If the war continues long, as it must if the object be not sooner attained, the institution in your States will be extinguished by mere friction and abrasion--by the mere incidents of the war. It will be gone, and you will have nothing valuable in lieu of it. Much of its value is gone already. How much better for you and for your people to take the step which at once shortens the war and secures substantial compensation for that which is sure to be wholly lost in any other event! How much better to thus save the money which else we sink forever in war! How much better to do it while we can, lest the war ere long render us pecuniarily unable to do it! How much better for you as seller, and the nation as buyer, to sell out and buy out that without which the war could never have been, than to sink both the thing to be sold and the price of it in cutting one another's throats! I do not speak of emancipation at once, but of a decision at once to emancipate gradually. Room in South America for colonization can be obtained cheaply and in abundance, and when numbers shall be large enough to be company and encouragement for one another, the freed people will not be so reluctant to go.
I am pressed with a difficulty not yet mentioned--one which threatens division among those who, united, are none too strong. An instance of it is known to you. General Hunter is an honest man. He was, and I hope still is, my friend. I valued him none the less for his agreeing with me in the general wish that all men everywhere could be free. He proclaimed all men free within certain States, and I repudiated the proclamation. He expected more good and less harm from the measure than I could believe would follow. Yet, in repudiating it, I gave dissatisfaction, if not offence, to many whose support the country cannot afford to lose. And this is not the end of it. The pressure in this direction is still upon me, and is increasing. By conceding what I now ask you can relieve me, and, much more, can relieve the country in this important point.
Upon these considerations, I have again begged your attention to the message of March last. Before leaving the Capital, consider and discuss it among yourselves. You are patriots and statesmen, and as such I pray you consider this proposition; and, at the least, commend it to the consideration of your States and people. As you would perpetuate popular government for the best people in the world, I beseech you that you do in nowise omit this. Our common country is in great peril, demanding the loftiest views and boldest action to bring a speedy relief. Once relieved, its form of government is saved to the world; its beloved history and cherished memories are vindicated, and its happy future fully assured and rendered inconceivably grand. To you, more than to any others, the privilege is given to assure that happiness and swell that grandeur, and to link your own names therewith forever.
TO GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, July 13, 1862.
MAJOR-GENERAL McCLELLAN:
MY DEAR SIR:--I am told that over 160,000 men have gone into your army on the Peninsula. When I was with you the other day we made out 86,500 remaining, leaving 73,500 to be accounted for. I believe 23,500 will cover all the killed, wounded, and missing in all your battles and skirmishes, leaving 50,000 who have left otherwise. No more than 5000 of these have died, leaving 45,000 of your army still alive and not with it. I believe half or two-thirds of them are fit for duty to-day. Have you any more perfect knowledge of this than I have? If I am right, and you had these men with you, you could go into Richmond in the next three days. How can they be got to you, and how can they be prevented from getting away in such numbers for the future?
A. LINCOLN.
TELEGRAM TO GENERAL H. W. HALLECK.
WAR DEPARTMENT, July 13, 1862.
MAJOR-GENERAL HALLECK, Corinth, Mississippi:
They are having a stampede in Kentucky. Please look to it.
A. LINCOLN.
TELEGRAM TO GENERAL J. T. BOYLE.
WASHINGTON, July 13, 1862.
GENERAL J. T. BOYLE, Louisville, Kentucky:
Your several despatches received. You should call on General Halleck. Telegraph him at once. I have telegraphed him that you are in trouble.
A. LINCOLN.
TELEGRAM TO GENERAL J. T. BOYLE.
WAR DEPARTMENT, July 13, 1862.
GENERAL J. T. BOYLE, Louisville, Kentucky:
We cannot venture to order troops from General Buell. We know not what condition he is in. He maybe attacked himself. You must call on General Halleck, who commands, and whose business it is to understand and care for the whole field If you cannot telegraph to him, send a messenger to him. A dispatch has this moment come from Halleck at Tuscombia, Alabama.
A. LINCOLN.
ACT OF COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION
MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
July 4, 1862.
FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
Herewith is the draft of the bill to compensate any State which may abolish slavery within its limits, the passage of which, substantially as presented, I respectfully and earnestly recommend.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled:--That whenever the President of the United States shall be satisfied that any State shall have lawfully abolished slavery within and through-out such State, either immediately or gradually, it shall be the duty of the President, assisted by the Secretary of the Treasury, to prepare and deliver to each State an amount of six per cent. interest-bearing bonds of the United States equal to the aggregate value at ______ dollars per head of all the slaves within such State, as reported by the census of 1860; the whole amount for any one State to be delivered at once if the abolishment be immediate, or in equal annual instalments if it be gradual, interest to begin running on each bond at the time of delivery, and not before.
