e had a meeting of the Whigs of the county here on last
Monday to appoint delegates to a district convention; and Baker beat me,
and got the delegation instructed to go for him. The meeting, in spite
of my attempt to decline it, appointed me one of the delegates; so that
in getting Baker the nomination I shall be fixed a good deal like a
fellow who is made a groomsman to a man that has cut him out and is
marrying his own dear "gal." About the prospects of your having a
namesake at our town, can't say exactly yet.

A. LINCOLN.

TO MARTIN M. MORRIS.

SPRINGFIELD, ILL., March 26, 1843.

FRIEND MORRIS:

Your letter of the a 3 d, was received on yesterday morning, and for
which (instead of an excuse, which you thought proper to ask) I tender
you my sincere thanks. It is truly gratifying to me to learn that, while
the people of Sangamon have cast me off, my old friends of Menard, who
have known me longest and best, stick to me. It would astonish, if
not amuse, the older citizens to learn that I (a stranger, friendless,
uneducated, penniless boy, working on a flatboat at ten dollars per
month) have been put down here as the candidate of pride, wealth, and
aristocratic family distinction. Yet so, chiefly, it was. There was,
too, the strangest combination of church influence against me. Baker is
a Campbellite; and therefore, as I suppose, with few exceptions got all
that church. My wife has some relations in the Presbyterian churches,
and some with the Episcopal churches; and therefore, wherever it would
tell, I was set down as either the one or the other, while it was
everywhere contended that no Christian ought to go for me, because I
belonged to no church, was suspected of being a deist, and had talked
about fighting a duel. With all these things, Baker, of course, had
nothing to do. Nor do I complain of them. As to his own church going
for him, I think that was right enough, and as to the influences I
have spoken of in the other, though they were very strong, it would be
grossly untrue and unjust to charge that they acted upon them in a body
or were very near so. I only mean that those influences levied a tax
of a considerable per cent. upon my strength throughout the religious
controversy. But enough of this.

You say that in choosing a candidate for Congress you have an equal
right with Sangamon, and in this you are undoubtedly correct. In
agreeing to withdraw if the Whigs of Sangamon should go against me, I