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Jacksonville, Illinois
Aug. 25, 1858.
Dear Sir
Three things have thus far staggered the Douglass [Douglas] men and in this region they are reeling under them still. Your Conspiracy charge, (keep it going, for it is true as God's own word,) Trumbull's charge in regard to popular sovereignty and the Toombs bill, and now the fact, (if true,) that he has passed a forgery upon the Ottawa meeting in regard to the Springfield Convention of 1854. These things well worked up and thoroughly brought before the people will give us 10000 votes which otherwise are sure for Douglas. I beg that for the sake of the cause you will put all the fire and spirit and vehement energy into these charges you can and brand them upon Douglas till like the shirt of Nessus they him, as a politician, dead. Now in regard to that resolution if he was guilty of the infamous falsehood charged, it is your duty to expose him thoroughly. He has shown you no mercy and treated you with no honor or decency. All delicacy and tenderness towards him who has called you a liar and has basely slandered all your party, is unjust to your friends and to yourself. Hold him to a severe reckoning. If he has lied about the Springfield Convention get the affidavits of a dozen or twenty of the best men who attended that convention and prove the true facts. We are getting up to day the affidavits of all who attended the convention from this County. Mercy to Douglass is treachery to the cause of Right and Humanity. Cant you and our Central Committee get some competent man to prepare a document on Douglas which shall unmask and expose to the people all his political villainies for the last four or more years? Such a thing moderate in language, but awful in its facts, commencing with his intense love for the Missouri Compromise and showing him up as the murderer of the same, noting his old Malice and hate of Henry Clay and exposing his late attempts, to wheedle his followers now he is dead, and even to dig up his bones as it were to manure his own political cornfield, with all his other treacheries dodges and falsities, if made into a telling document and scattered broadcast will tell fearfully against him. Can you tell us yet when you will come here? People ask every day. Cant you let us know the time very soon. We intend if possible to have Lovejoy with us on the same occasion or some other and take him to Beardstown and Winchester. Please let us know about this as soon as you conveniently can. If you see Lovejoy use your influence with him to bring him along. You are gaining here much, especially within the last 10 or 15 days all over our County. Dug is losing ground here. At least 100 open Democrats are certain to vote against him in Morgan, and the number of the openly rebellious is still increasing. I write this after consulting with Mr Yates and other friends and by request. You may remember meeting me at the last Court at Beardstown Court. Yours truly -- B. Lewis
