n of the inaugural deserves to be
considered as an indication, one among many, of Lincoln's capacity for
seeing with entire distinctness the great main fact, and for recognizing
it as such. Other matters, which lay over and around such a fact, side
issues, questions of detail, affairs of disguise or deception, never
confused or misled him. He knew with unerring accuracy where the biggest
fact lay, and he always anchored fast to it and stayed with it. For many
years he had been anchored to anti-slavery; now, in the face of the
nation, he shifted his anchorage to the Union; and each time he held
securely.

FOOTNOTES:

[114] Breckenridge was the legitimate representative of the
administrationists, and his ticket received only 847,953 votes out of
4,680,193. Douglas and Buchanan were at open war.

[115] See remarks of Mr. Elaine upon use of this word. _Twenty Years of
Congress_, i. 219.

[116] But it should be said that Attorney-General Black supported these
views in a very elaborate opinion, which he had furnished to the
President, and which was transmitted to Congress at the same time with
the message.

[117] Greeley afterwards truly said that his journal had plenty of
company in these sentiments, even among the Republican sheets. _Amer.
Conflict_, i. 359. Reference is made in the text to the utterances of
the _Tribune_ more because it was so prominent and influential than
because it was very peculiar in its position.

[118] Wilson, _Rise and Fall of Slave Power_, iii. 63-69; N. and H. in.
255. See account of "the Pine Street meeting," New York, in Dix's
_Memoirs of Dix_, i. 347.

[119] For an account of this by General Dix himself, see _Memoirs of
John A. Dix_, by Morgan Dix, i. 370-373.

[120] Arkansas, California, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, and Wisconsin

[121] It differed from that of the United States very little, save in
containing a distinct recognition of slavery, and in being made by the
States instead of by the people.

[122] _American Conflict_, i. 351.

[123] This includes Delaware, 110,420, and Maryland, 599,846.

[124] Marshal Kane and most of the police were reported to be
Secessionists. Pinkerton, _Spy of the Rebellion_, 50, 61.

[125] Lamon says that Mr. Lincoln afterwards regretted this journey, and
became convinced "that he had committed a grave mistake." Lamon, 527. So
also McClure, 45, 48.

[126] For accounts of this journey and statements of the evidence of a
plot, see Schouler,