The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, v7

TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: I transmit to...

ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN.

TO SCHUYLER COL­FAX.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 9, 1865.

HON. SCHUYLER COL­FAX, Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

SIR:–I trans­mit here­with the let­ter of the Sec­re­tary of War, with ac­com­pa­ny­ing re­port of the Ad­ju­tant-​Gen­er­al, in re­ply to the res­olu­tion of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, dat­ed De­cem­ber 7, 1864, re­quest­ing me “to com­mu­ni­cate to the House the re­port made by Col. Thomas M. Key of an in­ter­view be­tween him­self and Gen­er­al How­ell Cobb on the four­teenth [15th] day of June, 1862, on the banks of the Chick­ahominy, on the sub­ject of the ex­change of pris­on­ers of war.”

I am, sir, very re­spect­ful­ly, your obe­di­ent ser­vant,

ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN.

PROCLA­MA­TION CON­CERN­ING COM­MERCE, JAN­UARY 10, 1865.

BY THE PRES­IDENT OF THE UNIT­ED STATES OF AMER­ICA:

A Procla­ma­tion.

Where­as the act of Congress of the twen­ty-​eighth of Septem­ber, 1850, en­ti­tled “An act to cre­ate ad­di­tion­al col­lec­tion dis­tricts in the State of Cal­ifor­nia, and to change the ex­ist­ing dis­tricts there­in, and to mod­ify the ex­ist­ing col­lec­tion dis­tricts in the Unit­ed States,” ex­tends to mer­chan­dise ware­housed un­der bond the priv­ilege of be­ing ex­port­ed to the British North Amer­ican provinces ad­join­ing the Unit­ed States, in the man­ner pre­scribed in the act of Congress of the third of March, 1845, which des­ig­nates cer­tain fron­tier ports through which mer­chan­dise may be ex­port­ed, and fur­ther pro­vides “that such oth­er ports sit­uat­ed on the fron­tiers of the Unit­ed States, ad­join­ing the British North Amer­ican provinces, as may here­after be found ex­pe­di­ent, may have ex­tend­ed to them the like priv­ileges on the rec­om­men­da­tion of the Sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury, and procla­ma­tion du­ly made by the Pres­ident of the Unit­ed States, spe­cial­ly des­ig­nat­ing the ports to which the afore­said priv­ileges are to be ex­tend­ed;”

Now, there­fore, I, Abra­ham Lin­coln, Pres­ident of the Unit­ed States of Amer­ica, in ac­cor­dance with the rec­om­men­da­tion of the Sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury, do here­by de­clare and pro­claim that the port of St. Al­bans, in the State of Ver­mont, is, and shall be, en­ti­tled to all the priv­ileges in re­gard to the ex­por­ta­tion of mer­chan­dise in bond to the British North Amer­ican provinces ad­join­ing the Unit­ed States, which are ex­tend­ed to the ports enu­mer­at­ed in the sev­enth sec­tion of the act of Congress of the third of March, 1845, afore­said, from and af­ter the date of this procla­ma­tion.

In wit­ness where­of, I have here­un­to set my hand, and caused the seal of the Unit­ed States to be af­fixed.

Done at the city of Wash­ing­ton, this tenth day of Jan­uary, in the year of our Lord one thou­sand eight hun­dred-​and six­ty-​five, and of the in­de­pen­dence of the Unit­ed States of Amer­ica the eighty-​ninth.

ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN.

By the Pres­ident: WILLIAM H. SE­WARD, Sec­re­tary of State.

TELE­GRAM TO GEN­ER­AL B. F. BUT­LER.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 10, 1865.

MA­JOR-​GEN­ER­AL BUT­LER, Fort Mon­roe, Va.:

No prin­ci­pal re­port of yours on the Wilm­ing­ton ex­pe­di­tion has ev­er reached the War De­part­ment, as I am in­formed there. A pre­lim­inary re­port did reach here, but was re­turned to Gen­er­al Grant at his re­quest. Of course, leave to pub­lish can­not be giv­en with­out in­spec­tion of the pa­per, and not then if it should be deemed to be detri­men­tal to the pub­lic ser­vice.

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO GEN­ER­AL B. F. BUT­LER.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 13, 1865.

MA­JOR-​GEN­ER­AL BUT­LER, Fort Mon­roe, Va.:

Yours ask­ing leave to come to Wash­ing­ton is re­ceived. You have been sum­moned by the Com­mit­tee on the Con­duct of the War to at­tend here, which, of course, you will do.

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO GOV­ER­NOR JOHN­SON.

WASH­ING­TON, D. C., Jan­uary 15, 1865.

GOV­ER­NOR JOHN­SON, Nashville, Ten­nessee:

Yours an­nounc­ing or­di­nance of eman­ci­pa­tion re­ceived. Thanks to the con­ven­tion and to you. When do you ex­pect to be here? Would be glad to have your sug­ges­tion as to sup­ply­ing your place of mil­itary gov­er­nor.

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO GEN­ER­AL G. M. DODGE. EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 15, 1865.

MA­JOR-​GEN­ER­AL DODGE, St. Louis, Mis­souri:

It is rep­re­sent­ed to me that there is so much ir­reg­ular vi­olence in north­ern Mis­souri as to be driv­ing away the peo­ple and al­most de­pop­ulat­ing it. Please gath­er in­for­ma­tion, and con­sid­er whether an ap­peal to the peo­ple there to go to their homes and let one an­oth­er alone rec­og­niz­ing as a full right of pro­tec­tion for each that he lets oth­ers alone, and ban­ning on­ly him who re­fus­es to let oth­ers alone may not en­able you to with­draw the troops, their pres­ence it­self [be­ing] a cause of ir­ri­ta­tion and con­stant ap­pre­hen­sion, and thus re­store peace and qui­et, and re­turn­ing pros­per­ity. Please con­sid­er this and tele­graph or write me.

A. LIN­COLN.

FIRST OVER­TURES FOR SUR­REN­DER FROM DAVIS

TO P. P. BLAIR, SR.

WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 18, 1865.

F. P. BLAIR, ESQ.

SIR:-You hav­ing shown me Mr. Davis’s let­ter to you of the twelfth in­stant, you may say to him that I have con­stant­ly been, am now, and shall con­tin­ue, 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.

Yours, etc.,

A. LIN­COLN.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION,

WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 19, 1865.

LIEU­TENANT-​GEN­ER­AL GRANT:

Please read and an­swer this let­ter as though I was not Pres­ident, but on­ly a friend. My son, now in his twen­ty-​sec­ond year, hav­ing grad­uat­ed at Har­vard, wish­es to see some­thing of the war be­fore it ends. I do not wish to put him in the ranks, nor yet to give him a com­mis­sion, to which those who have al­ready served long are bet­ter en­ti­tled and bet­ter qual­ified to hold. Could he, with­out em­bar­rass­ment to you, or detri­ment to the ser­vice, go in­to your mil­itary fam­ily with some nom­inal rank, I, and not the pub­lic, fur­nish­ing his nec­es­sary means? If no, say so with­out the least hes­ita­tion, be­cause I am as anx­ious and as deeply in­ter­est­ed that you shall not be en­cum­bered as you can be your­self.

Yours tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO GEN­ER­AL DODGE. EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 19, 1865.

MA­JOR-​GEN­ER­AL DODGE, Saint Louis, Mo.:

If Mrs. Beat­tie, alias Mrs. Wolff, shall be sen­tenced to death, no­ti­fy me, and post­pone the ex­ecu­tion till fur­ther or­der.

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO GEN­ER­AL ORD. EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 19, 1864

MA­JOR-​GEN­ER­AL ORD:

You have a man in ar­rest for de­ser­tion pass­ing by the name of Stan­ley. William Stan­ley, I think, but whose re­al name is dif­fer­ent. He is the son of so close a friend of mine that I must not let him be ex­ecut­ed. Please let me know what is his present and prospec­tive con­di­tion.

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO GEN­ER­AL G. M. DODGE. EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 24, 1865.

MA­JOR-​GEN­ER­AL DODGE, St. Louis, Mo.:

It is said an old la­dy in Clay Coun­ty, Mis­souri, by name Mrs. Winifred B. Price, is about be­ing sent South. If she is not mis­be­hav­ing let her re­main.

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO GOV­ER­NOR JOHN­SON.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 24, 1865.

