He had found the Confederate agents at Niagara.  They had no credentials.  Nevertheless, he invited them to come to Washington and open negotiations.  Of the President’s two conditions, he said not a word.  This was just what the agents wanted.  It could easily be twisted into the semblance of an attempt by Lincoln to sue for peace.  They accepted the invitation.  Greeley telegraphed to Lincoln reporting what he had done.  Of course, it was plain that he had misrepresented Lincoln; that he had far exceeded his authority; and that his perverse unfaithfulness must be repudiated.  On July eighteenth, Hay set out for Niagara with this paper in Lincoln’s handwriting.(14)

“To whom it may concern:  Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery, and which comes by and with an authority that can control the armies now at war against the United States, will be received and considered by the executive government of the United States, and will be met by liberal terms on other substantial and collateral points and the bearer or bearers thereof shall have, safe conduct both ways.  Abraham Lincoln.”

This was the end of the negotiation.  The agents could not accept these terms.  Immediately, they published a version of what had happened:  they had been invited to come to Washington; subsequently, conditions had been imposed which made it impossible for them to accept Was not the conclusion plain?  The Washington government was trying to open negotiations but it was also in the fear of its own supporters playing craftily a double game.  These astute diplomats saw that there was a psychological crisis in the North.  By adding to the confusion of the hour they had well served their cause.  Greeley’s fiasco was susceptible of a double interpretation.  To the pacifists it meant that the government, whatever may have been intended at the start, had ended by setting impossible conditions of peace.  To the supporters of the war, it meant that whatever were the last thoughts of the government, it had for a time contemplated peace without any conditions at all.  Lincoln was severely condemned, Greeley was ridiculed, by both groups of interpreters.  Why did not Greeley come out bravely and tell the truth?  Why did he not confess that he had suppressed Lincoln’s first set of instructions; that it was he, on his own responsibility, who had led the Confederate agents astray; that he, not Lincoln was solely to blame for the false impression that was now being used so adroitly to injure the President?  Lincoln proposed to publish their correspondence, but made a condition that was characteristic.  Greeley’s letters rang with cries of despair.  He was by far the most influential Northern editor.  Lincoln asked him to strike out these hopeless passages.  Greeley refused.  The correspondence must be published entire or not at all.  Lincoln suppressed it.  He let the blame of himself go on; and he said nothing in extenuation.(15)