railing, but could not find a place for the hat, except on the floor, where I could see he did not like to risk it.  Douglas, who fully took in the situation, came to the rescue of his old friend and rival, and held the precious hat until the owner needed it again; a service which, if predicted two years before, would probably have astonished him.  The oath of office was administered by Chief Justice Taney, whose black robes, attenuated figure, and cadaverous countenance reminded me of a galvanized corpse.  Then the President came forward and read his inaugural address in a clear and distinct voice.  It was attentively listened to by all; but the closest listener was Douglas, who leaned forward as if to catch every word, nodding his head emphatically at those passages which most pleased him.  I must not forget to mention the presence of a Mephistopheles in the person of Senator Wigfall of Texas, who stood with folded arms leaning against the doorway of the Capitol, looking down upon the crowd and the ceremony with a contemptuous air which sufficiently indicated his opinion of the whole performance.  To him, the Southern Confederacy was already an accomplished fact.”

“Under the shadow of the great Eastern portico of the Capitol,” says General John A. Logan, “with the retiring President and Cabinet, the Supreme Court Justices, the Foreign Diplomatic Corps, and hundreds of Senators, Representatives, and other distinguished persons filling the great platform on either side and behind them, Abraham Lincoln stood bareheaded before full thirty thousand people, upon whose uplifted faces the unveiled glory of the mild Spring sun now shone—­stood reverently before that far greater and mightier Presence termed by himself, ’My rightful masters, the American people’—­and pleaded in a manly, earnest, and affectionate strain with ‘such as were dissatisfied’ to listen to the ‘better angels’ of their nature.  ’Temperate, reasonable, kindly persuasive’—­it seems strange that Lincoln’s inaugural address did not disarm at least the personal resentment of the South toward him, and sufficiently strengthen Union-loving people there against the red-hot Secessionists, to put the ‘brakes’ down on rebellion.”

The address was devoted almost exclusively to the great absorbing topic of the hour—­the attempt of the Southern States to withdraw from the Union and erect an independent republic.  The calm, firm, moderate, judicious spirit which pervaded Lincoln’s address is apparent in the following quotations, which contain its most significant and memorable passages: 

Fellow-Citizens of the United States:—­In compliance with a custom as old as the Government itself, I appear before you to address you briefly, and to take in your presence the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United States to be taken by the President “before he enters on the execution of his office.” ...  Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States,