left for adjustment by peaceful modes." If this proposition
were not accepted, Mr. Raymond was then "to request to be informed
what terms, if any, embracing the restoration of the Union, would
be accepted." "If the presentation of any terms embracing the
restoration of the Union" were declined, then Mr. Raymond was
directed to "request to be informed what terms of peace would be
accepted; and on receiving any answer report the same to the
Government."

It will be noticed that in the Raymond letter the President left
out all reference to slavery. In previous ones he had insisted on
the _abandonment of slavery by the South_ as well as the restoration
of the Union. On questions of amnesty, confiscation, and all other
matters the President was ready to grant everything to the South.( 9)

This letter was never delivered. Mr. Raymond, in personal interviews
with Mr. Lincoln, became convinced the latter understood the
situation and the sentiment of the country better than he and his
committee did, and the matter was dropped.

It must not be assumed that the President for a moment gave up his
long settled purpose to insist on the abolition of slavery as a
condition of peace. In his annual Message to Congress, December,
1864, in expressing his views and purposes on the subject of
terminating the war, he says:

"In presenting the abandonment of armed resistance to the national
authority on the part of the insurgents as the only indispensable
condition to ending the war on the part of the government, I retract
nothing heretofore said as to slavery. I repeat the declaration
made a year ago, that 'While I remain in my present position I
shall not attempt to retract or modify the Emancipation Proclamation
nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms
of that proclamation, or by any of the acts of Congress.' If the
people should, by whatever mode or means, make it an Executive duty
to re-enslave such persons, another, and not I, must be their
instrument to perform it. In stating a single condition of peace,
I mean simply to say that the war will cease on the part of the
government whenever it shall have ceased on the part of those who
began it."

Mr. Lincoln was triumphantly re-elected, but notwithstanding this
and the foreshadowed collapse of the Confederacy, Francis P. Blair,
Sen., a veteran statesman who had flourished in Jackson's time,
came forward in the hope that he might become a successful