poses," I hereby license and permit such commercial intercourse in all cases within the rules and regulations which have been or may be prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury for conducting and carrying on the same on the inland waters and ways of the United States. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

MESSAGE TO CONGRESS, March 3, 1862 To the Senate and House of Representatives: I transmit to Congress a copy of a despatch to the Secretary of State from the minister resident of the United States at Lisbon concerning recent measures which have been adopted by the government of Portugal intended to encourage the growth and to enlarge the area of the culture of cotton in its African possessions.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

MESSAGE TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, March 3, 1862

To the House of Representatives of the United States: I transmit herewith a communication of the Secretary of War, inclosing a report of the adjutant-general, in answer to a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 22d of January, 1862.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

MESSAGE TO CONGRESS, March 3, 1862

To the Senate and House of Representatives: I transmit to Congress a translation of an instruction to the minister of his Majesty the King of Italy accredited to this government, and a copy of a note to that minister from the Secretary of State, relating to the settlement of the quesion arising out of the capture and detention of certain citizens of the United States, passengers on board the British steamer Trent, by order of Captain Wilkes of the United States navy.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

MESSAGE TO CONGRESS RECOMMENDING COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION, March 6, 1862

FR

ELLOW-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 cooperate with any State which may adopt 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

1A similar resolution as the one contained in this message passed both Houses but the South ignored it. Thaddeus Stevens denounced it as "about the most diluted milk-and-water-gruel proposition ever given to the American people." On April 16, 1862, Congress appropriated nearly $1,000,000 for the liberation of the slaves in the District of Columbia.

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 this 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 part 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. 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 treasury reports before him, can readily see for himself how very soon the current expenditures of this war would pur

chase, at fair valuation, all the slaves in any named State. 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 made, 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. Such as may seem indispensable, or may obviously promise great efficiency, toward ending the struggle, must and will come.

The proposition now made, though an offer only, I hope it may be esteemed no offense to ask whether the pecuniary consideration tendered would not be of more value to the States and private persons concerned than are the in