The Great Conspiracy | Page 7

1865--MEETING, AT CITY POINT, OF LINCOLN, GRANT, AND
SHERMAN--SHERMAN'S ACCOUNT OF WHAT PASSED
--GRANT NOW FEELS "LIKE ENDING THE MATTER"--THE
BATTLES OF DINWIDDIE COURT HOUSE AND FIVE
FORKS--UNION ASSAULT ON THE PETERSBURG
WORKS--UNION VICTORY EVERYWHERE--PETERSBURG
AND RICHMOND EVACUATED--LEE'S RETREAT CUT OFF
BATTLE OF SAILOR'S CREEK--GRANT ASKS LEE TO
SURRENDER--LEE DELAYS-- SHERIDAN CATCHES HIM, AND
HIS ARMY, IN A TRAP--THE REBELS SURRENDER, AT

APPOMATTOX--GRANT'S GENEROUS AND MAGNANIMOUS
TERMS--THE STARVING REBELS FED WITH UNION
RATIONS--SURRENDER OF JOHNSTON'S ARMY--OTHER
REBEL FORCES SURRENDER--THE REBELLION STAMPED
OUT--CAPTURE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS--THE REBELS "YIELD
EVERYTHING THEY HAD FOUGHT FOR"--THEY CRAVE
PARDON AND OBLIVION FOR THEIR OFFENCES
CHAPTER XXXI.
ASSASSINATION!
PRESIDENT LINCOLN AT RICHMOND--HIS RECEPTIONS AT
JEFFERSON DAVIS'S MANSION--RETURN TO
WASHINGTON--THE NEWS OF LEE'S
SURRENDER--LINCOLN'S LAST PUBLIC SPEECH--HIS THEME,
"RECONSTRUCTION"--GRANT ARRIVES AT THE NATIONAL
CAPITAL--PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S LAST CABINET
MEETING--HIS FOND HOPES OF THE FUTURE--AN
UNHEEDED PRESENTIMENT--AT FORD'S THEATRE--THE
LAST ACCLAMATION OF THE PEOPLE--THE PISTOL SHOT
THAT HORRIFIED THE WORLD--SCULKING, RED HANDED
TREASON--THE ASSASSINATION PLOT-COMPLICITY OF THE
REBEL AUTHORITIES, BELIEVED BY THE BEST INFORMED
MEN--TESTIMONY AS TO THREE ATTEMPTS TO KILL
LINCOLN--THE CHIEF REBEL-CONSPIRATORS "RECEIVE
PROPOSITIONS TO ASSASSINATE"--A NATION'S
WRATH--ANDREW JOHNSON'S VEHEMENT
ASSEVERATIONS--"TREASON MUST BE MADE ODIOUS"--
RECONSTRUCTION
CHAPTER XXXII.
TURNING BACK THE HANDS
"RECONSTRUCTION" OF THE SOUTH--MEMORIES OF THE
WAR, DYING OUT--THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH

AMENDMENTS--THE SOUTHERN STATES REHABILITATED
BY ACCEPTANCE OF AMENDMENTS, ETC.--REMOVAL OF
REBEL DISABILITIES-- CLEMENCY OF THE
CONQUERORS--THE OLD CONSPIRATORS HATCH A NEW
CONSPIRACY --THE "LOST CAUSE" TO BE REGAINED--THE
MISSISSIPPI SHOT-GUN PLAN--FRAUD, BARBARITY, AND
MURDERS, EFFECT THE PURPOSE--THE "SOUTH" CEMENTED
"SOLID" BY BLOOD--PEONAGE REPLACES SLAVERY--THE
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1876-- THE TILDEN "BARREL,"
AND "CIPHER DISPATCHES"--THE "FRAUD" CRY--THE OLD
LEADERS DICTATE THE DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL
NOMINEE OF 1880--THEIR FREE- TRADE ISSUE TO THE
FRONT AGAIN--SUCCESSIVE DEMOCRATIC EFFORTS TO
FORCE FREE-TRADE THROUGH THE HOUSE, SINCE
REBELLION--EFFECT OF SUCH EFFORTS-- REPUBLICAN
MODIFICATIONS OF THEIR OWN PROTECTIVE TARIFF--THE
"SOLID SOUTH" SUCCEEDS, AT LAST, IN "ELECTING" ITS
CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT--IS THIS STILL A REPUBLIC, OR
IS IT AN OLIGARCHY?
CHAPTER XXXIII.
WHAT NEXT?
THE PRESENT OUTLOOK--COMMERCIAL PROSPECTS,
BRIGHT--WHAT THE PEOPLE OF THE NORTHERN AND
WESTERN STATES SEE--WHAT IS A "REPUBLICAN FORM OF
GOVERNMENT?"--WHAT DID THE FATHERS MEAN BY
IT--THE REASON FOR THE GUARANTEE IN THE NATIONAL
CONSTITUTION--PURPOSES OF "THE PEOPLE" IN CREATING
THIS REPUBLIC--THE "SOLID-SOUTHERN" OLIGARCHS
DEFEAT THOSE PURPOSES--THE REPUBLICAN PARTY NOT
BLAMELESS FOR THE PRESENT CONDITION OF THINGS--THE
OLD REBEL-CHIEFTAINS AND COPPERHEADS, IN
CONTROL--THEY GRASP ALMOST EVERYTHING THAT WAS
LOST BY THE REBELLION--THEIR GROWING
AGGRESSIVENESS--THE FUTURE--"WATCHMAN, WHAT OF

THE NIGHT?"

PORTRAITS.
MAPS.
SEAT OF WAR IN VIRGINIA.
FIRST BULL RUN BATTLE-FIELD.
FIRST BULL RUN BATTLE-FIELD, SHOWING POSITION OF
ARMIES.
EDWARD D. BAKER, BENJ. F. BUTLER, J. C. BRECKINRIDGE,
JOHN C. CALHOUN, HENRY CLAY, J. J. CRITTENDEN, HENRY
WINTER DAVIS, JEFFERSON DAVIS, SIMON CAMERON,
STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS, JOHN C. FREMONT, H. W. HALLECK,
ISAAC W. HAYNE, PATRICK HENRY, DAVID HUNTER,
THOMAS JEFFERSON, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, GEO. B.
MCCLELLAN, THAD. STEVENS, WM. H. SEWARD, LYMAN
TRUMBULL, BENJ. F. WADE, DANIEL WEBSTER, LOUIS T.
WIGFALL.
CHAPTER I.
A PRELIMINARY RETROSPECT.
To properly understand the condition of things preceding the great war
of the Rebellion, and the causes underlying that condition and the war
itself, we must glance backward through the history of the Country to,
and even beyond, that memorable 30th of November, 1782, when the
Independence of the United States of America was at last conceded by
Great Britain. At that time the population of the United States was
about 2,500,000 free whites and some 500,000 black slaves. We had
gained our Independence of the Mother Country, but she had left
fastened upon us the curse of Slavery. Indeed African Slavery had
already in 1620 been implanted on the soil of Virginia before Plymouth

Rock was pressed by the feet of the Pilgrim Fathers, and had spread,
prior to the Revolution, with greater or less rapidity, according to the
surrounding adaptations of soil, production and climate, to every one of
the thirteen Colonies.
But while it had thus spread more or less throughout all the original
Colonies, and was, as it were, recognized and acquiesced in by all, as
an existing and established institution, yet there were many, both in the
South and North, who looked upon it as an evil--an inherited evil-- and
were anxious to prevent the increase of that evil. Hence it was that even
as far back as 1699, a controversy sprang up between the Colonies and
the Home Government, upon the African Slavery question--a
controversy continuing with more or less vehemence down to the
Declaration of Independence itself.
It was this conviction that it was not alone an evil but a dangerous evil,
that induced Jefferson to embody in his original draft of that
Declaration a clause strongly condemnatory of the African Slave
Trade--a clause afterward omitted from it solely, he tells us, "in
complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never*
attempted to restrain the importation of slaves,