Part 23

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.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 7, 1862.

To the Senate of the United States:

I transmit herewith, for the constitutional action of the Senate thereon, a treaty concluded at Paola, Kans., on the 18th day of August, between Seth Clover, commissioner on the part of the United States, and the delegates of the united tribes of Kaskaskia and Peoria, Piankeshaw, and Wea Indians.

I also transmit a communication of the Secretary of the Interior of the 6th instant and accompanying papers from the Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs, in relation to the subject.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

WASHINGTON, March 12, 1862.

To the Senate of the United States:

In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 11th instant, requesting "a copy of any correspondence on the records or files of the Department of State in regard to railway systems in Europe," I transmit a report from the Secretary of State and the papers by which it was accompanied.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

WASHINGTON, March 14, 1862.

To the Senate of the United States:

With reference to my recent message on the subject of claims of citizens of the United States on the Government of Paraguay, I transmit a copy of three memorials of the claimants and of their closing arguments in the case, together with extracts from a dispatch from Mr. Bowlin, the late commissioner of the United States to that country. These extracts show that President Lopez offered and expected to pay a large sum of money as a compromise of the claims.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

WASHINGTON, March 14, 1862.

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

I submit to Congress the accompanying copy of a correspondence between the Secretary of State, the Danish chargé d'affaires, and the Secretary of the Navy, concerning the case of the bark Jorgen Lorentzen, a Danish vessel seized on her voyage from Rio Janeiro to Havana by the United States ship Morning Light and subsequently released. I recommend the appropriation of the amount of the award of the referees.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

WASHINGTON CITY, March 20, 1862.

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

The third section of the "Act further to promote the efficiency of the Navy," approved December 21, 1861, provides--

That the President of the United States, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall have the authority to detail from the retired list of the Navy for the command of squadrons and single ships such officers as he may believe that the good of the service requires to be thus placed in command; and such officers may, if upon the recommendation of the President of the United States they shall receive a vote of thanks of Congress for their services and gallantry in action against an enemy, be restored to the active list, and not otherwise.