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"I realize the weight of the responsibility to be borne should the people ratify your choice.

"Conscious of my own weakness, I can only seek fervently the guidance of the Ruler of the universe, and, relying on His all-powerful aid, do my best to restore union and peace to a suffering people, and to establish and guard their liberties and rights. "I am, gentlemen, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

"Hon. HORATIO SEYMOUR, and others, Committee."

"GEO. B. MCCLELLAN.

From about the middle of September, when the canvass commenced to be actively conducted, there could be little doubt of the result, and the only question seemed finally to be respecting the majority which Mr. Lincoln would receive. The election took place on November 8th, and resulted in the choice of the Republican candidates, by the following vote:

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The year 1864 was marked by two indirect attempts to commence negotiations for peace, which resulted in nothing. In the middle of

July, Colonel James F. Jaques, of the Seventy-third Illinois Volunteers, accompanied by Mr. Edward Kirke, was permitted to enter the rebel lines in front of Petersburg, and proceed to Richmond, where he obtained an interview with Jefferson Davis. Though clothed with no authority to speak for either President Lincoln or the Government, and much less to act for them, he was nevertheless received with cordiality by Davis, to whom he explained the basis on which, in all probability, the United States Government would consent to treat for peace. Davis having intimated very decidedly that no peace could be contemplated by him or his Government, without the recognition of the independence of the "Southern Confederacy" by the United States, Colonel Jaques and his companion took their departure, no wiser than when they reached Richmond.

The next attempt at peace negotiations was conducted through more practised hands, but resulted none the more favorably for the peace party. Early in July, Mr. Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, received from W. Cornell Jewett, a political adventurer of some notoriety, information that certain prominent rebel refugees in Canada were desirous of holding an interview with him at Niagara Falls. The following letter from Mr. Greeley to the President in reference to this matter formed the prelude to the attempted negotiations:

"NEW YORK, July 7, 1864.

"MY DEAR SIR:-I venture to enclose you a letter and telegraphic dispatch that I received yesterday from our irrepressible friend, Colorado Jewett, at Niagara Falls. I think they deserve attention. Of course I do not indorse Jewett's positive averment that his friends at the Falls have 'full powers' from J. D., though I do not doubt that he thinks they have. I let that statement stand as simply evidencing the anxiety of the Confederates everywhere for peace. So much is beyond doubt

"And therefore 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; and a wide-spread conviction that the Government and its prominent supporters are not anxious for peace, and do not improve proffered opportunities to achieve it, is doing great harm now, and is morally certain, unless removed, to do far greater in the approaching elections.

"It is not enough that we anxiously desire a true and lasting peace. We ought to demonstrate and establish the truth beyond cavil. The fact that A. H. Stephens was not permitted a year ago to visit and confer with the authorities at Washington has done harm, which the tone of the late National Convention at Baltimore is not calcu lated to counteract.

"I entreat you, in your own time and manner, to submit overtures for pacification to the Southern insurgents, which the impartial must pronounce frank and generous. "If only with a view to the momentous election soon to occur in North Carolina, and of the draft to be enforced in the Free States, this should be done at once. I would give the safe-conduct required by the rebel envoys at Niagara, upon their parole to avoid observation, and to refrain from all communication with their sympathizers in the loyal States; but you may see reasons for declining it. But whether through them or otherwise, do not, I entreat you, fail to make the Southern people comprehend that you, and all of us, are anxious for peace, and prepared to grant liberal terms. I venture to suggest the following

"PLAN OF ADJUSTMENT.

"1. The Union is restored, and declared perpetual.

"2. Slavery is utterly and forever abolished throughout the same.

"3. A complete amnesty for all political offences, with a restoration of all the inhab itants of each State to all the privileges of citizens of the United States.

"4. The Union to pay four hundred million dollars ($400,000,000), in five per cent. United States stock, to the late Slave States, loyal and secession alike, to be apportioned pro rata, according to their slave population respectively, by the census of 1560, in compensation for the losses of their loyal citizens by the abolition of slavery. Each State to be entitled to its quota upon the ratification by its legislature of this adjustment. The bonds to be at the absolute disposal of the legislature aforesaid.

"5. The said Slave States to be entitled henceforth to representation in the House on the basis of their total, instead of their Federal population, the whole now being free.

