Friday, October 6, 1843.Jacksonville, IL. | Morgan County Whigs pay election bet to Sangamon and other Whigs at
barbecue in Jacksonville. Sangamon gave Hardin twice as great a majority as Morgan in
congressional election. They thus won proposal made by Lincoln to Hardin May 11, 1843.
Speeches are made by Lincoln, Baker, and Matheny of Sangamon, Hardin and Yates of
Morgan, Hay of Pike, and Blackwell of Schuyler.Speech at Whig Barbecue at
Jacksonville, Illinois, 6 October 1843, CW, 1:329-30. "Register" reports: "Yesterday came off the long expected Coon jubilee; and
if there ever was a failure, I think that will be conceded to have been one. . . .
[Baker] was succeeded in the evening by himself and another valiant man [Lincoln], who
once attempted to frighten an Irishman with a broadsword, and who, when he found that
impracticable, procured his friends to manage `an amicable adjustment'."Register, 20 October 1843. A Chicago Democratic paper takes another tack. "Many `reformed drunkards,'
Washingtonians, were present, and it being a party affair, all got gloriously drunk
together. . . . It was unquestionably the most disgraceful affair that ever happened in
our state."Chicago Democrat, in Register, 3 November
1843. |