selected Governor Tod of Ohio, who wisely
declined the office. The next choice fell on Senator Wm. Pitt Fessenden,
who reluctantly assumed an office which entailed such heavy
responsibilities and hard work, but who made in it a fine record for
efficiency. It was no slight thing to be obliged to raise one hundred
millions of dollars every month for the expense of the war.

While General Grant lay apparently idle in his trenches before
Petersburg, the presidential election of 1864 took place, and in spite
of the unpopular draft of five hundred thousand men in July, and a
summer and Autumn of severe fighting both East and West, Mr. Lincoln
was elected. There had been active and even acrimonious opposition, but
who could compete with him? At this time his extraordinary fitness for
the highest office in the gift of the nation was generally acknowledged,
and the early prejudices against him had mostly passed away. He neither
sought nor declined the re-election.

His second inaugural address has become historical for its lofty
sentiments and political wisdom. It was universally admired, and his
memorable words sunk into every true American heart. Said he:--

"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of
war may soon pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the
wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited
toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash
shall be paid with another drawn by the sword,--as was said three
thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 'The judgments of the Lord
are true and righteous altogether.'" And, as showing his earnest
conscientiousness, these familiar words: "With malice toward none, with
charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the
right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the
nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and
for his widow and orphans; to do all which may achieve and cherish a
just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." The
eloquence of this is surpassed only by his own short speech at the
dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, November 19, 1863,
which threw into the shade the rhetoric of the greatest orator of his
time, and stands--unstudied as it was--probably the most complete and
effective utterance known in this century.

That immortal inaugural address, in March, 1865;--so simple and