CHAPTER VI.

CHARACTER OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN HISTORY.-ABSURD PANEGYRIC.-THE PERSONAL AND POLITICAL LIFE OF THE NEW PRESIDENT.—HIS JOURNEY TO WASHINGTON.-HIS SPEECH AT PHILADELPHIA.—THE FLIGHT FROM HARRISBURG.-ALARM IN WASHINGTON.-MILITARY DISPLAY IN THE CAPITAL.-CEREMONY OF INAUGURATION.-CRITICISM OF LINCOLN'S ADDRESS.-WHAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY THOUGHT OF IT.-SERIOUS PAUSE AT WASHINGTON.-STATEMENT OF HORACE GREELEY.-HOW THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS WAS RECEIVED IN THE SECEDED STATES.-VISIT OF CONFEDERATE COMMISSIONERS TO WASHINGTON.-SEWARD'S PLEDGE TO JUDGE CAMPBELL. THE COMMISSIONERS DECEIVED.-MILITARY AND NAVAL EXPEDITIONS FROM NEW YORK.-CONSULTATION OF THE CABINET ON

THE SUMTER QUESTION.—CAPT. FOX'S VISIT TO CHARLESTON.—HIS PROJECT.—OBJECTIONS OF GEN. SCOTT.—SINGULAR ARTICLE IN A NEW YORK JOURNAL.-LINCOLN'S HESITATION. -HIS FINAL DEVICE.-SEWARD'S GAME WITH THE COMMISSIONERS. THE REDUCTION OF FORT SUMTER.-DESCRIPTION OF THE CONFEDERATE WORKS FOR THE REDUCTION OF SUMTER.-BEAUREGARD DEMANDS THE SURRENDER OF THE FORT. THE BOMBARDMENT. THE FORT ON FIRE.-THE FEDERAL FLEET TAKES NO PART IN THE FIGHT.-THE SURRENDER.-GREAT EXCITEMENT IN THE NORTH.-ITS TRUE MEANING.-THE CRUSADE AGAINST THE SOUTH.-DR. TYNG'S EXHORTATION.-CONDUCT OF NORTHERN DEMOCRATS. -DICKINSON, EVERETT, AND COCHRANE.-PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S PROCLAMATION.-HIS PACIFIC PROTESTS TO THE VIRGINIA COMMISSIONERS.-SECESSION OF VIRGINIA.-DISCONTENT IN THE WESTERN COUNTIES.-SECOND SECESSIONARY MOVEMENT OF THE SOUTHERN STATES.-VIOLENT ACTS OF THE WASHINGTON ADMINISTRATION.-PREPARATIONS OF THE CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT FOR WAR.-RUSH OF VOLUNTEERS TO ARMS.-PRESIDENT

DAVIS' ESTIMATE OF THE MILITARY NECESSITY.-REMOVAL OF THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT TO RICHMOND.-ACTIVITY OF VIRGINIA.-ROBERT E. LEE.-HIS ATTACHMENT TO THE UNION.-WHY HE JOINED THE CONFEDERATE CAUSE. HIS SPEECH IN THE STATE HOUSE AT RICHMOND.-HIS ORGANIZATION OF THE MILITARY FORCE OF VIRGINIA.-MILITARY COUNCIL IN RICHMOND. THE EARLY REPUTATION OF LEE.

A LARGE portion of the Northern people have a custom of apotheosis; at least so far as to designate certain of their public men, to question whose reputation is considered bold assumption, if not sacrilegious daring. But the maxim of de mortuis nil nisi bonum does not apply to history. The character of Abraham Lincoln belongs to history as fully as that of the meanest agent in human affairs; and his own declaration, on one occa

MR. LINCOLN'S ANTECEDENTS.

101

sion, that he did not expect to "escape" it is sure to be verified, now or hereafter.

We have already stated that Mr. Lincoln was not elected President of the United States for any commanding fame, or for any known merit as a statesman. His panegyrists, although they could not assert for him a guiding intellect or profound scholarship, claimed for him some homely and substantial virtues. It was said that he was transparently honest. But his honesty was rather that facile disposition that readily took impres sions from whatever was urged on it. It was said that he was excessively amiable. But his amiability was animal. It is small merit to have a Falstaffian humour in one's blood. Abraham Lincoln was neither kind nor cruel, in the proper sense of these words, simply because he was destitute of the higher order of sensibilities.

His appearance corresponded to his rough life and uncultivated mind. His figure was tall and gaunt-looking; his shoulders were inclined forward; his arms of unusual length; and his gait astride, rapid and shuffling. The savage wits in the Southern newspapers had no other name for him than "the Illinois Ape."

The new President of the United States was the product of that partizanship which often discovers its most "available" candidates among obscure men, with slight political records, and of that infamous demagogueism in America that is pleased with the low and vulgar antecedents of its public men, and enjoys the imagination of similar elevation for each one of its own class in society. Mr. Lincoln had formerly served, without distinction, in Congress. But among his titles to American popularity were the circumstances that in earlier life he had rowed a flat-boat down the Mississippi; afterwards been a miller; and at another period had earned his living by splitting rails in a county of Illinois. When he was first named for the Presidency, an enthusiastic admirer had presented to the State Convention of Illinois two old fence-rails, gaily decorated with flags and ribbons, and bearing the following inscription: "Abraham Lincoln, the Rail Candidate for President in 1860.-Two rails from a lot of 3,000, made in 1830, by Thos. Hanks and Abe Lincoln." The incident is not mentioned for amusement: it is a suggestive illustration of the vulgar and silly devices in an American election.

Since the announcement of his election, Mr. Lincoln had remained very retired and studiously silent in his home at Springfield, Illinois. Expectations were raised by the mystery of this silence; his panegyrists declared that it was the indication of a thoughtful wisdom pondering the grave concerns of the country, and likely to announce at last some novel and profound solution of existing difficulties; and so credulous are all men in a time of anxiety and embarrassment, and so eager to catch at hopes, that these fulsome prophecies of the result of Mr. Lincoln's meditations actu

ally impressed the country, which awaited with impatience the opening of the oracle's lips.

Never was a disappointment so ludicrous. No sooner did Mr. Lincoln leave his home on his official journey to Washington, than he became profuse of speech, entertaining the crowd, that at different points of the railroad watched his progress to the capital, with a peculiar style of stump oratory, in which his Western phraseology, jests, and comic displays amused the whole country in the midst of a great public anxiety. He was reported to have been for months nursing a masterly wisdom at Springfield; he was approaching the capital on an occasion and in circumstances the most imposing in American history; and yet he had no better counsels to offer to the distressed country than to recommend his hearers to "keep cool," and to assure them in his peculiar rhetoric and grammar that "nobody was hurt," and that there was "nothing going wrong." The new President brought with him the buffoonery and habits of a demagogue of the back-woods. He amused a crowd by calling up to the speaker's stand a woman, who had recommended him to grow whiskers on his face, and kissing her in public; he measured heights with the tall men he encountered in his public receptions; and, as part of the ceremony of the inauguration at Washington, he insisted upon kissing the thirty-four young women who, in striped colours and spangled dresses, represented in the procession the thirty-four States of the Union. These incidents are not improperly recorded: they are not trivial in connection with a historical name, and with reference to an occasion the most important in American annals.

At Philadelphia, where Mr. Lincoln was required to assist in raising a United States flag over Independence Hall, he was more serious in his speech than on any former occasion in his journey. In his address was this language: "that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave Liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to the world for all future time. It was that which gave promise that, in due time, the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men." These words were supposed to be aimed at the institution of negro slavery in the South. With reference to them a Baltimore newspaper said: "Mr. Lincoln, the President elect of the United States, will arrive in this city, with his suite, this afternoon by special train from Harrisburg, and will proceed, we learn, directly to Washington. It is to be hoped that no opportunity will be afforded him-or that, if it be afforded, he will not embrace it-to repeat in our midst the sentiments which he is reported to have expressed yesterday in Philadelphia." This newspaper paragraph and some other circumstances equally trivial were made the occasion of an alarm that the new President was to be assassinated in Baltimore, or on his way to that city. The alarm was communicated to Mr. Lincoln himself. He was in

HIS INAUGURATION TROUBLES.

