lly without
the results he intended, have no place here. And yet this fanciful
episode had a significance of its own. Had it not occurred, the
Confederate government probably would not have appointed commissioners
charged with the hopeless task of approaching the Federal government for
the purpose of negotiating peace between "the two countries."

Now that Lincoln was entirely in the ascendent at home, and since the
Confederate arms had recently suffered terrible reverses, he was
no longer afraid that negotiation might appear to be the symptom
of weakness. He went so far as to consent to meet the Commissioners
himself. On a steamer in Hampton Roads, Lincoln and Seward had a
long conference with three members of the Confederate government,
particularly the Vice-President, Alexander H. Stephens.

It has become a tradition that Lincoln wrote at the top of a sheet of
paper the one word "Union"; that he pushed it across the table and said,
"Stephens, write under that anything you want" There appears to be no
foundation for the tale in this form. The amendment had committed the
North too definitely to emancipation. Lincoln could not have proposed
Union without requiring emancipation, also. And yet, with this
limitation, the spirit of the tradition is historic. There can be no
doubt that he presented to the commissioners about the terms which the
year before he had drawn up as a memorandum for Gilmore and Jaquess:
Union, the acceptance of emancipation, but also instantaneous
restoration of political autonomy to the Southern States, and all the
influence of the Administration in behalf of liberal compensation for
the loss of slave property. But the commissioners had no authority to
consider terms that did not recognize the existence of "two countries."
However, this Hampton Roads Conference gave Lincoln a new hope. He
divined, if he did not perceive, that the Confederates were on the verge
of despair. If he had been a Vindictive, this would have borne fruit
in ferocious telegrams to his generals to strike and spare not. What
Lincoln did was to lay before the Cabinet this proposal:--that they
advise Congress to offer the Confederate government the sum of four
hundred million dollars, provided the war end and the States in
secession acknowledge the authority of the Federal government previous
to April 1, 1865. But the Cabinet, complete as was his domination in
some respects, were not ripe for such a move as this. "'You are all