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To the Editor of the Central Transcript1Jump to section
Dear Sir: July 3, 1859
Your paper of the 1st. which I presume you sent me is received. Put me on your subscription list, and I will pay at fall court.
I cut a slip from this number and return it with a word of comment. I shall heartily support for Governor whoever shall be nominated by a Republican State convention; and no one more heartily than any one of the five you name. But is not the fling you make at our Northern bretheren both unjust to them, and dangerous to our cause? You open by saying, ``A strong controversy is going on between the Chicago papers as to who shall be the next Republican nominee for Governor.'' I was unaware of this. I have not seen in any Chicago paper, a man named, or pointed to, whom such paper declares for as it's candidate for Governor. Have you? Again, ought you to say, as you do that ``the matter will be entirely controlled by the Central and Southern portions of the state''? Surely, on reflection, you will agree that the matter must be controlled, in due proportions, by all parts of the State. Again, you say ``The defeat of Mr. Lincoln may be attributed to the course pursued by these Northerners in putting none but the most ultra men on the track, as candidates for the most important state and Federal offices &c.'' This statement is, indeed, strange. The Republican party, since its organization in Illinois, has gone through two general elections---in 1856 and 1858; and ``these Northerners'' have not even had a single candidate for a State office, or a Federal office, commensurate with the state, either residing within their section, or holding their supposed ultra views. In 1856 they put on the track, Bissell, of Bellville, for Governor; Hatch of Pike Co, for Secretary of State; Dubois, of Lawrence Co, for Auditor; Miller, of Bloomington, for Treasurer; Powell of Peoria for School Superintendant; and Wood of Quincy, for Lieutenant Governor; and they elected all of them. In 1858, all these, but two, held over; and one of them, Mr. Miller was again put upon the track; and in lieu of Mr. [Powell,]2Jump to section Mr. Bateman,3Jump to section still further South, was put on the track; and again, both elected. Now, can you, on reflection, say either of these men is an ultra man? or that ``these Northerners'' could have had any peculiarly selfish reason for supporting them? Another very marked fact is that ``these Northerners'' in the two past elections, gave nearly all the votes which carried them; and that the next election will be lost, unless ``these Northerners'' do the same thing again. Your fling about men entangled with the