As the ancient, shriveled, parchment-faced Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, who resembled a “galvanized corpse,” rose to administer the oath of office, he appeared very agitated, evidently upset by the new president’s remarks about the Supreme Court. After Lincoln swore to “faithfully execute the office of President” and to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution,” he kissed the Bible. People in the crowd tossed hats into the air, wiped their eyes, and shouted till they grew hoarse. Lincoln shook hands with Taney and the other dignitaries on the platform and then rode with Buchanan back down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, where a public reception was held. There the ex-president shook his successor’s hand, wished him luck, and returned to Pennsylvania to write a defense of his administration. Lincoln cordially received all well-wishers and kissed thirty-four young girls, representing each state of the Union.
During the inaugural ceremony, Thurlow Weed left early and passed by Winfield Scott, stationed near the Capitol beside an artillery battery. The anxious general asked how the ceremony was going. “It is a success,” answered Weed. “God be praised! God in his goodness be praised!” exclaimed Old Fuss and Feathers. The two men then embraced like a pair of joyful school-boys.104
The retiring president, who during the delivery of the inaugural “looked the very picture of a forlorn, wretched, careworn, conscience-sore, decrepit old man,” seemed unenthusiastic.105 Yet that afternoon, in conversation with friends, he called the address “high-toned, patriotic, conservative,” and “very able.”106 (In fact, many passages in it closely resembled language Buchanan had employed in his annual message to Congress the previous December.)
Douglas was also positive about Lincoln’s speech, which he termed “very dignified,” and predicted that “it would do much to restore harmony to the country.”107 Lincoln, said the senator, “does not mean coercion; he says nothing about retaking the forts or Federal property—he’s all right.” The president “deals in generalities—he don’t commit himself—and that is doubtless wise,” and “the tone is very kind and conciliatory.”108 In the senate, Douglas described the inaugural as “a peace-offering rather than a war message” and said that Lincoln deserved “the thanks of all conservative men.”109 According to Edwin M. Stanton, “Lincoln & the family at the White House, are represented to be greatly elated at Douglas joining in defence of the new administration. It is said to be the chief topic of conversation with visitors at the Executive Mansion.”110
That evening at the inaugural ball, held in a specially constructed pavilion accommodating 2,500 guests, Mrs. Lincoln entered on the arm of Senator Douglas, which some regarded as an indication that the Little Giant and the Rail-splitter had “buried the hatchet.” Relieved to be safely installed, and drained by the ordeal of preparing and delivering his momentous address, the new president appeared tired. One woman blurted out: “Old Abe, as I live, is tipsy. Look at that funny smile.”111 After fifteen minutes of exchanging pleasantries in the receiving line, Lincoln remarked: “This hand-shaking is harder work than rail-splitting.” But when the journalist Gail Hamilton offered to spare him the necessity of shaking her hand, he exclaimed: “Ah! Your hand doesn’t hurt me.”112 (Lincoln’s handshake as well as his hand could hurt; an English reporter told his readers that it “was so hard and so earnest, as to have reduced my own hand nearly to the consistency of pulp.”)113 Charles Francis Adams noted that the Lincolns “came in quite late. They are evidently wanting in all the arts to grace their position. He is simple, awkward and hearty. She is more artificial and pretentious.”114 One commentator wrote that the dignified First Lady “seems to feel her station is as high as that of any of the Queens of the earth.”115 An attendee recalled that it “at once became obvious to all that Mrs. Lincoln would never shine as a hostess in Washington society. She lacked presence, spontaneity, and all the magnetic and intellectual qualities which made Dolley Madison so popular.”116 When a correspondent of the New York Herald asked the president if he had any message to convey to that paper’s editor, James Gordon Bennett, Lincoln replied: “Yes, you may tell him that Thurlow Weed has found out that Seward was not nominated at Chicago!”117 The president stayed for only thirty minutes; his wife remained for another two hours.
Public Reaction to the Inaugural
People throughout the country eagerly read and discussed the inaugural. On Broadway, New Yorkers walking along with their noses buried in newspapers collided with each other. There speculation about the inaugural led to heated exchanges among impatient men waiting outside newspaper offices.
“I’ll bet he sticks just as firm as firm as a rock,” predicted one.
“Well, he won’t,” rejoined another.
“Old Abe’s the Shanghai chicken that’ll not be afeared to fight.”
“Go long with you, he’s as innocent as a sucking babe.”
“Fifty to a hundred dollars, he says coercion.”
“I take you; where’s your money?”
“Put it up; put it up; I’ll hold stakes.”
“No you won’t.”118
One influential resident of the Empire State opined that the “tone of the Inaugural has caused some Republicans to be ‘born again.’ Our party seems now united.”119
Baltimoreans nearly came to blows in their eagerness to obtain copies of the inaugural. In Charleston, anxious crowds surrounded newspaper bulletin boards where telegrams were posted. Richmond secessionists danced with joy, confident that Lincoln’s address would strengthen their hand. Their counterparts in Nashville lustily crowed over the imminent prospect of war. In Montgomery, Alabama, Confederate leaders eagerly read the text as it came in over the telegraph. Vice-President Alexander H. Stephens exclaimed, “the man is a fool!” while Robert Toombs grumbled and Jefferson Davis clenched his teeth and remained silent.120
Northerners received the address positively. Benjamin Brown French, a New Hampshire native whom Lincoln was to appoint commissioner of public buildings, wrote that it “is conciliatory—peaceable—but firm in its tone, and is exactly what we, Union men, want.”121 Another admirer said it “breathes kindness & conciliation, but no dishonorable submission.”122 Others rejoiced that “we have a firm, vigorous, but temperate administration at this critical hour.”123 In Washington, Vermont Congressman Justin Morrill noted that the inaugural was acknowledged “by all to be a paper of extraordinary ability, and, handling difficult topics, one of extraordinary tact.”124 Weed’s Albany Evening Journal thought Lincoln’s address foreshadowed “the conciliatory spirit which will govern his administration, and presents solid ground upon which to base the hope that, ere long, the dark war clouds which hang over the Republic will be dispersed by the rising sun of fraternal fellowship and peace.”125 Iowa Congressman Samuel R. Curtis speculated that the inaugural would “cause reflection to supplant the excitement and fury that now seems to carry everything before it” and thus help to “arrest the revolution.”126 The New York Tribune rejoiced that “the Federal Government is still in existence, with a Man at the head of it,” one “who will bring order out of seeming chaos, reason out of folly, safety out of danger.”127 Henry J. Raymond of the New York Times praised the inaugural’s “intellectual and moral vigor” and “profound sincerity.” It would have been impossible for Lincoln, said the Times, “to go further towards the conciliation of all discontented interests of the Confederacy” without “virtually abdicating the Presidency.”128 The Boston Atlas and Bee judged that the “language of conciliation—not compromise—is very freely and strongly used in the last half of the address, while the obligation to obey the expressed will of the people, as provided by law, is as distinctly announced.” The only objection “can be possibly made to it, it is in too great a lenience to the revolutionists.”129
Although most Northerners liked the substance of the inaugural, Lincoln’s “rhetorical infelicities” did not suit everyone.130 The Jersey City American Standard deplored it as “involved, coarse, colloquial, devoid of ease and grace, an
d bristling with obscurities and outrages against the simplest rules of syntax.”131 Others found Lincoln’s prose “exceedingly plain, not to say hard-favored.”132 A virulently partisan Ohio Democrat, Congressman Clement L. Vallandigham, suggested that Seward had composed the inaugural, which he asserted was “not written in the direct and straightforward language … expected from the plain, blunt, honest man of the North-west.” Vallandigham detected in the speech “the forked tongue and crooked counsel of the New York politician, leaving thirty millions of people in doubt whether it meant peace or war.”133
