the constitutional power of this Govern- Again, it seemed to us that this resolument to make appropriations of money for tion was but the annunciation of a sentithe object designated, and all of us thought ment which could not or was not likely to our finances were in no condition to bear be reduced to an actual tangible proposithe immense outlay which its adoption tion. No movement was then made to and faithful execution would impose upon provide and appropriate the funds required the national Treasury. If we pause but to carry it into effect; and we were not ena moment to think of the debt its accept-couraged to believe that funds would be ance would have entailed, we are appalled provided. And our belief has been fully by its magnitude. The proposition was justified by subsequent events. Not to addressed to all the States, and embraced the whole number of slaves. mention other circumstances, it is quite sufficient for our purpose to bring to your notice the fact that, while this resolution was under consideration in the Senate, our colleague, the Senator from Kentucky, moved an amendment appropriating $500,000 to the object therein designated, and it was voted down with great unanimity. What confidence, then, could we reasonably feel that if we committed ourselves to the policy it proposed, our constituents would reap the fruits of the promise held out; and on what ground could we, as fair men, approach them and challenge their support? According to the census of 1860 there were then nearly four million slaves in the country; from natural increase they exceed that number now. At even the low average of $300, the price fixed by the emancipation act for the slaves of this District, and greatly below their real worth, their value runs up to the enormous sum of $1,200,000,000; and if to that we add the cost of deportation and colonization, at $100 each, which is but a fraction more than is actually paid by the Maryland Colonization Society, we have $400,000,000 more. We were not willing to impose a tax on our The right to hold slaves is a right apperpeople sufficient to pay the interest on that taining to all the States of this Union. sum, in addition to the vast and daily in- They have the right to cherish or abolish creasing debt already fixed upon them by the institution, as their tastes or their inthe exigencies of the war, and if we had terests may prompt, and no one is authobeen willing, the country could not bear it. rized to question the right or limit the enStated in this form the proposition is noth-joyment. And no one has more clearly ing less than the deportation from the country of $1,600,000,000 worth of producing labor, and the substitution in its place of an interest-bearing debt of the same amount. affirmed that right than you have. Your inaugural address does you great honor in this respect, and inspired the country with confidence in your fairness and respect for the law. Our States are in the enjoyment of that right. We do not feel called on to defend the institution or to affirm it is one which ought to be cherished; perhaps, if we were to make the attempt, we might find that we differ even among ourselves. It is enough for our purpose to know that it is a right; and, so knowing, we did not Slaves. see why we should now be expected to ..225,490 yield it. We had contributed our full 87,188 share to relieve the country at this terrible .490,887 crisis; we had done as much as had been But, if we are told that it was expected that only the States we represent would accept the proposition, we respectfully submit that even then it involves a sum too great for the financial ability of this Government at this time. According to the census of 1860 1,798 required of others in like circumstances; .114,965 and we did not see why .sacrifices should .275,784 be expected of us from which others, no more loyal, were exempt. Nor could we ..1,196,112 see what good the nation would derive from it. these would amount to....$358,933,500 Add for deportation and colo nization $100 each.......... 118,244,533 And we have the enormous sum of............ ... Such a sacrifice submitted to by us would not have strengthened the arm of this Government or weakened that of the enemy. It was not necessary as a pledge of our loyalty, for that had been mani...$478,038,133 | fested beyond a reasonable doubt, in every form, and at every place possible. There was not the remotest probability that the States we represent would join in the rebellion, nor is there now, or of their electing to go with the southern section in the event of a recognition of the independence of any part of the disaffected region. Our We did not feel that we should be justified in voting for a measure which, if carried out, would add this vast amount to our public debt at a moment when the Treasury was reeling under the enormous expenditure of the war. States are fixed unalterably in their resolution to adhere to and support the Union. They see no safety for themselves, and no hope for constitutional liberty but by its preservation. They will, under no circumstances, consent to its dissolution; and we do them no more than justice when we assure you that, while the war is conducted to prevent that deplorable catastrophe, they will sustain it as long as they can muster a man or command a dollar. Nor will they ever consent, in any event, to unite with the Southern Confederacy. The bitter fruits of the peculiar doctrines of that region will forever prevent them from placing their security and happiness in the custody of an association which has incorporated in its organic law the seeds of its own destruction. 