Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/498

492 ABRAHAM LINCOLN was rendered difficult, if not impossible, by the fact that some of the southern states had already seceded and others were threatening to do so, and the probability that the men in question would go with their states. He con- templated offering a seat in the cabinet to Al- exander H. Stephens, and did make such an offer to James Guthrie of Kentucky and John A. Gilmer of North Carolina, who declined it. At Harrisburg, on his way to Washington, he was informed of a plot to assassinate him on his passage through Baltimore, and at the ur- gent solicitation of his friends he went through on an earlier train than the one appointed, reaching the capital on Saturday morning, Feb. 23. He was inaugurated on March 4, and delivered a long address, in which he said : " I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservation, and with no purpose to construe the constitution or laws by any hypercritical rules. ... I hold that, in contempla- tion of universal law and of the constitution, the union of these states is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not ex- pressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a pro- vision in its organic law for its own termination. ... I therefore consider that, in view of the constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability I shall take care, as the constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the states. In doing this there need be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belong- ing to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts ; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere. ... 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 gov- ernment ; while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect, and defend it." His cabinet, as first formed, was as follows: William H. Seward, secretary of state; Sal- mon P. Chase, secretary of the treasury ; Si- mon Cameron, secretary of war; Gideon Welles, secretary of the navy ; Caleb B. Smith, secretary of the interior ; Montgomery Blair, postmaster general; Edward Bates, attorney general. Several of these had been among his competitors for the presidential nomina- tion. Seven states had formally seceded from the Union, and there was danger that seven others would follow them, four of which ul- timately did. During the preceding adminis- tration large quantities of arms and ammuni- tion had been removed from the national ar- senals in the north to those in the south, where they were seized by the governments of the seceding states ; the army, only 16,000 strong, had been sent to remote parts of the country, and many of its best officers were going with their states ; the navy had been scattered in distant seas ; the treasury was empty ; and the border states, heartily sympathizing with the southern, but unwilling to stand between two hostile powers, constituted the most uncertain element in the novel problem. On March 13 Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford, as " commis- sioners from a government composed of seven states which had withdrawn from the Ameri- can Union," signified their desire to enter upon negotiations for the adjustment of questions growing out of the separation ; but the secre- tary of state, by direction of the president, de- clined to receive them, as u it could not be ad- mitted that the states referred to had, in law or fact, withdrawn from the federal Union, or that they could do so in any other manner than with the consent and concert of the people of the United States, to be given through a na- tional convention." The delivery of this com- munication was withheld, by consent of the commissioners, until April 8, when it was speedily followed by the bombardment of Fort Suinter, which precipitated the civil war. On April 15 President Lincoln issued a proclama- tion calling out the militia of the several states- to the number of 75,000; on the 19th he pro- claimed a blockade of the ports in all the sece- ded states ; on May 3 he called for 42,000 three years' volunteers, and ordered the addition of 22,114 officers and men to the regular army and 18,000 seamen to the navy. The attitude assumed by the administration toward the great powers of Europe, which with the ex- ception of Russia showed an unfriendly dispo- sition from the outset, is clearly indicated by a passage in the letter of instructions furnished to Mr. Adams, minister to England : " You will in no case listen to any suggestions of compro- mise by this government, under foreign auspices, with dis- contented citizens. If, as the president does not at all appre- hend, you shall unhappily find her majesty's government tolerating the application of the so-called seceding states, or wavering about it, you will not leave them to suppose for a moment that they can grant that application and remain the friends of the United States. You may even assure them promptly, in that case, that if they determine to recognize, they may at the same time prepare to enter into alliance with the enemies of this republic." On June 15 the British and French ministers at Washington asked permission to read to the secretary of state instructions received from their governments. Finding that the paper contained a decision of the British government, to the effect that the United States was divided into two coordinate belligerent parties, between whom Great Britain proposed to assume the attitude of a neutral, the administration de- clined to receive it officially. When in the fol- lowing November Capt. Wilkes took the con- federate commissioners Mason and Slidell from the British mail steamer Trent, in the Bahama channel, the administration refused to sanction the act and liberated the commissioners (Dec. 26), on the ground that he should have brought the steamer into port for adjudication, instead of assuming to decide for himself as to the lia- bility of the commissioners to capture. The president called an extra session of congress, to meet on July 4. On account of the with- drawal of the southern members, the republi- cans had a large majority in each house. The president sent in a message in which he recited the facts of the insurrection, discussed the fal- lacy of state sovereignty, and asked for 400,000 men and $400,000,000 to maintain the su-