_Mr. Smith._ Mr. Secretary of State, you were taking notes whilst Mr. Stanton was giving his views upon the restoration question. Were they on that subject? _Mr. Seward._ Yes. Some fleeting thoughts occurred to me which I was desirous of preserving for to-morrow. _I_ have a great deal of faith in establishing Southern 'doughfacery.' _Mr. Welles._ Doughfacery? _Mr. Seward._ Yes: that supremacy of pocket over pride which so long afflicted the North. Above and beyond the slave-owners must rise the great class of manufacturers and merchants,--almost every third man of Northern origin, too,--whose pocket is the great sufferer, and without whose property, hereafter, plantations can not prosper. Given a decent pretext for adjustment, when pride will go to the wall. Once allow the masses to grasp the reins, and the slave-owners will be driven to the wall-side of the political highway also. This I call Southern doughfacery for the sake of a phrase well understood. _Mr. Blair._ Then your old plan of the great national convention comes in vogue? _Mr. Lincoln._ _My_ plan! (_Good humoredly._) You must not _all_ steal my thunder. By the way, Seward, your pleasant friend Judge D----, who came from New York about Col. Corcoran, told me the meaning of that phrase. It seems a Dublin stage manager got up a scenic play with thunder in it perfectly imitated by a diapason of bass drums. A rival got up another scenic play, to which, out of jealous _pique_, the inventor repaired as a spectator. To his surprise he heard his own invention from behind the scenes. He instantly exclaimed aloud, 'The rascal, he's stolen my thunder!' _Mr. Seward (jocularly)._ The President finds a parallel between a national convention and thunder. Well, well, the clearest atmosphere is breathed after the clouds culminate in thunder and lightning. I accept the application. _Mr. Chase._ But if the South is to surrender pride, what are _we_ to surrender? _Mr. Seward (quickly)._ _Political_ pride. The battle of freedom was fought and won when the Inaugural was pronounced. The South can not recover from the present stagnation in a quarter-century, by which time it will again have accepted contentedly the original belief that slavery, like one of the lotteries of Georgia, or one of the red-dog banks of Arkansas, is a purely local institution. _Mr. Stanton._ I heartily accept the project of a national convention. But I am against any agitation or committal to leading ideas which are to control it. One convention ruined France, and another saved it. We can better obtain consent of North and South to holding a convention by forbearance from discussing its probable platform. Let it meet. No fear but it will elucidate _some_ satisfactory result.