attempt of any European power to overthrow by force, or to supplant by fraud, the institutions of any republican Government on the Western Continent, and that they will view with extreme jealousy, as menacing to the peace and independence of this, our country, the efforts of any such power to obtain new footholds for monarchical Governments, sustained by a foreign military force in near proximity to the United States."

After the adoption of the resolutions, which was done unanimously and with great enthusiasm, came the balloting for a Presidential candidate. At the first ballot, Mr. Lincoln received every vote, except twenty-two from Missouri, which, under instructions, were given for General Grant. Mr. Lincoln received four hundred and ninety-seven votes, and on motion of Mr. Hume, one of the Missouri delegates, his nomination was made unanimous, amidst intense excitement. In the contest for Vice-President, Andrew Johnson of Tennessee received on the final vote, 492; Hon. D. L. Dickerson of New York, 17; Vice-President Hamlin, 9. The National Executive Committee was then appointed, and the Convention adjourned.

On the 9th of June the committee appointed (one from each State, in which Hon. John Bidwell represented California), to inform Mr. Lincoln of his nomination, waited upon him at the White House. Governor Dennison, President of the Convention, and Chairman of the committee, made the address and handed him a copy of the platform. The President said in reply: 66 Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Committee-I will neither conceal my gratification nor restrain the expression of my gratitude that the Union people, through their Convention, in the continued effort to save and advance the Nation, have deemed me not unworthy to remain in my present position. I know no reason to doubt that I shall accept the nomination tendered, and yet perhaps I should not declare definitely before reading and considering what is called the platform. I will say now, however, that I approve the declaration in favor of so amending the constitution as to prohibit slavery throughout the Nation. When the people in revolt with the hundred days explicit notice, that they could, within those days, resume their allegiance without the overthrow of their institutions, and that they could not resume it afterward, elected to stand out, such an amendment of the constitution as is now proposed becomes a fitting and necessary conclusion to the final success of the Union cause. I now perceive its importance and embrace it. Such alone can meet and cover all cavils in the joint names of liberty and union. Let us labor to give it legal form and practical effect. Having served four years in the depths of a great and unended National peril, I can view this call to a second term in nowise more flattering to myself than as an expression of the public judgment that I may better finish a difficult work,

in which I have labored from the first, than could anyone else less severely schooled to the task. In this view, and with assured reliance on the Almighty Ruler, who has so graciously sustained us so far, and with increased gratitude to the generous people for their continued confidence, I accept the renewed trust, with its onerous and perplexing duties and responsibilities."

On the same day, a deputation from the National Union League waited upon the President, and the Chairman addressed him as follows: "Mr. President-I have the honor of introducing to you the representatives of the Union League of the loyal States, to congratulate you on your nomination, and to assure you that we will not fail at the polls to give you the support that your services in the past so highly deserve. We feel honored in doing this, for we are assured that we are aiding in re-electing to the proud position of President of the United States one so highly worthy of it, one among not the least of whose claims is that he was the emancipator of four millions of bondmen."

The President replied as follows: "Gentlemen-I can only say in response to the remarks of your Chairman that I am very grateful for the renewed confidence which has been accorded to me, both by the Convention and by the National League. I am not insensible at all to the personal compliment there is in this, yet I do not allow myself to believe that any but a small portion of it is to be appropriated as a personal compliment. The Convention and the Nation, I am assured, are alike animated by a higher view of the interests of the country for the present and the great future, and the part I am entitled to appropriate as a compliment is only that part which I may lay hold of as being the opinion of the Convention and the League, that I am not entirely unworthy to be interested with the place I have occupied for the last three years. I have not permitted myself, gentlemen, to conclude that I am the best man in the country, but I am reminded in this connection of a story of an old Dutch farmer, who remarked to a companion once: "That it was not best to swap horses when crossing a stream.'"

On the evening of the same day the President was serenaded by the delegation from Ohio, and with them a large crowd had assembled in front of the Executive Mansion, and at the close of a brief speech, the President said: "What we want more than Baltimore Conventions or Presidential elections, is success under General Grant. I propose that you constantly bear in mind that the support you owe to the brave officers and soldiers in the field is of the very first importance, and we should therefore bend all our energies to that point. Now, without detaining you any longer, I propose that you help me to close up what I am now saying, with three rousing cheers for General Grant and the officers and soldiers under his command." The three rousing cheers were given with a will, the President himself leading off and waving his hat as earnestly as anyone present.

CHAPTER XLIII.

PRESIDENTIAL CANVASS, 1864.

Two months after the nomination of President Lincoln for the second term by the Baltimore Convention, the Democratic Convention was to convene in Chicago. The object in deferring said Convention to so late a date was evidently with the hope and possibility that the events of the war and disasters in the military operations, then in progress, would give that Convention the policy of taking issues with the administration as to the further prosecution of the war for the suppression of the rebellion. During the period that intervened between the time of holding the two Conventions there was for a short time after the nomination of Mr. Lincoln a firm belief in the favorable results of the campaign. But later in the canvass, before the meeting of the Democratic Convention, the friends of the administration became despondent and a spirit of anxiety and unrest seemed to pervade the friends of the President, and there was evidently for a time a distrust of the future and a question of the propriety of the choice that had been made. Politicians could not give any reason or cause for this state of public feeling, but it was evidently in part from a feeling of consciousness that the people were becoming tired and restive under the constant calls for men and material for the prosecution of the war, the end of which could not be seen or anticipated.

