Lincoln wrote with the measured beat of an axe: "I am loath to close. We are not enemies but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may be 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 as they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

The last ride to Washington was a hurried flight in the night. Rumours of assassination were rife, and in Harrisburg he was advised to cancel his engagement in Baltimore, where they thought there was a welldeveloped plot to do away with him, and to go directly to Washington. He consented, but regretted it ever after, and his over-cautiousness in the beginning may have been the cause of his later recklessness, which ended in his assassination in 1865.

At one moment he thought he had lost his Inaugural Address. He came to his friend Lamon and said: "Lamon, I guess I have lost my certificate of moral character, written by myself. Bob has lost my gripsack containing my Inaugural Address. I want you to help me find it. I feel a good deal as the old member of the Methodist Church did when he lost his wife at the camp-meeting and went up to an old elder of the church and asked him whereabouts in hell his wife was. In fact, I am in a worse fix than my Methodist friend, for if it were nothing but a wife missing, mine would be sure to pop up serenely." Incidentally the Inaugural also popped up.

With the government now in the hands of the Republicans the first question was the policy to be assumed towards the seceded states. Secession was not to be permitted. The North, strong and victorious, felt itself in no way ready to concede to a shrinkage of territory, yet coercion was not to be used. But there was no way of maintaining authority in the South. Senators and Congressmen were resigning, the officers in the Army and Navy and the officials of the Civil Service were leaving their posts, and all but three of the forts were evacuated-Fort Pickens near Florida, and Forts Moultrie and Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. Lincoln's idea was simple: if authority was to be maintained these three forts were to be held; but his Cabinet, Congress, the expressed opinion of the North, were against him. That would be coercion and force. Some other way must be found to hold the South, either by conceding their demands as the Peace Conference suggested, or a foreign war to rouse their patriotism, as Seward romantically proposed. Lincoln had his mind pretty well made up, and began giving secret orders to hold the forts, while Seward was virtually promising the envoys, through Chief Justice Campbell, that they would be given up.

With these problems before him, Lincoln was beset and overwhelmed by office-seekers and lobbyists, for each new Administration brings with it the necessity of refilling most of the official posts of the country. He hardly had time to himself to grasp the details of the situation, and he felt very much, he said, “like a man letting rooms in one part of the house while the other part was on fire.”

The matter of the forts became pressing, and Lincoln finally, on 29th March, ordered the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy to be ready for an expedition by sea not later than 6th April. Seward, who was promising the opposite, and who considered himself much more skilled than Lincoln in politics and diplomacy through a greater experience in such matters, and as one upon whom the burden of the situation. rested, became alarmed at this act, and on 1st April sent Lincoln a document entitled "Some Thoughts for the President's Consideration":

"First. We are at the end of a month's administration and yet without a policy, either domestic or foreign.

"Second. This, however, is not culpable, and it has even been unavoidable. The presence of the Senate, with the need to meet applications for patronage, have prevented attention to other and more grave matters.

"Third. But further delay to adopt and prosecute our policy for both domestic and foreign affairs would not only bring scandal upon the Administration but danger upon the country.

"Fourth. To do this we must dismiss the applicant for office. But how? I suggest that we make a local appointment, forthwith leaving foreign or general ones for ulterior and occasional action.

"Fifth. The policy at home. I am aware that my views are singular and perhaps not sufficiently explained. My system is built upon this idea as a ruling one, namely, that we must

"

CHANGE THE QUESTION BEFORE THE PUBLIC FROM ONE UPON SLAVERY, OR ABOUT SLAVERY, FOR A QUESTION UPON UNION OR DISUNION.

"In other words, from what would be regarded as a party question to one of PATRIOTISM OR UNION.

The occupation or evacuation of Fort Sumter, although not in fact a slavery or a party question, is so regarded. Witness the temper manifested by the Republicans in the free States and even by the Union men in the South.

"I would, therefore, terminate it as a safe means for changing the issue. I deem it fortunate that the last Administration created the necessity.

"For the rest I would simultaneously defend and reinforce all the forts in the Gulf, and have the Navy recalled from foreign stations to be prepared for a blockade. Put the island of Key West under martial law. This will raise distinctly the question of Union or Disunion. I would maintain every fort and possession in the South.

"FOR FOREIGN NATIONS

"I would demand explanations from Spain and France, categorically, at once.

"I would seek explanations from Great Britain and Russia, and send agents into Canada, Mexico and Central America, to rouse a vigorous continental spirit of independence on this continent against European intervention.

"And, if satisfactory explanations are not received from Spain and France,

"But whatever policy we adopt there must be an energetic prosecution of it.

"For this purpose it must be somebody's business to pursue and direct it incessantly.

"Either the President must do it himself, and be all the while active in it, or

"Devolve it on some member of the Cabinet. Once adopted, debates on it must end and all agree and abide. "It is not in my especial province.

"But I neither seek to evade nor assume responsibility."

Lincoln answered that letter the same night, mildly but firmly, as follows:

"At the beginning of that month, in the Inaugural, I said, '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!' This had your distinct approval at the time; and taken in connection with the order I immediately gave General Scott, directing him to employ every means in his power to strengthen and hold the forts, comprises the exact domestic policy you now urge, with the single exception that it does not propose to abandon Fort Sumter.

Again, I do not perceive how the reinforcement of Fort Sumter would be done on a party issue, while that of Fort Pickens would be on a more national and patriotic one.

"The news received yesterday in regard to St Domingo certainly brings a new item within the range of our foreign policy; but up to that time we have been preparing circulars and instructions to ministers and the like, all in perfect harmony, without even a suggestion that we had no foreign policy.

"I remark that if this must be done I must do it. When a general line of policy is adopted I apprehend there is no danger of its being changed without good reason or continuing to be a subject of unnecessary debate; still, upon points arising in its progress I wish, and suppose I am entitled to have, the advice of all of the Cabinet."

It is interesting to know that Lincoln never made political capital of Seward's "Thoughts for the President's Consideration," nor did he show it to anyone, the document being found in a drawer after his death. He understood the good faith in which it was sent. Seward's ideas were muddled with the traditional