Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/413

Rh Southern Whigs persuaded the President not to make the appointment. Weed, Wade and Love joy feared that the cabinet would &quot;surrender to the South,&quot; while border State supporters of Mr. Lincoln did not like the selection of Blair or Bates. But although Mr. Lincoln had many cabinet troubles, there was evident shrewdness in this selection of his advisers.

The commissioners from the Confederate States, Crawford and Forsyth, lost no time in pressing upon the attention of the new administration the adjustment of existing difficulties &quot;upon terms of amity and good will&quot; which they had been appointed to negotiate. Their communication which was properly addressed to Mr. Seward, secretary of state, set forth the recent facts of secession and then announced that &quot; with a view to a speedy adjustment of all questions growing out of this political separation upon such terms of amity and good will as the respective interests, geographical contiguity and future welfare of the two nations may render necessary, the undersigned are instructed to make to the government of the United States overtures for the opening of negotiations, assuring the government of the United States, that the President, Congress and people of the Confederate States earnestly desire a peaceable solution of these great questions; that it is neither their interest nor their wish to make any demand which is not founded in strictest justice, nor do any act to injure their late confederates.

Mr. Seward had declined on the nth of March to see Mr. Crawford and Mr. Forsyth even unofficially, and the official communication referred to was delivered sealed on the 13th and on the 15th a "memorandum&quot; by the Secretary was riled in his own office but not delivered to the Southern commissioners in which the view is set forth that the secretary of state cannot in any way admit that the so-called Confederate States constitute a foreign power, and that as his duties are confined to the