Lincoln's Endorsement

Romney has endorsed McCain today, adding further inevitability to McCain's nomination. I coincidentally came across this little-known piece of history. Something to ponder when considering endorsements and the dilemma of voting for the lesser of two bad choices. Lincoln's forgotten run for the Senate:

"On this day in 1855 (February 8th), Abraham Lincoln lost his first bid to win a seat in the U.S. Senate. The Illinois legislature chose between three candidates: Lincoln, running as a Whig; Rep. Lyman Trumbull, an anti-slavery Democrat; and Joel Matheson, the pro-slavery Democrat Governor. Though Lincoln came just six votes short of victory in the first round of voting, he could not expect any Democrat legislators to vote for him. So, he threw his support to Trumbull in order to keep another pro-slavery Democrat out of the U.S. Senate.

Lyman Trumbull was elected and soon became a Republican. Senator Trumbull went on to write the Republican Party's 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery."