PRESIDENT ELECT.

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that period, ordinances of secession were passed by Conventions in no less than seven States (South Carolina, 20th December, 1860; Mississippi, January 9, 1861; Florida, January 10; Alabama, January 11; Georgia, January 19; Louisiana, January 26; Texas, February 5). Delegates from the seceding States had met in another convention at Montgomery in Alabama (February 4), had adopted a provisional constitution, appointed and inaugurated (February 18) a President and a Vice-President; and the former, Mr. Jefferson Davis, in an address delivered on his arrival at Montgomery, had declared that "the time for compromise has now passed, and the South is determined to maintain her position, and make all who oppose her smell Southern powder and feel Southern steel, if coercion is persisted in." Meanwhile, Mr. Buchanan was advised by his AttorneyGeneral that Congress had no right to carry on war against any State, and remained quiescent accordingly, even while forts, arsenals, and other Government property were being seized on all

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sides by the seceding States: although by the 8th January he had got so far as to declare that it was his right and his duty "to use military force defensively against those who resist the Federal officers in the execution of their legal functions, and against those who assail the property of the Federal Government." Congress, on its side, notwithstanding the withdrawal of most of the senators and representatives from the seceding States, had made almost every conceivable concession to the South, adopting in principle an amendment to the Constitution. which should forbid for ever any intermeddling by Federal action with slavery in any State; conceding "squatter sovereignty" so far as to create governments for three new territories without forbiddance of slavery; severely censuring those free States which had passed laws to hinder the recovery of fugitive slaves.

During all this time, till the 11th February, 1861, the new President remained absolutely silent. Not a word fell from him which could hinder Mr. Buchanan from saving the Union in his

LEAVES FOR WASHINGTON.

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own way. On the 11th February Mr. Lincoln opened his lips anew as he left his home; and during his slow progress to Washington, which he reached on the 23rd, not a day passed but what his voice was heard in replies to the addresses of his countrymen. His first words on this triumphal progress to his eventual martyrdom, being his farewell to his fellow-townsmen at Springfield, must be quoted at length :—

'My friends,-No one not in my position. can appreciate the sadness I feel at this parting. To this people I owe all that I am. Here I have lived more than a quarter of a century; here my children were born, and here one of them lies buried. I know not how soon I shall see you again. A duty devolves upon me which is perhaps greater than that which has devolved upon any other man since the days of Washington. He never would have succeeded except for the aid of Divine Providence, upon which he at all times relied. I feel that I cannot succeed without the same Divine aid which sustained him, and on the same Almighty Being I place

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SPEECHES ON THE WAY

my reliance for support; and I hope you, my friends, will all pray that I may receive that Divine assistance without which I cannot succeed, but with which success is certain. Again I bid you all an affectionate farewell."

Weighty and touching words, surely. The momentary pleasure which he had felt on finding himself chosen as candidate for the highest office in the State by a large body of his fellowcountrymen, and which he could not enjoy without sharing it with the "little woman at home, has quite vanished away into the sorrow of parting with the quiet memories of so many years of private life, into the awe of the dark future. Not a shot has yet been fired; but he knows that a duty has devolved upon him, greater perhaps than has devolved upon any since Washington. Yet he sinks not crushed beneath that duty, but strengthens himself against it like a man, looking up through the darkness to that Hand which sustained Washington, and which he trusts to sustain himself. And as he thus departs to rule over the many

millions of his people, he asks his friends and his neighbours for their prayers. (And clever people in Europe, meanwhile, were saying and writing that God is an idea, and that Christ was an impostor, and that the Christian faith is a delusion; and Mr. Carlyle was trying to puff into a hero, for the special admiration of the nineteenth century, that cross between fox and wolf, Frederic II. of Prussia.) Surely, from that hour, the day of shams had for America passed away; the true, honest man had gone forth in the fear of God, conquering and to conquer.

It were idle to attempt recording here all Mr. Lincoln's speeches on this journey to Washington. Without entering into any controversy, into any single detail of policy which could hamper the government, you see him appealing earnestly to the broad principles of patriotism, stirring up, yet without any bitterness, the energies of his countrymen on behalf of the Union. He warns them that it is for them, not for him, to save the country: