Pine to Potomac

by E. K. Cressey

IT is Inauguration Day in Washington. Not McClellan,—he is in Europe,—but Lincoln is to be inaugurated. It is a day of wondrous glory to him, and to the nation, but one so oppressed with the cares of state has but little joy in it. There is no retiring president to sign all the tardy bills of an expiring congress. He must do it all, and then go from the realizations of the past to the unknown of the new. There was no instant of rest for him between laying off the armor and putting it on anew.

Of all the many thousand eyes that looked on him that day, none were more brilliant with the look of praise, none gleamed with a soul-light more fervent, none took in the scene with deeper thoughts of the hour or the future, oppressive with interest, than Mr. Blaine.

Little did he dream of twenty years to come. He had thought to scale the centuries as they stood like silent statues in the sombre, shadowy past, and read out the hieroglyphics of their history. But just as the rebellion was broken, shattered, staggering to its fall, and seemed certain, and was scarce hung about with doubt, so now to faith the future is bright and clear, while hope is strong and almost gay with vivid anticipations.

Mr. Blaine was profoundly impressed with the religious character of Abraham Lincoln, as exemplified in the tone of his public documents.

He says: “Throughout the whole period of the war he constantly directed the attention of the nation to dependence on God. It may indeed be doubted whether he omitted this in a single state paper. In every message to congress, in every proclamation to the people, he made it prominent. In July, 1863, after the battle of Gettysburgh, he called upon the people to give thanks because ‘it has pleased Almighty God to hearken to the supplications and prayers of an afflicted people, and to vouchsafe signal and effective victories to the army and navy of the United States,’ and he asked the people ‘to render homage to the Divine Majesty and to invoke the influence of His Holy Spirit to subdue the anger which has produced and so long sustained a needless and cruel rebellion.’”

“On another occasion,” writes Mr. Blaine, “recounting the blessings which had come to the Union, he said: ‘No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.’ Throughout his entire official career, attended at all times with exacting duty and painful responsibility, he never forgot his own dependence unto the same authority, or the dependence of the people upon a Higher Power.” And then he quotes those words of the great man, uttered reverently to the people assembled in crowds to congratulate him upon the return of peace: “In the midst of your joyous expressions, He from whom all blessings flow must first be remembered.”

His last inaugural, delivered but a little while before this final utterance, was in keeping with it. It was a deeply religious document, referring to no political measure or material interest, and in six days after the people crowd about him, full of joy at the close of the war, the bullet of the assassin is in his brain! What a week was that in which the war closed, and the great Lincoln was murdered! And what a summer was that, when the broken armies came marching home, halting in Washington for the great review!

But a campaign is on Mr. Blaine, and he hurries home. For the third time Samuel Coney is elected governor, and Mr. Blaine has again done his work well. Autumn passes, and he is in his place at the opening of the thirty-ninth congress. With his usual unforgetfulness, he resumes connection with a bill presented by him in the early part of the previous congress, for reimbursing the loyal states for war-expenses in response to the president’s call for troops. His bill is very explicit, and shows that during the long delay he had perfected it in its details. No flaw is found in it, no amendment is made to it, but it is at once referred, upon his motion, to a select committee of seven, and upon his motion he demands the previous question, so that the matter shall be attended to at once. The bill was read a first and second time, and so referred.

Mr. Blaine is of course upon the committee, and by his motion members are added to it, and they are empowered to hire a clerk. What a work to examine and pass upon all the war-debts of the loyal states! A grave question soon makes its appearance in congress. In undoing the legislation of years, enacted in the interests of slavery, they have come to the basis of representation. The slave is not yet a citizen, and if the basis is population and not suffrage, the South will have an immense advantage,—indeed an advantage similar to that enjoyed before the war, when, though slaves were expressly recognized as chattels, and according to the Dred Scott decision, “a black man had no rights a white man was bound to respect,” yet, according to slavery law five of them gave their master three extra votes.