GDG- attempted to frighten an Irishman with a broadsword

[Dennis Lawrence]

Friday, October 6, 1843.
Jacksonville, IL.
	

Morgan County Whigs pay election bet to Sangamon and other Whigs at 
barbecue in Jacksonville. Sangamon gave Hardin twice as great a majority as 
Morgan in congressional election. They thus won proposal made by Lincoln to 
Hardin May 11, 1843. Speeches are made by Lincoln, Baker, and Matheny of 
Sangamon, Hardin and Yates of Morgan, Hay of Pike, and Blackwell of 
Schuyler. Speech at Whig Barbecue at Jacksonville, Illinois, 6 October 
1843, CW, 1:329-30.

"Register" reports: "Yesterday came off the long expected Coon jubilee; and 
if there ever was a failure, I think that will be conceded to have been 
one. . . . [Baker] was succeeded in the evening by himself and another 
valiant man [Lincoln], who once attempted to frighten an Irishman with a 
broadsword, and who, when he found that impracticable, procured his friends 
to manage `an amicable adjustment'." Register, 20 October 1843.

A Chicago Democratic paper takes another tack. "Many `reformed drunkards,' 
Washingtonians, were present, and it being a party affair, all got 
gloriously drunk together. . . . It was unquestionably the most disgraceful 
affair that ever happened in our state."