GUSTAVE KOERNER
(Gustav Philipp Koerner)
The Democrats had Gerrymandered Illinois very much the way the Republicans did it in Texas in 2000, thus enabling Stephen A Douglas to defeat Abraham Lincoln for Illinois Senator. However, when Lincoln realizing that he, a relative minor political figure, had come so close despite the gerrymandering, he was emboldened to run for the Presidency.
Gustav Philipp Koerner, also spelled Gustave or Gustavus Koerner was a revolutionary, journalist, lawyer, politician, judge, and statesman in Illinois and Germany and a Colonel of the U.S. Army who was a confessed enemy of slavery. He married on 17 June 1836 in Belleville Sophia Dorothea Engelmann (16 November 1815 – 1 March 1888), they had 9 children. He belonged to the co-founders and was one of the first members of the Grand Old Party; and he was a close confidant of Abraham Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd and had an essential role in his nomination and election for president in 1860.
