are, unalterably opposed to any division at all. We would prefer to think that you desire this concession as a pledge of our support, and thus enable you to withstand a pressure which weighs heavily on you and the country. Mr. President, no such sacrifice is necessary to secure our support. Confine yourself to your constitutional authority; confine your subordinates within the same limits; conduct this war solely for the purpose of restoring the Constitution to its legitimate authority; concede to each State and its loyal citizens their just rights, and we are wedded to you by indissoluble ties. Do this, Mr. President, and you touch the American heart and invigorate it with new hope. You will, as we solemnly believe, in due time restore peace to your country, lift it from despondency to a future of glory, and preserve to your countrymen, their posterity, and man, the inestimable treasure of a constitutional government. be presented in such a tangible, practical, efficient shape as to command their confidence that its fruits are contingent only upon their acceptance. We cannot trust anything to the contingencies of future legislation. If Congress, by proper and necessary legislation, shall provide sufficient funds and place them at your disposal, to be applied by you to the payment of any of our States or the citizens thereof who shall adopt the abolishment of slavery, either gradual or immediate, as they may determine, and the expense of deportation and colonization of the liberated slaves, then will our State and people take this proposition into careful consideration, for such decision as in their judgment is demanded by their interest, their honor, and their duty to the whole country. We have the honor to be, with great respect, C. A. WICKLIFFE, Ch'n., J. J. CRITTENDEN, CHAS. B. CALVERT, REPLY OF THE MINORITY. WASHINGTON, July 15, 1862. MR. PRESIDENT: The undersigned, members of Congress same, would be adopted and presented to you. Mr. President, we have stated with frankness and candor the reasons on which we forbore to vote for the resolution you have mentioned; but you have again presented this proposition, and appealed to us with an earnestness and eloquence which have not failed to impress us, to "consider it, and at the least to commend it to the consideration of our States and people." Thus appealed to by the Chief Magistrate of our beloved country, in from the border States, in response to your address of Satthe hour of its greatest peril, we cannot wholly urday last, beg leave to say that they attended a meeting decline. We are willing to trust every ques-on the same day the address was delivered, for the purpose of considering the same. The meeting appointed a comtion relating to their interest and happiness to mittee to report a response to your address. That report the consideration and ultimate judgment of was made on yesterday, and the action of the majority inour own people. While differing from you as dicated clearly that the response, or one in substance the to the necessity of emancipating the slaves of Inasmuch as we cannot, consistently with our own sense our States as a means of putting down the re- of duty to the country, under the existing perils which surbellion, and while protesting against the pro-round us, concur in that response, we feel it to be due to priety of any extra-territorial interference to you and to ourselves to make to you a brief and candid aninduce the people of our States to adopt any particular line of policy on a subject which peculiarly and exclusively belongs to them, yet, when you and our brethren of the loyal States sincerely believe that the retention of slavery by us is an obstacle to peace and national harmony, and are willing to contribute pecuniary aid to compensate our States and people for the inconveniences produced by such a change of system, we are not unwilling that our people shall consider the propriety of putting it aside. swer over our own signatures. We believe that the whole power of the Government, up held and sustained by all the influences and means of all Such being the condition of things, the President appeals to the border State men to step forward and prove their patriotism by making the first sacrifice. No doubt, like appeals have been made to extreme men in the North to meet us half way, in order that the whole moral, political, pecuniary, and physical force of the nation may be firmly and earnestly united in one grand effort to save the Union and the Constitution. But we have already said that we regarded this resolution as the utterance of a sentiment, and we had no confidence that it would assume the shape of a tangible, practical proposition, which would yield the fruits of the sacrifice it required. Our people are influenced by the same want of confidence, and will not consider the proposition in its present impalpable form. The interest they are asked to give up is to Believing that such were the motives that prompted your them of immense importance, and they ought address, and such the results to which it looked, we cannot not to be expected even to entertain the propo-spond in a spirit of fault-finding or querulousness over the reconcile it to our sense of duty, in this trying hour, to resal until they are assured that when they ac- things that are past. We are not disposed to seek for the cept it their just expectations will not be frus- cause of present misfortunes in the errors and wrongs of trated. We regard your plan as a proposition others who now propose to unite with us in a common purpose. But, on the other