(President Buchanan and Mr. Lincoln) left the barouche at the steps of the capitol, Buchanan looked very grave, Lincoln, pale and anxious, and both were covered with dust. The inaugural was read distinctly, but without special emphasis, closing with the words: "We are not enemies, but friends; we must not be enemies; though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection." By the irony of fate, Justice Taney, who had pronounced the Dred Scott decision, administered to Mr. Lincoln the oath of his office to support the Constitution of the United States.
The inaugural, as it was afterwards understood by the South, set forth the purpose of Mr. Lincoln to prevent the dividing of the Union, but its declarations as interpreted by many at the time gave ground for the illusive hope that war would not be made upon the Confederate States. Members of the Confederate Congress on adjourning a week later, impressed by the inaugural with a hope of peace generally expressed this confidence in their States, and thus in some degree arrested Southern military preparations.
The new cabinet was formed by the appointment of William H. Seward, of New York, Secretary of State; Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, Secretary of the Treasury; Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, Secretary of War; Gideon Welles, of Connecticut, Secretary of the Navy; Caleb Smith, of Indiana, Secretary of the Interior; Montgomery Blair, of Maryland, Postmaster General; and Edward Bates, of Missouri, Attorney General. The selections made by President Lincoln from among his recent rivals in the contest for the presidential nomination created some comment. Thaddeus Stevens pronounced the new cabinet an assortment of rivals appointed from courtesy, an Indiana stump speaker, and two members of the Blair family. Cassius Clay said that Lincoln had offered him in writing the post of secretary of war, and that he had relied on the promise, but Seward and the
