ipation, embodying these principles, might be voluntarily
undertaken by the Border States under the present stress. If the
executive and the legislative departments should combine upon the policy
of encouraging and aiding such steps as any Border State could be
induced to take in this direction, the President believed that he could
much more easily extend loyalty and allegiance among the people of those
States,--a matter which he valued far more highly than other persons
were inclined to do. Such were his views and such his wishes. To discuss
their practicability and soundness would only be to wander in the
unprofitable vagueness of hypothesis, for in spite of all his efforts
they were never tested by trial. It must be admitted that general
opinion, both at that day and ever since, has regarded them as
visionary; compensation seemed too costly, colonization probably was
really impossible.

After the President had suggested his views in his message he waited
patiently to see what action Congress would take concerning them. Three
months elapsed and Congress took no such action. On the contrary,
Congress practically repudiated them. Not only this, it was
industriously putting into the shape of laws many other ideas, which
were likely to prove so many embarrassments and obstructions to that
policy which the President had very thoughtfully and with deep
conviction marked out for himself. He determined, therefore, to present
it once more, before it should be rendered forever hopeless. On March 6,
1862, he sent to Congress a special message, recommending the adoption
of a joint resolution: "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 inconvenience, both public and private, produced by
such change of system." The first paragraph in the message stated
briefly the inducements to the North: "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 depr