the evening of the day in 1858 that decided the contest for the Senate between Mr. Douglas and myself, was dark, rainy and gloomy. I had been reading the returns (in the telegraph office), and had ascertained that we had lost the Legislature, and started to go home. The path had been worn pegbacked and was slippery. My foot slipped out from under me, knocking the other out of the way; but I recovered and said to myself, "It's a slip and not a fall.”

6th. Enthusiastic meeting at Mansfield, Ohio, proposes Lincoln as next Republican candidate for President. Despite his defeat by Douglas his conduct in the debate has fixed upon him the eyes of the whole nation.

16th. (To N. B. Judd.) Yours of the 15th is just received. I wrote you the same day. As to the pecuniary matter, I am willing to pay according to my ability; but I am the poorest hand living to get others to pay. I have been on expenses so long without earning anything that I am absolutely without money now for even household purposes. Still if you can put in two hundred and fifty dollars for me toward discharging the debt of the committee, I will allow it when you and I settle the private matter between us. This, with what I have already paid, and with an outstanding note of mine, will exceed my subscription of five hundred dollars. This, too, is exclusive of my ordinary expenses during the campaign, all of which being added to my loss of time and business, bears pretty heavily upon one no better off in [this] world's goods than I; but as I had the post of honor, it is not for me to be over nice. You are feeling badly—“And this too shall pass away," never fear.

19th. Well, the election is over; and, in the main point, we are beaten. Still my view is that the fight must go on. Let no one falter. The question is not half settled. New splits and

divisions will soon be upon our adversaries, and we shall fuse again.

As a general rule, out of Sangamon as well as in it, much of the plain old Democracy is with us, while nearly all the old exclusive silk-stocking Whiggery is against us. I don't mean nearly all the Old Whig party, but nearly all of the nice exclusive sort. And why not? There has been nothing in politics since the Revolution so congenial to their nature as the present position of the great Democratic party.

I am glad I made the late race. It gave me a hearing on the great and durable question of the age, which I could have had in no other way; and though I now sink out of view, and shall be forgotten, I believe I have made some marks which will tell for the cause of civil liberty long after I am gone.

20th. (To Dr. C. H. Ray.) I believe, according to a letter of yours to Hatch, you are "feeling like hell yet." Quit that. You will soon feel better. Another "blow up" is coming; and we shall have fun again. Douglas managed to be supported both as the best instrument to put down and to uphold the slave power; but no ingenuity can long keep the antagonism in harmony.

December 2nd. I am absent altogether too much to be a suitable instructor for a law student. When a man has reached the age that Mr. Widner has, and has already been doing for himself, my judgment is, that he reads the books for himself without an instructor. That is precisely the way I came to the law. Let Mr. Widner read Blackstone's Commentaries, and Chitty's Pleadings, Greenleaf's Evidence, Story's Equity, and Story's Equity Pleadings, get a license, and go to the practise, and still keep reading. That is my judgment of the cheapest, quickest, and best way for Mr. Widner to make a lawyer of himself.

IIth. Douglas has gone South, making characteristic speeches, and seeking to reinstate himself in that section. The

majority of the Democratic politicians of the nation mean to kill him; but I doubt whether they will adopt the aptest way to do it. Their true way is to present him with no new test, let him into the Charleston convention, and then out-vote him, and nominate another. In that case, he will have no pretext for bolting the nomination, and will be as powerless as they can wish. On the other hand, if they push a Slave Code upon him, as a test, he will bolt at once, turn upon us, as in the case of Lecompton, and claim that all Northern men shall make common cause in electing him President as the best means of breaking down the Slave power. In that case, the Democratic party go into a minority inevitably; and the struggle in the whole North will be, as it was in Illinois last summer and fall, whether the Republican party can maintain its identity, or be broken up to form the tail of Douglas's new kite. Some of our great Republican doctors will then have a splendid chance to swallow the pills they so eagerly prescribed for us last spring. Still I hope they will not swallow them; and although I do not feel that I owe the said doctors much, I will help them, to the best of my ability, to reject the said pills. The truth is, the Republican principle can in no wise live with Douglas; and it is arrant folly now, as it was last spring, to waste time, and scatter labor already performed, in dallying with him.

12th. I expect the result of the election went hard with you. So it did with me, too, perhaps not quite so hard as you may have supposed. I have an abiding faith that we shall beat them in the long run.

1859

Though confident that his party is growing in strength, he opens the new year despondent about his own prospects. He appears to put little value upon the applause called forth by the debates.

January 6th. Well, whatever happens I expect every one to desert me now but Billy Herndon.

29th. Our friends here from different parts of the State, in and out of the Legislature, are united, resolute, and determined and I think it is almost certain that we shall be far better organized for 1860 than ever before.

Other people by no means think Lincoln a dead dog. Trumbull fears a contest with him over Trumbull's place in the Senate.

February 3rd. (To Lyman Trumbull.) And I beg to assure you, beyond all possible cavil, that you can scarcely be more anxious to be sustained two years hence than I am that you shall be so sustained. I can not conceive it possible for me to be a rival of yours, or to take sides against you in favor of any rival. Nor do I think there is much danger of the old Democratic and Whig elements of our party breaking into opposing factions. They certainly shall not, if I can prevent it.

Again his profession demands his time.

At last I am here to give some attention to the suit of Haines vs. Talcott and others.

3rd. (To one of his clients.) I do not think there is the least use of doing any more with the law suit. I not only do not think you are sure to gain it, but I do think you are sure to lose it. Therefore the sooner it ends the better.

He has evidence that his political reputation still lives.

5th. Springfield.

(To Thomas J. Pickett.) Yours of the 2nd instant, inviting me to deliver my lecture on "Inventions" in Rock Island, is at hand, and I regret to be unable from press of business to comply therewith. In regard to the other matter you speak of, I beg that you will not give it a further mention. Seriously, I do not think I am fit for Presidency.

It is proposed to publish his speeches.

26th. (To William A. Ross.) I would really be pleased with a publication substantially as you proposed. But I would suggest a few variations from your plan. I would not include the Republican platform; because that would give the work a one-sided party cast, unless the Democratic platform is also included.

I would not take all the speeches from the Press-Tribune; but I would take mine from that paper; and those of Judge Douglas from the Chicago Times.

My scrap book would be the best thing to print from; still, as it cost me a good deal of labor to get it up, and I am very desirous to preserve the substance of it permanently, I would not let it go out of my control. If an arrangement could be made to print it in Springfield, under my supervision, I would allow the scrap book to be used, and would claim no share in any profit that could be made out of the publication.

28th. (To William M. Morris.) Your note inviting me