He was painfully and profoundly impressed with the fearful responsibility that devolved upon him, but the first great attribute of his character developed by this discussion, or rather by his statements of the situation, was his unswerving fidelity to duty regardless of all personal or political interests, and even regardless of life itself. He well understood that armed rebellion was apparently inevitable, and that he must meet the most appalling peril that ever confronted our free government, and one for which neither the history of this Government nor of any other Government of the world furnished precedents to guide him in his course. The right of secession had been claimed and denied since the formation of the Constitution with almost equal ability and integrity, and there he was, crowned with the laurels of the highest trust of the civilized world, with the prospect of a nearly united South in rebellion, and the North divided—and intensely divided—as to the power of the Government to maintain the unity of the States by force. I heard Lincoln in this conversation but a short time before I discovered that he had but one purpose, from which no interests could swerve him, and that was to perform his duty with fidelity and accept the consequences. He felt that as a Republican President he would owe it to his party to give it the advantages of power; yet he understood that the Government could not be maintained without the co-operation of the Democrats. My next meeting with Lincoln was under circumstances well calculated to study his true character intelligently. I was one of a dozen or more who dined with him at what is now the Commonwealth Hotel in Harrisburg on the evening of the 22d of February, 1861. The dinner was given by Governor Curtin to the President-elect, and I believe that none of the guests are now living but myself. The story of Lincoln’s sudden departure on the memorable midnight journey to Washington from Harrisburg on that night has been many times told, and in no instance with entire correctness. He arrived in Philadelphia on the evening of February 21, and the published programme of his journey to Washington was from Philadelphia to Harrisburg on the 22d, and from Harrisburg to Washington by the Northern Central Railroad through Baltimore on the 23d. He was met in Philadelphia by Mr. Fenton, President of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, and by Pinkerton’s detectives, who informed him that he could not pass through Baltimore according to his published programme without inviting assassination, that had been deliberately planned; and the son of Senator Seward brought Lincoln a letter signed by Seward and General Scott, insisting that he should change his route, because he could not safely pass through Baltimore if the time of his coming were known.