The debate on this resolution illustrated the feelings of the country on the subject. It was vehemently opposed by the sympathizers with secession from both sections, as an unconstitutional interference with slavery, and hesitatingly supported by the anti-slavery men of the North, as less decided in its hostility than they had a right to expect. The sentiment of the more moderate portion of the community was expressed by Mr. Fisher, of Delaware, who regarded it as an olive-branch of peace and harmony and good faith presented by the North, and as well calculated to bring about a peaceful solution and settlement of the slavery question. It was adopted in the House by a vote of 89 to 31. Coming up in the Senate on the 24th of March, it was denounced in strong terms by Mr. Saulsbury, of Delaware, and others—Mr. Davis, of Kentucky, opposing the terms in which it was couched, but approving its general tenor. It subsequently passed, receiving 32 votes in its favor, and but 10 against it. This resolution was approved by the President on the 10th of April. It was generally regarded by the people and by the President himself as rather an experiment than as a fixed policy—as intended to test the temper of the people of the Southern States, and offer them a way of escape from the evils and embarrassments with which slavery had surrounded them, rather than set forth a distinct line of conduct which was to be pressed upon the country at all hazards. This character, indeed, was stamped upon it by the fact that its practical execution was made to depend wholly on the people of the Southern States themselves. It recognized their complete control over slavery, within their own limits, and simply tendered them the aid of the General Government in any steps they might feel inclined to take to rid themselves of it.

The President was resolved that the experiment should have a full and a fair trial; and while he would not, on the one hand, permit its effect to be impaired by the natural im

patience of those among his friends who were warmest and most extreme in their hostility to slavery, he, on the other hand, lost no opportunity to press the proposition on the favorable consideration of the people of the Border Slave States.

On the 9th of May, General Hunter, who commanded the department of South Carolina, which included also the States of Georgia and Florida, issued an order declaring all the slaves within that department to be thenceforth "forever free." This was done not from any alleged military necessity, growing out of the operations in his department, but upon a theoretical incompatibility between slavery and martial law. The President thereupon at once issued the following proclamation:

Whereas, There appears in the public prints what purports to be a proclamation of Major-General Hunter, in the words and figures following:

HEAD-QUARTERS

General Order, No. 11.

HILTON HEAD, S. C., May 9, 1862.

The three States of Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, comprising the Military Department of the South, having deliberately declared themselves no longer under the United States of America, and having taken up arms against the United States, it becomes a military necessity to declare them under martial law.

This was accordingly done on the 25th day of April, 1862. Slavery and martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible. The persons in these States-Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina-heretofore held as slaves, are therefore declared forever free. [OFFICIAL.]

Signed,

DAVID HUNTER, Major-General Commanding.

ED. W. SMITH, Acting Assistant Adj't General.

And, whereas, the same is producing some excitement and misunderstanding, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, proclaim and declare that the Government of the United States had no knowledge or belief of an intention on the part of General Hunter to issue such proclamation, nor has it yet any authentic information that the document is genuine; and, further, that neither General Hunter nor any other commander or person has been authorized by the Government of the United States to make proclamation declaring the slaves of any State free, and that the supposed proclamation now in question, whether genuine or false, is altogether void so far as respects such declaration.

I further make known that, whether it be competent for me, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, to declare the slaves of any State or States free; and whether at any time, or in any case, it shall have become a necessity indispensable to the maintenance of the Government to exercise such supposed power, are questions which, under my responsibility, I reserve to myself, and which I cannot feel justified in leaving to the decision of commanders in the field.

These are totally different questions from those of police regulations in armies or in camps.

On the sixth day of March last, by a special Message, I recommended to Congress the adoption of a joint resolution, to be substantially as follows:

Resolved, That the United States ought to co-operate with any State which may adopt a gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State earnest expression to compensate for its inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system.

The resolution in the language above quoted was adopted by large majorities in both branches of Congress, and now stands an authentic, definite, and solemn proposal of the Nation to the States and people most interested in the subject matter. To the people of these States now, I mostly appeal. I do not argue-I beseech you to make the arguments for yourselves. You cannot, if you would, be blind to the signs of the times.

I beg of you a calm and enlarged consideration of them, ranging, if it may be, far above partisan and personal politics.

This proposal makes common cause for a common object, casting no reproaches upon any. It acts not the Pharisee. The change it contemplates would come gently as the dews of Heaven, not rending or wrecking any thing. Will you not embrace it? So much good has not been done by one effort in all past time, as in the Providence of God it is now your high privilege to do. May the vast future not have to lament that you have neglected it.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be hereunto affixed.

Done at the city of Washington this 19th day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-sixth.

(Signed)

By the President:

W. H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

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W reproach or complaint when I assure you that, in my , you all had voted for the resolution in the gradual emancipaage of last March the war would now be substantially endeda therein proposed is yet one of the most potent and swift ན ནསཾ ཝཧི ཧི ཝིཏི སུཾ ཙྩཾཝེ, Let the States which are in rebeca see definitely no event will the States you represent ever join y, and they cannot much longer maintain the vest them of their hope to ultimately have show a determination to perpetuate the States. Beat them at elections, as you d, nothing daunted, they still claim you now what the lever of their power is. ces, and they can shake you no more for

Most of you have treated me with kindness and consideration, and I trust you will not now think I improperly touch what is exclusively your own, when, for the sake of the whole country, I ask, Can you, for your States, do better than to take the course I urge? Discarding punctilio and maxims adapted to more manageable times, and looking only to the unprecedentedly stern facts of our case, can you do better in any possible event? You prefer that the constitutional relation of the States to the nation shall be practically restored without disturbance of the institution: and if this were done, my whole duty, in this respect, under the Constitution and my oath of office, would be performed. But it is not done, and we are trying to accomplish it by war. The incidents of the war cannot be avoided. 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 the 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 cann afford to lose. And this is not the end of it. The pressure