From the World.

Peace, on the basis of a restored Union, is a consummation so devoutly to be wished that the people will watch with intense interest the faintest indications of its return.  Now that the Government, by authorizing Mr. Greeley’s mission, has turned the public mind in that direction, the country will hardly let the occasion pass without a free expression of opinion on the possibility, method, conditions, and probable consequences of the peace which all but army contractors and abolitionists so ardently desire.  The President having sanctioned the Niagara negotiations, the subject is fairly before the public for such discussion as may seem appropriate.

We are bound to say that we expect no results from the breaking of the diplomatic ice across the Niagara river.  It is, probably, on one side and on the other, a mere politician’s trick.  But it wears the external form of duly authorized preliminaries to a more formal negotiation   On the same side, the presence of the private secretary of the President of the United States is as valid an authentication of Mr. Greeley’s mission as would be a written letter of credentials; and it is to be presumed that the President would not have given the affair this degree of countenance had he not been satisfied that the alleged commissioners on the other side were duly authorized.  The selection of Mr. Greeley as an intermediary was on many accounts politic, and especially as protecting Mr. Lincoln from the kind of imputations put upon Secretary Seward for his informal intercourse with rebel commissioners in the first days of the Administration, previous to the attempt to provision Fort Sumter.

P. S. Since writing the above we have received the papers that passed in this odd negotiation; and, if the subject were not to serious for laughter, we should go into convulsions.  That dancing wind-bag of popinjay conceit, William Cornell Jewett, has achieved the immortality he covets; he has reversed the adage about the mountain in labor bringing forth a ridiculous mouse—the mouse has brought forth this ridiculous mountain of diplomacy.  This is Jewett’s doings, and it is marvelous in our eyes!  He got Greeley and the President’s private secretary to the Falls on a fool’s errand, and made even the President an actor in this comedy; he has bade each of them play the part so well suited to himself, of

———“A tool

That knaves do work with, called a fool.”

Sublime impudence of George Sanders!  Enchanting simplicity of Colorado Jewett!  “But—ah!—him”—how, oh benevolent Horace, shall we struggle with the emotions (of the ridiculous) that choke the utterance of THY name?  Greeley and Jewett—Jewett and Greeley; which is Don Quixote and which is Sancho Panza?

SOURCE: The Daily True Delta, New Orleans, Louisiana, Tuesday, August 2, 1864, p. 1

What Is Said Of The Peace Negotiations

The New York World, in commenting on the Niagra correspondence, closes an article as follows:

We are convinced that there is no sincerity in any of the parties to this singular transaction.  The rebels naturally feel a deep interest in our presidential election, and their emissaries are in Canada with a view to influence its result.  The unflinching purpose of their leaders is separation, and to this end they are plotting to divide the Democratic party at Chicago, as they divided it at Charleston in 1860.

P. S. Since writing the above we have received the papers that passed in this odd negotiation; and, if the subject were not to serious for laughter, we should go into convulsions.  That dancing wind-bag of popinjay conceit, William Cornell Jewett, has achieved the immortality he covets; he has reversed the adage about the mountain in labor bringing forth a ridiculous mouse—the mouse has brought forth this ridiculous mountain of diplomacy.  This is Jewett’s doings, and it is marvelous in our eyes!  He got Greeley and the President’s private secretary to the Falls on a fool’s errand, and made even the President an actor in this comedy; he has bade each of them play the part so well suited to himself, of

—“A tool

That knaves do work with, called a fool.”

Sublime impudence of George Sanders!  Enchanting simplicity of Colorado Jewett!  “But—ah!—him”—how, oh benevolent Horace, shall we struggle with the emotions (of the ridiculous) that choke the utterance of THY name?  Greeley and Jewett—Jewett and Greeley; which is Don Quixote and which is Sancho Panza?

SOURCE: The Mount Vernon Republican, Mount Vernon, Ohio, Tuesday, August 9, 1864, p. 2

Diary of Edward Bates: July 22, 1864

In C.[abinet] C[ouncil]—present, Welles, Usher, Blair, Bates, and part of the time, Fessenden. absent Seward and Stanton—

The Prest. gave a minute account of the (pretended) attempt to negotiate for peace, thro' George [N.] Sanders, Clem. C. Clay and Holcolm[be] by the agency of that meddlesome blockhead, Jewitt [Jewett] and Horace Greel[e]y. He read us all the letters.

