The Civil War News & Views Open Discussion Forum

$400,000,000 for the Masters
In Response To: Compensated Emancipation ()

Abraham Lincoln to Congress, Sunday, February 05, 1865 (Draft of message proposing compensation to slave states)
From Abraham Lincoln to Congress, February 5, 1865
Fellow Citizens of the Senate, and
House of Representatives.
I respectfully recommend that a Joint Resolution, substantially as follows, be adopted so soon as practicable, by your honorable bodies.
"Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives, of the United States of America in Congress assembled: That the President of the United States is hereby empowered, in his discretion, to pay four hundred millions of dollars to the States of Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West-Virginia, in the manner, and on the conditions following, towit: The payment to be made in six percent government bonds, and to be distributed among said States pro rata on their respective slave populations, as shown by the Census of 1860; and no part of said sum to be paid unless all resistance to the national authority shall be abandoned and cease, on or before the first day of April next; and upon such abandonment and ceasing of resistance, one half of said sum to be paid in manner aforesaid, and the remaining half to be paid only upon the amendment of the national Constitution recently proposed by Congress, becoming valid law, on or before the first day of July next, by the action thereon of the requisite number of States"
The adoption of such resolution is sought with a view to embody it, with other propositions, in a proclamation looking to peace and re-union--
Whereas a Joint Resolution has been adopted by Congress in the words following, towit
[ blank space]
Now therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States do proclaim, declare, and make known, that on the conditions therein stated, the power conferred on the Executive in and by said Joint Resolution, will be fully exercised; that war will cease, and armies be reduced to a basis of peace; that all political offences will be pardoned; that all property, except slaves, liable to confiscation or forfeiture, will be released therefrom, except in cases of intervening interests of third parties; and that liberality will be recommended to Congress upon all points not lying within executive control.
[ Endorsed by Lincoln:]
Feb. 5. 1865
To-day these papers, which explain themselves, were drawn up and submitted to the Cabinet & unanamously disapproved by them.
A Lincoln

Messages In This Thread

Compensated Emancipation
$400,000,000 for the Masters
Re: $400,000,000 for the Masters
Re: $400,000,000 for the Masters
Re: $400,000,000 for the Masters
Re: $400,000,000 for the Masters
Re: $400,000,000 for the Masters
Re: $400,000,000 for the Masters
Re: $400,000,000 for the Masters
My post from 2010