Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 1.djvu/182

156 would be necessary to placate the South shown by the Democrats of the North. Numerous mass meetings, of which those in Philadelphia under the direction of Mayor Henry, and in Albany under that of Governor Seymour, were the most notable, had been held in the Northern States to protest against “coercion,” denounce the “Black Republicans,” and demand recognition of the “just claims of our Southern brethren.” I for one was fully convinced that a most bloody civil war was inevitable, unless the new Government abdicated its powers as far as the rebellious States were concerned; and I freely expressed that conviction in my correspondence.

Truly, the last man to be envied, under the circumstances, was Abraham Lincoln. The formal calls he received and had to return, the consultations with friends, the finishing touches to his inaugural message (which he had written and set up in type before leaving Springfield, but which received much tinkering before its delivery, at the suggestion of Orville H. Browning, Seward, and others), occupied his time from morning till late at night; and the settlement of the appointments to the principal offices left him, to be sure, little time for thought of the future. The pressure of the place-hunters was tremendous. As the necessary decision of their fate drew nearer, their eagerness to gain access to the chief dispenser of patronage became intensified. The situation is graphically described by Nicolay and Hay in their Life of Lincoln.

I saw Mr. Lincoln twice for a few minutes before the inauguration, when, in response to an expression of sympathy with his tribulations, he groaned out: “Yes, it was bad enough in Springfield, but it was child's play compared with this tussle here. I hardly have a chance to eat or sleep. I am fair game for everybody of that hungry lot.” His wife again added not least to his worries. She meddled not only with the distribution of minor offices, but even with the assignment of places in the Cabinet. Moreover, she allowed herself to be approached and continuously