Mr. Lincoln did not stop at this failure, but, on March 6, 1862,
sent a special message to the Senate and House of Representatives
recommending that Congress adopt a joint resolution favoring and
practically offering gradual compensated emancipation to any
State that saw fit to accept it; pointing out at the same time
that the Federal government claimed no right to interfere with
slavery within the States, and that if the offer were accepted it
must be done as a matter of free choice.
The Republican journals of the North devoted considerable space
to discussing the President's plan, which, in the main, was
favorably received; but it was thought that it must fail on the
score of expense. The President answered this objection in a
private letter to a Senator, proving that less than one-half
day's cost of war would pay for all the slaves in Delaware at
four hundred dollars each, and less than eighty-seven days' cost
of war would pay for all in Delaware, Maryland, the District of
Columbia, Kentucky and Missouri. "Do you doubt," he asked, that
taking such a step "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?"
Both houses of Congress favored the resolution, and also passed a
bill immediately freeing the slaves in the District of Columbia
on the payment to their loyal owners of three hundred dollars for
each slave.
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