"Abraham’s interest in politics remained strong and Mary fully encouraged this. Continuing to dream of the presidency, she convinced him to decline an appointment as governor of the Oregon Territory. In 1855, he lost an election to the U.S. Senate, but she was developing her political acumen. With the debate over slavery heating up, Mary was adamant that Abraham not be perceived as an abolitionist, for then he would be thought a radical and have no chance of election. In 1858, Abraham ran again for the U.S. Senate, but lost to Mary’s former beau, Stephen A. Douglas. Abraham said he would “sink out of view, and shall be forgotten,” but Mary did not agree."
So here we had a statement that Lincoln politics were not his own, and that it was contrived to achieve political purposes.