His immunity thus far did not quiet the apprehensions of Lincoln’s friends, who took especial pains to prevent the interruption of his inauguration at any point. A temporary fence was built around the space immediately in front of the platform from which his address was to be delivered, and an enclosed alley of boards was constructed from the place where he would leave his carriage to the place where he would pass into the Capitol. On the morning of the fourth of March, armed men in citizen’s clothing were stationed on the roofs of all the buildings overlooking the main east portico, and others on and under its platform, while yet others mingled with the crowd of thirty thousand spectators that early assembled on the plaza. Batteries of light artillery were posted in commanding positions, with their cannon loaded and prepared to sweep any of several converging streets on the approach of a mob. Buchanan drove with Lincoln to the Capitol, and their carriage was surrounded by a hollow square of regular troops, in formation so dense that the occupants of the vehicle were scarcely visible from the sidewalk. Hannibal Hamlin, the Vice-president-elect, walked up from Willard’s Hotel, on purpose to hear what the people who lined the Avenue were saying. Their comments were, as a rule, far from friendly to the incoming administration, and some were distinctly ominous. Lincoln appeared very calm, in spite of the general atmosphere of excitement. Buchanan’s face was graver than usual, and he spoke little during the drive. When the party came upon the platform, Senator Baker of Oregon stepped forward and said simply, “Fellow citizens, I introduce to you Abraham Lincoln, President-elect of the United States”; and the tall, ungainly hero of the day advanced to the rail. He laid his manuscript, to which he had put the finishing touches at daybreak that morning, upon the little desk with his cane for a paper-weight, and looked about for somewhere to lay his high silk hat; Stephen A. Douglas, who was sitting near, reached for the hat and held it throughout the proceedings. Lincoln, after a brief pause, drew from his pocket a pair of steel-bowed spectacles, which he adjusted very deliberately, and began to read with a seriousness of manner that soon quenched all disposition to frivolity in his audience. The address was a plea for the preservation of that friendship between the North and the South which had been hallowed by their united warfare in the past against the enemies of their country, and ended thus: “Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every loving 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.”