Party foes as well as party friends made up these expectant crowds. The
public suspense was at a degree of tension which rendered every eye and
ear eager to catch even the slightest indication of the thoughts or
intentions of the man who was to be the official guide of the nation in
a crisis the course and end of which even the wisest dared not predict.
In the twenty or thirty brief addresses delivered by Mr. Lincoln on this
journey, he observed the utmost caution of utterance and reticence of
declaration; yet the shades of meaning in his carefully chosen sentences
were enough to show how alive he was to the trials and dangers
confronting his administration, and to inspire hope and confidence in
his judgment. He repeated that he regarded the public demonstrations not
as belonging to himself, but to the high office with which the people
had clothed him; and that if he failed, they could four years later
substitute a better man in his place; and in his very first address, at
Indianapolis, he thus emphasized their reciprocal duties:
"If the union of these States and the liberties of this people shall be
lost, it is but little to any one man of fifty-two years of age, but a
great deal to the thirty millions of people who inhabit these United
States, and to their posterity in all coming time.
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