--with the evident purpose of throwing oil on the troubled waters--when
he said: "I have not maintained silence from any want of real anxiety.
It is a good thing that there is no more than anxiety; for there is
nothing going wrong. It is a consoling circumstance that, when we look
out, there is nothing that really hurts anybody. We entertain different
views upon political questions; but nobody is suffering anything. This
is a consoling circumstance; and from it we may conclude that all we
want is time, patience, and a reliance on that God who has never
forsaken this People."

So, too, at Pittsburg, Pa., February 15th, he said, of "our friends," as
he termed them, the Secessionists: "Take even their own views of the
questions involved, and there is nothing to justify the course they are
pursuing. I repeat, then, there is no crisis, except such an one as may
be gotten up at any time by turbulent men, aided by designing
politicians. My advice to them, under the circumstances, is to keep
cool. If the great American People only keep their temper both sides of
the line, the trouble will come to an end, and the question which now
distracts the Country be settled, just as surely as all other
difficulties, of a like character, which have been originated in this
Government, have been adjusted. Let the people on both sides keep their
self-possession, and, just as other clouds have cleared away in due
time, so will this great Nation continue to prosper as heretofore."

And toward the end of that journey, on the 22nd of February
--Washington's Birthday--in the Independence Hall at Philadelphia, after
eloquently affirming his belief that "the great principle or idea that
kept this Confederacy so long together was * * * that sentiment in the
Declaration of Independence which gave Liberty not alone to the People
of this Country, but" he hoped "to the World, for all future time * * *