difficulty in disposing of government funds in one direction or another
so that there was practically no balance to hand over to his successor
available for the most immediate necessities of the new administration.

One of the sayings quoted from Washington during these weeks was the
answer given by Count Gurowski to the inquiry, "Is there anything in
addition this morning?" "No," said Gurowski, "it is all in subtraction."

By the day of the inaugural, the secession of seven States was an
accomplished fact and the government of the Confederacy had already been
organised in Montgomery. Alexander H. Stephens had so far modified his
original position that he had accepted the post of Vice-President and in
his own inaugural address had used the phrase, "Slavery is the
corner-stone of our new nation," a phrase that was to make much mischief
in Europe for the hopes of the new Confederacy.

In the first inaugural, one of the great addresses in a noteworthy
series, Lincoln presented to the attention of the leaders of the South
certain very trenchant arguments against the wisdom of their course. He
says of secession for the purpose of preserving the institution of
slavery:

"You complain that under the government of the United States your
slaves have from time to time escaped across your borders and have
not been returned to you. Their value as property has been lessened
by the fact that adjoining your Slave States were certain States
inhabited by people who did not believe in your institution. How is
this condition going to be changed by war even under the assumption
that the war may be successful in securing your independence? Your
slave territory will still adjoin territory inhabited by free men