tion in which I stand before the American Senate, in the sight of the American people? Deem me not vain or arrogant; yet I should be less than man if, under such circumstances, I were not proud of being an American citizen; for to-day one who claims no high descent, one who comes from the ranks of the people, stands, by the voice of a free constituency, in the second place in this Government. There may be those to whom such things are not pleasing; but those who have labored for the consummation of a free government will appreciate and cherish institutions which exclude none, however obscure his origin, from places of trust and distinction. The people, in short, are the source of all power. You, Senators; you, who constitute the Bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, are but the creatures of the American people; your exaltation is from them: the power of this Government consists in its nearness and approximation to the great mass of the people. You, Mr. Secretary Seward, Mr. Secretary Stanton, the Secretary of the Navy, and the others who are your associates—you know that you have my respect and my confidence-derive not your greatness and your power alone from President Lincoln. Humble as I am, plebeian as I may be deemed, permit me, in the presence of this brilliant assembly, to enunciate the truth that courts and cabinets, the President and his advisers, derive their power and their greatness from the people. A President could not exist here forty-eight hours if he were as far removed from the people as the autocrat of Russia is separated from his subjects. Here the popular heart sustains President andCabinet officers; the popular will gives them all their strength. Such an assertion of the great principles of this Government may be considered out of place, and I will not consume the time of these intelligent and enlightened people much longer but I could not be insensible to

these great truths when I, a plebeian, elected by the people Vice-President of these United States, am here to enter upon the discharge of my duties. For those duties I claim not the aptitude of my respected predecessor. Although I have occupied a seat in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, I am not learned in parliamentary law, and I shall be dependent on the courtesy of those Senators who have become familiar with the rules which are requisite for the good order of the body and the dispatch of its business. I have only studied how I may best advance the interests of my State and of my country, and not the technical rules of order; and if I err, I shall appeal to this dignified body of representatives of the States for kindness and indulgence. Before I conclude this brief inaugural address, in the presence of this audience and I, though a plebeian boy, am authorized by the principles of the Government under which I live to feel proudly conscious that I am a man, and grave dignitaries are but men-before the Supreme Court, the representatives of foreign Governments, Senators, and the people, I desire to proclaim that Tennessee, whose representative I have been, is free. She has bent the tyrant's rod, she has broken the yoke of slavery, and to-day she stands redeemed. She waited not for the exercise of power by Congress; it was her own act, and she is now as loyal, Mr. Attorney-General, as is the State from which you come. It is the doctrine of the Federal Constitution that no State can go out of this Union : and moreover, Congress cannot eject a State from this Union! Thank God, Tennessee has never been out of the Union! is true, the operations of her Government were for a time interrupted; but she is still in the Union, and I am her representative. This day she elects her Governor and her Legislature, which will be convened on the first

It

Monday of April, and again her Senators and Representatives will soon mingle with those of her sister States; and who shall gainsay it, for the Constitution requires that to every State shall be guaranteed a republican form of government? I am now prepared to take the oath of office and renew my allegiance to the Constitution of the United States." Mr. Johnson having thus taken the oath of office, the Senate adjourned. President Lincoln then appeared in the Senate Chamber where the oath of office was administered by Chief Justice Chase, in presence of a brilliant assembly of the Cabinet Ministers, heads of bureaus, members of Congress, officers of the Army and Navy and the Diplomatic Corps. This ceremony having been completed, and the morning rain having been succeeded by sunshine, the President then repaired to the balcony and delivered his inaugural address in the open air, in presence of the public. It was as follows:

"FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN-At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed very fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly 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 depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it; all sought to avoid it. While the inaugural address was being

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delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city sceking to destroy it without war-seeking to dissolve the Union and divide the effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated 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 population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized 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 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 al

ready 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 prayers of both should not be an swered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. own purposes. Woe unto the world because of offences, for it must needs be that offences come, but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh. If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of these offences, 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 offence came, shall we discern there is 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, that 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 right, let us 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 orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

The language of this truly Christian document was remarkable. It was in every line inspired by the humane and patriotic heart of one who, in the growing convictions of the country, was every day earning the title, coupling his name with that of Washington, as "the good President." Subsequent events gave

this address a peculiar significance. Its influence was felt at home; and the friends of the country abroad, perhaps more keenly, by its contrast to the usual cool temper and tone of indifference of State papers, noticed its striking characteristics. An English journal, the British Standard, thus expressed the sentiment of intelligent thoughtful observers: "It is the most remarkable thing of the sort ever pronounced by any President of the United States from the first day until now. Its Alpha and its Omega is Almighty God, the God of justice and the Father of mercies, who is working out the purposes of His love. It is invested with a dignity and pathos which lift it high above every thing of the kind, whether in the Old World or the New. The whole thing puts us in mind of the best men of the English commonwealth; there is, in fact, much of the old prophet about it."

At the conclusion of the delivery of the address at the Capitol, a national salute was fired by a battery in the vicinity, and the President, seated in an open barouche with his son and Senator Foster of the Committee of Arrangements, was conducted at the head of the procession through Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House. Every thing passed off quietly and in order, nothing occurring to disturb the harmony of the day.

THE movement of General Sherman towards North Carolina was the signal for the renewal of active military operations in Virginia, where General Grant, confident of the result, was preparing to strike the decisive blow at the rebel capital. As a preliminary to the final stroke, or rather in continuation of the exhaustive measures which were consuming the military resources of Richmond, a final raid and destruction of its means of supply to the north and west in Virginia was set on foot, and successfully accomplished by General Sheridan. Leaving General Hancock in charge of the middle military division, with his headquarters at Winchester, he left that city on the 26th of February, at the head of a body of cavalry, thoroughly armed and equipped for a long and adventurous expedition. The column marched the first day to Woodstock, a distance of about thirty miles, and the next, fording the swollen north fork of the Shenandoah, a task of much peril and difficulty, passed through Newmarket and encamped at Lacy's Springs. On the following day's march to Middle River some resistance was encountered from a body of rebel cavalry under General Rosser, who made a stand near Mount Crawford, on North River. Upon approaching the town the enemy's pickets fired and fell back across the river. On the bluff Rosser had several hundred men in skirmish line, mostly posted behind a curtain breast work of rails hastily thrown up. The retreating pickets attempted to destroy the bridge by setting it on fire and tearing up the planking. Fortunately, the wood work was wet,

and could not be made to burn easily; they did, however, succeed in getting up enough planking to prevent cavalry crossing; but this was speedily repaired. The river is not fordable near the bridge, and the enemy had decidedly the advantage of position; indeed, Rosser boasted half an hour before, to the citizens in Mount Crawford, that he could hold the place all day against the whole of Sheridan's cavalry with his forceabout 400 men. Colonel Capeheart, commanding a brigade of General Custer's division, in the advance, charged with the duty of securing the bridges in the route, examined the position, and decided to flank it by swimming a portion of his command. Lieutenant-Colonel Battersby, with the First New York Lincoln; Major S. B. Howe, with the First Virginia, and Second Virginia, Lieutenant-Colonel Allen, swam across the river about one mile above the bridge. The Third Virginia, Major Witcher, at first deployed as skirmishers on the northern bank, finally crossed below. Not half an hour had elapsed from the initiation of the movement before the enemy skedaddled in a great hurry, leaving two dead men on the ground--one an officer and several wounded. Colonel Capeheart immediately hurried forward his command, and the advance did not halt until within one mile of Staunton, having chased the enemy at a trot and gallop from Moun: Crawford, a distance of eighteen miles, thereby securing the large bridge across Middle River and several smaller bridges over other streams that cross the pike. Besides securing the bridges thirty-seven