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Address. The conclusion was inevitable that if he was to be at the head of the Administration, he would not have been left so long in the dark as to the first act of Mr. Lincoln's official life. When the last faint hope was destroyed that Mr. Seward was virtually to be President, the outlook of the country seemed to these politicians discouraging.

The 4th of March at last arrived. Mr. Lincoln's feelings, as the hour approached which was to invest him. with greater responsibilities than had fallen upon any of his predecessors, may readily be imagined. If he saw in his elevation another step toward the fulfilment of that destiny which he at times believed awaited him, the thought served but to tinge with a peculiar, almost poetic, sadness the manner in which he addressed himself to the solemn duties of the hour.

There were apprehensions of danger to Mr. Lincoln's person, and extensive preparations were made for his protection, under the direction of Lieutenant-General Scott. The carriage in which the President-elect rode to the Capitol was closely guarded by marshals and cavalry, selected with care from the most loyal and efficient companies of the veteran troops and marines. Mr. Lincoln appeared as usual, composed and thoughtful, apparently unmoved and indifferent to the excitement around him. On arriving at the platform, he was introduced to the vast audience awaiting his appearance by Senator Baker, of Oregon. Stepping forward, in a manner deliberate and impressive, the President-elect

delivered in a clear, penetrating voice his Inaugural Address, closing this remarkable production with the words, which so forcibly exemplified his character and so clearly indicated his goodness of heart: "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 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."

The immense audience present was deeply impressed, and with awe viewed the momentous character of the occasion they were given to contemplate. The Address produced comparatively little applause and no manifestations of disapprobation. All were moved with a profound anxiety concerning their own respective States and the future of their country; and the sentiments they had just heard uttered from the Chief Executive foreshadowed the storm awaiting the nation.

After the oath of office was administered to him by the venerable Chief-Justice of the United States, Judge Roger B. Taney, Mr. Lincoln was escorted to the Presidential Mansion in the same order that was observed in going to the Capitol, amid the firing of cannon and the sound of music. Mr. Buchanan accompanied him, and in taking his leave expressed his wish and hope, in earnest and befitting language, that Mr. Lin

coln's Administration of the government would be a happy and prosperous one.

The Inauguration over, every one seemed to have a sense of relief: no accident, no demonstration which could be construed as portending disturbance.

The New York delegation, on the night of the Inauguration, paid their respects to the President. He said to them that he was rejoiced to see the good feeling manifested by them, and hoped that our friends of the South would be satisfied, when they read his Inaugural Address, that he had made it as nearly right as it was possible for him to make it in accordance with the Constitution, which he thought was as good for the people who lived south of the Mason and Dixon line as for those who lived north of it.

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CHAPTER IV.

GLOOMY FOREBODINGS OF COMING CONFLICT.

FTER the first shout of triumph and the first glow

of exultation consequent on his Inauguration, Mr. Lincoln soon began to realize with dismay what was before him. Geographical lines were at last distinctly drawn. He was regarded as a sectional representative, elected President with most overwhelming majorities north of Mason and Dixon's line, and not a single electoral vote south of it. He saw a great people, comprising many millions and inhabiting a vast region of our common country, exasperated by calumny, stung by defeat, and alarmed by the threats of furious fanatics whom demagogues held up to them as the real and only leaders of the triumphant party. His election had brought the nation face to face with the perils that had been feared by every rank and party since the dawn of Independence, with the very contingency, the crisis in which all venerable authority had declared from the beginning that the Union would surely perish, and the fragments, after exhausting each other by commercial restrictions and disastrous wars, would find ignominious safety in as many paltry despotisms as there were fragments.

On the 3d of March, 1861, the Thirty-sixth Congress had reached the prescribed period of its existence, and had died a constitutional death. Its last session of three months had been spent in full view of an awful public calamity, which it had made no effort to avert or to mitigate. It saw the nation compassed round with a frightful danger, but it proposed no plan either of conciliation or defence. It adjourned forever, and left the law precisely as it found it.

In his message to Congress, President Buchanan had said: " Congress alone has power to decide whether the present laws can or cannot be amended so as to carry out more effectually the objects of the Constitution." With Congress rested the whole responsibility of peace or war, and with them the message left it. But Congress behaved like a body of men who thought that the calamities of the nation were no special business of theirs. The members from the extreme South were watching for the proper moment to retire; those from the middle slave States were a minority which could only stand and wait upon the movements of others; while the great and all-powerful Northern party was what the French minister called " a mere aggregation of individual ambitions." They had always denied the possibility of a dissolution of the Union in any conjuncture of circumstances; and their habit of disregarding the evidence was too strong to be suddenly changed. In the philosophy of their politics it had not been dreamed of as a possible thing. Even when they saw it assume the shape of a fixed and

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