Letter to Charles L. Wilson

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SPRINGFIELD, June 1, 1858.

My Dear Sir: Yours of yesterday, with the inclosed newspaper slip, is received. I have never said or thought more, as to the inclination of some of our Eastern Republican friends to favor Douglas, than I expressed in your hearing on the evening of the 21st of April, at the State library in this place. I have believed--I do believe now--that Greeley, for instance, would be rather pleased to see Douglas reflected over me or any other Republican; and yet I do not believe it is so because of any secret arrangement with Douglas. It is because he thinks Douglas's superior position, reputation, experience, ability,

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if you please, would more than compensate for his lack of a pure Republican position, and therefore his reflection do the general cause of Republicanism more good than would the election of any one of our better undistinguished pure Republicans. I do not know how you estimate Greeley, but I consider him incapable of corruption or falsehood. He denies that he directly is taking part in favor of Douglas, and I believe him. Still his feeling constantly manifests itself in his paper, which, being so extensively read in Illinois, is, and will continue to be, a drag upon us. I have also thought that Governor Seward, too, feels about as Greeley does, but not being a newspaper editor, his feeling in this respect is not much manifested. I have no idea that he is, by conversation or by letter, urging Illinois Republicans to vote for Douglas.

As to myself, let me pledge you my word that neither I, nor any friend so far as I know, has been setting stake against Governor Seward. No combination has been made with me, or proposed to me, in relation to the next presidential candidate. The same thing is true in regard to the next governor of our State. I am not directly or indirectly committed to any one, nor has any one made any advance to me upon the subject. I have had many free conversations with

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John Wentworth; but he never dropped a remark that led me to suspect that he wishes to be governor. Indeed, it is due to truth to say that while he has uniformly expressed himself for me, he has never hinted at any condition.

The signs are that we shall have a good convention on the 16th and I think our prospects generally are improving some every day. I believe we need nothing so much as to get rid of unjust suspicions of one another.

Yours very truly,
A. LINCOLN.