the paper said further, "will ally his name with those of Washington and
Jackson as a defender of the liberty of the country. If in delivering
Mexico he should model its States in form and principle to adapt them to
our Union, and add a new southern constellation to its benignant sky
while rounding off our possessions on the continent at the Isthmus, ...
he would complete the work of Jefferson, who first set one foot of our
colossal government on the Pacific by a stride from the Gulf of
Mexico...."

"I then said to him, 'There is my problem, Mr. Davis; do you think it
possible to be solved?' After consideration, he said: 'I think so.' I
then said, 'You see that I make the great point of this matter that the
war is no longer made for slavery, but monarchy. You know that if the
war is kept up and the Union kept divided, armies must be kept afoot on
both sides, and this state of things has never continued long without
resulting in monarchy on one side or the other, and on both generally.'
He assented to this."

The substantial accuracy of Mr. Blair's report is confirmed by the
memorandum of the same interview which Jefferson Davis wrote at the
time. In this conversation, the rebel leader took little pains to
disguise his entire willingness to enter upon the wild scheme of
military conquest and annexation which could easily be read between the
lines of a political crusade to rescue the Monroe Doctrine from its
present peril. If Mr. Blair felt elated at having so quickly made a
convert of the Confederate President, he was further gratified at
discovering yet more favorable symptoms in his official surroundings at
Richmond. In the three or four days he spent at the rebel capital he
found nearly every prominent personage convinced of the hopeless
condition of the rebellion, and even eager to seize upon any contrivance
to help them out of their direful prospects.

But the government councils at Washington were not ruled by the spirit
of political adventure. Abraham Lincoln had a loftier conception of
patriotic duty, and a higher ideal of national ethics. His whole
interest in Mr. Blair's mission lay in the rebel despondency it
disclosed, and the possibility it showed of bringing the Confederates to
an abandonment of their resistance. Mr. Davis had, indeed, given Mr.
Blair a letter, to be shown to President Lincoln, stating his
willingness, "notwithstanding the rejection of our former offers," to
appoint a commissioner to ent