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Lincoln's Cutting Reply to the Confederate Commission.

At a so-called "peace conference" procured by the voluntary and irresponsible agency of Mr. Francis P. Blair, which was held on the steamer River Queen, in Hampton Roads, on the 3d of February, 1865, between President Lincoln and Mr. Seward, representing the government, and Messrs. Alexander H. Stephens, J. A, Campbell and Mr. Hunter, representing the rebel confederacy, Mr Hunter replied that the recognition of Jeff. Davis' power was the first and indispensable step to peace; and, to illustrate his point, he referred to the correspondence between King Charles the First and his Parliament, as a reliable precedent of a constitutional ruler treating with rebels. Mr. Lincoln's face wore that indescribable expression which generally preceded his hardest hits; and he remarked:

"Upon questions of history I must refer you to Mr. Seward, for he is posted in such things, and I don't profess to be: but my only distinct recollection of the matter is that Charles lost his head !"

Mr. Hunter remarked, on the same occasion, that the slaves, always accustomed to work upon compulsion, under an overseer, would, if suddenly freed, precipitate not only themselves, but the entire society of the South, into irremediable ruin. No work would be done, but blacks and whites would starve together. The President waited for Mr. Seward to answer the argument, but, as that gentleman hesitated, he said:

"Mr. Hunter, you ought to know a great deal better about this matter than I, for you have always lived un

der the slave system. I can only say, in reply to your statement of the case, that it reminds me of a man out in Illinois, by the name of Case, who undertook, a few years ago to raise a very large herd of hogs. It was a great trouble to feed them; and how to get around this was a puzzle to him. At length he hit upon the plan of . planting an immense field of potatoes, and, when they were sufficiently grown, he turned the whole herd into the field and let them have full swing, thus saving not only the labor of feeding the hogs, but that also of digging the potatoes! Charmed with his sagacity, he stood one day leaning against the fence, counting his hogs, when a neighbor came along:

"Well, well,' said he, 'Mr. Case this is very fine. Your hogs are doing very well just now; but you know out here in Illinois the frost comes early, and the ground freezes a foot deep. Then what are they going to do?'

"This was a view of the matter which Mr. Case had not taken into account. Butchering time for hogs was away on in December or January. He scratched his head and at length stammered: 'Well, it may come pretty hard on their snouts, but I don't see but it will be root hog or die !'"

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Lincoln and Judge Baldwin.

Judge Baldwin, of California, being in Washington, called one day on General Halleck, and presuming upon a familiar acquaintance in California a few years before, solicited a pass outside of our lines to see a brother in Virginia, not thinking that he would meet with a refusal, as both his brother and himself were good Union men.

"We have been deceived too often," said General Halleck, and I regret I can't grant it."

Judge Baldwin then went to Stanton, and was very briefly disposed of, with the same result. Finally, he obtained an interview with Mr. Lincoln, and stated his case.

"Have you applied to General Halleck?" inquired the President.

"Yes, and met with a flat refusal," said Judge B. "Then you must see Stanton,' continued the President.

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'I have, and with the same result,' was the reply. 'Well, then,' said Mr. Lincoln, with a smile, ‘I can do nothing; for you must know that I have very little influence with this Administration.'"

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The Merciful President.

A personal friend of President Lincoln says: "I called on him one day in the early part of the war. He had just written a pardon for a young man who had been sentenced to be shot, for sleeping at his post, as a sentinel. He remarked as he read it to me:

"I could not think of going into eternity with the blood of the poor young man on my skirts.' Then he added: 'It is not to be wondered at that a boy, raised on a farm, probably in the habit of going to bed at dark, should, when required to watch, fall asleep; and I cannot consent to shoot him for such an act.'

This story, with its moral, is made complete by Rev, Newman Hall, of London, who, in a sermon preached after and upon Mr. Lincoln's death, says that the dead

body of this youth was found among the slain on the field of Fredericksburg, wearing next his heart a photograph of his preserver, beneath which the grateful fellow had written, "God bless President Lincoln !"

From the same sermon another anecdote is gleaned, of a similar character, which is evidently authentic. An officer of the army, in conversation with the preacher, said:

"The first week of my command, there were twentyfour deserters sentenced by court martial to be shot, and the warrants for their execution were sent to the President to be signed. He refused. I went to Washington and had an interview. I said:

"'Mr. President, unless these men are made an example of, the army itself is in danger. Mercy to the few is cruelty to the many.'

"He replied: 'Mr. General, there are already too many weeping widows in the United States. For God's sake, don't ask me to add to the number, for I won't do it.""

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No Mercy for the Man Stealer.

Hon. John B. Alley, of Lynn, Massachusetts, was made the bearer to the President of a petition for pardon, by a person confined in the Newburyport jail for being engaged in the slave-trade. He had been sentenced to five years' imprisonment, and the payment of a fine of one thousand dollars. The petition was accompanied by a letter to Mr. Alley, in which the prisoner acknowledged his guilt and the justice of his sentence. He was very penitent at least on paper-and had received the full

measure of his punishment, so far as it related to the term of his imprisonment; but he was still held because he could not pay his fine. Mr. Alley read the letter to the President, who was much moved by its pathetic appeals; and when he had himself read the petition, he looked up and said: "My friend, that is a very touching appeal to our feelings. You know my weakness is to be, if possible, too easily moved by appeals for mercy, and, if this man were guilty of the foulest murder that the arm of man could perpetrate, I might forgive him on such an appeal; but the man who could go to Africa, and rob her of her children, and sell them into interminable bondage, with no other motive than that which is furnished by dollars and cents, is so much worse than the most depraved murderer, that he can never receive pardon at my hands. No! He may rot in jail before he shall have liberty by any act of mine. A sudden crime, committed under strong temptation, was venial in his eyes, on evidence of repentance; but the calculating, mercenary crime of manstealing and man-selling, with all the cruelties that are essential accompaniments to the business, could win from him, as an officer of the people, no pardon.

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How a Negro Argued the Point.

The following story is attributed to Mr. Lincoln upon the hurricane deck of one of our gun-boats:

An elderly darkey with a very philosophical and retrospective cast of countenance, squatted upon his bundle, toasting his shins against the chimney, and apparently plunged in a state of profound meditation. Finding, upon inquiry, that he belonged to the Ninth Il

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