e Confiscation of Southern Property as now threatened; and he thought
before they would consent to consider this proposition they would
require to be informed on these points.

"The President replied that 'unless he was expelled by the act of God or
the Confederate Armies, he should occupy that house for three years, and
as long as he remained there, Maryland had nothing to fear, either for
her Institutions or her interests, on the points referred to.'

"Mr. Crisfield immediately added: 'Mr. President, what you now say could
be heard by the people of Maryland, they would consider your proposition
with a much better feeling than I fear without it they will be inclined
to do.'

"The President: 'That (meaning a publication of what he said), will not
do; it would force me into a quarrel before the proper time;' and again
intimating, as he had before done, that a quarrel with the 'Greeley
faction' was impending, he said, 'he did not wish to encounter it before
the proper time, nor at all if it could be avoided.'

"Governor Wickliffe, of Kentucky, then asked him respecting the
Constitutionality of his scheme.

"The President replied: 'As you may suppose, I have considered that; and
the proposition now submitted does not encounter any Constitutional
difficulty. It proposes simply to co-operate with any State by giving
such State pecuniary aid;' and he thought that the Resolution, as
proposed by him, would be considered rather as the expression of a
sentiment than as involving any Constitutional question.

"Mr. Hall, of Missouri, thought that if this proposition was adopted at
all, it should be by the votes of the Free States, and come as a
proposition from them to the Slave States, affording them an inducement
to put aside this subject of discord; that it ought not to be expected
that members representing Slaveholding Constituencies should declare at
once, and in advance of any proposition to them, for the Emancipation of
Slaves.

"The President said he saw and felt the force of the objection; it was a
fearful responsibility, and every gentleman must do as he thought best;
that he did not know how this scheme was received by the Members from
the Free States; some of them had spoken to him and received it kindly;
but for the most part they were as reserved and chary as we had been,
and he could not tell how they would vote.

"And, in reply to some expression of Mr. Hall as to his own opinion
regarding Slavery, he said