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 the hour of its greatest peril, we cannot wholly decline. We are willing to trust every question relating to their interest and happiness to the consideration and ultimate judgment of our own people. While differing from you as to the necessity of emancipating the slaves of our States as a means of putting down the rebellion, and while protesting against the propriety of any extra-territorial interference to induce 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. ations will not be frustrated. We regard your plan as a proposition from the Nation to the States to exercise an admitted constitutional right in a particular manner and yield up a valuable interest. Before they ought to consider the proposition, it should 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, Others of the minority, among them Senator Henderson and Horace Maynard, forwarded separate replies, but all rejecting the idea of compensated emancipation. Still Lincoln adhered to and advocated it in his recent annual message sent to Congress, Dec. 1, 1862, from which we take the following paragraphs, which are in themselves at once curious and interesting: 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 them of much importance, and they ought not to be expected even to entertain the proposal until they are assured that when they accept it their just expect-it "We have two million nine hundred and sixty-three thousand square miles. Europe has three million and eight hundred thousand, with a population averaging seventythree and one-third persons to the square mile. Why may not our country, at some time, average as many? Is it less fertile? Has it more waste surface, by mountains, rivers, lakes, deserts, or other causes? Is inferior to Europe in any natural ad vantage? If, then, we are at some time to be as populous as Europe, how soon? As to when this may be, we can judge by the past and the present; as to when it will be, if ever, depends much on whether we maintain the Union. Several of our States are already above the average of Europe -seventy-three and a third to the square mile. Massachusetts has 157; Rhode Island, 133; Connecticut, 99; New York and New Jersey, each, 80. Also two other great states, Pennsylvania and Ohio, are not far below, the former having 63 and the latter 59. The states already above the European average, except New York, have increased in as rapid a ratio, since passing that point, as ever before; while no one of them is equal to some other parts of our country in natural capacity for sustaining a dense population. "Taking the nation in the aggregate, and we find its population and ratio of increase, for the several decennial periods, to be as follows: 1790........ 3,929,827 Ratio of increase. 1800..... 5,305,937 35.02 per cent. 36.45 1810.. 1820.. 1830. 66 7,239,814 1840. ...... 17,069,453 1850. 23,191,876 1860........ 31,443,790 35.58 This shows an annual decennial increase of 34.69 per cent. in population through the seventy years from our first to our last census yet taken. It is seen that the ratio of increase, at no one of these seven periods is either two per cent. below or two per cent. above the average; thus showing how inflexible, and, consequently, how reliable, the law of increase in our case is. Assuming that it will continue, gives the following results: 1870....... 1880.. 1890.. 1900. 1910. 1920. 1930... 42,323,341 no one can doubt that the extent of it would be very great and injurious. The proposed emancipation would shorten the war, perpetuate peace, insure this increase of population, and proportionately the wealth of the country. With these, we should pay all the emancipation would cost, together with our other debt, easier than we should pay our other debt without it. If we had allowed our old national debt to run at six per cent. per annum, simple interest, from the end of our revolutionary struggle until to-day, without paying anything on either principal or interest, each man of us would owe less upon that debt now than each man owed upon it then; and this because our increase of men through the whole period has been greater than six per cent.; has run faster than the interest upon the debt. Thus, time alone relieves a debtor nation, so long as its population increases faster than unpaid interest accumulates on its debt. "This fact would be no excuse for de laying payment of what is justly due; but it shows the great importance of time in this connection-the great advantage of a policy by which we shall not have to pay until we number a hundred millions, what, by a different policy, we would have to pay now, when we number but thirty-one millions. In a word, it shows that a dollar will be much harder to pay for the war than will be a dollar for emancipation on the proposed plan. And then the latter will cost no blood, no precious life. It will be a saving of both." Various propositions and measures relating to compensated emancipation, were afterwards considered in both Houses, but it was in March, 1863, dropped after a refusal of the House to suspend the rules for the consideration of the subject. Emancipation as a War Necessity. 56,967,216 Before the idea of compensated emanci76,677,872 103,208,415 pation had been dropped, and it was con138,918,526 stantly discouraged by the Democrats and Border Statesmen, President Lincoln had determined upon a more radical policy, and on the 22d of September, 1862, issued his celebrated proclamation declaring that he would emancipate "all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall be in rebellion against the United States"-by the first of January, 1863, if such sections were not "in good faith represented in Congress." He followed this by actual emancipation at the time stated. 186,984,335 251,680,914 "These figures show that our country may be as populous as Europe now is at some point between 1920 and 1930-say about 1925 our territory, at seventy-three and a third persons to the square mile, being of capacity to contain 217,186,000. And we will reach this, too, if we do not ourselves relinquish the chance by the folly and evils of disunion, or by long and exhausting war springing from the only great element of national discord among us. While it cannot be foreseen exactly how much one huge example of secession, breeding lesser ones indefinitely, would retard population, civilization, and prosperity Proclamation of Sept. 22, 1862. I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States of America, and Commanderin-Chief of the army and navy thereof, do hereby proclaim and declare that hereafter, I the military or naval service of the United as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted States are prohibited from employing any for the object of practically restoring the of the forces under their respective comconstitutional relation between the United mands for the purpose of