for the office.  There was an office which he himself desired, it was that of “Commissioner of the General Land Office,” a new office in Washington dealing with settlement on Government lands in the West.  He was probably well suited to it; but his application was delayed by the fact that friends in Illinois wanted the post too; a certain Mr. Butterfield (a lawyer renowned for his jokes, which showed, it is said, “at least a well-marked humorous intention”) got it; and then it fell to the lot of the disappointed Lincoln to have to defend Butterfield against some unfair attack.  But a tempting offer was made him, that of the Governorship of Oregon Territory, and he wavered before refusing to take work which would, as it happened, have kept him far away when the opportunity of his life came.  It was Mrs. Lincoln who would not let him cut himself off so completely from politics.  As for himself, it is hard to resist the impression that he was at this time a tired man, disappointed as to the progress of his career and probably also disappointed and somewhat despondent about politics and the possibilities of good service that lay open to politicians.  It may be that this was partly the reason why he was not at all aroused by the crisis in American politics which must now be related.

2. California and the Compromise of 1850.

It has been said that the motive for the conquests from Mexico was the desire for slave territory.  The attractive part of the new dominion was of course California.  Arizona and New Mexico are arid regions, and the mineral wealth of Nevada was unknown.  The peacefully acquired region of Oregon, far north, need not concern us, but Oregon became a free State in 1859.  Early in the war a struggle began between Northerners and Southerners (to a large extent independent of party) in the Senate and the House as to whether slavery should be allowed in the conquered land or not.  David Wilmot, a Northern Democratic Congressman, proposed a proviso to the very first money grant connected with the war, that slavery should be forbidden in any territory to be annexed.  The “Wilmot Proviso” was proposed again on every possible occasion; Lincoln, by the way, sturdily supported it while in Congress; it was always voted down.  Cass proposed as a solution of all difficulties that the question of slavery should be left to the people of the new Territories or States themselves.  The American public, apt as condensing an argument into a phrase, dismissed Cass’s principle for the time being with the epithet “squatter sovereignty.”  Calhoun and his friends said it was contrary to the Constitution that an American citizen should not be free to move with his property, including his slaves, into territory won by the Union.  The annexation was carried out, and the question of slavery was unsettled.  Then events took a surprising turn.