Alas! such appeals were received by the parties to whom they were addressed, with jeers, and ribaldry, and all the. maddening passions which riot in blood and war. It was to force only, stern, unflinching power and severity, that the powers and passions of treason alone would yield.

With reverent look and impressive emphasis, he then repeated the oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of his country. Douglas, who knew from his personal familiarity with the conspirators, better than Lincoln, the dangers that surrounded and were before him, who knew the conspirators and their plots, with patriotic magnamity, which in love of country, forgot self-then grasped the hand of the President, gracefully expressed his congratulations, and the author has reason to believe, expressed the assurance that in the dark future he would stand by him, and give to him his utmost aid in upholding the Constitution, and enforcing the laws of his country. Nobly did Douglas redeem that pledge.

Here the author pauses a moment, to relate a most singular prophecy, in regard to the war, uttered by Douglas, January 1st, 1861. On that day, in reply to a gentleman,* making a New Year's call, and who inquired, "what will be the result of the efforts of Jefferson Davis, and his associates, to divide the Union ?" "Rising, and looking," says my informant, "like one inspired, Douglas replied," "The cotton States are making an effort to draw in the border States to their schemes of secession, and I am but too fearful they will succeed. If they do succeed, there will be the most terrible civil war the world has ever seen, lasting for years." Pausing a moment, he exclaimed, "Virginia will become a charnel house, but the end will be the triumph of the Union cause. One of their first efforts will be to take possession of this Capital to give them prestige abroad, but they will never succeed in taking it—the North will rise en masse to defend it—but Washington will become a city of hospitals the churches will be used for the sick and woundedeven this house, (Minnesota block, afterwards, and during the war, the Douglas Hospital,) may be devoted to that

* General Charles Stewart, of New York.

purpose before the end of the war." The friend to whom this was said, inquired, "What justification for all this?" Douglas replied, "There is no justification, nor any pretense of any-if they will remain in the Union, I will go as far as the Constitution will permit, to maintain their just rights, and I do not doubt a majority of Congress would do the same. But," said he, again rising on his feet, and extending his arm, "if the Southern States attempt to secede from this Union, without further cause, I am in favor of their having just so many slaves, and just so much slave territory, as they can hold at the point of the bayonet, and no more."

The President, having been inaugurated, announced his Cabinet as follows: William H. Seward, Secretary of State; Simon Cameron, Secretary of War; Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury; Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy; Caleb B. Smith, Secretary of the Interior; Montgomery Blair, Postmaster General, and Edward Bates, Attorney General.

Four of this Cabinet, viz.: Messrs. Seward, Chase, Cameron, and Bates, were candidates for the nomination for the Presidency at the Chicago Convention. Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State, was Mr. Lincoln's most formidable competitor; on the first ballot, receiving the highest number of votes given to any one. He had been among the most distinguished of the great men of New York. He had been the recognized leader of the republican party, and had advocated with great ability, very radical anti-slavery measures. He had by his speeches and influence, done as much, perhaps more than any other man, to create and consolidate the popular judgment and feeling which triumphed in 1860. He was an accomplished scholar and a polished gentleman, familiar with the history of his country and its foreign policy, and admirably adapted to conduct its foreign correspondence. His mind was philosophic and didactic. He always took a cheerful and hopeful view of affairs, never anticipated evil believed the rebellion would last "sixty days." He was a shrewd politician, and did not, in the distribution of patronage, forget the "Seward men." On going into the Cabinet he became conservative, and his influence since has been always against extreme views.

Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, had been also a prominent candidate for the Presidency. He was a man of commanding person, and fine manly presence, dignified, sedate, and earnest. His mind was comprehensive, logical, and judicial. He was an earnest, determined, consistent, radical abolitionist. His had been the master mind at the Buffalo Convention of 1848, and his pen had framed the Buffalo platform. By his writings, speeches, and forensic arguments, and as Governor of the State of Ohio, and in the United States Senate, acting with the accomplished free-soil Senator from Massachusetts, Charles Sumner, he had contributed largely to the formation of the republican party. Up to the time he became Secretary of the Treasury, he had developed no special adaptation to, or knowledge of finance; but he brought to the duties of that most difficult position, a clear judgment, and sound sense.

Simon Cameron, had been a very successful Pennsylvania politician; he was of Scotch descent, as his name indicates, with inherent Scotch fire, pluck, energy, and perseverance. He had a marked Scotch face, a keen gray eye, was tall and commanding in form, and had the faculty of never forgetting a friend, nor an enemy. He was accused of being unscrupulous, of giving good offices and fat contracts to his friends. He retired after a short time, to make room for the combative, rude, fearless, vigorous, and unflinching Stanton. A man who was justly said to have "organized victory."

Montgomery Blair, the Postmaster General, represented the Blair family. A family of large political influence, and long connected with National affairs. F. P. Blair, Sen., as the editor of the Globe, during General Jackson's administration, was one of the ablest and strongest of the able men who surrounded that great man. He had associated with, and was the friend of Benton, Van Buren, and Silas Wright, he had seen those friends stricken down by the slave power, and he had learned to hate and distrust the oligarchy of slaveholders, and his counsels and advice, and his able pen, had efficiently aided in building up the party opposed to slavery. Montgomery Blair had argued against the Dred Scott de

cision.

F. P. Blair, Jr., and B. Gratz Brown, had led the

anti-slavery men of Missouri, and had, after a most gallant contest carried the city of St. Louis, and the former was now its honored representative in Congress.

Edward Bates, the Attorney General, was a fine, dignified, scholarly, gentlemanly lawyer of the old school.

Gideon Welles had been a leading editor in New England, and has conducted the affairs of the Navy with great ability; Caleb B. Smith was a prominent politician from Indiana, and had been a colleague of Mr. Lincoln in Congress.

On the evening of the 4th of March, Mr. Lincoln entered the White House, as the National Executive. He found a Government in ruins.

The conspiracy which had been preparing for thirty years, had culminated. Seven States had passed ordinances of secession, and had already organized a rebel Government at Montgomery. The leaders in Congress, and out of it, had fired the excitable Southern heart, and had infused into the young men, a fiery headlong zeal, and they hurried on with the greatest rapidity, the work of revolution. They ordained rebellion, and christened treason, secession. South Carolina, as already stated, having long waited for an occasion, took the lead, and had eagerly seized the pretext of the election of Mr. Lincoln, and on the 17th of November, 1860, passed unanimously, an ordinance of secession.

Georgia, against the remonstrances of Alexander H. Stephens, and others of her statesmen, followed, on the 19th of December, by a vote of 208 against 89. Ordinances of secession had been adopted by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas.

North Carolina still hesitated. The people of that staunch old Union State, first voted down a call for a convention, by a vote of 46,671 for, to 47,333 against, but a subsequent convention, on the 21st of May, passed an ordinance of secession. Nearly all the Federal forts, arsenals, dock-yards, custom houses and post offices within the territories of the seceded States, had been seized, and were held by the rebels. Large numbers of the officers of the army and the navy, deserted, entering the rebel service. Among the most conspicuous in this infamy, was General David E. Twiggs, the second

officer in rank, in the army of the United States, and in January, 1861, commanding the Department of Texas. He had been placed there by Secretary Floyd, because he was known to be in the conspiracy. Secretary Holt, on the 18th of January, ordered that he should turn over his command to Colonel Waite; but before this order reached Colonel Waite, Twiggs had consummated his treason by surrendering to the rebel Ben. McCullough, all the National forces in Texas, numbering twenty-five hundred men, and a large amount of stores and munitions of war.

Strange as it may seem, the resignations of many officers were received and accepted, and the traitors instead of being arrested, were suffered to pass over to the insurgents. The civil officers of the United States were not permitted to exercise their functions in the seceded States under penalty of imprisonment and death. All property of the National Government was seized and appropriated to the rebellion. Debts due to the Government and to individuals in the loyal States, and the property of Union men, were confiscated.

There was little or no struggle in the Gulf States, excepting in 'Northern Alabama, against the wild tornado of excitement in favor of rebellion, which carried everything before it.

In the border States, in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Missouri, there was a contest, and the friends of the Union made a struggle to maintain their position. Ultimately the Union triumphed in Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri; and the rebels carried the State of Tennessee against a most gallant contest on the part of the Union men of East Tennessee, under the lead of Andrew Johnson, Governor Brownlow, Horace Maynard, and others. They also carried Virginia, which seceded April 17th, and North Carolina, which adopted secession on the 20th of May.

Some of the rebel leaders labored under the delusion, and they most industriously inculcated it among their followers, that there would be no war; that the North was divided; that the Northern people would not fight, and if there was war, a large part of them would oppose coercion, and