"
This is one of the most remarkable speeches ever made by a
President. Washington was never more dignified; Jackson was never
more peremptory.
The President's spirit of forgiveness was broad enough to take in
the entire South. The cause of the Confederacy had been doomed
from the hour of his reelection. The cheering of the troops which
greeted the news had been heard within the lines at Richmond, and
the besieged town lost hope, though it continued the struggle
bravely if desperately. Although Horace Greeley's peace mission
to Canada had come to nothing, and other volunteer efforts in the
same direction served only to call forth a declaration from
Jefferson Davis that he would fight for the independence of the
South to the bitter end, Mr. Lincoln watched longingly for the
time when the first move could be made toward peace. Early in
January, 1865, as the country was about to enter upon the fifth
year of actual war, he learned from Hon. Francis P. Blair, Sr.,
who had been in Richmond, how strong the feeling of
discouragement at the Confederate capital had become. Mr. Blair
was the father of Lincoln's first Postmaster-General, a man of
large acquaintance in the South, who knew perhaps better than
anyone in Washington the character and temper of the southern
leaders. He had gone to Richmond hoping to do something toward
bringing the war to a close, but without explaining his plans to
anyone, and with no authority from the government, beyond
permission to pass through the military lines and return.
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