This is an informal meeting between these three representatives informal representatives
of the Confederate government on the one hand uh and uh uh Lincoln and his Secretary of
State uh two have some discussions uh uh about what can be done and there's no agreement
from the outset about what the discussions are supposed to be about which is a whole
other story uh and nobody took any minutes at the meeting that's by agreement by agreement
okay there will be no minutes this is not a formal meeting so on and so forth ok ok
the southern representatives start uh as you say trying to figure out uh whether there
can't be some sort of arrangement that will allow peace to occur without reunion that
will allow 'cause these are the instructions they've been given by Jefferson Davis these
are the only terms we will accept is a any kind of peace must leave the Confederacy independent
and as you say Lincoln replies both no the only way this war is gonna end is when you
return to your rightful place within the union and two no I will not go back on any anti-slavery
measures I have already implemented that's the version of events that gets publicized
at the time and that Jefferson Davis then presents to uh the Confederate public in order
to rally their spirits Davis had no hopes for this meeting to begin with from his point
of view he was letting these people go uh and participate in these discussions just
to proveto them and everybody else that Lincoln was unbending wasn't Lincoln doing the same
in reverse he wasn't gonna go he he only went to prove that it wouldn't work precisely Davis
and Lincoln have the mirror opposite and therefore similar uh purposes in uh participating yeah
in this to begin with but something else s apparently going on based on uh uh memoirs
left by two of the Confederate participants and eventually uh corroborated by the third
Hunter and that is uh that apparently Lincoln and Seward said more than that they also said
uh well we're not gonna go back on the Emancipation Proclamation but Supreme Court may strike
it down or at least say that the Emancipation Proclamation is no longer in effect now that
the war is over because it was a war measure because it was a war measure yeah they they
uh cautioned the Confederate representatives that the thirteenth amendment had just been
passed by the Congress and is already headed to the state for ratification but I believe
it's Seward who according to this account says on the other hand since support for this
measure is largely based on the anger generated by the war now that the war is over it's possible
that this amendment won't get ratified and in fact if you guys come back into the union
quickly enough and have your rights restored as states you may be able to participate in
the process that denies ratification to the thirteenth amendment uh so maybe slavery won't
be wiped out and finally LIncoln says and even if slavery is wiped out maybe you'd get
compensated maybe the Federal Government will compensate you for your slaves you know that's
interesting because he he tried to head off the war four years before by bringing in all
these southerners and saying look how about compensated emancipation and they said not
on your tin type and he tries to do that with the border states yeah during the war who
say the same thing to him yeah right up until the middle of the war not a chance not a chance
right they're as dedicated to slavery as the Confederacy is they just have a different
way of trying to protect it so I don't think Lincoln and Seward meant any of this I think
this was their way of trying to lure do you think they said it uh these people in yes
I do think they said it ok I do I I think there's enough uh the fact that all three
of these Confederates said so two of them at the time uh and said so by the way in their
own private correspondence among themselves uh suggests to me that they did that Lincoln
and Seward did indeed say this so that would be a very good reason why Lincoln and Seward
would've left nothing in writing that that's an interesting point yeah uh but I think you
know they didn't take it seriously though Lincoln did try to get his cabinet to approve
compensation and the cabinet wasn't having any part of it and so Lincoln dropped it yeah
uh one of the arguments is as I understand it was that four hundred million dollars is
the cost of I don't know a couple of months of the war something like that so you stop
you pat them off and uh you save you know you save billions in effect or whatever right
right but uh but Lincoln tries to get it compensation uh endorsed after the war's affectively over
and after the North has already spent all this money and blood in prosecuting the war
and the cabinet say that's right we're gonna compensate these traitors uh for the loss
of property that we actually don't believe they ever should have owned but we think it's
morally wrong at this point no it's too late for any of this when you put it that way that's
right but you know southern various sectors of the southern planter class are trying throughout
the last year of the war are trying to broker some kind of deal like this and so what takes
place on the River Queen where they think they are being perhaps offered such a deal
is similar to what occurs uh where Joseph Johnston is trying to surrender to Sherman
and uh where Campbell uh is trying to reconvene the Virginia legislature right and earlier
where some powerful influential people in Alabama are talking about maybe suing for
a separate peace in each case the idea of holding onto slavery or some version of slavery
or some slavery by another name is one of the things that the southern planters are
hoping to achieve do you think they were taking these steps you describe these steps as steps
to save slavery and I suppose minimally what you might say well at least to obtain compensation
if slavery was given up you think that this uh came about because they understood that
it's all up it's all over for them oh yes none of this occurs none of the steps that
I've just outlined or at least referred to occur til the individuals involved have decided
that the attempt to sustain separate slave holding republic has been a failure yeah yeah
they've lost this war This excerpt is brought to you by the Massachusetts School of Law