Ever since issuing the Emancipation Proclamation Lincoln had earnestly desired that that measure should be perfected by a Constitutional amendment forever prohibiting slavery in the territory of the United States.  He had discussed the matter fully with his friends in Congress, and repeatedly urged them to press it to an issue.  Just before the Baltimore Convention, he urged Senator Morgan of New York, chairman of the National Republican Committee, to have the proposed amendment made the “key-note of the speeches and the key-note of the platform.”  Congressman Rollins of Missouri relates that the President said to him, “The passage of the amendment will clinch the whole matter.”  The subject was already definitely before Congress.  In December, 1863, joint resolutions for this great end had been introduced in the House by Hon. James M. Ashley of Ohio, and in the Senate by Hon. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts and Hon. J.B.  Henderson of Missouri.  Senator Trumbull of the Judiciary Committee, to whom the Senate resolutions were referred, reported a substitute for the amendment, which, in April, 1864, passed the Senate by a vote of thirty-eight to six; but reaching the House, June 15, it failed to get the necessary two-thirds vote and was defeated.  At the next session of Congress the resolutions were again presented to the House, and after a protracted debate were passed (January 13, 1865) by a vote of one hundred and nineteen to fifty-six.  Illinois was the first State to ratify the amendment; and others promptly followed.  Lincoln was grateful and delighted.  He remarked, “This ends the job”; adding, “I feel proud that Illinois is a little ahead.”

Overtures having been made, through General Grant, for a meeting between the President and certain “peace commissioners” representing the belligerents, Lincoln, anxious that nothing should be left undone that might evidence his desire to bring the war to a close, consented to the interview.  On the morning of February 2, 1865, he left Washington, quite privately, in order to accomplish his mission without awakening the gossip and criticism which publicity would excite.  At Fortress Monroe he was joined by Secretary Seward, who seems to have been the only member of the Cabinet who knew of the President’s intention to meet the Southern Commissioners.  Lincoln took the full responsibility, as he often did when dealing with risky or unpopular measures.  “None of the Cabinet were advised of this move, and without exception I think it struck them unfavorably that the Chief Magistrate should have gone on such a mission,” is the comment of Secretary Welles,—­although he adds, “The discussion will be likely to tend to peace.”