292

RECONCILIATION AND PEACE DESIRED.

“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 upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part, and I shall perform it, so far as practicable, unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means, or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union, that it will constitutionally defend and maintain itself.

"In doing this, there need be no bloodshed or violence; and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the National authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places. belonging to the Government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be but necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere. Where hostility to the United States in any interior locality shall be so great and universal as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for that object. While the strict legal right may exist in the Government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating, and so nearly impracticable withal, I deem it better to forego for the time the uses of such offices."

The President then declared that he should endeavor, by justice, to reconcile all discontents, with a hope of bringing about a "peaceful solution of the National troubles." If there were any who sought to destroy the Union in any event, to those he need "address no word." To those who really loved the Union, he spoke in terms of zealous and earnest pleading, asking them to consider well so "grave a matter as the destruction of our national fabric, with all its benefits, its memories, and its hopes," before undertaking it. He asked the malcontents to point to a single instance where any right, plainly written in the Constitution," had been denied. He declared that if, "by the mere force of numbers, a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution-certainly would if such right were a vital But such is not our case," he said. "All the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured to them, by affirmations and negations, guaranties and prohibitions in the Constitution, that controversies never arise concerning them."

one.

creed of the conspirators and the Oligarchy, that the Union was a temporary compact, and the National Government no government at all, but only the "agent of the Sovereign States." Edward A. Pollard editor of the Richmond Examiner, who wrote a history of the war, opens his first volume with these remarkable words as the key-note to his whole performance:-"The American people of the present generation were born in the belief that the Union of the States was destined to be perpetual. A few minds rose superior to this nata delusion," et cætera.

RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF THE PEOPLE.

293 The President then spoke of the necessity of acquiescence of either minorities or majorities in the decisions of questions. Without such acquiescence, the Government could not exist. "If a minority in such case," he said, "will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which, in turn, will divide and ruin them; for a minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such minority. For instance, why may not any portion of a new Confederacy, a year or two hence, arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim to secede from it? . . . Plainly, the central idea of secession is anarchy. A majority, held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it, does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism."

1

The President referred to the binding character of the decisions of the Supreme Court in all special cases; but he said, evidently with the action of Chief-Justice Taney in the Dred Scott case in his mind, "The candid citizen must confess, that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal." He referred to the impossibility of a dissolution of the Union, physically speaking. The people of the respective sections, who differed widely in opinions, might, like a divorced husband and wife, separate absolutely, by going out of the reach of each other, but the territory of the respective sections must remain "face to face," and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. The question then arises, whether that intercourse would be more agreeable after separation. "Can aliens," asked the President, "make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced among aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon you.”

The President recognized the right of the people to change their existing form of government when they should become weary of it, either by amending the Constitution or by revolution; and, in view of present difficulties, he expressed his concurrence in the proposition for a Convention of Representatives of all the States, to deliberate on constitutional amendments; and he went so far as to say, that he had no objections to any amendment which should, by an express and irrevocable decree, provide that the National Government should never interfere with Slavery in the States where it existed. The Chief Magistrate, he said, had no power to fix any terms for a separation of States. That was for the people to do. His business was only to execute the laws. He believed in the ultimate wisdom and justice of the American people. "Why not have a patient confidence in that justice?" he asked. "Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In our present differences, is either party without faith of being in the right?

1 See note 1, page 84.

294

THE INAUGURATION BALL.

If the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with His eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail, by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American people." He concluded by an earnest exhortation to his countrymen to think calmly and well upon the whole subject. He begged them to take time for serious deliberation. "Such of you," he said, 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. . . . 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; whilst I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect, and defend it.' I am loth 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."

Long before sunset on that beautiful 4th of March, the brilliant pageant of the inauguration of a President had dissolved, and thousands of citizens, breathing more freely now that the first and important chapter in the history of the new Administration was closed without a tragic scene, were hastening homeward. But Washington City was to be the theater of another brilliant display the same evening, in the character of an Inauguration Ball. Notwithstanding a pall of gloom and dark forebodings overspread the land, and the demon of Discord, with his torch and blade, was visibly on the wing, expediency seemed to declare that none of the usual concomitants of the inauguration ceremonies should be omitted on this occasion, but that every thing should move on after the old fashion, as if the Government were perfectly undisturbed by the stormy passions of the time.

The preparations for the ball had been made in the usual manner. A large temporary building had been erected for the purpose near the City Hall, whose council-chamber and committee-rooms were used as dressingrooms for the guests. The hall, a parallelogram in shape, was decorated with red and white muslin, and many shields bearing National and State arms. Several foreign ministers and their families, and heads of departments and their families, were present. The dancing commenced at eleven o'clock. Ten minutes later the music and the motion ceased, for it was announced that Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln, in whose honor the ball was given, were about to enter the room. The President appeared first, accompanied by Mayor Berret, of Washington, and Senator Anthony, of Rhode Island. Immediately behind him came Mrs. Lincoln, wearing a rich watered silk dress, an elegant point-lace shawl, deeply bordered, with camelias in her hair and pearl ornaments. She was leaning on the arm of Senator Douglas, the President's late political rival. The incident was accepted as a proclamation of peace and friendship between the champions. Mr. Hamlin, the Vice-President, was already there; and the room was crowded with many distinguished

HEADS OF DEPARTMENTS APPOINTED.

295 men and beautiful and elegantly dressed women. The utmost gayety and hilarity prevailed; and every face but one was continually radiant with the unmixed joy of the hour. That face was Abraham Lincoln's. The perennial good-humor of his nature could not, at all times, banish from his countenance

that almost painfully sad thoughtfulness of expression, more frequently seen afterward, when the cares of State had marred his brow with deeper furrows. Of all that company, he was the most honored and the most burdened; and with the pageantry of that Inauguration Day and that Inauguration Ball, ended, for him, the poetry of his Administration. Thereafter his life was spent in the sober prose of dutiful endeavor to save and redeem the nation.

