was rendered difficult, if not impossible, by | can Union," signified their desire to enter upon the fact that some of the southern states had negotiations for the adjustment of questions already seceded and others were threatening growing out of the separation; but the secreto do so, and the probability that the men in tary of state, by direction of the president, dequestion would go with their states. He con- clined to receive them, as "it could not be adtemplated offering a seat in the cabinet to Al-mitted that the states referred to had, in law exander H. Stephens, and did make such an offer to James Guthrie of Kentucky and John A. Gilmer of North Carolina, who declined it. At Harrisburg, on his way to Washington, he was informed of a plot to assassinate him on his passage through Baltimore, and at the urgent solicitation of his friends he went through on an earlier train than the one appointed, reaching the capital on Saturday morning, Feb. 23. He was inaugurated on March 4, and delivered a long address, in which he said:

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Chief Justice Taney for the release of a Maryland secessionist imprisoned in Fort McHenry. The chief justice then read an opinion that the president could not suspend the writ, and most of the journals opposed to the administration violently assailed its action; whereupon some of them were refused transmission in the mails, and at the same time restrictions were placed upon the use of the telegraph. The suspension of the writ was continued in spite of the opinion of the chief justice, and under it, on Sept. 16, nine members of the Maryland house of delegates, with the officers of both houses, were arrested by Gen. McClellan to prevent the passage of an ordinance of secession which was contemplated for the next day. Congress passed an act (December, 1861) approving the action of the president, and authorizing the suspension of the writ so long as he should deem it necessary. In July, 1862, Attorney General Bates sent in an elaborate opinion on the subject, favorable to suspension; and thereafter the war department, to which the power had been transferred in February, exercised it freely for the imprisonment of notorious or suspected spies and secessionists, and of persons in the northern states who discouraged

nah harbor, was reduced; and New Orleans was captured. But Mr. Adams, United States minister at London, found it impossible to induce the British government to stop the fitting out of confederate privateers in English ports, though in repeated instances he offered the most specific evidence as to the character of the vessels. When the No. 290, afterward famous as the Alabama, escaped from the yard of the Messrs. Laird at Birkenhead (July, 1862), the British government was notified that the United States would hold it respon- | sible for whatever damage the vessel might inflict on American commerce. On Sept. 5, 1863, Earl Russell, the secretary, for foreign affairs, having announced to Mr. Adams that the government would do nothing to prevent the fitting out in Liverpool of two iron-clad rams for the confederates, Mr. Adams in his reply said: "It would be superfluous in me to point out to your lordship that this is war.... In my belief it is impossible that any nation, retaining a proper degree of selfrespect, could tamely submit to a continuance of relations so utterly deficient in reciprocity." The British government receded from the position it had taken, and ordered the detention of the rams. A few days later Mr. Adams re-enlistments, opposed drafts, or promoted deceived from Washington instructions to do that which he had already done, and the letter added: "If this condition of things is to remain and receive the deliberate sanction of the British government, the navy of the United States will receive instructions to pursue these enemies into the ports which thus, in violation of the law of nations and the obligations of neutrality, become harbors for the pirates." The emperor of the French, after failing to secure the cooperation of England and Russia in an attempt at mediation between the federal government and the confederates, made the offer alone, intimating that separation was "an extreme which could no longer be avoided." The president's reply, Feb. 6, 1863, after briefly reciting what had been accomplished in recapturing large portions of the seceded states, emphatically rejected the idea that the government could ever consent to hold a conference with rebels in arms to discuss a possible dissolution of the Union, and pointed out the fact that the empty seats in congress were still accessible to representatives constitutionally chosen from the insurrectionary states, and that congress was the proper and sufficient arbiter on all questions between the states and the general government. This put an end to the talk of foreign intervention. In December, 1862, Secretary Smith was succeeded by John P. Usher of Indiana. West Virginia was admitted into the Union on the 31st. The president had first suspended the writ of habeas corpus on May 3, 1861, in an order addressed to the commander of the forces on the Florida coast. On the 27th of the same month Gen. Cadwalader, being authorized by the president, refused to obey a writ issued by

sertions. The most noted case was that of Clement L. Vallandigham, who for a violent disunion speech was arrested by Gen. Burnside, May 4, 1863, and condemned by a military commission to imprisonment; the president commuted the sentence to banishment beyond the military lines. The affair created considerable excitement, and the action of the government was formally condemned by a large meeting of opponents of the administration at Albany, N. Y., among whom was the governor of the state, and by similar meetings elsewhere. In reply to the Albany resolutions the president wrote a letter in which he discussed at considerable length and in his usual clear and forcible style the constitutional provision for suspension of the writ and its application to the circumstances then existing. At the next state election in Ohio Mr. Vallandigham was the democratic candidate for governor, but was defeated by a majority of 100,000.-Colored soldiers were first enlisted into the federal service in January, 1863, and within the year their number reached 100,000, about 50,000 actually bearing arms; before the close of the war they numbered about 170,000. These were not assigned as state troops, though credited to the quotas of the states from which they enlisted, but mustered in as "United States colored volunteers." The atrocities committed by the confederates when colored soldiers were captured, caused the president to issue an order, July 30, 1863, that "for every soldier of the United States killed in violation of the laws of war, a rebel soldier shall be executed; and for every one enslaved by the enemy or sold into slavery, a rebel soldier shall be placed at hard labor on the public works."

