{"id":1094,"date":"2013-06-29T13:09:02","date_gmt":"2013-06-29T13:09:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/?p=1094"},"modified":"2016-06-18T20:29:10","modified_gmt":"2016-06-18T20:29:10","slug":"letter-to-e-stafford-march-17-1860","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/letter-to-e-stafford-march-17-1860\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter to E. Stafford (March 17, 1860)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ranking<\/strong><\/h3>\n

#125<\/span> on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents<\/em><\/p>\n

Annotated Transcript<\/h3>\n

“Thanking you very sincerely for your kind purposes toward me, I am compelled to say the money part of the arrangement you propose is, with me, an impossibility. I could not raise ten thousand dollars if it would save me from the fate of John Brown. Nor have my friends, so far as I know, yet reached the point of staking any money on my chances of success.”<\/a><\/p>\n

On This Date<\/h3>\n

HD Daily Report, March 17, 1860<\/a><\/p>\n

The Lincoln Log, March 17, 1860<\/a><\/p>\n

Custom Map<\/h3>\n

\"Screen<\/a>
\nView in Larger Map<\/a><\/p>\n

How Historians Interpret<\/h3>\n

\u201cLincoln turned down suggestions to use money to help line up delegates. His\u00a0friend Mark W. Delahay had complained to him that Seward spent freely to win support in Kansas and that \u2018we, your friends, are all very poor,\u2019 and hinted that \u2018a very little money now would do us and you a vast deal of good.\u2019 Lincoln would have none of it: \u2018I can not enter the ring on the money basis \u2013 first, because in the main, it is wrong; and secondly, I have not, and can not get, the money.\u2019 Yet, he added, \u2018for certain objects, in a political contest, the use of some, is both right, and indispensable.\u2019 So saying, he agreed to give Delahay $100 to enable him to attend the Chicago convention, assuming that he would be chosen a delegate. In fact, Delahay and all other Lincoln supporters in Kansas were defeated. Upon learning of this development, Lincoln advised Delahay not to stir the Seward delegates \u2018up to anger, but come along to the convention, and I will do as I said about expenses.\u2019 The following day, Lincoln told a correspondent who had proposed some scheme involving the expenditure of $10,000: \u2018I could not raise ten thousand dollars if it would save me from the fate of John Brown. Nor have my friends, so far as I know, yet reached the point of staking any money on my chances of success.\u2019”<\/p>\n

–Michael Burlingame,\u00a0Abraham Lincoln: A Life<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>(2 volumes, originally published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) Unedited Manuscript by Chapter, Lincoln Studies Center, Volume 1, Chapter 14 (PDF),\u00a01625-1626.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cDuring most of the nineteenth century, presidential candidates did not campaign openly; the post was supposed to seek the man. Lincoln remained true to that tradition, but a number of managers pushed his campaign… When E. Stafford suggested that Lincoln raise a campaign chest of $10,000, the candidate replied \u201c\u2019I could not raise ten thousand dollars if it would save me from the fate of John Brown. Nor have my friends, so far as I know, yet reached the point of staking any money on my chances of success.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

–Lowell H. Harrison, Lincoln of Kentucky<\/a> <\/em>(Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2000).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

NOTE TO READERS<\/h3>\n

This page is under construction and will be developed further by students in the new \u201cUnderstanding Lincoln\u201d online course sponsored by the House Divided Project at Dickinson College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. To find out more about the course and to see some of our videotaped class sessions, including virtual field trips to Ford’s Theatre and Gettysburg, please visit our Livestream page at http:\/\/new.livestream.com\/gilderlehrman\/lincoln<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Searchable Text<\/span><\/h3>\n

Springfield, Illinois, March 17, 1860.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dear Sir: Reaching home on the 14th instant, I found yours of the 1st. Thanking you very sincerely for your kind purposes toward me, I am compelled to say the money part of the arrangement you propose is, with me, an impossibility. I could not raise ten thousand dollars if it would save me from the fate of John Brown. Nor have my friends, so far as I know, yet reached the point of staking any money on my chances of success. I wish I could tell you better things, but it is even so. Yours very truly,<\/span><\/p>\n

A. LINCOLN.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ranking #125 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents Annotated Transcript “Thanking you very sincerely for your kind purposes toward me, I am compelled to say the money part of the arrangement you propose is, with me, an impossibility. I could not raise ten thousand dollars if it would save me from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10856],"tags":[10866,56,11662,6088,11669,11635,10865],"class_list":["post-1094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-honest-abe","tag-antebellum","tag-election-of-1860","tag-fundraising","tag-letter","tag-needs-close-reading","tag-partisanship","tag-private"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1094"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4345,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094\/revisions\/4345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}