Annotation
[1] Illinois State Register, December 1, 1849. The Democratic Register, in reprinting this letter, editorialized that Lincoln ``does not touch the principal point at issue . . . that Messrs. Ewing and Butterfield are popular with their own party in this state. The reverse of this assumption is too notoriously true to be deliberately disputed, by even as ardent a whig politician as Mr. Lincoln. Having been, and doubtless being, an applicant for the favors of the cabinet, he could not prudently say less than he has done in the above letter. . . . Hence his certificate amounts to nothing. . . .''
[2] The Chicago Journal, November 14, printed a portion of a speech delivered by Usher F. Linder in the legislature on November 2, attacking Thomas Ewing as an aristocrat ``unsuited to wield the immense patronage placed in his hands.'' He expressed the general sentiment of Illinois Whigs against the appointment of Justin Butterfield as commissioner of the General Land Office in disregard of the ``almost unanimous wish of . . . the whig people of Illinois.'' The editor of the Chicago Journal was Charles L. Wilson.