Whether without the intrusion of Jaquess and Gilmore, the Executive Committee would have come to the conclusion they now reached, is a mere speculation.  They thought they were at the point of desperation.  They thought they saw a way out, a way that reminds one of Jaquess and Gilmore.  On the twenty-second, Raymond sent that letter to Lincoln about “the tide setting strongly against us.”  He also proposed the Committee’s way of escape:  nothing but to offer peace to Davis “on the sole condition of acknowledging the supremacy of the Constitution—­all other questions to be settled in a convention of the people of all the States."(11) He assumed the offer would be rejected.  Thus the clamor for negotiation would be met and brought to naught.  Having sent off his letter, Raymond got his committee together and started for Washington for a council of desperation.

And this brings us to the twenty-third of August.  On that day, pondering Raymond’s letter, Lincoln took thought with himself what he should say to the Executive Committee.  A mere opportunist would have met the situation with some insincere proposal, by the formulation of terms that would have certainly been rejected.  We have seen how Lincoln reasoned in such a connection when he drew up the memorandum for Jaquess and Gilmore.  His present problem involved nothing of this sort.  What he was thinking out was how best to induce the committee to accept his own attitude; to become for the moment believers in destiny; to nail their colors; turn their backs as he was doing on these devices of diplomacy; and as to the rest-permit to heaven.

Whatever his managers might think, the serious matter in Lincoln’s mind, that twenty-third of August, was the draft.  And back of the draft, a tremendous matter which probably none of them at the time appreciated.  Assuming that they were right in their political forecast, assuming that he was not to be reelected, what did it signify?  For him, there was but one answer:  that he had only five months in which to end the war.  And with the tide running strong against him, what could he do?  But one thing:  use the war powers while they remained in his hands in every conceivable way that might force a conclusion on the field of battle.  He recorded his determination.  A Cabinet meeting was held on the twenty-third.  Lincoln handed his Ministers a folded paper and asked them to write their initials on the back.  At the time he gave them no intimation what the paper contained.  It was the following memorandum:  “This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be reelected.  Then it will be my duty to so cooperate with the President elect as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration, as he will have secured his election on such ground that he can not possibly save it afterward."(12)