1.
4Republican presidential candidate John C. Fremont received 114 votes in Vermont in the 1856 Federal Election, placing third behind American Party candidate Millard Fillmore (163 votes) and Democratic candidate James Buchanan (144 votes). Republican candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives, Illinois House of Representatives, and state and county offices in 1856 ran under the Anti-Nebraska banner in Fulton County, Illinois, home to Vermont. Vermont voters gave these candidates varying levels of support,
from a low of forty-one votes for Jesse K. Dubois for auditor to a high of 275 votes for James Miller for treasurer, supporting Thomas’s contention that Vermont voters leaning toward
the Republicans were divided in 1856. The Republican vote in Vermont was more consistent
in 1858, with Republican candidates for the U.S. House, Illinois House, and state
and county offices receiving 223 to 225 votes, while their Democratic counterparts
received 189 to 192 votes.
The Canton Weekly Register (IL), 4 November 1856, 2:1; 18 November 1856, 2:3-4; 9 November 1858, 2:2-3; Edward
Callary, Place Names of Illinois
(Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 358.
5William H. Seward had joined with Douglas in opposition to the Lecompton Constitution, prompting rumors of a bargain between the two to back Douglas’ reelection to the
Senate in 1858 in exchange for Seward’s elevation to the presidency in 1860. Although
Lincoln eventually concluded no such bargain had been made, Seward did not offer him
any substantiative support during the 1858 election campaign.
Seward’s rhetoric on the stump, however, echoed Lincoln’s contentions made in the
“House Divided Speech” and debates with Douglas. In an anti-slavery speech delivered
in Rochester, New York, on October 25, 1858, Seward asserted “...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; William H. Seward The Irrepressible Conflict: A Speech by William H. Seward, Delivered at Rochester,
Monday, Oct. 25, 1858
(New York: New York Tribune, 1860);
Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 1:446-48; 452-54; Glyndon G. Van Deusen, William Henry Seward (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), 191, 192; Report of Speech at Springfield, Illinois; Report of Speech at Springfield, Illinois; Fragment of A House Divided: Speech at Springfield, Illinois; Report of Speech at Springfield, Illinois; First Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Ottawa, Illinois; First Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Ottawa, Illinois; First Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Ottawa, Illinois.
6Following his criticism of President James Buchanan’s support for the Lecompton Constitution
and subsequent rifts in the Democratic Party born of the dispute, Douglas courted
political support from Republicans—including Horace Greeley. Greeley endorsed Douglas’s
stance on the Lecompton Constitution. Although Douglas later denied courting Republican
support, he met with Greeley in person and hinted to other Republicans via correspondence
that he was finished with the Democratic Party. Through the New York Tribune, Greeley urged voters in Illinois to support Douglas’s reelection campaign. He also
wrote Republican leaders in Illinois to urge the same. Greeley was not alone—many
Republicans in the eastern U.S. were excited by Douglas’ split with Buchanan and pro-Lecompton
Democrats, and similarly urged voters to reelect Douglas. As in the case with Seward,
Lincoln chose to exonerate Greeley from colluding with other eastern Republicans
against him, but he complained about Greeley’s position, writing Senator Lyman Trumbull, “what does The New York Tribune mean by its constant eulogizing and admiring and magnifying Douglas?” Greeley would
later embrace Lincoln as leader of the Republican Party. He encourage readers to
listen to Lincoln when Lincoln came to New York to deliver his famous Cooper Union
speech and published a transcript of the speech. Greeley would support Lincoln’s
candidacy for president in the 1860 election.
Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 1:445-46; Gregory A. Borchard, Abraham Lincoln and Horace Greeley (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 55-57, 61-65; New-York Daily Tribune (NY), 25 February 1860, 4:3-4 ; 28 February 1860, 6:1-5.
7Democratic candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives, the Illinois General
Assembly, Illinois treasurer, and Illinois superintendent for public instruction garnered
majorities in all the aforementioned counties. Democratic candidates for sheriff
and coroner won their races in all county elections except in Tazewell, where the
Republican candidate won the race for sheriff.
The Weekly Chicago Times (IL), 11 November 1858, 2:5-6.
8Douglas took a long, circuitous route from Illinois to Washington DC, for the second session of the Thirty-Fifth Congress, which open on December 6, 1858 and ended on March 3, 1859. He left Chicago in November of 1858 before traveling down the Mississippi River with stops in St. Louis, Memphis, and New Orleans. He gave speeches in each city, harping on themes he expounded during the election
campaign. Douglas took a short trip to Havana, Cuba, before taking a boat to New York City and finishing his trip to Washington with a stop in Philadelphia.
Thomas references the Buchanan administration’s removal of pro-Douglas federal officeholders
in Illinois during the 1858 senatorial campaign. In the aftermath of the controversy
regarding the Lecompton Constitution, President Buchanan removed many Douglas supporters
from federal patronage appointments throughout Illinois as part of a concerted effort
to politically punish Douglas for his opposition to the Lecompton Constitution and
public criticism of Buchanan. In the federal judiciary, the Buchanan administration
fired pro-Douglas Democrat James W. Davidson as U.S. marshal of the Northern District of Illinois, replacing him with Pro-Buchanan
Democrat Charles N. Pine in September 1858 . President Buchanan also removed the Pro-Douglas U.S. marshal
for the Southern District of Illinois and the Pro-Douglas district attorneys for both
districts, replacing them with Buchanan loyalists. Buchanan also purged Pro-Douglas
postmasters and federal treasury appointees.
Robert W. Johannsen, Stephen A. Douglas (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1973), 683-85; U.S. Senate Journal. 1858-59. 35th Cong., 2nd sess., 3, 482; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 1:445; Allen C. Guelzo, “Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political Landscape
of 1858,” 395-96; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 1 March 1858, 2:1; 22 March 1858; 7 June 1858, 3:1; 4 September 1858,
3:2; 31 March 1859, 2:2; Register of Officers and Agents, Civil, Military, and Naval, in the Service of the
United States, on the Thirtieth September, 1857
(Washington, DC: A. O. P. Nicholson, 1857), 168; Register of Officers and Agents, Civil, Military, and Naval, in the Service of the
United States, on the Thirtieth September, 1859
(Washington, DC: William A. Harris, 1859), 171.
9 John E. McClun nominated Thomas for the position of doorkeeper of the Illinois House upon the opening
of the Nineteenth Illinois General Assembly on January 2, 1855. Thomas won the election
and served as doorkeeper for the duration of the Nineteenth General Assembly. On January
4, 1859, J. W. Connett won the election to serve as doorkeeper for the Twenty-First General Assembly, which
ran from January 3 to February 24, 1859.
Illinois House Journal
. 1855. 19th G. A., 6. (1855), 6; Illinois House Journal
. 1859. 21th G. A., 6. (1859), 15; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 222.
Autograph Letter Signed, 4 page(s), Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress (Washington, DC).