Republican presidential nominee Lincoln writes to John B. Fry, of New York. Lincoln confides that many Southerners have written to him with "assurances...that in no probable event will there be any very formidable effort to break up the Union." Lincoln reasons, "The people of the South have too much of good sense, and good temper, to attempt the ruin of the government, rather than see it administered as it was administered by the men who made it. At least, so I hope and believe." Abraham Lincoln to John B. Fry, 15 August 1860, CW, 4:95.

Lincoln writes to fellow Republican William D. Kelley, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, regarding the whereabouts of a newspaper that Kelley sent to Lincoln. Lincoln explains, "It reached me at the close of our monster meeting here, when my house was full of friends, some of whom over-hauled my news-paper mail before I did . . . Please send me another copy . . . inclosed in a letter envelope, so that it may not, by any means be over-looked in a mass of common news-papers." William D. Kelley to Abraham Lincoln, 7 August 1860, Robert Todd Lincoln Collection of Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC; Abraham Lincoln to William D. Kelley, 15 August 1860, Kelley Collection, Columbia University, New York, NY.

To William Fithian of Danville he appeals for help in Vermilion legislative district. "To lose Trumbull's re-election next winter would be a great disaster." Abraham Lincoln to William Fithian, 15 August 1860, CW, 4:95.