e yet a
part of the Union. 'That,' said he, 'would be doing what you have so
long asked Europe to do in vain, and be resigning the only thing the
armies of the Union have been fighting for.' Mr. Hunter, one of the
commissioners, made a long reply to this, insisting that the recognition
of Davis's power to make a treaty was the first and indispensable step
to peace, and referred to the correspondence between King Charles I. and
his Parliament as a trustworthy precedent of a constitutional ruler
treating with rebels. Lincoln's face then wore that indescribable
expression which generally preceded his hardest hits, as he remarked:
'Upon questions of history I must refer you to Mr. Seward, for he is
posted in such things, and I don't pretend to be. My only distinct
recollection of the matter is that _Charles lost his head_.'"

Alexander H. Stephens, one of the commissioners at the meeting on
board the "River Queen," and the Vice-President of the waning
Confederacy, was a very small man physically, with a complexion so
yellow as to suggest an ear of ripe corn. Lincoln gave the following
humorous account of the meeting with him: "Mr. Stephens had on an
overcoat about three sizes too big for him, with an old-fashioned high
collar. The cabin soon began to get pretty warm, and after a while he
stood up and pulled off his big coat. He slipped it off just about as
you would husk an ear of corn. I couldn't help thinking, as I looked
first at the overcoat and then at the man, 'Well, that's the _biggest
shuck_ and the _smallest nubbin_ I ever laid eyes on.'"

So strongly were Lincoln's hopes fixed on finding some possible basis
for a peaceful restoration of the Union that a few days after his return
from his meeting with the Southern Peace Commissioners he presented to
the Cabinet (February 5, 1865) a scheme for paying to the Southern
States a partial compensation for the loss of their slaves, provided
they would at once discontinue armed resistance to the Federal
Government. It was, says Mr. Welles, who was present at the meeting
referred to, as "a proposition for paying the expenses of the war for
two hundred days, or four hundred millions of dollars, to the rebellious
States, to be for the extinguishment of slavery. The scheme did not meet
with favor, and was dropped." But it showed, adds Mr. Welles, "the
earnest desire of the President to conciliate and effect peace."

The evening of March 3, 1865, the President had remained wit