Always the swift victim of his own affrighted hope,Greeley had persuaded himself that both North and South had lost heart for the war;that there was needed only a moving appeal,and they would throw down their arms and the millennium would come.
Furthermore,on the flimsiest sort of evidence,he had fallen into a trap designed to place the Northern government in the attitude of suing for peace.He wrote to Lincoln demanding that he send an agent to confer with certain Confederate officials who were reported to be then in Canada;he also suggested terms of peace.[4]Greeley's terms were entirely acceptable to Lincoln;but he had no faith in the Canadian mare's nest.However,he decided to give Greeley the utmost benefit of the doubt,and also to teach him a lesson.He commissioned Greeley himself to proceed to Canada,there to discover "if there is or is not anything in the affair."He wrote to him,"I not only intend a sincere effort for peace,but I intend that you shall be a personal witness that it is made."[5]
Greeley,who did not want to have any responsibility for anything that might ensue,whose joy was to storm and to find fault,accepted the duty he could not well refuse,and set out in a bad humor.
Meanwhile two other men had conceived an undertaking somewhat analogous but in a temper widely different.These were Colonel Jaquess,a clergyman turned soldier,a man of high simplicity of character,and J.R.Gilmore,a writer,known by the pen name of Edmund Kirke.Jaquess had told Gilmore of information he had received from friends in the Confederacy;he was convinced that nothing would induce the Confederate government to consider any terms of peace that embraced reunion,whether with or without emancipation."It at once occurred to me,"says Gilmore,"that if this declaration could be got in such a manner that it could be given to the public,it would,if scattered broadcast over the North,destroy the peace-party and reelect Mr.Lincoln."Gilmore went to Washington and obtained an interview with the President.He assured him--and he was a newspaper correspondent whose experience was worth considering--that the new pacifism,the incipient "peace party,"was schooling the country in the belief that an offer of liberal terms would be followed by a Southern surrender.The masses wanted peace on any terms that would preserve the Union;and the Democrats were going to tell them in the next election that Lincoln could save the Union by negotiation,if he would.
Unless the popular mind were disabused of this fictitious hope,the Democrats would prevail and the Union would collapse.But if an offer to negotiate should be made,and if "Davis should refuse to negotiate--as he probably would,except on the basis of Southern independence--that fact alone would reunite the North,reelect Lincoln,and thus save the Union."[6]
"Then,"said Lincoln,"you would fight the devil with fire.
You would get that declaration from Davis and use it against him."Gilmore defended himself by proposing to offer extremely liberal terms.There was a pause in the conversation.Lincoln who was seated at his desk "leaned slightly forward looking directly into (Gilmore's)eyes,but with an absent,far-away gaze as if unconscious of (his)presence."Suddenly,relapsing into his usual badinage,he said,"God selects His own instruments and some times they are queer ones:for instance,He chose me to see the ship of state through a great crisis."[7]
He went on to say that Gilmore and Jaquess might be the very men to serve a great purpose at this moment.Gilmore knew the world;and anybody could see at a glance that Jaquess never told anything that wasn't true.If they would go to Richmond on their own responsibility,make it plain to President Davis that they were not official agents,even taking the chance of arrest and imprisonment,they might go.This condition was accepted.Lincoln went on to say that no advantage should be taken of Mr.Davis;that nothing should be proposed which if accepted would not be made good.After considerable further discussion he drew up a memorandum of the terms upon which he would consent to peace.There were seven items:
1.The immediate dissolution of the armies.
2.The abolition of slavery.
3.A general amnesty.
4.The Seceded States to resume their functions as states in the Union as if no secession had taken place.
5.Four hundred million dollars to be appropriated by Congress as compensation for loss of slave property;no slaveholder,however,to receive more than one-half the former value of his slaves.
6.A national convention to be called for readjustment of all other difficulties.
7.It to be understood that the purpose of negotiation was a full restoration of the Union as of old.[8]
Gilmore and Jaquess might say to Davis that they had private but sure knowledge that the President of the United States would agree to peace on these terms.Thus provided,they set forth.
Lincoln's thoughts were speedily claimed by an event which had no Suggestion of peace.At no time since Jackson threw the government into a panic in the spring of 1862,had Washington been in danger of capture.Now,briefly,it appeared to be at the mercy of General Early.in the last act of a daring raid above the Potomac,he came sweeping down on Washington from the North.As Grant was now the active commander-in-chief,responsible for all the Northern armies,Lincoln with a fatalistic calm made no move to take the capital out of his hands.When Early was known to be headed toward Washington,Lincoln drove out as usual to spend the night at the Soldiers'
