said that that was "not necessarily true of those who follow." Inviting the latter to return through the door which "has been for a full year open to all," he added: "But the time may come probably will come-when public duty shall demand that it be closed; and that, in lieu, more vigorous meas ures than heretofore shall be adopted." He closed with the assertion that while "the abandonment of armed resistance" was "the simple condition of peace," there could be no retraction of the previously announced policy on the subject of slav ery, and that if the people should resolve to re-enslave those that have been made free, "another, and not I, must be made the instrument to perform it." Notwithstanding the two abortive efforts at negotiation that had been made during the summer, and the expressed conviction of the President in his message that anything in that direction would be of no avail, there were those who thought otherwise. Among them was Francis P. Blair, Sr., a prominent Democratic editor at Washington during the administra tions of Jackson and Van Buren. He had supported the administration of Mr. Lincoln and furnished from his own family a member of his cabinet and a general for the army; and he now conceived the idea that, from his large and long acquaintance and personal influence with the Southern leaders, he could bring about reconciliation and peace. To make the attempt he asked of the President safe conduct through the Union lines, for the purpose of visiting Richmond. To show his willingness for peace on proper terms the President granted the request, though the self-appointed ambassador was clothed with no authority to treat with the insurgent leaders. Reaching Richmond, he became the guest of Mr. Ould, the Confeder ate commissioner for the exchange of prisoners. He had several interviews with Jefferson Davis, from whom he received a letter to be shown to Mr. Lincoln, in which he expressed his willingness to enter into a conference with a view to secure peace between the two countries." This being shown to the President, he responded by expressing his readiness to receive any agent whom Mr. Davis "or any other influential person now resisting the national authority may informally send me with a view of securing peace to our common country." There was that, however, in the phraseology of the two notes that forbade the hope of reconciliation between the two leaders, the one speaking of "two countries," and the other of "our common country"; and as neither would accept the phraseology of the other, there could be no reconciliation, as there was no common basis on which the two could stand. The desire for peace was, however, so great, and the pressure was so strong, that Mr. Davis was compelled to appoint commissioners to confer with the government at Washington. He selected A. H. Stephens, John A. Campbell, and R. M. T. Hunter for that purpose. They were permitted, however, to go no farther on board a steamer than Hampton Roads. At first Mr. Seward only was deputed to meet them, and he was instructed to make, as conditions precedent to any conference, the restoration of national authority, no receding in the matter of slavery, and no cessation of hostilities until the Confederates should lay down their arms. But as this involved too much, and as the commissioners expressed a desire to confer with the Federal government without that restriction, the President himself concluded to go in person to participate in the proposed conference. The conference was held on the 3d of February. While courtesy and an amicable spirit marked the interview, and each side defined its position with clearness, it was found, as the President had declared in his message, that there was neither chance for compromise nor room for negotiation. The particular point made and insisted on by the Rebel commissioners was a postponement of the real question at issue, the separation of the insurgent States from the Union, by a sort of armistice, during which there should be mutual efforts towards some extrinsic policy, a reduction of the two armies, and the intercourse between the two sections to be resumed. But the President was inflexible, insisted on the conditions. precedent he had prescribed for his Secretary, and would entertain no propositions on any other basis. By an account, published in a Georgia paper, said to have been prepared under ! the eye of Mr. Stephens, it was the free and informal conver sation of several hours between five gentlemen of capacity and culture, earnest and eloquent, able and adroit representatives of two opposing systems and civilizations, for generations engaged in an irrepressible conflict, and now met in mortal struggle. The special object of the conversation was the arrest of hostilities, and yet it took a wider range and brought under review the underlying principles and questions on which the war rested, and which were to be consulted in the attempt to secure peace. In this the President's ready and serviceable wit and his trenchant use of words did not forsake him. An example was afforded in conversation with Mr. Hunter, upon the point of recognizing the right of Mr. Davis to make a treaty. This, Mr. Hunter contended, was an indispensable step to peace; but the President insisted that it would be recognizing a government within a government, and "resigning the only thing the Union armies are fighting for." A ref erence of Mr. Hunter to the correspondence between Charles the First and his Parliament as a reliable precedent of a constitu tional ruler treating with rebels was thus met by the Presi dent: "Upon questions of history I must refer you to Mr. Seward, for he is posted in such things, and I don't profess to be; but my only distinct recollection of the matter is that Charles lost his head." But nothing came of the conference, except a deepening of the public conviction that this was not a case for negotiation and that there was no room for compromise. As this was a foregone conclusion from the first, - though the people were slow to adopt it, the conference at Hampton Roads, like those at Niagara Falls and Richmond, Iwas destined to prove a failure. Evidently it was a part of were to that providential tuition through which the people on the same errand, though in the garb of peace, but with purposes no less disloyal and destructive. The Rebel commissioners returned to Richmond, and Mr. Davis presented their report to the Confederate "congress." The next evening and a few evenings later there were held. public war-meetings at which Davis, Hunter, and Benjamin spoke, uttering the most defiant and boastful language. Mr. Davis spoke of the "gross insult" and "premeditated indignity" offered to the Confederacy by Mr. Lincoln. Referring to his phrase "our common country," he said that rather than be united again, he would sacrifice everything, even his "life a thousand times." He spoke, too, of compelling "the Yankees in less than twelve months to petition us for peace on our own terms." Mr. Hunter expressed the belief that their resources were sufficient, as he invoked the people to spare neither blood nor treasure in support of what he called "the holiest of all causes." Knowing what soon transpired of the almost complete exhaustion of their resources, and that all this was said only two months before the surrender of Lee's army at Appomattox Court-House, it is certainly hard to make such representations comport with either common candor or even common sense, unless there were reasons known to them that were unknown to others. It is now affirmed, on the authority of "A Rebel War Clerk's Diary" and Foote's "War of the Rebellion," that the Confederate leaders were looking, with what reason does not appear, for foreign aid. It, however, never came, and in two short months Mr. Davis, with all his brave and defiant words, was a prisoner of war, and the Southern Confederacy a thing of the past. CHAPTER XLI. MR. LINCOLN'S SECOND INAUGURATION. Special interest. First inauguration. — Great uncertainty and anxiety. — Great change. Slavery destroyed. - Freed from compromise. - Religious aspects - Both parties disappointed. — The retributive judgments of God Charity. — Inaugural highly commended. — Its influence very Mr. Johnson's unseemly course. General disgust. — Meeting of Bepublicans. Cause of estrangement. THE inauguration of a President of the United States, always an event of more or less popular and political interest, was especially so on both occasions when Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office. On his first accession to the executive chair, dark forebodings had seized the public mind, and feelings of uncertainty and apprehension everywhere prevailed. Both the final action of the seceding States and what would be the exact policy of the incoming administration were in doubt. Though several States had formally seceded and entered into a new confederacy, it was still hoped that they would not pro ceed to the dire extremity of actual hostilities. The "Star of the West" had not been fired upon, and the flag of the Union still waved over the walls of Sumter. The President, therefore, in his message had, as if unwilling to believe that his "dissatisfied fellow-countrymen" would proceed to such extreme measures, assumed the attitude of kind and earnest expostulation. Though he avowed his conviction that "the Union of the States is perpetual," and that it was his duty to the States," he assured them that "the accession of a Repul see "that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all lican administration" did not involve any menace towards them, and that it did not endanger "their property, and their peace, and their personal security; that in their hands rested |