even a majority, in making a new State constitution, to disturb a preexisting and resident property.1

Three days after sending his recommendation to Congress, the President wrote privately to Henry J. Raymond, editor of the New York Times:

I am grateful to the New York journals and not less so to the Times" than to others, for their kind notices of the late special message to Congress.

Your paper, however, intimates that the proposition, though well intentioned, must fail on the score of expense. I do hope you will reconsider this. Have you noticed the facts that less than one-half day's cost of this war would pay for all the slaves in Delaware at $400 per head — that eighty-seven days' cost of this war would pay for all in Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Kentucky, and Missouri at the same price? Were those States to take the step, do you doubt that it would shorten the war more than eighty-seven days, and thus be an actual saving of expense?

Please look at these things and consider whether there should not be another article in the "Times."

By his request those Congressmen from the border States. then in Washington called, March 10, on Mr. Lincoln, who explained that his recent message was not inimical to the interests they represented. In the progress of the war, slaves would come into camps and continual irritation be thus maintained. In the border States that condition kept alive a feeling of hostility to the Government. He told them further "that emancipation was a subject exclusively under the control of the States, and must be adopted or rejected by each for itself." 3

Relative to this interview a memorandum of the Hon. John W. Crisfield, one of the Maryland Representatives present, contains the following entry: "He [the President] was constantly annoyed by conflicting and antagonistic complaints; on

1

1 Ann. Cycl., 1862, pp. 799-800.

'Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 132. 'McPherson's Pol. Hist., p. 210.

the one side a certain class complained if the slave was not protected by the army; persons were frequently found who, participating in these views, acted in a way unfriendly to the slave-holder; on the other hand, slave-holders complained that their rights were interfered with, their slaves induced to abscond and protected within the lines; these complaints were numerous, loud and deep; were a serious annoyance to him and embarrassing to the progress of the war

[they] strengthened the hopes of the Confederates that at some day the border States would unite with them, and thus tend to prolong the war; and he was of opinion, if this resolution should be adopted by Congress and accepted by our [the border slaveholding] States, these causes of irritation and these hopes would be removed, and more would be accomplished toward shortening the war than could be hoped from the greatest victory achieved by Union armies; that he did not claim nor had this Government any right to coerce them " to accept the proposition.

To Mr. Noell's remark that the New York Tribune favored the measure and understood it to mean that gradual emancipation must be accepted or the border States would get something worse, the President replied that he must not be expected to quarrel with that journal before the right time; he hoped never to have to do it. The message having said that "all indispensable means must be employed" to preserve the Union, Mr. Crisfield inquired pointedly, what would be the effect of the refusal of a State to accept this proposal. Did the President, he asked, look" to any policy beyond the acceptance or rejection of this scheme." Mr. Lincoln candidly replied that he had "no designs beyond the action of the States on this particular subject," though he should lament their refusal to accept it. Mr. Crisfield said "he did not think the people of Maryland looked upon slavery as a permanent institution; and he did not know that they would be very re

luctant to give it up if provision was made to meet the loss and they could be rid of the race; but they did not like to be coerced into emancipation, either by the direct action of the Government or by indirection, as through the emancipation of slaves in this District, or the confiscation of Southern property as now threatened; and he thought before they would consent to consider this proposition they would require to be informed on these points." The President answered that "unless he was expelled by the act of God or the Confederate armies, he should occupy that house for three years; and as long as he remained there Maryland had nothing to fear either for her institutions or her interests on the points referred to." Representative Crisfield immediately added: "Mr. President, if what you now say could be heard by the people of Maryland, they would consider your proposition with a much better feeling than I fear without it they will be inclined to do." To this Mr. Lincoln said that a publication of his sentiments would not do; it would force him before the proper time into a quarrel which was impending with the Greeley faction. This he desired to postpone, or, if possible, altogether to avoid.

To an objection of Governor Wickliffe, of Kentucky, he said that the resolution proposed would be considered rather as the expression of a sentiment than as involving any constitutional question. He did not know how the project was received by the members from the free States; some of them had spoken to him and received it kindly; but for the most part they were as reserved and chary as the border State delegations; he could not tell how they would vote.1

To James A. McDougall, of California, who was making some opposition in the Senate, he sent, March 14, this private communication while the resolution was still pending:

1

1 Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. pp. 133-135; also McPherson's Pol. Hist., pp. 210-211.

As to the expensiveness of gradual emancipation with the plan of compensation, proposed in the late message, please allow me one or two brief suggestions.

Less than one half day's cost of this war would pay for all the slaves in Delaware at four hundred dollars per head.

Thus, all the slaves in Delaware by the census of 1860, are...

Cost of slaves.....

1,798

400

$719,200

2,000,000

One day's cost of the war.

Again, less than eighty-seven days' cost of this war would, at the same price, pay for all in Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Kentucky, and Missouri.

Do you doubt that taking the initiatory steps on the part of those States and this District would shorten the war more than eighty-seven days, and thus be an actual saving of expense?

A word as to the time and manner of incurring the expense. Suppose, for instance, a State devises and adopts a system by which the institution absolutely ceases therein by a named day—say January 1, 1882. Then let the sum to be paid to such a State by the United States be ascertained by taking from the census of 1860 the number of slaves within the State, and multiplying the number by four hundred the United States to pay such sums to the State in twenty equal annual installments, in six per cent, bonds of the United States.

The sum thus given, as to time and manner, I think, would not be half as onerous as would be an equal sum raised now for the indefinite prosecution of the war; but of this you can judge as well as I. I enclose a census table for your convenience.1

'Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. pp. 137-138.

On the same day of the conference with the border State delegations, March 10, the resolution, in precisely the language suggested by the President, was introduced by Roscoe Conkling, and on the following day by a vote of 89 to 31 passed the House.1 The Senate by 32 yeas to 10 nays took favorable action upon it on the ad of April succeeding.2

It is important to notice that at this time, March, 1862, the Government set up no claim of a right by Federal authority to interfere with slavery within the limits of a State; also that public opinion in the North had advanced to the position occupied by Representative McKean more than a year before, when he introduced into Congress his resolution for compensated emancipation.3

At a session, May 28, 1862, of the Union Convention of Baltimore its Business Committee reported a series of resolutions which were adopted unanimously, among them one approving the wise and conservative policy proposed by the President in his message of March 6; that it was not only the duty but the interest of the loyal people of Maryland to accept the offer of pecuniary aid tendered by the Government to inaugurate an equitable plan of emancipation and colonization. This was the dawn of emancipation in Maryland.

The President approved, April 16, six days after the passage of his cherished measure, an act prohibiting slavery and liberating slaves in the District of Columbia. It included both compensation to owners and the principle of colonization.

5The question of colonizing free blacks out of the United States engaged the attention of Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe, who had some correspondence on the subject at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Late in the year 1816 there was organized in the city of Washington the National Colonization Society," of which the expressed purpose was to encourage emancipation by procuring a place outside the