Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. II.djvu/201

MILLARD FILLMORE 157 solemnity without joy; and so, with an absence of the usual heralding of trumpet and shawm, he was unostentatiously sworn into his great office in the hall of representatives, in the presence of both houses. The chief justice of the circuit court of the District of Columbia the venerable William Cranch, appointed fifty years before by President John Adams administered the oath, which being done, the new president bowed and retired, and the ceremony was at an end. Mr. Fillmore was then in the prime of life, possessing that which to the heathen philosopher seemed the greatest of all blessings a sound mind in a sound body. The portrait which appears in this work is after a photo graph taken in Buffalo some twenty years later. Of Fillmore s keen appreciation of the responsibil ity devolving on him we have the evidence of letters written at that time, in which he says he should de spair but for his humble reliance on God to help him in the honest, fearless, and faithful discharge of his great duties. President Taylor s cabinet immediately resigned, and a new and exceedingly able one was selected by Mr. Fillmore, with Daniel Webster as secretary of state ; Thomas Corwin, sec retary of the treasury; William A. Graham, secre tary of the navy; Charles M. Conrad, secretary of war; Alexander H. H. Stuart, secretary of the interior ; John J. Crittenden, attorney-general ; and