Congress the following Message, recommending the adoption of measures looking to "gradual, and not sudden" emancipation:

"Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives: "I recommend the adoption of a joint resolution by your honorable bodies which shall be substantially as follows:

"Resolved, That the United States ought to coöperate 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.'

"If the proposition contained in the resolution does not meet the approval of Congress and the country, there is the end; but if it does command such approval, I deem it of importance that the States and people immediately interested should be at once distinctly notified of the fact, so that they may begin to consider whether to accept or reject it. The Federal Government would find its highest interest in such a measure as one of the most efficient means of self-preservation. The leaders of the existing insurrection entertain the hope that the Government will ultimately be forced to acknowledge the independence of some part of the disaffected region, and that all the slave States north of such parts will then say: "The Union for which we have struggled being already gone, we now choose to go with the southern section.' To deprive them of this hope, substantially ends the rebellion, and the initiation of emancipation completely deprives them of it as to all the States initiating it.

66

The point is not that all the States tolerating slavery would very soon, if at all, initiate emancipation, but that while the offer is equally made to all, the more northern shall, by such initiation, make it certain to the more southern that in no event will the former ever join the latter in their proposed confederacy. I say 'initiation,' because, in my judgment, gradual and not sudden emancipation is better for all. In the mere financial or pecuniary view, any member of Congress, with the census tables and the treasury report before him, can readily see for himself how very soon the current expenditures of this war would purchase, at a fair valuation, all the slaves in any named State.

66

'Such a proposition on the part of the general Government 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 the annual message last December I thought fit to say:

The Union must be preserved, and hence all indispensable means must be employed.' I said this not hastily, but deliberately. War has been, and continues to be an indispensable means to this end. A practical re-acknowledgment 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. Such as may seem indispensable, or may obviously promise great efficiency toward euding the struggle, must and will come. The proposition now made is an offer only, and I hope it may be esteemed no offence to ask whether the pecuniary consideration tendered would not be of more value to the States and private persons concerned than are the institution and property in it, in the present aspect of affairs. While it is true that the adoption of the proposed resolution would be merely initiatory, and not within itself a practical measure, it is recommended in the hope that it would soon lead to important results. In full view of my great responsibility to my God and to my country, I earnestly beg the attention of Congress and the people to the subject. "ABRAHAM LINCOLN."

This important recommendation was received with the most unbounded satisfaction in all sections of the great North and West, and the leading loyal journals vied with each other in the laudatory notices bestowed upon its illustrious author. The English press favorable to the preservation of the Union, were equally complimentary, and pronounced it a fair, moderate, and magnanimous policy, greatly in contrast with that adopted by the rebel authorities.

ASSUMES ACTIVE COMMAND OF THE ARMY AND NAVY.

On the eleventh of March, 1862, the President gave an additional evidence of his independence and fearlessness by promulgating, for the information of the service and the country, three important military orders, assuming the active duties of Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States; ordering a general and combined movement of the land and naval forces; requiring the Army of the Potomac to be organized into Corps; con

fining General McClellan to the command of the Department of the Potomac; and organizing the Department of the Mississippi and the Mountain Department.

THANKSGIVING FOR SIGNAL VICTORIES.

The triumphant success of our arms in the South and West during the early spring months of that year of conflict and carnage, prompted Mr. Lincoln to call upon the patriots of the nation to offer up their thanks to the Almighty for his manifold kindnesses, and for the inestimable blessings he had showered upon them in their hour of need. The recommendation was scrupulously observed, and from almost every place of public worship arose upon the following Sabbath songs of thanksgiving, mingled with invocations for a continuance of the Divine guidance.

SLAVERY ABOLISHED IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

On the sixteenth of April, 1862, Mr. Lincoln consummated an act which had for many years been one of his most favorite projects, by sending into Congress the following Message:

66

"Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives: The act entitled 'An act for the release of certain persons held to service or labor in the District of Columbia,' has this day been approved and signed.

