This last sentence, especially if in Lincoln’s mental abilities the qualities of his character be included, probably indicates the chief point for remark in any estimate of his presidency.  It is true that he was judged at first as a stranger among strangers.  Walt Whitman has described vividly a scene, with “a dash of comedy, almost farce, such as Shakespeare puts in his blackest tragedies,” outside the hotel in New York where Lincoln stayed on his journey to Washington; “his look and gait, his perfect composure and coolness,” to cut it short, the usually noted marks of his eccentricity, “as he stood looking with curiosity on that immense sea of faces, and the sea of faces returned the look with similar curiosity, not a single one” among the crowd “his personal friend.”  He was not much otherwise situated when he came to Washington.  It is true also that in the early days he was learning his business.  “Why, Mr. President,” said some one towards the end of his life, “you have changed your mind.”  “Yes, I have,” said he, “and I don’t think much of a man who isn’t wiser to-day than he was yesterday.”  But it seems to be above all true that the exercise of power and the endurance of responsibility gave him new strength.  This, of course, cannot be demonstrated, but Americans then living, who recall Abraham Lincoln, remark most frequently how the man grew to his task.  And this perhaps is the main impression which the slight record here presented will convey, the impression of a man quite unlike the many statesmen whom power and the vexations attendant upon it have in some piteous way spoiled and marred, a man who started by being tough and shrewd and canny and became very strong and very wise, started with an inclination to honesty, courage, and kindness, and became, under a tremendous strain, honest, brave, and kind to an almost tremendous degree.

The North then started upon the struggle with an eagerness and unanimity from which the revulsion was to try all hearts, and the President’s most of all; and not a man in the North guessed what the strain of that struggle was to be.  At first indeed there was alarm in Washington for the immediate safety of the city.  Confederate flags could be seen floating from the hotels in Alexandria across the river; Washington itself was full of rumours of plots and intended assassinations, and full of actual Southern spies; everything was disorganised; and Lincoln himself, walking round one night, found the arsenal with open doors, absolutely unguarded.

By April 20, first the Navy Yard at Gosport, in Virginia, had to be abandoned, then the Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, and on the day of this latter event Lee went over to the South.  One regiment from Massachusetts, where the State authorities had prepared for war before the fall of Sumter, was already in Washington; but it had had to fight its way through a furious mob in Baltimore, with some loss of life on both sides.  A deputation from many churches in that city came