The ways of Deity to man are indeed past finding out.

Why, the long and dreadful struggle of a kindred people, the awful bloodshed and havoc of four weary years, leaving us at the close measurably where we were at the beginning, is one of the mysteries which should prove to us that there is a world hereafter, since no great creative principle could produce one with so dire, with so short a span and nothing beyond.
III The change of parties wrought by the presidential election of 1860 and completed by the coming in of the Republicans in 1861 was indeed revolutionary.

When Mr.Lincoln had finished his inaugural address and the crowd on the east portico began to disperse, I reentered the rotunda between Mr.Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland, and Mr.John Bell, of Tennessee, two old friends of my family, and for a little we sat upon a bench, they discussing the speech we had just heard.
Both were sure there would be no war.

All would be well, they thought, each speaking kindly of Mr.Lincoln.They were among the most eminent men of the time, I a boy of twenty-one; but to me war seemed a certainty.

Recalling the episode, I have often realized how the intuitions of youth outwit the wisdom and baffle the experience of age.
I at once resigned my snug sinecure in the Interior Department and, closing my accounts of every sort, was presently ready to turn my back upon Washington and seek adventures elsewhere.
They met me halfway and came in plenty.