The Sangamon County Whigs meet to choose a nominee for a congressional seat. Lincoln makes a bid for the nomination, but he loses out to fellow attorney and Illinois State Senator Edward D. Baker. Later, in a letter to his friend, Joshua Speed, of Louisville, Kentucky, Lincoln writes, "[I]n spite of my attempt to decline it, [the party] appointed me one of the delegates; so that in getting Baker the nomination, I shall be 'fixed' a good deal like a fellow who is made groomsman to the man what has cut him out, and is marrying his own dear 'gal.'" Illinois Register (Springfield), 24 March 1843, 2:4; Abraham Lincoln to Joshua F. Speed, 24 March 1843, CW, 1:319.