I do not claim to have furnished a verbatim report of the speeches delivered in the Conference of 1861, but I insist that I have given an accurate account of all its official proceedings, and the substance of the remarks made in the course of those proceedings. I think, also, that I have preserved nearly all the propositions made in the course of the debate, and generally have presented the ideas in the very language used. The gentlemen who have critically examined the report, all concur upon the question of its general accuracy, and I am content in this respect to rely upon their testimony.
I have suggested these considerations simply by way of explanation, and not for the purpose of avoiding criticism. I have endeavored to follow, so far as was in my power, the example of the illustrious Reporter of the Constitutional Convention of 1787; and while my notes lack the beauty and felicity which characterize his, I trust they are not less full and accurate. I submit them to the country as the best contribution which I can make to its history, at a most important and interesting period of our national existence.
The three short years which have passed since the Conference of 1861, have witnessed singular vicissitudes among its members. Many of them have entered into the military or civil service of the country, or of the rebellion which it was the avowed purpose of some members of that Conference to nourish into vigorous life. Death, also, has been busy with the roll. Baldwin, Bronson, Smith, Wolcott, Tyler, and Clay, are no more. Zollicoffer fell at the head of a rebel army. Hackleman sealed with his blood his devotion to the principles he advocated upon the field of Corinth, and now, while I am writing these pages in a morning of beautiful spring, when tree, and shrub, and grass, and flower, are bursting into life and beauty; from the roar of cannon, the rattle of musketry, and the deadly storm of lead and iron, which bearing destruction upon its wings is waking the echoes of the "Wilderness," comes the mournful tidings that WADSWORTH has fallen. In that Conference or in the world, there was never a purer or a more ardent patriot. Those of us who were associated with him politically, had learned to love and respect him. His opponents admired his unflinching devotion to his country, and his manly frankness and candor. He was the type of a true American, able, unselfish, prudent, unambitious, and good. Other pens will do justice to his memory, but I thought as I heard the last account of him alive, as he lay within the rebel lines, his face wearing that calm serenity which grew more beautiful the nearer death approached, after having given so abundantly of his goods, now yielding his life to his country in the hour of her trial, that hereafter the good and true men of the nation would emulate the illustrious example of his patriotism, and would prize the blessings of a free government the more highly, as they remembered that it could only be maintained and perpetuated by such expensive sacrifices.
L.E.C.
May, 1864.