The Border States men had a right to be
represented and it was all-essential that they should feel that they had
a part in the War government even though their spokesman Blair might
show himself, as he often did show himself, quite incapable of
understanding, much less of sympathising with, the real spirit of the
North. Stanton might be truculent and even brutal, but he was willing to
work, he knew how to organise, he was devotedly loyal. Seward, scholar
and statesman as he was, had been ready to give needless provocation to
Europe and was often equally ill-judged in his treatment of the
conservative Border States on the one hand and of the New England
abolitionists on the other, but Seward was a patriot as well as a
scholar and was a representative not only of New York but of the best of
the Whig Republican sentiment of the entire North, and Seward could not
be spared. It is difficult to recall in history a government made up of
such discordant elements which through the patience, tact, and genius of
one man was made to do effective work.
In February, 1865, in response to suggestions from the South which
indicated the possibility of peace, Lincoln accepted a meeting with
Alexander H. Stephens and two other commissioners to talk over measures
for bringing the War to a close.
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