The address which Lincoln gave in Independence Hall, on the anniversary of Washington's birth,1 in nobility of sentiment and elegance of phrase, in its vision and estimate of American constitutional liberty for his country and for mankind, surpassed any other he had yet made. It was improvised. It is a speech one loves to read and linger over, in these days when, throughout the world, the time is at hand when "that which gave promise that in due time the weights would be lifted from the shoulders of all men" is emancipating men and women everywhere from the pretentions of antiquated autocracies, preying like vampires upon the blood and happiness of those whom nature meant to be free and self-governing. The address in Independence Hall was a singularly finished epitome of that philosophy of government the very essence of which he had derived, by years of profound study, from the Declaration of Independence, and of which, thus far in American history, he has been the most sagacious and eminent interpreter. Lincoln was the best prepared man in the country on such a theme -the best educated in the theory and application of the thought that vitalized the system of the Revolutionary founders and gave virility to the precious I Page 257, Appendix.

literature which they left to posterity. There was much that was merely commonplace in his other speeches on this journey to the national capitalsome things that were trite or ill-favored in diction; but in this off-hand deliverance, in the midst of surroundings freighted with sacred memories, he said the scrupulously fitting thing. There is nothing, perhaps, in word, or succession of sentences, or consistency of sentiment, which the most meticulous stylist would care to alter or omit.

CHAPTER VIII

THE PRESIDENCY AND THE CIVIL WAR

Our Federal Union; it must be preserved.
-Andrew Jackson.

Nothing will ruin the country if the people themselves will undertake its safety; and nothing can save it if they leave that safety in any hands but their own.-Daniel Webster.

When the President-elect arrived in Washington, he was welcomed by the mayor and citizens, February 27. In his response, Lincoln intimated his feeling that the ill-temper between the two sections of the country was due to their misunderstanding of each other. He mentioned his purpose to withhold from none the benefits of the Constitution. very informal address to a party of serenaders on the next day was in similar terms. He was conscious of speaking to southerners, and in homely. words expressed the hope that better acquaintance would beget greater confidence between them and him.

His

In the few days remaining before the inauguration, he consulted with party leaders about the personnel of the cabinet. He was particularly solicitous

to secure the services of Seward and Chase, his late rivals for the Presidency. At the last moment Seward declined to accept the portfolio of State, but reconsidered his action upon the receipt of a well-worded note of ten lines from the incoming Chief Magistrate. This was on the day of the in- . augural. Lincoln's address for this occasion had been prepared in a room over a store at Springfield, late in January. Here he locked himself in, according to Herndon, with a few volumes containing "Henry Clay's great speech delivered in 1850; Andrew Jackson's proclamation against Nullification, and a copy of the Constitution. He afterwards called for Webster's reply to Hayne, a speech which he had read when he lived at New Salem, and which he always regarded as the grandest specimen of American oratory." The address 1 contained

the new President's assurance of his intention not to disturb the property or peace of the people of the Southern States, of his purpose to offer the protection of the Constitution "as cheerfully to one section as to another." It then considered the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution. On this tender subject the President placed himself on the side of a law to return escaped slaves to their ownI Pages 258-269, Appendix.

ers and at the same time to safeguard the negroes already free.

The President considered the theory of the Constitutional Union. He held it to be perpetual-that perpetuity is a fundamental concept of all national government, and hence that no government ever made "in its organic law" provision for its own termination. Only an action "not provided for in the instrument itself" could destroy the Union. Even on the contract theory, although one party might break, the consent of all would be necessary lawfully to "rescind it." He showed that the history of the Union contemplated its perpetuity; that no State of its own motion could get out of it. Therefore, "resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void," and acts by one or more States against the authority of the United States "are insurrectionary or revolutionary." He announced that he would take care that the laws of the nation should be faithfully executed, its property held, its taxes collected, and its mails, "unless repelled," "furnished in all parts of the Union." He warned any who would destroy the Union and fly to greater ills.1 He presented with clearness the philosophy of ma

I Lincoln's words, "the ills you fly from," are probably a reminiscence of Shakespeare's words in Hamlet, III, 1:81, 82.