president lincoln found himself placed at the head of a looted government on the sharp edge of a crisis that had not been properly upholstered. the buchanan cabinet had left little except a burglar's tool or two here and there to mark its operations, and, with the aged and infirm general scott at the head of a little army, and no encouragement except from the abolitionists, many of whom had never seen a colored man outside of a minstrel performance, the president stole incog. into washington, like a man who had agreed to lecture there.