There were still divisions in the Republican party on questions of public interest, but they gave the President but little trouble or concern. The friends of the administration, however, feared that those dissensions would have an unfavorable result on the pending canvass. The most serious division in the Republican ranks was on the plan of reconstruction of the rebel States. Early in July, Congress passed a plan of reconstruction which was embodied in a bill passed after much debate and heated discussion. In the advocacy and preparation of this bill, Henry W. Davis of Maryland, and Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio, prominent Republicans, were eminently and prominently active in procuring its passage. The President's views on that subject were not fully in accord with some of its provisions, and it did not

meet with his approval. Immediately after the adjournment of Congress the President issued a proclamation on the subject, in which he stated that he was unprepared by his approval of the bill to commit the administration to any single act or method of reconstruction or to set aside the Union State Governments then in force in Arkansas and Louisiana. He was, however, willing that the plan embodied in the bill should be recognized as one with others, and so made the bill a part of his proclamation. This action of the President offended Messrs. Davis and Wade, who joined in a bitter, offensive article against the President, and published the same in the New York Tribune. In its strictures on the President's motives, it was a paper unworthy of its authors, and gave much pain and anxiety to the friends of the administration.

The growing solicitude of the people for peace and the suppression of the rebellion gave much anxiety and serious thought to the President. One of the many efforts that was made by the rebels and their friends in the loyal States was to create a sentiment and conviction with the people that the Government and its supporters were not anxious for peace, and that it did not accept and improve the opportunities that were offered to promote this result. The President had no evidence that the Rebel Confederacy desired peace on any conditions or terms that would be satisfactory or acceptable to the loyal citizens of the Union. To secure a peace the President could entertain no proposition that did not fully provide for the restoration of the Union under the constitution, and the abolition of slavery. These were essential conditions which the President could not ignore without being recreant to the great trust reposed in him, and to the solemn oath he had taken, and to the loyal citizens and soldiers who had given their treasure and lives to save the Union. Efforts in this direction were made from Niagara Falls in July by two noted rebels, C. C. Clay of Alabama, and Jacob Thompson of Mississippi. They claimed that they were duly authorized by the rebel Confederacy to negotiate a peace. They, through Horace Greeley, endeavored to obtain a safe conduct to Washington from the President for that purpose. In answer to the letter of Mr. Greeley, the President replied: "If you can find any person anywhere professing to have any proposition of Jefferson Davis in writing embracing the restoration of the Union and abandonment of slavery, whatever else it embraces, say to him that he may come to me with you.”

In a letter of a later date by the President to Mr. Greeley, the President said: "I am disappointed that you have not already reached here with those commissioners. If they would consent to come on being shown my letter to you of the 9th instant, show that and this to them, and if they will consent to come on the terms stated in the former, bring them. I not only intend a sincere effort for peace, but I intend that you shall be a personal witness that

it is made." With this letter from the President, Mr. Greeley repaired to Niagara Falls, and informed the said commissioners in a note that if they were duly commissioned from Richmond as bearers of propositions for peace he was ready and authorized to give them permission to visit Washington and to accompany them. In reply to this note of Mr. Greeley's, the self-styled commissioners stated that the safe conduct by the President had been given under a misapprehension of the case, and further, they now stated that they had no authority from the Confederate Government for negotiating a peace. They stated, however, that they were in the service of that Government, and were familiar with its wishes, and that they could be invested with power to act as commissioners. It appears that Mr. Greeley had not informed the commissioners of the terms of Mr. Lincoln's letter of the 9th, in which a safe conduct was for those who had propositions for peace conditioned upon the restoration of the Union and the abolition of slavery. In order that the President should not be misunderstood, on the 18th he sent Major Hay to Niagara with the following letter:

"EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, July 18, 1864.

"To Whom It May Concern: Any proposition which embraces the restoration of the whole Union, and the abolishment 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,"

This letter of the President gave the would-be commissioners plain and undisguised terms in which propositions for peace would be received from the rebel Government, and they having no authority to negotiate, proceeded to impugn the conduct of the President, and charged him with being adverse to negotiations for peace, and that in the actions of the President with them there was evidently no desire to open negotiations for that object. This letter was addressed to Mr. Greeley and published in the New York Tribune and all the papers in sympathy with the rebellion. The President was not willing at that time to have all the correspondence in relation to the subject published, as a portion he thought would have an unfavorable effect on the result of the war. Efforts were made to create the impression that the President had not pursued an honorable course with the irresponsible embassadors, and that instead of inviting proposals for peace, his conduct had repelled the same. As Mr. Greeley declined to have the correspondence published unless that portion which the President thought would be improper