slaves in rebellious States: ultimate compensation
recommended for all loyal owners. The proclamation is issued,
September 23, 1862, and the nation is inexorably committed to
emancipation,--compensated if possible; forcible if necessary; partial
at first, but moving inevitably, swiftly, toward universal freedom.

The proclamation with its sequence was the best Lincoln found himself
able to do. What he wanted to do,--his own ideal which he could not
bring his countrymen to accept,--was shown in his message to Congress
when it met in December. The main burden of that message was an earnest
plea for action on the line of compensated emancipation. The President
proposed an amendment to the Constitution, to this effect: every State
abolishing slavery before 1900 to receive compensation from the United
States, at some fixed rate, in government bonds; meantime, all slaves
freed by chances of war to remain free, with compensation to loyal
owners; Congress authorized to spend money for colonization of such as
wish to go. For the general plan of compensation Lincoln argues as
broadly and calmly as if dealing with a purely economic question, and
with the restrained fervor of the patriot and statesman. He dwells on
the vast growth which the country promises; on the increasing resources
which will make light the burden of ransoming the slaves; the safety of
a process of gradual liberation; the humane, economic, Christian
superiority of this settlement instead of prolonged war. This is the
close: "We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility. In
giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free--honorable
alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or
meanly lose the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this
could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just--a way which,
if followed, the world will forever applaud and God must forever bless."

But as for practical effect, he might as well have read Dr. Watts's
Cradle-hymn to a couple of fighting bulldogs. The proposition of
compensated emancipation was thirty years too late. Now the blood of
both sections was up, the fighting animal in man let loose,--and they
would go on indefinitely killing and being killed, to free the slaves or
to hold them, but they would not lay down their arms and peacefully
share the light burden of emancipation.

So came in New Year's day, 1863, and the final word was spoken,
declaring free