"1. The restoration of the National Authority throughout all the States.
"2. No receding, by the Executive of the United States, on the Slavery question, from the position assumed thereon in the late Annual Message to Congress, and in preceding documents.
"3. No cessation of hostilities short of an end of the War and the disbanding of all forces hostile to the Government."
Mr. Lincoln also instructed the Secretary to "inform them that all propositions of theirs, not inconsistent with the above, will be considered and passed upon in a spirit of sincere liberality;" to "hear all they may choose to say, and report it" to him, and not to "assume to definitely consummate anything." Subsequently, the President, in consequence of a dispatch from General Grant to Secretary Stanton, decided to go himself to Fortress Monroe.
Following is the dispatch:
[In Cipher]
OFFICE UNITED STATES MILITARY TELEGRAPH. WAR DEPARTMENT.
"The following telegram received at Washington, 4.35 A.M.,
February 2, 1865. From City Point, Va.,
February 1, 10.30 P.M., 1865"Now that the interview between Major Eckert, under his written instructions, and Mr. Stephens and party has ended, I will state confidentially, but not officially, to become a matter of record, that I am convinced, upon conversation with Messrs. Stephens and Hunter, that their intentions are good and their desire sincere to restore Peace and Union. I have not felt myself at liberty to express, even, views of my own, or to account for my reticency. This has placed me in an awkward position, which I could have avoided by not seeing them in the first instance. I fear now their going back without any expression from any one in authority will have a bad influence. At the same time I recognize the difficulties in the way of receiving these informal Commissioners at this time, and do not know what to recommend. I am sorry, however, that Mr. Lincoln cannot have an interview with the two named in this dispatch, if not all three now within our lines. Their letter to me was all that the President's instructions contemplated to secure their safe conduct, if they had used the same language to Major Eckert.
"U. S. GRANT,
"Lieutenant General."Hon. EDWIN M. STANTON,
"Secretary of War."
Mr. Stephens is stated by a Georgia paper to have repeated the following characteristic anecdote of what occurred during the interview. "The three Southern gentlemen met Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward, and after some preliminary remarks, the subject of Peace was opened. Mr. Stephens, well aware that one who asks much may get more than he who confesses to humble wishes at the outset, urged the claims of his Section with that skill and address for which the Northern papers have given him credit. Mr. Lincoln, holding the vantage ground of conscious power, was, however, perfectly frank, and submitted his views almost in the form of an argument. * * * Davis had, on this occasion, as on that of Mr. Stephens's visit to Washington, made it a condition that no Conference should be had unless his rank as Commander or President should first be recognized. Mr. Lincoln declared that the only ground on which he could rest the justice of War—either with his own people, or with foreign powers—was that it was not a War for conquest, for that the States had never been separated from the Union. Consequently, he could not recognize another Government inside of the one of which he alone was President; nor admit the separate Independence of States that were 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 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. Mr. Lincoln's face then wore that indescribable expression which generally preceded his hardest hits, and 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 bright. My only distinct recollection of the matter is that Charles lost his head,' That settled Mr. Hunter for a while." Arnold's Lincoln, p. 400.
On the night of February 2nd, Mr. Lincoln reached Hampton Roads, and joined Secretary Seward on board a steamer anchored off the shore. The next morning, from another steamer, similarly anchored, Messrs. Stephens, Hunter, and Campbell were brought aboard the President's steamer and a Conference with the President and Secretary of several hours' duration was the result. Mr. Lincoln's own statement of what transpired was in these words:
"No question of preliminaries to the meeting was then and there made or mentioned. No other person was present; no papers were exchanged or produced; and it was, in advance, agreed that the conversation was to be informal and verbal merely. On our part, the whole substance of the instructions to the Secretary of State, hereinbefore recited, was stated and insisted upon, and nothing was said inconsistent therewith; while, by the other party, it was not said that in any event or on any condition, they ever would consent to Re-union; and yet they equally omitted to declare that they never would so consent. They seemed to desire a postponement of that question, and the adoption of some other course first, which, as some of them seemed to argue, might or might not lead to Reunion; but which course, we thought, would amount to an indefinite postponement. The Conference ended without result."
In his communication to the Rebel Congress at Richmond, February 6. 1865, Jefferson Davis, after mentioning his appointment of Messrs. Stephens, Hunter and Campbell, for the purpose stated, proceeded to say:
"I herewith transmit, for the information of Congress, the report of the eminent citizens above named, showing that the Enemy refused to enter into negotiations with the Confederate States, or any one of them separately, or to give to our people any other terms or guarantees than those which the conqueror may grant, or to permit us to have Peace on any other basis than our unconditional submission to their rule, coupled with the acceptance of their recent legislation on the subject of the relations between the White and Black population of each State."
On the 5th and 9th of February, public meetings were held at Richmond, in connection with these Peace negotiations. At the first, Jefferson Davis made a speech in which the Richmond Dispatch reported him as emphatically asserting that no conditions of Peace "save the Independence of the Confederacy could ever receive his sanction. He doubted not that victory would yet crown our labors, * * * and sooner than we should ever be united again he would be willing to yield up everything he had on Earth, and if it were possible would sacrifice a thousand lives before he would succumb." Thereupon the meeting of Rebels passed resolutions "spurning" Mr. Lincoln's terms "with the indignation due to so gross an insult;" declared that the circumstances connected with his offer could only "add to the outrage and stamp it as a designed and premeditated indignity" offered to them; and invoking "the aid of Almighty God" to carry out their "resolve to maintain" their "Liberties and Independence"—to which, said they, "we mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." So too, at the second of these meetings, presided over by R. M. T. Hunter, and addressed by the Rebel Secretary Judah P. Benjamin, resolutions were adopted amid "wild and long continued cheering," one of which stated that they would "never lay down" their "arms until" their "Independence" had "been won," while another declared a full confidence in the sufficiency of their resources to "conduct the War successfully and to that issue," and invoked "the People, in the name of the holiest of all causes, to spare neither their blood nor their treasure in its maintenance and support."