[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL E. D. TOWNSEND, Assistant Adjutant-General.]
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL CHARLES P. STONE.]
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL WILLIAM S. HARNEY.]
LINCOLN'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS--THE STRUGGLE FOR VIRGINIA--OPPOSING VIEWS EXPRESSED BY ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS--THE SLAVE-TRADE OF VIRGINIA--VIRGINIA DRAGOONED--THE FIRST CALL FOR TROOPS--LINCOLN'S FAITH IN THE PEOPLE--ORIGIN OF THE WORD "COPPERHEAD."
Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address was one of the ablest state papers recorded in American history. It argued the question of secession in all its aspects--the constitutional right, the reality of the grievance, the sufficiency of the remedy--and so far as law and logic went, it left the secessionists little or nothing to stand on. But neither law nor logic could change in a single day the pre-determined purpose of a powerful combination, or allay the passions that had been roused by years of resentful debate. Some of its sentences read like maxims for statesmen: "The central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy." "Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws?" "Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world?" With all its conciliatory messages it expressed a firm and unalterable purpose to maintain the Union at every hazard. "I consider," he said, "that, in view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part; and I shall perform it, so far as practicable, unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means, or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary." And in closing he said: "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it.... We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."