some important events in connection with the President and the war, have been omitted. It was during the summer of 1864, and before the victories we have mentioned had relieved the anxiety of the people, that Mr. Lincoln was induced by Mr. Greeley to have some correspondence with Confederate agents in Canada. The Confederates were represented by Messrs. C. C. Clay of Alabama, James B. Holcombe of Virginia, and George N. Saunders. These emmissaries were there for purposes, and movements, some of which were of a character entirely outside of the legitimate operations of war.

Expeditions to rob and plunder banks, over the border, to fire Northern cities, have been clearly traced to them, and there is evidence tending to connect them with crimes of a still graver, and darker character. By some means, they succeeded in creating the impression upon that good, but somewhat credulous and sometimes indiscreet man, Horace Greeley, that these agents were deserving of attention, and that it would be wise to confer with them. He wrote to the President on the 7th of July, a letter in which he said: *

"I venture to remind you that our bleeding, bankrupt, almost dying country also longs for peace-shudders at the prospect of fresh conscriptions, of further wholesale devastations; and of new rivers of human blood. * * * "I fear Mr. President, you do not realize how intently the people desire any peace, consistent with the National integrity and honor, and how joyously they would hail its achievement and bless its authors."

He begged and entreated Mr. Lincoln to extend safe conduct to the rebel emissaries, then at Niagara, that they might exhibit their credentials and submit their ultimatum. Mr. Lincoln believed at that time, that the best means of obtaining peace, was by destroying the rebel armies. That Grant, and Sherman, Sheridan and Farragut, were doing more to bring it about, than could be accomplished by any negotiations to which he was thus so urgently entreated. He doubted whether these agents had any authority; but Mr. Greeley was a prominent political friend, a man of the purest and most

* Raymond s Life of Lincoln, etc., p. 572-3.

patriotic purposes, and Mr. Lincoln, thought he would convince him of his own desire for peace, and expose what he believed to be the deceptive character of these agents. He therefore in reply to Mr. Greeley, said:

"If you can find any person, anywhere, professing to have any proposition of Jefferson Davis, in writing, for peace, embracing the restoration of the Union, and abandonment of slavery, whatever else it embraces; say to him he may come to me with you."

In another letter the President said, "I not only intend a sincere effort for peace, but that you shall be a personal witness that it is made."

Mr. Greeley, on the 13th of July, wrote again to the President, saying:

"I have now information on which I can rely, that two persons, duly commissioned and empowered to negotiate for peace, are at this moment not far from Niagara Falls, in Canada, and are desirous of conferring with yourself, or with such persons as you may appoint and empower to treat with them."

He then gave their names, etc. It turned out that Mr. Greeley had been entirely deceived. That the rebel agents in Canada had no authority whatever to treat for peace. Mr. Greeley, on the 18th of July, says: "I have communicated with the gentlemen in question and do not find them so empowered as I was previously assured." But he seems to be unconcious of the deception practised upon him, and still desirous that that they should be permitted to visit Washington under the President's safe conduct. Mr. Lincoln, despatched his private Secretary, Major Hay, to New York, with the following note:

"To whom it may concern:

"EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 18, 1864.

"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 the 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 by liberal terms on other substantial, and collateral points, and the bearer or bearers thereof, shall have safe conduct both ways.

"ABRAHAM LINCOLN."

Mr. Greeley was authorized by Mr. Lincoln in his letter of July 9th, to tender the Confederate agents safe conduct, only upon the condition that they professed to have a proposition of Jefferson Davis in writing, for peace, embracing the restoration of the Union, and abandonment of slavery. But it seems he did not communicate this to the rebel agents. Mr. Greeley was entrapped, and did not discover it. Mr. Lincoln, feeling the injustice which a partial publication of this correspondence did to him, and to the country, asked Mr. Greeley to permit the whole correspondence to be published, omitting certain passages in Mr. Greeley's letters which were calculated in his judgment, to injure and depress the country. Mr. Greeley declined, unless the whole was published, and Mr. Lincoln with characteristic magnanimity, submitted in silence to the injustice, writing the following letter to Mr. Raymond: *

"EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, August 15, 1864.

