ld he be able
to extricate the country--Heaven alone knew how!--without a terrible
ordeal? Since his election, Lincoln had remained quietly at Springfield.
Though he had influenced events through letters to Congressmen, his one
conspicuous action during that winter was the defeat of the Crittenden
Compromise. The Southern President had called upon his people to put
their house in order as preparation for war. What, now, had Lincoln to
say to the people of the North?

The biographers of Lincoln have not satisfactorily revealed the state of
his mind between election and inauguration. We may safely guess that his
silence covered a great internal struggle. Except for his one action in
defeating the Compromise, he had allowed events to drift; but by that
one action he had taken upon himself the responsibility for the drift.
Though the country at that time did not fully appreciate this aspect of
the situation, who now can doubt that Lincoln did? His mind was always a
lonely one. His very humor has in it, so often, the note of solitude,
of one who is laughing to make the best of things, of one who is
spiritually alone. During those months when the country drifted from
its moorings, and when war was becoming steadily more probable, Lincoln,
after the manner of the prophets, wrestled alone with the problems which
he saw before him. From the little we know of his inward state, it is
hard for us to conclude that he was happy. A story which is told by his
former partner, Mr. Herndon, seems significant. As Lincoln was leaving
his unpretentious law-office for the last time, he turned to Mr. Herndon
and asked him not to take down their old sign. "Let it hang there
undisturbed," said he. "Give our clients to understand that the election
of a President makes no difference in the firm.... If I live, I'm coming
back some time, and then we'll go right on practising law as if nothing
had happened."

How far removed from self-sufficiency was the man whose thoughts, on
the eve of his elevation to the Presidency, lingered in a provincial law
office, fondly insistent that only death should prevent his returning
some time and resuming in those homely surroundings the life he had
led previous to his greatness. In a mood of wistfulness and of intense
preoccupation, he began his journey to Washington. It was not the mood
from which to strike fire and kindle hope. To the anxious, listening
country his speeches on the journey to Washington were disa