The President’s Recommendation

The President has recommended to Congress the adoption of a joint resolution to the effect, that the Government ought to co-operate with any State which may adopt a plan for the gradual abolition of slavery, by giving to such State pecuniary aid to compensate it for the public and private inconveniences that may be produced by such change of system.  This looks to the emancipation of the slaves in the border States, and was probably called out by the recent action in Delaware.  So far as those slave States which did not participate in the rebellion, viz: Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and Western Virginia, are concerned, some policy of the kind suggested should be adopted.  We hope to see Congress immediately take hold of the matter, and laying aside all partisan feeling, look only to the good of the country, by assisting to rid the nation of an institution that is a curse to it, and an incubus, crushing out the life’s blood of freedom, in the States that tolerate it.  Were this done at once as the President suggests, the rebellion would end.

The Government could well afford to give fifty or a hundred millions of dollars to these States, to assist them in emancipating their slaves, if by so doing the war could be stayed a few months, or even weeks sooner.  The point, says the President, of such action is not that all the states that tolerate slavery would soon, or at all, initiate emancipation.  No, the insurgents will cling to it to the last, fight for it and die for it, if need be, but never will they peaceably surrender it.  If the slaves of those rebels, who have sought to overthrow the Government and thus have placed themselves out of the pale of its protections are confiscated, it will be not only the severest punishment that could be meted out to them, but our Government may then find comparatively slight difficulty in arranging for the emancipation of the remainder.

While we are disposed to show every leniency toward those slave holders who have proven loyal to their Government, and compensating them to the fullest amount of their slaves, we are in favor not only of confiscating the property of the rebels to the Government, but of emancipating their slaves, as a just punishment for the high-handed treason in which they have been engaged.  If Congress do not take advantage of the present golden opportunity to rid our nation of slavery, the great drawback to its prosperity and perpetuity, and the instigator of all the troubles that afflict our country, it will signally fail in the discharge of its duty.  The people watch their representatives closely, and the member who fails or shirks his duty in this hour of trial will be held to a strict accountability.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Saturday Morning, March 8, 1862, p. 2