y advanced,
thus liberating the regions left in the rear." The President
regarded "General Sherman's march of three hundred miles directly
through an insurgent country" as the "most remarkable feature in
the military operations of the year." It was in progress when the
President delivered his message, and "the result not yet being
known, conjecture in regard to it cannot be here indulged." The
President reported that the actual disbursements in money from the
Treasury for the past fiscal year were $865,234,087.86.

Mr. Lincoln had finally abandoned the project of compensating the
Border States for their loss of property in slaves. The people of
those States had, through their representatives, blindly and
willfully rejected the offer when it was urged upon them by the
Administration, and had defeated the bill embodying the proposition
on the eve of its passage in the House when it had already passed
the Senate. The situation was now entirely changed. Maryland,
without waiting for National action and regardless of compensation,
had in the preceding October taken the matter under her own control
and deliberately abolished slavery. Mr. Lincoln now announced the
State as "secure to liberty and union for all the future. The
genius of rebellion will no longer claim Maryland. Like another
foul spirit being driven out, it may seek to tear her, but it will
woo her no more." There was no reason why the other Border States
should not follow her example--and there was the strongest argument
against compensating another State for doing what Maryland had done
of her own free will and from an instinct of patriotism, as the
one act which would conclusively separate her from all possibility
of sympathy with the rebellion.

Freed thus from what he may have regarded as the obligations of
his Border-State policy and upheld by the great popular majority
which he had received in the election, the President warmly
recommended to Congress the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment
to the Constitution. He called attention to the fact that it had
already received the sanction of the Senate, but failed in the
House for lack of the requisite two-thirds vote. There was no
doubt that the large Republican majority, already elected to the
Thirty-ninth Congress, would adopt the Amendment, but such adoption
implied postponement for a whole year, with loss of the moral
influence which would be gained by prompter action. It implied
also that