Scope and Contents:
This collection includes a poll book leaf for the election of presidential electors in Meredosia, Morgan County, Illinois for the 1840 election. Abraham Lincoln, name misspelled as “Abram Lincoln,” is included as a candidate.
Abraham Lincoln ran as an elector for the state of Illinois in the 1840 presidential election. In the United States, electors within the Electoral College vote for the president by ballot, and the candidate with the greatest number of electoral votes becomes president. During the 1840 elections, Lincoln was a member of the Whig party. The election for presidential electors was split into two slates, one for the Democratic Party and one for the Whig Party. While Democratic slate for Martin Van Buren won Illinois, the Whig candidate, Willliam Henry Harrison, won the presidency. Following the decline of the Whig party after the signing of the Kansas Nebraska Act in 1854, many northern Whigs, including Lincoln, joined the Republican Party.
This collection consists of a poll book leaf from Meredosia Precinct. A printed column along the top of the sheet is labeled “For Presidential Electors” and includes the names of ten electors with the last name being Abraham Lincoln’s, misspelled “Abram Lincoln.” Both sides of the leaf include the names of twenty-seven men who voted on the electors. Lincoln received 21 votes.
The Library purchased this collection in 2025 with support from the Dr. Harlan Horner Estate.
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