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The Lincoln letter
I found this in the Library of Congress, manuscripts division, and by pure coincidence. October, 1856: Lincoln is writing the editor of the Illinois Republican newspaper. He's commencing his rise -- he'd been chosen as head of the new Illinois Republican Party just six months before. But he's thinking in national terms: the Dawes to whom he refers is a Massachusetts antislavery congressman.
Click on the thumbnail to read it. Lincoln folded the paper over as if it were a pamphlet, so you read it in the sequence 2-3-4-1.
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People used to write much more ornately prior to our public school system getting a hold of us. I use to be able to read the more ornate script not now. We lost something by doing everything on the computer - sigh.
I cannot read that.
Sigh.
Transcription, please.
Top right page: "Oct 9th 1816. My Dear Sam(?) Thanks for your letter. I saw you were doing all the work and you shall have all the credit. I telegraphed you to lend to me because I've written to (pha?) that they may count upon $9000 from us 5000 of which we have paid. They will borrow on the thought of our say so and count upon our remittance(?). I will say all we can for ? and everything that can be paid without being too .... "
A bit difficult at times yes, but I got the gist.
I've always been bad at reading handwriting, but I find this exceptionally unreadable, even when zoomed in close. It would be nice if you had done a 600dpi flatbed scan of the document. Can somebody do a transcript, or at least give a summary of what the interesting information in it is?