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188s] Informal negotiations for peace. 535 replenish the Confederate armies. Every man whom Lee lost by battle, sickness or desertion (and the last became a serious daily drain), weakened his force beyond hope of remedy; while the armies commanded by Grant rose in the spring of 1865 to the highest number they had reached during the war, with practically inexhaustible resources for the future. The certainty of this impending doom of the cause that they had so valiantly championed and defended became clear to many Confederate leaders during the winter of 1864-5; but pride and constancy, and the despotic rigour of Southern public opinion, long restrained any admission of the belief. Military law and regulations grew in stringency till they became virtual dictatorship ; and, when at last the Confederate President proposed and the Confederate Congress authorised the em- ployment of negro soldiers and their emancipation for military service, it was an admission of the fallacy not alone of State Rights, but of slavery as an institution of government. Under that admission the vital spirit of the Southern cause the preservation and perpetuation of slavery expired ; while the accusations of stirring up servile war and the bans of outlawry officially proclaimed by the Confederate President against commanders of the Federal army, recoiled upon his own head. Secession had been illogical from the first; its own consequences had now rendered it ridiculous. In this situation of affairs, it occurred to an eminent citizen of Washington, Francis P. Blair, senior, to begin an unofficial negotiation for peace. More than a generation before he had been the trusted political lieutenant of President Jackson. Since that time he had maintained close intimacy and strong influence with Democratic leaders. Though, after the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, he abandoned the Democratic and joined the Republican party, Jefferson Davis had long been and yet remained his warm personal friend. President Lincoln refused to listen to his plans, but gave him a simple permit to pass the military lines; and with this Blair sought and on January 12, 1865, obtained audience with the Confederate President, before whom he laid an interesting but utterly impracticable scheme. The North and South, he proposed, should cease and postpone their conflict, and unite to drive Maximilian and French power out of Mexico. It was, in another form, what Seward proposed to Lincoln on April 1, 1861 to substitute the Monroe Doctrine for the slavery question ; and it was as irrational and visionary now as then. This wild project of invading Mexico, never authorised or entertained by Lincoln, was used by Jefferson Davis as an excuse for sending a commission, headed by the Confederate Vice-President, "for informal conference upon the issues involved in the existing war, and for the purpose of securing peace to the two countries " ; but they found their entrance into the Union lines barred by the instruction of President Lincoln that they could only be received on the condition that they CH. XVI.