The government will
not assail you. You can have no conflict without yourselves being
the aggressors. You can have no oath registered in heaven to
destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to
preserve, protect, and defend it. I am loath to close. We are
not enemies, but friends. Though passion may have strained, it
must not break, our bonds of affection."

While the effect produced by the Inaugural in the North was so
auspicious, no corresponding impression was made in the South.
Mr. Lincoln's concise and candid statement of his opinions and
purposes in regard to Slavery, his majestic and unanswerable argument
against Secession, and his pathetic appeal to the people and States
of the South, all alike failed to win back the disaffected communities.
The leaders of the Secession movement were only the more enraged
by witnessing the favor with which Mr. Lincoln's position was
received in the North. The declaration of the President that he
should execute the laws in all parts of the country, as required
by his oath, and that the jurisdiction of the nation under the
Constitution would be asserted everywhere and constantly, inspired
the doubting with confidence, and gave to the people of the North
a common hope and a common purpose in the approaching struggle.
The address left to the seceding States only the choice of retiring
from the position they had taken, or of assuming the responsibilities
of war. It was clear that the assertion of jurisdiction by two
separate governments over the same territory and people must end
in bloodshed. In this dilemma was the South placed by the Inaugural
address of President Lincoln. Mr. Buchanan had admitted the right
of Secession, while denying the wisdom of its exercise; but the
right when exercised carried jurisdiction with it. Hence it was
impossible for Mr. Buchanan to assert jurisdiction and attempt its
exercise over the territory and people of the seceding States.
But Mr. Lincoln, by his Inaugural address, set himself free from
all logical entanglements. His emphatic words were these: "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.
. . . I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as
a declared purpose of the Union that it