returning fugiStates and each of the States and the peo- tives from service or labor who may have ple thereof, in which States that relation escaped from any persons to whom such is or may be suspended or disturbed. service or labor is claimed to be due, and any officer who shall be found guilty by a court-martial of violating this article shall be dismissed from the service. "SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That this act "shall take effect from and after its passage." That it is my purpose, upon the next meeting of Congress, to again recommend the adoption of a practical measure tendering pecuniary aid to the free acceptance or rejection of all slave States, so called, the people thereof may not then be in rebellion against the United States, and which States Also to the ninth and tenth sections of may then have voluntarily adopted, or an act entitled "An act to suppress insurthereafter may voluntarily adopt, imme-rection, to punish treason and rebellion, to diate or gradual abolishment of slavery within their respected limits; and that the effort to colonize persons of African descent with their consent upon this continent or elsewhere, with the previously obtained consent of the Governments existing there, will be continued. seize and confiscate property of rebels, and for other purposes, approved July 17, 1862, and which sections are in the words and figures following: "SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, That all slaves of persons who shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion against the GovernThat on the first day of January, in the ment of the United States or who shall in year of our Lord one thousand eight hun- any way give aid or comfort thereto, escapdred and sixty-three, all persons held as ing from such persons and taking refuge slaves within any State or designated part within the lines of the army; and all slaves of a State, the people whereof shall then be captured from such persons or deserted by in rebellion against the United States, shall them, and coming under the control of the be then, thenceforward, and forever free; Government of the United States; and and the Executive Government of the all slaves of such persons found on [or] United States, including the military and being within any place occupied by rebel naval authority thereof, will recognize and forces and afterwards occupied by the maintain the freedom of such persons, and forces of the United States, shall be deemwill do no act or acts to repress such per-ed captives of war, and shall be forever sons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not in rebellion against the United States. That attention is hereby called to an act of Congress entitled "An act to make an additional article of war," approved March 13, 1862, and which act is in the words and figures following: "Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That hereafter the following shall be promulgated as an additional article of war, for the government of the army of the United States, and shall be obeyed and observed free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves. "SEC. 10. And be it further enacted, That no slave escaping into any State, Territory, or the District of Columbia, from any other State, shall be delivered up, or in any way impeded or hindered of his liberty, except for crime, or some offence against the laws, unless the person claiming said fugitive shall first make oath that the person to whom the labor or service of such fugitive is alleged to be due is his lawful owner, and has not borne arms against the United States in the present rebellion, nor in any way given aid and comfort thereto; and no person engaged in the military or naval service of the United States shall, under any pretence whatever, assume to decide on the validity of the claim of any person to the service or labor of any other person, or surrender up any such person to the claimant, on pain of being dismissed from the service." And I do hereby enjoin upon and order all persons engaged in the military and naval service of the United States to observe, obey, and enforce, within their respective spheres of service, the act and sections above recited. And the Executive will in due time recommend that all citizens of the United States who shall have remained loyal thereto throughout the rebellion shall (upon the restoration of the constitutional relation between the United States and their respective States and people, if that relation shall have been suspended or disturbed) be compensated for all losses by acts of the United States, including the loss of slaves. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington this twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the seventh. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By the President: ment of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit: Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefeighty-ferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terre Bonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans,) MisCarolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth,) and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.sissippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Proclamation of January 1, 1863. WHEREAS, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing among other things, the following, to wit: "That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever, free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. "That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States, by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such States shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are then in rebellion against the United States." Now, therefore, I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commanderin-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and Govern And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons. And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages. And I further declare and make known that such persons, of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service. And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States of America the eightyseventh. ABRAHAM LINCOLY. By the President: |