Thus the lines had been definitely and distinctly drawn, on both sides.
The issue of Slavery became admittedly, as between the Government and
the Rebels, a dead one. The great cardinal issue was now clearly seen
and authoritatively admitted to be, "the integrity of the whole Union"
on the one side, and on the other, "Independence of a part of it."
These precise declarations did great good to the Union Cause in the
North, and not only helped the triumphant re-election of Mr. Lincoln,
but also contributed to weaken the position of the Northern advocates of
Slavery, and to bring about, as we have seen, the extinction of that
inherited National curse, by Constitutional Amendment.

During January, of 1865, Francis P. Blair having been permitted to pass
both the Union and Rebel Army lines, showed to Mr. Lincoln a letter,
written to the former, by Jefferson Davis--and which the latter had
authorized him to read to the President--stating that he had always
been, and was still, ready to send or to receive Commissioners "to enter
into a Conference, with a view to secure Peace to the two Countries."
On the 18th of that month, purposing to having it shown to Jefferson
Davis, Mr. Lincoln wrote to Mr. Blair a letter in which, after referring
to Mr. Davis, he said: "You may say to him that I have constantly been,
am now, and shall continue, ready to receive any agent whom he, or any
other influential person now resisting the National Authority, may
informally send to me, with the view of securing Peace to the People of
our common Country." On the 21st of January, Mr. Blair was again in
Richmond; and Mr. Davis had read and retained Mr. Lincoln's letter to
Blair, who specifically drew the Rebel chieftain's attention to the fact
that "the part about 'our common Country' related to the part of Mr.
Davis's letter about 'the two Countries,' to which Mr. Davis replied
that he so understood it." Yet subsequently, he sent Messrs. Alexander
H. Stephens, R. M. T. Hunter, and John A. Campbell as Commissioners,