CHAPTER LII.

PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S SECOND INAUGURATION.

The Thirty-eighth Congress by constitutional limitation adjourned March 3d, and the Senate, by proclamation of the President, was convened in extra session. On the 3d day of March, 1865, President Lincoln's first term of office expired. In reviewing this period of the Nation's history it appears how eminently fortunate the Nation was in the administration of President Lincoln, whose measures secured the respect and confidence, as well as the unbounded affections, of the people. And equally fortunate was the President in the selection of his constitutional advisers. Remarks made in 1878 by our lamented President, Garfield, referring to President Lincoln and his Cabinet, will be appropriate here. Speaking of our civil war, he said:

"Let us pause to consider the actors in that scene. In force of character, in thoroughness and breadth of culture, in experience of public affairs, and in National reputation the Cabinet that sat around that council-board has had no superior, perhaps no equal in our history. Seward, the finished scholar, the consummate orator, the great leader of the Senate, had come to crown his career with those achievements which placed him in the first rank of modern diplomatists. Chase, with a culture and a fame of massive grandeur, stood as the rock and pillar of the public credit, the noble embodiment of the public faith. Stanton was there, a very Titan of strength, the great organizer of victory. Eminent lawyers, men of business, leaders of States and leaders of men completed the group. But the man who presided over that council, inspired and guided its deliberations, was a character so unique that he stood alone, without a model in history or a parallel among men. Born on this day, sixty-nine years ago, to an inheritance of extreme poverty, surrounded by the rude forces of the wilderness, wholly unaided by parents, only one year in any school, never for a day master of his own time, until he reached his majority, making his way to the profession of the law by the hardest and roughest road, yet by force of unconquerable will and persistent, patient work, he attained a foremost place in his profession. Gifted

with an insight and a foresight which the ancients would have called divination, he saw, in the midst of darkness and obscurity, the logic of events, and forecast the result. From the first, in his own quaint, original way, without ostentation or offense to his associates, he was commander of his administration. He was one of the few great rulers whose wisdom increased with his power, and whose spirit grew gentler and tenderer as his triumphs were multiplied."

On the 4th of March, 1865, Mr. Lincoln was re-inaugurated into the Presidential office. This event called many friends of the President to the National capital. A large and loyal crowd was present, friends not doubtful of the future, nor fearful of the President, as on a former occasion. Chief Justice Chase administered the oath of office, and then the President read his inaugural address. It was a State paper which has no parrallel in sentiments of Christian excellence and charity. Its words were true and noble, void of resentment, and spoken in a reverent and Catholic spirit. They have elicited the commendation and cordial approval of just men throughout the civilized world. The address was as follows:

"FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN-At this, my second, appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office, there is less occasion that I should give an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of the course I proposed to pursue seemed proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been repeatedly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the Nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms-upon which all else chiefly dependsis as well known to you as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to us all. While I have the highest hopes for the future, I shall here venture on no predictions. On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, the thoughts of all of us were anxiously directed to the impending civil war. All dreaded it; all sought to avoid it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war-seeking to dissolve the Union and divide the effects by negotiation. Both parties depreciated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the Nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish; and the war came. One-eighth of the whole were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but located in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more

than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayer of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. Woe unto the world because of offenses, for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe unto that man by whom the offense cometh. If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of these offenses, which in the providence of God must needs come, but 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 soon pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsmen's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be paid with 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 orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting place among ourselves and with all nations."

Truthful, frank, forgiving, gentle, just—this last State paper of President Lincoln to his fellow-countrymen stands pre-eminent on the pages of historyeminent for its serenity of temper, for a logical perception of the character of the National conflict, and for its undisputed charity and sincerity.

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On the 6th of March, Mr. Fessenden resigned the office of Secretary of the Treasury, and Hugh McCulloch of Indiana was appointed in his place. In an exhaustive report on the financial condition of the Nation, Mr. McCulloch says that since the commencement of the special session of 1861, the most important subject which has demanded and received the attention of Congress has been that of providing the means for the prosecution of the The success of the Government in raising money is evidence of the

war.

wisdom of the measures devised for this purpose, as well as of the loyalty of the people and the resources of the country. No Nation within the same period ever borrowed so largely or with so much facility. It is now demonstrated that a republican Government can not only carry on a war on the most gigantic scale, and create a debt of immense magnitude, but can place this debt on a satisfactory basis, and meet every engagement with fidelity." The Secretary remarks that "the establishment of the National banking system is one of the great compensations of this war-one of the great achievements of this remarkable period. In about two years and a half from the organization of the first National Bank, the whole system of banking under State laws has been superceded, and the people of the United States have been furnished with a circulation, bearing upon it the seal of the Treasury Department as a guaranty of its solvency. It only remains that this circulation shall be a redeemable circulation—redeemable not only at the counters of the banks, but at the commercial cities, to make the National banking system of almost inconceivable benefit to the country."

In pursuance of an Act of Congress, on the 11th of March the President. issued a proclamation, calling upon deserters to return to their regiments with the promise of pardon. This proclamation had its desired effect, as most of the absentees returned to their duty. The days of the Confederacy were now nearly numbered, and the life of the rebellion was now in the last throes of dissolution. We may here notice the objects which those who originated the civil war had in view, and see how far their designs and purposes had been attained, and how far the anticipation of those who inaugurated this unnatural war had been realized, and their efforts successful.

The loss of political power and patronage, as has been before stated, was the primary cause of secession. The preponderance of numbers and power in the free States made it politically impossible for the slave States to retain their supremacy in the Union, and hence they resolved on disunion. The leaders attempted to justify their action on the doctrine of State rights, and the causes they taught the people were the security and safety of slavery and the right of its extension. Those principles on which the South justified its rebellion against the National Government brought out the inevitable consequences in antagonistic principles. Thus emancipation became the natural and necessary antagonist of slavery, and nationality that of State rights or secession.

When the Union was first assailed and its laws and authority were first resisted, the Government had no object, other than the perpetuity of the Union and the enforcement of the laws. As the war progressed, the idea of emancipation grew into importance, and forced itself upon the Nation and

administration. Thus emancipation became the war power of the loyal States, as slavery was the war offense and defense of the Southern Confederacy. When we compare them in their true relations, their intrinsic values at once appear. The former has the sympathy of the race, is the embodiment of civilization and is the word of hope and desire of the oppressed of every land. The power and strength of the latter were fallacies. It was circumscribed and local in its influences and operation, it had no friends abroad and its power was decaying at home. For a time the Southern Confederacy considered it a tower of strength and believed that it strengthened their cause, but before the war was over the progress of emancipation in the border States dispelled this illusion.

Secession, or State rights, contrasted with nationality, is equally weak and illusive. Previous to the war, the idea of nationality was in a quiescent State, but the sentiment was generally accepted. With secession or State rights came in contra-distinction, nationality. These distinctions were so marked during the war, that in the Confederacy few could be found who recollected that they were Americans and in the loyal States men had forgotten to what State they belonged. Secession clamored for State rights. Union men were accepting the nobler idea of a great and undivided nationality. Thus slavery and secession were confronted with emancipation and nationality, the former perished in the conflict, and the latter remains, with its principles and ideas cherished. The first, emancipation accomplished; the second, nationality established and held sacred and inviolate by a reunited and prosperous people.