There were gathered the Justices of the Supreme Court, both Houses of Congress, the representatives of foreign nations, and a vast concourse of citizens from all sections of the Union. There were Chase, and Seward, and Sumner, and Breckinridge, and Douglas, who was near the President, and was observed eagerly looking over the crowd, not unconscious of the personal danger of his great and successful rival. Mr. Lincoln was so absorbed with the gravity of the occasion and the condition of his country, that he utterly forgot himself, and there was observed a dignity, which sprung from a mind entirely engrossed with public duties. He was perfectly cool, and stepping to the eastern colonnade of the Capitol, that voice, which had been often heard by tens of thousands on the prairies of the West, now read in clear and ringing tones his inaugural. On the threshold of war, he made a last appeal for peace. He declared his fixed resolve, firm as the everlasting rocks: "_I shall take care that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in every State_." Yet his great, kind heart yearned for peace, and as he approached the close, his voice faltered with emotion. "I am loath to close," said he; "we are _not_ enemies, but friends; we must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break the bonds of affection. The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot's grave, to every living heart and hearthstone over all this broad land, will yet swell with the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." Alas! these appeals for peace were received by those to whom they were addressed with coarse ribaldry, with sneers and jeers, and all the savage and barbarous passions which riot in blood. Lincoln was somewhat slow to learn that it was to force only--stern, unflinching force--that treason would yield. And now opened that terrible civil war which has no parallel in history. Space will not permit me to follow the President through those long and terrible days of victory and defeat, to final triumph. Through all, Lincoln was firm, constant, hopeful, sagacious, wise, confiding always in God, and in the people. THE THIRTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS.