Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/552

514 whether an agreement can be entertained to recognize the Confederate States, and then the formation of a new government of all the States founded on the equality and sovereignty alike of all the States, but if this last object cannot be effected then an agreement to be made upon treaties, offensive, defensive and commercial between the two governments. Mr. Leach, of North Carolina, in May of the same year, offered other resolutions which recited that the administration at Washington had by legislation subverted the original Union, and that all the States should fall back upon the rights for which the Revolution had been fought. Upon this view his resolutions proposed that the delegates from each Southern State acting in sovereign and independent character appeal to the Confederate President to appoint commissioners to propose an armistice of ninety days, and report the answer received from the Federal government. If the armistice should be agreed to, the details of further negotiations were to be provided for through commissioners appointed by the States. Objection was raised that the resolutions provided for separate State action on a question constitutionally committed to the Confederate government. The general views expressed in the resolutions met with some favor but they were laid on the table by a decided vote of 62 yeas to 22 nays.

The United States Congress was not unaffected by these undercurrents of the peace movement. Prominent Northern leaders were saying, &quot; Let commissioners be appointed without waiting for an armistice. Let negotiations begin. They were further urging that the illegal proclamations of Mr. Lincoln should be declared null and void. Mr. Long, of Ohio, boldly advocated a policy of peace which brought on his head the censure of the radical majority, and Harris, of Maryland, nearly shared the same distinction. The magnificent Voorhees exclaimed with burning eloquence that the baleful hand of political destructionists, who then unhappily possessed the