Other Presidents have entered upon their high office with a
certain modesty and distrust. Washington in his Inaugural Address
declared his “anxieties,” also his sense of “the magnitude and
difficulty of the trust,” “awakening a distrustful scrutiny into his
qualifications.”[114] Jefferson, in his famous Inaugural, so replete
with political wisdom, after declaring his “sincere consciousness that
the task is above his talents,” says: “I approach it with those anxious
and awful presentiments which the greatness of the charge and the
weakness of my powers so justly inspire, … and humble myself before the
magnitude of the undertaking.”[115]
Our soldier, absolutely untried in civil life, entirely a new man,
entering upon the sublimest duties, before which Washington and
Jefferson had shrunk, said in his Inaugural: “The responsibilities
of the position I feel, but _accept them without fear_.”[116] Great
predecessors, with ample preparation for the responsibilities,
had shrunk back with fear. He had none. Either he did not see the
responsibilities, or the Cæsar began to stir in his bosom.