HON. AN­DREW JOHN­SON, Nashville, Ten­nessee:

Sev­er­al mem­bers of the Cab­inet, with my­self, con­sid­ered the ques­tion, to-​day, as to the time of your com­ing on here. While we ful­ly ap­pre­ci­ate your wish to re­main in Ten­nessee un­til her State gov­ern­ment shall be com­plete­ly rein­au­gu­rat­ed, it is our unan­imous con­clu­sion that it is un­safe for you to not be here on the 4th of March. Be sure to reach here by that time.

A. LIN­COLN.

RE­PLY TO A COM­MIT­TEE, JAN­UARY 24, 1865.

REV­EREND SIR, AND LADIES AND GEN­TLE­MEN:

I ac­cept with emo­tions of pro­found­est grat­itude, the beau­ti­ful gift you have been pleased to present to me. You will, of course, ex­pect that I ac­knowl­edge it. So much has been said about Get­tys­burg and so well, that for me to at­tempt to say more may per­haps on­ly serve to weak­en the force of that which has al­ready been said. A most grace­ful and elo­quent trib­ute was paid to the pa­tri­otism and self- deny­ing labors of the Amer­ican ladies, on the oc­ca­sion of the con­se­cra­tion of the Na­tion­al Ceme­tery at Get­tys­burg, by our il­lus­tri­ous friend, Ed­ward Ev­erett, now, alas! de­part­ed from earth. His life was a tru­ly great one, and I think the great­est part of it was that which crowned its clos­ing years, I wish you to read, if you have not al­ready done so, the elo­quent and truth­ful words which he then spoke of the wom­en of Amer­ica. Tru­ly, the ser­vices they have ren­dered to the de­fend­ers of our coun­try in this per­ilous time, and are yet ren­der­ing, can nev­er be es­ti­mat­ed as they ought to be. For your kind wish­es to me per­son­al­ly, I beg leave to ren­der you like­wise my sin­cer­est thanks. I as­sure you they are re­cip­ro­cat­ed. And now, gen­tle­men and ladies, may God bless you all.

TELE­GRAM TO GEN­ER­AL GRANT.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 25, 1865.

LIEU­TENANT-​GEN­ER­AL GRANT, City Point

If Newell W. Root, of First Con­necti­cut Heavy Ar­tillery, is un­der sen­tence of death, please tele­graph me briefly the cir­cum­stances.

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO GEN­ER­AL GRANT.

WAR DE­PART­MENT, WASH­ING­TON, D. C., Jan­uary 25, 1865.

LIEU­TENANT-​GEN­ER­AL GRANT, City Point, Va.:

Hav­ing re­ceived the re­port in the case of Newell W. Root, I do not in­ter­fere fur­ther in the case.

A. LIN­COLN.

EAR­LY CON­SUL­TA­TIONS WITH REBELS

IN­STRUC­TIONS TO MA­JOR ECK­ERT.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 30, 1865.

MA­JOR T. T. ECK­ERT.

SIR:-You will pro­ceed with the doc­uments placed in your hands, and on reach­ing Gen­er­al Ord will de­liv­er him the let­ter ad­dressed to him by the Sec­re­tary of War. Then, by Gen­er­al Ord’s as­sis­tance pro­cure an in­ter­view with Messrs. Stephens, Hunter, and Camp­bell, or any of them, de­liv­er to him or them the pa­per on which your own let­ter is writ­ten. Note on the copy which you re­tain the time of de­liv­ery and to whom de­liv­ered. Re­ceive their an­swer in writ­ing, wait­ing a rea­son­able time for it, and which, if it con­tain their de­ci­sion to come through with­out fur­ther con­di­tion, will be your war­rant to ask Gen­er­al Ord to pass them through as di­rect­ed in the let­ter of the Sec­re­tary of War to him. If by their an­swer they de­cline to come, or pro­pose oth­er terms, do not have them pass through. And this be­ing your whole du­ty, re­turn and re­port to me.

Yours tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM FROM SEC­RE­TARY OF WAR TO GEN­ER­AL ORD. (Ci­pher.) WAR DE­PART­MENT, WASH­ING­TON, D. C., Jan­uary 30, 1865.

MA­JOR-​GEN­ER­AL ORD, Head­quar­ters Army of the James:

By di­rec­tion of the Pres­ident you are in­struct­ed to in­form the three gen­tle­men, Messrs. Stephens, Hunter, and Camp­bell, that a mes­sen­ger will be dis­patched to them at or near where they now are, with­out un­nec­es­sary de­lay.

ED­WIN M. STAN­TON, Sec­re­tary of War.

IN­DORSE­MENT ON A LET­TER FROM J. M. ASH­LEY.

HOUSE OF REP­RE­SEN­TA­TIVES, Jan­uary 31, 1865.

DEAR SIR:–The re­port is in cir­cu­la­tion in the House that Peace Com­mis­sion­ers are on their way or in the city, and is be­ing used against us. If it is true, I fear we shall lose the bill. Please au­tho­rize me to con­tra­dict it, if it is not true.

Re­spect­ful­ly, J. M. ASH­LEY.

To the Pres­ident.

(In­dorse­ment.)

So far as I know there are no Peace Com­mis­sion­ers in the city or like­ly to be in it.

A. LIN­COLN. Jan­uary 31, 1865

TELE­GRAM TO GEN­ER­AL U.S. GRANT. EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 31, 1865

LIEU­TENANT-​GEN­ER­AL GRANT, City Point, Va.:

A mes­sen­ger is com­ing to you on the busi­ness con­tained in your despatch. De­tain the gen­tle­men in com­fort­able quar­ters un­til he ar­rives, and then act up­on the mes­sage he brings, as far as ap­pli­ca­ble, it hav­ing been made up to pass through Gen­er­al Ord’s hands, and when the gen­tle­men were sup­posed to be be­yond our lines.

A. LIN­COLN.

IN­STRUC­TIONS TO SEC­RE­TARY SE­WARD.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 31, 1865.

HON. WILLIAM H. SE­WARD, Sec­re­tary of State

You will pro­ceed to Fortress Mon­roe, Vir­ginia, there to meet and in­for­mal­ly con­fer with Messrs. Stephens, Hunter, and Camp­bell, on the ba­sis of my let­ter to F. P. Blair, Esq., of Jan­uary 18, 1865, a copy of which you have. You will make known to them that three things are in­dis­pens­able to wit:

1. The restora­tion of the na­tion­al au­thor­ity through­out all the States.

2. 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.

3. No ces­sa­tion of hos­til­ities short of an end of the war and the dis­band­ing of all forces hos­tile to the Gov­ern­ment.

You will in­form them that all propo­si­tions of theirs, not in­con­sis­tent with the above, will be con­sid­ered and passed up­on in a spir­it of sin­cere lib­er­al­ity. You will hear all they may choose to say and re­port it to me. You will not as­sume to def­inite­ly con­sum­mate any­thing.

Yours, etc.,

ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN.

PAS­SAGE THROUGH CONGRESS OF THE CON­STI­TU­TION­AL AMEND­MENT FOR THE ABOL­ISH­ING OF SLAV­ERY

RE­SPONSE TO A SER­ENADE, JAN­UARY 31, 1865.

He sup­posed the pas­sage through Congress of the Con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment for the abol­ish­ing of slav­ery through­out the Unit­ed States was the oc­ca­sion to which he was in­debt­ed for the hon­or of this call.

The oc­ca­sion was one of con­grat­ula­tion to the coun­try, and to the whole world. But there is a task yet be­fore us–to go for­ward and con­sum­mate by the votes of the States that which Congress so nobly be­gan yes­ter­day. He had the hon­or to in­form those present that Illi­nois had al­ready done the work. Mary­land was about half through, but he felt proud that Illi­nois was a lit­tle ahead.

He thought this mea­sure was a very fit­ting if not an in­dis­pens­able ad­junct to the wind­ing up of the great dif­fi­cul­ty. He wished the re­union of all the States per­fect­ed, and so ef­fect­ed as to re­move all caus­es of dis­tur­bance in the fu­ture; and, to at­tain this end, it was nec­es­sary that the orig­inal dis­turb­ing cause should, if pos­si­ble, be root­ed out. He thought all would bear him wit­ness that he had nev­er shirked from do­ing all that he could to erad­icate slav­ery, by is­su­ing an Eman­ci­pa­tion Procla­ma­tion. But that procla­ma­tion falls short of what the amend­ment will be when ful­ly con­sum­mat­ed. A ques­tion might be raised whether the procla­ma­tion was legal­ly valid. It might be added, that it on­ly aid­ed those who came in­to our lines, and that it was in­op­er­ative as to those who did not give them­selves up; or that it would have no ef­fect up­on the chil­dren of the slaves born here­after; in fact, it would be urged that it did not meet the evil. But this amend­ment is a king’s cure for all evils. It winds the whole thing up. He would re­peat, that it was the fit­ting if not the in­dis­pens­able ad­junct to the con­sum­ma­tion of the great game we are play­ing. He could not but con­grat­ulate all present–him­self, the coun­try, and the whole world up­on this great moral vic­to­ry.

