d take the lead in the breaking of it? The truth
is that some support from Whigs is now a necessity with the Judge, and for
this it is that the names of Clay and Webster are invoked. His old friends
have deserted him in such numbers as to leave too few to live by. He
came to his own, and his own received him not; and lo! he turns unto the
Gentiles.

A word now as to the Judge's desperate assumption that the compromises of
1850 had no connection with one another; that Illinois came into the Union
as a slave State, and some other similar ones. This is no other than a
bold denial of the history of the country. If we do not know that the
compromises of 1850 were dependent on each other; if we do not know that
Illinois came into the Union as a free State,--we do not know anything.
If we do not know these things, we do not know that we ever had a
Revolutionary War or such a chief as Washington. To deny these things is
to deny our national axioms,--or dogmas, at least,--and it puts an end to
all argument. If a man will stand up and assert, and repeat and reassert,
that two and two do not make four, I know nothing in the power of argument
that can stop him. I think I can answer the Judge so long as he sticks to
the premises; but when he flies from them, I cannot work any argument into
the consistency of a mental gag and actually close his mouth with it. In
such a case I can only commend him to the seventy thousand answers just in
from Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana.

REQUEST FOR SENATE SUPPORT

TO CHARLES HOYT

CLINTON, De WITT Co., Nov. 10, 1854

DEAR SIR:--You used to express a good deal of partiality for me, and if
you are still so, now is the time. Some friends here are really for me for
the U.S. Senate, and I should be very grateful if you could make a mark
for me among your members. Please write me at all events, giving me the
names, post-offices, and "political position" of members round about you.
Direct to Springfield.

Let this be confidential.

Yours truly,

A. LINCOLN.

TO T. J. HENDERSON.

SPRINGFIELD,

November 27, 1854 T. J. HENDERSON, ESQ.

MY DEAR SIR:--It has come round that a whig may, by possibility, be
elected to the United States Senate, and I want the chance of being the
man. You are a member of the Legislature, and have a vote to give. Think
it over, and see whether you can do better than to go for me.

Write me, at all events; and let this be confidential.

Yours truly,