His Inauguration and Inaugural Address

Mr. Lincoln was warmly welcomed by his friends in Washington city, and when, at an early hour after his arrival (February 23, 1861), he called on President Buchanan, the latter could hardly believe his eyes. He gave the President-elect a cordial welcome. So also did General Scott, who, the Secessionists thought, would join them because he was a Virginian; but he was loyal to the core, and had filled Washington city with troops in such numbers, it was supposed, that serious interference with Mr. Lincoln's inauguration was made impossible. That ceremony took place on Monday, the 4th of March, 1861. Chief Justice Taney administered the oath. There was no disturbance. The scheme of the Secessionists to prevent Mr. Lincoln's inauguration had been prostrated, but the plan of the Confederates to ultimately seize the National capital was still a cherished one. Only about six hundred troops were there, but as they had been gathered in small numbers at a time from various points, and kept concealed, the Secessionists believed there were many thousands of them; and when the small number was revealed on the first of March, it was too late to call together the "minute-men" of Maryland and Virginia. Meanwhile President Buchannan had been greatly harassed by the Secessionists. Governor Pickens had demanded of Major Anderson the surrender of Fort Sumter. Anderson refused; whereupon the governor sent J.W. Hayne, the attorney-general of South Carolina, to Washington, to make the same demand. The President's course was vacillating; and in this, as in other matters, he resolved to cast the responsibility upon his successor. The Secessionists had failed to accomplish, through the arts of diplomacy, a recognition by the National Government of the sovereignty of any States; and their efforts ceased early in February. Mr. Buchanan left the chair of state for private life a deeply humiliated and sorrowing man. On bidding Senator Fitzpatrick good-bye, and with the consciousness of rare opportunities for winning glory and renown as a patriot forever lost, he said: "The current of public opinion warns me that we shall never meet again on this side the grave. I have tried to do my duty to both sections, and have displeased both. I feel isolated in the world."

President Lincoln, standing at the east front of the Capitol, like Saul among the prophets, head and shoulders above other men, read his inaugural address in a clear, loud voice, in the ears of a vast multitude of people, who heard him distinctly, and who greeted its sentences with cheer after cheer. It had been waited for by the loyal people of the land with the greatest anxiety, for it was expected to foreshadow the policy of the new administration. And so it did. It gave no uncertain sound. To the people of the slave-labor States he first addressed a few assuring words, in which he said: "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." He read a resolution of the Republican Convention that nominated him, which declared that the rights of the States, in order that they might control their own institutions, should be maintained inviolate, and denouncing as a high crime the invasion by an armed force of any State or Territory, "no matter under what pretext." He reiterated these sentiments as his own; assured the people that "the prosperity, peace, and security of no section" were to be "in any wise endangered by the new incoming Administration," and that every section of the Union should have equal protection.

Mr. Lincoln then discussed the political structure and character of the Republic, showing that the Union is older than the Constitution; that it is necessarily perpetual; that there is no inherent power in the whole or in part to terminate it, and that the secession of a State was impossible. Assuming that the Republic was unbroken, he declared that, to the extent of his ability, he should take care, as the Constitution required him to do, that the laws should be executed in all the States, performing that duty as far as practicable, unless his "rightful masters, the American people," should withhold the requisite means, or, in some authoritative manner, direct the contrary. "I trust this will not be regarded as a menace," he continued, "but only as the declared purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend and maintain itself. In doing this," he added, "there need be no bloodshed or violence; and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the National authority." He declared that the power confided to him should be used "to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government, and to collect the duties and imposts."