hand, we meet your address in the from the Nation to the States to exercise an ad- spirit in which it was made, and, as loyal Americans, demitted constitutional right in a particular man- clare to you and to the world that there is no sacrifice that ner and yield up a valuable interest. Before we are not ready to make to save the Government and inthey ought to consider the proposition, it should stitutions of our fathers. That we, few of us though there may be, will permit no man, from the North or from the South, to go further than we in the accomplishment of the great work before us. That, in order to carry out these views, we will, so far as may be in our power, ask the people of the border States calmly, deliberately, and fairly to consider your recommendations. We are the more emboldened to assume this position from the fact, now become history, that the leaders of the southern rebellion have offered to abolish slavery among them as a condition to foreign intervention in favor of their independence as a nation. If they can give up slavery to destroy the Union, we can surely ask our people to consider the question of emancipation to save the Union. With great respect, your obedient servants, JOHN W. NOELL, REPLY OF MR. MAYNARD. sacrifice not, in your judgment, imperatively required by the safety of the country. This is the spirit of your appeal, and I respond to it in the same spirit. I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, HORACE MAYNARD. To the PRESIDENT. SENATOR HENDERSON'S REPLY TO THE PRESIDENT. Mr. PRESIDENT: The pressure of business in the Senate during the last few days of the session prevented my at tendance at the meeting of the border State members, called to consider your proposition in reference to gradual emancipation in our States. It is for this reason only, and not because I fail to appreciate their importance or properly respect your suggestions, that my name does not appear to any of the several pa pers submitted in response. I may also add that it was my intention, when the subject came up practically for consideration in the Senate, to express fully my views in regard to it. This of course would have rendered any other response unnecessary. But the want of time to consider the HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, July 16, 1862. matter deprived me of that opportunity, and, lest now my SIR: The magnitude and gravity of the proposition sub- silence be misconstrued, I deem it proper to say to you mitted by you to Representatives from the slave States that I am by no means indifferent to the great questions so would naturally occasion diversity, if not contrariety, of earnestly, and as I believe so honestly, urged by you upon opinion. You will not, therefore, be surprised that I have our consideration. not been able to concur in view with the majority of them. This is attributable, possibly, to the fact that my State is not a border State, properly so called, and that my immediate constituents are not yet disenthralled from the hostile arms of the rebellion. This fact is a physical obstacle in the way of my now submitting to their consideration this or any other proposition looking to political action, especially such as, in this case, would require a change in the organic law of the State. I But do not infer that I am insensible to your appeal. am not. You are surrounded with difficulties far greater than have embarrassed any of your predecessors. You need the support of every American citizen, and you ought to have it-active, zealous, and honest The union of every Union man to aid you in preserving the Union is the duty of the time. Differences as to policy and methods must be subordinated to the common purpose. In looking for the cause of this rebellion, it is natural that each section and each party should ascribe as little blame as possible to itself, and as much as possible to its opponent section and party. Possibly you and I might not agree on a comparison of our views. That there should be differences of opinion as to the best mode of conducting our military operations, and the best men to lead our armies, is equally natural. Contests on such questious weaken ourselves and strengthen our enemies. They are unprofitable, and possibly unpatriotic. Somebody must yield, or wo waste our strength in a contemptible struggle among ourselves. You appeal to the loyal men of the slave States to sacrifice something of feeling and a great deal of interest. The sacrifices they have already made and the sufferings they have endured give the best assurance that the appeal will not have been made in vain. He who is not ready to yield all his material interests, and to forego his most cherished sentiments and opinions for the preservation of his country, although he may have periled his life on the battle-field in her defence, is but half a patriot. Among the loyal people that I represent there are no half patriots. Already the rebellion has cost us much, even to our undoing; we are content, if need be, to give up the rest to suppress it. We have stood by you from the beginning of this struggle, and we mean to stand by you, God willing, till the end of it. I did not vote for the resolution to which you allude, solely for the reason that at the time I was absent at the capital of my own State. It is right. Should any of the slave States think proper to terminate that institution, as several of them, I understand, or at least some of their citizens propose, justice and a generous comity require that the country should interpose to aid it in lessening the