His first duty was the formal designation of a cabinet, for undoubtedly his choice of secretaries was essentially settled in his own mind before he left home. The highest position was offered to Mr. Seward, the first statesman in the republican party, and the equal if not the superior of any in the country. Concerning the filling of the office of Secretary of State, it is believed that Mr. Lincoln had no hesitation. Mr. Seward was his first and last choice. With equal promptitude he decided to call Edward Bates of Missouri to the office of Attorney General. Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania was known to be an aspirant for cabinet honors; and, it is believed, would have accepted the post of Secretary of the Treasury with more alacrity than he did that of Secretary of War, to which Mr. Lincoln called him. Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, who shared with Mr. Seward the highest regards of the republican party and the confidence of the country, was appointed to the Treasury. The men thus brought into the government were all prominent candidates for the presidency at Chicago, and on the first ballot received an aggregate of three hundred and twenty-one votes of the four hundred and sixty-five cast. The great majority of the party thus had the expression of their first choice for the presidency honored by Mr. Lincoln in a remarkable degree. Gideon Welles of Connecticut was appointed Secretary of the Navy. Caleb B. Smith of Indiana, an old personal friend of Mr. Lincoln, and for many years a distinguished politician of the West, was offered the Portfolio of the Interior, and accepted it; and Montgomery Blair of Maryland was appointed Postmaster General.

Thus furnished with his secretaries, another most important work opened before him-the clearing the departments of the sympathizers with treason. This was indeed a Herculean task. Treason was everywhere. Every department was infected. The men had been manipulated so long by treasonable hands-had been moulded into such thorough sympathy with the rebellion-and had so imbibed its treacherous spirit, that no measure could be discussed or adopted by the new administration that was not reported to the rebels by some

clerk or confidant. The government was betrayed every day by its own agents. Not a step could be taken by Mr. Lincoln, in any direction, that some spy in the departments, or some traitor in his confidence, did not report to his enemies.

There were certain things that Mr. Lincoln specially endeavored to do in his inaugural address, and in all the preliminary work of his administration. He endeavored to show that the rebellion was without an adequate cause-to show this first to his own people, and then to the governments and peoples on the other side of the Atlantic. He endeavored to leave no way untried that promised to procure or preserve an honorable peace. He endeavored so to manage affairs that whenever open hostilities should come, they should be begun by the rebels and not by the government. He intended to preserve for himself and for the government a clean record. He intended to bear with the rebellion just so long as it confined itself to paper-nay, further than this-to bear with it to the silent sufferance of many practical indignities. He did not mean to unsheath a sword, or fire a gun, until the rebellion absolutely compelled him to do so.. Yet, while waiting the development of events, he was very busily engaged in clearing the government for action. Many of the revelations and movements of the first few weeks would doubtless be startling, even to-day, but the time has not yet come for their exposure.

Mr. Lincoln found not only the departments corrupt and unreliable, but he found the public mind abroad thoroughly poisoned against him, and fully in sympathy with the secessionists. Perhaps a majority of the representatives of the government in Europe were in the secrets of the seceders, and, in company with many who had gone from the southern states to shape public opinion to the interests of treason, were doing everything in their power to injure the government which had honored them. The places thus disgraced and made instruments in the hands of treason were to be filled by loyal men; and a set of influences were to be put in motion which should secure respect for the government, and a sound understanding of the merits of the controversy between the

government and slavery. To fill these places was not an easy task, but it was done quickly and, in the main, wisely.

