Sunday,
June 27, 1858.Springfield, IL. | Lincoln writes a letter to Charles H. Ray, the editor of the
Chicago Daily Tribune, to complain about an item that appeared in
the previous day's issue. The Chicago Daily Tribune reprinted a
story that originally ran in the June 24, 1858, issue of The Indianapolis
Daily Journal. That item reported on the "Democratic Convention of the
Seventh Congressional District" which was held in Terre Haute, Indiana on June
22. The article focused on the fact that John G. Davis's name "was not
presented to the Convention." Davis is an Anti-Lecompton Democrat member of
Congress from Indiana. The newspaper attributes "much dissatisfaction...among
the Anti-Lecompton men" as the reason for Davis's omission from the ballot.
Lincoln accuses Ray of editorializing in the Chicago Daily
Tribune's reprint of the story. In the reprint, an additional paragraph
follows the original item as it appeared in the Indiana paper. In the added
paragraph, the writer asserts that even though Davis is an Anti-Lecompton
Democrat, he has "proved true and faithful, and acted with the Republicans all
through the session." The paper urges Republicans in Indiana's Seventh District
to vote for his re-election to Congress. Lincoln accuses Ray of penning the
"editorial" and scolds him for meddling in Indiana's political business: "How,
in God's name, do you let such paragraphs into the Tribune, as the enclosed cut
from that paper of yesterday?...What right have you to interfere in Indiana,
more than they in Illinois? And what possible argument can be made why all
Republicans shall stand out of Hon. John G. Davis' way, in his district in
Indiana, that can not be made why all Republicans in Illinois shall stand out
of Hon. S.A. Douglas' way?...I confess it astonishes me." Abraham Lincoln
to Charles H. Ray, 27 June 1858, Cantigny, Colonel Robert R. McCormick Research
Center, Wheaton, IL; Newton Bateman and Paul Selby, eds., Historical
Encyclopedia of Illinois: Cook County Edition (Chicago: Munsell
Publishing, 1905), 442; The Indianapolis Daily Journal (IN), 24
June 1858, 2:2; Biographical Directory of the American Congress,
1774-1949 (Washington, D.C.: United States Printing Office, 1950),
1062; Chicago Daily Tribune (IL), 26 June 1858, 2:1. |