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The Contest in Illinois

About This Item

  • Title: The Contest in Illinois
  • Date: 23 October 1858
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.00845
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 23 October 1858: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Kaylen Michaelis Samantha Gilmore Tara Ballard Stephanie Blalock Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "The Contest in Illinois." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 17 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.00845.xml (TEI)
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THE CONTEST IN ILLINOIS.—

From all the information we can gather, at this distance from the field of operations, we think Senator Douglas will be re-elected by a bare majority.1 The Douglas papers of course claim much more, and the Republican papers generally predict the success of Lincoln, but we believe the chances are barely in favor of the Little Giant. In the first place the present apportionment of the State is largely in favor of Southern Illinois, where the Douglas strength mainly lies. Also eight of the 13 hold-over Senators are Douglas men. Also the Illinois Central Railroad is for Douglas, and has imported hundreds of Douglas laborers to just where they are wanted. Then in the doubtful counties the persons who have to make the returns are Douglas county-clerks. Add to this that the rebuke to Buchanan2 in Pennsylvania is a triumph for Douglas as the anti-Lecompton leader3; and that Vice President Breckenridge​ 4 himself has joined with other leading Southerners in endorsing Douglas, which renders it probable that he will be supported by nearly the full Democratic vote of the State; and we can hardly see how so able and shrewd a politician, with so many advantages at command, can suffer himself to be defeated.

Notes:

1. Stephen Arnold Douglas (1813–1861), nicknamed the "Little Giant," was a U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1847 to 1861. Douglas promoted the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 and ran for President against Abraham Lincoln in 1860. He was a well-known proponent of "Popular Sovereignty," the idea that the question of slavery should be left for voters of a given state to decide. For more information, see T. Gregory Garvey, "Douglas, Stephen Arnold (1813–1861)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]

2. James Buchanan (1791–1868) was the fifteenth President of the United States (1857–1861). Late in life Whitman still considered Buchanan "perhaps the weakest of the President tribe—the very unablest" (With Walt Whitman in Camden, Monday, November 5, 1888). For more information on Whitman and his disdain for Buchanon, see also Bernard Hirschorn, ""To a President" (1860)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]

3. The Lecompton Constitution of 1857 was written by pro-slavery forces in Kansas. President Buchanan supported it and it was eventually approved by the Senate, but dismissed by the House. Ultimately, Kansas held another local election which resulted in the Constitution’s final rejection. [back]

4. John C. Breckinridge (1821–1875) was vice president of the United States under James Buchanan and, eventually, the second vice president to be charged with treason after he joined the Confederacy where he later served as the Secretary of War. [back]

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