The discriminating New York attorney George Templeton Strong was more favorably impressed, calling “the absence of fine writing and spread-eagle-ism” a “good sign.” Though he objected to Lincoln’s treatment of the powers of the Supreme Court and his moral condemnation of slavery, Strong praised the inaugural for being “unlike any message or state paper of any class that has appeared in my time, to my knowledge. It is characterized by strong individuality and the absence of conventionalism of thought or diction. It doesn’t run in the ruts of Public Documents, number one to number ten million and one, but seems to introduce one to a man and to dispose one to like him.” Strong recorded that “Southronizers [i.e., pro-Southern Northerners] approved and applauded it as pacific and likely to prevent collision. Maybe so, but I think there’s a clank of metal in it.”134
Many others heard that same clank, including the editors of the New York Daily News, who said that despite the address’s “courteous, considerate, and even conciliatory tone,” there “is still left a sting.”135 On Wall Street, a broker observed that he and his colleagues were “afraid there is too much fight in it,” and consequently “the market is feverish.”136 Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper remarked that the address’s “words of peace and good-will seem to be traced by the bayonet point, by a mailed hand, and overtopping the figure of Mercy frowns the shadow of Force.”137 Varying the metaphor, Charles Sumner likened the inaugural to a “hand of iron in [a] velvet glove.”138
Many feared the consequences of Lincoln’s pledge to hold the forts and to collect the revenues. “Either measure will result in Civil War which I am compelled to look upon as almost certain,” Edward Everett speculated presciently.139 Most Southerners were of the same mind. The Richmond Whig and the Nashville Union and American both thought that sentence meant war. The Washington correspondent of the Charleston Mercury called it a “fiat of war” and grimly proclaimed that “the declaration of war has been spoken.”140 The editor of that journal warned that if Lincoln should attempt to carry out the policy implicit in that sentence, “there will be war—open, declared, positive war—with booming cannon and blood.” He added dismissively: “If ignorance could add anything to folly, or insolence to brutality, the President of the Northern States of America has, in this address, achieved it. A more lamentable display of feeble inability to grasp the circumstances of this momentous emergency could scarcely have been exhibited.” Scornfully the editor asked, “has this vain, ignorant, low fellow no counselors—nobody of any comprehension to control and direct him?”141 The Washington States and Union denounced the inaugural as “a miserable shilly-shallying around Robin Hood’s barn, meaningless and inexplicable.”142
Political leaders of the Lower South echoed those views. Texas Senator Louis Wigfall declared that the “Inaugural means war,” a “war to the knife and knife to the hilt.”143 Supreme Court Justice John A. Campbell of Alabama deemed it “a beastly thing,” a “stump speech … wanting in statesmanship—of which he has none—and of dignity and decorum. I should call it an incendiary message—one calculated to set the country in a blaze. He is a conceited man—evidently he has been a great man in—Springfield, Illinois.”144 The Confederate Commissioners, several Southern members of Congress, and Lucius Quinton Washington “agreed that it was Lincoln’s purpose at once to attempt the collection of the revenue, to re-enforce and hold Fort Sumter and Pickens, and to retake the other places. He is a man of will and firmness.”145 The readiness of warships in New York harbor convinced them that those plans would be implemented soon.