It is proper here to give an explanation of Mr. Lincoln's pacific policy, at this time. Great fault was subsequently found with him by the extremists among his northern friends, for his deference to the border states; and a full understanding of his policy, as it related to these states, cannot be had without going back to this period when it was initiated. There were fifteen slave states, which those engaged in the rebellion hoped to lead or to force into secession. At the time of the inauguration, only seven of these fifteen-less than a majority-had revolted. The cotton states alone had followed the lead of South Carolina out of the Union. Several weeks had passed since a state had seceded; and unless other states could be dragooned into the movement, the rebellion would be practically a failure from the start. Such a confederacy could not hope to live a year, and would be obliged to find its way back into the Union upon some terms. In the meantime, two or three conventions in the border states, delegated freshly from the people, had voted distinctly and decidedly not to secede.. The affairs of the confederacy were really in a very precarious condition when Mr. Lincoln came into power. The rebel gov-. ernment was making very much more bluster than progress.. It became Mr. Lincoln's policy so to conduct affairs as to strengthen the Union feeling in the border states, and to give utterance to no sentiment and to do no deed which should drive these states toward the confederacy. He saw that if he could hold these states, there could not be a very serious war; for the first condition of success to the rebel cause was its general adoption by the border slave states. To hold these states by every means that did not bring absolute disgrace upon the government was his object. He must do nothing that would weaken the hands of Union men. The difficult position of these Union men he fully comprehended and considered. Of course, he had a hard path to pursue; and it is not strange that those more hasty than himself should sometimes think he was loitering by the way, or was making it

more tortuous than was either necessary or expedient. It is doubtful whether the politicians of New England ever gave Mr. Lincoln the credit which was his due for retaining in the Union those slave states which never left their allegiance. An early and decided war policy would have been morally certain to drive every slave state into the confederacy, except Maryland and Delaware, and they would only have been retained by force.

The confederacy found that it must make progress or die. The rebel Congress passed a measure for the organization of an army, on the ninth of March, and on the twelfth two confederate commissioners-Mr. Forsyth of Alabama and Mr. Crawford of Georgia-presented themselves at the State Department at Washington for the purpose of making a treaty with the United States. They knew, of course, that they could not be received officially, and that they ought to be arrested for treason. The President would not recognize them, but sent to them a copy of his Inaugural, as the embodiment of the views of the government. The commissioners hung about Washington for a month, learning what they could, and in daily communication with the traitors who still haunted the confidence of the heads of the government. Mr. Seward's reply to them, on the eighth of April, was delayed at their own request until that time, and when it came they probably knew what its contents and character would be. In order to give secession a new impetus, they wished, in some way, to throw the responsibility of beginning war upon the Washington authorities, and to make it appear that they had exhausted all peaceable measures for an adjustment of the difficulties.

In the meantime, Lieutenant Talbot, on behalf of Mr. Lincoln, was having interviews with Governor Pickens of South Carolina and with General Beauregard, in command of the confederate forces there, in which he informed them that provisions would be sent to Fort Sumter peaceably if possible,otherwise by force. This was communicated to L. P. Walker, then rebel Secretary of War. Before Talbot had made his communication, Beauregard had informed Major Anderson,

in command of Fort Sumter, that he must have no further intercourse with Charleston; and Talbot himself was refused permission to visit that gallant and faithful officer.

These were very dark days with Mr. Lincoln. The rebels were determined to wrest from him a pretext for war-determined to make him take a step which could be made to appear to be the first step. At the same time, he was making rapid preparations for war, all of which must be kept secret from friends, that they might not exasperate foes. The loyal press became impatient with his apparent inactivity, and under the inspiration of this press the loyal masses became uneasy. Under these circumstances, there were not wanting disloyal men in the North, who became bold in the entertainment of schemes for a revolution. Mr. Douglas himself did not support the administration, although he had publicly declared for coercion. He could not forget his hatred of the republican party; and was ready for almost any scheme for its destruction. He wished to organize a great compromise party, which would consent to the reconstruction of the Union, with slavery recognized and protected in all its departments. Until the first overt act of war had been committed, he brought no aid to the government.

While Mr. Lincoln's friends were clamoring for a policy-as if he had not a very decided one-and his foes north and south were busy with their schemes for the destruction of himself, his party and his country, he was performing the most exhausting labors. He was thronged with office-seekers, to whose claims he gave his personal attention. He was holding protracted cabinet meetings. He was in almost hourly intercourse with prominent men from every section of the country. All these labors he was performing with the consciousness that his nominal friends were doubtful, that seven states were in open revolt, and that a majority throughout the Union had not the slightest sympathy with him.

There was distraction, also, in his counsels. Loyal men, burning with patriotic indignation, were demanding that Fort Sumter should be reinforced and provisioned, while the vet