CHAPTER XX.

FOUR LONG MONTHS.


Four months would not ordinarily be considered a long period of time.
But when one is compelled to see the working of a vast amount of
mischief, powerless to prevent it, and knowing one's self to be the
chief victim of it all, the time is long. Such was the fate of Lincoln.
The election was not the end of a life of toil and struggle, it was the
beginning of a new career of sorrow. The period of four months between
the election and inauguration could not be devoted to rest or to the
pleasant plans for a prosperous term of service. There developed a plan
for the disruption of the government. The excuse was Lincoln's
election. But he was for four months only a private citizen. He had no
power. He could only watch the growing mischief and realize that he was
the ultimate victim. Buchanan, who was then President, had a genius for
doing the most unwise thing. He was a northern man with southern
principles, and this may have unfitted him to see things in their true
relations. He certainly was putty in the hands of those who wished to
destroy the Union, and his vacillation precisely accomplished what they
wished. Had he possessed the firmness and spirit of John A. Dix, who
ordered,--"If any man attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot
him on the spot;" had he had a modicum of the patriotism of Andrew
Jackson; had he had a tithe of the wisdom and manliness of Lincoln;
secession would have been nipped in the bud and vast treasures of money
and irreparable waste of human blood would have been spared. Whatever
the reason may have been,--incapacity, obliquity of moral and political
vision, or absolute championship of the cause of disruption,--certain