Amid all these preparations for war on the part of the seceding States, and the seizure of Federal property, Buchanan was irresolute and perplexed.  He was doubtless patriotic and honest, but he did not know what to do.  The state of things was much more serious than when South Carolina threatened to secede in the time of General Jackson.  The want of firmness and decision on the part of the President has been severely criticised, but it seems to me to have been not without excuse in the perplexing conditions of the time, while it was certainly fortunate that he did not precipitate the crisis by sending troops to reinforce Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor, which was invested and threatened by South Carolina troops.  The contest was inevitable anyway, and the management of the war was better in the hands of Lincoln than it could have been in those of Buchanan, with traitors in his cabinet, or even after they had left and a new and loyal cabinet was summoned, but with an undecided man at the head.  There was needed a new and stronger government when hostilities should actually break out.

On the 4th of March, 1861, the inauguration of Lincoln took place, and well do I remember the ceremony.  The day was warm and beautiful, and nature smiled in mockery of the bloody tragedy which was so soon to follow.  I mingled with the crowd at the eastern portico of the Capitol, and was so fortunate as to hear and see all that took place,—­the high officials who surrounded the President, his own sad and pensive face, his awkward but not undignified person arrayed in a faultless suit of black, the long address he made, the oath of office administered by Chief Justice Taney, and the dispersion of the civil and military functionaries to their homes.  It was not a great pageant, but was an impressive gathering.  Society, in which the Southern element predominated, sneered at the tall ruler who had learned so few of its graces and insincerities, and took but little note of the thunder-clouds in the political atmosphere,—­the distant rumblings which heralded the approaching storm so soon to break with satanic force.

The inaugural address was not only an earnest appeal for peace, but a calm and steadfast announcement of the law-abiding policy of the government, and a putting of the responsibility for any bloodshed upon those who should resist the law.  Two brief paragraphs contain the whole:—­

“The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects there will be no invasion, no use of force among the people anywhere.

“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.  The government will not assail you.  You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors.”

This was the original chart of the course which the President followed, and his final justification when by use of “the power confided to him” he had accomplished the complete restoration of the authority of the Federal Union over all the vast territory which the seceded States had seized and so desperately tried to control.