Roger B. Taney, the learned and venerable Chiefjustice, from whose Dred Scott decision Lincoln had made his successful appeal to the nation; Stephen A. Douglas, a witness here to the final victory of his life-long rival; John C. Breckinridge, another defeated candidate for President in the recent contest, who but a few minutes before had laid down the gavel of the Vice-president, and who ere many months would be in arms against the Union; finally, William H. Seward, who was consoling himself for the loss of the Presidency with the hope that he might become the master of this novice, whom the Chicago Convention had strangely preferred to him.

Still another interesting figure was there, a man of striking appearance, who waved his outspread hands, and with a peculiar pride in his bearing introduced to the people Abraham Lincoln as the President-elect of the United States. This was E. D. Baker, now a Senator from Oregon, but formerly one of that coterie of budding statesmen who gathered in front of the open fire in the store over which Lincoln slept in the early days of his life in Springfield - the ambitious youth who wept over the Constitution of the United States when he learned from it that a native of England like himself could not aspire to the Presidency.

As Lincoln moved forward to begin his address, only a faint cheering greeted him from his halfunfriendly audience. Removing his brilliant new silk hat, he was seeking a resting place for it, when Douglas stretched forth his hand and took it and held it throughout the ceremony. By this simple but dramatic act of courtesy, the Democratic leader of the North signalized alike to the friends and to the enemies of the Union his readiness to serve and sustain the new President in the crisis which confronted him.

All the exultant joyousness of an inauguration was missing from Lincoln's. Like his childhood, like his boyhood, like his young manhood, like his love and marriage, his inaugural day must be tinged with melancholy and clouded with forebodings of evil. Every other President had received his great honor from a united country. It came to him from a Union torn by discord and broken by secession.

Each of his predecessors could cheer himself with the hope that he might have the happy fortune to hand down the shield of the nation with an added star. With Lincoln, on the contrary, it was a very different question. How many stars must he lose and how many could he save, was the heart-wracking problem with which he grappled as he stood there

on the steps of the Capitol registering in Heaven, as he said, a solemn oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and the Union.

Breasting the surging tide of secession, he reasoned with the South in a spirit of calmness and fairness. Though they might leave the Union, he reminded the southern people, the North and the South still would have to dwell together, side by side, face to face. Physically the sections could not separate; no wall could be reared between them. The two

peoples, he argued, could get along better as fellowcitizens bound by the Constitution and the laws, than as aliens living together under treaties. He implored the discontented not to act in haste. The government would not assail them; there could be no conflict unless they brought it on. "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen," he told them, "and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war."

One of the most beautiful and eloquent passages to be found in the pages of oratory brought to its climax this great plea for peace and union:

"I am loath 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 battlefield and patriot grave to every

living heart and hearth-stone 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."

CALLED TO THE HELM IN A STORM

Seven states in secession, and seven more on the verge of it. The North itself divided. A month crowded with hopes and fears. The inner Lincoln keeping his own counsel, while the outer man in good-humored patience bore with the wild scramble for office. - The White House mobbed by place hunters. Charles Francis Adams shocked by the President. Seward convinced of Lincoln's unfitness for his great task, boldly proposed, April 1, 1861, that the President relinquish his powers and responsibilities. A masterful reply. —The Cabinet on March 15 advised the surrender of Fort Sumter, but finally, on March 29, agreed with the President that it should be provisioned. - Lincoln's sleepless night. His orders to General Scott. Expedition to reënforce Fort Pickens, Florida, sailed April 6.- Ships bearing provisions for Fort Sumter, South Carolina, sailed from New York April 9.

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WITH a heavy heart, Lincoln entered the White House under an angry sky. Other Presidents have lightly stepped across its threshold as to the sunlit summit of their ambition. He had not sought it; he never had aspired to it. The Presidency came to him, not as a prize to be enjoyed, but as a cross to be borne. As Emerson said, he was sent to the helm in a tornado.

The bravest well might shrink from a burden such as his. Seven states-South Carolina, Georgia,