Record Data
Source citation
Lincoln's Plan of Campaign in 1840, in Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (8 vols., New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), 1: 181, http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/.
Type
Miscellaneous
Date Certainty
Exact
Transcriber
Transcription adapted from The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (1953), edited by Roy P. Basler
Adapted by Matthew Pinsker, Dickinson College
Transcription date
Transcriber's Comments
Collected Works editors have dated this document on January 1840, but Matthew Pinsker explains in forthcoming Boss Lincoln book that the document dates from August 1840 instead.
Transcription
The following text is presented here in complete form, as it originally appeared in print. Spelling and typographical errors have been preserved as in the original.
Lincoln's Plan of Campaign in 1840
1st. Appoint one person in each county as county captain, and take his pledge to perform promptly all the duties assigned him.
Duties of the County Captain
1st. To procure from the poll-books a separate list for each Precinct of all the names of all those persons who voted the Whig ticket in August.
2nd. To appoint one person in each Precinct as Precinct Captain, and, by a personal interview with him, procure his pledge, to perform promptly all the duties assigned him.
3rd. To deliver to each Precinct Captain the list of names as above, belonging to his Precinct; and also a written list of his duties.
Duties of the Precinct Captain.
1st. To divide the list of names delivered him by the county Captain, into Sections of ten who reside most convenient to each other.
2nd. To appoint one person of each Section as Section Captain, and by a personal interview with him, procure his pledge to perform promptly all the duties assigned him.
3rd. To deliver to each Section Captain the list of names belonging to his Section and also a written list of his duties.
Duties of the Section Captain.
1st. To see each man of his Section face to face, and procure his pledge that he will for no consideration (impossibilities excepted) stay from the polls on the first monday in November; and that he will record his vote as early on the day as possible.
2nd. To add to his Section the name of every person in his vicinity who did not vote with us in August, but who will vote with us in the fall, and take the same pledge of him, as from the others.
3rd. To task himself to procure at least such additional names to his Section.
