Douglas was agitated and distressed.[946] Compromise was now impossible in Congress.  He saw but one hope.  With great earnestness he urged Lincoln to recommend the instant calling of a national convention to amend the Constitution.  Upon the necessity of this step Douglas and Seward agreed.  But Lincoln would not commit himself to this suggestion, without further consideration.[947] “It is impossible not to feel,” wrote an old acquaintance, after hearing Douglas’s account of this interview, “that he [Douglas] really and truly loves his country in a way not too common, I fear now, in Washington."[948]

The Senate remained in continuous session from Saturday, March 2d, until the oath of office was taken by Vice-President Hamlin on Monday morning.  During these eventful hours, the Crittenden amendments were voted down;[949] and when the venerable senator from Kentucky made a final effort to secure the adoption of the resolution of the Peace Congress, which was similar to his own, it too was decisively defeated.[950] In the closing hours of the session, however, in spite of the opposition of irreconcilables like Sumner, Wade, and Wilson, the Senate adopted the amendment which had passed the House, limiting the powers of Congress in the States.[951]

While Union-loving men were thus wrestling with a forlorn hope, Douglas was again closeted with Lincoln.  It is very probable that Douglas was invited to call, in order to pass judgment upon certain passages in the inaugural address, which would be delivered on the morrow.  At all events, Douglas exhibited a familiarity with portions of the address, which can hardly be accounted for in other ways.  He expressed great satisfaction with Lincoln’s statement of the invalidity of secession.  It would do, he said, for all constitutional Democrats to “brace themselves against."[952] He frankly announced that he would stand by Mr. Lincoln in a temperate, resolute Union policy.[953]

On the forenoon of Inauguration Day, Douglas told a friend that he meant to put himself as prominently forward in the ceremonies as he properly could, and to leave no doubt in any one’s mind of his determination to stand by the administration in the performance of its first great duty to maintain the Union.  “I watched him carefully,” records this same acquaintance.  “He made his way not without difficulty—­for there was literally no sort of order in the arrangements—­to the front of the throng directly beside Mr. Lincoln, when he prepared to read his address.  A miserable little rickety table had been provided for the President, on which he could hardly find room for his hat, and Senator Douglas, reaching forward, took it with a smile and held it during the delivery of the address.  It was a trifling act, but a symbolical one, and not to be forgotten, and it attracted much attention all around me."[954]