Task: Question Answering
Input (English): Context: Minnesota (locally ) is a state in the midwestern and northern regions of the United States. Minnesota was admitted as the 32nd U.S. state on May 11, 1858, created from the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory. The state has a large number of lakes, and is known by the slogan "Land of 10,000 Lakes". Its official motto is "L'Étoile du Nord" (French: "Star of the North").
Minnesota is the 12th largest in area and the 21st most populous of the U.S. states; nearly 60 percent of its residents live in the MinneapolisSaint Paul metropolitan area (known as the "Twin Cities"), the center of transportation, business, industry, education, and government and home to an internationally known arts community. The remainder of the state consists of western prairies now given over to intensive agriculture; deciduous forests in the southeast, now partially cleared, farmed and settled; and the less populated North Woods, used for mining, forestry, and recreation.
Minnesota is known for its progressive political orientation and its high rate of civic participation and voter turnout. Until European settlement, Minnesota was inhabited by the Dakota and Ojibwe/Anishinaabe. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the large majority of the European settlers emigrated from Scandinavia and Germany, and the state remains a center of Scandinavian American and German American culture. In recent decades, immigration from Asia, the Horn of Africa, and Latin America has broadened its historic demographic and cultural composition. Minnesota's standard of living index is among the highest in the United States, and the state is also among the best-educated and wealthiest in the nation., Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. The other four Great Lakes are shared by the U.S. and Canada. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third-largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron (and is slightly smaller than the U.S. state of West Virginia). To the east, its basin is conjoined with that of Lake Huron through the wide Straits of Mackinac, giving it the same surface elevation as its easterly counterpart; the two are technically a single lake.
Lake Michigan is shared, from west to east, by the U.S. states of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. Ports along its shores include, Chicago, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Wisconsin, Gary, Indiana, and Benton Harbor, Michigan. The word "Michigan" originally referred to the lake itself, and is believed to come from the Ojibwa word "mishigami" meaning "great water".
In the earliest European maps of the region, the name of Lake Illinois has been found in addition to that of "Michigan"., A post office is a customer service facility forming part of a national postal system. Post offices offer mail-related services such as acceptance of letters and parcels; provision of post office boxes; and sale of postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. In addition, many post offices offer additional services: providing and accepting government forms (such as passport applications), processing government services and fees (such as road tax), and banking services (such as savings accounts and money orders). The chief administrator of a post office is a postmaster., Martin Van Buren (; December 5, 1782  July 24, 1862) was an American politician who served a single term as the eighth President of the United States (183741). A member of the Democratic Party, he served in a number of senior roles, including eighth Vice President (183337) and tenth Secretary of State (182931), both under Andrew Jackson. Van Buren's inability as president to deal with the deep economic depression following the Panic of 1837 and with the surging Whig Party led to his defeat in the 1840 election., The Free Soil Party was a short-lived political party in the United States active in the 1848 and 1852 presidential elections, and in some state elections. Founded in Buffalo, New York, it was a third party and a single-issue party that largely appealed to and drew its greatest strength from New York State. The party leadership consisted of anti-slavery former members of the Whig Party and the Democratic Party. Its main purpose was to oppose the expansion of slavery into the western territories, arguing that free men on free soil comprised a morally and economically superior system to slavery. It opposed slavery in the new territories (agreeing with the Wilmot Proviso) and sometimes worked to remove existing laws that discriminated against freed African Americans in states such as Ohio. It nominated Martin Van Buren for the presidency in 1848 and John P. Hale for the presidency in 1852., A U.S. state is a constituent political entity of the United States of America. There are 50 states, which are bound together in a union with each other. Each state holds administrative jurisdiction over a defined geographic territory, and shares its sovereignty with the United States federal government. Due to the shared sovereignty between each state and the federal government, Americans are citizens of both the federal republic and of the state in which they reside. State citizenship and residency are flexible, and no government approval is required to move between states, except for persons covered by certain types of court orders (e.g., paroled convicts and children of divorced spouses who are sharing custody)., Edward Eastman ( February 22 , 1806 - February 23 , 1870 ) was an American merchant and bookseller from Oshkosh , Wisconsin who was the first mayor of Oshkosh , served several years as its postmaster , and spent a single one - year term in 1851 as a Free Soil Party member of the Wisconsin State Assembly ., A merchant is a business person who trades in commodities produced by other people in order to earn a profit. The status of the merchant has varied during different periods of history and among different societies. Merchants have often been the subject of works of art., The Wilmot Proviso proposed an American law to ban slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico in the Mexican War. The conflict over the proviso was one of the major events leading to the American Civil War., In many countries, a mayor (or , from the Latin "maior" , meaning "bigger") is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town., An "official" is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority (either their own or that of their superior and/or employer, public or legally private)., A city is a large and permanent human settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town in general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law., A Postmaster General, in many countries, is the chief executive officer of the postal service of that country, responsible for oversight over all other Postmasters. The practice of having a government official responsible for overseeing the delivery of mail throughout the nation originated in England, where a "Master of the Posts" is mentioned in the "King's Book of Payments", with a payment of £100 being authorised for Tuke as master of the posts in February 1512. Belatedly, in 1517, he was officially appointed to the office of "Governor of the King's Posts", a precursor to the office of Postmaster General of the United Kingdom, by Henry VIII. In 1609 it was decreed that letters could only be carried and delivered by persons authorised by the Postmaster General., John Parker Hale (March 31, 1806November 19, 1873) was an American politician and lawyer from New Hampshire. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1843 to 1845 and in the United States Senate from 1847 to 1853 and again from 1855 to 1865. He was one of the first senators to make a stand against slavery. Hale was a leading member of the Free Soil Party and was its presidential nominee in 1852., A postmaster is the head of an individual post office. When a postmaster is responsible for an entire mail distribution organization (usually sponsored by a national government), the title of Postmaster General is commonly used. 
Responsibilities of a postmaster typically include management of a centralized mail distribution facility, establishment of letter carrier routes, supervision of letter carriers and clerks, and enforcement of the organization's rules and procedures., Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States, in the Midwest and Great Lakes regions. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin is the 23rd largest state by total area and the 20th most populous. The state capital is Madison, and its largest city is Milwaukee, which is located on the western shore of Lake Michigan. The state is divided into 72 counties., The Great Lakes (also called the Laurentian Great Lakes, or the Great Lakes of North America) are a series of interconnected freshwater lakes located primarily in the upper mid-east region of North America, on the CanadaUnited States border, which connect to the Atlantic Ocean through the Saint Lawrence River. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron (or MichiganHuron), Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth, containing 21% of the world's surface fresh water by volume. The total surface is , and the total volume (measured at the low water datum) is . Due to their sea-like characteristics (rolling waves, sustained winds, strong currents, great depths, and distant horizons) the five Great Lakes have also long been referred to as "inland seas". Lake Superior is the second largest lake in the world by area, and Lake Michigan is the largest lake that is entirely within one country. The southern half of the Great Lakes is bordered by the Great Lakes Megalopolis., Illinois is a state in the midwestern region of the United States, achieving statehood in 1818. It is the 5th most populous state and 25th largest state in terms of land area, and is often noted as a microcosm of the entire country. The word "Illinois" comes from the Algonquin word for "tribe of superior men". With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal, timber, and petroleum in the south, Illinois has a diverse economic base and is a major transportation hub. The Port of Chicago connects the state to other global ports from the Great Lakes, via the Saint Lawrence Seaway, to the Atlantic Ocean, as well as the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River, via the Illinois River. For decades, O'Hare International Airport has been ranked as one of the world's busiest airports. Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms and politics., Subject: edward eastman, Relation: occupation, Options: (A) administrator (B) book (C) canada (D) democratic party (E) general (F) governor (G) major (H) mayor (I) member (J) merchant (K) official (L) politician (M) postmaster (N) saint (O) secretary (P) secretary of state (Q) united kingdom (R) united states of america
Output (English): politician