Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

Richard Yates to Abraham Lincoln, 18 September 18561
Jacksonville Sept 18. 1856Dear Lincoln
Your speech did us a good deal of good—2 and we are constantly gaining some, but still the Filmore Organization is formidable– In some precincts nearly the whole body of the Whig vote is for Filmore & I fear impregnably so– They still outnumber us in the County– They have a Filmore Mass meeting, Barbacue & Torch light procession on the 9^th Oct [October]– They are very active. I fear that with all we can do the County will give Buchanan four of or five hundred over Fremont–3 In some I have been to Green & Menard since I saw you and the prospect is really gloomy for Fremont—4 it is

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still more so in Cass and Scott–5 Douglass & Richardson when here claimed that the they would carry our District by 8000— and I fear they will carry by over 5000–6

I find that in Cass, a part of Menard, Scott & Green there are few or no Fremont papers taken & the people do not seem to comprehend the issues— and besides there are five times as many proslavery whigs as we have estimated–

Something must be done in these Counties– Why cannot Jo Knox, Tho^s F Marshall & other men be got here– Here there is more capital to be made than elsewhere in the

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State– Men are not committed here as yet— and it is not as it is in the North & in the South where the it is very easy for men, who like to be on the strongest side, to know which is the strongest side–

The truth is that large Mass meetings in Cass Scott & Green would tell more just now than any where else in the State–

I rec^d [received] to day a letter from G. B. Price & others, Committee at Carrolton in which they express a desire to have a mass meeting there after the State Fair and have you, Bissel, Marshall Trumbul & myself present, and others and request me to see whether it can be effected– Can this be done?7 And can we have a meetings at Virginia

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Beardstown, Winchester &c. [etc.]8 John B. Shaw of Beardstown passed through here to day proclaiming himself for Buchanan and saying that Dummer was for Buchanan– “Can these things overcome us like a summer cloud & not excite our Special wonder”?9

Lincoln, write & if you have any encouragement give it, especially if you have any thing fair from this our central region.10

I have been perplexed a good deal with business & Railroad matters, but have been busy & now I am letting all things go to be on hand for the rest of the Campaign–
Your friendRich^d Yates

1Richard Yates wrote and signed this letter.

2Yates had invited Lincoln to speak at a Republican meeting in Jacksonville on September 6, 1856. From July 1856 onwards Lincoln gave over fifty speeches across Illinois in support of Republican presidential candidate John C. Fremont and to rally the disparate elements of the emerging Republican Party. See the 1856 Federal Election.
Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:425-33.

3In Morgan County, home to Jacksonville, in the 1856 presidential election Democrat James Buchanan placed first with 1,656 votes or 47.3 percent of the vote, Fremont came in second with 963 votes or 27.5 percent, and American Party candidate Millard Fillmore finished in third place with 885 votes or 25.3 percent of the total. Fremont had a stronger showing at the state level in Illinois, garnering 40.2 percent of the vote, but Buchanan ultimately led in the state with 44.1 percent of the vote and won the presidency with 45.3 percent of the vote nationally.
Webster's New Geographical Dictionary (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1988), 563; Howard W. Allen and Vincent A. Lacey, eds., Illinois Elections, 1818-1990 (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992), 10, 136; Michael J. Dubin, United States Presidential Elections, 1788-1860: The Official Results by County and State (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2002), 135.

4Fremont placed last in both Greene and Menard Counties in the 1856 presidential election. In Greene County, he received 9.7 percent of the vote, Buchanan earned 61.9 percent, and Fillmore garnered 28.4 percent. In Menard County, Fremont’s share of the vote was 6.7 percent, while Buchanan’s was 52.4 percent and Fillmore’s was 41 percent.
Howard W. Allen and Vincent A. Lacey, eds., Illinois Elections, 1818-1990, 136.

5In Cass County, Fremont earned 18.3 percent of the vote, Buchanan won 55.2 percent, and Fillmore received 26.5 percent. The results in Scott County were 11.7 percent of the vote for Fremont, 54 percent for Buchanan, and 34.3 percent for Fillmore.
Howard W. Allen and Vincent A. Lacey, eds., Illinois Elections, 1818-1990, 135, 137.

6Stephen A. Douglas and William A. Richardson spoke at a Democratic meeting in Jacksonville on September 13, 1856. Richardson was the Democratic candidate for governor of Illinois in the 1856 election and ultimately earned only three votes more than Republican gubernatorial candidate William H. Bissell in Morgan County and lost the statewide race.
In the 1856 presidential race, however, the Democrats outperformed even Douglas’ and Richardson’s prediction in Illinois’ Sixth Congressional District. The Sixth District at this time was composed of Cass, Christian, Greene, Jersey, Macoupin, Menard, Montgomery, Morgan, Sangamon, Scott, and Shelby counties. Fremont earned 4,745 total votes in the counties of the district, while Buchanan won 14,077, ultimately carrying the district by 9,332 votes.
Illinois State Register (Springfield), 18 September 1856, 1:5; Howard W. Allen and Vincent A. Lacey, eds., Illinois Elections, 1818-1990, 10, 135-38, 140.

7Shortly after the date of this letter, the Illinois Republican State Central Committee announced a schedule of upcoming Republican mass meetings, which included a meeting in Carrollton on October 14, 1856. At the time of the proposed Carrollton meeting, Lincoln was in Clinton. No evidence has been found that Lincoln visited Carrollton in September or October 1856.
Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 27 September 1856, 3:1; The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, September 1856, http://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarMonth&year=1856&month=9; October 1856, http://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarMonth&year=1856&month=10.

8In addition to the Carrollton meeting described above, the Illinois Republican State Central Committee also announced Republican mass meetings to be held in October 1856 in the Sixth District towns of Jerseyville, Shelbyville, Beardstown, Winchester, Waverly, Hillsboro, Taylorville, and Petersburg, and further stated that additional meetings would be announced for Central and Southern Illinois leading up to the election.
Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 27 September 1856, 3:1.

9The Shakespearean character Macbeth utters these words after seeing the ghost of Banquo.
William Shakespeare, Macbeth (ca. 1606), Act 3, Scene 4, Line 112, in William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Macbeth, ed. Nicholas Brooke (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), 159.

10No response by Lincoln to this letter has been located. Yates subsequently invited Lincoln to appear again at a meeting in Jacksonville on November 1, 1856, at which he gave another speech.
The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, 1 November 1856, http://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1856-11-01.