New Light from a Lincoln Letter
On the Story of the Publication
Of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates
By ROBERT S. HARPER*
AN ABRAHAM LINCOLN LETTER that adds another
link to
the chain of known events that led to
publication in Columbus
in 1860 of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates
lies unheralded in
the library of the Ohio Historical
Society. It sheds a little
more light on what David C. Mearns,
chief of the manu-
scripts division of the Library of
Congress, Lincoln authority,
and historian, describes as
"mysteries undispelled" in the
political winds that swirled around the
Ohio capital in the
fateful election year that saw a
president named on the eve
of the Civil War.1 It also suggests
possible evidence of the
long-hinted existence of a second
scrapbook of the debates
which has plagued historians for years.
The joint debates brought Lincoln and
Douglas face to face
at Ottawa, Freeport, Jonesboro,
Charleston, Galesburg,
Quincy, and Alton (in the seven
Illinois congressional dis-
tricts) in the order named, beginning
on August 21, 1858, and
ending on the following October 15.
Historians agree that the
publicity Lincoln gained in that
contest made him a national
figure and put him in line for the
presidential nomination.
Lincoln, alert to the tide running in
his favor, sought to
* Robert S. Harper is public information
officer of the Ohio Historical Society.
1 The Library of Congress, the Alfred
Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana,
The Illinois Political Campaign of
1858: A Facsimile of the Printer's Copy of His
Debates with Senator Stephen Arnold
Douglas as Edited and Prepared for Press
by Abraham Lincoln, Introduction by David C. Mearns (Washington, D. C.,
1958). Hereafter cited as Mearns.
178 THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
capitalize further on the campaign and
tried unsuccessfully
to have the speeches put in book form.
Not until after he
had participated in Ohio's
gubernatorial contest of 1859, did
he get more than a nibble of interest
in his project. Then
Ohio friends stepped into the picture
with a proposition for
publication that he eagerly endorsed.
Still he faced an enemy
within the Ohio Republican ranks,
Governor Salmon P.
Chase, who saw in Lincoln a threat to
his own ambition to
win the Republican presidential
nomination. Chase, under-
standably, was opposed to anything that
would increase the
political stature of the
Illinois attorney. The Chase plot
against Lincoln is referred to in the correspondence
that
arranged publication of the debates in
Columbus.
The Ohio Historical Society letter is a
copy of an original
written by Lincoln to Samuel Galloway2
of Columbus on
December 19, 1859. It is in the
Galloway Collection, which
was presented to the Ohio Historical
Society in 1945 by
Professor James O. Lord of the Ohio
State University
faculty. Wrapped securely in a
carefully folded sheet of
protective paper, the letter bears this
explanation in quotation
marks at the bottom of the foolscap on
which it was written:
"'Copied accurately from original
Apl. 26, '65.'"3 The copy
2 Samuel Galloway (1811-1872) was born
in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and
moved to Greenfield, Ohio, when about
eighteen. He was graduated at Miami
University and for a year attended
Princeton Theological Seminary, there develop-
ing an interest in the affairs of the
Presbyterian Church that continued through
his life. He taught at Miami and at
Hanover College, later studied law, and
formed a partnership with Nathaniel
Massie at Chillicothe in 1843. He served as
secretary of state of Ohio, 1844-50, and
was elected to congress as a Whig in
1854. He was defeated for reelection by
Samuel S. (Sunset) Cox. He served as
judge advocate of Camp Chase, Columbus,
by appointment of President Lincoln.
In 1871 he was defeated for the
Republican gubernatorial nomination in Ohio by
Rutherford B. Hayes.
3 The significance of the letter was
noted by this writer while searching the
Galloway Collection for information on
President-elect Lincoln's visit to Columbus
in 1861. Galloway joined the Lincoln
party aboard the special train on the
Cincinnati-Columbus section of the
journey to Washington and was reported by
the press as standing beside the
president-elect while he spoke from the train
at towns enroute.
A LINCOLN LETTER 179
is in Galloway's handwriting.4 The
letter was marked
"private." The text follows:
Springfield Ill Dec. 19. 1859
Private:
Hon Saml Galloway:
This will introduce my friend, Mr.
George Nicolay who will deliver
to you the copies of the debates you
desire. As they cost a good deal of
trouble to get them together, some of us
have concluded to send them by
him at our own expense, rather than risk
their loss by any public con-
veyance. He is a printer I believe &
certainly has conducted a newspaper,
and can give you something of my views a
little more in detail than I
could write them. And also some
mechanical assistance in getting the
thing started. He will remain a few days
at our expense for that purpose.
You will perceive the copies in one of
the shapes sent are in a scrap
book, as they stood there, precisely in
the shape I would prefer the
publication to be made in; but as that
includes, with the joint debates,
six previously made speeches, and the
correspondence which led to the
joint debates it may make a larger job
than you wish to undertake.
These six speeches however are so
frequently referred to as the joint
debates, as to make them a very proper
if not indispensable accompani-
ment. If however you publish the joint
debates only, then it is my wish
to preserve the scrap book unbroken, and
for the contingency Mr.
Nicolay will furnish you another double
set of the joint debates, so that
Douglas's speeches may be taken from the
paper friendly to him, and
mine from that friendly to me. Of course
I wish the whole to be accu-
rately done, but especially let there be
no color of complaint, that a
word, or letter in Douglas' speeches has
been changed. Allow me to
add that I esteem the compliment paid me
in this matter, as the very
highest I have ever received, and to
assure the other kind friends that it
shall ever be held in grateful
remembrance. Still, I think it would be
indelicate in me to publish the
correspondence. You can do that if you
desire.
Yours Very Truly
A. Lincoln
P.S. I forgot to say in the proper
place, that the copies of the Columbus
& Cincinnati speeches are a
correction by me.
A.L.
4 This statement is supported by
Margaret A. Flint, a noted Lincoln expert
who is assistant state historian at the
Illinois State Historical Library, Spring-
field. After examination of a
photostatic copy of the letter, she concluded that
it "is a copy of an authentic
[Lincoln] letter, hitherto unknown." Letter to the
author, August 19, 1958.
180 THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
P.S. Mr. Nicolay is a good Republican,
and a good man, and worthy of
any confidence that may be bestowed
upon him.
"Copied accurately from original
Apl. 26, '65"5
On the same day that Lincoln wrote this
"private" letter
to friend Galloway, he wrote another,
obviously for publi-
cation, to "Messrs. Geo. M.
Parsons and others, Central Ex-
ecutive Committee, etc.":
Gentlemen -- Your letter of the 7th inst., accompanied by a
similar
one from the Governor elect, the
Republican State officers, and the Re-
publican members of the State Board of
Equalization of Ohio, both
requesting of me, for publication in
permanent form, copies of the politi-
cal debates between Senator Douglas and
myself last year, has been
received. With my grateful
acknowledgments to both you and them for
the very flattering terms in which the
request is communicated, I trans-
mit you the copies. The copies I send
you are as reported and printed,
by the respective friends of Senator
Douglas and myself, at the time--
that is, his by his friends, and mine
by mine. It would be an unwarrant-
able liberty for us to change a word or
letter in his, and the changes I
have made in mine, you perceive, are verbal
only, and very few in
number. I wish the reprint to be
precisely as the copies I send, without
any comment whatever. Yours, very
truly, A. Lincoln6
Lincoln's "private" letter to
Galloway indicates that he
thought the book would be put into production
as soon as
Nicolay delivered it in Columbus. It
was not to be that easy.
Nicolay, then a young clerk in the
office of the secretary of
state of Illinois, arrived in Columbus
on the evening of
December 20, 1859. He wrote home that
he was "kindly
received and well treated," but he
was told that nothing could
be done toward publication of the
debates until after the Ohio
legislature convened in January. He was
promised, however,
that the "correspondence,"
that is, the letters exchanged
5 The Galloway Collection was received
by Professor Lord from his cousin,
the late Frank Osborn of Put-in-Bay,
Ohio, who was a grandson of Samuel
Galloway. Osborn's mother was Mary
Galloway.
6 Quoted in Political Debates between
Hon. Abraham Lincoln and Hon. Stephen
A. Douglas, in the Celebrated
Campaign of 1858, in Illinois (Columbus:
Follett,
Foster and Company, 1860), [iv].
A LINCOLN LETTER 181
between Lincoln and Parsons agreeing on
publication, would
soon be released to the press.7
Word of the delay was bad news to
Lincoln. He was im-
patient for publication because of the
approaching Republican
convention in May, and he was sensitive
to the value of the
book to his political future. A
publishing firm in his own
home town of Springfield had refused to
publish it, and other
plans to issue it in Illinois had
collapsed.8 Columbus appears,
indeed, to have been the last hope.
Lincoln must have allowed
his impatience at the delay to become
known to Parsons. On
January 17, 1860, Parsons wrote a
letter of reassurance to
Lincoln saying:
I have information from Mr. Galloway
that he had a letter from you
relative to the publication of your
addresses, &c. The project was taken
up here in earnest, & we will all
be very sorry, if you, or your friends,
have at any time apprehended that it
was to be dropped. As soon as
practicable, after Mr. Nicolay
delivered the copy, the Committee entered
into the necessary negotiations with
the publishers of this city. There
has necessarily been some delay, but
none that could be avoided. We
have about a week since concluded a
contract with Follett, Foster & Co.,
who undertake to publish the copy
furnished, in suitable style, at their
own risk, and agree to fill any single
order for 5,000 copies, at 50 cts.
per copy. . . . The publication will be
announced in the Journal of
tomorrow or the next day. The book we
are assured will be out very
soon.9
Not until January 23 did the Ohio
State Journal publish
"the correspondence preliminary to
the publication of the able
speeches of Hon. Abraham Lincoln by the
enterprising house
of Follett, Foster & Co., of this
city." An official of the
printing firm, Richard P. L. Baber,
sent Lincoln by express
twenty copies of the Journal in
which the announcement ap-
peared, for distribution "amongst
the Illinois press."10
7 Nicolay to Ozias M. Hatch, December
21, 1859, quoted in Mearns, 9.
8 Mearns, 6. The Springfield firm was
Johnson and Bradford. It notified Lincoln
of the rejection by letter on March 21,
1859.
9 Quoted in Mearns, 10.
10 Baber to Lincoln, January 25, 1860,
quoted in Mearns, 11.
182
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Galloway was relieved that this much at
least had been ac-
complished. Writing to Lincoln the day after the
publicity
was released, he blamed the Chase
forces for the delay:
We have at last succeeded in securing
the publication of the corre-
spondence. Our action has been
interrupted by the absence of Mr.
Baber, and more specially by
difficulties interposed by the fears, sus-
picions and envying of some sensitive
friends of a certain aspirant for the
Presidency. It is not important that you
should have the details of these
hindrances. Had Mr. Baber been at home,
these annoyances would have
been speedily terminated. He quickly and
successfully defeated the
designs of one or two double-dealing men
after his return. Since the
measure has been accomplished all appear
to be satisfied. The publica-
tion of the debates is rapidly
progressing--and it will be well executed.
Messrs. Follett & Foster who are
doing the work will take a special
interest in securing a creditable
performance. You have a host of friends
in this region and the number is
gradually . . . multiplying. You have
a very efficient friend in Mr. Baber who
is superintending the publication
of the debates, and who will secure a
full circulation of the work as soon
as it is issued from the press.11
The course taken by the book after that
date is somewhat
unclear. The American Publishers' Circular and Literary
Gazette for February 4, 1860, stated that the volume was
"in
press." On February 21, William T.
Bascom, secretary of
the Republican state central committee,
told Lincoln, "The
vol. of debates is nearly
finished," and "it will be issued about
March 1."12
Bascom enclosed in his letter a promotion cir-
cular that promised publication of the
book "early in March."
Meanwhile, in Springfield, Lincoln was
telling a friend
who wrote for a copy of the book that
he understood "they
will not be out before March."13
He had reason to fear by
this time that Senator Douglas' friends
might steal a march
on him and publish the same book. James
W. Sheahan, editor
of the Democratic Chicago Times, a
Douglas organ, divulged
11 Galloway to Lincoln, January 24,
1860, quoted in Mearns, 11.
12 Bascom
to Lincoln, February 21, 1860, quoted in Mearns, 12-13.
13 Lincoln
to A. Jonas, February 4, 1860, in Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected
Works of Abraham Lincoln (New Brunswick, N. J., 1953), III, 516.
A LINCOLN LETTER 183
this in a written request to Lincoln
for copies of his speeches.14
Lincoln artfully dodged the request by
promptly replying, "I
have no such copies at my control;
having sent the only sett
[sic] I ever had to Ohio."15
Proofs were struck off as early as
January 30, according
to a letter from Parsons to Lincoln,16
and Bascom was reading
the last chapter by February 21.17
But proof of the date of
publication is still lacking, and this
in the face of a book
advertisement by Follett and Foster in
the Ohio State Journal
on March 20. The advertisement read:
Lincoln's and Douglas' Speeches/Popular
Sovereignty and Democ-
racy/vs./Republicanism/One Volume. Royal
Octavo. 288 Pages./The
speeches of Messrs. Douglas and Lincoln
in the great Illinois campaign
of 1858, together with the two speeches
made by Lincoln in Ohio in
1859 have been collected and are now
published in a single volume.
The book, when finally published, bore
this title: Political
Debates/between/Hon. Abraham
Lincoln/and/Hon. Stephen
A. Douglas,/in the Celebrated
Campaign of 1858, in Illinois,
and the correct pagination was 268.
Other titles for it had
been announced, at least two with the
name of Stephen A.
Douglas first! One was in the
"Saturday Press Book List"
of the New York Saturday Press for
April 21, 1860; the
other was in a Follett and Foster
advertisement in the Amer-
ican Publishers' Circular and
Literary Gazette of May 5,
1860. This transposition of names may
have been an eye-
catching device to capitalize on the
Douglas name over that
of the lesser-known Lincoln.
All the evidence boils down to the fact
that the exact date
of publication--the date when books
were actually in the
hands of the public--still is unknown.
Some years ago
Ernest J. Wessen of Mansfield, Ohio,
made a study of the
Debates and argued with sound logic "against the
possibility
of the book having appeared much before
the nomination"
14 Sheahan to Lincoln, January 21, 1860,
quoted in Mearns, 10.
15 Lincoln to Sheahan, January 24, 1860,
in Basler, Collected Works, III, 515.
16 Parsons to Lincoln, January 30, 1860, quoted in Mearns, 12.
17 Bascom to Lincoln, February 21,
1860, quoted in Mearns, 12.
184
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
on May 18, 1860. Mr. Wessen took proper
note of two
copies that are inscribed prior to the
date of the nomination,
one as of April, the other as of May,
but the dates are ques-
tionable. He came to the conclusion
that "in the absence of
proof to the contrary, it would appear
that but few, if any,
of the copies of the Debates were
sold before the nomina-
tion."18 It is a matter
of record that the book was offered in
quantity soon after the Republican
convention in Chicago.19
The publishers later claimed that
30,000 copies were distrib-
uted.20
The delay in publication must have been
a blow to Lincoln,
who had counted on its appearance early
that year. Was it
a problem of composition that delayed
publication or was it,
as Galloway had pointed out earlier,
the "difficulties inter-
posed" by "friends of a
certain aspirant for the Presidency"?
It may not be fair to Follett and
Foster to infer that the books
were held off the market by the Chase
influence till Lincoln
was nominated, but the circumstances
and Galloway's letter
suggest this may have been the fact.
Meanwhile, Lincoln appears to have lost
all interest in the
preservation of the scrapbook he had so
zealously guarded
against loss and which he had insisted
the printers "preserve
. . . unbroken" if not used.
Apparently he was satisfied with
the book and had no further use for the
scrapbook. Or he
may have had a second scrapbook. The
printers gathered
up the thumbed sheets of the scrapbook,
with the marks of
the composing room and the names of
eight compositors on
them,21 and Follett and Foster retained
it in their possession
18 Ernest J. Wessen, "Debates of
Lincoln and Douglas: A Bibliographical Dis-
cussion," in Bibliographical
Society of America, Papers, XL (1946), 91-106.
19 Advertisement of Ingham & Bragg
in Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 24, 1860.
See Mearns, 16-17.
20 Mearns, 19.
21 James F. Turney, foreman of the Follett and Foster shop, passed the
pages
of the scrapbook among the compositors,
whose names were scrawled on the
margins. They were J. E. P. Dorsey, H.
W. McAnly, Lewis R. Williams, George
C. Wilson, I. W. Short, John Herner, and
Taylor and Rhoades, who are not
identified further. All were members of
Typographical Union No. 5, Columbus.
Mearns, 14.
A LINCOLN LETTER 185
forty-eight years until Charles
Frederick Gunther of Chicago
purchased it "from the son of one
of the publishers of the
Debates." The sale took place after the death of Oran
Follett in 1908.22
When Mearns was doing his research for
the "Introduc-
tion" to the Debates facsimile,
he received a letter from Oran
Follett's granddaughter, Jessica F.
Foster, daughter of Frank
E. Foster (junior member of the
publishing firm), in which
she said, "The Book was
kept by the firm subject to his [i.e.
