Morgan County Whigs pay election bet to Sangamon and other Whigs at barbecue in Jacksonville. Sangamon gave Hardin twice as great a majority as Morgan in congressional election. They thus won proposal made by Lincoln to Hardin May 11, 1843. Speeches are made by Lincoln, Baker, and Matheny of Sangamon, Hardin and Yates of Morgan, Hay of Pike, and Blackwell of Schuyler.Speech at Whig Barbecue at Jacksonville, Illinois, 6 October 1843, CW, 1:329-30.

"Register" reports: "Yesterday came off the long expected Coon jubilee; and if there ever was a failure, I think that will be conceded to have been one. . . . [Baker] was succeeded in the evening by himself and another valiant man [Lincoln], who once attempted to frighten an Irishman with a broadsword, and who, when he found that impracticable, procured his friends to manage `an amicable adjustment'."Register, 20 October 1843.

A Chicago Democratic paper takes another tack. "Many `reformed drunkards,' Washingtonians, were present, and it being a party affair, all got gloriously drunk together. . . . It was unquestionably the most disgraceful affair that ever happened in our state."Chicago Democrat, in Register, 3 November 1843.