Chapter 16.
- Arrival of the office-seekers in Springfield. -- recollections of a newspaper correspondent. -- how Lincoln received the cabinet-makers. -- making up the cabinet. -- a letter from Henry Wilson. -- visiting Chicago and meeting with Joshua F. Speed. -- preparing the inaugural address. -- Lincoln's self-confidence. -- separation from his step-mother. -- last days in Springfield. -- parting with old associates. -- departure of the Presidential party from Springfield. -- the journey to Washington and efforts to interrupt the same. -- the investigations of Allan Pinkerton. -- the inauguration.
The election over, Mr. Lincoln scarcely had time enough to take a breath until another campaign and one equally trying, so far as a test of his constitution and nerves was concerned, as the one through which he had just passed, opened up before him. I refer to the siege of the cabinet-makers and office-seekers. It proved to be a severe and protracted strain and one from which there seemed to be no relief, as the President-elect of this renowned democratic Government is by custom and precedent expected to meet and listen to everybody who calls to see him. “Individuals, deputations, and delegations,” says one of Mr. Lincoln's biographers, “from all quarters pressed in upon him in a manner that might have killed a man of less robust constitution. The hotels of Springfield were filled with gentlemen who came with light baggage and heavy schemes. The party had never been in office. A clean sweep of the ‘ins’ was expected, and all the ‘outs’ were patriotically anxious to take the vacant places. It was a party that had never fed; and it was vigorously hungry. Mr. Lincoln and Artemus Ward saw a great deal of fun in it; and in all human probability it was the fun alone that enabled Mr. Lincoln to bear it.”
