e hope of result, a comprehensive policy for dealing
with slavery justly and finally. He proposed that a Constitutional
Amendment should be submitted to the people providing: first, that
compensation should be given in United States bonds to any State,
whether now in rebellion or not, which should abolish slavery before
the year 1900; secondly, that the slaves who had once enjoyed actual
freedom through the chances of the war should be permanently free and
that their owners should be compensated; thirdly, that Congress should
have authority to spend money on colonisation for negroes. Even if the
greater part of these objects could have been accomplished without a
Constitutional Amendment, it is evident that such a procedure would
have been more satisfactory in the eventual resettlement of the Union.
He urged in his Message how desirable it was, as a part of the effort
to restore the Union, that the whole North should be agreed in a
concerted policy as to slavery, and that parties should for this
purpose reconsider their positions. "The dogmas of the quiet past," he
said, "are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled
high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case
is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall
ourselves, and then we shall save our country. Fellow citizens, we
cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this Administration
will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or
insignificance can spare one or another of us. We say we are for the
Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to
save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. In giving
freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free. We shall nobly
save or meanly lose the last, best hope of earth. Other means may
succeed, this could not fail." The last four words expressed too
confident a hope as to what Northern policy apart from Northern arms
could do towards ending the war, but it was impossible to exaggerate
the value which a policy, concerted between parties in a spirit of
moderation, would have had in the settlement after victory. Every
honest Democrat who then refused any action against slavery must have
regretted it before three years were out, and many sensible Republicans
who saw no use in such moderation may have lived to regret their part
too. Nothing was done. It is thought that Lincoln expected this; but
the