one had anticipated. In the election that took place on 8 Nov., 1864, he received 2,216,000 votes, and Gen. McClellan 1,800,000. The difference in the electoral vote was still greater, Mr. Lincoln being supported by 212 of the presidential electors, while only 21 voted for McClellan.

President Lincoln's second inaugural address, delivered on 4 March, 1865, will forever remain not only one of the most remarkable of all his public utterances, but will also hold a high rank among the greatest state papers that history has preserved. As he neared the end of his career, and saw plainly outlined before him the dimensions of the vast moral and material success that the nation was about to achieve, his thoughts, always predisposed to an earnest and serious view of life, assumed a fervor and exaltation like that of the ancient seers and prophets. The speech that he delivered to the vast concourse at the eastern front of the capitol is the briefest of all the presidential addresses in our annals; but it has not its

equal in lofty eloquence and austere morality. The usual historical view of the situation, the ordinary presentment of the intentions of the government, seemed matters too trivial to engage the concern of a mind standing, as Lincoln's apparently did at this moment, face to face with the most tremendous problems of fate and moral responsibility. In the briefest words he announced what had been the cause of the war, and how the government had hoped to

bring it to an earlier close. With passionless candor he admitted that neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration it had attained. "Each looked for an easier triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding"; and, passing into a strain of rhapsody, which no lesser mind and character could ever dare to imitate, he said: "Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces. But let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered;

principal.

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that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. 'Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh.' If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offences, which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both north and south this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan-to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations."

The triumphant election of Mr. Lincoln, no less than the steady progress of the National armies, convinced some of the more intelligent of the southern leaders that their cause was hopeless, and that it would be prudent to ascertain what terms of peace could be made before the utter destruction of their military power. There had been already several futile attempts at opening negotiations; but they had all failed of necessity, because neither side was willing even to consider the only terms that the other side would offer. There had never been a moment when Mr. Lincoln would have been willing to receive propositions of peace on any other basis than the recognition of the national integrity, and Mr. Davis steadfastly refused to the end to admit the possibility of the restoration of the national authority. In July, certain unauthorized persons in Canada, having persuaded Horace Greeley that negotiations might be opened through them with the Confederate authorities,

Mr. Lincoln despatched the great editor to Niagara Falls, and sent an open letter addressed, "To whom it may concern." It is in the possession of Mr. William H. Appleton, of New York. This document put an end to the negotiation. The Confederate emissaries in Canada and their principals in Richmond, made no use of this incident except to employ the president's letter as a text for denunciation of the National government. But later in the year, the hopelessness of the struggle having become apparent to some of the Confederate leaders, Mr. Davis was at last induced to send an embassy to Fortress Monroe, to inquire what terms of adjustment were possible. They were met by President Lincoln and the secretary of state in person. The plan proposed was one that had been suggested, on his own responsibility, by Mr. Francis Preston Blair, of Washington, in an interview he had been permitted to hold with Mr. Davis in Richmond, that the two armies should unite in a campaign against the French in Mexico for the enforcement of the Monroe doctrine, and that the issues of the war should be postponed for future settlement. The president declined peremptorily to entertain this scheme, and repeated again the only conditions to which he could listen: The restoration of the national authority throughout all the states, the maintenance and execution of all the acts of the general government in regard to slavery, the cessation of hostilities, and the disbanding of the insurgent forces as a necessary prerequisite to the ending of the war. The Confederate agents reported at Richmond the failure of their embassy, and Mr. Davis denounced the conduct of President Lincoln in a public address full of desperate defiance. Neverthless, it was evident even to the most prejudiced observers that the war could not continue much longer. Sherman's march had demonstrated the essential weakness of the Confederate cause; the soldiers of the Confederacy-who for four years, with the most stubborn gallantry, had maintained a losing fight-began to show signs of dangerous discouragement and insubordination; recruiting had ceased. some time before, and desertion was going on rapidly. The army of Gen. Lee, which was the last bulwark of the Confederacy, still held its lines stoutly against the gradually enveloping lines of Grant; but their valiant commander knew it was only a question of how many days he could hold his works, and repeatedly counselled the government at Richmond to evacu