by the 'Journal' of this
week that we propose, upon pain of losing a barbecue, to give
you twice as great a majority in this county as you shall
receive in your own. I got up the proposal.

"Who of the five appointed is to write the district address? I
did the labor of writing one address this year, and got thunder
for my reward. Nothing new here.

Yours as ever,

"A. LINCOLN."

"P.S. I wish you would measure one of the largest of those
swords we took to Alton, and write me the length of it, from tip
of the point to tip of the hilt, in feet and inches. I have a
dispute about the length[4].

A. L."

[Footnote 3: The originals of both the letters on this page addressed by
Lincoln to Hardin are owned by the daughter of General Hardin, Mrs.
Ellen Hardin Walworth of New York City.]

[Footnote 4: The swords referred to in this postscript are those used in
the Shields-Lincoln duel. See MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE for April, 1896.]

LINCOLN WORKS FOR THE NOMINATION IN 1846.

Hardin was elected, and in 1844 Baker was nominated and elected. Lincoln
had accepted his defeat by Hardin manfully. He had secured the
nomination for Baker in 1844. He felt that his duty toward his friends
was discharged, and that the nomination in 1846 belonged to him. Through
the terms of both Hardin and Baker, he worked persistently and carefully
to insure his own nomination. With infinite pains-taking he informed
himself about the temper of every individual whom he knew or of whom he
heard. In an amusing letter to Hardin, hitherto unpublished, written in
May, 1844, while the latter was in Congress, he tells him of one
disgruntled constituent who must be pacified, giving him, at the same
time, a hint as to the temper of the "Locofocos."

"Knowing that you have correspondents enough, I have forborne to
trouble you heretofore," he writes; "and I now only do so to get
you to set a matter right which has got wrong with one of our
best friends. It is old Uncle Thomas Campbell of Spring Creek
(Berlin P.O.). He has received several documents from you, and
he says they are old newspapers and old documents, having no
sort of interest in them. He is, therefore, getting a strong
impression that you treat him with disrespect. This, I know, is
a mistaken impression, and you must correct it. The way, I leave
to yourself. Robert W. Canfield says he would like to have a