LINCOLN, Abraham (1809-1865). Autograph letter signed (''A.Lincoln'') to Norman Judd, Chairman of the National Republican Committee, Springfield, Illinois, 29 April 1859. – Document signed (''Abraham Lincoln''), as president, Washington, 21 March 1862.

LINCOLN, Abraham (1809-1865). Autograph letter signed ("A.Lincoln") to Norman Judd, Chairman of the National Republican Committee, Springfield, Illinois, 29 April 1859. – Document signed ("Abraham Lincoln"), as president, Washington, 21 March 1862.

Letter: one page, 246 x 194mm (visible), (docketed on verso, lightly browned, a toned spot at bottom, not affecting text, evidence of old mounting, central fold repaired from verso). Document: one page, 245 x 195mm (visible). Matted and framed together with portraits of Lincoln and Judd.

Lincoln proposes the purchase of a printing press to promote the Republican cause among German-American voters—written to Norman Judd, who first proposed the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. A very interesting unpublished letter to the chief Republican Party strategist, in which the Presidential hopeful asks about a plan to purchase a press and type: "You remember it was said last winter that the press and type for a German paper was here, and could be bought for [$400.00], and Gov[ernor Gustav Philip] Koerner and one or two other German friends were deputed to enquire and decide whether it would be [in] our interest to buy them. I believe they decided in the affirmative. Dr. Canissius resides here now, and this morning he showed me a letter from […] Koerner, expressing a wish that the thing may be done. If the thing can be started for [$400.00], and then kept going without more, I too think it ought to be done. By our recent elections here, we seem to be gaining with the Germans; and perhaps it is right to press our own luck while it runs favorably. But I suppose it would be better done by the Central Committee; and if they think proper to do it, I suppose the money could be raised here, on their checks. I will pay fifty dollars any day you draw. Think of this too..." Lincoln also encloses a letter from an anonymous Shawneetown resident written to him proposing a campaign fundraising scheme in which “200 menu” each take $250 in “bank stock.” While Lincoln admitted that the scheme “did not strike me favorably,” he supposed that the letter’s author be “entitled to a respectful hearing”. Not in Basler and Supplements, and apparently unpublished.

Norman Buel Judd (1815-1878), a prominent Republican, had forced Lincoln to throw his support to Anti-Nebraska Democrat Lyman Trumbull in the balloting of 1855 for Illinois Senator. By 1858, however, the two had reconciled; Judd delivered Lincoln's 1858 letter to Stephen A. Douglas proposing the famous Lincoln-Douglas Debates and later nominated Lincoln for President at the Chicago Republican Convention in 1860 (Neely, The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982, pp. 168-169). As a reward for his support, Lincoln appointed Judd United States Minister to Prussia, as evidenced in the document of 21 March 1862 ordering the Secretary of State to affix the Seal of the United States to the document nominating Norman B. Judd to the post. Provenance: Christie's, New York, 17 May 1996, lot 153.

[With:] An unsigned autograph letter to Lincoln from an unidentified recipient, Shawneetown, 18 April 1859, asking him to contribute $250 to the Republican party.

Pre-Lot Text
PROPERTY FROM THE ROGER D. JUDD COLLECTION OF HISTORICAL LETTERS, DOCUMENTS & MANUSCRIPTS