-- The planters -- Burnside --
McClellan nominated for President -- Awful events approaching --
Dictatorship dawns on the horizon -- The catastrophe.

DIARY.

MARCH, 1861.

Inauguration day -- The message -- Scott watching at the door of
the Union -- The Cabinet born -- The Seward and Chase struggle --
The New York radicals triumph -- The treason spreads -- The
Cabinet pays old party debts -- The diplomats confounded -- Poor
Senators! -- Sumner is like a hare tracked by hounds -- Chase in
favor of recognizing the revolted States -- Blunted axes -- Blair
demands action, brave fellow! -- The slave-drivers -- The month
of March closes -- No foresight! no foresight!

For the first time in my life I assisted at the simplest and grandest
spectacle--the inauguration of a President. Lincoln's message good,
according to circumstances, but not conclusive; it is not positive; it
discusses questions, but avoids to assert. May his mind not be
altogether of the same kind. Events will want and demand more
positiveness and action than the message contains assertions. The
immense majority around me seems to be satisfied. Well, well; I wait,
and prefer to judge and to admire when actions will speak.

I am sure that a great drama will be played, equal to any one known in
history, and that the insurrection of the slave-drivers will not end
in smoke. So I now decide to keep a diary in my own way. I scarcely
know any of those men who are considered as leaders; the more
interesting to observe them, to analyze their mettle, their actions.
This insurrection may turn very complicated; if so, it must generate
more than one revolutionary manifestation. What will be its
march--what stages? Curious; perhaps it may turn out more interesting
than anything since that great renovation of humanity by the great
French Revolution.

The old, brave warrior, Scott, watched at the door of the Union; his
shadow made the infamous rats tremble and crawl off, and so Scott
transmitted to Lincoln what was and could be saved during the
treachery of Buchanan.

By the most propitious accident, I assisted at the throes among which
Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet was born. They were very painful, but of the
highest interest for me, and I suppose for others. I participated some
little therein.

A pledge bound Mr. Lincoln to make Mr. Seward his Secretary of State.
The radical and the puritanic elements in the Republica