Both the meeting and parting were friendly. On the trip up the Potomac the President was looking into the future. He knew the time was near when the people must deal with the question of reconstruction. If there was to be a true restoration of the Union, there must be conciliation on the part of the North towards the defeated South. Would not an offer of compensation for the slaves freed go far towards bringing about harmony? Upon his arrival at Washington the matter was brought to the attention of the Cabinet. The President proFeb. 5. posed to submit a message to Congress recommending an appropriation of $400,000,000, and that all political offences be condoned. The Cabinet did not take kindly to the proposition. The President was surprised. "How long will the war last?" he asked. No one answered. It was a painful silence. The President continued: "Let us suppose it will last 100 days. We are spending $3,000,000 a day, which will amount to all the money, besides all the lives. But I see you are all opposed to me, and I will not send the message." It was laid aside and never again taken up. In his desire to save life, his earnestness to secure peace, in the greatness of his charity, Mr. Lincoln had gone to the extreme verge of magnanimity. "The earnest desire of the President," wrote Mr. Welles in his diary, "to conciliate and effect peace was manifest, but there may be such an overdoing as to cause distrust or adverse feeling. The rebels would misconstrue it if the offer were made." (") The Confederate commissioners had not manifested any desire to return to the Union. Jefferson Davis had stipulated for his recognition as chief executive of an independent nation. There was no evidence that the slave-holding States could be conciliated by the proposed offer. A noble desire had taken possession of the great-hearted President. The longing for peace, the restoration of the Union, and the saving of life for the moment outweighed his judgment. Had he waited a few hours we may be sure the matter never would have been laid before the Cabinet. The Confederate commissioners returned to Richmond, chagrined over their failure. While they were making their way up the James 1865. and through the Union lines under their safe conduct, the ConFeb. 4, federate Congress was considering the question of adopting a new flag for the Confederacy, as if it was to wave forever as an emblem of sovereignty, oblivious as was Belshazzar of approaching doom. The commissioners reported to Jefferson Davis that the Con federacy must disappear before there could be any peace. A clerk in the Confederate War Department wrote the following in his diary : "As I supposed, the peace commissioners have returned from their fruitless errand. President Lincoln and Mr. Seward, it appears, had nothing to propose, and would listen to nothing but unconditional submission. The Congress of the United States has Feb. 6. just passed, by a two-thirds vote, an amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery. Now, the South will soon be fired up again, perhaps with a new impulse, and the war will rage with greater fury than ever. Mr. Stephens will go into Georgia and reanimate his people. General Wise spoke at length for independence at the Capitol on Saturday night amid applauding listeners, and Governor Smith spoke to-night. Every effort will be made to popularize the cause again. General Wise's brigade has sent up resolu tions consenting to a gradual emancipation, but never for reunion with the North. All hope of peace with independence is extinct, and valor alone is now relied on for our salvation. Every one thinks the Confederacy will at once gather up its military strength and strike such blows as will astonish the world." ( 12 ) Mr. Campbell had comprehended the situation of affairs more clearly than either Stephens or Hunter. He saw the impracticability of the scheme devised by Mr. Blair, which had been made the basis of the conference. He advised that the reason for its failure be kept secret. Jefferson Davis, in his anger, refused to accept such advice. He sent a message to Congress, in which he said that the enemy had refused all terms except those which a conqueror might grant. The newspapers of Richmond reflected the general sentiment of the hour. "We have had," said the Sentinel," "some peace men among us, but there are no peace men now. Not realizing the full enormity of our enemies, they have deemed it impossible that their devilish thirst for our blood was not yet slaked; that their rapacious designs upon our homes and property, and their desire to destroy our liberties were not yet abandoned or abated; and hence they have been anxious that our government should extend the olive branch. These questions are settled now. We have been pressed to the wall, and told plainly there was no escape except such as we shall hew out with our manful swords. There is literally no retreat except in chains and slavery." The Governor of Virginia, William Smith, called a public meeting, which was held in the African Baptist Church, the largest in Richmond. He presented a series of resolutions denouncing and spurning as a gross insult the terms offered by President Lincoln. "Men who grumble now deserve a lamp-post," he said. "If the spirit which animates you to-night," said Jefferson Davis, "shall meet with a general response, as I have no doubt it will, I shall feel that we are on the verge of success. We shall not again be insulted by such terms of peace as the arrogance of the enemy has lately proposed, but ere many months have elapsed our successes will cause them to feel that when talking to us they are talking to their masters." Jefferson Davis was confronted by a puzzling question. He had transmitted a message to Congress relating