Western influences. He gave reasons why the appointment should be given
to Illinois, and particularly to the southern part of the State. Major
Wilcox says that he was forcibly struck by the clear, convincing, and
methodical statement of Lincoln as contained in these eleven reasons why
he should have the appointment. But it was given to Mr. Butterfield.

After Lincoln became President, a Member of Congress asked him for an
appointment in the army in behalf of a son of the same Justin
Butterfield. When the application was presented, the President paused,
and after a moment's silence, said: "Mr. Justin Butterfield once
obtained an appointment I very much wanted, in which my friends believed
I could have been useful, and to which they thought I was fairly
entitled. I hardly ever felt so bad at any failure in my life. But I am
glad of an opportunity of doing a service to his son." And he made an
order for his commission. In lieu of the desired office, General Taylor
offered Lincoln the post of Governor, and afterwards of Secretary, of
Oregon Territory; but these offers he declined. In after years a friend
remarked to him, alluding to the event: "How fortunate that you
declined! If you had gone to Oregon you might have come back as
Senator, but you would never have been President." "Yes, you are
probably right," said Lincoln; and then, with a musing, dreamy look, he
added: "I have all my life been a fatalist. What is to be, will be; or,
rather, I have found all my life, as Hamlet says,--

'There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.'"

CHAPTER VII

Lincoln again in Springfield--Back to the Circuit--His Personal
Manners and Appearance--Glimpses of Home-Life--His Family--His
Absent-Mindedness--A Painful Subject--Lincoln a Man of
Sorrows--Familiar Appearance on the Streets of Springfield--Scenes
in the Law-Office--Forebodings of a "Great or Miserable End "--An
Evening with Lincoln in Chicago--Lincoln's Tenderness to His
Relatives--Death of His Father--A Sensible Adviser--Care of His
Step-Mother--Tribute from Her.

Retiring, somewhat reluctantly, from Washington life, which he seems to
have liked very much, Lincoln returned to Springfield in 1849 and
resumed the practice of the law. He declined an advantageous offer of a
law-partnership at Chicago, made him by Judge Goodrich, giving as a
reason that if he went to Chicago he would have to sit dow