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The Lincoln–Douglas Contest of 1858 and Illinois' Electorate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Bruce Collins
Bruce Collins
Affiliation:
Lecturer in the Department of Modern History, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ.
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Extract

Who won the Lincoln–Douglas election of 1858? is a question that has frequently been pondered by historians. This is not surprising, since the campaign of 1858 in Illinois was, in David Potter's words, “perhaps the most famous local political contest in American history.” It made Abraham Lincoln's national reputation, though Lincoln had enjoyed strong support in his run for the Senate in 1855, and had been a respectable midwestern candidate for the Republicans' vice-presidential nomination in 1856. It also confirmed Senator Stephen A. Douglas's differences with the national Democratic Party under President James Buchanan's leadership. The acrimonious division among Illinois' Democrats between Douglasites and Buchanan's followers in 1858 prefigured a wider struggle throughout the northern Democratic Party during the two following years, a struggle which, to some of his party rivals' surprise, Douglas won by a huge margin. Because both men achieved their parties' presidential candidacy in 1860, it is easy to accept the force of Don E. Fehrenbacher's conclusion: “The Lincoln–Douglas campaign of 1858 proved to be a contest without a real loser…. The momentum gathered in their contest for a Senate seat carried both Lincoln and Douglas to the threshold of the White House, but only one could enter.” What is less obvious is how Illinois' electorate responded to the rhetoric so plentifully presented to them and how far the debate over sectional issues subsumed all other political questions in 1858.

Type
Other
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , December 1986 , pp. 391 - 420
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

A very preliminary draft of this paper was most helpfully criticized by Professor Michael F. Holt. The sketch-maps are drawn after maps in Cole, Arthur C., The Era of the Civil War, 1848–1870 (Springfield, 1919)Google Scholar, Gates, Paul W., The Illinois Central Railroad and its Colonisation Work (Cambridge, Mass., 1934)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Clayton, John, The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac, 1673–1968 (Carbondale, 1970)Google Scholar.

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2 Fehrenbacher, Don E., Prelude to Greatness: Lincoln in the 1850s (Stanford, 1962), pp. 37–39, 46, 120Google Scholar; for Southern Democrats' failure to recognize the extent of Douglas's Northern support in late 1859 and early 1860, see Phillips, Ulrich B., ed., The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cubb, AHA Annual Report, 1911 (Washington, D.C., 1913), 2, 449, 463, 467–68Google Scholar, but see also 452, 455, 461 for Senator Toombs' appreciation of Douglas's potential strength at the Charleston nominating convention.

3 Fehenbacher, , Prelude to Greatness, p. 120Google Scholar; Johannsen, Robert W., Stephen A. Douglas (New York, 1973), pp. 665–78Google Scholar. Wells, Damon, Stephen A. Douglas: The Last Years 1877–1861 (Austin, Texas, 1971)Google Scholar, provides no detailed election analysis.

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8 Ibid., p. 265.

9 Springfield, Illinois State Journal, 2 Sept. 1858.

10 Chicago Tribune, 14 Oct. 1858.

11 Ibid., 8 Oct. 1858. On the idea that “the intelligence and morality of our country is upon the republican side” and was associated with railway and school building, see E. J. Tichenor to Trumbull, 22 Feb. 1858, E. Calden (?) to Trumbull, 9 Mar. 1858, Lyman Trumbull Papers, Library of Congress.

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16 Chicago Tribune, 8, 10 July, and June and July passim, 1858; also Oct. 1858 passim.

17 Ibid., 2 Sept. 1858.

18 These changes are established from returns and percentages given in Congressional Quartery's Guide to U. S. Elections (Washington, D.C., 1975), pp. 601–04Google Scholar.

19 Returns for the state elections–including county level returns–used in this paper are from Tribune Almanac and Political Register for 1856 (New York, n.d.) and subsequent years. I have calculated percentages.

20 A criticism that can be made of Stephen L. Hansen's very useful study, The Making of the Third Party System is that it fails to recapture the variety and complexity of county and local politics. This is a common defect of the analysis of voting behaviour that uses ethnic, social and cultural examples to explore patterns of voting behaviour across a state or states. For example, Kleppner, Paul, The Third Electoral System, 1853–1892: Parties, Voters, and Political Cultures (Chapel Hill, 1979)Google Scholar, categorizes counties, but does not analyse their internal politics.

21 Springfield, Illinois State Register, 5 07 1858.

22 Johannsen, Robert W., ed., The Lincoln—Douglas Debates (New York, 1965), p. 130Google Scholar. Douglas perhaps went overboard in this effort to reassure southern Illinois opinion. In the final debate, at Alton, he declared that Jefferson Davis had endorsed his Freeport Doctrine. Ibid., p. 298.

23 Illinois State Register, 9 Oct. 1858.

24 Daily Chicago Times, 5 Mar., 22 Apr., 18 Aug., 26 Oct. 1858. One Democratic newspaper was optimistic about the party's prospects for 1860 if Cuban acquisition were to be an issue. Rock Island Morning Argus, 6 Nov. 1858.

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31 Cole, , The Era of the Civil War, pp. 149, 176Google Scholar; Clayton, John, The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Alamanac, 1673–1968 (Carbondale, Ill., 1970), pp. 209, 213, 216–18, 220–21Google Scholar.

32 A. Lincoln to J. Gillespie, 16 Sept. 1858. A. Lincoln Letters not in the Collected Works, Illinois State Historical Society.

