Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [211]
Seward suggested: “I close. We are not we must not be aliens or enemies but fellow countrymen and brethren. Although passion has strained our bonds of affection too hardly they must not, I am sure they will not be broken. The mystic chords which proceeding from so many battle fields and so many patriot graves pass through all the hearts and all the hearths in this broad continent of ours will yet again harmonize in their ancient music when breathed upon by the guardian angel of the nation.”
Lincoln proceeded to recast and sharpen Seward’s patriotic sentiments into a concise and powerful poetry: “I am loth to close. 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 chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, 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.” Most significant, Seward’s “guardian angel” breathes down on the nation from above; Lincoln’s “better angels” are inherent in our nature as a people.
AFTER PLACING HIS FINISHING TOUCHES on the final draft, Lincoln read the speech to his family. Then he asked to be left alone. Several blocks away, Seward had finished reading the morning newspapers and was getting ready to go to the Capitol when a chorus of voices outside attracted his attention. Hundreds of devoted followers were assembled in front of his house. Moved by the spirit of the serenade, Seward spoke to them with emotion. “I have been a representative of my native State in the Senate for twelve years, and there is no living being who can look in my face and say that in all that time I have not done my duty toward all—the high and the low, the rich and the poor, the bond and the free.”
Perhaps this show of popular support softened the wrenching realization that his chance had come and gone. When a congressman argued with him that a certain politician would be disappointed if he didn’t get an appointment in the new administration, Seward lost his composure: “Disappointment! You speak to me of disappointment. To me, who was justly entitled to the Republican nomination for the presidency, and who had to stand aside and see it given to a little Illinois lawyer!”
As the clock struck noon, President Buchanan arrived at the Willard to escort the president-elect to the ceremony. Lincoln, only fifty-two, tall and energetic in his shiny new black suit and stovepipe hat, presented a striking contrast to the short and thickset Buchanan, nearly seventy, who had a sorrowful expression on his aged face. As they moved arm in arm toward the open carriage, the Marine Band played “Hail to the Chief.” The carriage made its way up Pennsylvania Avenue, while cheering crowds and hundreds of dignitaries mingled uneasily with the hundreds of troops put in place by General Scott to guard against an attempted assassination. Sharpshooters looked down from windows and rooftops. Cavalry were placed strategically throughout the entire route.
Along the way, an ominous sound was heard. “A sharp, cracking, rasping sort of detonation, at regular intervals of perhaps three seconds” set everyone’s nerves on edge, the Washington Evening Star reported. The perplexed police finally identified the sound as issuing from the New England delegation. They wore their customary “pegged” shoes, with heavy soles designed for the ice and snow of the north country. In the more temperate climate of Washington, the “heat and dryness of the atmosphere” had apparently