l Land Office, in the new
Department of the Interior, recently established.

"I believe that, so far as the Whigs in Congress are concerned," wrote
Lincoln to Speed twelve days before Taylor's inauguration, "I could
have the General Land Office almost by common consent; but then Sweet
and Don Morrison and Browning and Cyrus Edwards all want it, and what is
worse, while I think I could easily take it myself, I fear I shall have
trouble to get it for any other man in Illinois."

Unselfishly yielding his own chances, he tried to induce the four
Illinois candidates to come to a mutual agreement in favor of one of
their own number. They were so tardy in settling their differences as to
excite his impatience, and he wrote to a Washington friend:

"I learn from Washington that a man by the name of Butterfield will
probably be appointed Commissioner of the General Land Office, This
ought not to be.... Some kind friends think I ought to be an applicant,
but I am for Mr. Edwards. Try to defeat Butterfield, and, in doing so,
use Mr. Edwards, J.L.D. Morrison, or myself, whichever you can to best
advantage."

As the situation grew persistently worse, Mr. Lincoln at length, about
the first of June, himself became a formal applicant. But the delay
resulting from his devotion to his friends had dissipated his chances.
Butterfield received the appointment, and the defeat was aggravated
when, a few months later, his unrelenting spirit of justice and fairness
impelled him to write a letter defending Butterfield and the Secretary
of the Interior from an attack by one of Lincoln's warm personal but
indiscreet friends in the Illinois legislature. It was, however, a
fortunate escape. In the four succeeding years Mr. Lincoln qualified
himself for better things than the monotonous drudgery of an
administrative bureau at Washington. It is probable that this defeat
also enabled him more easily to pass by another temptation. The Taylor
administration, realizing its ingratitude, at length, in September,
offered him the governorship of the recently organized territory of
Oregon; but he replied:

"On as much reflection as I have had time to give the subject, I cannot
consent to accept it."

VII

Repeal of the Missouri Compromise--State Fair Debate--Peoria
Debate--Trumbull Elected--Letter to Robinson--The Know-Nothings--Decatur
Meeting--Bloomington Convention--Philadelphia Convention--Lincoln's Vote
for Vice-President--Fremont and Dayto