unconditional submission to their rule, coupled with the acceptance of their recent legislation, including an amendment to the Constitution for the emancipation of all negro slaves, and with the right on the part of the Federal Congress to legislate on the subject of the relations between the white and black population of each State. Such is, as I understand, the effect of the amendment to the Constitution, which has been adopted by the Congress of the United States.

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

EXECUTIVE OFFICE, RICHMOND, Feb. 6.

RICHMOND, February 5, 1865.

To the President of the Confederate States:

SIR: Under your letter of appointment of the 28th ultimo, we proceeded to seek an "informal conference" with Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, upon the subject mentioned in the letter.

The conference was granted, and took place on the 30th ult., on board of a steamer anchored in Hampton Roads, where we met President Lincoln and the Hon. Mr. Seward, Secretary of State of the United States. It continued for several hours, and was both full and explicit.

We learn from them that the message of President Lincoln to the Congress of the United States, in December last, explains clearly and distinctly his sentiments as to the terms, conditions, and method of proceeding by which peace can be secured to the people, and we were not informed that they would be modified or altered to obtain that end.

We understood from him that no terms or proposals of any treaty or agreement looking to an ultimate settlement would be entertained or made by him with the authorities of the Confederate States, because that would be a recognition of their existence as a separate power, which under no circumstances would be done; and, for like reasons, that no such terms would be entertained by him from the States separately; that no extended truce or armistice (as at present advised) could be granted or allowed, without a satisfactory assurance, in advance, of a complete restoration of the authority of the Constitution and laws of the United States over all places within the States of the Confederacy; that whatever conse quence may follow from the re-establishment of that authority must be accepted. But that individnals subject to pains and penalties under the laws of the United States might rely upon a very liberal use of the power confided to him to remit those pains and penalties, if peace be restored.

During the conference the proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States, adopted on the 31st ult., was brought to our notice.

The amendment provides that neither slavery nor involantary servitude, except for crime, should exist within the United States, or any place within their jurisdiction; and that Congress should have power to enforce this amendment by appropriate legislation.

Of all the correspondence that preceded the conference herein mentioned, and leading to the same, you have heretofore been informed.

Very respectfully, your obedient servants,

ALEX. H. STEPHENS.

R.M. T. HUNTER.
J. A. CAMPBELL.

The account to which the abortive negotiation was turned by the Rebel leaders, will also further appear from the following comment of the special organ of Jefferson Davis-the Richmond Sentinel:

Our advance, though invited, has been met with the most intolerable of insults. We have been fairly forced to the wall, and it is plain that there is no escape from utter ruin save such as we shall hew out with manful swords. There is literally no retreat but in chains and slavery. There are no peace men among us now. There is no room for one-not an inch of ground for one to stand upon. We are all war men.

As a consequence of sundry propositions and alleged secret movements at Richmond, earlier in the season, looking toward peace by an abandonment of Secession, the Rebel Congress unanimously adopted, in the latter part of January, a concurrent resolution for the appointment of a joint committee to prepare an address to the people of the "Confederate States," informing them of "the unalterable determination of Congress to continue, with all its energy, the struggle for independence, in which," they say, "we are engaged, and assuring them of the final triumph which, in our solemn judgment, must crown our efforts if we stand firm and united together, and wield our resources with strength and wisdom."

About the same time, Mr. Seddon, the Rebel Secretary of

War, resigned, in consequence of an expression of their want of confidence in him by the members of the Legislature of his own State, Virginia. He was succeeded by John C. Breckin ridge, who, as an officer in the field, had hardly attained a standing commensurate with his former position in civil life. The Rebel Congress, about the 25th of January, finally passed a bill providing for a General-in-Chief to command all the "Confederate" armies. For this post Robert E. Lee was soon after selected. A resolution was also passed by the same body, recommending the restoration of Johnston to the command of the army from which he had been displaced by Davis, and which was now, so far as still in existence, under the command of Hood. In these, and various other ways-especially in the outspoken criticism of the press-dissatisfaction with the management of Davis was manifested. He was, in fact, rapidly losing his hold upon the people, if he had not already become actually odious. It was all the more necessary, therefore, to make an effort to improve the occasion of this conference as a means of uniting the South in his support. A large meeting of the people was held at Richmond, by which resolutions were adopted, indignantly spurning the terms of peace prof fered by Mr. Lincoln; characterising the proffer as a premedi tated insult; and renewing their pledges of devotion to the Rebel cause. Davis violently declaimed against "reconstruction;" predicted the triumph of his cause, and assured hist hearers, very solemnly, that "with the Confederacy he would live or die." No condition but the independence of "the Confederacy," he affirmed, could ever receive his sanction. "Sooner than submit to re-union, he would willingly yield up everything he had on earth, and if it were possible, he would yield. up his life a thousand times, rather than succumb." A Richmond journal proclaimed: "It is said that Mr. Stephens will return to Georgia and canvass the State for a vigorous prosecution of the war. He stated to a friend that the only hope now left for the people of the South was in strong arms and st ut hearts."

