The Thin Light of Freedom: The Civil War and Emancipation in the Heart of America by Edward L. Ayers

Author:Edward L. Ayers
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Civil War, history
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THE DEMOCRATS BLAMED ABRAHAM LINCOLN for the failure of peace talks in Hampton Roads in Virginia, proceeding in early February 1865 as the debates over the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment raged in the states of the North. The Confederate commissioners “came prepared to enter into negotiations for a re-construction of the Union, in case they were met with just and liberal terms on the part of the Washington administration,” the Valley Spirit charged. “But the harsh and imperious demands of Mr. Lincoln, inspired by the blood-thirsty radicals in Congress, repelled them at once.” The lesson was clear: “the conference failed to produce any good result, not because an honorable peace was unattainable, but because the infernal and ruinous negro policy of this administration stands in the way of so desirable a consummation.” Abraham Lincoln, “clearly responsible for the failure,” needed to “beware how he trifles with the lives of his fellow men. The tears and sighs and groans of the thousands of widows and orphans in the land, made such by the unnecessary protraction of the war, will some day, sooner or later, come up in judgment against him,” the Democrats bitterly warned.”15

The Republicans brushed aside any charge that they were prolonging the war, which seemed in fact to be rushing to an overwhelming victory. “The Rebels themselves are now at war with their own rulers; the conflict is terrible and growing more so every day,” the Repository reported. “Every newspaper brought from the South, comes filled with the reports of angry discussions, and fault finding with those in power, who are not capable of doing more than they have done to bolster up a bad cause. The whole Rebel organization, military and civil, is now groaning under internal differences of the gravest sort.” The list of reasons for the dissatisfaction was long and compelling: “The lack of military success; the sad and humiliating defeats; the extreme scarcity of all the necessary munitions of war; the destitute condition of transportation; the worthless condition of their currency; the general disaffection among their leaders themselves; the dissatisfaction of the people.” Surely, such a regime could not long endure.16

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