CHAPTER VIII.

THE BEGINNING OF WAR.

FROM the inaugural ceremonies Lincoln drove quietly back through Pennsylvania Avenue and entered the White House, the President of the United States, alas, united no - alas, united no longer. Many an anxious citizen breathed more freely when the dreaded hours had passed without disturbance. But burdens a thousand-fold heavier than any which were lifted from others descended upon the new ruler. Save, however, that the thoughtful, far-away expression of sadness had of late seemed deeper and more impressive than ever before, Lincoln gave no sign of inward trouble. His singular temperament armed him with a rare and peculiar strength beneath responsibility and in the face of duty. He has been seen, with entire tranquillity, not only seeking, but seeming to assume as his natural due or destiny, positions which appeared preposterously out of accord alike with his early career and with his later opportunities for development. In trying to explain this, it is easier to say what was not the underlying quality than what it was. Certainly there was no taint whatsoever of that vulgar self-confidence, which is so apt

to lead the "free and equal" citizens of the great Republic into grotesque positions. Perhaps it was a grand simplicity of faith; a profound instinctive confidence that by patient, honest thinking it would be possible to know the right road, and by earnest enduring courage to follow it. Perhaps it was that so-called divine inspiration which seems always a part of the highest human fitness. The fact which is distinctly visible is, that a fair, plain and honest method of thinking saved him from the perplexities which beset subtle dialecticians in politics and in constitutional law. He had lately said that his course was "as plain as a turnpike road;" it was, to execute the public laws.

His duty was simple; his understanding of it was unclouded by doubt or sophistry; his resolution to do it was firm; but whether his hands would be strengthened sufficiently to enable him to do it was a question of grave anxiety. The President of a Republic can do everything if the people are at his back, and almost nothing if the people are not at his back. Where, then, were now the people of the United States? In seven States they were openly and unitedly against him; in at least seven more they were under a very strong temptation to range themselves against him in case of a conflict; and as for the Republican States of the North, on that fourth day of March, 1861, no man could say to what point they would sustain the administration. There had as yet come slight indications of any change in the conceding, com

promising temper of that section. Greeley and Seward and Wendell Phillips, representative men, were little better than Secessionists. The statement sounds ridiculous, yet the proof against each comes from his own mouth. The "Tribune " had retracted none of those disunion sentiments, of which examples have been given. Even so late as April 10, 1861, Mr. Seward wrote officially to Mr. C. F. Adams, Minister to England, “Only an imperial and despotic government could subjugate thoroughly disaffected and insurrectionary members of the State. This federal, republican country of ours is, of all forms of government, the very one which is the most unfitted for such a labor." He had been and still was favoring delay and conciliation, in the visionary hope that the seceders would follow the scriptural precedent of the prodigal son. On April 9, the rumor of a fight at Sumter being spread abroad, Mr. Phillips said:1 "Here are a series of States, girding the Gulf, who think that their peculiar institutions require that they should have a separate government. They have a right to decide that question without appealing to you Standing with the principles of '76 behind us, who can deny them the right?.. Abraham Lincoln has no right to a soldier in Fort Sumter. There is no longer a Union. Mr. Jefferson Davis is angry, and Mr. Abraham Lincoln is mad, and they agree to fight. . . . You

or me.

1 At New Bedford, in a lecture "which was interrupted by frequent hisses." Schouler, Hist. of Mass. in the Civil War, i. 44-47.

cannot go through Massachusetts and recruit men to bombard Charleston or New Orleans. . . . We are in no condition to fight. . . . Nothing but madness can provoke war with the Gulf States;" with much more to the same effect.

If the veterans of the old anti-slavery contest were in this frame of mind in April, Lincoln could hardly place much dependence upon the people at large in March. If he could not "recruit men” in Massachusetts, in what State could he reasonably expect to do so? Against such discouragement it can only be said that he had a singular instinct for the underlying popular feeling, that he could scent it in the distance and in hiding; moreover, that he was always willing to run the chance of any consequences which might follow the performance of a clear duty. Still, as he looked over the dreary Northern field in those chill days of early March, he must have had a marvellous sensitiveness in order to perceive the generative heat and force in the depths beneath the cheerless surface and awaiting only the fulness of the near spring season to burst forth in sudden universal vigor. Yet such was his knowledge and such his faith concerning the people that we may fancy, if we will, that he foresaw the great transformation. But there were still other matters which disturbed him. Before his inauguration, he had heard much of his coming official isolation. One of the arguments reiterated alike by Southern Unionists and by Northerners had been that the Republican

President would be powerless, because the Senate, the House, and the Supreme Court were all opposed to him. But the supposed lack of political sympathy on the part of these bodies, however it might beget anxiety for the future, was for the present of much less moment than another fact, viz., that none of the distinguished men, leaders in his own party, whom Lincoln found about him at Washington, were in a frame of mind to assist him efficiently. If all did not actually distrust his capacity and character, which, doubtless, many honestly did, at least they were profoundly ignorant concerning both. Therefore they could not yet, and did not, place genuine, implicit confidence in him; they could not yet, and did not, advise and aid him at all in the same spirit and with the same usefulness as later they were able to do. They were not to blame for this; on the contrary, the condition had been brought about distinctly against their will, since certainly few of them had looked with favor upon the selection of an unknown, inexperienced, ill-educated man as the Republican candidate for the presidency. How much Lincoln felt his loneliness will never be known; for, reticent and self-contained at all times, he gave no outward sign. That he felt it less than other men would have done may be regarded as certain; for, as has already appeared to some extent, and as will appear much more in this narrative, he was singularly self-reliant, and, at least in appearance, was strangely indifferent to any counsel or support