that the end
of the war would leave slavery in existence, nor intended that it should
do so; and doubtless he anticipated that the course of events would
involve the destruction of that now rotten and undermined institution,
without serious difficulty at the opportune moment. The speeches made at
the Republican nominating convention had been very outspoken, to the
effect that slavery must be made to "cease forever," as a result of the
war. Yet a blunt statement that abolition would be a _sine qua non_ in
any arrangements for peace, emanating directly from the President, as a
declaration of his policy, would be very costly in the pending campaign,
and would imperil rather than advance the fortunes of him who had this
consummation at heart, and would thereby also diminish the chance for
the consummation itself. So at last he seems to have left the war
Democrats to puzzle over the conundrum, and decide as best they could.
Of course the doubt affected unfavorably the votes of some of them.

A measure of the mischief which was done by these suspicions and by
Greeley's assertions that the administration did not desire peace, may
be taken from a letter, written to Mr. Lincoln on August 22 by Mr. Henry
J. Raymond, chairman of the National Executive Committee of the
Republican party. From all sides, Mr. Raymond says, "I hear but one
report. The tide is setting strongly against us." Mr. Washburne, he
writes, despairs of Illinois, and Mr. Cameron of Pennsylvania, and he
himself is not hopeful of New York, and Governor Morton is doubtful of
Indiana; "and so of the rest." For this melancholy condition he assigns
two causes: the want of military successes, and the belief "that we are
not to have peace in any event under this administration until slavery
is abandoned. In some way or other the suspicion is widely diffused that
we can have peace with union, if we would." Then even this stanch
Republican leader suggests that it might be good policy to sound
Jefferson Davis on the feasibility of peace "on the sole condition of
acknowledging the supremacy of the Constitution,--all other questions to
be settled in a convention of the people of all the States." The
President might well have been thrown into inextricable confusion of
mind, betwixt the assaults of avowed enemies, the denunciations and
predictions of inimical friends, the foolish advice of genuine
supporters. It is now plain that all the counsel which was given to him
was bad,