OF THE SADDLE AND SIRLOIN CLUB 193 



was formed for South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mis- 

 sissippi, Louisiana and Texas, known as the Confederate States 

 of America, with Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as president. 

 Mr. Lincoln kept his own counsel and in his inaugural address 

 treated the secession as a nullity. He declared the Union perpetu- 

 ate and inviolate, and announced the government's intention to 

 maintain its authority. He closed with the following strain of 

 peace and dignity: "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-coun- 

 trymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. 

 The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict 

 without yourselves being the aggressors. You have no oath regis- 

 tered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have a 

 most solemn one to preserve it." 



The attack on Sumter was the southern answer, and hostilities 

 too detailed for discussion here were entered upon. Of Mr. Lin- 

 coln's measures, history records the wisdom. To the constant 

 pressure of the abolitionists to make slavery the chief issue, he 

 responded that "My paramount duty is to save the Union, and 

 not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union 

 without freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save it by 

 freeing all slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing 

 some and leaving others alone, I would also do that" Eventually 

 the emancipation measure became a practical source for weaken- 

 ing the enemy resistance, and he gladly published the necessary 

 proclamation, January 1, 1863. The following fall he urged the 

 necessity of a constitutional amendment to back his decree, and 

 on January 31, 1865, the 13th amendment was finally adopted. 

 His careful diplomacy in the questions involving European na- 

 tions, (ably seconded by his Secretary of State and former politi- 

 cal rival, Mr. Seward), his strength on the draft question for mili- 

 tary service, an-d his second inaugural address, stood as bright 

 lights in the path of those devoted lovers of the Union who could 

 not see that the sands of time were then drifting in their direction. 



