Politics were, when I left home and I suppose are still, raging in Illinois. The canvass is by far warmer than '56. Three big men are ranting up and down the state---[Stephen A.] Douglas, [Abraham] Lincoln, and [Lyman] Trumbull. There are three candidates for Congress in our district---the Fifth. They are now on the stump. Little Dug [Douglas] will have his hands full notwithstanding his opposition to the Lecompton “swindle. - Michael Buttz

A rare three page letter penned in September 1858 by Michael Robert Buttz of Liberty, Adams Co., Illinois, while attending the Northwestern Christian College (now Butler University) in Indianapolis. Of course, Buttz is referring to the political debates between Lincoln and Douglas that took place that fall in his home state of Illinois as they contended for the US Senate seat- debates which ultimately propelled Lincoln onto the national stage. Buttz mentions the Lecompton "swindle" which was a reference to the Constitution for the State of Kansas fraudulently passed by the pro-slavery contingent meeting in Lecompton, Kansas.

[Civil War, Union, Confederate] [Abraham Lincoln] [Stephen Douglas]