CHAP. XXI. strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, 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. Chief-Justice A cheer greeted the conclusion. "I, Abraham Lincoln, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." Then, while the battery on the brow of the hill thundered its salute, citizen Buchanan and President Lincoln returned to their carriage, and the military procession escorted them from the Capitol to the Executive Mansion, on the threshold of which Mr. Buchanan warmly shook the hand of his successor, with cordial good wishes for his personal happiness and the national peace and prosperity. THE CHAPTER XXII LINCOLN'S CABINET HE work of framing the new Cabinet was mainly performed on the evening of the Presidential election. After the polls were closed on the 6th of November (so Mr. Lincoln related a year or two later), the superintendent of the telegraph at Springfield invited him to his office to remain and read the dispatches as they should come in. He accepted the offer; and reporting himself in due time at the telegraph office, from which all other visitors were excluded at 9 o'clock, awaited the result of the eventful day. Soon the telegrams came thick and fast — first from the neighboring precincts and counties; then from the great Western cities, Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati; and finally from the capitals of the doubtful States, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and the Empire State of New York. Here in this little room, in the company of two or three silent operators moving about their mysteriously clicking instruments, and recording with imperturbable gravity the swiftthrobbing messages from near and far, Mr. Lincoln read the reports as they came, first in fragmentary dribblets, and later in the rising and swelling stream of cheering news. CH. XXII. eon Welles, CH. XXII. There was never a closer calculator of political probabilities than himself. He was completely at home among election figures. All his political life he had scanned tables of returns with as much care and accuracy as he analyzed and scrutinized maxims of government and platforms of parties. Now, as formerly, he was familiar with all the turning-points in contested counties and "close" districts, and knew by heart the value of each and every local loss or gain and its relation to the grand result. In past years, at the close of many a hot campaign, he had searched out the comfort of victory from a discouraging and adverse-looking column of figures, or correctly read the fatal omen of defeat in some single announcement from a precinct or county. Silently, as they were transcribed, the operators handed him the messages, which he laid on his knee while he adjusted his spectacles, and then read and re-read several times with deliberation. He had not long to wait for indications. From a scattering beginning, made up of encouraging local fragments, the hopeful news rose to almost uninterrupted tidings of victory. Soon a shower of congratulatory telegrams fell from the wires, and while his partisans and friends in all parts of the country were thus shaking hands with him by lightning" over the result, he could hear the shouts and speeches of his Springfield followers, gathered in the great hall of the State-house across the street. Of course his first emotions were those of a kindling pleasure and pride at the completeness of his success. But this was only a momentary glow. He was indeed President-elect; but with that con sciousness there fell upon him the appalling shadow CH. XXII. of his mighty task and responsibility. It seemed as if he suddenly bore the whole world upon his shoulders, and could not shake it off; and sitting there in the yet early watches of the night, he read the still coming telegrams in a sort of absentminded mechanical routine, while his inner man took up the crushing burden of his country's troubles, and traced out the laborious path of future duties. "When I finally bade my friends good-night and left that room," said Lincoln, “I had substantially completed the framework of my Cabinet as it now exists." Though the grouping and combining of the new President's intended councilors occurred at this time, it is no less true that some of them were selected at a much earlier date. For a month after the election he gave no intimation whatever of his purpose. Cabinet-making is at all times. difficult, as Mr. Lincoln felt and acknowledged, even though he had progressed thus far in his task. Up to the early days of December he followed the current of newspaper criticism, daily read his budget of private letters, gave numerous interviews to visiting politicians of prominence and influence, and, on the occasion of a short visit to Chicago, met and conferred with Mr. Hamlin, the Vice-President-elect all constituting, most probably, little else than a continued study of the Cabinet question. Never arbitrary or dictatorial in the decision of any matter, he took unusual care on this point to receive patiently and consider seriously all the advice, recommendations, and objections which his friends from different States had to offer. CH. XXII. His personal experience during his service as a Member of Congress had given him an insight into the sharp and bitter contentions which grow out of office-seeking and the distribution of patronage. It was therefore doubtless with the view to fortify himself in his selections that he now determined to make definite offers of some, at least, of the Cabinet appointments. The question of taking part of his constitutional advisers from among his political opponents, and from the hostile or complaining Southern States, had been thoroughly debated in his own mind. The conclusion arrived at is plainly evinced by the following, written by him, and inserted as a short leading editorial in the Springfield "Journal" on the morning of December 12 (or 13), 1860: We hear such frequent allusions to a supposed purpose on the part of Mr. Lincoln to call into his Cabinet two or three Southern gentlemen from the parties opposed to him politically, that we are prompted to ask a few questions. First. Is it known that any such gentleman of character would accept a place in the Cabinet? Second. If yea, on what terms does he surrender to Mr. Lincoln, or Mr. Lincoln to him, on the political differences between them, or do they enter upon the administration in open opposition to each other? The high authorship of these paragraphs was not announced, but the reductio ad absurdum was so complete that the newspapers were not amiss in guessing whence they emanated. The selection of enemies being out of the question, Mr. Lincoln chose his ablest friends. On the morning of December 8, 1860, he penned the following letters: |