To James Berdan1Jump to section
Dear Sir: April 26th 1846
I thank you for the promptness with which you answered my letter written from Bloomington.2Jump to section I also thank you for the frankness with which you comment upon a certain part of my letter; because that comment affords me an oppertunity of trying to express myself better than I did before, seeing, as I do, that in that part of my letter, you have not understood me as I intended to be understood. In speaking of the ``dissatisfaction of men who yet mean to do no wrong &c.'' I meant no special application of what I said, to the whigs of Morgan, or of Morgan & Scott. I only had in my mind the fact, that previous to Genl. Hardin's withdrawal, some of his friends and some of mine, had become a little warm; and I felt, and meant to say, that for them now to meet face to face and converse together, was the best way to efface any remnant of unpleasant feeling, if any such existed. I did not suppose, that Genl. Hardin's friends were in any greater need of having their feelings corrected than mine were. Since I saw you at Jacksonville, I have had no more suspicion of the whigs of Morgan than of those of any other part of the District.
I write this only to try to remove any impression that I distrust, you & the other whigs of your county.3Jump to section Yours truly
A. LINCOLN
Annotation
[1] ALS-P, ISLA. Berdan was a lawyer of Jacksonville, Illinois.
[2] Lincoln was in Bloomington attending court, April 20-23.
[3] Morgan County Whigs continued, however, to rebel against the convention system of nominating candidates which their favorite son John J. Hardin opposed.