to the enlistment of slaves as soldiers. He thought the slaves would fight for the Confederacy. The Government ought to purchase them from their masters. But ought not the negroes to have their freedom? Would they fight unless some inducement were held out to them? "The policy," he said, "of engaging to liberate the negro on his discharge after service faithfully rendered, seems to me to be preferable to that of granting immediate manumission or that of retaining him in servitude." The Southern people were greatly astonished when they read the message. Arm slaves! Give them their freedom! Was not slavery the corner-stone of the Confederacy? Feb. 11. A meeting was held to consider the question. Mr. Benjamin said that slaves who volunteered to fight for the Confederacy ought to have their freedom. Other speakers said the white soldiers would resent the enlistment of negroes. General Lee, in a letter, said that negroes would make good soldiers. The Confederate Congress passed a law for the employment of 200,000 slaves as soldiers, and authorized President Davis to accept slaves which might be given to the Confederacy by their owners. No reward was promised to the slaves. The master was still to be master and owner. Such half-hearted, insincere, death-bed repentance could be of no avail. The slaves knew that Abraham Lincoln had given them their freedom. They knew that 200,000 of their race were marshalled under the Stars and Stripes as free men, citizens of the Republic. The passage of the bill was a humiliating confession of wrong-doing and failure. The Confederate Congress also passed a resolution that if Richmond were evacuated, all public property should be destroyed, especially the great warehouses filled with tobacco owned by the Government. General Lee was made military dictator. Having passed these bills, Congress adjourned. General Lee was making great efforts to recruit his army and obtain supplies. He knew that General Grant had brought a large force from Tennessee to North Carolina; that Sherman was advancing from Savannah; that Sheridan with 15,000 cavalry would soon be moving in the Shenandoah. With the several Union armies closing around him, the struggle must eventually end. There would be humiliation in defeat. It would be far better to secure peace by coming to an agree ment with Grant. A flag of truce brought a letter to the Union commander proposing a conference. President Lincoln was at the Capitol in Washington, signing bills which Congress had passed, when a despatch from Grant to March 3. Stanton announced the proposition of Lee. Mr. Lincoln laid aside for a moment the bills, and wrote this reply, purporting to be from Mr. Stanton : 'The President directs me to say that he wishes you to have no conference with General Lee, unless it be for capitulation of General Lee's army, or on some minor or purely political matters. He instructs me to say that you are not to decide, discuss, or confer upon any political questions. Such questions the President holds in his own hands, and will submit them to no military conference or convention. Meanwhile you are to press to the utmost your military advantages." Abraham Lincoln, servant of the people, to begin on the morrow another term of service, determined no mistake should be made in the closing of the conflict. NOTES TO CHAPTER XXV. (1) "Century Magazine," October, 1889. (2) Ibid. (3) Jefferson Davis, "Rise and Fall of the Confederate States," vol. ii., p. 612. (4) A. H. Stephens, "War Between the States," vol. ii., p. 597. (5) "Augusta Chronicle," January 17, 1865. (6) John A. Campbell, "Southern Magazine," December, 1874. (9) F. B. Carpenter, "Six Months in the White House," p. 210. 66 (11) "Century Magazine," November, 1889. (12) J. B. Jones, "Rebel War Clerk's Diary," vol. ii., p. 710. A CHAPTER XXVI. SECOND PRESIDENTIAL TERM. SECOND time Abraham Lincoln stands upon the portico of the Capitol to take the oath of office as President of the Republic. Far different the outlook from that of the first inauguration. Then, uncertainty, darkness, gloom; now, the dawn of a brighter day, the 1865. rising sun of a new era. Then, an unfinished edifice; now, the March 4, statue of Liberty crowning the world's most beautiful halls of legislation. Then, war about to begin; now, the prospect of its end. Then, 4,000,000 bondmen; now, slavery abolished. The nation then as helpless as a child; now a giant, astonishing the world by the majesty of its power. In the month of August preceding the November election the Peace Democracy, seemingly, were about to take possession of the Government. Mr. Lincoln had doubted his re-election, but the people indorsed his administration by giving him 212 electoral votes, against 21 for McClellan. None in the Presidential office ever had greater cause for elation, but those nearest Mr. Lincoln noticed a growing sense of responsibility, and a consciousness that he was an agent of divine Providence to promote the well-being of his fellow-men. It is manifest in his reply to the Committee of Congress apprising him officially of his re-election. "With deep gratitude," said Mr. Lincoln, "to my countrymen for this mark of their confidence; with a distrust of my own ability to perform the duty required under the most favorable circumstances, and now rendered doubly difficult by exciting national perils; yet with a firm reliance on the strength of our free government and the eventual loyalty of the people to just principles upon which it is founded, and, above all, with an unbroken faith in the Supreme Ruler of Nations, I accept this trust." Never had any nation or people heard such words as were uttered by Mr. Lincoln as he stood upon the portico of the Capitol before taking the oath of office for a second term: |