The fall of Washington at that moment would have had political consequences which no one realised better than Lincoln. It might well have led the Unionists in the border States to despair, and there is evidence that even then he so fully realised the task which lay before the North as to feel that the loss of Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri would have made it impossible. He was at heart intensely anxious, and quaintly and injudiciously relieved his feelings by the remark to the "6th Massachusetts" that he felt as if all other help were a dream, and they were "the only real thing." Yet those who were with him testify to his composure and to the vigour with which he concerted with his Cabinet the various measures of naval, military, financial, postal, and police preparation which the occasion required, but which need not here be detailed. Many of the measures of course lay outside the powers which Congress had conferred on the public departments, but the President had no hesitation in "availing himself," as he put it, "of the broader powers conferred by the Constitution in cases of insurrection," and looking for the sanction of Congress afterwards, rather than "let the Government at once fall into ruin." The difficulties of government were greatly aggravated by the uncertainty as to which of its servants, civil, naval, or military, were loyal, and the need of rapidly filling the many posts left vacant by unexpected desertion. Meanwhile troops from New England, and also from New York, which had utterly disappointed some natural expectations in the South by the enthusiasm of its rally to the Union, quickly arrived near Baltimore. They repaired for themselves the interrupted railway tracks round the city, and by April 25 enough soldiers were in Washington to put an end to any present alarm. In case of need, the law of "habeas corpus" was suspended in Maryland. The President had no wish that unnecessary recourse should be had to martial law. Naturally, however, one of his generals summarily arrested a Southern recruiting agent in Baltimore. The ordinary law would probably have sufficed, and Lincoln is believed to have regretted this action, but it was obvious that he must support it when done. Hence arose an occasion for the old Chief Justice Taney to make a protest on behalf of legality, to which the President, who had armed force on his side, could not give way, and thus early began a controversy to which we must recur. It was gravely urged upon Lincoln that he should forcibly prevent the Legislature of Maryland from holding a formal sitting; he refused on the sensible ground that the legislators could assemble in some way and had better not assemble with a real grievance in constitutional law. Then a strange alteration came over Baltimore. Within three weeks all active demonstration in favour of the South had subsided; the disaffected Legislature resolved upon neutrality; the Governor, loyal at heart--if