Lincoln answers letter from J. M. Sturtevant, President of Illinois College, urging him to become candidate for Congress. "Let me assure you," he says, "that I decline to be a candidate for congress, on my clear conviction, that my running would hurt, & not help the cause. I am willing to make any personal sacrafice, but I am not willing to do, what in my own judgment, is, a sacrafice of the cause itself." Abraham Lincoln to Julian M. Sturtevant, 27 September 1856, CW, 2:378-79.