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March 4, 1861, Washington City
There is a cold wind blowing on the steps of the East Portico of the unfinished Capitol Building. The sun was trying to break through the cloud’s overhead to shine onto a wooden platform built for the occasion. A tall, lanky man wearing a black formal suit stood up to take his oath of office from Chief Justice Taney, author of the infamous Dred Scott decision. The decision declared a person of African ancestry could not claim citizenship in the United States.
Previously, last December 1860, South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union after the results of the United States presidential election were determined. The majority of the Southern States soon followed. Before the new president could be sworn into office, the Confederate States of America was formed with Jefferson Davis as its first President.
After taking the presidential oath, a bareheaded Abraham Lincoln sporting a new beard pulled out a well-worn piece of paper covered with handwritten notes from his topcoat pocket. He began to speak:
“In compliance with a custom as old as the Government itself, I appear before you to address you briefly...I hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual... in your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war...I shall have the most solemn one (oath) to "preserve, protect, and defend it... Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield 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."*
*Source : https http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/tr00.html#obj37
Abraham Lincoln finished his speech, removed his glasses and placed them back into his topcoat. Senator Stephen Douglas stood up and offered Lincoln back his stovepipe hat. Lincoln placed it on his head and turned to go accompanied by former President Buchanan. Various Congressmen and other dignitaries including Secretary of State Seward shook his hand as he climbed the steps to go back into the Capitol building. Upon leaving the Capitol building, former President Buchanan and President Abraham Lincoln entered their carriage for the ride back to the White House. Lincoln rubbed his eyes, the fatigue already beginning to show on his face. He said little to Buchanan as they rode. When they arrived, former President Buchanan escorted him through the front door of the stately mansion, shook his hand and left. Lincoln took off his hat and proceeded to go inside where he was deluged with well-wishers and office seekers.
Lincoln was unable to stop the relentless march toward civil war, especially after the Southern secessionists fired on the Union’s Fort Sumter and forced its surrender. But as several years went by, Union and Southern support for the war began waning.
The Confederate army rapidly began losing soldiers. The one-year enlistments were expiring and Jefferson Davis and his cabinet needed to do something drastic to reverse the tide. On April 16, 1862, the Confederate Congress enacted the First Conscription Act. The war now directly affected the home front across the entire Confederacy!
