ention inadequately,
President Davis conscientiously vetoed it and demanded a more
satisfactory measure. At his inauguration the Southern President
delivered an address, typical of that curious blending of propriety and
insincerity, of which the politics of that period in America had offered
many examples. It may seem incredible, but it contained no word of
slavery, but recited in dignified terms how the South had been driven to
separation by "wanton aggression on the part of others," and after it had
"vainly endeavoured to secure tranquillity." The new Southern Congress
now resolved to take over the forts and other property in the seceded
States that had belonged to the Union, and the first Confederate general,
Beauregard, was sent to Charleston to hover over Fort Sumter.

3. _The Inauguration of Lincoln_.

The first necessary business of the President-elect, while he watched the
gathering of what Emerson named "the hurricane in which he was called to
the helm," was to construct a strong Cabinet, to which may be added the
seemingly unnecessary business forced upon him of dealing with a horde of
pilgrims who at once began visiting him to solicit some office or, in
rarer cases, to press their disinterested opinions. His Cabinet,
designed in principle, as has been said, while he was waiting in the
telegraph office for election returns, was actually constructed with some
delay and hesitation. Lincoln could not know personally all the men he
invited to join him, but he proceeded with the view of conjoining in his
administration representatives of the chief shades of opinion which in
this critical time it would be his supreme duty to hold together. Not
only different shades of opinion, but the local sentiment of different
districts had to be considered; he once complained that if the twelve
Apostles had to be chosen nowadays the principle of locality would have
to be regarded; but at this time there was very solid reason why
different States should be contented and why he should be advised as to
their feelings. His own chief rivals for the Presidency offered a good
choice from both these points of view. They were Seward of New York,
Chase of Ohio, Bates of Missouri, Cameron of Pennsylvania. Seward and
Chase were both able and outstanding men: the former was in a sense the
old Republican leader, but was more and more coming to be regarded as the
typical "Conservative," or cautious Republican; Chase on the other han