In a situation so
intrinsically false efficient government was impossible, no matter what
was the strength or weakness of the hand at the helm. Therefore there
was every reason for displacing Buchanan from control of the national
affairs in the autumn, and every reason against continuing him in that
control through the winter; yet the law of the land ordained the latter
course. It seemed neither sensible nor even safe. During this doleful
period all descriptions of him agree: he seemed, says Chittenden,
"shaken in body and uncertain in mind,... an old man worn out by worry;"
while the Southerners also declared him as "incapable of purpose as a
child." To the like purport spoke nearly all who saw him.
During the same time Lincoln's position was equally absurd and more
trying. After the lapse of four months he was, by the brief ceremony of
an hour, to become the leader of a great nation under an exceptionally
awful responsibility; but during those four months he could play no
other part than simply to watch, in utter powerlessness, the swift
succession of crowding events, which all were tending to make his
administration of the government difficult, or even impossible.
Throughout all this long time, the third part of a year, which statutes
scarcely less venerable than the Constitution itself freely presented to
the disunion leaders, they safely completed their civil and military
organization, while the Northerners, under a ruler whom they had
discredited, but of whom they could not get rid, were paralyzed for all
purposes of counter preparation.
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