I am surprised to find the Prest. green enough to be entrapped into such a correspondence; but being in, his letters seem to me cautious and prudent.

Jewitt [Jewett] a crack-brained simpleton (who aspires to be a knave, while he really belongs to a lower order of entities) opens the affair, by a letter and telegram to Greel[e]y; and Greel[e]y carries on the play, by writing to the President, to draw him out, and, if possible, commit him, to his hurt — while the pretended Confederate Commissioners play dumby, — wa[i]ting to avail themselves of some probable blunder, on this side.

I noticed that the gentlemen present were, at first, very chary, in speaking of Greel[e]y, evidently afraid of him and his paper, the Tribune; and so, I said “I cant [sic] yet see the color of the cat, but there is certainly a cat in that mealtub.” The contrivers of the plot counted largely on the Presidents [sic] gullibility, else they never would have started it by the agency of such a mad fellow as Jewitt [Jewett] — perhaps they used him prudently, thinking that if bluffed off, at the start, they might pass it off as a joke.

I consider it a very serious affair — a double trick. — On the part of the Rebel Commissioners (now at Niagara, on the Canada side) the hope might have been entertained that a show of negotiation for peace might produce a truce, relax the war, and give them a breathing spell, at this critical moment of their fate. And as for Greel[e]y, I think he was cunningly seeking to make a pretext for bolting the Baltimore nomination.

The President, I fear, is afraid of the Tribune, and thinks he cant [sic] afford to have it for an enemy. And Usher tries to deepen that impression. But Blair says there is no danger of that; that Greel[e]y is restrained by Hall,¹ who controls the paper, and Greel[e]y too, owning 6/10 of the stock, and is a fast friend of the President — (of that? [I question.])

<[Note.] Oct [ ]. It appears that Greel[e]y is now ruled in, as Blair said. He is now a sound (?) Lincoln man — Elector at large, for the State of N. Y! Having, vainly, exhausted his strength against Mr. Lincoln's candidacy, he now, adopts the candidate (manifestly forced upon him, by popular demonstration) and plays the next best game, i. e. tries to convert him to his own use, by making him as great a Radical as himself. >

_______________

¹ Henry Hall, son of a leading New York jurist, was connected with the Tribune for twenty-six years during eighteen of which he was business manager.

SOURCE: Edward Bates, Diary of Edward Bates, p. 388-9

Clement C. Clay Jr. to Judah P. Benjamin, August 11, 1864

SAINT CATHERINES, CANADA WEST,            

August 11, 1864.

Hon. J. P. BENJAMIN,

Secretary of State Confed. States of America, Richmond, Va.:

SIR: I deem it due to Mr. Holcombe and myself to address you in explanation of the circumstances leading to and attending our correspondence with Hon. Horace Greeley,* which has been the subject of so much misrepresentation in the United States, and, if they are correctly copied, of at least two papers in the Confederate States.

We addressed a joint and informal note to the President on this subject, but as it was sent by a messenger under peculiar embarrassments it was couched in very guarded terms and was not so full or explicit as we originally intended or desired to make it. I hope he has already delivered it and has explained its purpose and supplied what was wanting to do us full justice.

Soon after the arrival of Mr. Holcombe, Mr. Thompson, and myself in Canada West it was known in the United States and was the subject of much speculation there as to the object of our visit. Some politicians of more or less fame and representing all parties in the United States came to see Mr. Holcombe and myself—Mr. Thompson being at Toronto and less accessible than we were at the Falls—either through curiosity or some better or worse motive.

They found that our conversation was mainly directed to the mutual injury we were inflicting on each other by war, the necessity for peace in order to preserve whatever was valuable to both sections, and probability of foreign intervention when we were thoroughly exhausted and unable to injure others, and the dictation of a peace less advantageous to both belligerents than they might now make if there was an armistice of sufficient duration to allow passion to subside and reason to resume its sway.