But Mr. Lincoln's natural tender-heartedness | by the supreme court.-A new peril was seen prevented him from ever ordering such an exe- in the entrance of a French army into Mexico, cution. In July serious riots occurred in the ostensibly to enforce the rights of French citicity of New York in opposition to the draft, zens there, but really to enthrone the archand Gov. Seymour addressed a letter to the duke Maximilian as its emperor. In Septempresident, complaining of unjust apportion- ber, 1863, Mr. Dayton, United States minister ments, and asking that the draft be suspended at Paris, was directed to call the attention of until the constitutionality of the law could be the French government to the apparent deviatested in the courts. The president replied tions of the forces in Mexico from the assuthat he would take measures to remedy un- rances that permanent occupation was not in just apportionments, but refused to waste time tended; and in a despatch dated a few days by waiting the slow process of judicial de- later the position of the administration was cisions, and the draft was continued.-Gen. set forth at length: Burnside had lost the battle of Fredericksburg in December, 1862, and in January was succeeded by Gen. Hooker, who met with a severe check at Chancellorsville in May, and in June was succeeded by Gen. Meade, who won the battle of Gettysburg, July 1-3, which destroyed the last hope of invading the north, and proved to be the turning point of the war. At the dedication of the cemetery in which the slain of this battle were buried (Nov. 19, 1863) President Lincoln made a brief address which is perhaps the finest ever delivered on a similar occasion, and has become familiar to the entire English-reading world:

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are inet on a great battle field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final

resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us; that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth."

The surrender of Vicksburg and Port Hudson early in July restored the Mississippi to federal control, and divided the confederacy in twain. The president appointed the 6th of August for a day of national thanksgiving. In the autumn elections of 1862 many states had given majorities for the party opposed to the administration; in those of 1863 every state except New Jersey was carried by its friends. On Dec. 8 the president by proclamation offered full pardon to all then in arms against the government (except civil and diplomatic officers of the confederate government, soldiers above the rank of colonel, those who had resigned seats in congress or commands in the national service, and a few others), on condition of their taking a prescribed oath to defend the constitution and the Union and all acts of congress and proclamations of the president respecting slavery, so far as not modified or declared void VOL. X.-32

"The United States have neither the right nor the disposition to intervene by force on either side in the lamentable war which is going on between France and Mexico. On the contrary, they practise in regard to Mexico, in every phase of that war, the non-intervention which they require all foreign powers to observe in regard to the United States. But notwithstanding this self-restraint, this government knows full well that the inherent normal opinion of Mexico favors a government there republican in form and domestic in its organization, in preference to any monarchical institutions to be imposed from abroad. This government knows also that this the influence of popular opinion in this country, and is connormal opinion of the people of Mexico resulted largely from tinually invigorated by it. The president believes, moreover, that this popular opinion of the United States is just in itself and eminently essential to the progress of civilization on the American continent, which civilization, it believes, can and will, if left free from European resistance, work harmoniously together with advancing refinement on the other continents. Nor is it necessary to practise reserve upon the point that if France should, upon due consideration, determine to adopt a policy in Mexico adverse to the American opinion and sentiments which I have described, that policy would probably scatter seeds which would be fruitful of jealousies which might ultimately ripen into collision between France and the United States and other American republics."

The request of the French government that the United States would recognize the government of Maximilian was steadily refused, and the action of the administration was approved by the house of representatives in a resolution of April 4, 1864.-On Oct. 16, 1863, the president had called for 300,000 volunteers, to take the place of those whose term was about to expire; and on March 15, 1864, he called for 200,000 more, to supply the navy and provide a reserve for contingencies. The grade of lieutenant general was revived, and on March 9 the president gave the commission to Gen. Grant, who thus became commander-in-chief of all the armies (a post previously held by Gen. Halleck), and took personal command of the army of the Potomac. In April the governors of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin offered the government a force of 100,000 men for 100 days' service, which was accepted. When Gen. Grant was about to launch out on the campaign of 1864, the president wrote to him, under date of April 30: "Not expecting to see you before the spring campaign opens, I wish to express in this way my entire satisfaction with what you have done up to this time, so far as I understand it. The particulars of your plans I neither know nor seek to know. You are vigilant and self-reliant; and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any restraints or constraints upon you. If there be anything wanting which is within my power to give, do not fail to let me know it." For the general

