33 of 144 lots
33
Autograph letter signed (\"A. Lincoln\") to Jesse O. Norton, 16 February 1855.
Estimate: $120,000-$180,000
Sold
$180,000
Live Auction
Lincoln’s Legacy: Historic Americana from the Life of Abraham Lincoln
Location
Chicago
Description

LINCOLN, Abraham (1809-1865). Autograph letter signed ("A. Lincoln") to Jesse O. Norton. Springfield, Illinois, 16 February 1855.



4 full pp. on bifolium (comprising 853 words); 9 3/4 x 7 3/4 in. (248 x 197 mm); creasing from old folds; docketed in fore-edge of final page; small repaired hole in upper fold of first leaf, affecting approximately two words.

IN ONE OF THE LONGEST LINCOLN LETTERS TO COME TO AUCTION IN DECADES, LINCOLN DISSECTS HIS LOSS FOR A SEAT IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE AND SETS THE STAGE FOR HIS POLITICAL FUTURE.

A significant and revealing political letter from Abraham Lincoln regarding his first and unsuccessful run for a United States Senate seat. Written to ally and legislator Jesse O. Norton a week after the February 8th election in the Illinois legislature, Lincoln refers to himself as "quite convalescent", and gives a detailed account of the up and down balloting and political intrigue that resulted in his electoral loss:

"My Dear Sir: I have now been beaten one day over a week; and I am very happy to find myself quite convalescent—Your kind letter of the 20th of Jany I did not receive till the day before yesterday—owing, I suppose to our great snow-storm—The day after the election I wrote Washburne the particulars, tolerably fully—Through the untiring efforts of friends, among whom yourself and Washburne were chief; I finally surmounted the difficulty with the extreme Anti-slavery men, and got all their votes, Lovejoy’s included– Cook, Judd, Palmer, and Baker of Alton were the men who never could vote for a whig; and without the votes of two of whom, I never could reach the requisite number to make an election—I do not mean that I actually got within two votes of the required number; but I easily enough could have done so, provided I could have assured my friends that two of the above named four would go for me—In this connection it is necessary to bear in mind that your Senator Osgood, together with Don: Morrison, Kinney & Trapp of St Clair had openly gone over to the enemy—It was Govr Matteson’s manoevering (sic) that forced upon me and my friends the necessity of surrendering to Trumbull– He made his first successful hit by tampering with Old man Strunk– ^Strunk was pledged to me, which Matteson knew; bu(t) he succeeded in persuading him that I stood no chance of an election, and in getting a pledge from him to go for him as a second choice—He next made similar impressions on Hills of Du Page, Parks of your town and Strawn & Day of LaSalle—at least we saw strong signs that he had, and they being old democrats, and I an old whig, I could get no sufficient access to them to sound them to the bottom– That Matteson assured the Nebraska democrats he could get their men, after they should have made a respectable show by voting a few ballots for other men, I think there is no doubt; and by holding up to their greedy eyes this amount of capital in our ranks, it was, that he induced the Nebraska men to drop Shields and take him en masse— The Nebraska men, since Osgood’s and Don’s defection, had control of the Senate; and they refused to pass the resolution for going into the election till three hours before the joint session was to, and did in fact, commence—One of the Nebraska senators has since told me that they only passed the resolution when they did, upon being privately assured by the Governor that he had it all safe—I have omitted to say that it was well understood Baker would vote for Trumbull, ^but would go over to Matteson rather than me—Passing over the first eight ballots which you have doubtless seen when, on the ninth, Matteson had 47—having every Nebraska man, and old man Strunk besides, and wanting but three of an election; and when the looser sort of my friends had gone over to Trumbull, and raised him to 35 and reduced me to 15, it struck me that Hills, Parks, Strawn, Day, and Baker, or at least some three of them would go over from Trumbull to Matteson & elect him on the tenth ballot, unless they should be kept on T. by seeing my remaining men coming on to him—I accordingly gave the intimation which my friends acted upon, electing T. that ballot—All were taken by surprise, Trumbull quite as much as any one else. There was no pre-concert about it—in fact I think a pre-concert to that effect could not have been made—The heat of the battle, and imminent danger of Matteson’s election were indispensably necessary to the result—I know that few, if any, of my remaining 15 men would have gone over from me without my direction; and I gave the direction, simultaneously with forming the resolution to do it—It is not true, as might appear by the first ballot, that Trumbull had only five friends who preferred him to me—I know the leanings of all the men tolerably well; and my opinion is, that if the 51 who elected him, were compelled to a naked expression of preference between him and me, he would at the outside, have 16 and I would have the remainder—And this again would depend substantially upon the fact that his 16 came from the old democratic ranks & the remainder from the whigs—Such as preferred him, yet voted for me on the first ballottings and so on the idea that a minority, among friends, ought not to stand out against a majority—Lest you might receive a different impression, I wish to say I hold Judge Parks in very high estimation; believing him to be neither knave or fool, but decidedly the reverse of both– Now, as I have called names so freely, you will of course consider this confidential—Your much obliged– &c–
A. Lincoln."

The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in the spring of 1854 effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise, convulsed the nation on the question of slavery, and motivated Lincoln to return to active political life. The “Nebraska Bill” was largely advanced by Lincoln's rival, Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas, and provided for the organization of the Nebraska and Kansas Territories and allowed for the doctrine of popular sovereignty, which called for the territories' voting population to determine for themselves whether to allow or disallow slavery within their borders. Considered one of the most controversial legislative acts in American history, Kansas-Nebraska portended slavery's expansion and in turn, made the 1854-1855 elections in Illinois a referendum on Douglas and popular sovereignty. In the lead-up to the fall 1854 election, Lincoln vigorously campaigned on behalf of Whig ally Richard Yates’ reelection bid for Congress. In speeches Lincoln gave across Illinois, he deepened his views against slavery and its expansion and gained a new popularity in the state, where he was himself drafted as a candidate for the Illinois Assembly.

Those fall elections saw Anti-Nebraska candidates achieve a slim majority in the Illinois General Assembly, and Lincoln win a legislative seat. When the Assembly was scheduled to reconvene in January 1855, they would select a Senator for the upcoming 34th Congress. Sensing an opportunity for the anti-Nebraska opposition to unseat incumbent Democratic senator James Shields—a Douglas ally, Kansas-Nebraska supporter, and personal enemy of Lincoln’s (the two nearly dueled in 1842)—Lincoln declined his newly won seat and set his sights on the Senate.

Despite their majority, the Anti-Nebraska opposition in Illinois was fractured—comprised of splintering Whigs, disaffected Democrats, and emergent Republicans. Lincoln knew that his chances of success were slim without building a coalition of these various groups, and he tirelessly lobbied over the winter of 1854-55 to gain support from them for his election. Through theuntiring efforts of friends”, chief among them this letter’s recipient, Whig Jesse Olds Norton, by early February 1855, Lincoln had secured the anti-Nebraska caucus candidacy. He was, however, short of the majority of votes needed to win in the upcoming election.

When the joint session of the Illinois legislature finally met after much delay on 8 February 1855, Lincoln led the first ballot with 45 votes to Shields’ 41, with the remainder spread among other candidates. Lincoln’s ascent was stalled, as he describes, by several anti-slavery Democrats, “Cook, Judd, Palmer, and Baker of Alton…men who never could vote for a whig; and without the votes of two of whom…I never could reach the requisite number to make an election”. These men withheld their votes for anti-Nebraska Democrat Lyman Trumbull. The balloting remained largely the same until the seventh, when the Democrats “en masse” switched their support from Shields to Illinois Governor Joel A. Matteson, who had in the weeks leading up to the election quietly whipped votes for his own candidacy by ingratiating himself with both sides of the Kansas-Nebraska divide, in some cases through purported bribery. Lincoln, who had become aware of Matteson’s plot, reveals his scorn for the governor’s "manoevering" and "tampering" that infected almost every stage of the contest, from the delay in the meeting of the session so Matteson could shore up his support, to influencing defections among Lincoln's supporters, like John Strunk, "persuading him that I stood no chance of an election". In turn, Matteson flexed his influence on pro-Nebraska Democrats, "holding up to their greedy eyes this amount of capital in our ranks” and “induced the Nebraska men to drop Shields and take him en masse", after a "respectable showing."

