John Hay crossed into Canada with Horace Greeley on July 20 and gave Lincoln’s offer of safe conduct to James P. Holcombe, one of the Confederate agents who had been corresponding with Greeley. Instead of replying to Hay, Holcombe and his colleague Clement C. Clay addressed a letter to Greeley and released it on July 21 to the Associated Press. The letter was widely printed in the northern press the following day, along with earlier correspondence between Greeley and the Confederate agents that did not mention the conditions for peace Lincoln had set forth on July 9 (see p. 243 in this volume). Greeley asked the President on August 4 to publish their correspondence regarding the Niagara Falls episode. Lincoln agreed, but requested that Greeley suppress passages in his letters the President believed “give too gloomy an aspect to our cause, and those which present the carrying of elections as a motive of action.” Greeley refused, and their correspondence remained unpublished. Clay, Holcombe, and their colleagues continued to meet with Peace Democrats in an effort to influence the platform and nomination of the Democratic national convention, which was scheduled to meet in Chicago on August 29.
NIAGARA FALLS, CLIFTON HOUSE, July 21.
To Hon. Horace Greeley:
SIR: The paper handed to Mr. HOLCOMBE on yesterday, in your presence, by Maj. HAY, A.A.G., as an answer to the application in our note of the 18th inst., is couched in the following terms:
EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, D.C.,
July 18, 1864.
To whom it may Concern:
Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of Slavery, and which comes by and with an authority that can control the armies now at war against the United States, will be received and considered by the Executive Government of the United States, and will be met by liberal terms, on other substantial and collateral points, and the bearer or bearers thereof shall have safe conduct both ways.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
The application to which we refer was elicited by your letter of the 17th instant, in which you inform Mr. Jacob Thompson and ourselves that you were authorized by the President of the United States to tender us his safe conduct on the hypothesis that we were “duly accredited from Richmond as bearers of propositions looking to the establishment of peace,” and desired a visit to Washington in the fulfillment of this mission. This assertion, to which we then gave, and still do, entire credence, was accepted by us as the evidence of an unexpected but most gratifying change in the policy of the President, a change which we felt authorized to hope might terminate in the conclusion of a peace mutually just, honorable and advantageous to the North and to the South, exacting no condition but that we should be “duly accredited from Richmond as bearers of propositions looking to the establishment of peace.” Thus proffering a basis for conference as comprehensive as we could desire, it seemed to us that the President opened a door which had previously been closed against the Confederate States for a full interchange of sentiments, free discussion of conflicting opinions and untrammeled effort to remove all causes of controversy by liberal negotiations. We, indeed, could not claim the benefit of a safe conduct which had been extended to us in a character we had no right to assume and had never affected to possess; but the uniform declarations of our Executive and Congress, and their thrice repeated, and as often repulsed, attempts to open negotiations, furnish a sufficient pledge to assure us that this conciliatory manifestation on the part of the President of the United States would be met by them in a temper of equal magnanimity. We had, therefore, no hesitation in declaring that if this correspondence was communicated to the President of the Confederate States, he would promptly embrace the opportunity presented for seeking a peaceful solution of this unhappy strife. We feel confident that you must share our profound regret that the spirit which dictated the first step toward peace had not continued to animate the counsels of your President. Had the representatives of the two Governments met to consider this question, the most momentous ever submitted to human statesmanship, in a temper of becoming moderation and equity, followed as their deliberations would have been by the prayers and benedictions of every patriot and Christian on the habitable globe, who is there so bold as to pronounce that the frightful waste of individual happiness and public prosperity which is daily saddening the universal heart, might not have been terminated; or if the desolation and carnage of war must still be endured through weary years of blood and suffering, that there might not at least have been infused into its conduct something more of the spirit which softens and partially redeems its brutalities. Instead of the safe conduct which we solicited, and which your first letter gave us every reason to suppose would be extended for the purpose of initiating a negotiation in which neither Government would compromise its rights or its dignity, a document has been presented which provokes as much indignation as surprise. It bears no feature of resemblance to that which was originally offered, and is unlike any paper which ever before emanated from the constitutional Executive of a free people. Addressed “to whom it may concern,” it precludes negotiation, and prescribes in advance the terms and conditions of peace. It returns to the original policy of “No bargaining, no negotiations, no truces with rebels except to bury their dead, until every man shall have laid down his arms, submitted to the Government, and sued for mercy.” What may be the explanation of this sudden and entire change in the views of the President, of this rude withdrawal of a courteous overture for negotiation at the moment it was likely to be accepted, of this emphatic recall of words of peace just uttered, and fresh blasts of war to the bitter end, we leave for the speculation of those who have the means or inclination to penetrate the mysteries of his Cabinet, or fathom the caprice of his imperial will. It is enough for us to say that we have no use whatever for the paper which has been placed in our hands. We could not transmit it to the President of the Confederate States without offering him an indignity, dishonoring ourselves and incurring the well-merited scorn of our countrymen.
Whilst an ardent desire for peace pervades the people of the Confederate States, we rejoice to believe that there are few, if any among them, who would purchase it at the expense of liberty, honor and self-respect. If it can be secured only by their submission to terms of conquest, the generation is yet unborn which will witness its restitution. If there be any military autocrat in the North who is entitled to proffer the conditions of this manifesto, there is none in the South authorized to entertain them. Those who control our armies are the servants of the people, not their masters; and they have no more inclination, than they have right, to subvert the social institutions of the sovereign States, to overthrow their established Constitutions, and to barter away their priceless heritage of self-government. This correspondence will not, however, we trust, prove wholly barren of good results.
If there is any citizen of the Confederate States who has clung to a hope that peace was possible with this Administration of the Federal Government, it will strip from his eyes the last film of such a delusion. Or, if there be any whose hearts have grown faint under the suffering and agony of this bloody struggle, it will inspire them with fresh energy to endure and brave whatever may yet be requisite to preserve to themselves and their children all that gives dignity and value to life or hope and consolation to death. And if there be any patriots or Christians in your land, who shrink appalled from the illimitable virtue of private misery and public calamity which stretches before them, we pray that in their bosoms a resolution may be quickened to recall the abused authority and vindicate the outraged civilization of their country. For the solicitude you have manifested to inaugurate a movement which contemplates results the most noble and humane, we return our sincere thanks; and are, most respectfully and truly, your obedient servants,
C. C. CLAY, JR.
JAMES P. HOLCOMBE.