articles amendatory to the Constitution of the United States: Resolved
by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of
America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of both Houses concurring),
That the following articles be proposed to the legislatures (or
conventions) of the several States as amendments to the Constitution of
the United States, all or any of which articles, when ratified by
three-fourths of the said legislatures (or conventions ), to be valid
as part or parts of the said Constitution, viz:
ART.--. Every State wherein slavery now exists which shall abolish the
same therein at any time or times before the 1st day of January, A. D.
1900, shall receive compensation from the United States as follows, to
wit:
The President of the United States shall deliver to every such State
bonds of the United States bearing interest at the rate of per cent per
annum to an amount equal to the aggregate sum of ____ for each slave
shown to have been therein by the Eighth Census of the United States,
said bonds to be delivered to such State by installments or in one
parcel at the completion of the abolishment, accordingly as the same
shall have been gradual or at one time within such State; and interest
shall begin to run upon any such bond only from the proper time of its
delivery as aforesaid. Any State having received bonds as aforesaid and
afterwards reintroducing or tolerating slavery therein shall refund to
the United States the bonds so received, or the value thereof, and all
interest paid thereon.
ART.--All slaves who shall have enjoyed actual freedom by the chances
of the war at any time before the end of the rebellion shall be forever
free; but all owners of such who shall not have been disloyal shall be
compensated for them at the same rates as is provided for States
adopting abolishment of slavery, but in such way that no slave shall be
twice accounted for.
ART.--Congress may appropriate money and otherwise provide for
colonizing free colored persons with their own consent at any place or
places without the United States.
I beg indulgence to discuss these proposed articles at some length.
Without slavery the rebellion could never have existed; without slavery
it could not continue.
Among the friends of the Union there is great diversity of sentiment
and of policy in regard to slavery and the African race amongst us.
Some would perpetuate slavery; some would abolish it suddenly and
without compensation; some would abolish it gradually and with
compensation: some would remove the freed people from us, and some
would retain them with us; and there are yet other minor diversities.
Because of these diversities we waste much strength in struggles among
ourselves. By mutual concession we should harmonize and act together.
This would be compromise, but it would be compromise among the friends
and not with the enemies of the Union. These articles are intended to
embody a plan of such mutual concessions. If the plan shall be adopted,
it is assumed that emancipation will follow, at least in several of the
States.
As to the first article, the main points are, first, the emancipation;
secondly, the length of time for consummating it (thirty-seven years);
and, thirdly, the compensation.
The emancipation will be unsatisfactory to the advocates of perpetual
slavery, but the length of time should greatly mitigate their
dissatisfaction. The time spares both races from the evils of sudden
derangement--in fact, from the necessity of any derangement--while most
of those whose habitual course of thought will be disturbed by the
measure will have passed away before its consummation. They will never
see it. Another class will hail the prospect of emancipation, but will
deprecate the length of time. They will feel that it gives too little
to the now living slaves. But it really gives them much. It saves them
from the vagrant destitution which must largely attend immediate
emancipation in localities where their numbers are very great, and it
gives the inspiring assurance that their posterity shall be free
forever. The plan leaves to each State choosing to act under it to
abolish slavery now or at the end of the century, or at any
intermediate time, or by degrees extending over the whole or any part
of the period, and it obliges no two States to proceed alike. It also
provides for compensation, and generally the mode of making it. This,
it would seem, must further mitigate the dissatisfaction of those who
favor perpetual slavery, and especially of those who are to receive the
compensation. Doubtless some of those who are to pay and not to receive
will object. Yet the measure is both just and economical. In a certain
sense the liberation of slaves is the destruction of property--property
acquired by descent or by purchase, the same as any other property. It
is no less true for having been often said that the people of the South
are not more responsible for the original introduction of this property
than are the people of the North; and when it is remembered how
unhesitatingly we all use cotton and sugar and share the profits of
dealing in them, it may not be quite safe to say that the South has
been more responsible than the North for its continuance. If, then, for
a common object this property is to be sacrificed, is it not just that
it be done at a common charge?
And if with less money, or money more easily paid, we can preserve the
benefits of the Union by this means than we can by the war alone, is it
not also economical to do it? Let us consider it, then. Let us
ascertain the sum we have expended in the war since compensated
emancipation was proposed last March, and consider whether if that
measure had been promptly accepted by even some of the slave States the
same sum would not have done more to close the war than has been
otherwise done. If so, the measure would save money, and in that view
would be a prudent and economical measure. Certainly it is not so easy
to pay something as it is to pay nothing, but it is easier to pay a
large sum than it is to pay a larger one. And it is easier to pay any
sum when we are able than it is to pay it before we are able. The war
requires large sums, and requires them at once. The aggregate sum
necessary for compensated emancipation of course would be large. But it
would require no ready cash, nor the bonds even any faster than the
emancipation progresses. This might not, and probably would not, close
before the end of the thirty-seven years. At that time we shall
probably have a hundred millions of people to share the burden, instead
of thirty-one millions as now. And not only so, but the increase of our
population may be expected to continue for a long time after that
period as rapidly as before, because our territory will not have become
full. I do not state this inconsiderately. At the same ratio of
increase which we have maintained, on an average, from our first
national census, in 1790, until that of 1860, we should in 1900 have a
population of 103,208,415. And why may we not continue that ratio far
beyond that period? Our abundant room, our broad national homestead, is
our ample resource. Were our territory as limited as are the British
Isles, very certainly our population could not expand as stated.
Instead of receiving the foreign born as now, we should be compelled to
send part of the native born away. But such is not our condition. We
have 2,963,000 square miles. Europe has 3,800,000, with a population
averaging 73 1/3 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 it
inferior to Europe in any natural advantage? 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 73 1/3 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:
Year - Population - Ratio of increase.
- - Per cent.
1790 - 3,929,827 - ..........
1800 - 5,304,937 - 35.02
1810 - 7,239,814 - 36.45
1820 - 9,638,131 - 36.45
1830 - 12,866,020 - 33.49
1840 - 17,069,453 - 32.67
1850 - 23,191,876 - 35.87
1860 - 31,443,790 - 35.58
This shows an average decennial increase of 34.60 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 2 per cent below or 2 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, it
gives the following results:
Year - Population
1870 - 42,323,341
1880 - 56,967,216
1890 - 76,677,872
1900 - 103,208,415
1910 - 138,918,526
1920 - 186,984,335
1930 - 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
73 1/3 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 can not be foreseen exactly how much one huge example of
secession, breeding lesser ones indefinitely, would retard population,
civilization, and prosperity, 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 6 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 6 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 delaying 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 100,000,000 what by a different policy we would have to pay now,
when we number but 31,000,000. 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.
As to the second article, I think it would be impracticable to return
to bondage the class of persons therein contemplated. Some of them,
doubtless, in the property sense belong to loyal owners, and hence
provision is made in this article for compensating such. The third
article relates to the future of the freed people. It does not oblige,
but merely authorizes Congress to aid in colonizing such as may
consent. This ought not to be regarded as objectionable on the one hand
or on the other, insomuch as it comes to nothing unless by the mutual
consent of the people to be deported and the American voters, through
their representatives in Congress.
I can not make it better known than it already is that I strongly favor
colonization; and yet I wish to say there is an objection urged against
free colored persons remaining in the country which is largely
imaginary, if not sometimes malicious.
It is insisted that their presence would injure and displace white
labor and white laborers. If there ever could be a proper time for mere
catch arguments, that time surely is not now. In times like the present
men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be
responsible through time and in eternity. Is it true, then, that
colored people can displace any more white labor by being free than by
remaining slaves? If they stay in their old places, they jostle no
white laborers; if they leave their old places, they leave them open to
white laborers. Logically, there is neither more nor less of it.