Some abolitionists disapproved of the inaugural, which they scorned as “double distilled conservatism” whose aim was to “gladden the hearts of ‘doughfaces.’ ” The “Hour has come and gone,” said Edmund Quincy, “but the Man was not sufficient for it. The speech was made with the face turned toward the South and with both knees bowed down before the idol it worships.”146 Frederick Douglass saw in the inaugural little hope “for the cause of our down-trodden and heart-broken countrymen [i.e., slaves].” The president “has avowed himself ready to catch them if they run away, to shoot them down if they rise against their oppressors, and to prohibit the Federal Government irrevocably from interfering for their deliverance.”147 Lydia Maria Child was willing to make “great allowance for the extreme difficulty of his position,” but she nevertheless thought Lincoln “bowed down to the Slave Power to an unnecessary degree.” The inaugural, she told John Greenleaf Whittier, “made me very doubtful of him.”148
But other abolitionists thought that Lincoln “met the trying emergency with rare self possession and equanimity” and called his address “a very manly sensible document” that “must inspire the respect and confidence of all who are not blinded by jealousy or partizan zeal.”149 Elizur Wright deemed it “the most masterly piece of generalship which human history has yet to show,” demonstrating “that the new President’s heart is in the right place, and that, though far in advance of the average North, he knows how to make it follow him—solid.”150 Although Oliver Johnson deplored Lincoln’s willingness to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act, he “was so exultant over the defeat of the compromise schemes in Congress and the failure of Weed and Seward in their efforts to exclude Chase from the Cabinet,” that he “was predisposed to a favorable judgment of the Inaugural.” He told a fellow antislavery militant that “when we consider what it might have been if Lincoln had fallen into Seward and Weed’s trap, and when we compare it with former papers of the sort, we may well congratulate ourselves.”151
Foreign press opinion was divided. The mighty London Times sneered at Lincoln’s “childish” focus on constitutional issues while ignoring the political and practical reality of secession and suggested that he negotiate with the Confederate States.152 Punch was more favorable, lauding the president’s insistence that he could not allow such a dangerous precedent as secession to go unchallenged, lest seceders “go on seceding and subseceding, until at last every citizen will secede from every other citizen, and each individual will be a sovereign state in himself.”153 Across the English Channel, La Patrie in Paris criticized Lincoln’s “irresolution.”154
Some Northern Democrats were unimpressed. An Ohio legislator thought it contained “too much special pleading to satisfy any portion of the country.” He sniffed that “I know many very small politicians who could get up as good an inaugural with two days labor—men who never dreamed of being statesman.”155 The ambiguity of the address left the public “at a loss to know what will be his line of policy in regard to the seceding states,” commented the Illinois State Register.156
Such confusion was especially noticeable in the all-important Upper South and Border States. To many in that region the inaugural seemed bellicose. North Carolina Senator Thomas Clingman warned that if the president “intends to use the power in his hands as he states in his inaugural, we must have war.”157 Such statements resonated with his constituents, who had narrowly rejected calls for a convention and were now reconsidering. Clingman’s colleagues from Virginia were reportedly “most discouraged” by the thousands of onlookers at the inaugural ceremonies who were “prepared to sustain and defend the Union.”158 Representatives Henry C. Burnett and John W. Stevenson of Kentucky, along with Albert Rust of Arkansas, indignantly declared that “it smacks of coercion, compulsion, and blood.”159 Unionist delegates to the Virginia secession convention reported that the inaugural, which “came upon us l
ike an earthquake, and threatened to overthrow all our conservative plans,” had severely embarrassed them and weakened their position.160 A resident of the Shenandoah Valley told Stephen A. Douglas that it was “almost dangerous for any one here even to suggest that the inaugeral is not a declaration of war.”161 The Baltimore Sun thought it “an exhibition of remorseless fanaticism and unprincipled partisanship,” breathing “the spirit of mischief,” assuming “despotic authority,” and signaling a desire “to exercise that authority to any extent of war and bloodshed.”162
Many in the Border States read it differently. Kentucky Congressmen Robert Mallory and Francis Bristow thought the address signified peace rather than war. Inspired by the inaugural, Representatives John Bouligny of Louisiana and Andrew J. Hamilton of Texas planned to return home “and battle for the flag and the Union.”163 In St. Louis, the Missouri Democrat called the inaugural “emphatically a peace message,” and the Missouri Republican editorialized that “[s]o far as Missouri and the Border States are concerned, we have to say, that the positions assumed in the Inaugural … remove, to a great extent, the causes of the anxiety which have been felt by them, and do not furnish, in any sense, a justification for secession from the Union.”164
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