the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American CHAP. VII. slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope-fervently do we pray that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations. The address being concluded, Chief-Justice Chase administered the oath of office; and listeners who heard Abraham Lincoln for the second time repeat, "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States," went from the impressive scene to their several homes with thankfulness and with confidence that the destiny of the country and the liberty of the citizen were in safe keeping. "The fiery trial" through which he had hitherto walked showed him possessed of the capacity, the courage, and the will to keep the promise of his oath. VOL. X.-10 CHAP. VII. Among the many criticisms passed by writers and thinkers upon the language of the second inaugural, none will so interest the reader as that of Mr. Lincoln himself, written about ten days after its delivery, in the following letter to a friend: DEAR MR. WEED: Every one likes a compliment. Thank you for yours on my little notification speech and on the recent inaugural address. I expect the latter to wear as well as, perhaps better than, anything I have produced; but I believe it is not immediately popular. Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them. Lincoln to To deny it, however, in this case, is to deny that there is a God governing the world. It is a truth which I thought needed to be told, and, as whatever of humiliation there "Memoirs." is in it falls most directly on myself, I thought others pp. 449, 450. might afford for me to tell it. Weed, Mar. 15, 1865. Weed, Vol. II., A careful student of Mr. Lincoln's character will also find this inaugural address instinct with another meaning, which, very naturally, the President's own comment did not touch. The eternal law of compensation, which it declares and applies to the sin and fall of American slavery, in a diction rivaling the fire and the dignity of the old Hebrew prophecies,' may, without violent inference, be interpreted 1 Mgr. Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, in a letter, dated 2d April, 1865, to M. Auguste Cochin, acknowledging the receipt of Lincoln's second inaugural, said: "J'ai lu ce document avec la plus religieuse émotion, avec l'admiration la plus sympathique. ... M. Lincoln exprime, avec une solennelle et touchante gravité, les sentiments qui, j'en suis sûr, envahissent les âmes d'élite, au Nord comme au Sud. Quel beau jour lorsque l'union des âmes se fera là, dans la vraie et parfaite Je Ante, Vol. IX., 1865. to foreshadow an intention to renew at a fitting CHAP. VII. moment the brotherly good-will gift to the South which has been treated of in the first part of this chapter. Such an inference finds strong corroboration in the phrases which closed the last public address he ever made, and which we have elsewhere quoted in full. On Tuesday evening, pp. 457-463. April 11, a considerable assemblage of citizens of Washington gathered at the Executive Mansion to celebrate the victory of Grant over Lee. The rather long and careful speech which Mr. Lincoln made on that occasion was, however, less about the past than the future. It discussed the subject of reconstruction, as illustrated in the case of Louisiana, showing also how that issue was related to the questions of emancipation, the condition of the freedmen, the welfare of the South, and the ratification of the constitutional amendment. "So new and unprecedented is the whole case," he concluded, "that no exclusive and inflexible plan can safely be prescribed as to details and collaterals. Such exclusive and inflexible plan would surely become a new entanglement. Important principles may and must be inflexible. In the present situation, as the phrase goes, it may be my duty to make some new announcement to the people of the South. I am considering, and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action will be proper." Can any one doubt that this "new announcement" which was taking shape in his mind would again have embraced and combined justice to the blacks and generosity to the whites of the South, with union and liberty for the whole country? CHAPTER VIII FIVE FORKS CHAP. VIII. 1864 FR ROM the hour of Mr. Lincoln's reëlection the Confederate cause was doomed. The cheering of the troops which greeted the news from the North was heard within the lines at Richmond and at Petersburg, and although the leaders maintained to the end their attitude of defiance, the impression rapidly gained ground among the people that the end was not far off. The stimulus of hope being gone, they began to feel the pinch of increasing want. Their currency had become almost worthless. In October a dollar in gold was worth thirty-five dollars in Confederate money; a month later it brought fifty dollars; with the opening of the new year the price rose to sixty dollars, and soon after to seventy; and despite the efforts of the Confederate treasury, which would occasionally rush into the market and beat down the price of gold ten or twenty per cent. in a day, the currency gradually depreciated until a hundred for one was offered and not taken. As a result of this vanishing value of their money a portentous rise took place in the prices of all the necessaries of life. It is hard for a people to recognize that their money is good for nothing; CH. VIII. to do this is to confess that their Government has failed: it was natural, therefore, for the unhappy citizens of Richmond to think that monstrous prices were being extorted for food, clothing, and fuel, when, in fact, they were paying no more than was reasonable. The journals and diaries of the time are filled with bitter execrations against the extortioners and forestallers; but when we translate their prices into the gold standard, we wonder how the grocers and clothiers lived. To pay a thousand dollars for a barrel of flour was enough to strike a householder with horror; but ten dollars is not a famine price. A suit of clothes cost from one thousand to fifteen hundred dollars; but if you divide this sum by seventy-five, there is very little profit left for the tailor. High prices, however, even if paid in dry leaves, are a hardship when dry leaves are not plentiful; and there was scarcity, even of Confederate money, in the South. In Richmond, which lived upon the war, the dearth was especially evident. The clerks in the departments received say four thousand dollars a year, hardly enough for a month's provisions. Skilled mechanics fared somewhat better. They could earn, so long as they kept out of the army, something like six thousand dollars a year. Statesmanship was cheap. A congressman's pay was five thousand five hundred dollars; but most of the civil officers of the Government managed to get their supplies at cost prices from the military stores. It was illegal; but they could not have lived otherwise, and they doubtless considered their lives necessary to their country. |