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advice of General Scott, "Please present my respects to the General and tell him, confidentially, that I shall be obliged to him to be as well prepared as he can to either hold, or retake the forts, as the case may require, at and after the inauguration." The summary way in which General Jackson had dealt with the nullifiers of 1830 and '32 was a frequent study during these months of waiting.

At length the time came for his departure to the scene of his labors. With his mind fully made up, his cabinet chosen, his inaugural written, he bade farewell to his old partner, as we have related. Judge Gillespie, an old friend, called to say good-bye and told him he believed it would do him good to get to Washington.

en.

"I know it will," Lincoln replied, "I only wish I could have got there to lock the door before the horse was stolBut when I get to the spot I can find the tracks." With tender farewell he addressed the citizens of Springfield, commending them to the Divine care, and begging their prayers on his behalf.

At different stages on the route he stated his position with a clearness that admitted no uncertainty, that he purposed to rule justly, respecting the rights of all under the Constitution, maintaining the rights and possessions of the nation in all its parts.

Assassins lay in wait for him, but he avoided them and reached the Capital in safety more than a week before the inauguration. On the 27th of February, when waited upon by the mayor and common council of Washington, he assured them, and the South through them, that he had no disposition to treat them in any other way

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

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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

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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

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