nt in their favor in
the 'Address.'"[2]

[Footnote 2: The original of this letter is owned by E.R. Oeltjen of
Petersburg, Illinois.]

The "brief argument" which Lincoln thought so conclusive, "if he did
write it himself," justified his good opinion. After its circulation
there were few found to "stick out against conventions." The Whigs of
the various counties in the Congressional district met as they had been
ordered to do, and chose delegates. John J. Hardin of Jacksonville,
Edward D. Baker and Abraham Lincoln of Springfield, were the three
candidates for whom these delegates were instructed.

To Lincoln's keen disappointment, the delegation from Sangamon County
was instructed for Baker. A variety of social and personal influences,
besides Baker's popularity, worked against Lincoln. "It would astonish,
if not amuse, the older citizens," wrote Lincoln to a friend, "to learn
that I (a stranger, friendless, uneducated, penniless boy, working on a
flat-boat at ten dollars per month) have been put down here as the
candidate of pride, wealth, and aristocratic family distinction." He was
not only accused of being an aristocrat, he was called "a deist." He had
fought, or been about to fight, a duel. His wife's relations were
Episcopalian and Presbyterian. He and she attended a Presbyterian
church. These influences alone could not be said to have defeated him,
he wrote, but "they levied a tax of considerable per cent. upon my
strength."

The meeting that named Baker as its choice for Congress appointed
Lincoln one of the delegates to the convention. "In getting Baker the
nomination," Lincoln wrote to Speed, "I shall be fixed a good deal like
a fellow who is made a grooms-man to a man that has cut him out, and is
marrying his own dear 'gal.'" From the first, however, he stood bravely
by Baker. "I feel myself bound not to hinder him in any way from getting
the nomination; I should despise myself were I to attempt it," he wrote
certain of his constituents who were anxious that he should attempt to
secure the nomination in spite of his instructions. It was soon evident
to both Lincoln and Baker that John J. Hardin was probably the strongest
candidate in the district, and so it proved when the convention met in
May, 1843, at Pekin.

It has frequently been charged that in this Pekin convention, Hardin,
Baker, and Lincoln agreed to take in turn the three next nominations to
Congress, thus establishing a species of rotation in o