Lincoln, Abraham (1809-1865) to Horace Greeley re: correspondence on Greeley's peace mission, Stephens
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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC05256 Author/Creator: Lincoln, Abraham (1809-1865) Place Written: Washington Type: Letter signed Date: 1864/08/09 Pagination: 2 p. 25.5 x 20.4 cm Order a Copy
Concerning Greeley's peace mission and his dealings with Alexander Stephens.
Notes: Basler 7: 489-90, from a retained clerical copy at the Library of Congress. In 1864, newspaper editor Horace Greeley was approached by Confederate agents to discuss peace proposals. Perhaps afraid to offend Greeley, who published the New York Herald Tribune, Lincoln gave him permission to meet the agents. Greeley did and learned to his disgust that they had no authority. Lincoln, uncertain of the fall-out from Greeley's behavior, sought to protect himself by preparing to publish all his correspondence on the matter. Lincoln here asks for Greeley to censor his derogatory editorial comments. Alexander H. Stephens, Confederate Vice President, had sought to negotiate peace but without the support of President Jefferson Davis. He would eventually meet Lincoln at Hampton Roads, Virginia in 1865.
Basler 490n quotes the passages from the printed pamphlet which Lincoln wanted struck (quoting Basler's note): Greeley to Lincoln, July 7… (1) 'And thereupon I venture to remind you that our bleeding, bankrupt, almost dying country also longs for peace; shudders at the prospect of fresh conscriptions, of further wholesale devastations, and of new rivers of human blood. And'; (2) 'now, and is morally certain, unless removed, to do far greater in the approaching elections.';
Executive Mansion,
Washington, August 9, 1864.
Private
Hon. Horace Greeley.
Dear Sir:
Herewith is a full copy of the correspondence, and which I have privately printed, but not made public. The parts of your letter which I wish suppressed, are only those which, as I think, give too gloomy an aspect to our cause, and those which present the carrying of elections as a motive of action. I have, as you see, drawn a red pencil over the parts I wish suppressed.
As to the A.H. Stephens matter, so much pressed by you, I can only say that he sought to come to Washington in the name of the "Confederate States," in a vessel of "The Confederate States Navy," and with no pretence even, that he would bear any proposal for peace; but with language showing that his mission would be Military, and not civil, or diplomatic. Nor has he at any time since pretended that he had terms of peace, so far as I know, or believe. On the contrary, Jefferson Davis has, in the most formal manner, declared that Stephens had no terms of peace. I thought we could not afford to give this quasi acknowledgement of the independence of the Confederacy, in a case where there was not even an intimation of any thing for our good. Still as the parts of the letters relating to Stephens containing nothing worse than a questioning of my action, I do not ask a suppression of those parts.
Your truly
A. Lincoln
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