Lincoln’s inauguration on March 4, 1861

In a moment we’ll no longer have President-Elect, but President Donald Trump. There is no doubt Lincoln is the President that most of the modern Presidents, Republicans or Democrats, want to emulate.  So it is not entirely irrelevant to talk about Lincoln’s inauguration on March 4, 1861.

The NY Times reported that the largest crowd that Washington had ever seen for President Lincoln’s first inauguration in 1861; it was estimated that 7,350 people are in the view of this photo.

“many thousand citizens assembled in the grounds, filling the square and open space, and perching on every tree, fence or stone affording a convenient point from which to see or hear.”

However, Carl Sandburg wrote in “Abraham Lincoln: The War Years” that it was not a big crowd.

“Senator Douglas took a seat, and as he looked over the crowd could have said that he and Lincoln had spoken to larger audiences on the prairies of Illinois. This, however, was a more genteel crowd, and one comment ran that rather than a sea of upturned faces it was a sea of silk hats and white bosoms.”

We just saw that President Obama and First Lady, Michelle, waiting outside for the incoming President and First Lady to have a tea at White House.  In Lincoln’s days, it was President Buchanan went to pick up Lincoln who was staying at Willard’s Hotel (now InterContinental Hotel), two blocks from the White House.

I do not know what Obama said to Trump at the “tea party”; I do know what Buchana, with the Civil War looming, said to Lincoln, when they rode back to the Executive Mansion (President Theodore Roosevelt officially gave the White House its current name in 1901) after the inauguration,

“If you are as happy, my dear sir, on entering this house as I am leaving it and returning home, you are the happiest man in this country.”