Annotation
[1] New York Tribune, September 26, 1865; Scribner's Magazine, January, 1893. This extract was widely reprinted in newspapers from the source indicated in the Tribune as follows:
``The Southern Advocate of the 18th inst. says:
``The following extract, which has just been published, is from the late President Lincoln's letter to Gen. Wadsworth, who fell in the battle of the Wilderness. The letter, which is of a private character, is to be sent to Gen. Wadsworth's family.
```It shows that Mr. Lincoln, who desired the bestowal of the elective franchise upon the blacks, was also, at an early day, in favor of granting universal amnesty, which, for some strange and unaccountable reason, is still withheld from the South, notwithstanding it is known that it was his intention to grant, without any exception, a general pardon.
```His wishes, in this particular, the American people cannot afford to disregard. Congress will, no doubt, exact the right of suffrage for the blacks. Why universal amnesty should be withheld until that time, we are unable to see. This, certainly, was not Mr. Lincoln's plan, whose intentions all parties should sacredly observe.
```The following is the extract referred to, in which Mr. Lincoln says: [extract as given above].'''
The Southern Advocate has not been located, and no other reference has been found to the original letter to Wadsworth. The contents of the excerpt is, however, closely in keeping with views expressed by Lincoln elsewhere (see Fragment, August 26, 1863, supra), and seems to be genuine. The date assigned is based upon the fact that General Wadsworth returned from his tour of inspection of freedmen in the Mississippi Valley on December 3, 1863, and on the supposition that Lincoln's letter would probably have been written some time thereafter, but in any case prior to May, 1864, since Wadsworth was killed in the Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-7, 1864.
[2] This paragraph does not appear in the newspaper accounts, but is included in the article by Marquis de Chambrun in Scribner's Magazine.