AMERICA-THE CIVIL WAR 1861-1865

"PEACE IN UNION"- - THE SURRENDER OF ROBERT E. LEE AT APPOMATOX

(From the painting by Thomas Nast)

AMERICA

Great Crises In Our History Told by Its Makers A LIBRARY OF ORIGINAL SOURCES Volume VIII The Civil War 1861-1865 ISSUED BY

AMERICANIZATION DEPARTMENT VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS OF THE

UNITED STATES CHICAGO, U. S. A.

LINCOLN'S INAUGURATION

By William H. Herndon.

HERNDON'S "Life of Lincoln," from which this account is taken, by permission of D. Appleton & Company, is highly regarded for its fidelity in portraying the "Great Emancipator," and for its exposition of certain elemental points in his character.

Herndon and Lincoln had been Ian, partners for sixteen years in Springfield, Illinois, when the latter became President of the United States. It did not terminate their partnership, for, as the biographer says, before leaving Springfield for Washington, Lincoln "made the strange request that the sign-board (Lincoln & Herndon), which swung on its rusty hinges at the foot of the stairway, should remain."

It is curious that Herndon, partner and biographer of Lincoln, should have been removed from college by his father "in consequence of the abolition sentiments of the faculty." The famous partnership was formed in 1844 and lasted until Lincoln's death.

LATE in January Mr. Lincoln informed me that he was ready to begin the preparation of his inaugural address. He had, aside from his law books and the few gilded volumes that ornamented the center-table in his parlor at home, comparatively no library. He never seemed to care to own or collect books. On the other hand I had a very respectable collection, and was adding to it every day. To my library Lincoln very frequently had access. When, therefore, he began on his inaugural speech he told me what works he intended to consult. I looked for a long list, but when he went over it I was greatly surprised. He asked me to furnish him with Henry Clay's great speech delivered in 1850; Andrew Jackson's proclamation against nullification ; and a copy of the Constitution. He afterward called for Webster's reply to Hayne, a speech which he read when he lived at New Salem, and which he always regarded as the grandest specimen of American oratory. With these few "volumes," and no further source of reference, he locked himself up in a room upstairs over a store across the street from the State House, and there, cut off from all communication and intrusion, he prepared the address. Though composed amid the unromantic surroundings of a dingy, dusty and neglected back room, the speech has become a memorable document. Posterity will assign it to a high rank among historical utterances ; and it will ever bear comparison with the efforts of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, or any that preceded its delivery from the steps of the national Capitol.

Early in February the last item of preparation for the journey to Washington had been made. Mr. Lincoln had disposed of his household goods and furniture to a neighbor, had rented his house ; and as these constituted all the property he owned in Illinois, there was no further occasion for concern on that score. In the afternoon of his last day in Springfield he came down to our office to examine some papers and confer with me about certain legal matters in which he still felt some interest. On several previous occasions he had told me he was coming over to the office "to have a long talk with me," as he expressed it. We ran over the books and arranged for the completion of all unsettled and unfinished matters. In some cases he had certain requests to make certain lines of procedure he wished me to observe.

After these things were all disposed of he crossed to the opposite side of the room and threw himself down on the old office sofa, which, after many years of service, had been moved against the wall for support. He lay for some moments, his face toward the ceiling, without either of us speaking. Presently he inquired, "Billy," he always called me by that name "how long have we been together?" "Over sixteen years," I answered. "We've never had a cross word during all that time, have we?" to which I returned a vehement, "No, indeed we have not." He then recalled some incidents of his early practice and took great pleasure in delineating the ludicrous features of many a lawsuit on the circuit.