Are those stories about Mary abusive to Abraham overstated???

[David Lockmiller]

I meant my initial post to be a reply to the following statement made by Angela in her post #18:"How her political interest did Lincoln’s career any good is still a mystery to me."

There may well have been a political argument made to Mr. Lincoln by Mary about separating himself from his political base that he had created in Illinois with Herndon, Judge Davis, and many of his fellow attorneys on the Eighth Circuit. This would all have been lost had Lincoln moved to Oregon. And, of course, there would have been no Lincoln-Douglas debates for Illinois Senator that made Lincoln a national figure on the issue of slavery. And, then there would have been no invitation to create his Cooper Union Address. ("For want of a shoe, the horse was lost, etc."). History to be made is not inevitable.

“Abraham Lincoln Once Declined Governorship of Oregon”
Subtitled: “Opportunity to Direct Territorial Government Is Refused at Wish of Mrs. Lincoln”
The Oregon Sunday Journal, February 11, 1912, Portland - by Rowland R. Gittings,

The outlook promised nothing for Lincoln or his party in the lower house [of Congress]. As for the Senate, the prospect was no better for the party, while as for Lincoln himself senatorial ambitions would have seemed, in 1849, premature even with his party in power. Yet he seemed scarcely content to resume at once his law practice, although he had in it achieved notable success. Besides, the lure of Washington City was upon him. He was not blinded, but he was charmed. Hence, in the last days of his term he submitted himself to the incoming administration, that of Taylor, as an applicant for the commissionership of the general land office. For this position he had special fitness, to be sure, but inasmuch as no distinction whatever could come to any incumbent, it is easy to agree with his biographers, who exult in Lincoln’s escape from “the greatest danger that ever threatened him,” when one Justin Butterfield of Chicago, being either less scrupulous or more ambitious, ran under the plum and caught it falling.

Following his failure to obtain this commissionership, Lincoln was offered the governorship of Oregon territory, to succeed General Joseph Lane, who was, of course, about to be removed for reasons purely political. In one sense, the place was probably tendered as a sort of consolation prize; on the other hand, Oregon’s material potentialities were well recognized by the well informed, while those who saw far politically discerned possibilities not at all despicable, no matter how ill-defined at that day. Friends of Lincoln advised him to accept the Oregon tender, reasoning that the territory must, in a few years, achieve statehood, and that a seat in the senate of the United States might most reasonably be expected at the hands of the Oregonians. This consideration appealed to Lincoln himself, and doubtless he would have placed himself at the disposal of the administration. But Mrs. Lincoln was loath to undergo the long journey to Oregon and the discomforts of life on the farthest frontier. And so the name Abraham Lincoln was never sent to the senate. [End of quotation from newspaper article.]

Personal note: If Lincoln had accepted the “Oregon Opportunity,” he would not have been President of the United States at the beginning of the Civil War. Lincoln’s base of political support was in Illinois, when Illinois was still on the western edge of civilization.