The post would normally have been held by a legatus, of senatorial rank.
After a great inquiry held in 1892 by a senatorial committee a reaction was produced in France against this excessive assimilation.
Although, with the exception of Seward, he was the most prominent Republican in the country, and had done more against slavery than any other Republican, he failed to secure the nomination for the presidency in 1860, partly because his views on the question of protection were not orthodox from a Republican point of view, and partly because the old line Whig element could not forgive his coalition with the Democrats in the senatorial campaign of 1849; his uncompromising and conspicuous anti-slavery record, too, was against him from the point of view of "availability."
In 27 B.C. Asia was made a senatorial province under a pro-consul.
He never held political office, although he was a candidate for the Republican senatorial nomination against Senator Thomas C. Platt in 1897.