Crawfordville [Ga.], Sept. 6th, 1860.
Dear Smith, I wrote you from this place last Sunday. I am again at home. Got back from Warren Court yesterday and am to start tomorrow to Hancock. I am improving daily in health and strength. I hope by tomorrow to get a letter from you. I have received but one lately and that was at Kingston. Next Tuesday the election takes place in Pa., and Ohio. I feel great interest in hearing the result but greater still in knowing how the discordant elements in Pa. will cooperate after the State elections. I expect Foster to be elected Gov. from what I have heard. But will he after his election come out for Breckinridge as Jackson has done in Mo., or will he go for Douglas? Will a united Democratic vote be cast in that state for either Douglas or Breckinridge, and if so for which? This is an important question and one that will affect us here seriously. Foster is claimed here as a Breckinridge man and his election will be hailed from what I hear as a Breckinridge triumph. From an extract of his speech at Philadelphia I saw I should infer that he was a Douglas man. It was on his line of non-intervention, etc. Write to me just as soon as you get this. The election will be over in those states. Let me know the on dits at Washington. I shall be here tomorrow week—time enough to get your reply to this. The cause is still gaining in this state. If Foster should be elected and he should be shown to be for Douglas and there was good prospect for Douglas to carry Pa., it would give us thousands of votes in Ga.
From Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911.
Alexander Hamilton Stephens was an American politician who served as the vice president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. After serving in both houses of the Georgia General Assembly, he won election to Congress, taking his seat in 1843. After the Civil War, he returned to Congress in 1873, serving to 1882 when he was elected as the 50th Governor of Georgia, serving there from late 1882 until his death in 1883.
J. Henley Smith was a Georgia journalist.