laimed that it did not pretend to decide whether
slavery was right or wrong; the other with Breckenridge was directly in
favor of slavery and sought to extend it and to add new States to the
slave list. There was also the Constitutionalist Union party in which
slavery was not an issue at all or anything else, for that
matter--while the Republican party, with Lincoln at its head, was
directly opposed to slavery and had come out as its open and declared
enemy.

On the night of the election, which fell on the Sixth of November,
Lincoln heard news by electric telegram of his overwhelming victory.
His speeches and his strong personality had won the day. He was chosen
as President at a time when the most difficult and arduous duties since
the time of Washington awaited the head of the nation.

Throughout the South, bitterness had been growing more and more marked
each day. The South had declared that it would never bear the rule of a
Republican President and an opponent of slavery. And after the Southern
States knew that Lincoln was to be their leader, one after another
withdrew its congressmen and senators from Washington, and passed what
they called "ordinances of secession," which meant that they no longer
considered themselves a part of the United States. More than this took
place, for one after one the army officers in charge of the Southern
forts and arsenals went over to the side of the South, allowing the
most important military strongholds and vast amounts of military stores
to fall into their hands, and President Buchanan, who was Lincoln's
predecessor, and in sympathy with the South himself, did nothing to
prevent these outrages against the Government he had sworn to uphold.

In the meantime Lincoln had performed his first official act which
would have indicated, if other things had not amply done so, his coming
greatness. This was his choice of a Cabinet. Believing that he must not
only surround himself with the strongest men he could find, but the
ones that the people placed most reliance in, he appointed to the
Cabinet all the other Republicans whose names had been mentioned for
President at the Republican convention in June. William H. Seward was
his Secretary of State and the other cabinet officials included Salmon
P. Chase of Ohio, who was Secretary of the Treasury, Simon Cameron of
Pennsylvania, and later Edwin M. Stanton as Secretary of War.

The difficulties and dangers of his position now beset him. On