On March 4, 1861, old Buchanan came in his carriage to escort his successor to the inaugural ceremony, where it was the ironical fate of Chief Justice Taney to administer the oath to a President who had already gone far to undo his great work.  Yet a third notable Democrat was there to do a pleasant little act.  Douglas, Lincoln’s defeated rival, placed himself with a fine ostentation by his side, and, observing that he was embarrassed as to where to put his new tall hat and preposterous gold-knobbed cane, took charge of these encumbrances before the moment arrived for the most eagerly awaited of all his speeches.  Lincoln had submitted his draft of his “First Inaugural” to Seward, and this draft with Seward’s abundant suggestions of amendment has been preserved.  It has considerable literary interest, and, by the readiness with which most of Seward’s suggestions were adopted, and the decision with which some, and those not the least important, were set aside by Lincoln, it illustrates well the working relation which, after one short struggle, was to be established between these two men.  By Seward’s advice Lincoln added to an otherwise dry speech some concluding paragraphs of emotional appeal.  The last sentence of the speech, which alone is much remembered, is Seward’s in the first conception of it, Seward’s in the slightly hackneyed phrase with which it ends, Lincoln’s alone in the touch of haunting beauty which is on it.

His “First Inaugural” was by general confession an able state paper, setting forth simply and well a situation with which we are now familiar.  It sets out dispassionately the state of the controversy on slavery, lays down with brief argument the position that the Union is indissoluble, and proceeds to define the duty of the Government in face of an attempt to dissolve it.  “The power,” he said, “confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government, and to collect the duties on imports; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere.  The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished in all parts of the Union.”  He proceeded to set out what he conceived to be the impossibility of real separation; the intimate relations between the peoples of the several States must still continue; they would still remain for adjustment after any length of warfare; they could be far better adjusted in Union than in enmity.  He concluded:  “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.  I am loath to close.  We are not enemies but friends.  We must not be enemies.  Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.  The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”