"My own efforts are constantly directed to this result. Almost daily I confer more or less fully with loyalists of the insurrectionary States, who almost unanimously concur in judgment with me that the only safe basis of permanent peace is reconstitution by recognition in the fundamental law of each State, through a convention of its loyal people, of the condition of universal freedom established by the proclamation. It was only yesterday that I had a full conversation with Governor Pierpont, of Virginia, and Judge Bowden, one of the United States Senators from that State, on this subject. Both these gentlemen agree in thinking that the President should revoke the exception of certain counties in southeastern Virginia from the operation of the proclamation, and that the Governor should call the Legislature together and recommend the assembling of a convention for the amendment of the existing constitution, and in expecting that the convention will propose an amendment prohibiting slavery. I think there is some reason to hope that the President may determine to revoke the exception, and more reason to hope that the convention will be failed and freedom established in Virginia through its agency. "I do not know that you are perfectly familiar with the present condition of things in Virginia. Soon after the outbreak of the rebellion the loyal people of Virginia organized under the old constitution, through a Legislature at Wheeling, and subsequently, through a convention, consented to a division of the State by organizing the northwest portion as the State of West Virginia. If you look at the map you will see that the line forming the southern and eastern boundaries of this new State commences on the big fork of the Big Sandy, in the west line of McDowell County, and thence proceeds irregularly so as to include McDowell and Mercer counties, along the crest of the Alleghanies to Pendleton County, where it diverges to the Shenandoah Mountains and proceeds northeast to the Potomac River, at the northeast corner of Berkeley, including Pendleton, Hardy, Hampshire, Morgan, and Berkeley counties. Congress consented to the admission of this State, and it is now in the Union, fully organized under a free-labor constitution. Its organization, of course, left the government of old Virginia in the hands of Governor Pierpont and his associates, by whom the seat of government has been established at Alexandria. At present only a comparatively narrow belt of counties from the Atlantic to the east line of Berkeley is practically controlled by the loyal State government, but the loyal men of these counties are recognized by the national government as the State, and as county after county is rescued from rebel control it will come naturally under this