"6. A national convention, to be assembled as soon as may be, to ratify this adjustment, and make such changes in the Constitution as may be deemed advisable.

"Mr. President, I fear 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. With United States stock worth but forty cents in gold per dollar, and drafting about to commence on the third million of Union soldiers, can this be wondered at?

"I do not say that a just peace is now attainable, though I believe it to be so. But I do say that a frank offer by you to the insurgents of terms which the impartial say ought to be accepted, will, at the worst, prove an immense and sorely needed advantage to the national cause. It may save us from a Northern insurrection.

"Yours truly,

"Hon. A. LINCOLN, President, Washington, D. C.

HORACE GREELEY.

"P. S.-Even though it should be deemed unadvisable to make an offer of terms to the rebels, I insist that in any possible case it is desirable that any offer they may be disposed to make should be received, and either accepted or rejected. I beg you to invite those now at Niagara to exhibit their credentials and submit their ultimatum.

"H. G."

A few days later, Mr. Greeley was informed by George N. Sanders, a noted rebel agent in Canada, that Clement C. Clay, of Alabama, Professor J. P. Holcombe, of Virginia, and himself, were willing to go at once to Washington, provided they could be assured of their personal safety. To this Mr. Greeley replied as follows:

"NIAGARA FALLS, N. Y., July 17, 1864. "GENTLEMEN:-I am informed that you are duly accredited from Richmond as the bearers of propositions looking to the establishment of peace, that you desire to visit Washington in the fulfilment of your mission, and that you further desire that Mr. George N. Sanders shall accompany you. If my information be thus far substantially correct, I am authorized by the President of the United States to tender you his safeconduct on the journey proposed, and to accompany you at the earliest time that will be agreeable to you.

"I have the honor to be, gentlemen, yours, "To Messrs. CLEMENT C. CLAY, JACOB THOMPSON, JAMES Clifton House, C. W.”

HORACE GREELEY. HOLCOMBE,

Clay and Holcombe replied on the succeeding day that the safe'conduct of the President had been tendered to them under some misapprehensions of facts, since they had not been accredited to him from Richmond as the bearers of propositions looking to the establishment of peace. "We are, however," they added, "in the confidential employment of our Government, and are entirely familiar with its wishes and opinions on that subject; and we feel authorized to declare that, if the circumstances disclosed in this correspondence were communicated to Richmond, we would be at once invested with the authority to which your letter refers; or other gentlemen, clothed with full

powers, would be immediately sent to Washington, with a view of hastening a consummation so much to be desired, and terminating at the earliest possible moment the calamities of the war." Under these circumstances, Mr. Greeley telegraphed to Washington for further instructions, and received on the same day the following memorandum:

"To whom it may concern:

"EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, 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 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 by liberal terms, on substantial and collateral points, and the bearer or bearers thereof shall have safe-conduct both ways

(Signed)

"ABRAHAM LINCOLN."

This, in view of the temper and pretensions of the South, was praetically a bar to further proceedings, and was so considered by the rebel agents. In their final reply to Mr. Greeley, after quoting the President's memorandum, they proceed as follows:

"The application to which we refer was elicited by your letter of the 17th instant, in which you inform Mr. Jacob Thompson and ourselves that you were authorized by the President of the United States to tender us his safe-conduct on the hypothesis that we were 'duly accredited from Richmond as bearers of propositions looking to the establishment of peace,' and desired a visit to Washington in the fulfilment of this mission. This assertion, to which we then gave, and still do, entire credence, was accepted by us as the evidence of an unexpected but most gratifying change in the policy of the President, a change which we felt authorized to hope might terminate in the conclusion of a peace mutually just, honorable, and advantageous to the North and to the South, exacting no condition but that we should be duly accredited from Richmond as bearers of propositions looking to the establishment of peace.' Thus proffering a basis for conference as comprehensive as we could desire, it seemed to us that the President opened a door which had previously been closed against the Confederate States for a full interchange of sentiments, free discussion of conflicting opinions, and untrammelled effort to remove all causes of controversy by liberal negotiations. We, indeed, could not claim the benefit of a safe-conduct which had been extended to us in a character we had no right to assume, and had never affected to possess; but the uniform declarations of our Executive and Congress, and their thrice repeated, and as often repulsed, attempts to open negotiations, furnish a sufficient pledge to assure us that this conciliatory

