Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

[570] another paper finally came from Washington, addressed “To whom it might concern,” and declaring, that any person or persons, having authority to control the armies then at war with the United States, bearing a proposition to treat, which should “embrace the restoration of peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery;” should have safe-conduct both ways; and their proposition would be received and considered by the Executive Government of the United States. This paper, alike with the others, was useless to the Confederate commissioners, who neither had authority to control the armies of the Confederate States, nor commission to treat directly on terms of peace, nor disposition to enter into conference with a power indecently and arrogantly assuming to dictate in advance the conditions of negotiation. This, Mr. Lincoln of course knew; and it could not be pretended that his “passport” was offered in good faith. It was proposed in no expectation that it would be accepted. It bore the ear-marks of a mere partisan document. Those who concocted it felt that so rude a rejection as it gave to the overtures for a conference, would prejudice Mr. Lincoln with the country, which was earnestly desirous of peace; and that it was necessary to interpose the popularity of abolition as an offset to the disfavour which the rejection of a peace conference must excite. In fact, it was not pretended that the paper was designed for any other than a campaign purpose; and the frivolity of the President's proceeding was excused on the plea that the object of the commissioners in Canada, in opening the correspondence, was to make capital for the opposition party of the North. The personal surroundings of the commissioners in Canada were referred to by the Government press in confirmation of the truth of this imputation. Such is the history of this after-thought, of making abolition by the States in revolt a condition of their readmission into the Union; such was the manner and occasion of interpolating this additional plank in the platform of the Government party. The party itself had pretermitted it at Baltimore in June. The radical spirits had supplied the omission in the bill for reconstructing the revolted States, which they had succeeded in carrying through Congress on the 3d of July. The President had virtually vetoed this bill, on the ground, taken in his speech accepting the nomination, that the only “legal form” of abolishing slavery was by means of the Constitutional amendment, called for by the Baltimore resolutions. What, therefore, the radical spirits of the party had failed to accomplish, the action of the Confederate commissioners and the reputation of George Sanders for political intrigue, had succeeded in achieving.

The National Convention of the Democratic party did not meet until after the appearance of this paper. It convened at Chicago on the 29th of August. Outside of the Convention there was a warm contest between the friends of Gen. McClellan and those who desired the nomination of a