Even peace may be purchased at too high a price.
– Benjamin Franklin
150 years ago this week news of President Lincoln’s report to Congress about the peace negotiations at Hampton Roads would have made its way to upstate New York. A local publication criticized the president and his administration for wasting an excellent opportunity for peace, but it ended its editorial strangely optimistic that one day the Republic would be re-united. From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in February 1865:
The Terms of Peace.
The President has transmitted to Congress the correspondence and official documents which preceded the Peace Conference at Hampton Roads, accompanied with a copy of a letter from Secretary Seward to Minister Adams, detailing somewhat minutely, though rather ambiguously, the result of the interview with the Southern Commissioners. From the few remarks which the President makes in transmitting to Congress the correspondence in question, it does not appear that that the Confederate Envoys demanded Independence, neither does it appear that they refused to to consider the subject of Reconstruction. Mr. Seward in his letter to Minister Adams says, in speaking of the interview, that what “the insurgent party seemed chiefly to favor was a postponement of the question of separation upon which the war is waged, and a mutual direction of the efforts of the Government as well as those of the insurgents to some extrinsic policy or scheme for a season; during which passions might be expected to subdue and the armies be reduced, and trade and intercourse between the people of both sections be resumed. It was suggested by them that through such postponement we might now have immediate peace, with some not very certain prospect of an ultimate satisfactory adjustment of political relations between the Government and the States, section or people now engaged in conflict with it.”
The President regarded this as a truce or armistice to which he would not consent, except upon the basis of the disbandonment of the insurgent forces and the restoration of the national authority throughout all the States of the Union. The President also announced, according to Mr. Seward’s letter, that “he must not be expected to depart from the positions he had heretofore assumed in his proclamations of emancipation and other documents, as these positions were laid down in his annual message.” In other words, all the extreme measures advocated and adopted by the radicals, must be carried out at all hazards. Of course the Confederate Commissioners would not accede to any such demands, and it was not expected they would. They accordingly returned and reported the result of their mission, and their report may be found elsewhere in our columns. In no one particular does the message of President Lincoln. or the letter of Mr. Seward contradict the statements of Messrs. Stephens, Hunter and Campbell.
The refusal of the President to entertain the candid and reasonable propositions of the Confederate Commissioners, places upon his shoulders the awful responsibility of the continuance of this most cruel and devastating civil war. Messrs. Stephens, Hunter and Campbell, speaking for the Southern people, did neither demand nor insist upon independence as a basis to negotiations. They desired Peace and Reunion, and they have placed the administration in the attitude of refusing their just demands. An honorable termination of the war was in the power of our government, but in language that cannot be misunderstood, it says the war must go on. Before high Heaven let it take the responsibility!
The result is greatly to be deplored and sad to contemplate. Instead of the blessings of Peace, the people are to have more war, – more drains upon their resources, their numbers – desolation, greater desolation to the country. Under wiser, more just and humane rulers, Peace would have been accomplished. But the die is cast, and the North and South will be braced anew for iron blows – blows which will sink deeper and deeper in the hearts of this people. But let us not yet despair of the Republic. Under more national auspices, under a truer, higher, nobler humanity; that founded on justice and honor, we may eventually witness the dawning of Peace – its attendant blessings falling upon a restored Union and a re-united People.
On February 6, 1865 Walter Taylor, Lee’s Adjutant expressed his opinion about the peace negotiations in a letter to his girlfriend:
I presume all Richmond is in a state of excitement about the return of the Peace Commissioners. I hope all the croakers are satisfied and will hereafter keep silence. It will do us much good and I am really glad they went. Our people now know what they have to expect & unless we are a craven hearted spiritless people, the result will surely prove beneficial & cause every man & woman to be doubly determined to fight to the last. The impudence of those people! Oh, if I only an army big enough to whip them all! The idea of submitting to them. I wouldn’t be one of a people who would do such a thing. I wonder if you’ll read this tiny scrawl. Good bye. Your own
W.[1]
- [1]Tower, R. Lockwood with John S. Belmont, eds.Lee’s Adjutant: The Wartime Letters of Colonel Walter Herron Taylor, 1862-1865. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995. Print. page 221.↩