Emancipation, even without deportation, would probably enhance the
wages of white labor, and very surely would not reduce them. Thus the
customary amount of labor would still have to be performed--the freed
people would surely not do more than their old proportion of it, and
very probably for a time would do less, leaving an increased part to
white laborers, bringing their labor into greater demand, and
consequently enhancing the wages of it. With deportation, even to a
limited extent, enhanced wages to white labor is mathematically
certain. Labor is like any other commodity in the market--increase the
demand for it and you increase the price of it. Reduce the supply of
black labor by colonizing the black laborer out of the country, and by
precisely so much you increase the demand for and wages of white labor.
But it is dreaded that the freed people will swarm forth and cover the
whole land. Are they not already in the land? Will liberation make them
any more numerous? Equally distributed among the whites of the whole
country, and there would be but one colored to seven whites. Could the
one in any way greatly disturb the seven? There are many communities
now having more than one free colored person to seven whites and this
without any apparent consciousness of evil from it. The District of
Columbia and the States of Maryland and Delaware are all in this
condition. The District has more than one free colored to six whites,
and yet in its frequent petitions to Congress I believe it has never
presented the presence of free colored persons as one of its
grievances. But why should emancipation South send the free people
North? People of any color seldom run unless there be something to run
from. Heretofore colored people to some extent have fled North from
bondage, and now, perhaps, from both bondage and destitution. But if
gradual emancipation and deportation be adopted, they will have neither
to flee from. Their old masters will give them wages at least until new
laborers can be procured, and the freedmen in turn will gladly give
their labor for the wages till new homes can be found for them in
congenial climes and with people of their own blood and race. This
proposition can be trusted on the mutual interests involved. And in any
event, can not the North decide for itself whether to receive them?
Again, as practice proves more than theory in any case, has there been
any irruption of colored people northward because of the abolishment of
slavery in this District last spring?
What I have said of the proportion of free colored persons to the
whites in the District is from the census of 1860, having no reference
to persons called contrabands nor to those made free by the act of
Congress abolishing slavery here.
The plan consisting of these articles is recommended, not but that a
restoration of the national authority would be accepted without its
adoption.
Nor will the war nor proceedings under the proclamation of September
22, 1862, be stayed because of the recommendation of this plan. Its
timely adoption, I doubt not, would bring restoration, and thereby stay
both.
And notwithstanding this plan, the recommendation that Congress provide
by law for compensating any State which may adopt emancipation before
this plan shall have been acted upon is hereby earnestly renewed. Such
would be only an advance part of the plan, and the same arguments apply
to both.
This plan is recommended as a means, not in exclusion of, but
additional to, all others for restoring and preserving the national
authority throughout the Union. The subject is presented exclusively in
its economical aspect. The plan would, I am confident, secure peace
more speedily and maintain it more permanently than can be done by
force alone, while all it would cost, considering amounts and manner of
payment and times of payment, would be easier paid than will be the
additional cost of the war if we rely solely upon force. It is much,
very much, that it would cost no blood at all.
The plan is proposed as permanent constitutional law. It can not become
such without the concurrence of, first, two-thirds of Congress, and
afterwards three-fourths of the States. The requisite three-fourths of
the States will necessarily include seven of the slave States. Their
concurrence, if obtained, will give assurance of their severally
adopting emancipation at no very distant day upon the new
constitutional terms. This assurance would end the struggle now and
save the Union forever.
I do not forget the gravity which should characterize a paper addressed
to the Congress of the nation by the Chief Magistrate of the nation,
nor do I forget that some of you are my seniors, nor that many of you
have more experience than I in the conduct of public affairs. Yet I
trust that in view of the great responsibility resting upon me you will
perceive no want of respect to yourselves in any undue earnestness I
may seem to display.