In the meantime Mr. George N. Sanders, who had preceded us to the Falls, was addressing, directly or indirectly, his ancient and intimate party friends and others in the United States supposed to be favorably inclined, assuring them that a peace mutually advantageous to the North and the South might be made, and inviting them to visit us that we might consider and discuss the subject. He informed us that Mr. Greeley would visit us if we would be pleased to see him. Believing from his antecedents that he was a sincere friend of peace, even with separation if necessary, we authorized Mr. Sanders to say that we would be glad to receive him. Mr. Greeley replied, as we were told, through Mr. Jewett, who had been an active and useful agent for communicating with citizens of the United States, that he would prefer to accompany us to Washington City to talk of peace, and would do so if we would go. We did not then believe that Mr. Greeley had authorized this proposal in his name, for neither we nor Mr. Sanders had seen it in any telegram or letter from Mr. Greeley, but had it only from the lips of Mr. Jewett, who is reported to be a man of fervid and fruitful imagination and very credulous of what he wishes to be true. Notwithstanding, after calm deliberation and consultation we thought that we could not in duty to the Confederate States decline the invitation, and directed Mr. Sanders to say that we would go to Washington if complete and unqualified protection was given us.

We did not feel authorized to speak for Mr. Thompson, who was absent, and we moreover deemed it necessary that he or I should remain here to promote the objects that the Secretary of War had given us and another in charge.

Mr. Sanders responded in his own peculiar style, as you have seen, or will see by the inclosed copy of the correspondence, which was published under my supervision.† We did not expect to hear from Mr. Greeley again upon the subject, and were greatly surprised by his note from the U.S. side of the Falls, addressed to us as “duly accredited from Richmond as the bearers of propositions looking to the establishment of peace.”

How or by whom that character was imputed to us we do not know. We suspect, however, that we are indebted for the attribution of the high and responsible office to Mr. Jewett, or to that yet more credulous and inventive personage, Dame Rumor. Certainly we are not justly chargeable with having assumed or affected that character, or with having given any one sufficient grounds to infer that we came clothed with any such powers. We never sought or desired a safe-conduct to Washington, or an interview with Mr. Lincoln. We never proposed, suggested, or intimated any terms of peace to any person that did not embrace the independence of the Confederate States. We have been as jealous of the rights, interest, and power of our Government as any of its citizens can be, and have never wittingly compromised them by act, word, or sign. We have not felt it our duty to declare to all who have approached us upon the subject that reunion was impossible under any change of the Constitution or abridgment of the powers of the Federal Government. We have not dispelled the fond delusion of most of those with whom we have conversed—that some kind of common government might at some time hereafter be re-established. But we have not induced or encouraged this idea. On the contrary, when obliged to answer the question—“Will the Southern States consent to reunion?”—I have answered:

Not now. You have shed so much of their best blood, have desolated so many homes, inflicted so much injury, caused so much physical and mental agony, and have threatened and attempted such irreparable wrongs, without justification or excuse, as their believe, that they would now prefer extermination to your embraces as friends and fellow-citizens of the same government. You must wait till the blood of our slaughtered people has exhaled from the soil, till the homes which you have destroyed have been rebuilt, till our badges of mourning have been laid aside, and the memorials of our wrongs are no longer visible on every hand, before you propose to rebuild a joint and common government. But I think the South Will agree to an armistice of six or more months and to a treaty of amity and commerce, securing peculiar and exclusive privileges to both sections, and possibly to an alliance defensive, or even, for some purposes, both defensive and offensive.

If we can credit the asseverations of both peace and war Democrats, uttered to us in person or through the presses of the United States, our correspondence with Mr. Greeley has been promotive of our wishes. It has impressed all but fanatical Abolitionists with the opinion that there can be no peace while Mr. Lincoln presides at the head of the Government of the United States. All concede that we will not accept his terms, and scarcely any Democrat and not all the Republicans will insist on them. They are not willing to pay the price his terms exact of the North. They see that he can reach peace only through subjugation of the South, which but few think practicable; through universal bankruptcy of the North; through seas of their own blood as well as ours; through the utter demoralization of their people, and destruction of their Republican Government; through anarchy and moral chaos—all of which is more repulsive and intolerable than even the separation and independence of the South.

All the Democrat presses denounce Mr. Lincoln's manifesto in strong terms, and many Republican presses (and among them the New York Tribune) admit it was a blunder. Mr. Greeley was chagrined and incensed by it, as his articles clearly show. I am told by those who profess to have heard his private expressions of opinion and feeling, that he curses all fools in high places and regards himself as deceived and maltreated by the Administration. From all that I can see or hear, I am satisfied that the correspondence has tended strongly toward consolidating the Democracy and dividing the Republicans and encouraging the desire for peace. Many prominent politicians of the United States assure us that it is the most opportune and efficient moral instrumentality for stopping the war that could have been conceived or exerted, and beg us to refrain from any vindication of our course or explanation of our purposes.

At all events, we have developed what we desired to in the eyes of our people—that war, with-all its horrors, is less terrible and hateful than the alternative offered by Mr. Lincoln. We hope that none will hereafter be found in North Carolina, or in any other part of the Confederate States, so base as to insist that we shall make any more advances to him in behalf of peace, but that all of our citizens will gird themselves with renewed and redoubled energy and resolution to battle against our foes until our utter extermination, rather than halt to ponder the terms which he haughtily proclaims as his ultimatum. If such be the effect of our correspondence, we shall be amply indemnified for all the misrepresentations which we have incurred or ever can incur.

Mr. Greeley's purpose may have been merely to find out our conditions of peace, but we give him credit for seeking higher objects. While we contemplated and desired something more, yet it was part of our purpose to ascertain Mr. Lincoln's condition of peace. We have achieved our purpose in part; Mr. Greeley has failed altogether. He correctly reports us as having proposed no terms. We never intended to propose any until instructed by our Government. We have suffered ourselves to be falsely reported as proposing certain terms—among them reunion—for reasons that our judgment approved, hoping that we would in due time be fully vindicated at home.

If there is no more wisdom in our country than is displayed in the malignant articles of the Richmond Examiner and Petersburg Register, approving of the ukase of Mr. Lincoln, the war must continue until neutral nations interfere and command the peace. Such articles are copied into all the Republican presses of the United States, and help them more in encouraging the prosecution of the war than anything they can themselves utter.

If I am not deceived, the elements of convulsion and revolution existing in the North have been greatly agitated by the pronunciamento of the autocrat of the White House. Not only Democrats, but Republicans are protesting against a draft to swell an army to fight to free negroes, and are declaring more boldly for State rights and the Union as it was. Many say the draft cannot and shall not be enforced. The Democracy are beginning to learn that they must endure persecution, outrage, and tyranny at the hands of the Republicans, just as soon as they can bring back their armed legions from the South. They read their own fate in that of the people of Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland. They are beginning to lean more on the side of our people as their natural allies and as the champions of State rights and of popular liberty. Many of them would gladly lock arms with our soldiers in crushing their common enemy, the Abolitionists. Many of them would fall into our lines if our armies occupied any States north of the Ohio for a month, or even a week. Many of them are looking to the time when they must flee their country, or fight for their inalienable rights. They are preparing for the latter alternative.

The instructions of the Secretary of War to us and the officer detailed for special service have not been neglected. We have been arranging for the indispensable co-operation. It is promised, and we hope will soon be furnished. Then we will act. We have been disappointed and delayed by causes which I cannot now explain.

I fondly trust that our efforts will not be defeated or hindered by unwise and intemperate declarations of public opinion, by newspaper editors or others who are regarded as its exponents.

We have a difficult role to play, and must be judged with charity until heard in our own defense.

I am much indebted to Mr. Holcombe, Mr. Sanders, and Mr. Tucker for the earnest and active aid they have given me in promoting the objects of Mr. Thompson's and my mission.

Mr. Thompson is at Toronto and Mr. Holcombe is at the Falls. If here, or if I could delay the transmission of this communication, I should submit it to them for some expression of their opinions.

As I expect this to reach the Confederate States by a safe hand, I do not take the time and labor necessary to put it in cipher—if, indeed, there is anything worth concealing from our enemies.

I have the honor to be, &c.,

C. C. CLAY, JR.

_______________

* See Series III, Vol. IV.

† Not found.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series IV, Volume 3 (Serial No. 129), p. 584-7

William C. Jewett to Horace Greeley, July 5, 1864

CATARACT HOUSE

NIAGRA FALLS.

WHITNEY, JERAULD & CO.

PROPRIETORS

Niagara July 5th 1864

My dear Mr Greely

In reply to your note— I have to advise having just left Hon Geo. N. Sanders of Ky on the Canada side — I am authorised to state to you — for our use only — not the public — that two Ambassaders — of Davis & Co are now in Canada — with full & complete powers for a peace & Mr Sanders requests that you come on immediately to me at Cataract House — to have a private interview, or if you will send the Presidents protection for him & two friends, they will come on & meet you. He says the whole matter can be consummated by me[,] you — them & President Lincoln— Telegraph me in such form — that I may know — if you come here — or they to come on — with me.

yours

W. C. Jewett

SOURCE: Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.: Lincoln, Abraham. Abraham Lincoln papers: Series 1. General Correspondence. 1833 to 1916: William C. Jewett to Horace Greeley, Tuesday,Negotiations at Niagara Falls. July 5, 1864. Manuscript/Mixed Material. https://www.loc.gov/item/mal3428100/.

