To Elihu B. Washburne1Jump to section
My dear Sir May 27-1858-
Yours requesting me to return you the now some what noted ``Charley Wilson letter''2Jump to section is received; and I herewith return that letter.
Political matters just now bear a very mixed and incongruous aspect. For several days the signs have been that Douglas and the President had probably burned [sic] the hatchet, Doug's friends at Washington going over to the President's side, and his friends here & South of here, talking as if there never had been any serious difficulty, while the President himself does nothing for his own peculiar friends here. But this morning my partner, Mr. Herndon, receives a letter from Mr. Medill of the Chicago Tribune, showing the writer to be in great alarm at the prospect North of Republicans going over to Douglas, on the idea that Douglas is going to assume steep free-soil ground, and furiously assail the administration on the stump when he comes home. There certainly is a double game being played some how. Possibly---even probably---Douglas is temporarily deceiving the President in order to crush out the 8th. of June convention here. Unless he plays his double game more successfully than we have often seen done, he can not carry many republicans North, without at the same time losing a larger number of his old friends South.
Let this be confidential. Yours as ever A. LINCOLN