He proceeded to Niagara
to meet the reputed commissioners of the Confederacy. The
details of the futile conference do not concern us. The
Confederate agents were not empowered to treat for peace--at
least not on any terms that would be considered at Washington.
Their real purpose was far subtler. Appreciating the delicate
balance in Northern politics, they aimed at making it appear that
Lincoln was begging for terms. Lincoln, who foresaw this
possible turn of events, had expressly limited Greeley to
negotiations for "the integrity of the whole Union and the
abandonment of slavery." Greeley chose to believe that these
instructions, and not the subtlety of the Confederate agents and
his own impulsiveness, were the cause of the false position in
which the agents now placed him. They published an account of
the episode, thus effecting an exposure which led to sharp
attacks upon Greeley by the Northern press. In the bitterness of
his mortification Greeley then went from one extreme to the other
and joined the Vindictives.
Less than three weeks after the conference at Niagara, the
"Wade-Davis Manifesto" appeared. It was communicated to the
country through the columns of Greeley's paper on the 5th of
August. Greeley, who so short a time before was for peace at any
price, went the whole length of reaction by proclaiming that "Mr.
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