103 bed at the time in Harrisburg. He at once determined to leave by a special train direct to Washington. Not satisfied with thus avoiding Baltimore, his alarm took the most unusual precautions. The telegraph wires were put beyond the reach of any one who might desire to use them. His departure was kept a profound secret. His person was disguised in a very long military cloak; a Scotch plaid cap was put on his head; and thus curiously attired, the President of the United States made his advent to Washington. "Had he," said the Baltimore Sun, "entered Willard's Hotel with a 'head-spring' and a 'summersault' and the clown's merry greeting to Gen. Scott, 'Here we are,' the country could not have been more surprised at the exhibition." *

Mr. Lincoln's nervous alarm for his personal safety did not subside with his arrival in Washington. General Scott, who was in military command there, had already collected in the capital more than six hundred regular troops, and had called out the District militia, to resist an attempt which would be made by an armed force to prevent the inauguration of President Lincoln and to seize the public property. He insisted upon this imagination; he pretended violent alarm; he had evidently made up his mind for a military drama, and the display of himself on the occasion of Mr. Lincoln's inauguration. His vanity was foolish. A cominittee of the House of Representatives investigated the causes of alarm, heard the General himself, and decided that his apprehensions were unfounded. But he would not be quieted. He communicated his fears to Mr. Lincoln to such effect, that for some time before and after his inaugu ration soldiers were placed at his gate, and the grand reception-room of the White House was converted into quarters for troops from Kansas, who, under the command of the notorious Jim Lane, had volunteered to guard the chamber of the President.

Inauguration-day passed peacefully and quietly, but was attended by an extraordinary military display. Troops were stationed in different parts of the city; sentinels were posted on the tops of the highest houses and other eminences; the President moved to the Capitol in a hollow square of cavalry; and from the East portico delivered his inaugural address with a row of bayonets standing between him and his audience.

The address was such an attempt at ambidexterity as might be expected from an embarrassed and ill-educated man. It was a singular mixture. The new President said he was strongly in favour of the mainten

The silly or jocose story of the intended assassination was, that a party of Secessionists had plotted to throw the train of cars on which Mr. Lincoln was expected to travel to Baltimore, down a steep embankment, and this project failing, to murder him in the streets of Baltimore. But Mr. Lincoln left his wife and children to take the threatened route to Baltimore, and to risk the reported conspiracy to throw the cars from the track; and it turned out that they arrived safe at their jour ney's end, and without accident of any sort.

ance of the Union and was opposed to Secession; but he was equally against the principle of coercion, provided the rights of the United States government were not interfered with. He gave a quasi pledge not to appoint Federal officers for communities unanimously hostile to the authority of the Union; he appeared to proceed on the supposition that the South had only to be disabused of her impressions and apprehensions of Northern hostility; in one breath he exclaimed: "we are not enemies but friends;" in another he made the following significant declaration :

"The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government, and collect the duties and imposts; but, beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere."

The address was variously received, according to the political opinions of the country, and made decided friends in no quarter. Mr. Lincoln's own party was displeased with it; and the Republican newspapers declared that its tone was deprecatory and even apologetic. The Northern Democrats had no violent disapproval to express. The Border Slave States, which yet remained in the Union, were undetermined as to its meaning, but regarded it with suspicion. In fact it was with reference to these that Mr. Lincoln was embarrassed, if he was not actually at this time balancing between peace and war. If coercion was attempted towards the seceded States, the Border Slave States would go out of the Union, and the country would be lost. If a pacific policy was adopted, the Chicago platform would go to pieces, and the Black Republican party would be broken into fragments.

There is reason to believe that for some weeks after Mr. Lincoln's inauguration there was a serious pause in his mind on the question of peace or war. His new Secretary of State, Mr. Seward, at the New England Dinner in New York, had confidently predicted a settlement of all the troubles" within sixty days"-a phrase, by the way, that was to be frequently repeated in the course of four long years. Mr. Horace Greeley testifies that on visiting Washington some two weeks or more after Mr. Lincoln's inauguration, he was "surprised to see and hear on every hand what were to him convincing proofs that an early collision with the 'Confederates was not seriously apprehended in the highest quarters." If. there was really an interval of indecision in the first days of Mr. Lincoln's administration, it was rapidly overcome by partisan influences, for his apparent vacillation was producing disaffection in the Black Republican party, and the clamour of their disappointment was plainly heard in Washington.

In the seceded States the inaugural address had been interpreted as a menace of war. This interpretation was confirmed by other circumstances