TELE­GRAM TO GEN­ER­AL U. S. GRANT. WASH­ING­TON, Febru­ary 1, 1865

LIEU­TENANT-​GEN­ER­AL GRANT, City Point:

Let noth­ing which is tran­spir­ing change, hin­der, or de­lay your mil­itary move­ments or plans.

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO MA­JOR ECK­ERT. WASH­ING­TON, D. C., Febru­ary 1, 1865.

MA­JOR T. T. ECK­ERT, Care of Gen­er­al Grant, City Point, Va.:

Call at Fortress Mon­roe, and put your­self un­der di­rec­tion of Mr. Se­ward, whom you will find there.

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO GEN­ER­AL U. S. GRANT. WASH­ING­TON, D. C., Febru­ary 2, 1865

LIEU­TENANT-​GEN­ER­AL GRANT, City Point, Va.:

Say to the gen­tle­men I will meet them per­son­al­ly at Fortress Mon­roe as soon as I can get there.

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO SEC­RE­TARY SE­WARD, WASH­ING­TON, D. C., Febru­ary 2, 1865.

HON. WILLIAM H. SE­WARD, Fortress Mon­roe, Va.

In­duced by a despatch of Gen­er­al Grant, I join you at Fort Mon­roe, as soon as I can come.

A. LIN­COLN.

OR­DER TO MAKE COR­REC­TIONS IN THE DRAFT.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON CITY, Febru­ary 6, 1865

Where­as com­plaints are made in some lo­cal­ities re­spect­ing the as­sign­ments of quo­tas and cred­its al­lowed for the pend­ing call of troops to fill up the armies: Now, in or­der to de­ter­mine all con­tro­ver­sies in re­spect there­to, and to avoid any de­lay in fill­ing up the armies, it is or­dered, That the At­tor­ney-​Gen­er­al, Brigadier- Gen­er­al Richard De­lafield, and Colonel C. W. Fos­ter, be, and they are here­by con­sti­tut­ed, a board to ex­am­ine in­to the prop­er quo­tas and cred­its of. the re­spec­tive States and dis­tricts un­der the call of De­cem­ber 19, 1864, with di­rec­tions, if any er­rors be found there­in, to make such cor­rec­tions as the law and facts may re­quire, and re­port their de­ter­mi­na­tion to the Provost-​Mar­shal-​Gen­er­al. The de­ter­mi­na­tion of said board to be fi­nal and con­clu­sive, and the draft to be made in con­for­mi­ty there­with.

2. The Provost-​Mar­shal-​Gen­er­al is or­dered to make the draft in the re­spec­tive dis­tricts as speed­ily as the same can be done af­ter the fif­teenth of this month.

ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN.

TO PROVOST-​MAR­SHAL-​GEN­ER­AL.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Febru­ary 6, 1865.

PROVOST-​MAR­SHAL-​GEN­ER­AL:

These gen­tle­men dis­tinct­ly say to me this morn­ing that what they want is the means from your of­fice of show­ing their peo­ple that the quo­ta as­signed to them is right. They think it will take but lit­tle time- two hours, they say. Please give there dou­ble the time and ev­ery fa­cil­ity you can.

Yours tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

Febru­ary 6, 1865.

The Provost-​Mar­shal brings this let­ter back to me and says he can­not give the fa­cil­ity re­quired with­out detri­ment to the ser­vice, and there­upon he is ex­cused from do­ing it.

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO LIEU­TENANT-​COLONEL GLENN. EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Febru­ary 7, 1865.

LIEU­TENANT-​COLONEL GLENN, Com­mand­ing Post at Hen­der­son, Ky.:

Com­plaint is made to me that you are forc­ing ne­groes in­to the mil­itary ser­vice, and even tor­tur­ing them–rid­ing them on rails and the like to ex­tort their con­sent. I hope this may be a mis­take. The like must not be done by you, or any one un­der you. You must not force ne­groes any more than white men. An­swer me on this.

A. LIN­COLN.

TO GOV­ER­NOR SMITH.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Febru­ary 8, 1865.

HIS EX­CEL­LEN­CY GOV­ER­NOR SMITH, of Ver­mont:

Com­plaint is made to me, by Ver­mont, that the as­sign­ment of her quo­ta for the draft on the pend­ing call is in­trin­si­cal­ly un­just, and al­so in bad faith of the Gov­ern­ment’s promise to fair­ly al­low cred­its for men pre­vi­ous­ly fur­nished. To il­lus­trate, a sup­posed case is stat­ed as fol­lows:

Ver­mont and New Hamp­shire must be­tween them fur­nish six thou­sand men on the pend­ing call; and be­ing equal, each must fur­nish as many as the oth­er in the long run. But the Gov­ern­ment finds that on for­mer calls Ver­mont fur­nished a sur­plus of five hun­dred, and New Hamp­shire a sur­plus, of fif­teen hun­dred. These two sur­plus­es mak­ing two thou­sand and added to the six thou­sand, mak­ing eight thou­sand to be fur­nished by the two States, or four thou­sand each less, by fair cred­its. Then sub­tract Ver­mont’s sur­plus of five hun­dred from her four thou­sand, leaves three thou­sand five hun­dred as her quo­ta on the pend­ing call; and like­wise sub­tract New Hamp­shire’s sur­plus of fif­teen hun­dred from her four thou­sand, leaves two thou­sand five hun­dred as her quo­ta on the pend­ing call. These three thou­sand five hun­dred and two thou­sand five hun­dred make pre­cise­ly six thou­sand, which the sup­posed case re­quires from the two States, and it is just equal for Ver­mont to fur­nish one thou­sand more now than New Hamp­shire, be­cause New Hamp­shire has hereto­fore fur­nished one thou­sand more than Ver­mont, which equal­izes the bur­dens of the two in the long run. And this re­sult, so far from be­ing bad faith to Ver­mont, is in­dis­pens­able to keep­ing good faith with New Hamp­shire. By no oth­er re­sult can the six thou­sand men be ob­tained from the two States, and, at the same time deal just­ly and keep faith with both, and we do but con­fuse our­selves in ques­tion­ing the pro­cess by which the right re­sult is reached. The sup­posed case is per­fect as an il­lus­tra­tion.

The pend­ing call is not for three hun­dred thou­sand men sub­ject to fair cred­its, but is for three hun­dred thou­sand re­main­ing af­ter all fair cred­its have been de­duct­ed, and it is im­pos­si­ble to con­cede what Ver­mont asks with­out com­ing out short of three hun­dred thou­sand men, or mak­ing oth­er lo­cal­ities pay for the par­tial­ity shown her.

This up­on the case stat­ed. If there be dif­fer­ent rea­sons for mak­ing an al­lowance to Ver­mont, let them be pre­sent­ed and con­sid­ered.

Yours tru­ly,

ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN.

MES­SAGE TO CONGRESS.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, Febru­ary 8, 1865.

TO THE HON­OR­ABLE THE SEN­ATE AND HOUSE OF REP­RE­SEN­TA­TIVES:

The joint res­olu­tion en­ti­tled “Joint res­olu­tion declar­ing cer­tain States not en­ti­tled to rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the elec­toral col­lege” has been signed by the Ex­ec­utive in def­er­ence to the view of Congress im­plied in its pas­sage and pre­sen­ta­tion to him. In his own view, how­ev­er, the two Hous­es of Congress, con­vened un­der the twelfth ar­ti­cle of the Con­sti­tu­tion, have com­plete pow­er to ex­clude from count­ing all elec­toral votes deemed by them to be il­le­gal, and it is not com­pe­tent for the Ex­ec­utive to de­feat or ob­struct that pow­er by a ve­to, as would be the case if his ac­tion were at all es­sen­tial in the mat­ter. He dis­claims all right of the Ex­ec­utive to in­ter­fere in any way in the mat­ter of can­vass­ing or count­ing elec­toral votes, and he al­so dis­claims that by sign­ing said res­olu­tion he has ex­pressed any opin­ion on the recitals of the pream­ble or any judg­ment of his own up­on the sub­ject of the res­olu­tion.

ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO GEN­ER­AL U. S. GRANT. EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Febru­ary 8, 1865

LIEU­TENANT-​GEN­ER­AL GRANT, City Point. Va.:

I am called on by the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to give an ac­count of my in­ter­view with Messrs. Stephens, Hunter, and Camp­bell, and it is very de­sir­able to me to put your despatch of Febru­ary 1, to the Sec­re­tary of War, in which, among oth­er things, you say: “I fear now their go­ing back with­out any ex­pres­sion from any one in au­thor­ity will have a bad in­flu­ence.” I think the despatch does you cred­it, while I do not see that it can em­bar­rass you. May I use it?

A. LIN­COLN.

RE­PLY TO A COM­MIT­TEE OF CONGRESS, RE­PORT­ING THE RE­SULT OF THE ELEC­TORAL COUNT,

FEBRU­ARY 9, 1865.

With deep grat­itude 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 ex­ist­ing na­tion­al per­ils; yet with a firm re­liance on the strength of our free gov­ern­ment, and the even­tu­al loy­al­ty of the peo­ple to the just prin­ci­ples up­on which it is found­ed, and above all with an un­shak­en faith in the Supreme Ruler of na­tions, I ac­cept this trust. Be pleased to sig­ni­fy this to the re­spec­tive Hous­es of Congress.

CHRONO­LOG­IC RE­VIEW OF PEACE PRO­POS­ALS

MES­SAGE TO THE HOUSE OF REP­RE­SEN­TA­TIVES.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, Febru­ary 10, 1865

TO THE HON­OR­ABLE THE HOUSE OF REP­RE­SEN­TA­TIVES:

In re­sponse to your res­olu­tion of the eighth in­stant, re­quest­ing in­for­ma­tion in re­la­tion to a con­fer­ence re­cent­ly held in Hamp­ton Roads, I have the hon­or to state that on the day of the date I gave Fran­cis P. Blair, Sr., a card, writ­ten on as fol­lows, to wit:

De­cem­ber 28, 1864.

Al­low the bear­er, F. P. Blair, Sr., to pass our lines, go South, and re­turn.

A. LIN­COLN.

That at the time I was in­formed that Mr. Blair sought the card as a means of get­ting to Rich­mond, Va., but he was giv­en no au­thor­ity to speak or act for the Gov­ern­ment, nor was I in­formed of any­thing he would say or do on his own ac­count or oth­er­wise. Af­ter­wards Mr. Blair told me that he had been to Rich­mond and had seen Mr. Jef­fer­son Davis; and he (Mr. B.) at the same time left with me a manuscript let­ter, as fol­lows, to wit:

RICH­MOND, VA., Jan­uary 12, 1865. F. P. BLAIR, ESQ. SIR: I have deemed it prop­er, and prob­ably de­sir­able to you, to give you in this for in the sub­stance of re­marks made by me, to be re­peat­ed by you to Pres­ident Lin­coln, etc., etc. 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. Yours, etc., JEF­FER­SON DAVIS.

Af­ter­wards, and with the view that it should be shown to Mr. Davis, I wrote and de­liv­ered to Mr. Blair a let­ter, as fol­lows, to wit:

WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 18, 1865.

P. P. BLAIR, ESQ.

SIR:–Your hav­ing shown me Mr. Davis’s let­ter to you of the twelfth in­stant, you may say to him that I have con­stant­ly been, am now, and shall con­tin­ue 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.

Yours, etc.,

A. LIN­COLN.

Af­ter­wards Mr. Blair dic­tat­ed for and au­tho­rized me to make an en­try on the back of my re­tained copy of the let­ter last above re­cit­ed, which en­try is as fol­lows:

Jan­uary 28, 1865

To-​day Mr. Blair tells me that on the twen­ty-​first in­stant he de­liv­ered to Mr. Davis the orig­inal of which the with­in is a copy, and left it with him; that at the time of de­liv­er­ing it Mr. Davis read it over twice in Mr. Blair’s pres­ence, at the close of which he (Mr. Blair) re­marked that the part about “our one com­mon coun­try” re­lat­ed to the part of Mr. Davis’ let­ter about “the two coun­tries,” to which Mr. Davis replied that he so un­der­stood it.

A. LIN­COLN.

Af­ter­wards the Sec­re­tary of War placed in my hands the fol­low­ing tele­gram, in­dorsed by him, as ap­pears:

OF­FICE UNIT­ED STATES MIL­ITARY TELE­GRAPH WAR DE­PART­MENT. The fol­low­ing tele­gram re­ceived at Wash­ing­ton Jan­uary 29, 1865, from head­quar­ters Army of James,

6.30 P.M., Jan­uary 29, 1865: “HON. ED­WIN M. STAN­TON, “Sec­re­tary of War: “The fol­low­ing despatch just re­ceived from Ma­jor-​Gen­er­al Parke, who refers it to me for my ac­tion. I re­fer it to you in Lieu­tenant- Gen­er­al Grant’s ab­sence:

“E. O. C. ORD, Ma­jor-​Gen­er­al, Com­mand­ing. HEAD­QUAR­TERS ARMY OF PO­TOMAC, Jan­uary 29, 1863. 4 P.M. ‘MA­JOR-​GEN­ER­AL E. O. C. ORD, ‘Head­quar­ters Army of James: ‘The fol­low­ing despatch is for­ward­ed to you for your ac­tion. Since I have no knowl­edge of Gen­er­al Grant’s hav­ing had any un­der­stand­ing of this kind, I re­fer the mat­ter to you as the rank­ing of­fi­cer present in the two armies. ‘JNO. G. PARKE, Ma­jor-​Gen­er­al, Com­mand­ing.’

“‘FROM HEAD­QUAR­TERS NINTH ARMY Cos, 29th. ‘MA­JOR-​GEN­ER­AL JNO. G. PARKE, ‘Head­quar­ters Army of Po­tomac: ‘Alexan­der H. Stephens, R. M. T. Hunter, and J. A. Camp­bell de­sire to cross my lines, in ac­cor­dance with an un­der­stand­ing claimed to ex­ist with Lieu­tenant-​Gen­er­al Grant, on their way to Wash­ing­ton as peace com­mis­sion­ers. Shall they be ad­mit­ted? They de­sire an ear­ly an­swer, to come through im­me­di­ate­ly. Would like to reach City Point tonight if they can. If they can not do this, they would like to come through at 10 A.M. to-​mor­row morn­ing. ‘O. B. WILCOX, ‘Ma­jor-​Gen­er­al, Com­mand­ing Ninth Corps.’

“Jan­uary 29, 8.30 P.M. “Re­spect­ful­ly re­ferred to the Pres­ident for such in­struc­tions as he may be pleased to give. “ED­WIN M. STAN­TON, “Sec­re­tary of War.”

It ap­pears that about the time of plac­ing the fore­go­ing tele­gram in my hands the Sec­re­tary of War dis­patched Gen­er­al Ord as fol­lows, to wit:

WAR DE­PART­MENT, WASH­ING­TON CITY, Jan­uary 29, 1865. 10 P.M. (Sent at 2 A.M., 30th.) MA­JOR-​GEN­ER­AL ORD.

SIR:–This De­part­ment has no knowl­edge of any un­der­stand­ing by Gen­er­al Grant to al­low any per­son to come with­in his lines as com­mis­sion­er of any sort. You will there­fore al­low no one to come in­to your lines un­der such char­ac­ter or pro­fes­sion un­til you re­ceive the Pres­ident’s in­struc­tions, to whom your tele­graph will be sub­mit­ted for his di­rec­tions.

ED­WIN M. STAN­TON, Sec­re­tary of War.

Af­ter­wards, by my di­rec­tion, the Sec­re­tary of War tele­graphed Gen­er­al Ord as fol­lows, to wit:

WAR DE­PART­MENT, WASH­ING­TON, D.C., Jan­uary 30. 10.30 A.M.

MA­JOR-​GEN­ER­AL E. O. C. ORD, Head­quar­ters Army of the James.

SIR:–By di­rec­tion of the Pres­ident, you are in­struct­ed to in­form the three gen­tle­men, Messrs. Stephens, Hunter and Camp­bell, that a mes­sen­ger will be dis­patched to them at or near where they now are with­out un­nec­es­sary de­lay.

ED­WIN M. STAN­TON, Sec­re­tary of War.

Af­ter­wards I pre­pared and put in­to the hands of Ma­jor Thomas T. Eck­ert the fol­low­ing in­struc­tions and mes­sage:

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION,

MA­JOR T. T. ECK­ERT. WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 30, 1865

SIR:–You will pro­ceed with the doc­uments placed in your hands, and on reach­ing Gen­er­al Ord will de­liv­er him the let­ter ad­dressed to him by the Sec­re­tary of War; then, by Gen­er­al Ord’s as­sis­tance, pro­cure an in­ter­view with Messrs. Stephens, Hunter, and Camp­bell, or any of them. De­liv­er to him or them the pa­per on which your own let­ter is writ­ten. Note on the copy which you re­tain the time of de­liv­ery and to whom de­liv­ered. Re­ceive their an­swer in writ­ing, wait­ing a rea­son­able time for it, and which, if it con­tain their de­ci­sion to come through with­out fur­ther con­di­tion, will be your war­rant to ask Gen­er­al Ord to pass them through, as di­rect­ed in the let­ter of the Sec­re­tary of War to him. If by their an­swer they de­cline to come, or pro­pose oth­er terms, do not have them pass through. And this be­ing your whole du­ty, re­turn and re­port to me.

A. LIN­COLN.

CITY POINT, VA.. Febru­ary 1, 1865.

MESSRS. ALEXAN­DER H. STEPHENS, J. A. CAMP­BELL AND R. M. T. HUNTER.

GEN­TLE­MEN :–I am in­struct­ed by the Pres­ident of the Unit­ed States to place this pa­per in your hands, with the in­for­ma­tion that if you pass through the Unit­ed States mil­itary lines it will be un­der­stood that you do so for the pur­pose of an in­for­mal con­fer­ence on the ba­sis of the let­ter a copy of which is on the re­verse side of this sheet, and that if you choose to pass on such un­der­stand­ing, and so no­ti­fy me in writ­ing, I will pro­cure the com­mand­ing gen­er­al to pass you through the lines and to Fortress Mon­roe un­der such mil­itary pre­cau­tions as he may deem pru­dent, and at which place you will be met in due time by some per­son or per­sons for the pur­pose of such in­for­mal con­fer­ence; and, fur­ther, that you shall have pro­tec­tion, safe con­duct, and safe re­turn in all events.

THOMAS T. ECK­ERT, Ma­jor and Aide-​de-​Camp.

WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 18, 1865. F. P. BLAIR, ESQ.

SIR:–Your hav­ing shown me Mr. Davis’s let­ter to you of the twelfth in­stant, you may say to him that I have con­stant­ly been, am now, and shall con­tin­ue 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. Yours, etc., A. LIN­COLN.

Af­ter­wards, but be­fore Ma­jor Eck­ert had de­part­ed, the fol­low­ing dis­patch was re­ceived from Gen­er­al Grant:

OF­FICE UNIT­ED STATES MIL­ITARY TELE­GRAPH, WAR DE­PART­MENT.

The fol­low­ing tele­gram re­ceived at Wash­ing­ton Jan­uary 30, 1865, from City Point, Va., 10.30 A.M., Jan­uary 30, 1865:

“His EX­CEL­LEN­CY ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN, Pres­ident of the Unit­ed States:

“The fol­low­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion was re­ceived here last evening:

“‘PE­TERS­BURG, VA., Jan­uary 30, 1865. ‘LIEU­TENANT-​GEN­ER­AL U.S. GRANT, Com­mand­ing Armies Unit­ed States. ‘SIR: We de­sire to pass your lines un­der safe con­duct, and to pro­ceed to Wash­ing­ton to hold a con­fer­ence with Pres­ident Lin­coln up­on the sub­ject of the ex­ist­ing war, and with a view of as­cer­tain­ing up­on what terms it may be ter­mi­nat­ed, in pur­suance of the course in­di­cat­ed by him in his let­ter to Mr. Blair of Jan­uary 18, 1865, of which we pre­sume you have a copy; and if not, we wish to see you in per­son, if con­ve­nient, and to con­fer with you up­on the sub­ject. ‘Very re­spect­ful­ly, yours, ‘ALEXAN­DER H. STEPHENS. ‘J. A. CAMP­BELL. ‘R. M. T. HUNTER.’”

“I have sent di­rec­tions to re­ceive these gen­tle­men, and ex­pect to have them at my quar­ters this evening, await­ing your in­struc­tions. U.S. GRANT, Lieu­tenant-​Gen­er­al, Com­mand­ing Armies Unit­ed States.”

This, it will be per­ceived, trans­ferred Gen­er­al Ord’s agen­cy in the mat­ter to Gen­er­al Grant. I re­solved, how­ev­er, to send Ma­jor Eck­ert for­ward with his mes­sage, and ac­cord­ing­ly tele­graphed Gen­er­al Grant as fol­lows, to wit:

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 13, 1865 (Sent at 1.30 P.M.)

LIEU­TENANT-​GEN­ER­AL GRANT, City Point, Va.:

A mes­sen­ger is com­ing to you on the busi­ness con­tained in your despatch. De­tain the gen­tle­men in com­fort­able quar­ters un­til he ar­rives, and then act up­on the mes­sage he brings as far as ap­pli­ca­ble, it hav­ing been made up to pass through Gen­er­al Ord’s hands, and when the gen­tle­men were sup­posed to be be­yond our lines.

A. LIN­COLN.

When Ma­jor Eck­ert de­part­ed, he bore with him a let­ter of the Sec­re­tary of War to Gen­er­al Grant, as fol­lows, to wit:

WAR DE­PART­MENT, WASH­ING­TON, D. C., Jan­uary 30, 1865.

LIEU­TENANT-​GEN­ER­AL GRANT, Com­mand­ing, etc.

GEN­ER­AL:–The Pres­ident de­sires that you will please pro­cure for the bear­er, Ma­jor Thomas T. Eck­ert, an in­ter­view with Messrs. Stephens, Hunter, and Camp­bell, and if on his re­turn to you he re­quests it pass them through our lines to Fortress Mon­roe by such route and un­der such mil­itary pre­cau­tions as you may deem pru­dent, giv­ing them pro­tec­tion and com­fort­able quar­ters while there, and that you let none of this have any ef­fect up­on your move­ments or plans.

By or­der of the Pres­ident: ED­WIN M. STAN­TON, Sec­re­tary of War.

Sup­pos­ing the prop­er point to be then reached, I dis­patched the Sec­re­tary of State with the fol­low­ing in­struc­tions, Ma­jor Eck­ert, how­ev­er, go­ing ahead of him:

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Jan­uary 31, 1865.

HON. WILLIAM H. SE­WARD, Sec­re­tary of State:

You will pro­ceed to Fortress Mon­roe, Va., there to meet and in­for­mal­ly con­fer with Messrs. Stephens, Hunter, and Camp­bell on the ba­sis of my let­ter to F. P. Blair, Esq., of Jan­uary 18, 1865, a copy of which you have.

You will make known to them that three things are in­dis­pens­able, to Wit:

1. The restora­tion of the na­tion­al au­thor­ity through­out all the States.

2. 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.

3. No ces­sa­tion of hos­til­ities short of an end of the war and the dis­band­ing of all forces hos­tile to the Gov­ern­ment.

You will in­form them that all propo­si­tions of theirs not in­con­sis­tent with the above will be con­sid­ered and passed up­on in a spir­it of sin­cere lib­er­al­ity. You will hear all they may choose to say and re­port it to me.

You will not as­sume to def­inite­ly con­sum­mate any­thing.

Yours, etc.,

ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN.

On the day of its date the fol­low­ing tele­gram was sent to Gen­er­al Grant:

WAR DE­PART­MENT, WASH­ING­TON, D. C., Febru­ary 1,1865 (Sent at 9.30 A.M.)

LIEU­TENANT-​GEN­ER­AL GRANT, City Point, Va.:

Let noth­ing which is tran­spir­ing change, hin­der, or de­lay your mil­itary move­ments or plans.

A. LIN­COLN.

Af­ter­wards the fol­low­ing despatch was re­ceived from Gen­er­al Grant:

OF­FICE UNIT­ED STATES MIL­ITARY TELE­GRAPH WAR DE­PART­MENT. The fol­low­ing tele­gram re­ceived at Wash­ing­ton, 2.30 P.M., Febru­ary 1, 1865, from City Point, Va., Febru­ary 1, 12.30 PM., 1865:

“His EX­CEL­LEN­CY A. LIN­COLN, Pres­ident Unit­ed States:

“Your despatch re­ceived. There will be no armistice in con­se­quence of the pres­ence of Mr. Stephens and oth­ers with­in our lines. The troops are kept in readi­ness to move at the short­est no­tice if oc­ca­sion should jus­ti­fy it.

“U.S. GRANT, Lieu­tenant-​Gen­er­al.”

To no­ti­fy Ma­jor Eck­ert that the Sec­re­tary of State would be at Fortress Mon­roe, and to put them in com­mu­ni­ca­tion, the fol­low­ing despatch was sent:

WAR DE­PART­MENT, WASH­ING­TON, D. C., Febru­ary 1, 1865.

MA­JOR T. T. ECK­ERT, Care of Gen­er­al Grant, City Point, Va.:

Call at Fortress Mon­roe and put your­self un­der di­rec­tion of Mr. S., whom you will find there.

A. LIN­COLN.

On the morn­ing of the 2d in­stant the fol­low­ing tele­grams were re­ceived by me re­spec­tive­ly from the Sec­re­tary of State and Ma­jor Eck­ert:

FORT MON­ROE, VA., Febru­ary 1,1865. 11.30 PM.

THE PRES­IDENT OF THE UNIT­ED STATES:

Ar­rived at 10 this evening. Rich­mond par­ty not here. I re­main here.

WILLIAM H. SE­WARD.

CITY POINT, VA., Febru­ary 1, 1865. 10 P.M.

HIS EX­CEL­LEN­CY A. LIN­COLN, Pres­ident of the Unit­ed States: I have the hon­or to re­port the de­liv­ery of your com­mu­ni­ca­tion and my let­ter at 4.15 this af­ter­noon, to which I re­ceived a re­ply at 6 P.M., but not sat­is­fac­to­ry.

At 8 P.M. the fol­low­ing note, ad­dressed to Gen­er­al Grant, was re­ceived:

CITY POINT, VA., Febru­ary 1, 1865

“LIEU­TENANT-​GEN­ER­AL GRANT. “SIR:-We de­sire to go to Wash­ing­ton City to con­fer in­for­mal­ly with the Pres­ident per­son­al­ly in ref­er­ence to the mat­ters men­tioned in his let­ter to Mr. Blair of the 18th Jan­uary ul­ti­mo, with­out any per­son­al com­pro­mise on any ques­tion in the let­ter. We have the per­mis­sion to do so from the au­thor­ities in Rich­mond. Very re­spect­ful­ly yours, ALEX. H. STEPHENS R. M. T. HUNTER. J. A. CAMP­BELL.”

At 9.30 P.M. I no­ti­fied them that they could not pro­ceed fur­ther un­less they com­plied with the terms ex­pressed in my let­ter. The point of meet­ing des­ig­nat­ed in the above note would not, in my opin­ion, be in­sist­ed up­on. Think Fort Mon­roe would be ac­cept­able. Hav­ing com­plied with my in­struc­tions, I will re­turn to Wash­ing­ton to- mor­row un­less oth­er­wise or­dered.

THOS. T. ECK­ERT, Ma­jor, etc.

On read­ing this despatch of Ma­jor Eck­ert I was about to re­call him and the Sec­re­tary of State, when the fol­low­ing tele­gram of Gen­er­al Grant to the Sec­re­tary of War was shown me:

OF­FICE UNIT­ED STATES MIL­ITARY TELE­GRAPH, WAR DE­PART­MENT.

The fol­low­ing tele­gram re­ceived at Wash­ing­ton 4.35 A.M., Febru­ary 2, 1865, from City Point, Va., Febru­ary 1, 10.30 P.M., 1865:

“HON. ED­WIN M. STAN­TON, “Sec­re­tary of War:

“Now that the in­ter­view be­tween Ma­jor Eck­ert, un­der his writ­ten in­struc­tions, and Mr. Stephens and par­ty has end­ed, I will state con­fi­den­tial­ly, but not of­fi­cial­ly to be­come a mat­ter of record, that I am con­vinced up­on con­ver­sa­tion with Messrs. Stephens and Hunter that their in­ten­tions are good and their de­sire sin­cere to re­store peace and union. I have not felt my­self at lib­er­ty to ex­press even views of my own or to ac­count for my ret­icen­cy. This has placed me in an awk­ward po­si­tion, which I could have avoid­ed by not see­ing them in the first in­stance. I fear now their go­ing back with­out any ex­pres­sion from any­one in au­thor­ity will have a bad in­flu­ence. At the same time, I rec­og­nize the dif­fi­cul­ties in the way of re­ceiv­ing these in­for­mal com­mis­sion­ers at this time, and do not know what to rec­om­mend. I am sor­ry, how­ev­er, that Mr. Lin­coln can not have an in­ter­view with the two named in this despatch, if not all three now with­in our lines. Their let­ter to me was all that the Pres­ident’s in­struc­tions con­tem­plat­ed to se­cure their safe con­duct if they had used the same lan­guage to Ma­jor Eck­ert.

“U.S. GRANT “Lieu­tenant-​Gen­er­al,”

This despatch of Gen­er­al Grant changed my pur­pose, and ac­cord­ing­ly I tele­graphed him and the Sec­re­tary of State, re­spec­tive­ly, as fol­lows:

WAR DE­PART­MENT, WASH­ING­TON, D. C., Febru­ary 2, 1865. (Sent at 9 A.M.)

LIEU­TENANT-​GEN­ER­AL GRANT, City Point, Va.:

Say to the gen­tle­men I will meet them per­son­al­ly at Fortress Mon­roe as soon as I can get there.

A. LIN­COLN.

WAR DE­PART­MENT, WASH­ING­TON, D. C., Febru­ary 2, 1865. (Sent at 9 A.M.)

HON. WILLIAM H. SE­WARD, Fortress Mon­roe, Va.:

In­duced by a despatch from Gen­er­al Grant, I join you at Fort Mon­roe as soon as I can come.

A. LIN­COLN.

Be­fore start­ing, the fol­low­ing despatch was shown me. I pro­ceed­ed, nev­er­the­less:

OF­FICE UNIT­ED STATES MIL­ITARY TELE­GRAPH, WAR DE­PART­MENT. The fol­low­ing tele­gram re­ceived at Wash­ing­ton, Febru­ary 2, 1865, from City Point, Va., 9 A.M., Febru­ary 2, 1865:

“HON. WILLIAM H. SE­WARD, Sec­re­tary of State, Fort Mon­roe:

“The gen­tle­men here have ac­cept­ed the pro­posed terms, and will leave for Fort Mon­roe at 9.30 A.M.

“U. S. GRANT, Lieu­tenant-​Gen­er­al.”

(Copy to HON. Ed­win M. Stan­ton, Sec­re­tary of War, Wash­ing­ton.)

On the night of the 2nd I reached Hamp­ton Roads, found the Sec­re­tary of State and Ma­jor Eck­ert on a steam­er an­chored off­shore, and learned of them that the Rich­mond gen­tle­men were on an­oth­er steam­er al­so an­chored off­shore, in the Roads, and that the Sec­re­tary of State had not yet seen or com­mu­ni­cat­ed with them. I as­cer­tained that Ma­jor Eck­ert had lit­er­al­ly com­plied with his in­struc­tions, and I saw for the first time the an­swer of the Rich­mond gen­tle­men to him, which in his despatch to me of the 1st he char­ac­ter­izes as “not sat­is­fac­to­ry.” That an­swer is as fol­lows, to wit:

CITY POINT, VA., Febru­ary 1, 1865. THOMAS T. ECK­ERT, Ma­jor and Aid-​de-​Camp. MA­JOR:-Your note, de­liv­ered by your­self this day, has been con­sid­ered. In re­ply we have to say that we were fur­nished with a copy of the let­ter of Pres­ident Lin­coln to Fran­cis P. Blair, Esq., of the 18th of Jan­uary ul­ti­mo, an­oth­er copy of which is ap­pend­ed to your note. Our in­struc­tions are con­tained in a let­ter of which the fol­low­ing is a copy:

“RICH­MOND, Jan­uary 28, 1865. “In con­for­mi­ty with the let­ter of Mr. Lin­coln, of which the fore­go­ing is a copy, you are to pro­ceed to Wash­ing­ton City for in­for­mal con­fer­ence with him up­on the is­sues in­volved in the ex­ist­ing war, and for the pur­pose of se­cur­ing peace to the two coun­tries. “With great re­spect, your obe­di­ent ser­vant, “JEF­FER­SON DAVIS.”

The sub­stan­tial ob­ject to be ob­tained by the in­for­mal con­fer­ence is to as­cer­tain up­on what terms the ex­ist­ing war can be ter­mi­nat­ed hon­or­ably.

Our in­struc­tions con­tem­plate a per­son­al in­ter­view be­tween Pres­ident Lin­coln and our­selves at Wash­ing­ton City, but with this ex­pla­na­tion we are ready to meet any per­son or per­sons that Pres­ident Lin­coln may ap­point at such place as he may des­ig­nate.

Our earnest de­sire is that a just and hon­or­able peace may be agreed up­on, and we are pre­pared to re­ceive or to sub­mit propo­si­tions which may pos­si­bly lead to the at­tain­ment of that end.

Very re­spect­ful­ly, yours, ALEXAN­DER H. STEPHENS. R. M. T. HUNTER. JOHN A. CAMP­BELL.

A note of these gen­tle­men, sub­se­quent­ly ad­dressed to Gen­er­al Grant, has al­ready been giv­en in Ma­jor Eck­ert’s despatch of the 1st in­stant.

I al­so here saw, for the first time, the fol­low­ing note, ad­dressed by the Rich­mond gen­tle­men to Ma­jor Eck­ert:

CITY POINT, VA., Febru­ary 2, 1865. THOMAS T. ECK­ERT, Ma­jor and Aid-​de-​Camp. MA­JOR:–In re­ply to your ver­bal state­ment that your in­struc­tions did not al­low you to al­ter the con­di­tions up­on which a pass­port could be giv­en to us, we say that we are will­ing to pro­ceed to Fortress Mon­roe and there to have an in­for­mal con­fer­ence with any per­son or per­sons that Pres­ident Lin­coln may ap­point on the ba­sis of his let­ter to Fran­cis P. Blair of the 18th of Jan­uary ul­ti­mo, or up­on any oth­er terms or con­di­tions that he may here­after pro­pose not in­con­sis­tent with the es­sen­tial prin­ci­ples of self-​gov­ern­ment and pop­ular rights, up­on which our in­sti­tu­tions are found­ed.

It is our earnest wish to as­cer­tain, af­ter a free in­ter­change of ideas and in­for­ma­tion, up­on what prin­ci­ples and terms, if any, a just and hon­or­able peace can be es­tab­lished with­out the fur­ther ef­fu­sion of blood, and to con­tribute our ut­most ef­forts to ac­com­plish such a re­sult.

We think it bet­ter to add that in ac­cept­ing your pass­port we are not to be un­der­stood as com­mit­ting our­selves to any­thing but to car­ry to this in­for­mal con­fer­ence the views and feel­ings above ex­pressed.

Very re­spect­ful­ly, yours, etc.,

ALEXAN­DER H. STEPHENS, J. A. CAMP­BELL, R. M. T. HUNTER.

Note.-The above com­mu­ni­ca­tion was de­liv­ered to me at Fort Mon­roe at 4.30 P.M. Febru­ary 2 by Lieu­tenant-​Colonel Bab­cock, of Gen­er­al Grant’s staff. THOMAS T. ECK­ERT Ma­jor and Aid-​de-​Camp.

On the morn­ing of the third the three gen­tle­men, Messrs. Stephens, Hunter, and Camp­bell, came aboard of our steam­er and had an in­ter­view with the Sec­re­tary of State and my­self of sev­er­al hours’ du­ra­tion. No ques­tion of pre­lim­inar­ies to the meet­ing was then and there made or men­tioned; no oth­er per­son was present; no pa­pers were ex­changed or pro­duced; and it was in ad­vance agreed that the con­ver­sa­tion was to be in­for­mal and ver­bal mere­ly. On our part the whole sub­stance of the in­struc­tions to the Sec­re­tary of State here­in­be­fore re­cit­ed was stat­ed and in­sist­ed up­on, and noth­ing was said in­con­sis­tent there­with; while by the oth­er par­ty it was not said that in any event or on any con­di­tion they ev­er would con­sent to re­union, and yet they equal­ly omit­ted to de­clare that they nev­er would con­sent. They seemed to de­sire a post­pone­ment of that ques­tion and the adop­tion of some oth­er course first, which, as some of them seemed to ar­gue, might or might not lead to re­union, but which course we thought would amount to an in­def­inite post­pone­ment. The con­fer­ence end­ed with­out re­sult.

The fore­go­ing, con­tain­ing, as is be­lieved, all the in­for­ma­tion sought is re­spect­ful­ly sub­mit­ted.

ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN.

MES­SAGE TO THE SEN­ATE.

WASH­ING­TON, Febru­ary 10, 1865

To THE SEN­ATE OF THE UNIT­ED STATES:

In an­swer to the res­olu­tion of the Sen­ate of the eighth in­stant, re­quest­ing in­for­ma­tion con­cern­ing re­cent con­ver­sa­tions or com­mu­ni­ca­tions with in­sur­gents, un­der ex­ec­utive sanc­tion, I trans­mit a re­port from the Sec­re­tary of State, to whom the res­olu­tion was re­ferred.

ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN.

TO THE PRES­IDENT:

The Sec­re­tary of State, to whom was re­ferred a res­olu­tion of the Sen­ate of the 8th in­stant, re­quest­ing “the Pres­ident of the Unit­ed States, if, in his opin­ion, not in­com­pat­ible with the pub­lic in­ter­ests, to fur­nish to the Sen­ate any in­for­ma­tion in his pos­ses­sion con­cern­ing re­cent con­ver­sa­tions or com­mu­ni­ca­tions with cer­tain rebels, said to have tak­en place un­der ex­ec­utive sanc­tion, in­clud­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions with the rebel Jef­fer­son Davis, and any cor­re­spon­dence re­lat­ing there­to,” has the hon­or to re­port that the Sen­ate may prop­er­ly be re­ferred to a spe­cial mes­sage of the Pres­ident bear­ing up­on the sub­ject of the res­olu­tion, and trans­mit­ted to the House this day. Ap­pend­ed to this re­port is a copy of an in­struc­tion which has been ad­dressed to Charles Fran­cis Adams, Esq., en­voy ex­traor­di­nary and min­is­ter plenipo­ten­tiary of the Unit­ed States at Lon­don, and which is the on­ly cor­re­spon­dence found in this de­part­ment touch­ing the sub­ject re­ferred to in the res­olu­tion.

Re­spect­ful­ly sub­mit­ted, WILLIAM H. SE­WARD. DE­PART­MENT OF STATE, WASH­ING­TON, Febru­ary 10, 1865.

MR. SE­WARD TO MR. ADAMS. (Ex­tract.) No. 1258.

DE­PART­MENT OF STATE, WASH­ING­TON, Febru­ary 7,1865

On the morn­ing of the 3d, the Pres­ident, at­tend­ed by the Sec­re­tary, re­ceived Messrs. Stephens, Hunter, and Camp­bell on board the Unit­ed States steam trans­port Riv­er Queen in Hamp­ton Roads. The con­fer­ence was al­to­geth­er in­for­mal. There was no at­ten­dance of sec­re­taries, clerks, or oth­er wit­ness­es. Noth­ing was writ­ten or read. The con­ver­sa­tion, al­though earnest and free, was calm, and cour­te­ous, and kind on both sides. The Rich­mond par­ty ap­proached the dis­cus­sion rather in­di­rect­ly, and at no time did they ei­ther make cat­egor­ical de­mands, or ten­der for­mal stip­ula­tions or ab­so­lute re­fusals. Nev­er­the­less, dur­ing the con­fer­ence, which last­ed four hours, the sev­er­al points at is­sue be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the in­sur­gents were dis­tinct­ly raised, and dis­cussed ful­ly, in­tel­li­gent­ly, and in an am­ica­ble spir­it. What the in­sur­gent par­ty seemed chiefly to fa­vor was a post­pone­ment of the ques­tion of sep­ara­tion, up­on which the war is waged, and a mu­tu­al di­rec­tion of ef­forts of the Gov­ern­ment, as well as those of the in­sur­gents, to some ex­trin­sic pol­icy or scheme for a sea­son dur­ing which pas­sions might be ex­pect­ed to sub­side, and the armies be re­duced, and trade and in­ter­course be­tween the peo­ple of both sec­tions re­sumed. It was sug­gest­ed by them that through such post­pone­ment we might now have im­me­di­ate peace, with some not very cer­tain prospect of an ul­ti­mate sat­is­fac­to­ry ad­just­ment of po­lit­ical re­la­tions be­tween this Gov­ern­ment and the States, sec­tion, or peo­ple now en­gaged in con­flict with it.

