"
Abraham Lincoln took the helm of government in more dangerous times and
under more difficult and embarrassing circumstances than any of the
fifteen presidents who preceded him. The ship of Union was built and
launched and first commanded by Washington.
"He knew what master laid her keel,
What workmen wrought her ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of her hope."
The men whom he chose as her first crew were those who had helped to
form her model. During succeeding generations inefficient hands were
occasionally shipped to take the place of worn-out members of the
original crew. Often the vessel was put out of her course to serve the
personal ends of this or that sailor, and ere long mutiny broke out
among her passengers, headed by John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina.
Finally, a man ignorant in the science of astronomy and navigation,
feeble alike in heart and arm, became, nominally, commander, but really
the cat's-paw, of his crew, at whose bidding the ship was steered. When
Abraham Lincoln was called to the helm he found the once stanch, strong
vessel in a leaky, damaged condition, with her compasses deranged, her
rudder broken, and the luminous star by which Washington guided his
course dimmed by a cloud of disunion and doubt.
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