5,418, of which one half is
1,912,709; so that even outside of the States of the Confederacy Lincoln
did not get one half of the popular vote. South Carolina is not included
in any calculation concerning the popular vote, because she chose
electors by her legislature.

[113] Letter of Henry A. Wise of Virginia, May 28, 1858, quoted N. and
H. ii. 302 n.

CHAPTER VII

INTERREGNUM

For a while now the people of the Northern States were compelled
passively to behold a spectacle which they could not easily reconcile
with the theory of the supreme excellence and wisdom of their system of
government. Abraham Lincoln was chosen President of the United States
November 6, 1860; he was to be inaugurated March 4, 1861. During the
intervening four months the government must be conducted by a chief
whose political creed was condemned by an overwhelming majority of the
nation.[114] The situation was as unfair for Mr. Buchanan as it was
hurtful for the people. As head of a republic, or, in the more popular
phrase, as the chief "servant of the people," he must respect the
popular will, yet he could not now administer the public business
according to that will without being untrue to all his own convictions,
and repudiating all his trusted counselors. In a situation so
intrinsically false efficient government was impossible, no matter what
was the strength or weakness of the hand at the helm. Therefore there
was every reason for displacing Buchanan from control of the national
affairs in the autumn, and every reason against continuing him in that
control through the winter; yet the law of the land ordained the latter
course. It seemed neither sensible nor even safe. During this doleful
period all descriptions of him agree: he seemed, says Chittenden,
"shaken in body and uncertain in mind,... an old man worn out by worry;"
while the Southerners also declared him as "incapable of purpose as a
child." To the like purport spoke nearly all who saw him.

During the same time Lincoln's position was equally absurd and more
trying. After the lapse of four months he was, by the brief ceremony of
an hour, to become the leader of a great nation under an exceptionally
awful responsibility; but during those four months he could play no
other part than simply to watch, in utter powerlessness, the swift
succession of crowding events, which all were tending to make his
administration of the government difficult, or even impossible.
Through