By the ninth ballot, Lincoln's numbers had dwindled to 15, while Matteson's had risen to 47, and Trumbull's to 35–many switching from Lincoln to Trumbull in the belief that Lincoln could not be elected. Lincoln sensed that his window for victory had closed, and “that Hills, Parks, Strawn, Day, and Baker, or at least some three of them would go over from Trumbull to Matteson & elect him on the tenth ballot.” Swallowing his pride, Lincoln then made the difficult decision and urged his remaining supporters to go over to Trumbull. On the tenth ballot, with Lincoln’s supporters, Trumbull won—“All were taken by surprise, Trumbull quite as much as any one else."

Trumbull's win was a rebuke of Douglas and evidence of the new political alignments taking shape in response to Kansas-Nebraska—that would mark the collapse of the Whigs and the split of the Democrats, and that would help foster the rise of the Republican Party. At the moment, for Lincoln and his supporters, his loss was bitter and unexpected. Despite this, in the coming weeks and months as Lincoln mulled his political future, he kept a stoic public face and gestured support toward Senator Trumbull and held no hard feelings toward the men who supported him. Lincoln’s graciousness is evidenced here, generally in his telling of the election to Norton that heightens his sacrifice to fell a common foe, and specifically as he closes in regards to anti-Nebraska legislator Gavion D.A. Parks—who voted for Lincoln in the first six rounds before switching to Trumbull on the eighth ballot—whom Lincoln still held in “very high estimation; believing him to be neither knave or fool, but decidedly the reverse of both.” Lincoln’s sacrifice and then magnanimity in the face of defeat did not go unnoticed and would pay dividends for his political future, by helping him gain allies and cultivate support in his future electoral pursuits.

As 1855 progressed, Lincoln worked to keep the conservative and radical elements of the anti-Nebraska opposition intact. Meanwhile, violence in “Bloody Kansas” reached alarming heights, and as a result, Lincoln’s stance against slavery and the Kansas Nebraska bill deepened. While Lincoln maintained his identification as a Whig into 1855, the party drifted into irrelevancy, and warmed him to the rising Republican Party that was making deep inroads in Illinois. By 1856 Lincoln came to embrace the Republicans, and by the end of the year emerged as the Illinois Republican Party’s leading figure. In May 1856, he gave the main speech at the Bloomington Convention that marked the establishment of the Republicans in Illinois. As historians have pointed out, Lincoln’s loss in this 1855 election cleared the path for him to take on Douglas for his senate seat in 1858, which would be a springboard for Lincoln's national prominence, and eventually, the presidency.

This remarkable letter, showcasing Lincoln’s astute political realism, marks a crucial period and turning point in his political career—and the setting of the stage for his future. Previously unknown, and only recently published in full, Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer has considered this one of the best political letters ever written by Lincoln. Basler, Second Supplement pp. 9-11.

Provenance:

Previously sold, Sotheby's, 25 April 1989, lot 72

Louise Taper, Beverly Hills, California

Exhibition:

The Last Best Hope of Earth: Abraham Lincoln and the Promise of America, at the Huntington Library, October 1993-August 1994

Abraham Lincoln: A Personal Journey, at the Gerald Ford Presidential Library, 12 October 2001-18 February 2002


Property from the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Foundation


This lot is located in Chicago.