Lincoln's] order--and later was given
to his [i.e. Follett's]
son by my Grandfather."
The next owner of the scrapbook was the
noted Lincoln
collector Oliver R. Barrett, who
purchased it from Gunther
sometime prior to 1920, the year
Gunther died. Barrett died
in 1950, and his collection was offered
at auction in 1952.
The scrapbook went to Alfred Whital
Stern of Chicago, who
immediately turned it over to the
Library of Congress for
public exhibition.
That Nicolay and John Hay knew the
whereabouts of the
scrapbook years after it was left at
the Follet and Foster
office is certain. When the two former
secretaries to the
president were writing their Abraham
Lincoln: A History,
Hay wanted to buy the scrapbook.
Nicolay wrote to him: "I
do not think the Follett copy worth
more than fifty dollars. . . .
You had better ask Follett to let you
inspect it. You can then
judge better of its appearance."23
Nicolay's statement is "strangely
deprecatory," as Mearns
points out,24 and his use of
the term "the Follett copy" would
seem to indicate that he knew of
another scrapbook. His
words are understandable if, indeed,
there was another copy.
Now the pieces of the picture fall into
place as we examine
them. One is a story that appeared in
Horace Greeley's New
York Daily Tribune soon after Lincoln was elected president.
Writing on November 8, 1860, two days
after the election,
22 The
history of ownership of the scrapbook is presented in Mearns, 19-20.
23 Nicolay to Hay, May 14, 1887, quoted in Mearns, 19.
24 Mearns, 19.
186
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
the Tribune's "special
correspondent" told of the scene in "Mr.
Lincoln's room" in the Illinois
statehouse in Springfield,
where Lincoln greeted visitors and
carried on the busy
schedule of a president-elect:
One table is covered with law books, and
another is littered with
newspapers enough to supply a country journalist with
items for a year.
Heaps and hills of newspapers, a few
opened, the greater part still un-
folded. If you take the wrappers from a
few of these neglected sheets,
you will find, within, whole columns of
fervid eloquence, sonorous with
big capitals and bursting with hot
Republican sentiment, all carefully
marked and underlined, the sooner to
catch the attention of the great
chief. Alas for the ambitions of the
village editors. They have sent the
cherished begettings of their brains to
an oblivion too deep and too
crowded for any chance of rescuing. Upon
the same table, hidden
beneath the newspaper avalanche, is a
scrap-book, in which are collected
the reports of the Lincoln and Douglas
debates of 1858, cut from journals
in which they first appeared. Excellent
reading they are, too, better
than the elaborately prepared volume,
for they give what that lacks, vivid
pictures of the effects produced upon
the listeners, their indignation at
some stately piece of Little Giant
insolence, and their occasional wild
enthusiasm at some overwhelming
master-stroke of the Republican
orator. These reports come warm and
alive to the reader; in the volume
they are a little colder, though
doubtless quite as nutritious.25
How did this reporter know there was a
scrapbook of the
debates hidden beneath that pile of
newspapers? And even
though he did know it was there, how
did he know exactly
what was in it and how it compared in
reading enjoyment
with that of the published version? The
answers are at hand.
The reporter probably was John G.
Nicolay himself,26 who
at that time was serving as Lincoln's
secretary, preparatory
to accompanying him to the White House.
Two years before,
Lincoln had written to Greeley to
recommend Nicolay for the
job.27 In the newspaper
article he actually was writing his
valedictory to the country press of
which he had been a part.
Now he could feel superior to the
"village editors" who strug-
25 New York Daily Tribune, November
14, 1860.
26 Robert
S. Harper, Lincoln and the Press (New York, 1951), 65-66.
27 David
C. Mearns, The Lincoln Papers (New York, 1948), 1, 223.
A LINCOLN LETTER 187
gled at the type cases and filled
gaping holes in page forms
bare of paying advertisements, with a
paste pot and a pair of
scissors.
Nicolay knew that Lincoln had edited
out the vocal reactions
of the crowds in the published Debates.
He knew also exactly
where the scrapbook was lying and what
its contents were.
Was it the other "double set of
the joint debates," which
Lincoln speaks of in his letter and
which Nicolay probably
brought back to Springfield?
Since there is airtight testimony that
one scrapbook was
lying in the Follett and Foster office
in Columbus, it can
hardly be denied that another existed
and perhaps still does.