burden, public and private, occasioned by so radical a change in its social and industrial relations. I will not now speculate upon the effect, at home or abroad, of the adoption of your policy, nor inquire what action of the rebel leaders has rendered something of the kind important. Your whole administration gives the highest assurance that you are moved, not so much from a desire to see all men everywhere made free, as from a higher desire to preserve free institutions for the benefit of men already free; not to make slaves freemen, but to prevent freemen from being made slaves; not to destroy an institution, which a portion of us only consider bad, but to save institutions which we all alike consider good. I am satisfied you would not ask from any of your fellow-citizens a us. The border States, so far, are the chief sufferers by this war, and the true Union men of those States have made the greatest sacrifices for the preservation of the Government. This fact does not proceed from misinanagement on the part of the Union authorities, or a want of regard for our people, but it is the necessary result of the war that is upon Our States are the battle-fields. Our people, divided among themselves, maddened by the struggle and blinded by the smoke of battle, invited upon our soil contending armies the one to destroy the Government, the other to maintain it. The consequence to us is plain. The shock of the contest upturns society and desolates the land. We have made sacrifices, but at last they were only the sacrifices demanded by duty, and unless we are willing to make others, indeed any that the good of the country, involved in the overthrow of treason, may exact at our hands, our title to patriotism is not complete. When you submitted your proposition to Congress, in March last, "that the United States ought to co-operate with any State which may adopt a gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State in its discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system," I gave it a most cheerful support, and I am satisfied it would have received the approbation of a large majority of the border States delegations in both branches of Congress, if, in the first place, they had believed the war, with its continued evils-the most prominent of which, in a material point of view, is its injurious effect on the institution of slavery in our States-could possibly have been protracted for another twelve months; and if, in the second place, they had felt assured that the party having the majority in Congress would, like yourself, be equally prompt in practical action as in the expression of a sentiment. While scarcely any one doubted your own sincerity in the premises, and your earnest wish speedily to terminate the war, you can readily conceive the grounds for difference of opinion where conclusions could only be based upon conjecture. Believing, as I did, that the war was not so near its termination as some supposed, and feeling disposed to accord to others the same sincerity of purpose that I should claim for myself under similar circumstances, I voted for the proposition. I will suppose that others were actuated by no sinister motives. * In doing so, Mr. President, I desire to be distinctly understood by you and by my constituents. I did not suppose at the time that I was personally making any sacrifice by supporting the resolution, nor that the people of my State were called upon to make any sacrifice, either in consider ing or accepting the proposition, if they saw fit. I agreed with you in the remarks contained in the message accom panying the resolution, that "the Union must be preserved, and hence all indispensable means must be em ployed. ** War has been and continues to be an indispensable means to this end. A practical reacknowledgment of the national authority would render the war unnecessary, and it would at once cease. If, however, resistance continues, the war must also continue; and it is impossible to foresee all the incidents which may attend and all the ruin which may follow it." It is truly “impossible" to foresee all the evils resulting from a war so stupendous as the present. I shall be much rejoiced if something more dreadful than the sale of freedom to a few slaves in the border States shall not result from it. If it closes with the Government of our fathers secure, and constitutional liberty in all its purity guarantied to the white man, the result will be better than that having a place in the fears of many good men at present, and much better than the past history of such revolutions can justify us in expecting. In this period of the nation's distress, I know of no human institution too sacred for discussion; no material interest belonging to the citizen that he should not willingly place upon the altar of his country, if demanded by the public good. The man who cannot now sacrifice party and put aside selfish considerations is more than half disloyal. Such a man does not deserve the blessings of good government. Pride of opinion, based upon sectional jealousies, should not be permitted to control the decision of any political question. These remarks are general, but apply with peculiar force to the people of the border States at present. Let us look at our condition. A desolating war is upon us. We cannot escape it if we would. If the Union armies were to-day withdrawn from the border States without first crushing the rebellion in the South, no rational man can doubt for a moment that the adherents of the Union cause in those States would soon be driven in exile from their homes by the exultant rebels, who have so long hoped to return and take vengeance upon us. The people of the border States understand very well the unfriendly and selfish spirit exercised toward them by the leaders of this cotton State rebellion; beginning some time previous to its outbreak. They will not fail to remember their insolent refusal to counsel with us, and their haughty assumption of responsibility upon themselves for their misguided action. Our people will not soon forget that, while declaiming against coercion, they closed their doors against the exportation of slaves from the border States into the South, with the avowed purpose of forcing us into rebellion through fears of losing that species of property. They knew very well the effect to be produced on slavery by a civil war, especially in those States into which hostile armies might penetrate, and upon the soil of which the great contests for the success of republican government were to be decided. They wanted some intermediate ground for the conflict of arms-territory where the population would be divided. They knew, also, that by keeping slavery in the border States the mere "friction and abrasion," to which you so appropriately allude, would keep up a constant irritation, resulting necessarily from the frequent losses to which the owners would be subjected. They also calculated largely, and not without reason, upon the repugnance of non-slaveholders in those States to a free negro population. In the meantime they intended persistently to charge the overthrow of slavery to be the object of the Government, and hostility to this institution the origin of the war. By this means the unavoidable incidents of the strife might easily be charged as the settled purposes of the Government. Again, it was well understood by these men that exemplary conduct on the part of every officer and soldier employed by the Government could not in the nature of things be expected, and the hope was entertained, upon the most reasonable grounds, that every commission of wrong and every omission of duty would produce a new cause for excitement and a new incentive to rebellion. By these means the war was to be kept in the border States, regardless of our interests, until an exhausted treasury should render it necessary to send the tax-gatherer among our people, to take the little that might be left them from the devastations of war. They then expected a clamor for peace by us, resulting in the interference of France and England, whose operatives in the meantime would be driven to want, and whose aristocracy have ever been ready to welcome a dissolution of the American Union. This cunningly-devised plan for securing a Gulf-Confederacy, commanding the mouths of the great western rivers, the Gulf of Mexico, and the southern Atlantic ocean, with their own territory unscathed by the horrors of war, and surrounded by the border States, half of whose population would be left in sympathy with them for many years to come, owing to the irritations to which I have alluded, has 80 far succeeled too well. In Missouri they have already caused us to lose a third or more of the slaves owned at the time of the last census. In addition to this, I can make no estimate of the vast amount of property of every character that has been destroyed by military operations in the State. The loss from general depreciation of values, and the utter prostration of every business interest of our people, is wholly beyond calculation. The experience of Missouri is but the experience of other sections of the country similarly situated. The question is therefore forced upon us, "How long is this war to continue; and, if continued, as it has been, on our soil, aided by the treason and folly of our own citizens, acting in concert with the Confederates, how long can slavery, or, if you please, any other property interest, survive in our States?" As things now are, the people of the border States yet divided, we cannot expect an immediate termination of the struggle, except upon condition of southern independence, losing thereby control of the lower Mississippi. For this we in Missouri are not prepared, nor are we prepared to become one of the Confederate States, should the terrible calamity of dissolution occur. This, I presume, the Union men of Missouri would resist to the death. And whether they should do so or not, I will not suppose for an instant that the Government of the United States would upon any condition submit to the loss of territory so essential to its future commercial greatness as is the State of Missouri. But should all other reasons fail to prevent such a misfortune to our people of Missouri, there is one that cannot fail. The Confederates never wanted us, and would not have us. I assume, therefore, that the war will not cease, but will be continued until the rebellion shall be overcome. It cannot and will not cease, so far as the people of Missouri are concerned, except upon condition of our remaining in the Union, and the whole West will demand the entire control of the Mississippi river to the Gulf. Our interest is therefore bound up with the interests of those States maintaining the Union, and especially with the great States of the West, that must be consulted in regard to the terms of any peace that may be suggested, even by the nations of Europe, should they at any time unfortunately depart from their former pacific policy and determine to intervene in our af fairs. The war, then, will have to be continued until the Union shall be practically restored. In this alone consists