Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/548

510 Sherman must push on. The press must give daily notice of the speedy subjugation of the rebellion. A truce pending the canvass for the presidency might result in peace, reunion, overthrow of the Confederacy, abolition of slavery, but these gracious results would be brought about by parties opposed to the administration.

An armistice in order to dissolve the Confederacy and restore the Union without further bloodshed was the policy of the Northern conservatives. No Southern representative men have been suspected of any complicity with these fraternal and patriotic designs further than to suggest that fighting should cease and peace conferences be held. Fidelity to the Confederacy distinguished Confederate leaders. But this policy was openly and honestly avowed by eminent Northern leaders who held that it was not treasonable to the Union to suspend coercion and test the sincerity of Southern declarations in regard to peace. The openly stated position of Northern leaders who favored a temporary peace was that secession must be abandoned or the war would be pressed to the utmost subjugation. But with this outspoken notice to the South these patriotic leaders avowed their belief that the South would surrender to overtures of honorable peace and therefore they proposed to make them.

But while this agitation of the armistice plan was under discussion, Mr. Lincoln was at the Philadelphia Fair, June 15, 1864, and speaking to the people he said, &quot;This war has taken three years. It was begun or accepted upon the line of restoring the National authority over the whole National domain, and for the American people, as far as my knowledge enables me to speak, I say we are going through on this line if it takes three years more.&quot; The armistice policy had been often brought forward in Congress and by portions of the public press, only to be invariably treated as if it were a truculent submission to the South. Mr. Lozier asked consent, May 30, 1864, to offer resolutions that the Pres-