Lincoln Looks West: From the Mississippi to the Pacific

5. Lincoln’s New Mexico Patronage: Saving the Far Southwest for the Union

 134 5 ➢ Lincoln’s New Mexico Patronage: Saving the Far Southwest for the Union Deren Earl Kellogg New Mexico Territory receives scant mention in connection with the administration of President Abraham Lincoln. Historians have generally concluded that Lincoln and other federal officials attached no great value to the territory and mostly neglected it. It is true that Lincoln could devote little attention to the administration of the western territories during the Civil War, which threatened the very future of the country. However, evidence suggests that Lincoln did care about saving New Mexico for the Union and should be given some credit for achieving this goal. Although Lincoln’s western patronage record was generally undistinguished, his appointments to the New Mexico Territory were popular men who had experience in the Southwest and who often did not identify themselves with the Republican Party. In fact, the patronage record of New Mexico was, in some ways, more similar to those of the crucial border states of Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland than that of the remaining western territories. Even among historians of the Southwest, there has been a conception that the region was mostly ignored by the federal government during the Civil War. Those who mention the attitudes of Washington officials at all usually stress their apathy in this matter. For instance, Ray C. Colton, writing on the war in the southwestern territories, argues that the federal government assigned no “strategic importance” to New Mexico until 1862. Alvin Josephy, historian of the Civil War in the West, states that “the western territories, and particularly New Mexico, were treated at times as if they From New Mexico Historical Review 75 (October 2000): 511–33. ➢ Lincoln’s New Mexico Patronage 135 were a nuisance.” Likewise, James A. Howard II, discussing the war in New Mexico and Arizona, concludes that the government viewed New Mexico “as a burden rather than as an attribute.”1 Neither Lincoln scholars nor southwestern historians have examined Lincoln’s New Mexico patronage to any great degree. J. G. Randall’s classic multivolume biography of Lincoln and important biographies by David Herbert Donald and Philip Shaw Paludan note New Mexico in connection with attempts to compromise the secession crisis in 1861, but these scholars say nothing about Lincoln’s appointments to federal offices there. In their study of Lincoln’s patronage, Harry J. Carman and Reinhard H. Luthin assert that Lincoln’s appointment of Henry Connelly as governor of New Mexico Territory in 1861 was the only gubernatorial appointment “not tinged with party politics,” but their work barely touches on territorial patronage. Histories of the West and Southwest by Ralph Y. McGinnis and Howard Roberts Lamar do give some information on the men Lincoln appointed to New Mexico offices but fail to fit these appointments into the broader context of territorial patronage. Loomis Morton Ganaway’s work on New Mexico’s place in the prewar slavery controversy and Vincent G. Tegeder’s article on territorial patronage give Lincoln credit for appointing loyal Democrats to office in New Mexico, but Ganaway does not discuss territorial patronage in general, while Tegeder fails to mention Connelly.2 Territorial patronage made up a large percentage of federal patronage in the mid-nineteenth century. In each territory, a governor was chief executive , and a territorial secretary carried out many of the same functions as state lieutenant governors. In addition, each territory was divided into three federal judicial districts, each of which was presided over by a federal district judge. When sitting together, these three judges formed the territorial supreme court. Other positions included the territorial marshalcy and land office commissioner. All positions were filled by presidential appointment subject to confirmation by the Senate. Each territory also had the right to send a nonvoting delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives; these were elected by the territorial voters.3 Lincoln’s policy regarding civil appointments to the territories was not notably different from that of his predecessors and successors. Partisan political considerations played the major part in deciding who would be appointed. Patronage was a successful presidential candidate’s main method of rewarding his supporters. In Lincoln’s case, his appointments had to be acceptable to powerful eastern Republicans. At the beginning of Lincoln’s  Deren Earl Kellogg 136 first term, there were eight western territories: New Mexico, Dakota, Colorado , Nebraska, Utah, Nevada, Washington, and Indian Territory. The last of these did not have a traditional...