plan

"That this convention does explicitly declare, as the sense of the American people, that, after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which, under the pretence of a military necessity, of a war power higher than the constitution, the constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private rights alike trodden down, and the material prosperity of the the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made country essentially impaired, justice, humanity, liberty, and

for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate convention of all the states, or other peaceable means to the end that at the earliest practicable moment peace may be restored on the basis of the federal union of the states." Although the force of this resolution was materially reduced by the news of the fall of Fort Morgan and by the immediately following capture of Atlanta, the issue thus squarely presented was maintained throughout the canvass, and the election was looked to for a popular verdict

and scope of the campaign, see GRANT, | for 500,000 men, ordering a draft in case the ULYSSES S.; for descriptions of the battles, see quotas were not filled by Sept. 5. In that WILDERNESS, SPOTTSYLVANIA, and PETERSBURG. time volunteering reduced the number reOn May 18, just after the bloody struggle at quired to 300,000. The democratic convenSpottsylvania, a spurious proclamation, an- tion, Aug. 29, nominated Gen. McClellan for nouncing that Grant's campaign was closed, president and George H. Pendleton for vice appointing a day of fasting, humiliation, and president. The essential portion of the platprayer, and ordering a new draft for 400,000 form was the following resolution: men, found its way into the New York "World" and "Journal of Commerce." The other morning papers, suspecting its character, refused to publish it. It was issued just as the mails were being made up for Europe, and was telegraphed all over the country before the fraud was discovered. By order of the president, the offices of those two journals were closed and their publication suspended until it should be made apparent that they had published the proclamation in good faith. This action was denounced as an outrage on the liberty of the press, and Gov. Seymour attempted to have Gen. Dix and others indicted for it. On June 22 Mr. Lincoln visited the army before Petersburg, and met with a hearty reception; but the country felt a keen disappointment that the bloody march from the Rappa-whether the war should be continued. A conhannock to the James had not resulted in the immediate capture of the confederate capital or destruction of the confederate army, and congress, just before adjourning on July 4, requested the president to appoint a day of fasting and prayer. The general depression was somewhat relieved by news of the sinking of the Alabama, but returned when Early's raid down the Shenandoah and across the Potomac threatened Washington. The fugitive slave law was repealed in June, 1864, and about the same time, in an interview with some gentlemen from the west, Mr. Lincoln said: "There have been men base enough to propose to me to return to slavery our black warriors of Port Hudson and Olustee, and thus win the respect of the masters they fought. Should I do so, I should deserve to be damned in time and eternity. Come what will, I will keep my faith with friend and foe. My enemies pretend I am now carrying on this war for the sole purpose of abolition. So long as I am president it shall be carried on for the sole purpose of restoring the Union; but no human power can subdue this rebellion without the use of the emancipation policy and every other policy calculated to weaken the moral and physical forces of the rebellion."-The national republican convention, June 8, 1864, renominated Mr. Lincoln, with Andrew Johnson for vice president. The platform approved "the determination of the government of the United States not to compromise with rebels, nor to offer any terms of peace except such as may be based upon an unconditional surrender," and recommended the complete prohibition of slavery throughout the United States by constitutional amendment. Secretary Chase resigned on June 30, and was succeeded on July 5 by William P. Fessenden. On July 18 the president called

vention of radical republicans, held at Cleveland, Ohio, May 31, had nominated John C. Fremont, who in September withdrew from the contest. A fragment of the republican party attempted a movement for the nomination of Gen. Grant; but his prompt declaration that he would not be a candidate put an end to it. The action of the government in surrendering to the Spanish authorities Don José Agustin Arguelles, charged with selling a cargo of negroes into slavery in Cuba, was used as a political weapon against Mr. Lincoln, and Senator Wade of Ohio and Representative Davis of Maryland (both republicans) made a violent attack on him for refusing to sign a reconstruction bill which had been passed by congress on the last day of the session. The refusal of the confederate authorities to exchange colored soldiers captured in battle, and their demand (as a condition of the release of civilians carried off from Pennsylvania by Lee) that the government agree not to arrest any one on account of his opinions or his sympathy with the confederate cause, resulted in a suspension of the system of exchanges. When Sherman seemed likely to effect the release of the prisoners at Andersonville, the confederate gov ernment offered to forego its discrimination against colored soldiers, and exchange man for man; which offer was of course declined. The ill treatment of federal prisoners in the southern stockades then became more barbarous than ever, and the opposition journals boldly held Lincoln's administration alone responsible for the suffering caused thereby. In July several agents of the confederate government appeared at Clifton, Canada, and communicated with Mr. Horace Greeley on the subject of peace, professing to be authorized to negotiate for that end, and asking for safe-conduct