To Joseph Gillespie1Jump to section
My dear Sir July 25. 1858.
Your doleful letter of the 18th. was received on my return from Chicago last night. I do hope you are worse scared than hurt, though you ought to know best. We must not lose that district. We must make a job of it, and save it. Lay hold of the proper agencies and secure all the Americans you can, at once. I do hope, on closer inspection, you will find they are not half gone. Make a little test. Run down one of the poll-books of the Edwardsville precinct, and take the first hundred known American names. Then quietly ascertain how many of them are actually going for Douglas. I think you will find less than fifty. But even if you find find [sic] fifty, make sure of the other fifty---that is, make sure of all you can at all events. We will set other agencies to work, which shall compensate for the loss of a good many Americans. Dont fail to check the stampede at once. Trumbull, I think will be with you before long. There is much he can not do, and some he can. I have reason to hope there will be other help of an appropriate kind. Write me again. Yours as ever A. LINCOLN---
Annotation
[1] ALS-P, ISLA. See Lincoln to Gillespie, July 16, supra. Gillespie had replied on July 18 (DLC-RTL) that Douglas would carry at least half of the American (Know-Nothing) votes in the district for the Democratic candidate for the state senate, not because they were in favor of Douglas' politics, but because they felt Gillespie had been in the state senate long enough. The German Republicans