Lincoln writes to attorney Gustave P. Koerner of Belleville, Illinois. Lincoln asks Koerner, a native of Germany and a former Illinois Supreme Court justice and Lieutenant Governor, if he might arrange for fellow native-German Friedrich K.F. Hecker to "address the germans, at this place, and a few others at least." Lincoln writes that "one of our german republicans here" has recently approached him about the possibility of getting Hecker to speak to the Germans living in "this region." Hecker, a former German revolutionary, is a lawyer by training and farms in Summerville, Illinois, located near Belleville. Lincoln also writes that he has "just returned from Chicago" and gives his impressions of a reception held there for his political opponent, Stephen A. Douglas: "I was present at his reception in Chicago, and it certainly was very large and imposing; but judging from the opinions of others better acquainted with faces there, and by the strong call for me to speak, when he closed, I really believe we could have voted him down in that very crowd. Our meeting, twentyfour hours after, called only twelve hours before it came together and got up without trumpery, was nearly as large, and five times as enthusiastic." Lincoln also writes to attorney William H. Hanna of Bloomington in answer to Hanna's letter of July 13. Hanna wrote to inform Lincoln that Douglas is scheduled to be in Bloomington on Friday, July 16, should Lincoln decide to come to Bloomington as well. Lincoln writes, "No accident preventing, I will be with you Friday afternoon and evening." Abraham Lincoln to Gustave P. Koerner, 15 July 1858, CW, 2:502-3; John M. Palmer, The Bench and Bar of Illinois (Chicago: Lewis Publishing, 1899), 1:47-50; John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, American National Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 10:486-87; Abraham Lincoln to William H. Hanna, 15 July 1858, CW, 2:502; Bloomington Daily Pantagraph (IL), 8 August 1870, 2:1; William H. Hanna to Abraham Lincoln, 13 July 1858, Robert Todd Lincoln Collection of Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.