President sends congratulations to Isabel II, Queen of Spain, on birth of daughter. Abraham Lincoln to Isabel II, 4 April 1864, CW, 7:283.

Lays before Senate treaty with Nez Percé Indians in Washington Territory. Abraham Lincoln to the Senate, 4 April 1864, CW, 7:284.

Discusses French-Mexican situation with Sec. Seward. Administration supports neither country. House of Representatives passes resolution disapproving French occupation of Mexico. Monaghan, Diplomat, 358.

Lincoln interviews Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, who is introduced by Gen. Halleck. Philip H. Sheridan, Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan, 2 vols. (New York: C. L. Webster, 1888), 1:347.

With Mrs. Lincoln visits Grover's Theatre for performance of Carl Von Weber's Der Freischütz. Hay, Letters and Diary; Evening Star (Washington, DC), 4 April 1864, 2d ed., 1:4, 2:4.

Lincoln puts in writing substance of interview with A. G. Hodges, Gov. Bramlette (Ky.), and former Sen. Dixon (Ky.): "I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel. . . . I have done no official act in mere deference to my abstract judgment and feeling on slavery. . . . I felt that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful, by becoming indispensible to the preservation of the constitution, through the preservation of the nation. Right or wrong, I assumed this ground, and now avow it. . . . I made earnest, and successive appeals to the border states to favor compensated emancipation, . . . They declined the proposition; and I was, in my best judgment, driven to the alternative of either surrendering the Union, and with it, the Constitution, or of laying strong hand upon the colored element. I chose the latter. . . . It shows a gain of quite a hundred and thirty thousand soldiers, seamen, and laborers. . . . I add a word which was not in the verbal conversation. In telling this tale I attempt no compliment to my own sagacity. I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me." Abraham Lincoln to Albert G. Hodges, 4 April 1864, CW, 7:281-83.

Offers suggestions to Gen. Rosecrans regarding: 1. Order No. 61 concerning oaths of allegiance;2. Reported assassinations of returned Confederates; 3. Enlistment of Negroes not conducted in orderly manner. Abraham Lincoln to William S. Rosecrans, 4 April 1864, CW, 7:283-84.