2. No receding by the Executive of the United States on the slavery question, from the position assumed thereon, in the late Annual Message to Congress, and in preceding docu

ments.

3. No cessation of hostilities short of an end of the war, and the disbanding of all force hostile to the government.

That all propositions coming from those now in hostility to the government, and not inconsistent with the foregoing, will be respectfully considered, and passed upon in a spirit of sincere liberality.

I now add that it seems useless for me to be more specific with those who will not say they are ready for the indispensable terms, even on conditions to be named by themselves. If there be any who are ready for those indispensable terms, on any conditions whatever, let them say so, and state their conditions, so that such conditions can be distinctly known, and considered. It is further added that, the remission of confiscations being within the executive power, if the war be now further persisted in, by those opposing the government, the making of confiscated property at the least to bear the additional cost, will be insisted on; but that confiscations (except in cases of third party intervening interests) will be remitted to the people of any State which shall now promptly, and in good faith, withdraw its troops and other support, from further resistance to the government.

What is now said as to remission of confiscations has no reference to supposed property in slaves.

"A Merely Pernicious Abstraction"

Nicolay and Hay, Complete Works of Lincoln, vol. ii, p. 672. From Lincoln's last speech. Used by permission of the Century Com[April 11, 1865]

pany.

IN the annual message of December, 1863, and in the accompanying proclamation, I presented a plan of reconstruction (as the phrase goes), which I promised, if adopted by any State, should be acceptable to and sustained by the executive government of the nation. I distinctly stated that this was not the

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LINCOLN'S CONDITIONS OF PEACE; UNSIGNED MEMORANDUM GIVEN TO J. A. CAMPBELL, CONFEDERATE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF WAR,

April 5, 1865

[Facsimile of original MS. in Library of Congress]

only plan which might possibly be acceptable, and I also distinctly protested that the executive claimed no right to say when or whether members should be admitted to seats in Congress from such States. This plan was, in advance, submitted to the then Cabinet, and distinctly approved by every member of it. . .

[Regret has been expressed] that my mind has not seemed to be definitely fixed on the question whether the seceded States, so called, are in the Union or out of it. . . I have purposely forborne any public expression upon it. As it appears to me, that question has not been, nor yet is, a practically material one, and that any discussion of it while it thus remains practically immaterial, could have no effect other than the mischievous one of dividing our friends. As yet . . that question is bad as a basis of controversy, and good for nothing at all - a merely pernicious abstraction.

We all agree that the seceded States, so called, are out of their proper practical relation with the Union, and that the sole object of the Government, civil and military, in regard to those States is to again get them into that proper practical relation. I believe that it is not only possible, but in fact easier, to do this without deciding or even considering whether these States have ever been out of the Union, than with it. Finding themselves safely at home, it would be utterly immaterial whether they had ever been abroad. Let us all join in doing the acts necessary to restore the proper practical relations between these States and the Union, and each forever after innocently indulge his own opinion whether in doing the acts he brought the States from without into the Union, or only gave them proper assistance, they never having been out of it.

So great peculiarities pertain to each State, and such important and sudden changes occur in the same State, and withal so new and unprecedented is the whole case, that no exclusive and inflexible plan can safely be prescribed as to details and collaterals. Such an exclusive and inflexible plan would surely become a new entanglement.

2. JOHNSON'S OPINIONS AND THEORIES

"Treason Must be Made Odious"

E. McPherson, Political History of Reconstruction, p. 46. From a speech made by Johnson in Nashville. [June 9, 1864] TRAITORS should take a back seat in the work of restoration. If there be but five thousand men in Tennessee loyal to the Constitution, loyal to freedom, loyal to justice, these true and faithful men should control the work of re-organization and reformation absolutely. I say that the traitor has ceased to be a citizen, and in joining the rebellion has become a public enemy. He forfeited his right to vote with loyal men when he renounced his citizenship and sought to destroy our Government. . . If we are so cautious about foreigners, who voluntarily renounce their homes to live with us what should we say to the traitor, who, although born and reared among us, has raised a parricidal hand against the Government which always protected him? My judgment is that he should be subjected to a severe ordeal before he is restored to citizenship. Treason must be made odious, and traitors must be punished and impoverished. Their great plantations must be seized, and divided into small farms, and sold to honest, industrious men.

The States not Destroyed

Annual Cyclopedia, 1865, p. 801. Speech to a delegation from Indi[April 21, 1865]

ana.

.

UPON this idea of destroying States my position has been heretofore well known, and I see no cause to change it now. . Some are satisfied with the idea that States are to be lost in territorial and other divisions are to lose their character as States. But their life-breath has only been suspended, and it is a high constitutional obligation we have to secure each of these States in the possession and enjoyment of a republican form of Government. A State may be in the Government with a peculiar institution, and by the operation of a rebellion lose that feature. But it was a State when it went into a rebellion, and when it comes out without the institution it is still a State.