The Capitol Dome

44 THE CAPITOL DOME the territorial governor of Oregon. 48 at job was declined but whisperings indicated that Lincoln might be offered the governorship instead; however, that far-off opportunity had little scope for advancement as the territory was already heavily Democratic. Unwilling to risk a difficult move to the West Coast, Lincoln scotched any further consideration of his name for the job (fig. 14). 49 Settling back into his law practice in Springfield with his political career seemingly ended, Lincoln nonetheless kept a weather-eye on political developments in Illinois and across the nation. His reti- cence at accepting a frontier appointment was later justified, although seven years had to pass before he reentered the political fray propelled by the deepening arguments over the extension of slavery into the territories. Ten years aer his limited stint in Congress, Abraham Lincoln sought to return to Washington, this time as a sena- tor, by challenging Stephen A. Douglas to a series of debates destined to garner national attention. While that attempt ended in failure and Lincoln never again walked the halls of Congress as a legislator, he would return to Capitol Hill as president. e lessons he learned while serving in the House and the personalities he encountered during his first tenure in the capital from 1847–1849 served him in good stead aer he took up residence at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Although the paper trail of Lincoln's career as a one- term representative is far more limited than his later ser- vice as the nation's chief magistrate, new insights have been gained through dogged and systematic archival digging. e valuable materials found in the records of the irtieth Congress at the National Archives will enable historians to better judge and reevaluate Lincoln's legislative career; they underscore the long-standing maxim among the staff of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln that "every document tells a story." e documents featured here are a small sample of the vast new cache of Lincoln materials unearthed in the last two decades that will be made digitally available to the public. Every new document discovered, whether written by Lincoln or addressed to him, puts more pieces of the Great Emancipator's puzzle into place, allowing a much fuller pic- ture of the man, the politician, the president, and the era in which he lived. e inclusion of previously ignored or over- looked documents in the Lincoln lexicon enables, not only a more complete accounting of Lincoln's life and impact, but opens new venues of exploration into the lives of those who wrote to him and whose voices have for too long not been heard. As likely the only scholar ever to have combed through all of the existing official records of Lincoln's two years on Capitol Hill, I can say unreservedly—using his words—that the task has been both "a great honor and a great labor." 50 Surely Representative Lincoln would agree. DR . DAV I D J. GER LEM A N served for a decade as an assistant editor with the Papers of Abraham Lincoln. He resides in Alexandria, Virginia, and teaches courses on American history, the Civil War, and Lincoln's presidency at George Mason University in addition to lecturing on history topics to both scholarly and public audiences. He has been awarded fellowships from the U.S. Military Historical Institute, the Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History, the United States Military Academy at West Point, and served with the Congressional Research Service and the Society of the Cincinnati. NOTES 1.Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore, MD 2008), 1:238. 2. Ronald C. White, Jr., A. Lincoln: A Biography (New York, 2009), p. 364. 3. Abraham Lincoln Papers: About the Collection, Library of Congress, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ alhtml/alabout.html (accessed 7 Aug. 2017); Stefan Lorant, "Where are the Lincoln Papers?," Life Magazine, 23, no. 8 (25 Aug. 1947): 45– 46, 48, 51. 4. A l len C . Cla rk , Abraha m Lincoln in the National Capital (Washing ton, DC, 1925), p. 3; Samuel C. Busey, Personal Reminiscences and Recol- lections of Forty-six Years Membership in the Medi- cal Society of the District of Columbia, and Residence in is City, with Biographical Sketches of Many of the Deceased Members (Washington, DC, n. d.), p. 25. Congressional Directory for the Second Session of the irtieth Congress of the United States of America (Washington, DC, 1849), p. 32. 5. Benjamin Perley Poore in Allen orndike, eds., Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln by Distinguished Men of His Time (New York, 1886), p. 222. 6. Proclamation Certifying Illinois Candidates to the Thirtieth Congress, Entry 373: Records of the Office of the Clerk, Other Records, 1847–1849, RG 233: House Records, National Archives, Washington, DC. 7. Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States (Washington, DC, 1847–48), p. 7.

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