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."

The four years and forty days that remain of Lincoln's life is but the
story of his wonderful part in our great Civil War.

When Lincoln turned from his inauguration to take up the duties of his
office he faced a responsibility greater than that which had rested upon
Washington, as great as had ever rested upon any man on this planet in
all the ages. His own dear country--that nation which lovers of mankind
had hoped would lead the world in advancing human welfare, was already
rent asunder and everywhere the men who had been accustomed to lead in
thought and action were divided. Men of influence at the North advised
peaceful separation. Radials at the South declared that they would take
Washington and make it the Confederate Capital. Prominent men at the
North declared that the South could not be and should not be coerced.
And with these terrible problems puzzling him, Lincoln was also pestered
with office-seekers until he remarked, "This struggle and scramble for
office will yet test our institutions." For his Cabinet he chose William
H. Seward, Secretary of State; Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the
Treasury; Simon Cameron, Secretary of War; Gideon Wells, Secretary of
the Navy; Caleb B. Smith, Secretary of the Interior; Edward Bates,
Attorney-General; Montgomery Blair, Postmaster-General.

The first day after inauguration the whole problem was presented to him
in a letter from Major Anderson with his hungry soldiers at Fort
Sumpter. He wanted provisions and reinforcements; twenty thousand
soldiers would be necessary to hold the fort, and the whole standing
army numbered sixteen thousand men. General Scott advised evacuation.
Lincoln said, "When Anderson goes out of Fort Sumpter I shall have to go
out of the White House." The military advisers differed: the cabinet
differed; and while Lincoln pondered over the problem, Seward acquiesced
in the general assumption that he rather than Lincoln was the real head
of the Government; and accordingly prepared and laid before Lincoln
"Some Thoughts for the President's Consideration," in which after
complaining of the "lack of policy" he boldly proposed to make war on
Spain and France, and seek "explanations from Great Britain and Russia,"
and suggested that the