_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 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 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
purchase, 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 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 practical
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.