It seems as if the extreme advocates of African slavery and its most vehement opponents were acting in concert together to precipitate a servile war--the former by making the most desperate attempts to overthrow the Federal Union, the latter by demanding an edict of universal emancipation as a lawful and necessary, if not, as they say, the only legitimate way of saving the Union. Probably this was a private note, which got into the published volume by mistake, but it was oil on the flames in 1863, and it became public simultaneously with the news of General Burnside's defeat at Fredericksburg. These were among the darkest hours of the war. The Republican Senators thought that the rebellion would never be put down unless Seward were forced out of the Cabinet and that now was the time to act. A caucus was held and a committee appointed, of which Senator Collamer was chairman, to visit the President and express the opinion that Mr. Seward had lost the confidence of Congress and the country, and that his resignation was necessary to a successful prosecution of the war. Trumbull was one of the members of the committee. Seward's unlucky letter, which formed the occasion of Judge White's communication to Trumbull, was written shortly before Lincoln's preliminary proclamation of emancipation as to slaves in the rebel states was published. Senator Sumner took the letter to the President and asked if he had ever given his sanction to it. He replied that he had never seen it before. The newspapers got hold of this fact and made it hot for Seward. The New York _Times_, however, denied, apparently by authority, that Seward had ever sent any dispatch to a foreign minister without first submitting it to the President and getting his approval of it. Such a denial would be technically correct if this letter were a private communication, not intended for the public archives. Judge White, in a public letter, maintained that Seward never had submitted this letter to his chief, thus raising a question of veracity with the _Times_. So he wrote the foregoing letter to Trumbull hoping to find a backer in him. Trumbull replied in the following terms: Pressing engagements and an indisposition to become involved in the controversy to which your letter of the 6th alludes must be my apology for not sooner replying to your inquiries. The want of harmony, not to say the antagonism, between some of the dispatches referred to and the avowed policy of the President would seem to afford sufficient evidence to a discerning public that both could not have emanated from the same mind. In view, therefore, of the manner in which the information in my possession was obtained, and not perceiving at this time that the public good would be subserved by any disclosure I could make, I must be excused for not undertaking to furnish extraneous evidence in the matter.