He could not afford by imprudent forwardness of speech or premature declaration of measures to increase the embarrassment which already surrounded him.

"Let us do one thing at a time and the big things first" was his homely but expressive way of indicating the wisdom of his course.
A man of ordinary courage would have been overwhelmed by the task before him.

But Mr.Lincoln possessed a certain calmness, firmness, and faith that enabled him to meet any responsibility, and to stand unappalled in any peril.

He reached Washington by a night journey, taken secretly much against his own will and to his subsequent chagrin and mortification, but urged upon him by the advice of those in whose judgment and wisdom he was forced to confide.

It is the only instance in Mr.Lincoln's public career in which he did not patiently face danger, and to the end of his life he regretted that he had not, according to his own desire, gone through Baltimore in open day, trusting to the hospitality of the city, to the loyalty of its people, to the rightfulness of his cause and the righteousness of his aims and ends.