There has been much discussion about what did and what did not occur at
the famous Hampton Roads Conference. That Mr. Lincoln met and conferred
with the official representatives of the Confederate Government, led by
the Vice President of the Confederate States, when it must have been
known to him that the Confederacy was nearing the end of its resources,
is sufficient proof of the breadth both of his humanity and his
patriotism. Yet he went to Fortress Monroe prepared not only to make
whatever concessions toward the restoration of Union and Peace he had
the lawful authority to make, but to offer some concessions which could
in the nature of the case go no further at that time than his personal
assurance. His constitutional powers were limited. But he was in
himself the embodiment of great moral power.
The story that he offered payment for the slaves—so often affirmed and
denied—is in either case but a quibble with the actual facts. He could
not have made such an offer except tentatively, lacking the means to
carry it out. He was not given the opportunity to make it, because the
Confederate Commissioners were under instructions to treat solely on
the basis of the recognition of the independence of the Confederacy.
The conference came to nought. It ended where it began. But there is
ample evidence that he went to Hampton Roads resolved to commit himself
to that proposition. He did, according to the official reports, refer
to it in specific terms, having already formulated a plan of procedure.
This plan exists and may be seen in his own handwriting. It embraced a
joint resolution to be submitted by the President to the two Houses of
Congress appropriating $400,000,000 to be distributed among the
Southern States on the basis of the slave population of each according
to the Census of 1860, and a proclamation to be issued by himself, as
President, when the joint resolution had been passed by Congress.
There can be no controversy among honest students of history on this
point. That Mr. Lincoln said to Mr. Stephens, “Let me write Union at
the top of this page and you may write below it whatever else you
please,” is referable to Mr. Stephens’ statement made to many friends
and attested by a number of reliable persons. But that he meditated the
most liberal terms, including payment for the slaves, rests neither
upon conjecture nor hearsay, but on documentary proof. It may be argued
that he could not have secured the adoption of any such plan; but of
his purpose, and its genuineness, there can be no question and there
ought to be no equivocation.
Indeed, payment for the slaves had been all along in his mind. He
believed the North equally guilty with the South for the original
existence of slavery. He clearly understood that the Irrepressible
Conflict was a Conflict of systems, not a merely sectional and partisan
quarrel. He was a just man, abhorring proscription: an old Conscience
Whig, indeed, who stood in awe of the Constitution and his oath of
office. He wanted to leave the South no right to claim that the North,
finding slave labor unremunerative, had sold its negroes to the South
and then turned about and by force of arms confiscated what it had
unloaded at a profit. He fully recognized slavery as property. The
Proclamation of Emancipation was issued as a war measure. In his
message to Congress of December, 1862, he proposed payment for the
slaves, elaborating a scheme in detail and urging it with copious and
cogent argument. “The people of the South,” said he, addressing a
Congress at that moment in the throes of a bloody war with the South,
“are not more responsible for the original introduction of this
property than are the people of the North, and, when it is remembered
how unhesitatingly we all use cotton and sugar and share the profits of
dealing in them, it may not be quite safe to say that the South has
been more responsible than the North for its continuance.”