States would be met by no hesitation in declarin dent of the Confederate

for seeking a peaceful se

estation on the part of the President of the United temper of equal magnanimity. We had, therefore, his correspondence was communicated to the Presiwould promptly embrace the opportunity presented of this unhappy strife. We feel confident that you must share our profound regret that the spirit which dictated the first step towards peace had not continued to animate the counsels of your President. Had the representatives of the two Governments met to consider this question, the most momentous ever submitted to human statesmanship, in a temper of becoming moderation and equity, followed as their deliberations would have been by the prayers and benedictions of every patriot and Christian on the habitable globe, who is there so bold as to pronounce that the frightful waste of individual happiness and public prosperity which is daily saddening the universal heart, might not have been terminated; or if the desolation and carnage of war must still be endured through weary years of blood and suffering, that there might not at least have been infused into its conduct something more of the spirit which softens and partially redeems its brutalities? Instead of the safeconduct which we solicited, and which your first letter gave us every reason to sup

pose would be extended for the purpose of initiating a negotiation in which neither Government would compromise its rights or its dignity, a document has been presented which provokes as much indignation as surprise. It bears no feature of resemblance to that which was originally offered, and is unlike any paper which ever before emanated from the constitutional Executive of a free people. Addressed to whom it may concern.' it precludes negotiation, and prescribes in advance the terms and conditions of peace. It returns to the original policy of No bargaining, no negotiations, no truces with rebels except to bury their dead, until every man shall have laid down his arms, submitted to the Government, and sued for mercy.' What may be the explanation of this sudden and entire change in the views of the President, of this rude withdrawal of a courteous overture for negotiation at the moment it was likely to be accepted, of this emphatic recall of words of peace just uttered, and fresh blasts of war to the bitter end, we leave for the speculation of those who have the means or inclination to penetrate the mysteries of his Cabinet, or fathom the caprice of his imperial will. It is enough for us to say that we have no use whatever for the paper which has been placed in our hands. We could not transmit it to the President of the Confederate States without offering him an indignity, dishonoring ourselves, and incurring the well-merited scorn of our countrymen.

"While an ardent desire for peace pervades the people of the Confederate States. we rejoice to believe that there are few, if any, among them, who would purchase it at the expense of liberty, honor, and self-respect. If it can be secured only by their submission to terms of conquest, the generation is yet unborn which will witness its resttution. If there be any military autocrat in the North who is entitled to proffer the conditions of this manifesto, there is none in the South authorized to entertain them. Those who control our armies are the servants of the people, not their masters; and they have no more inclination than they have right to subvert the social institutions of the sovereign States to overthrow their established Constitutions, and to barter away their priceless heritage of self-government. This correspondence will not, however, we trust, prove wholly barren of good results.

"If there is any citizen of the Confederate States who has clung to a hope that peace was possible with this Administration of the Federal Government, it will strip from his eyes the last film of such a delusion. Or, if there be any whose hearts have grown faint under the suffering and agony of this bloody struggle, it will inspire them with fresh energy to endure and brave whatever may yet be requisite to preserve to themselves and their children all that gives dignity and value to life, or Lope and consolation to death. And if there be any patriots or Christians in your land who shrink appalled from the illimitable vista of private misery and public calamity which stretches before them, we pray that in their bosoms a resolution may be quickened to recall the abused authority and vindicate the outraged civilization of their country. For the solicitude you have manifested to inaugurate a movement which contemplates results the most noble and humane, we return our sincere thanks, and are, most respectfully and truly, your obedient servants,

"C. C. CLAY, JR.
"JAMES P. HOLCOMBE"

CHAPTER LA

Finances of 1863.-Revenue.-Sales of Bonds.-Effect of Paper Money-Policy of Mr. Chas-Gold Law, and its Effects.-Mr. Chase Resigns.-Finances of 1864Sales of Bonds in Europe.-Statement of Debt.-National Banks.—Prices of Goli THE financial resources of the Government were developed with the most extraordinary power and effect as the war proceeded. The immense pressure of continual paper issues upon the markets, in discharge of the vast claims upon Government, could have no other effect than a continual depreciation of the value of that paper. In a previous chapter the finances of the Government were brought down to the close

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