where. Gideon
Welles, of Connecticut, for Secretary of the Navy; Montgomery Blair, of
Maryland, for Postmaster-General; and Caleb B. Smith, of Indiana, for
Secretary of the Interior, were finally chosen. When people complained,
as they sometimes did, that by this arrangement the cabinet consisted of
four men who had been Democrats in the old days, and only three who had
been Whigs, Lincoln smiled his wise, humorous smile and answered that he
himself had been a Whig, and would always be there to make matters even.
It is not likely that this exact list was in his mind on the night of
the November election; but the principal names in it most certainly
were. To some of these gentlemen he offered their appointments by
letter. Others he asked to visit him in Springfield to talk the matter
over. Much delay and some misunderstanding occurred before the list was
finally completed: but when he sent it to the Senate, on the day after
his inauguration, it was practically the one he had in his mind from the
beginning.

A President is elected by popular vote early in November, but he is not
inaugurated until the following fourth of March. Until the day of his
inauguration, when he takes the oath of office and begins to discharge
his duties, he is not only not President--he has no more power in the
affairs of the Government than the humblest private citizen. It is easy
to imagine the anxieties and misgivings that beset Mr. Lincoln during
the four long months that lay between his election and his inauguration.
True to their threats never to endure the rule of a "Black Republican"
President, the Cotton States one after the other withdrew their senators
and representatives from Congress, passed what they called "Ordinances
of Secession," and declared themselves to be no longer a part of the
United States. One after another, too, army and navy officers stationed
in the Southern States gave up to the Southern leaders in this movement
the forts, navy-yards, arsenals, mints, ships, and other government
property under their charge. President Buchanan, in whose hands alone
rested the power to punish these traitors and avenge their insults to
the government he had sworn to protect and defend, showed no disposition
to do so; and Lincoln, looking on with a heavy heart, was unable
to interfere in any way. No matter how anxiously he might watch the
developments at Washington or in the Cotton States, no matter what
appeals might be made to him, no a