Nathan Dresser is here, and speaks as though the contest between Hardin and me is to be doubtful in Menard County.  I know he is candid and this alarms me some.  I asked him to tell me the names of the men that were going strong for Hardin, he said Morris was about as strong as any-now tell me, is Morris going it openly?  You remember you wrote me that he would be neutral.  Nathan also said that some man, whom he could not remember, had said lately that Menard County was going to decide the contest and that made the, contest very doubtful.  Do you know who that was?  Don’t fail to write me instantly on receiving this, telling me all—­particularly the names of those who are going strong against me.

Yours as ever,
A. Lincoln.

TO N. J. ROCKWELL.

Springfield, January 21, 1846.

Dear sir:—­You perhaps know that General Hardin and I have a contest for the Whig nomination for Congress for this district.

He has had a turn and my argument is “turn about is fair play.”

I shall be pleased if this strikes you as a sufficient argument.

Yours truly,
A. Lincoln.

TO JAMES BERDAN.

Springfield, April 26, 1846.

Dear sir:—­I thank you for the promptness with which you answered my letter from Bloomington.  I also thank you for the frankness with which you comment upon a certain part of my letter; because that comment affords me an opportunity of trying to express myself better than I did before, seeing, as I do, that in that part of my letter, you have not understood me as I intended to be understood.

In speaking of the “dissatisfaction” of men who yet mean to do no wrong, etc., I mean no special application of what I said to the Whigs of Morgan, or of Morgan & Scott.  I only had in my mind the fact that previous to General Hardin’s withdrawal some of his friends and some of mine had become a little warm; and I felt, and meant to say, that for them now to meet face to face and converse together was the best way to efface any remnant of unpleasant feeling, if any such existed.

I did not suppose that General Hardin’s friends were in any greater need of having their feelings corrected than mine were.  Since I saw you at Jacksonville, I have had no more suspicion of the Whigs of Morgan than of those of any other part of the district.  I write this only to try to remove any impression that I distrust you and the other Whigs of your country.

Yours truly,
A. Lincoln.

TO JAMES BERDAN.

Springfield, May 7, 1866.