w free and slave country, or place it south of Kentucky
or north of Ohio, and still the truth remains that none south of it can
trade to any port or place north of it, and none north of it can trade to
any port or place south of it, except upon terms dictated by a government
foreign to them. These outlets, east, west, and south, are indispensable
to the well-being of the people inhabiting and to inhabit this vast
interior region. Which of the three may be the best is no proper question.
All are better than either, and all of right belong to that people and to
their successors forever. True to themselves, they will not ask where a
line of separation shall be, but will vow rather that there shall be no
such line.

Nor are the marginal regions less interested in these communications to
and through them to the great outside world. They, too, and each of them,
must have access to this Egypt of the West without paying toll at the
crossing of any national boundary.

Our national strife springs not from our permanent part; not from the land
we inhabit; not from our national homestead. There is no possible severing
of this but would multiply and not mitigate evils among us. In all its
adaptations and aptitudes it demands union and abhors separation. In fact,
it would ere long force reunion, however much of blood and treasure the
separation might have cost.

Our strife pertains to ourselves--to the passing generations of men--and
it can without convulsion be hushed forever with the passing of one
generation.

In this view I recommend the adoption of the following resolution and
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 a