| Saturday, August 11, 1855.Springfield, IL. | 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. |