considered or appreciated upon the principle of probabilities. Its merits must ever remain a matter of speculation only. The reasons, however, by which I was influenced in the premises, whatever weight they were entitled to then, at present, or hereafter, I will now proceed to state.

My opposition to the measure, it must be borne in mind, was not to the right or power of the State to secede, or to any want of conviction that she had ample cause to justify her in doing it, but solely to the expediency of the policy of resorting to that measure at the time, and under all the circumstances, then attending the questions involved.

PROF. NORTON. Did not a correspondence take place between you and Mr. Lincoln, after his election, upon this subject? It seems to me that I have heard that such a correspondence did take place, and that he had tendered you a place in his Cabinet.

MR. STEPHENS. There was a correspondence between us after his election, but not directly upon this subject, nor in any manner, whatever, connected with the subject of his Cabinet. That rumor, to whatever extent it prevailed, was utterly groundless; or if he ever addressed any communication to me on that subject, it never reached me. His correspondence with me was in reference to my Union speech on the 14th of November, 1860, to which Judge Bynum alluded at first: and as the reasons for my course upon this subject, which I was about to state, appear to a considerable extent in that speech, perhaps the better way would be to answer both your questions together, first, by exhibiting that correspondence, and then the speech to which it refers.

Here, then, is the correspondence about which the Professor inquired. It was given to the public for the first

time in Mr. Cleveland's book, to which I have alluded before.

Mr. Lincoln's injunction in his second letter (which I considered as applicable to the whole correspondence,) was strictly observed until the close of the war. No "eye" had ever seen his letters except my Private Secretaries' into whose hands they fell. Nor did I ever allude to the subject of any such correspondence between us, except to Messrs. Hunter and Campbell, as we were on our way to the famous Hampton Roads Conference. I mentioned it to them at that time, that they might be fully apprized of the personal relations existing between Mr. Lincoln and myself. He and I had been in Congress together. We had both opposed the policy of the Mexican war, and had both cordially co-operated together in the nomination and election of General Taylor to the Presidency in 1848, as the surest means of arresting a consummation of that policy. We succeeded in the eleotion, but not in the object. Neither Mr. Hunter nor Mr. Campbell knew much of Mr. Lincoln, except from his public acts, after his elevation to the Presidency. Personally, I knew him well, and esteemed him highly; and to them mentioned this correspondence as evidence of our kind relations, individually, anterior to the war.

With this explanation, I show you the letters. First, his autograph letter to me, and the copy I kept of my reply to him; then his second letter to me, and my reply to that: