Land Office, which might easily have been his, but for which he
had agreed to recommend some other Illinois man. A few weeks
later the President offered to make him governor of the new
Territory of Oregon. This attracted him much more than the other
office had done, but he declined because his wife was unwilling
to live in a place so far away.

His career in Congress, while adding little to his fame at the
time, proved of great advantage to him in after life, for it gave
him a close knowledge of the workings of the Federal Government,
and brought him into contact with political leaders from all
parts of the Union.



V. THE CHAMPION OF FREEDOM

For four or five years after his return from Congress, Lincoln
remained in Springfield, working industriously at his profession.
He was offered a law partnership in Chicago, but declined on the
ground that his health would not stand the confinement of a great
city. His business increased in volume and importance as the
months went by; and it was during this time that he engaged in
what is perhaps the most dramatic as well as the best known of
all his law cases--his defense of Jack Armstrong's son on a
charge of murder. A knot of young men had quarreled one night on
the outskirts of a camp-meeting, one was killed, and suspicion
pointed strongly toward young Armstrong as the murderer. Lincoln,
for old friendship's sake, offered to defend him--an offer most
gratefully accepted by his family. The principal witness swore