33 Van Vleck, George W., The Panic of 1857: An Analytical Study (New York, 1943)Google Scholar, passim; Fishlow, Albert, American Railroads and the Transformation of the Ante-bellum Economy (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), pp. 188–89Google Scholar. The Illinois Central went into receivership because it had no ready cash to meet demands worth $4 millions in short-term bills and notes. The number of miles of railway constructed annually in Illinois fell from 390 in 1853, 906 in 1854, 462 in 1855, 419 in 1856 to 74 in 1857. Gates, Paul W., The Illinois Central Railroad and Its Colonization Work (Cambridge, Mass., 1934), pp. 79, 86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 Illinois State Journal, 12 July, 1858. The court case was not heard until January, 1859.

35 Alton, , Weekly Madison Press, 1 09 1858Google Scholar.

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37 Weekly Madison Press, 1 Sept. 1858.

38 Ibid., 6 Oct. 1858.

39 Daily Courier, 11, 12, 21, 28 Oct., 2 Nov. 1858; State Journal, 21 Oct. 1858.

40 The newspapers consulted were, by county: Alton, Daily Courier; also in Madison County, Edwardsville, Weekly Madison Press, Belleville Democrat, also Weekly Belleville Advocate (St Clair County). Bloomington, Daily Pantagrapb (McLean county). Chester, Randolph County Democrat. Daily Chicago Times, also Chicago, Tribune (Cook county). Danville, Vermilion County Press. Fairfield Gazette (Wayne county). Paris, Prairie Beacon (Edgar county). Peoria, Daily Transcript; also Daily Democratic Union (Peoria county). Princeton, Bureau County Republican. Rock Island Morning Argus (Rock Island county). Springfield, State Journal, also State Register (Sangamon county). Urbana, Our Constitution, also Union (Champaign county).

41 H. C. Whitney to A. Lincoln, 7 Aug. 1858. R. T. Lincoln Collection.

42 Peoria, , Daily Transcript, 20 10 1858Google Scholar. See also Island, Rock, Morning Argus, 8 10 1858Google Scholar.

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45 B. F. Johnson to O. M. Hatch, 7, 10 Feb., 1 Sept. (?), 1858, O. M. Hatch papers, Illinois State Historical Society; Urbana, Our Constitution, 9, 16, 23 October 1858.

46 State Register, 29 Oct. 1858; Johannsen, (ed.), The Lincoln—Douglas Debates, p. 296Google Scholar.

47 S. S. Marshall to C. Lanphier, 9, 14 Oct. 1858, C. Lanphier papers, Illinois State Historical Society.

48 R. S. Thomas to wife, 28 May 1858, Richard S. Thomas Collection, Illinois State Historical Society; T. J. Pickett to A. Lincoln, 3 Aug. 1858, John M. Bush to A. Lincoln, 5 Aug. 1858, R. T. Lincoln Collection.

49 T. Maple to L. Trumbull, 18 Jan. 1858, Lyman Trumbull papers. The following letters also expressed Republican animus against the Illinois Central and/or concern over the impact of fraudulent voters introduced by railroad companies. “We can hardly hope to carry this County [Fulton] for the Legislature yet our success will very much depend upon the use they make of the railroad operatives in the County.” H. L. Thomas to Trumbull, 25 May 1858; also Orval Sexton to Trumbull, 1 June 1858 (Gallatin county). Lyman Trumbull papers. Albert Parker to Lincoln, 7 Aug. 1858 (McLean county), H. C. Whitney to Lincoln, 23 Sept. 1858 (Cook county), M. M. Inman to Lincoln, 9 Nov. 1858. R. T. Lincoln Collection, G. W. Rives to O. M. Hatch. 5 Nov. 1858 (Edgar county). O. M. Hatch papers.

50 State Journal, 19 July 1858; State Register, 1 Nov. 1858.

51 Daily Chicago Times, 29 Oct. 1858.

52 Chicago Tribune, 23 June 1858.

53 Ibid., 10 Dec. 1858; also 15, 16, 25 Nov. 1858 and Daily Transcript, 3, 14, 15 Dec. 1858, Vermilion County Preess, 15 Dec. 1858.

54 Nichols, Roy F., The Disruption of American Democracy (New York, 1967 edn), pp. 195–201Google Scholar.

55 Princeton, , Bureau County Republican, 1 07 1858Google Scholar; Daily Pantagraph, 9 June 1858; State Journal, 13 Aug. 1858; Vermilion County Press, 25 Aug. 1858; Island, Rock, Morning Argus, 3 10 1858Google Scholar; Daily Courier, 26 Oct. 1858.

56 State Journal, 10, 12 July, 9, 10, 13 Aug. 1858; Prairie Beacon, 20 Aug. 1858; Chicago Tribune, 8 Oct. 1858.

57 Fishlow, , American Railroads, pp. 186–89Google Scholar.

58 Gates, , The Illinois Central Railroad, p. 260Google Scholar.

59 David Davis to brother, 18 Feb. 1858, David Davis papers, Chicago Historical Society.

60 State Journal, 15, 23 July 1858; Morning Argus, 16 Oct. 1858. Farmers' misfortunes may be gauged by the decline in prices at Chicago:

61 Clark, John G., The Grain Trade in the Old Northwest (Urbana, 1966), p. 271Google Scholar.

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65 Johannsen, , Stephen A. Douglas, p. 315Google Scholar. The service function of politics is an important theme of Boorstin, Daniel J., The Americans: The National Experience (Harmondsworth, Middx., 1969), pp. 314–24Google Scholar. Fehrenbacher, (Prelude to Greatness, p. 8)Google Scholar notes that railway mileage in Illinois rose from 110 in 1850 to 2, 868 in 1860 and adds: “There were few prominent figures in Illinois politics who did not have close ties with the railroad interest.”

66 Herndon, W. H. to Washburne, E. B., 10 Feb. 1858Google ScholarElihu B. Washburne Papers, Library of Congress.

67 This was recognized in pre-election planning and in the post-mortem following Republican defeat for the legislature. Johnson, John O to Trumbull, 27 Feb. 1858Google Scholar,