than as neighbors, and that he had no disposition to withhold from them any constitutional rights. They should all have their rights under the Constitution, not grudgingly, but fully and fairly.

No more fateful or solemn inauguration of a president ever took place than that of Abraham Lincoln on the 4th of March, 1861. As he stood before the Capitol, serene, brave, true to the noble instincts of his nature, and the promise of his life, resolutely set on upholding freedom and the Constitution, there surged about him a swarm of traitors and conspirators, whose purposes were but thinly concealed. President Buchanan was there, whose irreso

James Buchanan. Fifteenth President
Born 1791. Died 1868.

luteness had permitted secession to get good headway. Chief-Justice Taney and his associates were there, whose perverse ingenuity had formulated the Dred Scott Decision. Generals soon to be conspicuous in the ranks of the rebel army, surrounded him. Seward, the great rival whom he had distanced, stood near. Chase, Scott, Sumner and Wade, who should hold up his hands in the day of

battle were there, and Douglas was holding the president's hat, though the ambition of his life had been overthrown by the man who was now the "observed of all observers." He was solicitous for the safety and convenience of the new president and defiant to the enemies of the union.

The great inaugural was but the fuller statement of the views to which he had given expression in the period since his election. It was conciliatory, but clear and firm. He said, "I have no purpose directly, or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it now exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." "I hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the union of the states is perpetual. 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 blood-shed or violence and there shall be none unless it is forced upon the national authority."

He pointed out the way of curing dissatisfaction with the form of government, by amending it, or by their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. Then he counseled patience in the consideraton of sources of dissatisfaction, declaring that intelligent patriotism and Christianity and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulties. Then, as if clothed with the full dignity of his magisterial office, he pronounced these solemn and beautiful sentences, "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and

not in mine, are the momentous issues 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 have the most solemn one to preserve, protect, 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 will not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field 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." But these gentle words were lost upon the men who had already committed themselves to the disruption of the union and the founding of a Confederacy, of which the institution of slavery should be the chief corner stone.

On the evening of the 4th of March, Mr. Lincoln entered the White House, that should be his home for the remainder of his days. There, was sumptuousness and elegance to which he was not accustomed, formality and etiquette, that in his quiet life he had not practiced, but to all he adjusted himself with that simple grace that marked the American citizen, born to the purple and destined to command.

He found the government in confusion, seven states in secession and a rebel government already organized at Montgomery, Alabama. The Southern heart had been fired and her young men were in arms.

He nominated his cabinet and set himself earnestly

at work upon the tasks that were forced upon him. Though his counselors were able men, famed for leadership, they were only his advisers.

He was their chief,

President of the Nation and Commander-in-Chief of the

The Bombardment of Ft. Sumter, April 12, 1861.

army and navy of the United States. If any of them supposed that he would divide that responsibility or yield to their dictation they were soon, kindly but firmly, disabused. Some of the Southern leaders thought that there would be no war, that the North was divided and that the Northern people would not fight. There was

some encouragement to this idea, but not in the calm, resolute purpose of the new President.

On the 15th of April, the President issued his first call for seventy-five thousand volunteers to put down the rebellion. Ft. Sumter had been attacked and had fallen. One by one the rebel leaders had slunk away from the scene of their treason, Breckinridge among the last. The war was forced upon him. Patriotic devotion to the Union effaced all differences. Half a million of men responded to the President's call. Congress voted men and money for the prosecution of the war. The times were inauspicious. The best generals of the country were in the rebel service. Arms, ammunition, and accoutrements, had been seized, and foreign sympathies, and hostile diplomacy, raised grave problems for the new executive; but he faltered not. Disasters came, incompetent commanders and inadequate preparations demonstrated that war would be discouraging and tedious. Still, he did not falter. He succeeded in holding Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri in the union, and in dividing Virginia and holding West Virginia loyal.

When Congress met in Dec., 1861, in his message on the slavery question, he said, "I have adhered to the act of Congress freeing persons held to service used for insurrectionary purposes." In relation to the emancipation and arming of the negroes he said, "The maintenance of the integrity of the union is the primary object of the contest. The union must be preserved and all indispensable means must be employed. We should not be in haste to determine that radical and extreme measures,