Please write me.  Yours truly,

A. Lincoln.

TO H. C. WHITNEY.

Springfield, June 24, 1858

H. C. Whitney, Esq.

Dear sir:—­Your letter enclosing the attack of the Times upon me was received this morning.  Give yourself no concern about my voting against the supplies.  Unless you are without faith that a lie can be successfully contradicted, there is not a word of truth in the charge, and I am just considering a little as to the best shape to put a contradiction in.  Show this to whomever you please, but do not publish it in the paper.

Your friend as ever,

A. Lincoln.

TO J. W. SOMERS.

Springfield, June 25, 1858.

James W. Somers, Esq.

My dear sir:—­Yours of the 22nd, inclosing a draft of two hundred dollars, was duly received.  I have paid it on the judgment, and herewith you have the receipt.  I do not wish to say anything as to who shall be the Republican candidate for the Legislature in your district, further than that I have full confidence in Dr. Hull.  Have you ever got in the way of consulting with McKinley in political matters?  He is true as steel, and his judgment is very good.  The last I heard from him, he rather thought Weldon, of De Witt, was our best timber for representative, all things considered.  But you there must settle it among yourselves.  It may well puzzle older heads than yours to understand how, as the Dred Scott decision holds, Congress can authorize a Territorial Legislature to do everything else, and cannot authorize them to prohibit slavery.  That is one of the things the court can decide, but can never give an intelligible reason for.

Yours very truly,

A. Lincoln.

TO A. CAMPBELL.

Springfield, June 28, 1858.

A. Campbell, Esq.

My dear sir:—­In 1856 you gave me authority to draw on you for any sum not exceeding five hundred dollars.  I see clearly that such a privilege would be more available now than it was then.  I am aware that times are tighter now than they were then.  Please write me at all events, and whether you can now do anything or not I shall continue grateful for the past.

Yours very truly,

A. Lincoln.

TO J. GILLESPIE.

Springfield, July 16, 1858.

Hon.  Joseph Gillespie.

My dear sir:—­I write this to say that from the specimens of Douglas Democracy we occasionally see here from Madison, we learn that they are making very confident calculation of beating you and your friends for the lower house, in that county.  They offer to bet upon it.  Billings and Job, respectively, have been up here, and were each as I learn, talking largely about it.  If they do so, it can only be done by carrying the Fillmore men of 1856 very differently from what they seem to [be] going in the other party.  Below is the vote of 1856, in your district: