Today in 1865 President Abraham Lincoln and Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens held a shipboard peace conference off the coast of Virginia; the talks deadlocked over the issue of Southern autonomy. In a Republic the power resides with the people; in a Confederacy the power resides with the states. In neither does the power reside with the national government. Our nation is today as far from a republic as was the confederacy. We, the people, need to get control back from the federal government.