was not by any means soundly in favor of the war for the Union, but was not strong enough to set up for itself. When, therefore, the Democratic National Convention met at Chicago, August 27th, 1864, and nominated General George B. McClellan for President, with George H. Pendleton for VicePresident, all that its extreme Copperhead membership could do was to give the convention and its platform a tone which was distasteful to its own nominee and aided in assuring his defeat at the polls. It would have been worth many votes to have simply named the general without any platform what

ever.

Mr. Lincoln's letter of acceptance was brief, its most important point having reference to the attitude of the Administration with reference to the French in Mexico.

What promised to be the most effective political outcry of the Opposition, was its assertion that Mr. Lincoln was not willing to consider and grant such terms of peace with the Confederacy as the nation, or, at least, the Democratic part of it, might deem entirely admissible. An effort to create or increase an impression of this kind was made in July, some weeks before the Chicago Convention assembled. It was made to appear that a pair of authorized Peace Commissioners were in Canada, near the line, waiting to present propositions from the Confederate Government. One of the President's secretaries, Major John Hay, was sent to investigate the matter, and he found two zealous gentlemen from the South, but they were merely a political experiment.

They were of value in presenting an opportunity for publishing to the nation, through the instructions carried by Major Hay, the exact attitude of the President. These were in the following form:

"To whom it may concern:

Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery, and which comes by and with an authority that can control the armies now at war against the United States, will be received and considered by the Executive Government of the United States, and will be met on liberal terms on substantial and collateral points; and the bearer or bearers thereof shall have safe conduct both ways."

The commissioners bore nothing of the kind, and they went away disgusted, while the Opposition organs made the best they could of the matter, but the people, generally, decided that the kind of peace described by Mr. Lincoln was the precise thing they were fighting for and paying for.

Even timid Republican politicians were startled when, on July 18th, the President issued a call for five hundred thousand more volunteers, adding that all deficiencies would be made up by conscription. It was a very stern announcement of the basis upon which he proposed to be re-elected or defeated, and of his own perception of the shortest and surest road to peace. The people took him at his word, and all the while the advices from the army strengthened his hands. There were Union reverses here and there, for the Confederate leaders made their last campaigns with the energy of desperation and with unsurpassed ability.

The Opposition contested every point with a freedom of speech and of the press which robbed them of their sharpest protest against "the Lincoln despotism." They belittled Union victories and magnified Confederate successes, while declaiming with much justice against the waste, the favoritism, and the corruption incident to so vast a civil and military establishment, but for which the President could not justly be held responsible. The November election came at last, and it was found that the States in which it was held contained over four million of voters. Of these, a majority of more than four hundred thousand sustained Mr. Lincoln, giving him two hundred and thirty-three electoral votes against twenty-one secured by McClellan and Pendleton. These latter came from Kentucky and Delaware, old slave States, and from New Jersey. There could be no question of Mr. Lincoln's constitutional title, for he had a majority of a full electoral college of all the States.

The result had been generally expected by the nation, and had never been doubted by Mr. Lincoln. It was a stunning blow to any remaining hope entertained by the Confederacy. Another was given, a few weeks later, by the utter defeat, at Nashville, of its last important army in the West, and by the beginning of General Sherman's "march to the

sea.

All the operations of the forces were now under the unquestioned management of General Grant. The military authority was more subordinate than ever to the civil Executive, because the President

had found a general who perfectly embodied his own view of the use to be made of the superior resources of the National Government. General Grant's own words, in a letter to the President, set forth admirably the relations between them. He

wrote:

"From my first entrance into the volunteer service of my country to the present day, I have never had cause of complaint. Indeed, since the promotion which placed me in command of all the armies, and in view of the great responsibility and importance of success, I have been astonished at the readiness with which everything asked for has been yielded without even an explanation being asked."

The Congress which assembled on December 5th, 1864, was in full accord with Mr. Lincoln. Its Opposition membership, with few exceptions, professed a desire for a vigorous prosecution of the war, reserving and exercising its utmost right of criticism of every measure proposed or adopted by the Administration.

The Message of the President was laid before Congress on the 6th, and contained a great deal of interesting and encouraging material, but its most important request was for the adoption of an Amendment to the Constitution, forever prohibiting slavery. An effort in that direction made in the previous Congress had failed, in strange evidence of the morbid timidity of the American people upon the subject of the supposed right of one man to buy or sell another.

Never yet had the President given to any meas

ure before Congress the open, pronounced, ceaseless advocacy which he now gave to that amendment, declaring it the one thing needful. When at last it became a part of the fundamental law of the land, it was but the ultimate extinction" he had looked forward to from the platform of the Bloomington Convention.

On February 3d, 1865, something like an effort to open negotiations for peace was made, in an informal conference, on a steamer in Hampton Roads, between the President and Mr. Seward, for the United States, and Alexander H. Stephens, Robert M. T. Hunter, and J. A. Campbell, for the Confederacy. These gentlemen presented no written proposition. They desired an armistice, as between two independent powers, during which both were to reduce armaments while discussing terms of permanent peace. At this point the conference broke down, no matter what other points were made or suggested or what arguments sustained them. Recognition of the Confederacy as a treaty-making power would have been yielding all that the nation was contending for, since it would have included all else. Moreover, the Southern commissioners possessed no authority for negotiations which did not assume that recognition, and the effort was necessarily abandoned.

Sherman's army had reached the coast and was now sweeping steadily northward. Charleston, the birthplace of the war, was already garrisoned by Union troops. The Army of the Potomac, after a series of terrific battles, was closing slowly in upon