Dear Sir Reaching home yesterday I found your kind note of the 14th. informing me that you have given Mr. Whitney the appointment he desired; and also mentioning the present encouraging aspects of the Republican cause---and our Illinois canvass of last year. I thank you for the appointment. Allow me also to thank you as being one of the very few distinguished men, whose sympathy we in Illinois did receive last year, of all those whose sympathy we thought we had reason to expect.
Of course I would have preferred success; but failing in that, I have no regrets for having rejected all advice to the contrary, and resolutely made the struggle. Had we thrown ourselves into the arms of Douglas, as re-electing him by our votes would have done, the Republican cause would have been anihilated in Illinois, and, as I think, demoralized, and prostrated everywhere for years, if not forever. As it is, in the language of Benton ``we are clean'' and the Republican star gradually rises higher everywhere. Yours truly.
A. LINCOLN