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CHAPTER XIV.

E have seen already, from one of his letters to Mr. Herndon, that Mr. Lincoln was personally quite willing to be a candidate for Congress the second time. But his "honor" forbade : he had given pledges, and made private arrangements with other gentlemen, to prevent "the district from going to the enemy." Judge Logan was nominated in his place; and, although personally one of the most popular men in Illinois, he was sadly beaten, in consequence of the record which the Whig party had made "against the war." It was well as it was; for, if Mr. Lincoln had been the candidate, he would have been still more disastrously defeated, since it was mainly the votes he had given in Congress which Judge Logan found it so difficult to explain and impossible to defend.

Mr. Lincoln was an applicant, and a very urgent one, for the office of Commissioner of the General Land-Office in the new Whig administration. He moved his friends to urge him in the newspapers, and wrote to some of his late associates in Congress (among them Mr. Schenck of Ohio), soliciting their support. But it was all of no avail; Mr. Justin Butterfield (also an Illinoisian) beat him "in the race to Washington," and got the appointment. It is said by one of Mr. Lincoln's numerous biographers, that he often laughed over his failure to secure this great office, pretending to think it beneath his merits; but we can find no evidence of the fact alleged, and have no reason to believe it.

Mr. Fillmore subsequently offered him the governorship of