as well as the home-loving element of the American character, and all men and women drew instinctively nearer to him.

A large majority of the people of Maryland were Unionists, but it was a slave State, and contained a considerable body of peculiarly zealous secessionists, to whose activities were just at that time added a number of eager emissaries from the open supporters of the Confederacy. Detectives who had been making observations among the more vehement and brutal enemies of the Union, particularly in Baltimore, reported a strong probability of mob violence, or even worse, if Mr. Lincoln should unduly expose himself at that place, and the last stage of his journey to Washington was therefore performed unheralded and by night. He was in safe quarters at Willard's Hotel in Washington, early on the morning of February 23d, 1861, before anybody, but the small party of friends who accompanied him, had any knowledge that he had proceeded beyond Philadelphia. That cool and courageous men-army officers and professional detectives-united in deeming such a prudence unavoidable, offers an explanatory comment upon the kind and degree of the excitement which prevailed among large classes of the Southern people. The people of the free States failed altogether to appreciate or understand it, and the South was blindly ignorant of the really friendly and pacific feeling of the North, or of how perfectly this was represented in the heart and mind of Abraham Lincoln. Perhaps even violent men on both sides, as a rule, underestimated the impending

peril, and most men, including eminent politicians and statesmen, scouted the idea of civil war. President Jefferson Davis of the Confederacy was not one of these, and attested his perception of the truth by responding to a too hopeful friend that "there will be war, and it will be long and bloody."

Mr. Lincoln had very nearly completed the important task of forming his Cabinet before going to Washington, but not until the very last did he abandon an obviously wise intention that it should contain members from the Union men of the slaveholding States. Not one of sufficient eminence could be found, and the new Cabinet assumed a decidedly sectional character, since Edward Bates, of Missouri, and Montgomery Blair, of Maryland, represented distinctly Republican forces in those States. Mr. Bates had been a candidate at the Chicago Convention.

At the head of the Cabinet, almost as a matter of right, in accordance with a long series of historical precedents, stood William H. Seward, of New York, who had received the second highest number of votes at the Chicago Convention. Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, Secretary of the Treasury, had long been prominent as an anti-slavery statesman, and had been a well-supported candidate at Chicago. So had Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, now selected as Secretary of War; Gideon Welles, of Connecticut, was made Secretary. of the Navy, and Caleb B. Smith, of Indiana, Secretary of the Interior. The public announcement and the confirmation of these nominations could not be made

until after the inauguration, but all were decided upon, with other appointments required for prompt assumption of the duties of the Executive, before March 4th arrived. The electoral votes had been counted in the presence of Congress on February 13th. Washington City was as yet a queer, oldfashioned, straggling village city, with hotel accommodations altogether insufficient for the tide of eager, anxious office-seekers and excited patriots of all descriptions, which now came pouring in upon it.

There were rumors that violence of some sort might be apprehended on the day of inauguration, and special measures of military and police guardianship of the occasion were duly taken, but the throngs which gathered to witness the solemn, sombre ceremonial contained an overwhelming majority of very determined Union men.

President Buchanan's last duty-the signing of bills passed-detained him at the Capitol until noon of March 4th, 1861. He then hastened to Willard's Hotel, and he and the President-elect rode in the same carriage through the narrow lane preserved between the densely packed masses along Pennsylvania Avenue. At the Capitol they were waited for by the Senate and House of Representatives, the Supreme Court, the Diplomatic Corps, and an unsurpassed assemblage of the leading citizens of the United States. The oath of office was administered first to the Vice-President, and then a dignified procession marched out and occupied the . ample platform provided at the eastern portico of

the Capitol, in front of which had gathered a vast and silent multitude. At the foot of the flight of steps was a thin line of uniformed citizen soldiers, keepers of the peace, and all but jostling them were men who had stood there for hours, waiting to hear the declarations with which President Lincoln would take up the task before him. Among those nearest was the writer of this book.

Senator Baker, of Oregon, came forward with Mr. Lincoln, introduced him to the audience and retired. For one moment the latter stood motionless, looking out as if at the horizon. Perhaps he was looking beyond the sea of upturned faces at the battlefields which yet might be, and which he wished and still had hope might never be.

Then, in a clear, resonant voice, he began the reading of his Inaugural Address. It was a calm review of the political situation, a moderate and conciliatory statement of the rights and purposes of the Federal Government, and of his own obligations under the oath he was about to take, with an earnest, heartfelt, eloquent appeal to all the patriotism of the nation, South as well as North. It was beyond criticism in its prudence, in its firmness, in the clearness with which its condensed argument was presented, and it went out to all men with a power which could hardly be overestimated.

Both the friends and the enemies of the Union perfectly understood the attitude of the new Administration when they heard or read—

“That no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are le

gally 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. . . . That, in view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken; and to the extent of my ability, 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. In doing this there need be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the national authority."

...

The statement of law and authority and duty from which these sentences are quoted was made very full and explicit. So was an argumentative analysis of the position taken by the cotton States, the Confederate Government, and of all who might yet propose to act with them.

The appeal with which the address closed was also an argument, if it could have been accepted as a sincere utterance by the people of the South, but their angry minds were under a cloud with reference to any utterance of the man whom they had taught themselves to regard as an incendiary and an enemy. To them he said:

"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to 'protect, preserve, and defend it.'

"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic cords of memory stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."