n this manner, everywhere within the narrow "Confede

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rate" jurisdiction remaining, was the work of firing the slaveholding breast revived.

Davis himself, as his fortunes grew more desperate, became more tyrannical. He meditated reckless schemes, and delegated agents who, in various places, busied themselves with diabolical enterprises. A legion of demons, of whom Blackburn was but the type, was sent forth on "confidential employment "-whose doings were ere long to astonish the world by the depth of their depravity. The arch-traitor conscripted men and boys heretofore exempt, "robbing the cradle and the grave." He forced the negro into his service. He appropriated, in a way of his own, means and materials for carrying on his nefarious work. When Lee clearly foresaw and foretold the fatal result of further resistance, Davis only grew more sullenly unyielding. In vain did the more sagacious leaders about him strive to awaken a saner reflection that would avert the madness bent on ruining all. His commissioners at Hampton Roads had evidently other wishes than he permitted them to avow. He artfully perverted their mission to strengthen himself in his infatuated policy. Defiantly and persistently, he hastened on to the ignoble end of his self-willed career.

The movements of our armies were attended with a series of brilliant successes, prior to the 4th of March, that left the event no longer doubtful. The Congress which terminated with Mr. Lincoln's first Presidential term had well sustained him in his leading measures for suppressing the great insurrection, and had the gratification of knowing, ere its final adjournment, that the good work was substantially accomplished. The more prominent acts of this Congress have been chiefly indicated, while there remain some others which should not be passed unnoticed.

By an act approved on the 21st of December, 1864, the office of Vice-Admiral in the Navy was created, "whose relative rank with officers of the army shall be that of LieutenantGeneral in the army." To this office, the President appointed Admiral D. G. Farragut. An act to prevent military interference in elections in the States, was approved February 25th, 1865.

A voluminous act in amendment of the Internal Rev.

enue laws, designed to give greater efficiency to the system, and to produce a larger income, was approved on the 3d of March, 1865. An act of the same date also modifies the tariff laws, with the like object.

Another important measure, resulting from the bill of Mr. Eliot, of Massachusetts, which passed the House of Representatives at the previous session, was the act to establish, in the War Department, a Bureau for the relief of freedmen and refugees, approved March 3d, 1865. This measure, as originally proposed, for the the benefit of freedmen alone, had received the earnest support of President Lincoln, who called the attention of Congress thereto, at the previous session, in the following special message:

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

Herewith I lay before you a letter addressed to myself by a committee of gentlemen representing the Freedmen's Aid Societies in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati. The subject of the letter, as indicated above, is one of great importance, and one which these gentlemen, of known ability and high character, seem to have considered with great attention and care. Not having time to form a mature judgment of my own as to whether the plan they suggest is the best, I submit the whole subject to Congress, deeming that their attention thereto is almost imperatively demanded. December 17, 1863.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

One important appropriation bill was lost by the dictatorial action of Mr. Davis, of Maryland, who wished to compel Congress to enact into a law the views in regard to "military arrests," to which he had become an ardent convert. While he thus signalized the close of his career in Congress, by factiously insisting that irrelevant legislation (already rejected) should be linked with the appropriation, or the latter defeated— which he was able to accomplish under the rules-none of thc more essential operations of the Government were thereby materially hindered.

Just preceding the time of counting the electoral votes, Congress adopted a joint resolution, the preamble of which sets forth that "the inhabitants and local authorities of the States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida,