Letter to Charles Ray (June 27, 1858)

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#37 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

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“How in God’s name do you let such paragraphs into the Tribune, as the enclosed cut from that paper of yesterday? Does Sheahan write them?”

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HD Daily Report, June 27, 1858

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My dear Sir, 

How in God’s name do you let such paragraphs into the Tribune, as the enclosed cut from that paper of yesterday? Does Sheahan write them? How can you have failed to perceive that in this short paragraph you have completely answered all your own well put complaints of Greely [Greeley] and Sister Burlingame? What right have you to interfere in Indiana, more than they in Illinois? And what possible argument can be made why all Republicans shall stand out of Hon. John G. Davis’s way in his district in Indiana that can not be made why all Republicans in Illinois shall stand out of Hon. S.A. Douglas’s way? The part in larger type is plainly editorial, and your editorial at that, as you do not credit it to any other paper. I confess it astonishes me. 

Yours truly, A. Lincoln.