This sug­ges­tion, though de­lib­er­ate­ly con­sid­ered, was nev­er­the­less re­gard­ed by the Pres­ident as one of armistice or truce, and he an­nounced that we can agree to no ces­sa­tion or sus­pen­sion of hos­til­ities, ex­cept on the ba­sis of the dis­band­ment of the in­sur­gent forces, and the restora­tion of the na­tion­al au­thor­ity through­out all the States in the Union. Col­lat­er­al­ly, and in sub­or­di­na­tion to the propo­si­tion which was thus an­nounced, the an­ti­slav­ery pol­icy of the Unit­ed States was re­viewed in all its bear­ings, and the Pres­ident an­nounced that he must not be ex­pect­ed to de­part from the po­si­tions he had hereto­fore as­sumed in his procla­ma­tion of eman­ci­pa­tion and oth­er doc­uments, as these po­si­tions were re­it­er­at­ed in his last an­nu­al mes­sage. It was fur­ther de­clared by the Pres­ident that the com­plete restora­tion of the na­tion­al au­thor­ity was an in­dis­pens­able con­di­tion of any as­sent on our part to what­ev­er form of peace might be pro­posed. The Pres­ident as­sured the oth­er par­ty that, while he must ad­here to these po­si­tions, he would be pre­pared, so far as pow­er is lodged with the Ex­ec­utive, to ex­er­cise lib­er­al­ity. His pow­er, how­ev­er, is lim­it­ed by the Con­sti­tu­tion; and when peace should be made, Congress must nec­es­sar­ily act in re­gard to ap­pro­pri­ations of mon­ey and to the ad­mis­sion of rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the in­sur­rec­tionary States. The Rich­mond par­ty were then in­formed that Congress had, on the 31st ul­ti­mo, adopt­ed by a con­sti­tu­tion­al ma­jor­ity a joint res­olu­tion sub­mit­ting to the sev­er­al States the propo­si­tion to abol­ish slav­ery through­out the Union, and that there is ev­ery rea­son to ex­pect that it will be soon ac­cept­ed by three fourths of the States, so as to be­come a part of the na­tion­al or­gan­ic law.

The con­fer­ence came to an end by mu­tu­al ac­qui­es­cence, with­out pro­duc­ing an agree­ment of views up­on the sev­er­al mat­ters dis­cussed, or any of them. Nev­er­the­less, it is per­haps of some im­por­tance that we have been able to sub­mit our opin­ions and views di­rect­ly to promi­nent in­sur­gents, and to hear them in an­swer in a cour­te­ous and not un­friend­ly man­ner.

I am, sir, your obe­di­ent ser­vant,

WILLIAM H. SE­WARD.

TO AD­MI­RAL DAVID D. PORTER.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, Febru­ary 10, 1865

REAR-​AD­MI­RAL DAVID D. PORTER, Com­mand­ing North At­lantic Squadron, Hamp­ton Roads, Va.

SIR:–It is made my agree­able du­ty to en­close here­with the joint res­olu­tion ap­proved 24th Jan­uary, 1865, ten­der­ing the thanks of Congress to your­self, the of­fi­cers and men un­der your com­mand for their gal­lantry and good con­duct in the cap­ture of Fort Fish­er, and through you to all who par­tic­ipat­ed in that bril­liant and de­ci­sive vic­to­ry un­der your com­mand.

Very re­spect­ful­ly,

ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO GEN­ER­AL S. POPE. EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Febru­ary 12, 1865

MA­JOR-​GEN­ER­AL POPE, St. Louis, Mis­souri:

I un­der­stand that provost-​mar­shals in dif­fer­ent parts of Mis­souri are as­sum­ing to de­cide that the con­di­tions of bonds are for­feit­ed, and there­fore are seiz­ing and sell­ing prop­er­ty to pay dam­ages. This, if true, is both out­ra­geous and ridicu­lous. Do not al­low it. The courts, and not provost-​mar­shals, are to de­cide such ques­tions un­less when mil­itary ne­ces­si­ty makes an ex­cep­tion. Al­so ex­cuse John Eaton, of Clay Coun­ty, and Wes­ley Mar­tin, of Plat­te, from be­ing sent South, and let them go East if any­where.

A. LIN­COLN

TO THE COM­MAND­ING OF­FI­CERS IN WEST TEN­NESSEE

WASH­ING­TON, Febru­ary 13, 1865.

TO THE MIL­ITARY OF­FI­CERS COM­MAND­ING IN WEST TEN­NESSEE:

While I can­not or­der as with­in re­quest­ed, al­low me to say that it is my wish for you to re­lieve the peo­ple from all bur­dens, ha­rass­ments, and op­pres­sions, so far as is pos­si­ble con­sis­tent­ly with your mil­itary ne­ces­si­ties; that the ob­ject of the war be­ing to re­store and main­tain the bless­ings of peace and good gov­ern­ment, I de­sire you to help, and not hin­der, ev­ery ad­vance in that di­rec­tion.

Of your mil­itary ne­ces­si­ties you must judge and ex­ecute, but please do so in the spir­it and with the pur­pose above in­di­cat­ed.

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO GEN­ER­AL J. POPE. EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Febru­ary 14, 1865.

MA­JOR-​GEN­ER­AL POPE, St. Louis, Mis­souri:

Yours of yes­ter­day about provost-​mar­shal sys­tem re­ceived. As part of the same sub­ject, let me say I am now pressed in re­gard to a pend­ing as­sess­ment in St. Louis Coun­ty. Please ex­am­ine and sat­is­fy your­self whether this as­sess­ment should pro­ceed or be aban­doned; and if you de­cide that it is to pro­ceed, please ex­am­ine as to the pro­pri­ety of its ap­pli­ca­tion to a gen­tle­man by the name of Charles McLaran.

A. LIN­COLN.

TELE­GRAM TO GEN­ER­AL POPE. EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON Febru­ary 15, 1865.

MA­JOR-​GEN­ER­AL POPE, St. Louis, Mis­souri:

Please as­cer­tain whether Gen­er­al Fisk’s ad­min­is­tra­tion is as good as it might be, and an­swer me.

A. LIN­COLN.

PROCLA­MA­TION CON­VEN­ING THE SEN­ATE IN EX­TRA SES­SION,

FEBRU­ARY 17, 1865.

BY THE PRES­IDENT OF THE UNIT­ED STATES OF AMER­ICA:

A Procla­ma­tion

Where­as ob­jects of in­ter­est to the Unit­ed States re­quire that the Sen­ate should be con­vened at twelve o’clock on the fourth of March next to re­ceive and act up­on such com­mu­ni­ca­tions as may be made to it on the part of the Ex­ec­utive;

Now, there­fore, I, Abra­ham Lin­coln, Pres­ident of the Unit­ed States, have con­sid­ered it to be my du­ty to is­sue this, my procla­ma­tion, declar­ing that an ex­traor­di­nary oc­ca­sion re­quires the Sen­ate of the Unit­ed States to con­vene for the trans­ac­tion of busi­ness at the Capi­tol, in the city of Wash­ing­ton, on the fourth day of March next, at twelve o’clock at noon on that day, of which all who shall at that time be en­ti­tled to act as mem­bers of that body are here­by re­quired to take no­tice.

Giv­en un­der my hand and the seal of the Unit­ed States, at Wash­ing­ton……………

ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN. By the Pres­ident: WILLIAM H. SE­WARD, Sec­re­tary of State.

TELE­GRAM TO OF­FI­CER IN COM­MAND AT HARP­ER’S FER­RY. EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, WASH­ING­TON, Febru­ary 17, 1865

OF­FI­CER IN COM­MAND AT HARP­ER’S FER­RY:

Chap­lain Fitzgib­bon yes­ter­day sent me a despatch in­vok­ing Clemen­cy for Jack­son, Stew­art, and Ran­dall, who are to be shot to-​day. The despatch is so vague that there is no means here of as­cer­tain­ing whether or not the ex­ecu­tion of sen­tence of one or more of them may not al­ready have been or­dered. If not sus­pend ex­ecu­tion of sen­tence m their cas­es un­til fur­ther or­ders and for­ward records of tri­als for ex­am­ina­tion.

A. LIN­COLN