[Jboss-svn-commits] Ition of slavery." This suspicion on the

[Sulin <de...@tr...>]

Hat he was a secret emissary to the President from the peace men of the
North. Davis, who did not take him seriously, gave orders to have the
case investigated, but Stephens, whose mentality in this period is so
curiously overcast, swallowed the prisoner's story without hesitation.
He and Davis had a considerable amount of correspondence on the subject.
In the fierce tension of the summer of 1864 the War Department went so
far as to have the man's character investigated, but the report was
unsatisfactory. He was not paroled and died in prison. This episode
Stephens now brought forward as evidence that Davis had frustrated an
attempt of the Northern peace party to negotiate. Davis contented
himself with replying, "I make no comment on this." The next step in the
peace intrigue took place at the opening of the next year, 1865.
Stephens attempted to address the Senate on his favorite topic, the
wickedness of the suspension of habeas corpus; was halted by a point of
parliamentary law; and when the Senate sustained an appeal from his
decision, left the chamber in a pique. Hunter, now a Senator, became an
envoy to placate him and succeeded in bringing him back. Thereupon
Stephens poured out his soul in a furious attack upon the
Administration. He ended by submitting resolutions which were just what
he might have submitted four years earlier before a gun had been fired,
so entirely had his mind crystallized in the stress of war! These
resolutions, besides reasserting the full state rights theory, assumed
the readiness of the North to