Abraham Lincoln to Joseph Medill, 25 June 18581
J. Medill, Esq.[Esquire]My dear Sir
Your note of the 23rd did not reach me till last evening– The Times article I saw yesterday morning–2 I will give you a brief history of facts, upon which you ^may^ rely with entire confidence, and from which you can frame such articles or paragraphs as you see fit–
I was in Congress but a single term– I was a candidate when the Mexican war broke out— and I then took the ground, which I never varied from, that the Administration had done wrong in getting us into the war, but that the Officers and soldiers who went to the field, must be supplied and sustained at all events– I was elected the first Monday of August 1846, but, in regular course, only took my seat December 6, 1847–3 In the interval, all the battles had been fought, and the war was substantially ended, though our army was still in Mexico,4 and the treaty of peace was not finally concluded till May 30– 1848– Col–[Colonel] E. D. Baker had been elected to congress from the same district, for the regular term next preceding mine; but having gone to Mexico himself, and having resigned his seat in Congress, a man by the name of John Henry, was
<Page 2>
elected to fill Baker's vacancy, and so came into congress before I did–5 On the 23rd day of February ^1847^ (the very day, I believe, Col. John Hardin was killed at Buena Vista, and certainly more than nine months before I took a seat in congress) a bill corresponding ^with great accuracy^ to that mentioned by the Times, passed the House of Representatives, and John Henry voted against it, as may be seen in the Journal of that session at pages 406-7–This I suppose The bill became a law, and is found in the U.S. Statutes at Large— Vol. 9. page 149– This I suppose is the real origin of the Times' attack upon me– In it's blind rage to assail me, it has seized on a vague recollection of Henry's vote, and appropriated it to me– I scarcely think any one is quite vile enough to make such a charge in such term terms, without some slight belief in the truth of it–
Henry was my personal and political friend; ^and, as I thought, a very good man;^ and when I first learned of that vote, I well remember how astounded and mortified I was– This very bill, voted against by Henry, passed into a law, and made the appropriations for the year ending June 30, 1848— extending a full month beyond the actual and formal ending of the war–6 When I came into congress, money was needed to meet the appropriations made, and to be made; and accordingly on the 17th day of Feb.[February] 1848, a bill to borrow 18.500000– passed the House of Representatives, for
<Page 3>
which I voted, as will appear by the Journal of that session page 426. 427– The act itself, reduced to 16.000000 (I suppose in the Senate) is found in U.S. Statutes at Large Vol. 9– 217–7
Again, on the 8th of March 1848, a bill passed the House of Representatives, for which I voted, as may be seen by the Journal 520-521 It passed into a law, and is found in U.S. Statutes at Large Page 215 and forward– The last section of the act, on page 217–contains an appropriation of 800000– for clothing the volunteers–8
It is impossible to refer to all the votes I gave but the above I think are sufficient as specimens; and you may safely deny that I ever gave any vote for withholding any supplies whatever, from officers or soldiers of the Mexican war– I have examined the Journals a good deal; and besides I can not be mistaken, for I had my eye always upon it– I must close to get this into the mail–9
Yours very trulyA. Lincoln

<Page 4>
[Envelope]
SP[?]J. Medill, EsqChicagoIllinois.
[ docketing ]
A Lincoln10
1Abraham Lincoln wrote and signed this letter. He also wrote Joseph Medill’s name and address on the envelope shown in the fourth image.
2The article Lincoln references appeared in the June 23 edition of the Daily Chicago Times. In the article, the paper’s editors attacked Lincoln, claiming that while he served in the U.S. House of Representatives, he voted against a bill providing for nurses, medicine, and other critical supplies for U.S. military personnel serving in the Mexican War.
Daily Chicago Times (IL), 23 June 1858, 2:1-2.
3Voters in Illinois’ Seventh Congressional District elected Lincoln to the U.S. House of Representatives in the elections of 1846. He served in the U.S. House from December 6, 1847 to March 3, 1849.
At the time, Lincoln was a member of the Whig Party, which was critical of the Mexican War as well as of President James K. Polk’s role in the start of the war. Although Lincoln opposed the war and questioned its constitutionality during his time in the U.S. House, he nevertheless always voted for supplies for U.S. troops serving in the field.
Howard W. Allen and Vincent A. Lacey, eds., Illinois Elections, 1818-1990 (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992), 7-8; Biographical Directory of the American Congress 1774-1996 (Alexandria, VA: CQ Staff Directories, 1997), 135; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:265-68; ‘‘Spot'' Resolutions in the United States House of Representatives; ‘‘Spot'' Resolutions in the United States House of Representatives; Speech in United States House of Representatives: The War with Mexico; Speech in United States House of Representatives: The War with Mexico; Mark E. Neely, Jr., Lincoln and the Triumph of the Nation: Constitutional Conflict in the American Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 33.
4The major battles of the Mexican War all took place prior to October 1847, although occasional guerilla raids and skirmishes occurred for some time afterward.
