icitous. Among these speeches was that delivered at Philadelphia,
which has already been quoted, but most of them were not considered
felicitous at the time. They were too unpretentious. Moreover, they
contained sentences which seemed to understate the gravity of the crisis
in a way which threw doubt on his own serious statesmanship. Whether
they were felicitous or not, the intention of these much-criticised
utterances was the best proof of his statesmanship. He would appeal to
the steady loyalty of the North, but he was not going to arouse its
passion. He assumed to the last that calm reflection might prevail in
the South, which was menaced by nothing but "an artificial crisis." He
referred to war as a possibility, but left no doubt of his own wish by
all means to avoid it. "There will," he said, "be no bloodshed unless it
be forced on the Government. The Government will not use force unless
force is used against it."

Before he passed through Baltimore he received earnest communications
from Seward and from General Scott. Each had received trustworthy
information of a plot, which existed, to murder him in that city. Owing
to their warnings he went through Baltimore secretly at night, so that
his arrival in Washington, on February 23, was unexpected. This was his
obvious duty, and nobody who knew him was ever in doubt of his personal
intrepidity; but of course it helped to damp the effect of what many
people would have been glad to regard as a triumphal progress.

On March 4, 1861, old Buchanan came in his carriage to escort his
successor to the inaugural ceremony, where it was the ironical fate of
Chief Justice Taney to administer the oath to a President who had already
gone far to undo his great work. Yet a third notable Democrat was there
to do a pleasant little act. Douglas, Lincoln's defeated rival, placed
himself with a fine ostentation by his side, and, observing that he was
embarrassed as to where to put his new tall hat and preposterous
gold-knobbed cane, took charge of these encumbrances before the moment
arrived for the most eagerly awaited of all his speeches. Lincoln had
submitted his draft of his "First Inaugural" to Seward, and this draft
with Seward's abundant suggestions of amendment has been preserved. It
has considerable literary interest, and, by the readiness with which most
of Seward's suggestions were adopted, and the decision with which some,
and those not the least important, we