"I have never doubted the constitutional authority of Congress to abolish slavery in this District, and I have ever desired to see the national capital freed from the institution in some satisfactory way. Hence there has never been in my mind any question upon the subject except the one of expediency, arising in view of all the circumstances. If there be matters within and about this act, which might have taken a course or shape more satisfactory to my judgment, I do not attempt to specify them. I am gratified that the two principles of compensation and colonization are both recognized and practically applied in the act.

66

In the matter of compensation, it is provided that claims may be presented within ninety days from the passage of the act, but not thereafter, and there is no saving for minors, femmes

coverts, insane, or absent persons. I presume this is an omission by mere oversight, and I recommend that it be supplied by an amendatory or supplemental act. "ABRAHAM LINCOLN."

RE-OPENING OF SOUTHERN PORTS. During the month of May, 1862, two important proclamations were published-one on the twelfth, declaring the ports of Beaufort, Port Royal, and New Orleans open for trade; and the second, a week later, repudiating an emancipation order of Major-General Hunter. This last document is too important a part of the history of the rebellion to be omitted here, and we therefore give it in full. It is as follows:

"Whereas, There appears in the public prints what purports to be a proclamation of Major-General Hunter, in the words and figures following, to wit:

"HEAD-QUARTERS,

DEPARTMENT OF THE SOUTH, "HILTON HEAD, S. C., May 9th, 1862.

"GENERAL ORDERS No. 11.

"The three States of Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, comprising the Military Department of the South, having deliberately declared themselves no longer under the protection of the United States of America, and having taken up arms against the said United States, it becomes a military necessity to declare them under martial law. This was accordingly done on the twenty-fifth day of April, 1862. Slavery and martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible. The persons in these three States, Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, heretofore held as slaves, are therefore declared forever free.

"DAVID HUNTER, Major-General Commanding.

"Official:

666

ED. W. SMITH, Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.' "And whereas, The same is producing some excitement and misunderstanding,

66

Therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, proclaim and declare that the government of the United States had no knowledge or belief of an intention, on the part of General Hunter, to issue such a proclamation, nor has it yet any authentic information that the document is genuine; and further, that neither General Hunter nor any other commander or persou has been authorized by the government of the United States to make proclamation declaring the slaves of any State free, and that the supposed proclamation now in question, whether genuine or false, is altogether void, so far as respects such declaration.

"I further make known, that whether it be competent for me as commander-in-chief of the army and navy to declare the slaves of any State or States free, and whether at any time, or in any case, it shall have become a necessity indispensable to the maintenance of the government to exercise such supposed power, are questions which, under my responsibility, I reserve to myself, and which I cannot feel justified in leaving to the decision of commanders in the field. These are totally different questions from those of police regulations in armies and camps.

"On the sixth day of March last, by a special message, I recommended to Congress the adoption of a joint resolution, to be substantially as follows:

66

'Resolved, That the United States ought to co-operate with any State which may adopt a gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State in its discretion to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system.'

"The resolution, in the language above quoted, was adopted by large majorities in both branches of Congress, and now stands an authentic, definite and solemn proposal of the nation to the States and people most immediately interested in the subject matter. To the people of these States I now earnestly appeal. I do not argue; I beseech you to make the arguments for yourselves. You cannot, if you would, be blind to the signs of the times. I beg of you a calm and enlarged consideration of them, ranging, if it may be, far above personal and partisan politics. This proposal makes common cause for a common object, casting no reproaches upon any. It acts not the Pharisee. The change it contemplates would come gently as the dews of Heaven, not rending or wrecking any thing. Will you not embrace it? So much good has not been done by one effort in all past time, as in the Providence of God it is now your high privilege to do. May the vast future not have to lament that you have neglected it.

"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 nineteenth day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-sixth.

66

'By the President:

"WM. H. SEWARD, Secretary of State."

"ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

THE PRESIDENT'S CONFERENCE WITH THE LOYAL GOVERNORS-HIS INTERVIEW WITH THE BORDER CONGRESSMEN.

On the first of July, 1862, the President, in accordance with the Act for the collection of direct taxes in