through the long tunnel erected for his protection, entered the Capitol, and passed into the Senate Chamber, filled to overflowing with Senators, members of the Diplomatic Corps, and visitors. The contrast between the two men as they entered struck every observer. "Mr. Buchanan was so withered and bowed with age," wrote George W. Julian, of Indiana, who was among the spectators, "that in contrast with the towering form of Mr. Lincoln he seemed little more than half a man."

A few moments' delay, and the movement from the Senate towards the east front began, the justices of the Supreme Court, in cap and gown, heading the procession. As soon as the large company was seated on the platform erected on the east portico of the Capitol, Mr. Lincoln arose and advanced to the front, where he was introduced by his friend, Senator Baker, of Oregon. He carried a cane and a little roll-the manuscript of his inaugural address. There was a moment's pause after the introduction, as he vainly looked for a spot where he might place his high silk hat. Stephen A. Douglas, the political antagonist of his whole public life, the man who had pressed him hardest in the campaign of 1860, was seated just behind him. Douglas stepped forward quickly, and took the hat which Mr. Lincoln held helplessly in his hand. "If I can't be President," he whispered smilingly to Mrs. Brown, a cousin of Mrs. Lincoln and a member of the President's party, "I at least can hold his hat."

This simple act of courtesy was really the most significant incident of the day, and after the inaugural the most discussed.

"Douglas's conduct can not be overpraised," wrote the "Public Man" in his " Diary." "I saw him for a moment in the morning, when he told me that he meant to put himself as prominently forward in the ceremonies as he properly could, and to leave no doubt on any one's mind of his de

termination to stand by the new Administration in the performance of its first great duty to maintain the Union."

Adjusting his spectacles and unrolling his manuscript, the President-elect turned his eyes upon the faces of the throng before him. It was the largest gathering that had been seen at any inauguration up to that date, variously estimated at from fifty thousand to one hundred thousand. Who of the men that composed it were his friends, who his enemies, he could not tell; but he did know that almost every one of them was waiting with painful eagerness to hear what answer he would make there to the questions they had been hurling at his head since his election.

Six weeks before, when he wrote the document, he had determined to answer some of their questions. The first of these was, Will Mr. Lincoln stand by the platform of the Republican party?" He meant to open his address with this reply:

The [more] modern custom of electing a Chief Magistrate upon a previously declared platform of principles supersedes, in a great measure, the necessity of restating those principles in an address of this sort. Upon the plainest grounds of good faith, one so elected is not at liberty to shift his position.

Having been so elected upon the Chicago platform, and while I would repeat nothing in it of aspersion or epithet or question of motive against any man or party, I hold myself bound by duty, as well as impelled by inclination, to follow, within the executive sphere, the principles therein declared. By no other course could I meet the reasonable expectations of the country.

But these paragraphs were not read. On reaching Washington in February, Mr. Lincoln's first act had been to give to Mr. Seward a copy of the paper he had prepared, and to ask for his criticisms. Of the paragraphs quoted above, Mr. Seward wrote:

I declare to you my conviction that the second and third paragraphs, even if modified as I propose in my amendments, will give such advantages to the Disunionists that Virginia and Maryland will secede, and we shall, within ninety, perhaps within sixty, days, be obliged to fight the South for this Capital, with a divided North for our reliance.

Mr. Lincoln dropped the paragraphs, and began by answering another question: "Does the President intend to interfere with the property of the South?"

"Apprehension seems to exist," he said, " among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that 'I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations, and had never recanted them."

He followed this conciliatory statement by a full answer to the question, "Will Mr. Lincoln repeal the fugitive slave laws?"

"There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:

"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.'

"It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended

by those who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves, and the intention of the lawgiver is the law. All members of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitution to this provision as much as to any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this clause' shall be delivered up,' their oaths are unanimous.

Next he took up the question of Secession, "Has a State the right to go out of the Union if it wants to?"

I hold that, in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Again, if the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it-break it, so to speak; but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it? It follows from these views that no State, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void; and that acts of violence, within any State or States, against the authority of the United States, are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances.

The answer to this question led him directly to the point on which the public was most deeply stirred at that moment. What did he intend to do about enforcing laws in States which had repudiated Federal authority; what about the property seized by the Southern States?

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to the extent of my ability," he answered, "I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part; and I shall perform it so far as practicable, un

less my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means, or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend and maintain itself.

"In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence; and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere."

In his original copy of the inaugural address Mr. Lincoln wrote, "All the power at my disposal will be used to reclaim the public property and places which have fallen; to hold, occupy, and possess these, and all other property and places belonging to the government." At the suggestion of his friend, the Hon. O. H. Browning, of Illinois, he dropped the words "to reclaim the public property and places which have fallen." Mr. Seward disapproved of the entire selection and prepared a non-committal substitute. Mr. Lincoln, however, retained his own sentences.

The foregoing quotations are a fairly complete expression of what may be called Mr. Lincoln's policy at the beginning of his administration. He followed this statement of his principle by an appeal and a warning to those who really loved the Union and who yet were ready for the "destruction of the national fabric with all its benefits, its memories and its hopes."

"Will you hazard so desperate a step while there is any possibility that any portion of the ills you fly from have no real existence? Will you, while the certain ills you fly to are greater than all the real ones you fly from-will you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake?