Government of the United States, and shall not, directly or
indirectly, have incited to insurrectionary acts, or given aid or
comfort to any persons engaged in the insurrection aforesaid.

[Here should follow provisions in regard to the manner of
application, the mode and rate of compensation, etc.]

It will probably be found that the number of slaves for the remuneration
of whose lost services applications will be made by loyal claimants, under
such an act, will scarcely reach the number emancipated in 1834 by Great
Britain, which was about seven hundred and seventy thousand; and that the
sum paid by England to colonial slave-owners, namely about a hundred
millions of dollars, (the probable cost of eight weeks war,) will suffice
as just compensation for all the services due to loyal claimants thus
taken and cancelled.[10]

[Footnote 10: The exact number of slaves emancipated in the British
colonies was 770,390; and the total amount of indemnity was
L19,950,066 sterling.]

An act couched in the terms here proposed could not be declared
unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, without a shameless encroachment on
legislative ground, nor without a reckless reversal of principles as well
established, and of as high authority, as any which form the basis of
constitutional law.

Those who demur to the passage of an act which meets the great difficulty
before us broadly, effectually, honestly, and in accordance with the
dictates of Christianity and civilization, would do well to consider
whether, in the progress of this insurrectionary upheaval, we have not
reached a point at which there is no prudent alternative left. By the
President's Proclamation some three millions of slaves have been already
declared free. Sundry laws of Congress have emancipated several hundred
thousands more. There remain legally enslaved probably less than three
quarters of a million,--chiefly scattered along a narrow border-strip that
is coterminous, North and South, with Freedom or Emancipation,--partly
dotted in isolated parishes or counties, surrounded by enfranchised
slaves. Can we maintain in perpetuity so anomalous a condition of things?
Clearly not. At every step embarrassments innumerable obstruct our
progress. No industry, no human sagacity, would suffice to determine the
ten thousand conflicting questions that must arise out of such a chaos.
Must the history of each negro be followed back, so as to determin