Lincoln votes in special election for city constable required by the death of Horace Williams. Voters select James W. Hampton from among eight candidates as the new constable. Election Returns for Springfield in Sangamon County, Illinois, 11 August 1855, Illinois Regional Archives Depository, University of Illinois Springfield, Springfield, IL; Illinois Daily Journal (Springfield), 11 August 1855, 2:6; 13 August 1855, 3:1.

Lincoln writes to abolitionist and State Representative Owen Lovejoy, of Princeton, Illinois. Lovejoy had written to Lincoln and apparently expressed a desire to bring together the various political parties in opposition to slavery's expansion. Lincoln replies, "Not even you are more anxious to prevent the extension of slavery than I; and yet the political atmosphere is such, just now, that I fear to do any thing, lest I do wrong...I have no objection to 'fuse' with any body provided I can fuse on ground which I think is right." Abraham Lincoln to Owen Lovejoy, 11 August 1855, CW, 2:316-17.