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.