if we expect harmony and union.”  He did not wish the autonomy nor the individuality of the States disturbed; and he closed the session by commending the whole subject to the most careful consideration of his advisers.  It was, he said, the great question pending—­they must now begin to act in the interest of peace.  Such were the last words that Lincoln spoke to his cabinet.  They dispersed with these sentences of clemency and good will in their ears, never again to meet under his wise and benignant chairmanship.  He had told them that morning a strange story, which made some demand upon their faith, but the circumstances under which they were next to come together were beyond the scope of the wildest fancy.

The day was one of unusual enjoyment to Mr. Lincoln.  His son Robert had returned from the field with General Grant, and the President spent an hour with the young captain in delighted conversation over the campaign.  He denied himself generally to the throng of visitors, admitting only a few friends.  In the afternoon he went for a long drive with Mrs. Lincoln.  His mood, as it had been all day, was singularly happy and tender.  He talked much of the past and future; after four years of trouble and tumult he looked forward to four years of comparative quiet and normal work; after that he expected to go back to Illinois and practise law again.  He was never simpler or gentler than on this day of unprecedented triumph; his heart overflowed with sentiments of gratitude to Heaven, which took the shape, usual to generous natures, of love and kindness to all men.

From the very beginning of his presidency, Mr. Lincoln had been constantly subject to the threats of his enemies.  His mail was infested with brutal and vulgar menace, and warnings of all sorts came to him from zealous or nervous friends.  Most of these communications received no notice.  In cases where there seemed a ground for inquiry, it was made, as carefully as possible, by the President’s private secretary, or by the War Department; but always without substantial result.  Warnings that appeared most definite, when examined, proved too vague and confused for further attention.  The President was too intelligent not to know that he was in some danger.  Madmen frequently made their way to the very door of the executive office, and sometimes into Mr. Lincoln’s presence.  But he had himself so sane a mind, and a heart so kindly, even to his enemies, that it was hard for him to believe in political hatred so deadly as to lead to murder.

He knew, indeed, that incitements to murder him were not uncommon in the South, but as is the habit of men constitutionally brave, he considered the possibilities of danger remote, and positively refused to torment himself with precautions for his own safety; summing the matter up by saying that both friends and strangers must have daily access to him; that his life was therefore in reach of any one, sane or mad, who was ready to