Immediately after the installation of the new government three
commissioners from the Confederacy came to Washington, and requested an
official audience. They said that seven States of the American Union had
withdrawn therefrom, had reassumed sovereign power, and were now an
independent nation in fact and in right; that, in order to adjust upon
terms of amity and good-will all questions growing out of this political
separation, they were instructed to make overtures for opening
negotiations, with the assurance that the Confederate government
earnestly desired a peaceful solution and would make no demand not
founded in strictest justice, neither do any act to injure their late
confederates. From the Confederate point of view these approaches were
dignified and conciliatory; from the Northern point of view they were
treasonable and insolent. Probably the best fruit which Mr. Davis hoped
from them was that Mr. Seward, who was well known to be desirous of
finding some peace-assuring middle course, might be led into a
discussion of the situation, inevitably provoking divisions in the
cabinet, in the Republican party, and in the country. But though
Seward's frame of mind about this time was such as to put him in great
jeopardy of committing hurtful blunders, he was fortunate enough to
escape quite doing so. To the agent of the commissioners he replied that
he must "consult the President," and the next day he wrote, in terms of
personal civility, that he could not receive them.
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