Letter to James Miller, Treasurer of the State of Illinois

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SPRINGFIELD, ILL., July 11, 1859.

Dear Sir:We suppose you are persistently urged to pay something upon the new McCallister and Stebbins bonds. As friends of yours and of the people, we advise you to pay nothing upon them under any possible circumstances. The holders of them did a great wrong, and are now persisting in it in a way which deserves severe punishment. They know the legislature has again and again refused to fully recognize the old bonds. Seizing upon an act never intended to apply to them, they besieged Governor Bissell more than a year ago to fund the old bonds; he refused. They sought a mandamus upon him from the Supreme Court; the court refused. Again they besieged the governor last winter; he sought to have them go before the legislature; they refused. Still they persisted, and dogged him in his afflicted condition till they got from him what the agent in New York acted upon and issued the new bonds. Now they refuse to surrender them, hoping to force

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an acquiescence, for Governor Bissell's sake. "That cock won't fight," and they may as well so understand at once. If the news of the surrender of the new bonds does not reach here in ten days from this date, we shall do what we can to have them repudiated in toto, finally and forever. If they were less than demons they would at once relieve Governor Bissell from the painful position they have dogged him into; and if they still persist, they shall never see even the twenty-six cents to the dollar, if we can prevent it.

Yours very truly,
A.LINCOLN
S. T. LOGAN
O. M. HATCH