Horace Greeley to Abraham Lincoln, July 7, 1864

New York, July 7th, 1864.

My Dear Sir:

I venture to inclose you a letter and telegraphic dispatch that I received yesterday from our irrepressible friend, Colorado Jewett, at Niagara Falls. I think they deserve attention. Of course, I do no indorse Jewett's positive averment that his friends at the Falls have “full powers” from J. D., though I do not doubt that he thinks they have. I let that statement stand as simply evidencing the anxiety of the Confederates everywhere for peace. So much is beyond doubt.

And thereupon I venture to remind you that our bleeding, bankrupt, almost dying country also longs for peace — shudders at the prospect of fresh conscriptions, of further wholesale devastations, and of new rivers of human blood. And a wide-spread conviction that the Government and its prominent supporters are not anxious for Peace, and do not improve proffered opportunities to achieve it, is doing great harm now, and is morally certain, unless removed, to do far greater in the approaching Elections.

It is not enough that we anxiously desire a true and lasting peace; we ought to demonstrate and establish the truth beyond cavil. The fact that A. H. Stephens was not permitted, a year ago, to visit and confer with the authorities at Washington, has done harms, which the tone of the late National Convention at Baltimore is not calculated to counteract.

I entreat you, in your own time and manner, to submit overtures for pacification to the Southern insurgents which the impartial must pronounce frank and generous. If only with a view to the momentous Election soon to occur in North Carolina, and of the Draft to be enforced in the Free States, this should be done at once.

I would give the safe conduct required by the Rebel envoys at Niagara, upon their parole to avoid observation and to refrain from all communication with their sympathizers in the loyal States; but you may see reasons for declining it. But, whether through them or otherwise, do not, I entreat you, fail to make the Southern people comprehend that you and all of us are anxious for peace, and prepared to grant liberal terms. I venture to suggest the following

Plan of Adjustment.

1. The Union is restored and declared perpetual.

2. Slavery is utterly and forever abolished throughout the same.

3. A complete Amnesty for all political offenses, with a restoration of all the inhabitants of each State to all the privileges of citizens of the United States.

4. The Union to pay $400,000,000 in five per cent. U. S. Stock to the late Slave States, loyal and Secession alike, to be apportioned pro rata according to their Slave population respectively, by the Census of 1860, in compensation for the losses of their loyal citizens by the Abolition of Slavery. Each State to be entitled to its quota upon the ratification, by its Legislature, of this adjustment. The bonds to be at the absolute disposal of the Legislature aforesaid.

5. The said Slaves States to be entitled henceforth to representation in the House on the basis of their total instead of their Federal population — the whole being now Free.

6. A National Convention, to be assembled so soon as may be, to ratify this adjustment and make such changes in the Constitution as shall be deemed advisable.

Mr. President, I fear you do not realize how intently the People desire any Peace consistent with the National integrity and honor, and how joyously they would hail its achievement and bless its authors. With U. S. Stocks worth but forty cents, in gold, per dollars, and drafting about to commence on the third million of Union soldiers, can this be wondered at?

I do not say that a just Peace is now attainable, though I believe it to be so. But I do say that a frank offer by you to the insurgents of terms which the impartial will say ought to be accepted, will, at the worst, prove an immense and sorely-needed advantage to the National cause: it may save us from a Northern insurrection.

Yours truly,

Horace Greeley

P. S. Even though it should be deemed unadvisable to make an offer of terms to the Rebels, I insist that, in any possible way it is desirable that any offer they may be disposed to make should be received and either accepted or rejected. I beg you to write those now at Niagara to exhibit their credentials and submit their ultimatum.

H. G.

SOURCE: Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress: Lincoln, Abraham. Abraham Lincoln papers: Series 1. General Correspondence. 1833 to 1916: Horace Greeley to Abraham Lincoln, Thursday,Negotiations at Niagara Falls. July 7, 1864. Manuscript/Mixed Material. https://www.loc.gov/item/mal3431600/.