Robert W. Johannsen and Pedro Santoni, “America’s Forgotten War,” The Wilson Quarterly 20 (Spring 1996), 102.
5Voters in Illinois’ Seventh Congressional District elected Edward D. Baker to the U.S. House in the elections of 1844. He served from December 1, 1845 until his resignation in late-December 1846, which he submitted in order to serve in the Mexican War as colonel of the Fourth Regiment of the Illinois Volunteer Infantry. John Henry, elected to fill Baker’s vacancy, took his seat in the U.S. House on February 5, 1847.
Howard W. Allen and Vincent A. Lacey, eds., Illinois Elections, 1818-1990, 7; Biographical Directory of the American Congress 1774-1996, 131, 607.
6The bill that the Daily Chicago Times mentioned in its June 23, 1858 edition was actually U.S. House Bill No. 597, which made appropriations for the U.S. Army through June 30, 1848. John Henry indeed voted against this bill on February 23, 1847, but it passed and became law on March 2, 1847. Congress extended this bill with a law passed March 27, 1848.
Although the treaty ending the Mexican War was signed on February 2, 1848, it was not ratified until May 30. See the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
Daily Chicago Times (IL), 23 June 1858, 2:1-2; U.S. House Journal. 1847. 29th Cong., 2nd sess., 403, 406-7; “An Act Making Appropriations for the Support of the Army and Volunteers for the Year Ending the Thirtieth June, One Thousand Eight Hundred and Forty Eight, and for Other Purposes,” 2 March 1847, Statutes at Large of the United States 9 (1862):149-52; An Act Further to Supply Deficiencies in the Appropriations for the Service of the Fiscal Year Ending the Thirtieth of June, 1848.
7On February 17, 1848, the members of the U.S. House voted upon House Bill No. 104, authorizing a loan in the amount of $18,500,000. Lincoln voted for the bill and the House passed it, but the House reconsidered the bill, and it—not the U.S. Senate—subsequently amended it to authorize a loan of $16,000,000 rather than $18,500,000. This bill became law on March 31, 1848.
U.S. House Journal. 1848. 30th Cong., 1st sess., 426-28; An Act to Authorize a Loan not to Exceed the Sum of Sixteen Millions of Dollars.
8The bill Lincoln references here was an extension of the bill that Henry voted against in 1847, making appropriations for the U.S. Army through June 30, 1848. The U.S. House passed House Bill No. 135 on March 8, 1848, with Lincoln casting his vote among the 137 “yeas” in favor of the bill. As noted above, this bill became law on March 27, 1848.
9At the time of this letter, Lincoln was running as the Illinois Republican Party’s candidate to replace Democratic incumbent Stephen A. Douglas in the U.S. Senate.
John L. Scripps and Henry C. Whitney also wrote Lincoln informing him of the Daily Chicago Times’ attacks on his congressional record related to the Mexican War and asked him to supply a response. Lincoln replied to Whitney on June 24, but no reply to the letter from Scripps has been located. Lincoln corresponded with Medill several more times after this letter regarding various aspects of the election campaign of 1858.
Medill’s Chicago Daily Tribune published a general defense of Lincoln in its June 24 edition, while also admitting that the editors did not then know whether Lincoln “did or not vote against that war.” The paper published a thorough refutation of the Daily Chicago Times’ attack upon Lincoln in its June 26 issue. Despite publication of the facts surrounding Lincoln's voting record in the U.S. House in the Illinois press as early as June 25, 1858—including by Democratic newspapers—Douglas repeated the Daily Chicago Times' claims throughout the election campaign of 1858. In speeches he delivered during the campaign, including during the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln repeatedly refuted the charges and cited congressional records to back up his voting record in the U.S. House.
Ultimately, in the local elections of 1858, Republicans won a majority of all votes cast in Illinois, but pro-Douglas Democrats retained control of the Illinois General Assembly. At the time, members of the General Assembly voted for and elected the state’s representatives in the U.S. Senate, and, in the 1858 Federal Election, Douglas won reelection. Through the campaign, however, and in particular through his participation in the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln gained recognition as well as standing within the national Republican Party.
Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 1:458, 526-28, 554-56; John L. Scripps to Abraham Lincoln; Henry C. Whitney to Abraham Lincoln; Ray, Medill & Company to Abraham Lincoln; Joseph Medill to Abraham Lincoln; Joseph Medill to Abraham Lincoln; Chicago Daily Tribune (IL), 24 June 1858, 2:1; 26 June 1868, 2:3; Report of Speech at Clinton, Illinois; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 25 June 1858, 2:1; Daily Illinois State Register (Springfield), 26 June 1858, 2:2; Allen C. Guelzo, “Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political Landscape of 1858,” The Journal of American History 94 (September 2007), 394, 414-16.
10Medill wrote this docketing in pencil vertically on the left side of the envelope shown in the fourth image.

Autograph Letter Signed, 4 page(s), Robert R. McCormick Papers, Cantigny, Colonel Robert R. McCormick Research Center (Wheaton, IL).