March 1, 1861; The New York Herald
In this transition interval between the outgoing and the incoming administrations, when old things are to be done away with, old parties, old principles, old platforms, old politicians, old office holders, old lobby and kitchen favorites, old tricksters and hucksters, old fashions and old clothes, old kettles, pots and pans, and when all things are to be new, and when ‘Old Abe’ is expected to play the regenerative role of Louis Napoleon, he would indeed be a dull scholar if he had not already learned that he has a tough job upon his hands. According to our information he is at last wide awake to the exigencies and the necessities of his position. He is the rising sun and the living lion of Washington, for within a day or two Mr. Buchanan will be on the same private calendar with our meditative ex-Presidents, Van Buren and Tyler, and Fillmore and poor Pierce; and all the power and all the spoils in reversion that have not been lost, stolen, or carried off, or given away, will fall into the hands of ‘Old Abe.’
But what is the condition of things before him in Washington, in this busy interregnum to the ins who are preparing to go out, and to the outs who are pushing to get in? Dreadful to contemplate. Office seekers, retainers, drummers, pipelayers, kitchen scullions and scamps of both factions swarm around the royal pavilion. A hard fight, a long siege, a long fast and hard times, have multiplied these camp followers by thousands, and they are now gathered and are gathering in Washington like jackals, wolves and buzzards in the wake of a wasted army.
All these expectants of spoils and plunder are barking, howling and scratching at the door of the new fountain of power. Mr. Lincoln stands at bay like a man in a dream. Which way shall he fly? To the Capital? The regular troops which daily parade the streets–infantry, draggoons and artillery–under the regulations of General Scott, admonish the President elect that treason is still afoot, and that he had better keep within doors. No Guy Fawkes has yet been detected, fixing his thirty six barrels of gunpowder under the portico of the Capitol, where the inauguration is to take place; but where there is so much smoke there must be some fire. It cannot be that five or six thousand men under arms in Washington for the last month, and all the police arrangements from that city to this, and the mysterious midnight visiter to Mr. Lincoln at Philadelphia, and ‘Old Abe’ ride by night, in that Scotch cap and long military cloak, from Harrisburg, are chargeable entirely to foolish fears and inventions. No. In addition to republican mutinics, Mr. Lincoln has to confront the dangers of revolutionary conspiracies, desperate secessionists, remorseless fire eaters and revengeful democrats, expelled from the rich pickings of the Treasury.
All the revolutionary sections and factions, and causes and consequences, North and South, being now represented in Washington, it is the very place and time for the President elect to comprehend the task before him; for all these discordant elements are pressing around him, hoping, promising, protesting and cursing and swearing. Meantime the poor people of Washington cry out to these political disorganizers, like the frogs in the fable, that thought this business of throwing stones be sport to your, it is death to us. ‘’Our property goes for nothing; we have nothing to do, nothing to sell, nothing with which to buy: we are under a military despotism, and Northern and Southern fire eaters threaten to level our city to the dust. With all the troops quartered amongst us, and with all the police arrangements of Superintendent Kennedy, of New York, we cannot walk the streets alone by night for fear of reckless traitors, robbers and murderers. We are suffering the combined evils of martial law and unbridled ruffianism. Our streets and sinks are infested with gamblers, pickpockets, burglars, robbers and soldiers. Are these thing to be our portion? Mr. Lincoln, we look to you for relief. Save us, or we shall be destroyed.’
Such are the difficulties, the materials and the grievances which Mr. Lincoln in Washington realized as the troubles which afflict, or which threaten to afflict, the whole country and every section of the country, unless he shall open up the way of deliverance. What a picture for this late united, great and prosperous confederacy. Here we are–the people of these United States–advanced in seventy years to a pitch of prosperity, population, wealth and power unequaled by any other nation with seven hundred years of development; here we are, suddenly, from the midst of our high career, reduced to a degree of demoralization, dissolution and anarchy which excited the commiseration of the civilized world. Whence this sudden fall from greatness and glory to degradation and the verge of destruction? In a few brief words, we answer, our unscrupulous, vagabond politicians, North and South, have brought on this fearful crisis of discords and dissolution upon the country. It is the work, and the work only, of our detestable vagabond politicians of the last forty years. Yes; for forty years, North and South, our scheming, traitorous approaches to this sudden combined assault upon the very citadel of our free institutions, and are still pushing on their work of rule or ruin.
And the remedy? It devolves upon the incoming administration. Mr. Lincoln has a vivid epitome of the troubles and dangers of the country before his eyes in Washington. Let us hope that he will be equal to the task assigned him in behalf of the Union and in behalf of peace.