The address concluded as follows:
"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect, and defend' it.
"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 cords of memory, stretching from every battle- field 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 they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
The address was listened to closely throughout. Immediately upon its conclusion the speaker was sworn into office by Chief Justice Taney whose name is connected with the famous Dred Scott decision. James Buchanan was now a private citizen and the pioneer rail-splitter was at the head of the United States.
In all the thousands of people there assembled, there was no one who listened more intently than Stephen A. Douglas. At the conclusion he warmly grasped the President hand's, congratulated him upon the inaugural, and pledged him that he would stand by him and support him in upholding the Constitution and enforcing the laws. The nobler part of the nature of the "little giant" came to the surface. The clearness, the gentleness, the magnanimity, the manliness expressed in this inaugural address of his old rival, won him over at last, and he pledged him here his fealty. For a few months, while the storm was brewing, Douglas was inactive, so that his influence counted on the side of the hostile party, the party to which he had always belonged. But when war actually broke out, he hastened to stand by the President, and right nobly did he redeem his promise which he had given. Had he lived, there are few men whose influence would have been more weighty in the cause of the Union. An untimely death cut him off at the beginning of this patriotic activity. His last public act was to address to the legislature of Illinois a masterly plea for the support of the war for the Union. He died in Chicago on the 3d of June, 1861.
CHAPTER XXIII.
LINCOLN HIS OWN PRESIDENT.
Had the question been asked early in 1861, Who will be the real force of the republican administration? almost every unprejudiced observer would have answered promptly, Seward. He was a man of unusual intellectual powers, of the best education, and of the finest culture. In regard to the moral aspects of politics, he was on the right side. He had a career of brilliant success extending over thirty years of practical experience. He had been governor of the Empire State, and one of the leading members of the United States senate. He was the most accomplished diplomatist of the day.
In marked contrast was the President-elect. He had, in his encounters with Douglas, shown himself a master of debate. But his actual experience of administration was practically nil. He had served a few years in a frontier legislature and one term in the lower house of congress. Only this and nothing more. His record as representative may be summarized as follows:
1 comic speech on General Cass.