interregum

Updated: May 27, 2025

Lincoln himself: that it was not wise to swap horses while crossing the stream. The process was especially dangerous in a country where the change would involve a practical interregum of one third of a year. The nation had learned this lesson, and had paid dearly enough for the schooling, too, in the four months of its waiting to get rid of Buchanan, after it had discredited him and all his ways.

John Torrey Morse - Abraham Lincoln, Volume II