We are aware of the toil necessarily incident to a journey by one circumstanced as you are; but once you have embarked, as you have already determined to do, the toil would not be greatly augmented by extending the journey to our capital. The season of the year will be most favorable for good roads, and pleasant weather; and although we cannot but believe you would be highly gratified with such a visit to the prairie-land, the pleasure it would give us and thousands such as we is beyond all question. You have never visited Illinois, or at least this portion of it; and should you now yield to our request, we promise you such a reception as shall he worthy of the man on whom are now turned the fondest hopes of a great and suffering nation.
Please inform us at the earliest convenience whether we may expect you.
Very respectfully your obedient servants, A. G. HENRY, A. T. BLEDSOE, C. BIRCHALL, A. LINCOLN, G. M. CABANNISS, ROB'T IRWIN, P. A. SAUNDERS, J. M. ALLEN, F. N. FRANCIS. Executive Committee "Clay Club."
(Clay's answer, September 6, 1842, declines with thanks.)
CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE LINCOLN-SHIELDS DUEL.
TREMONT, September 17, 1842.
ABRA. LINCOLN, ESQ.:--I regret that my absence on public business compelled me to postpone a matter of private consideration a little longer than I could have desired. It will only be necessary, however, to account for it by informing you that I have been to Quincy on business that would not admit of delay. I will now state briefly the reasons of my troubling you with this communication, the disagreeable nature of which I regret, as I had hoped to avoid any difficulty with any one in Springfield while residing there, by endeavoring to conduct myself in such a way amongst both my political friends and opponents as to escape the necessity of any. Whilst thus abstaining from giving provocation, I have become the object of slander, vituperation, and personal abuse, which were I capable of submitting to, I would prove myself worthy of the whole of it.
In two or three of the last numbers of the Sangamon Journal, articles of the most personal nature and calculated to degrade me have made their appearance. On inquiring, I was informed by the editor of that paper, through the medium of my friend General Whitesides, that you are the author of those articles. This information satisfies me that I have become by some means or other the object of your secret hostility. I will not take the trouble of inquiring into the reason of all this; but I will take the liberty of requiring a full, positive, and absolute retraction of all offensive allusions used by you in these communications, in relation to my private character and standing as a man, as an apology for the insults conveyed in them.
This may prevent consequences which no one will regret more than myself.
Your obedient servant, JAS. SHIELDS.
TO J. SHIELDS.
TREMONT, September 17, 1842
JAS. SHIELDS, ESQ.:--Your note of to-day was handed me by General Whitesides. In that note you say you have been informed, through the medium of the editor of the Journal, that I am the author of certain articles in that paper which you deem personally abusive of you; and without stopping to inquire whether I really am the author, or to point out what is offensive in them, you demand an unqualified retraction of all that is offensive, and then proceed to hint at consequences.
Now, sir, there is in this so much assumption of facts and so much of menace as to consequences, that I cannot submit to answer that note any further than I have, and to add that the consequences to which I suppose you allude would be matter of as great regret to me as it possibly could to you.
Respectfully,
A. LINCOLN.
TO A. LINCOLN FROM JAS. SHIELDS
TREMONT, September 17, 1842.
ABRA. LINCOLN, ESQ.:--In reply to my note of this date, you intimate that I assume facts and menace consequences, and that you cannot submit to answer it further. As now, sir, you desire it, I will be a little more particular.