Is it doubted, then, that the plan I propose, if adopted, would shorten
the war, and thus lessen its expenditure of money and of blood? Is it
doubted that it would restore the national authority and national
prosperity and perpetuate both indefinitely? Is it doubted that we
here--Congress and Executive can secure its adoption? Will not the good
people respond to a united and earnest appeal from us? Can we, can
they, by any other means so certainly or so speedily assure these vital
objects? We can succeed only by concert. It is not "Can any of us
imagine better?" but "Can we all do better?" Object whatsoever is
possible, still the question recurs, "Can we do better?" The dogmas of
the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is
piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our
case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall
ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
Fellow-citizens, we can not escape history. We of this Congress and
this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No
personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us.
The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or
dishonor to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The
world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union.
The world knows we do know how to save it. We, even we here, hold the
power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave we
assure freedom to the free--honorable alike in what we give and what we
preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of
earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain,
peaceful, generous, just--a way which if followed the world will
forever applaud and God must forever bless.
***
State of the Union Address
Abraham Lincoln
December 8, 1863
Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:
Another year of health and of sufficiently abundant harvests has
passed. For these, and especially for the improved condition of our
national affairs, our renewed and profoundest gratitude to God is due.
We remain in peace and friendship with foreign powers.
The efforts of disloyal citizens of the United States to involve us in
foreign wars to aid an inexcusable insurrection have been unavailing.
Her Britannic Majesty's Government, as was justly expected, have
exercised their authority to prevent the departure of new hostile
expeditions from British ports. The Emperor of France has by a like
proceeding promptly vindicated the neutrality which he proclaimed at
the beginning of the contest. Questions of great intricacy and
importance have arisen out of the blockade and other belligerent
operations between the Government and several of the maritime powers,
but they have been discussed and, as far as was possible, accommodated
in a spirit of frankness, justice, and mutual good will. It is
especially gratifying that our prize courts, by the impartiality of
their adjudications, have commanded the respect and confidence of
maritime powers.
The supplemental treaty between the United States and Great Britain for
the suppression of the African slave trade, made on the 17th day of
February last, has been duly ratified and carried into execution. It is
believed that so far as American ports and American citizens are
concerned that inhuman and odious traffic has been brought to an end.
I shall submit for the consideration of the Senate a convention for the
adjustment of possessory claims in Washington Territory arising out of
the treaty of the 15th June, 1846, between the United States and Great
Britain, and which have been the source of some disquiet among the
citizens of that now rapidly improving part of the country.
A novel and important question, involving the extent of the maritime
jurisdiction of Spain in the waters which surround the island of Cuba,
has been debated without reaching an agreement, and it is proposed in
an amicable spirit to refer it to the arbitrament of a friendly power.
A convention for that purpose will be submitted to the Senate.
I have thought it proper, subject to the approval of the Senate, to
concur with the interested commercial powers in an arrangement for the
liquidation of the Scheldt dues, upon the principles which have been
heretofore adopted in regard to the imposts upon navigation in the
waters of Denmark. The long-pending controversy between this
Government and that of Chile touching the seizure at Sitana, in Peru,
by Chilean officers, of a large amount in treasure belonging to
citizens of the United States has been brought to a close by the award
of His Majesty the King of the Belgians, to whose arbitration the
question was referred by the parties. The subject was thoroughly and
patiently examined by that justly respected magistrate, and although
the sum awarded to the claimants may not have been as large as they
expected there is no reason to distrust the wisdom of His Majesty's
decision. That decision was promptly complied with by Chile when
intelligence in regard to it reached that country.
The joint commission under the act of the last session for carrying
into effect the convention with Peru on the subject of claims has been
organized at Lima, and is engaged in the business intrusted to it.
Difficulties concerning interoceanic transit through Nicaragua are in
course of amicable adjustment.
In conformity with principles set forth in my last annual message, I
have received a representative from the United States of Colombia, and
have accredited a minister to that Republic.