Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/594

556 and significant inquiry the President at once replied that there was but one way that he knew of and that was for those who were resisting the laws of the Union to cease that resistance. But Mr. Stephens sought again to know if there was no plan on which existing hostilities might cease and the attention of both parties be turned from the questions involved in the strife and diverted to some great common aim which might lead to the restoration of the Union.

The evident allusion of the second question to the plan of Mr. Blair to divert the two armies into an invasion of Mexico, which the Confederate commissioners themselves did not favor, brought from the President a distinct disavowal of having given Mr. Blair an authority to speak for him and an earnest declaration that he could entertain no proposition for ceasing active military operations which was not based upon a pledge first given for the ultimate restoration of the Union. The Confederate commissioners had not expected such an immediate and flat statement, and were without authority or inclination to give a pledge unaccompanied with any understanding whatever as to the course the United States would pursue toward the States and the people of the South in respect to their lives, property and local government. Judge Campbell therefore interposed at this point with a direct inquiry as to the plan on which the re-establishment of national authority would take place in the event the South agreed to the general terms as stated by Mr. Lincoln, thus presenting a question which the commissioners had previously considered as one to be asked, provided the armistice should be refused. It was, in fact, the precise pivot on which the issue could be made to turn toward peace with a Union promptly restored, or war with distraction long continued. It was reasonable beyond all question that these three eminent statesmen should have the fair, explicit and reliable answer from President Lincoln: that secession be abandoned, that