"Hon. HENRY J. RAYMOND:

My Dear Sir:-I have proposed to Mr. Greeley that the Niagara correspondence be published, suppressing only the parts of his letters over which the red pencil is drawn in the copy, which I herewith send. He declines giving his consent to the publication of his letters, unless these parts be published with the rest. I have concluded that it is better for me to submit for the time, to the consequences of the false position in which I consider he has placed me, than to subject the country to the consequences of publishing these discouraging and injurious parts. I send you this, and the accompanying copy, not for publication, but merely to explain to you, and that you may preserve them until their proper time shall come."

"Yours truly,

"ABRAHAM LINCOLN."

The rebels, under John Morgan, made a desperate raid into Kentucky, and although checked and defeated by General Burbridge at Cynthiana, received so much encouragement and sympathy from the citizens, that Mr. Lincoln felt compelled to suspend the writ of Habeas Corpus, and declare martial law in that State.

* Raymond's Life of Lincoln, p, 587.

The Presidential election approached, coming now in the midst of a civil war, which wrapt the whole country, and aroused everywhere the most intense and violent passions; it was felt that it was a fearful ordeal through which the country must pass. The Confederates still held their Capital; three great rebel armies still held the field; the public debt was steadily and rapidly increasing. Under the pressure of an imperative military necessity, the administration had used its Constitutional right of suspending the Habeas Corpus, the great safeguard of civil liberty; aad dealt with individuals deemed dangerous, with a severity as absolute as the most energetic governments of Europe had been accustomed to do in time of war. Taxes were increasing; the President ordered new drafts to fill up the ranks of the decimated armies. But yet victory, a restored Union, and universal liberty, began to be clearly visible as the results. The democratic party availed itself of every means to secure popular favor and success at the elections. It was in the midst of the conflict, when the administration was straining every nerve to crush the rebellion, that the Democratic National Convention had met at Chicago, and declared the war a failure, and demanded that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, etc. The following is the important resolution upon which the election turned.

"Resolved, That this Convention does explicitly declare, as the sense of American people, that after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which, under the pretense of military necessity, or war power, higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the material prosperity of the country essentially impaired; justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate Convention of the States or other peaceable means, to the end that, at the earliest practicable moment peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the States." *

The Union War party joyfully accepted the issue thus boldly tendered. With this frank avowal, they did not doubt

Raymond's Life of Lincoln, p. 592.

they will real

the result, and they prosecuted the canvass with energy and confidence. Whether the war should go on with vigor, to the complete and final overthrow of slavery and the rebellion, or whether hostilities should cease, was the condition of the canvass. With this great and overshadowing issue, the people cared little for the wrangling over the petty questions which arise in a Presidential canvass.

The President sought no disguise that the war was now "for liberty and Union." He said during the canvass to

a citizen of the West, in substance: "There are now in the service of the United States nearly two hundred thousand colored men, most of them under arms. The Democratic strategy demands that these forces be disbanded, and that the masters be conciliated by restoring them to slavery. The black men who now fight for us, and who assist Union prisoners to escape, are to be converted into our enemies in the vain hope of gaining the good will of their masters." "Take" said he, "200,000 men from our side, and put them in the battle-field or corn-field against us, and we would be compelled to abandon the war. There are men base enough to propose to me to return to slavery our black warriors of Port Hudson and Olustee, and thus win the respect of the masters they fought!" "Should I do so?" said he, with indignation glowing in every feature, "I should deserve to be damned in time and in eternity. Come what may," said he, "I will keep my faith with the black man. Freedom has given us 200,000 men raised on Southern soil. It will give us more.

No human power can subdue this rebellion without the emancipation policy. I will abide the issue." He did abide the issue, and the glorious cause of liberty, blessed by God, and sustained by the people, triumphed. The victories of Sheridan and Sherman, Farragut and Grant re-acted upon the people, and swelled the majority by which Lincoln was reelected. He received all the electoral votes given, except those of three States, New Jersey, Delaware and Kentucky. His majority on the popular vote was more than 400,000, a larger majority than was ever before given for any Presidential candidate. Those who feared the ordeal of a popular election in the midst of the passions of civil war, were compelled to acknowledge