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.
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