ncoln taught his countrymen the lesson that he who
would be no slave must be content to have no slave. It is yet to be
learned with equal emphasis that he who would preserve his own right
to suffrage must never aid in depriving another citizen of the same
great boon. In moral as in physical conflicts it may be easy to
determine who strikes the first blow, but it is difficult to foresee
who may strike the last.

[(1) The proposition of Messrs. Morton and Buckalew for a Sixteenth
Article of Amendment was as follows:--

"The second clause, first section, second article of the Constitution
of the United States shall be amended to read as follows: 'Each State
shall appoint by vote of the people thereof qualified to vote for
representatives in Congress, a number of electors equal to the whole
number of senators and representatives to which the State may be
entitled in the Congress; but no senator or representative, or person
holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be
appointed an elector; and the Congress shall have power to prescribe
the manner in which such electors shall be chosen by the people.'"]

CHAPTER XVII.

General Grant was inaugurated on Thursday, the 4th of March, 1869, amid
a great display of popular enthusiasm. All parties joined in it. The
Republicans, who had been embarrassed by President Johnson's conduct
for the preceding four years, felt that they had overcome a political
enemy rather than a man whom they had themselves placed in power; and
the Democrats, who had supported Johnson so far as was necessary to
embarrass and distract the Republicans, were glad to be released from
an entangling alliance which had brought them neither profit or honor.
Contrary to the etiquette of the occasion, the incoming President was
not escorted to the Capitol by his predecessor. The exceptions to this
usage have been few. John Adams was so chagrined by the circumstances
attending his defeat that he would not remain in Washington to see Mr.
Jefferson installed in power; and the long-established hatred which
General Jackson and John Quincy Adams so heartily sustained for each
other forbade any personal intercourse between them. General Grant
had conceived so intense a dislike of Johnson, by reason of the effort
to place him in a false position in connection with the removal of
Stanton, that he would not officially recognize his predecessor, even
so far as to drive from the White House