the future safety of the border States themselves. A separation of the Union is ruinous to them. The preservation of the Union can only be secured by a continuation of the war. The consequences of that continuation may be judged of by the experience of the last twelve months. The people of my State are as competent to pass judgment in the premises as I am. I have every confidence in their intelligence, their honesty, and their patriotism. In your own language, the proposition you make "sets up no claim of a right by Federal authority to interfere with slavery within State limits, referring, as it does, the absolute control of the subject in each case to the State and its people immediately interested. It is proposed as a matter of perfectly free choice with them." In this view of the subject I can frankly say to you that, personally, I never could appreciate the objections so frequently urged against the proposition. If I understood you properly, it was your opinion, not that slavery should be removed in order to secure our loyalty to the Government, for every personal act of your administration precludes such as inference, but you believe that the peculiar species of property was in imminent danger from the war in which we were engaged, and that common justice demanded remuneration for the loss of it. You then believed, and again express the opinion, that the peculiar nature of the contest is such that its loss is almost inevitable, and lest any pretext for a charge of injustice against the Gov ernment be given to its enemies, you propose to extend to the people of those States standing by the Union the choice of payment for their slaves or the responsibility of loss, should it occur, without complaint against the Government. Placing the matter in this light, (a mere remuneration for losses rendered inevitable by the casualties of war,) the objection of a constitutional character may be rendered much less formidable in the minds of northern Representatives whose constituents will have to share in the payment of the money; and, so far as the border States are concerned, this objection should be most sparingly urged, for it being a matter entirely of their own free choice." in case of a desire to accept, no serious argument will likely be urged against the receipt of the money, or a fund for colonization. But, aside from the power derived from the operations of war, there may be found numerous precedents in the legislation of the past, such as grants of land and money to the several States for specified objects deemed worthy by the Federal Congress. And in addition to this may be cited a deliberate opinion of Mr. Webster upon this very subject, in one of the ablest arguments of his life. I allude to this question of power merely in vindication of the position assumed by me in my vote for the resolution of March last. In your last communication to us, you beg of us" to commend this subject to the consideration of our States and people." While I entirely differ with you in the opinion expressed, that had the members from the border States approved of your resolution of March last "the war would now be substantially ended," and while I do not regard the suggestion "as one of the most potent and swift means of ending" the war, I am yet free to say that I have the most unbounded confidence in your sincerity of purpose in calling our attention to the dangers surrounding us. I am satisfied that you appreciate the troubles of the border States, and that your suggestions are intended for our good. I feel the force of your urgent appeal, and the logic of surrounding circumstances brin s conviction even to an unwilling believer. Having said that, in my judgment, you attached too much importance to this I ought not to disguise from you or the people of my State that personally I have fixed and unalterable opinions on the subject of your communication. Those opinions I shall communicate to the people in that spirit of frankness that should characterize the intercourse of the representative 'with his constituents. If I were to-day the owner of the lands and slaves of Missouri, your proposition, so far as that State is concerned, would be immediately accepted. Not a day would be lost. Aside from public considerations, which you suppose to be involved in the proposition, and which no patriot, I agree, should disregard at present, my own personal interest would prompt favorable and immediate But having said this, it is proper that I say something more. The representative is the servant and not the master of the people. He has no authority to bind them to any course of action, or even to indicate what they will or will not do when the subject is exclusively theirs and not his. I shall take occasion, I hope honestly, to give my views of existing troubles and impending dangers, and shall leave the rest to them, disposed, as I am, rather to trust their judgment upon the case stated than my own, and at the same time most cheerfully to acquiesce in their de action. cision. For you, personally, Mr. President, I think I can pledge the kindest considerations of the people of Missouri, and I shall not hesitate to express the belief that your recommendation will be considered by them in the same spirit of kindness manifested by you in its presentation to us, and that their decision will be such as is demanded "by their interests, their honor, and their duty to the whole coun try." I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, December 1, 1862-The President, in his second annual message, recurs to the subject: EXTRACT FROM PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S SECOND ANNUAL MESSAGE. On the 22d day of September last, a proclamation was issued by the Executive, a copy of which is herewith submitted. In accordance with the purpose expressed in the second paragraph of that paper, I now respectfully recall your attention to what may be called "compensated emancipation." remedy for the differences between the people of the two sections. I did so in language which I cannot improve, and which, therefore, I beg to repeat: "One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive slave clause of the Constitution, and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave trade, are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over in cach. This, I think, cannot be perfectly cured; and it would be worse in both cases after the separation of the sections, than before. The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived without restriction in one section; while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all by the other. "Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and each go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other; but the different parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face; and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make that in tercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides, and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the indentical old questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon you.' There is no line, straight or crooked, suitable for a national boundary upon which to divide. Trace through, from East to West, upon the line between the free and slave country, and we shall find a little more than one third of its length are rivers, easy to be crossed, and populated, or soon to be populated, thickly upon both sides; while nearly all its remaining length are merely surveyor's lines, over which people may walk back and forth without any consciousness of their presence. No part of this line can be made any more difficult to pass by writing it down on paper or parchment as a national boundary. The fact of separat on, if it comes, gives up on the part of the seceding section the fugitive slave clause, along with all other constitutional obligations upon the section seceded from, while I should expect no treaty stipulation would ever be made to take its place. But there is another difficulty. The great interior region, bounded east by the Alleghanies. north by the British dominions, west by the Rocky mountains, and south by the line along which the culture of corn and cotton meets, and which includes part of Virginia, part of Tennessee, all of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, and the Territories of Dakota, Nebraska, and part of Colorado, already has above ten million people, and will have fifty millions within fifty years, if not prevented by any political folly or mistake. It contains more than one third of the country owned by the United States--certainly more than one million square miles. Once half as populous A nation may be said to consist of its territory, its people, and its laws. The territory is the only part which is of certain durability. "One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever." It is of the first importance to duly consider and estimate this ever-enduring part. That portion of the earth's surface which is owned and inhabited by the people of the United States, is well adapted to be the home of one national family; and it is not well adapted for two, or more. Its vast extent, and its variety of climate and productions, are of advantage, in this age, for one people, what-as Massachusetts already is, it would have more ever they might have been in former ages. Steam, telegraphs, and intelligence, have brought these to be an advantageous combination for one united people. In the inaugural address I briefly pointed out the total inadequacy of disunion, as a than seventy-five million people. A glance at the map shows that, territorially speaking, it is the great body of the Republic. The other parts are but marginal borders to it, the magnificent region sloping west from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, being the deepest and In also the richest in undeveloped resources. the production of provisions, grains, grasses, and all, which proceed from them, this great interior region is naturally one of the most important in the world. Ascertain from the statistics the small proportion of the region which has, as yet, been brought into cultivation, and also the large and rapidly increasing amount of its products, and we shall be overwhelmed with the magnitude of the prospect presented. And yet this region has no seacoast, touches no ocean anywhere. As part of one nation, its people now find, and may forever find, their way to Europe by New York, to South America and Africa by New Orleans, and to Asia by San Francisco. But separate our common country into two nations, as designed by the present rebellion, and every man of this great interior region is thereby cut off from some one or more of these outlets, not, perhaps, by a physical barrier, but by embarrassing and onerous trade regulations. And this is true, wherever a dividing or boundary line may be fixed. Place it between the now free and slave country, or place it south of Kentucky, or north of Ohio, and still the truth remains, that none south of it can trade to any port or place north of it, and none north of it can trade to any port or place south of it except upon terms