extreme Southern men broke up the Democratic convention at Charleston, and the delegates forming two different bodies, severally adopted platforms and nominated candidates. Stephen A. Douglas was the nominee of the moderate, with Herschell V. Johnson as candidate for Vice-President, while John C. Breckenridge, actually Vice-President of the United States, was the extreme Southern candidate for the Presidency, with Mr. Lane, of Oregon. As though this were not sufficient diversity, a fourth ticket was presented in the vain hope of healing dissensions, and under the name of the Union ticket offered to the votes of the people the names of John Bell, of Tennessee, for President, and Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, for Vice-President.

Never had the country seen an election which excited more general interest or deeper feeling. The result, however, was not doubtful. The Republicans were enthusiastic, organized, hopeful; the Democratic party rent in twain, was of course dispirited, and the Southern section seemed to court the defeat, whose certainty they had contrived, as a pretext for a movement already planned.

The Republicans, forming a body of nearly two millions of voters, carried for Mr. Lincoln the States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and California, comprising all the free States, except New Jersey, which gave four votes to Mr. Lincoln and three to Mr. Douglas. Mr. Breckenridge received the electoral vote of all the slave States, except Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia, which voted for Bell. Douglas, once so popular, received only the vote of Missouri, and, as we have seen, part of that of New Jersey, although his popular vote was nearly half a million more than that of Mr. Breckenridge.

Thus was Mr. Lincoln chosen on the 6th of November, 1860, President of the United States, receiving in the electoral college 180 votes, representing sixteen States and 1,857,610 votes. To his election there existed no constitutional objection. His antagonist, Mr. Breckenridge, since a rebel general and Secretary of War, declared officially, as Vice-President of the United States, that Abraham Lincoln was lawfully elected President of the United States.

Here, in a manner, the history of his Administration begins.

The State of South Carolina, the very day after choosing electors, passed an act calling a Convention, and openly announced its determination not to submit to the election. How rapidly they followed up their determination by action, we need not detail here. While Mr. Lincoln awaited at Springfield the moment when he should proceed to Washington to enter on the duties of his office, the Southern States, unchecked, unimpeded, were seizing the arsenals, forts, custom-houses, navy yards, mints, and other property of the General Government, forming a Confederacy, adopting a Constitution, and proceeding to the choice of a President and Vice-President.

On the 11th of February, Mr. Lincoln left his home in Springfield. He could not conceal from himself the terrible task before him. To him the office of President was not to be one of quiet routine. In a few days, States that took part in the late election, would have chosen a President who would claim authority over nearly half the land, prepared to uphold that claim by force of arms. Impressed with the solemnity of the occasion, he bade farewell to his friends and neighbors in these words, which, read at the present time, have indeed a mournful interest:

"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 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."

On the 13th, he reached Columbus, where he was formally welcomed in the Hall of the Assembly, at the State Capitol, by Lieutenant Governor Kirk, on behalf of the Legislature. At this imposing reception he justified the silence which he had observed as to his policy, and again expressed his sense of the importance of the moment.

He was received enthusiastically at the different large cities on his route, and spoke freely on the various points of public policy likely to arise, impressing all with a sense of his uprightness, fairness, and desire to administer the Government with firmness. Of the South he spoke in terms of conciliation, believing, and wishing all to believe, that the Southern movement would soon die of itself.

At Philadelphia, the President elect visited Independence Hall, and in those walls, still echoing with the voices of the great patriot founders of the Republic, he was escorted to a platform prepared for the purpose, and after a few words of patriotic devotion to the flag, affirming that to his deliberate convictions of principle he must adhere, even if assassination were his fate, he raised the Stars and Stripes, amid the plaudits of thousands and the thunder of artillery.

At Harrisburg, information was brought to him that his life was to be attempted, as he passed through Baltimore, and he took an earlier train to baffle the plot. Many at the time treated this as an idle fear; but the evidence is beyond all dispute. Threats had been current that he would never live to be inaugurated, and during his journey an attempt was made to throw the train off the track, on the Toledo and Western Railroad, and a hand-grenade was found concealed in the train in which he left Cincinnati.

In Washington, preparations, such as were possible, were made, to prevent any act of violence on the day of inauguration. A large military force was in attendance, under the immediate command of General Scott, but nothing occurred to interrupt the harmony of the occasion. Mr. Lincoln proceeded to the Capitol with Mr. Buchanan, whose term of office expired, and the ceremony of inauguration took place, March 4th, 1861, in front of the Capitol, in presence of an immense multitude.

His inaugural address, delivered before taking the oath of office administered by Chief-Justice Taney, who thus lived to swear into their high position ten successive Presidents, was in these words:

"FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES:

"In compliance with a custom as old as the Government itself, I appear before you to address you briefly, and to take, in your presence, the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United States

to be taken by the President, before he enters on the execution of his office.

"I do not consider it necessary, at present, for me to discuss those matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety or excitement. Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States, that, by the accession of a Republican Administration, their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed, and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that '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. Those who nominated and elected me, did so with the full knowledge that I had made this, and made many similar declarations, and had never recanted them. And more than this, they placed in the platform, for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read:

'Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.'

"I now reiterate these sentiments; and in doing so I only press upon the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible, that the property, peace, and security of no section are to be in anywise endangered by the now incoming Administration.

'I add, too, that all the protection which, consistently with the Constitution and the laws, can be given, will be cheerfully given to all the States when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause, as cheerfully to one section as to another.

"There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:

"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but

shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.'

'It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the lawgiver is the law.

"All members of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitution to this provision as well as any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this clause, 'shall be delivered up,' their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could they not, with nearly equal unanimity, frame and pass a law by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath?

"There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be enforced by national or by State authority; but surely that dif ference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him or to others by which authority it is done; and should any one, in any case, be content that this oath shall go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept?

"Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the safeguards of liberty known in the civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a free man be not, in any case, surrendered as a slave? And might it not be well, at the same time, to provide by law for the enforcement of that clause in the Constitution, which guarantees that 'the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States ?'

“I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservations, and with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical rules; and while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to and abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them, trusting to find impunity in having them held to be unconstitutional.

"It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a President under our national Constitution. During that period, fifteen different and very distinguished citizens have, in succession, administered the executive branch of the Government. They have conducted it through many perils, and generally with great success. Yet, with all this scope for precedent, I now enter upon the same task, for the brief constitutional term of four years, under great and peculiar difficulties.

"A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is