be neither a living man nor a dead man, such a policy of "don't care," on a question about which all true men do care, such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunion; reversing the divine rule, and calling not the sinners but the righteous to repentance; such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said and to undo. what Washington did.

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

Between the Cooper Institute speech and the first inaugural address (from which the following extract is taken) events had moved rapidly. Lincoln had been nominated and elected, South Carolina and six of her sister states of the South had seceded from the Union, a Confederate government had been organized, and the batteries in Charleston harbor had fired on the Star of the West bearing supplies to Fort Sumter under the American flag. Lincoln's magnificent plea for calm deliberation and patient hope of harmony came too late.

FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES:

. . . 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 these 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.” ... I now reiterate these sentiments.

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

I hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual. ... 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 by 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 destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States be lawfully possible, then the Union is less perfect 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 is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins on me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. . . .

In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority. . . .

That there are persons in one section or another who seek to destroy the Union at all events and are glad of any pretext to do it, I will neither affirm nor deny1; but if there be such, I

1 Lincoln might have affirmed it with perfect truth. Only two days before he made this inaugural address Senator Wigfall of Texas made the following remarks in the United States Senate: "This Federal Government is dead.... Believing — no, sir, not believing, but knowing —

need address no word to them. To those, however, who really love the Union may I not speak? . . .

Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective sections from each other nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other, but the different parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible then to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? . . .

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember and overthrow it. ... The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and they have conferred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the States. . . . His duty is to administer the present Government as it came to his hands and to transmit it unimpaired by him to his successor.

...

Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? ...

By the frame of the Government under which we live this same people have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief, and have with equal wisdom provided for

terms

that this Union is dissolved, never, never to be reconstructed on any not if you were to hand us blank paper, and ask us to write a Constitution, would we ever again be confederated with you. ... Our objection to living in this Union is . . . that you wholly and utterly misapprehend the form of government. You deny the sovereignty of the States; you deny the right of self-government in the people; you insist upon negro equality; your people interfere impertinently with our institutions and attempt to subvert them; you publish newspapers; you deliver lectures; you print pamphlets, and you send them among us, first to excite our slaves to insurrection against their masters, and next to array one class of citizens against the other."— Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, 2d session, pp. 1399–1400.

the return of that little to their own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their virtue and vigilence no Administration by any extreme of wickedness or folly can very seriously injure the Government in the short space of four years.

My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new Administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, still there is no single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, 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 difficulty.

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue 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 shall 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 must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and every 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.

Murat Halstead, a distinguished journalist, made the circuit of the conventions" in the summer of 1860, as correspondent for the Cincinnati Commercial. Later in the year he compiled, from his own lively letters and the

official reports, a "History of the National Political Conventions of the Current Presidential Campaign." Of the exciting scenes which attended the nomination of Abraham Lincoln he writes:

The crowd this evening is becoming prodigious. The Tremont House is so crammed that it is with much difficulty people get about in it from one room to another. Near fifteen hundred people will sleep in it tonight. The principal lions in this house are Horace Greeley and Frank P. Blair, Sen. The way Greeley is stared at as he shuffles about, looking as innocent as ever, is itself a sight. Whenever he appears there is a crowd gaping at him, and if he stops to talk a minute with some one who wishes to consult him as the oracle, the crowd becomes dense as possible, and there is the most eager desire to hear the words of wisdom that are supposed to fall on such occasions. ... The city of Chicago is attending to this Convention in magnificent style. It is a great place for large hotels, and all have their capacity for accommodation tested. The great feature is the Wigwam, erected within the past month, expressly for the use of the Convention, by the Republicans of Chicago, at a cost of seven thousand dollars. It is a small edition of the New York Crystal Palace, built of boards, and will hold ten thousand persons comfortably, and is admirable for its acoustic excellence. An ordinary voice can be heard through the whole structure with ease. . . .

The current of Universal twaddle this morning is that "Old Abe" will be the nominee. . . . The badges of different candidates are making their appearance, and a good many of the dunces of the occasion go about duly labelled. I saw an old man this morning with a woodcut of Edward Bates pasted outside his hat. The Seward men have a badge of silk with his likeness and name, and some wag pinned one of them to Horace Greeley's back yesterday.1... The hour for the meeting of the

1 Greeley, the very influential editor of the New York Tribune, was bitterly opposed to Seward. He favored the nomination of Edward Bates of Missouri. Still, the Seward forces were so well organized and especially so well supplied with funds, that it seemed the night before the