To W. H. Henderson Lincoln writes: "I am not Senator. I have to content myself with the honor of having been the first choice of a large majority of the fiftyone members who finally made the election." A less good humored man, Lincoln says, would not have permitted his many supporters to surrender to Trumbull's five. "I could not, however, let the whole political result go to ruin, on a point merely personal to myself." Abraham Lincoln to William H. Henderson, 21 February 1855, CW, 2:306-7.