forced flight to the capital, and the country was rejoicing at his escape from his enemies, the Senate was busily at work striving, by excited debate and discordant motions, to compose the country. The "Crittenden Compromise" continued to be the main subject of discussion, which promised to be indefinitely protracted by the perplexing amendments of the secessionists on the one hand, and the Republicans on the other. The "Peace Conference," too, Feb. was in constant session, and after a 27. long labor finally adjourned sine die, after having brought forth a proposition of compromise which was destined to prove, like the rest, but an abortive attempt to conciliate discordant factions. The more important points of this plan were embraced in these two sections of the thirteenth article:

"Sec. 1. In all the present territory of the United States north of the parallel of 36 degrees 30 minutes of north latitude, involuntary servitude, except as punishment of crime, is prohibited. In all the present territory south of that line the status of persons held to service or labor, as it now exists, shall not be changed. Nor shall any law be passed by Congress or the territorial legislature to hinder or prevent the taking of such persons from any of the States of the Union to said territory, nor to impair the rights arising from said relation.

But the same shall be subject to judicial cognizance in the Federal courts, according to the course of the common law. When any territory, north or south of said line, with such

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boundary as Congress may prescribe, shall contain a pop lation equal to that required for a member of Congress, it shall, if its form of government be republican, be admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, with or without involuntary servitude, as the constitution of such State may provide.

"Sec. 2. Territory shall not be acquired by the United States, unless by treaty; nor, except for naval and commercial stations and dépots, unless such treaty shall be ratified by four-fifths of all the members of the Senate."

The other articles prohibited Congress from abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia without the consent of Maryland and of the owners, and without making due compensation; from abolishing slavery in the United States dock-yards; and from taxing slaves higher than land. One article prohibited the slave-trade forever; and another aimed at a more thorough execution of the Fugitive Slave law.

These propositions of the peace conference seemed to meet with no more favor than the other attempts to harmonize the discordant opinions of the Senate. The people of the North, however, were still hopeful, though they despaired of the efficacy of congressional action. It was to the future President that the universal attention was directed. Various speculations were indulged in, in regard to his policy; but while some believed that it would be. conciliatory or conservative, as they termed it, and others, that it would

be in strict conformity with his party pledges and fatal t all hopes of compromise, none doubted that the power of the Federal authority would be asserted by the new President with more firmness than it had been by his prede

cessor.

The day for the inauguration of the new President came. The usual cereMarch monies were observed, with the 4th. addition, however, of some details peculiar to the times. While "thirty-four young ladies in white, seated in a van, labeled Constitution," ostentatiously represented the sisterly union of the thirty-four States in the public procession, a considerable force of regulars and militia had, by the cautious prevision of the veteran commander-in-chief, Lieutenant-General Scott, been secretly disposed, so as to be in readiness to suppress any hostile attempt to disturb the national programme.

Mr. Lincoln having reached, in company with President Buchanan, the platform on the portico of the Capitol, where the judges of the Supreme Court, the senators, and members of the House of Representatives, the foreign ambassadors, and other notable persons had assembled, was formally introduced to the twenty-five thousand people gathered below, and in "a clear, strong voice" proceeded to read his inaugural:

States to be taken by the President before he enters on the execution of his office.

"I do not consider it necessary, at present, for me to discuss those matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety or excitement. Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that, by the accession of a Republican administration, their property, and their peace, and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches, when I declare that 'I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists.' I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. Those who nominated and elected me, did so with the full knowledge that I had made this, and made many similar declarations, and had never recanted them. And more than this, they placed in the platform, for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read:

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clusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.'

"I now reiterate these sentiments; and in doing so I only press upon the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible, that the property, peace, and security of no section are to be in anywise endangered by the now incoming administration.

"I add, too, that all the protection which, consistently with the Constitution and the laws, can be given, will be cheerfully given to all the States when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause, as cheerfully to one section as to another.

"There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions :

"No person held to service or labor in one State under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.'

"It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the lawgiver is the law.

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"All members of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitution to this provision as well as any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this clause' shall be delivered up,' their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could they not, with nearly equal unanimity, frame and pass a law by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath?

"There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be enforced by national or by state authority; but surely that difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him or to others by which authority it is done; and should any one, in any case, be content that this oath shall go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept?

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Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the safeguards of liberty known in the civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a free man be not, in any case, surrendered as a slave? And might it not be well at the same time to provide by law for the enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which guaranties that 'the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States?'

"I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservations, and with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical rules; and

while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to and abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them, trusting to find impunity in having them held to be unconstitutional.

"It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a President under our national Constitution. During that period fifteen different and very distinguished citizens have in succession administered the executive branch of the Government. They have conducted it through many perils, and generally with great success. Yet, with all this scope for precedent, I now enter upon the same task, for the brief constitutional term of four years, under great and peculiar difficulties.

"A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably attempted. I hold that in the contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution, the union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our national Constitution, and the Union will endure forever, it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.

of States in the nature of a contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it-break it, so to speak; but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it? Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual, confirmed by the history of the Union itself.

"The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued in the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation, in 1778; and, finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was to form a more perfect Union. But if the destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union is less than before, the Constitution having lost the vital element of perpetuity.

"It follows from these views that no State, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void; and that acts of violence within any State or States against the authority of the United States, are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances.

"I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union