dictated by a Government foreign to them. These outlets, east, west, and south, are indispensable to the well-being of the people inhabiting, and to inhabit, this vast interior region. Which of the three may be the best is no proper question. All are better than either; and all of right belong to that people, and to their successors forever. True to themselves, they will not ask where a line of separation shall be, but will vow rather that there shall be no such line. Nor are the marginal regions less interested in these communications to and through them, to the great outside world. They, too, and each of them, must have access to this Egypt of the West without paying toll at the crossing of any national boundary. Our national strife springs not from our permanent part; not from the land we inhabit; not from our national homestead. There is no possible severing of this, but would multiply and not mitigate evils among us. In all its adaptations and aptitudes it demands union and abhors separation. In fact it would, ere long, force reunion, however much of blood and treasure the separation might have cost. Our strife pertains to ourselves--to the passing generations of men; and it can, without convulsion, be hushed forever with the passing of one generation. In this view, I recommend the adoption of the following resolution and articles amendatory to the Constitution of the United States: "Rezolced by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, (two thirds of both Houses concurring,) That the following articles be proposed to the Legislatures (or conventions) of the several States as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all or any of which articles when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures (or conventions) to be valid as part or parts of the said Constitution, namely: "ARTICLE—. Every State, wherein slavery now exists, which shall abolish the same therein, at any time, or times, thousand nine hundred, shall receive compensation from before the first day of January, in the year or our Lord one the United States, as follows, to wit: "The President of the United States shall deliver to every such State bonds of the United States, bearing interest at the rate of per cent. per annum, to an amount equal to the aggregate sum of for each slave shown to have been therein by the eighth census of the United ments, or in one parcel, at the completion of the abolishStates, said bonds to be delivered to such States by instalment, accordingly as the same shall have been gradual, or at one time, within such State; and interest shall begin to run upon any such bond only from the proper time of its delivery as aforesaid. Any State having received bonds as aforesaid, and afterwards reintroducing or tolerating slavery therein, shall refund to the United States the bonds so received, or the value thereof, and all interest paid thereon. "ARTICLE. All slaves who shall have enjoyed actual freedom by the chances of the war at any time before the end of the rebellion, shall be forever free; but all owners of such, who shall not have been disloyal, shall be compensated for them, at the same rates as is provided for States adopting abolishment of slavery, but in such way that no slave shall be twice accounted for. "ARTICLE. Congress may appropriate money and otherwise provide for colonizing free colored persons, with their own consent, at any place or places without the United States." I beg indulgence to discuss these proposed articles at some length. Without slavery the rebellion could never have existed; without slavery it could not continue. Among the friends of the Union there is great diversity of sentiment and of policy in regard to slavery, and the African race among us. Some would perpetuate slavery; some would abolish it suddenly, and without compensation; some would abolish it gradually, and with compensation; some would remove the freed people from us, and some would retain them with us; and there are yet other minor diversities. Because of these diversities, we waste much strength in struggles among ourselves. By mutual concession we should harmonize and act together. This would be compromise; but it would be compromise among the friends, and not with te enemies of the Union. These articles are intended to embody a plan of such mutual concessions. If the plan shall be adopted, it is assumed that emancipation will follow, at least, in several of the States. As to the first article, the main points are: first, the emancipation; secondly, the length of time for consummating it-thirty-seven years; and, thirdly, the compensation. The emancipation will be unsatisfactory to the advocates of perpetual slavery; but the length of time should greatly mitigate their dissatisfaction. The time spares both races from the evils of sudden derangement-in fact, from the necessity of any derangement-while most of those whose habitual course of thought will be disturbed by the measure will have passed away before its consummation. They will never see it. Another class will hail the prospect of emancipation, but will deprecate the length of time They will feel that it gives too little to the now living slaves. But it really gives them much. It saves them from the vagrant destitution which must largely attend immediate emancipation in localities where their numbers are very great; and it gives the inspiring assurance that their posterity shall be free forever. The plan leaves to each State, choosing to act under it, to abolish slavery now or at the end of the century or at any intermediate time |