f business
rather than unwillingness.

As yet, however, the scheme was tolerated rather than heartily indorsed
by the more radical elements in Congress. Stevens, the cynical
Republican leader of the House of Representatives, said:

"I confess I have not been able to see what makes one side so anxious to
pass it, or the other side so anxious to defeat it. I think it is about
the most diluted milk-and-water-gruel proposition that was ever given to
the American nation."

But the bulk of the Republicans, though it proposed no immediate
practical legislation, nevertheless voted for it, as a declaration of
purpose in harmony with a pending measure, and as being, on the one
hand, a tribute to antislavery opinion in the North, and, on the other,
an expression of liberality toward the border States. The concurrent
measure of practical legislation was a bill for the immediate
emancipation of the slaves in the District of Columbia, on the payment
to their loyal owners of an average sum of three hundred dollars for
each slave, and for the appointment of a commission to assess and award
the amount. The bill was introduced early in the session, and its
discussion was much stimulated by the President's special message and
joint resolution. Like other antislavery measures, it was opposed by the
Democrats and supported by the Republicans, with but trifling
exceptions; and by the same majority of two thirds was passed by the
Senate on April 3, and the House on April 11, and became a law by the
President's signature on April 16.

The Republican majority in Congress as well as the President was thus
pledged to the policy of compensated abolishment, both by the promise of
the joint resolution and the fulfilment carried out in the District
bill. If the representatives and senators of the border slave States had
shown a willingness to accept the generosity of the government, they
could have avoided the pecuniary sacrifice which overtook the slave
owners in those States not quite three years later. On April 14, in the
House of Representatives, the subject was taken up by Mr. White of
Indiana, at whose instance a select committee on emancipation,
consisting of nine members, a majority of whom were from border slave
States, was appointed; and this committee on July 16 reported a
comprehensive bill authorizing the President to give compensation at the
rate of three hundred dollars for each slave to any one of the States of
Delaware, Maryland