lement of all questions which would necessarily arise under the new
relations of the States toward one another. Next to the organization of
a Cabinet, that of such a commission was accordingly one of the very
first objects of attention. Three discreet, well-informed, and
distinguished citizens were selected as said Commissioners, and
accredited to the President of the Northern States, Mr. Lincoln, to the
end that by negotiation all questions between the two Governments might
be so adjusted as to avoid war, and perpetuate the kind relations which
had been cemented by the common trials, sacrifices, and glories of the
people of all the States. If sectional hostility had been engendered by
dissimilarity of institutions, and by a mistaken idea of moral
responsibilities, and by irreconcilable creeds--if the family could no
longer live and grow harmoniously together--by patriarchal teaching
older than Christianity, it might have been learned that it was better
to part, to part peaceably, and to continue, from one to another, the
good offices of neighbors who by sacred memories were forbidden ever to
be foes. The nomination of the members of the commission was made on the
25th of February--within a week after my inauguration--and confirmed by
Congress on the same day. The Commissioners appointed were Messrs. A. B.
Roman, of Louisiana; Martin J. Crawford, of Georgia; and John Forsyth,
of Alabama. Mr. Roman was an honored citizen, and had been Governor of
his native State. Mr. Crawford had served with distinction in Congress
for several years. Mr. Forsyth was an influential journalist, and had
been Minister to Mexico under appointment of Mr. Pierce near the close
of his term, and continued so under that of Mr. Buchanan. These
gentlemen, moreover, represented the three great parties which had
ineffectually opposed the sectionalism of the so-called "Republicans."
Ex-Governor Roman had been a Whig in former years, and one of the
"Constitutional Union," or Bell-and-Everett, party in the canvass of
1860. Mr. Crawford, as a State-rights Democrat, had supported Mr.
Breckinridge; and Mr. Forsyth had been a zealous advocate of the claims
of Mr. Douglas. The composition of the commission was therefore such as
should have conciliated the sympathy and cooeperation of every element of
conservatism with which they might have occasion to deal. Their
commissions authorized and empowered them, "in the name of the
Confederate States, to meet and con