co-operating with General Terry was undertaken: Fort Fisher was captured-with more than 2,000 prisoners and sixty-nine cannon. On February 22d, Wilmington was in possession of General Schofield. Lincoln had freely expressed in his message to Congress, December, 1864, his willingness to bring the war to a close by peaceful means-the insurgents to cease fighting and to declare their allegiance to the United States: the most generous terms that a Nation can offer to those in rebellion against its authority. The whole conduct of the government had been merciful and indulgent. On February 14, 1862, through the secretary of war, a proclamation was issued, directing that all political prisoners or State prisoners then held in military custody should be released on their subscribing to a parole engaging them to render no aid or comfort to the enemies in hostility to the United States. On December 8, 1863, the president issued a proclamation of amnesty and reconstruction, granting full pardon, with restoration of all rights of property, except as to slaves, to all-with special exemptions-who should subscribe an oath of allegiance to the government and keep the same inviolate, who had taken up arms against the United States. The persons exempted were the civil and diplomatic officers of the Confederacy; all in judicial stations who had left similar stations to take up arms in aid of the rebellion; all military and naval officers in the socalled Confederate government above the rank of colonel in the army and of lieutenant in the navy; all who had left seats in Congress to aid the rebellion; all who had resigned commissions in the United States army or navy and entered the service of the Confederacy; and all who had engaged in any way in treating colored persons, or white persons in charge of such, otherwise than lawfully as prisoners of war. With the hope of the resumption of Federal relations at the South the president further proclaimed, “that whenever in any of the States of Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina, a number of persons not less than one-tenth in number of the votes cast in such State at the presidential election of 1860, each having taken the oath of allegiance, having kept it and being a qualified voter of the State before the so-called act of secession, should reestablish a State government, republican in form and not conflicting with the required oath, that government would be recognized by the United States as the true government of the State and would be protected, constitutionally, against domestic violence." This proclamation began reconstruction-a restoration of Federal relations at the South which had made some progress, as the president recorded in his message to Congress, in December, 1864. By proclamation, March 26, 1864, the president defined the class to which alone his earlier proclamation of amnesty should apply-namely, "only to those persons who, being yet at large and free from any arrest, confinement or duress, shall voluntarily come forward and take the said oath with the purpose of restoring peace and establishing the national authority." Prisoners excluded might apply to the president for clemency and their applications were given due consideration. The message of December 6, 1864, already freely quoted, was an offer of general pardon, subject to one condition: the inflexible decision of the president respecting slaves and slavery. Many propositions leading to a cessation of the war emanated from all sorts and conditions of men at the North; of these one took on a color of importance largely because of the known loyalty and the high character of its author, Francis P. Blair-which was nothing less than that North and South should cease fighting each other, should unite and drive Maximilian out of Mexico. This fanciful project was laid with due solemnity before Jefferson Davis and President Lincoln. Mr. Blair went to Richmond, consulted Davis and got from him a brief writing, in the form of a letter, January 12, 1865, in which he said: "I have no disposition to find obstacles in forms, and am willing now, as heretofore, to enter into negotiations for the restoration of peace; and am ready to send a commission whenever I have reason to suppose it will be received, or to receive a commission, if the United States government shall choose to send one. That, notwithstanding the rejection of our former offers, I would, if you could promise that a commissioner, minister, or other agent would be received, appoint one immediately, and renew the effort to enter into conference, with a view to secure peace to the two countries." This communication being shown by Blair to Lincoln, the president wrote him a brief letter: "You having shown me Mr. Davis's letter to you of the 12th instant, you may say to him that I have constantly been, am now, and shall continue to be ready to receive any agent whom he, or any other influential person now resisting the National authority, may informally send to me, with the view of securing peace to the people of our one common country." Blair, assuming an authority which he did not possess, when he presented the president's note to Davis, suggested to him that General Lee and General Grant should meet and negotiate terms of peace. Mr. Davis knew very well that the Confederacy was tottering to its fall. Lee had reported the lack of rations for his army; Vice-President Stephens in secret session of the rebel Senate had been outspoken in confessing the weakness of the Confederacy and advised giving up Richmond and continuing a guerrilla warfare among the mountains. Judge Campbell, Confederate assistant secretary of war, had made a formal report on the exhaustion of the South. But Davis would not, perhaps his temperament was of the kind that could not, accept the situation. The result was a note from Davis to his commissioners, Stephens, Hunter and Campbell, to proceed to Washington for an informal conference "for the purpose of securing peace between the two countries," a mission whose purpose was forestalled and prevented of execution by the terms of the letter which sent it. The president sent Secretary Seward to meet them, with the instruction not to "assume to definitely consummate anything," and to make known that three things were indispensable: the restoration of the national authority throughout all the United States; no receding by the executive of the United States on the slavery question from the position assumed thereon in the late annual message to Congress, and in preceding documents; and no cessation of hostilities short of an end of the war, and the disbanding of all forces hostile to the government. But all propositions of the Confederate commissioners "not inconsistent with the above" were to be "considered and passed upon in a spirit of sincere liberality." This was written January 31st; on the next day, before noon, the president received a telegram from Grant that in his opinion the intentions of the Confederate commissioners were "good and their desire sincere to restore peace and union." Upon receipt of this Lincoln telegraphed to Grant that he would meet them personally at Fort Monroe as soon as he could get there, and joined Secretary Seward there on the same night. This was the preliminary to the Hampton Roads Conference on board the River Queen, February 3, 1865, between President Lincoln, Secretary Seward, and the Confederate Commissioners. The president adhered to the three conditions laid down in his letter to Seward; he found the Commissioners unwilling to accept them. He told them they must be convinced that slavery was doomed. Stephens adhered to his extreme doctrines of sovereignty, and the theory of secession which he called a "continental regulator." Stephens had forgotten nothing, had learned nothing by the war: he was blind to the new order of the age which had dawned. Lincoln's advice to him to go home to Georgia and exert his influence to have his State ratify the Thirteenth Amendment was wasted. The president reiterated his decision the impossibility of the United States entering into |