On the day after Mr. Lincoln's inauguration, the Senate, in extraordinary session, confirmed his appointments of Cabinet ministers. He had chosen for Secretary of State, William H. Seward, of New York; for Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio; for Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania; for Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, of Connecticut; for Secretary of the Interior, Caleb Smith, of Indiana; for Postmaster-General, Montgomery Blair, of Maryland; and for AttorneyGeneral, Edward Bates, of Missouri. Mr. Seward had been a prominent candidate for a nomination for the Presidency, at Chicago. On that account,

1 The dress of one of the ladies was thus described by an eye-witness:-"The robe was of white illusion, décolleté, puffed sleeves, with six flounces, embroidered with cherry silk; an overskirt of cherry satin, looped up with clusters of white roses; a pointed waist of same, edged with a quilling of white satin; head-dress, a chaplet of ivy; ornaments, diamonds and opals."

* See the Frontispiece to this volume. The picture represents the President and his Cabinet, with General Scott, in consultation concerning military affairs. I have endeavored to give this picture an historic value, by presenting not only a correct portraiture of the men, but also of the room in which the meetings of the Cabinet were held, in the White House. The drawing of the room was made for me, with great accuracy, by Mr. C. K. Stellwagen, of the Ordnance Department, in October, 1864, and the grouping of the figures by Mr. Schuselle, an accomplished artist of Philadelphia. This council chamber of the Executive is on the southern side of the White House, overlooking the public grounds, the Smithsonian Institute, the unfinished Washington Monument, and the Potomac River. The Washington Monument is seen, in the picture, through one of the windows.

206

RECEPTION OF THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS.

and because of his known eminent ability, and unswerving fidelity to his country and the principles of justice and right, his appointment was acceptable to all loyal people, and especially to his political friends. How well he performed the very important and delicate duties of prime minister during the four succeeding years, let the recorded diplomacy of the Republic for that time answer.

The ship of State was now fairly launched upon the tide under the guidance of the new pilot. It was evident that terribly stormy seas were before it. Premonitions of tempests were darkening the air, alarming the timid, and filling the hearts of the brave with anxiety. There was peril on every side.

The President's Inaugural Address, calm, dignified, conciliatory even to pathos in tone, clear in its enunciation of the great truths concerning the political construction and character of the nation, and as clear in its annunciation of the duties and determination of the Chief Magistrate, satisfied the loyal people of the country everywhere. It promised peace, security, and justice to every law-abiding citizen and community. It was a pledge that the integrity of the territory of the Republic should be maintained, and its laws executed. It denied the existence of State supremacy, but not of State rights. It denied the right of secession, and plainly told the advocates of such pretended right that to attempt it would be an essay at criminal revolution, that would be resisted with all the powers of the Government. It was denounced by the conspirators and their partisans, South and North, as belligerent-as threatening war, because it contemplated the "coercion" of law-breakers into submission. It was mutilated and interpolated while passing through the newspapers in the interest of the conspirators; and the

1 That conspicuous counterfeit of a statesman, Senator Wigfall, whose mendacity and cowardice at Fort Sumter, a month later, were as prominent as his vulgarity and bluster in Congress, kept his seat in the Senate, in defiance of all decency; and on the last days of its session uttered his treasonable words more inselently than ever. He took it upon himself to treat the Inaugural with scorn. "It is easy to talk about enforcing the laws, and holding, occupying, and possessing the forts," he said. "When you come to do this, bayonets, and not words, must settle the question. And he would here say, that Fort Pickens and the Administration will soon be forced to construe the Inaugural. Forts Moultrie, and Johnston, and Castle Pinckney are in possession of the Confederate States; but the confederated States will not leave Fort Sumter in possession of the Federal Government. . . . Seven Southern States have formed a confederation, and to tell them, as the President has done, that the acts of secession are no more than blank paper, is an insult." He repeated: "There is no Union left; the seceded States will never surely come back under any circumstances. They will not live under this Administration. Withdraw your troops. Make no attempt to collect tribute, and enter into a treaty with those States. Do this, and you will have peace. Send your flag of thirty-four stars thither, and it will be fired into, and war will ensue. Divide the public property; make a fair assessment of the public debt; or will you sit stupidly and idly till there shall be a conflict of arms, because you cannot compromise with traitors? Let the remaining States reform their government, and if it is acceptable, the Confederacy will enter into a treaty of commerce and.amity with them. If you want peace, you shall have it. If war, you shall have it. The time for platforms and demagogisin has passed. Treat with the Confederate States as independent, and you will have peace. Treat with them as States of this Union, and you will have war. Mr. Lincoln has to remove the troops from Forts Pickens and Suimter, or they will be removed for him. He has to collect the revenue at Charleston, Savannah, and New Orleans, or it will be collected for him. If he attempts to do so, resistance will be made. It is usless to blind your eyes. No compromise or amendment to the Constitution, no arrangement you inay enter into, will satisfy the South, unless you recognize slaves as property, and protect it as any other species of property."

Senator Douglas reminded Wigfall that, according to his own doctrine, he was “a foreigner," and yet he retained his seat in the Senate of the United States. The insolent conspirator replied:-"It was because he had no official information that Texas has abolished the office of United States Senator. When he should be so notified, he would file a notice of his withdrawal at the desk; and if after being so informed, his name should continue to be called, he should answer to it, if it suited his convenience; and if called upon to vote, be would probably give his reasons for voting, and regard this as a very respectable public meeting."