er into negotiations "with a view to secure
peace to the two countries." This was, of course, the old impossible
attitude. In reply the President wrote Mr. Blair on January 18 the
following note:

"SIR: You having shown me Mr. Davis's letter to you of the twelfth
instant, you may say to him that I have constantly been, am now, and
shall continue ready to receive any agent whom he, or any other
influential person now resisting the national authority, may informally
send to me, with the view of securing peace to the people of our one
common country."

With this, Mr. Blair returned to Richmond, giving Mr. Davis such excuses
as he could hastily frame why the President had rejected his plan for a
joint invasion of Mexico. Jefferson Davis therefore had only two
alternatives before him--either to repeat his stubborn ultimatum of
separation and independence, or frankly to accept Lincoln's ultimatum of
reunion. The principal Richmond authorities knew, and some of them
admitted, that their Confederacy was nearly in collapse. Lee sent a
despatch saying he had not two days' rations for his army. Richmond was
already in a panic at rumors of evacuation. Flour was selling at a
thousand dollars a barrel in Confederate currency. The recent fall of
Fort Fisher had closed the last avenue through which blockade-runners
could bring in foreign supplies. Governor Brown of Georgia was refusing
to obey orders from Richmond, and characterizing them as "despotic."
Under such circumstances a defiant cry of independence would not
reassure anybody; nor, on the other hand, was it longer possible to
remain silent. Mr. Blair's first visit had created general interest;
when he came a second time, wonder and rumor rose to fever heat.

Impelled to take action, Mr. Davis had not the courage to be frank.
After consultation with his cabinet, a peace commission of three was
appointed, consisting of Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President; R.M.T.
Hunter, senator and ex-Secretary of State; and John A. Campbell,
Assistant Secretary of War--all of them convinced that the rebellion was
hopeless, but unwilling to admit the logical consequences and
necessities. The drafting of instructions for their guidance was a
difficult problem, since the explicit condition prescribed by Mr.
Lincoln's note was that he would receive only an agent sent him "with
the view of securing peace to the people of our one common country." The
rebel Secretary of State proposed, in order to