slave States which had
revolted against the Union.

COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION URGED.

The third and last session of the Thirty-seventh Congress assembled
four weeks after the close of the exciting contest for the control
of the next House of Representatives. The message of Mr. Lincoln
made no reference whatever to the political contest in the country,
and unlike his previous communications to Congress gave no special
summary of the achievements by our forces either upon the land or
the sea. He contended himself with stating that he transmitted
the reports of the Secretaries of War and of the Navy, and referred
Congress to them for full information. He dwelt a length upon the
total inadequacy of Disunion as a remedy for the differences between
the people of the two sections, and quoted with evident satisfaction
the declarations he had made in his Inaugural address upon that
point. In his judgment "there is no line, straight or crooked,
suitable for a National boundary upon which to divide. Trace it
through from east to west upon the line between the free and the
slave country, and we shall find a little more than one-third of
its length are rivers easy to be crossed; and populated, or soon
to be populated, thickly on both sides, while nearly all its
remaining length are merely surveyor's lines over which people may
walk back and forth without any consciousness of their presence.
No part of this line can be made any more difficult to pass by
writing it down on paper or parchment as a National boundary." In
the President's view "a nation may be said to consist of its
territory, its people, and its laws. The territory is the only
part which is of certain durability. That portion of the earth's
surface which is inhabited by the people of the United States is
well adapted for the home of one National family, but it is not
well adapted for two or more."

Mr. Lincoln was still anxious that the Loyal slave States should
secure the advantage of compensated emancipation which he had
already urged, and he recommended an amendment to the Constitution
whereby a certain amount should be paid by the United States to
each State that would abolish slavery before the first day of
January, A. D. 1900. The amount was to be paid in bonds of the
United States on which interest was to begin from the time of actual
delivery to the States. The amendment was further to declare, that
"all