Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/584

546 to the prominent leaders of the Confederacy. It does not appear, however, in any way, that Mr. Blair sought or took advantage of the courtesies which he received. His visits, however, did indeed encourage the hope that subjugation with military force could be averted, a result which was generally regarded as a calamity to be followed by the total overthrow of all liberties.

Looking into Washington at the same period for insight into influences employed against this mission, there appeared two movements one in Congress and the other from without which obstructed the pending negotiations. That which occurred in Congress and so fully described in the work of the Hon. S. S. Cox, &quot; Three Decades in Federal Legislation,&quot; was the sudden resurrection, January 6, 1865, of the Thirteenth amendment to the Constitution which had been slumbering on the table since the last Presidential campaign. Mr. Cox says of this amendment that &quot; it was a part of the program for strengthening the Federal cause. Mr. Seward and the President considered it worth an army. Whether they were right or not the amendment was not pressed until just before the negotiations at Hampton Roads. &quot; It was bruited around Washington about the first of January that Blair was entertaining the President with a scheme by which it was proposed to terminate the awful strife of North and South by negotiations with the insurgents. It was time, therefore, to interpose some obstacle which would make the Confederacy unwilling to negotiate. The Thirteenth amendment would accomplish the purpose. It was therefore called up, and pressed with vehemence while the great peace mission of Mr. Blair was pending, and was yet more warmly urged when the commissioners from President Davis were actually seeking access to the President of the Union. Mr. Pendleton, Mr. Voorhees, and other statesmen, opposed the amendment because they doubted its constitutionality. Mr. Cox opposed its consideration then as being inopportune. The rumor