tual Concession we should harmonize and act together. This would
be Compromise; but it would be Compromise among the friends, and not
with the enemies of the Union. These Articles are intended to embody a
plan of such mutual concessions. If the plan shall be adopted, it is
assumed that Emancipation will follow, at least, in several of the
States.

"As to the first Article, the main points are: first, the Emancipation;
secondly, the length of time for consummating it--thirty-seven years;
and, thirdly, the compensation.

"The Emancipation will be unsatisfactory to the advocates of perpetual
Slavery; but the length of time should greatly mitigate their
dissatisfaction. The time spares both races from the evils of sudden
derangement--in fact from the necessity of any derangement--while most
of those whose habitual course of thought will be disturbed by the
measure will have passed away before its consummation. They will never
see it.

"Another class will hail the prospect of Emancipation, but will
deprecate the length of time. They will feel that it gives too little
to the now living Slaves. But it really gives them much. It saves them
from the vagrant destitution which must largely attend immediate
Emancipation in localities where their numbers are very great; and it
gives the inspiring assurance that their posterity shall be Free
forever.

"The plan leaves to each State, choosing to act under it, to abolish
Slavery now, or at the end of the century, or at any intermediate time,
or by degrees, extending over the whole or any part of the period; and
it obliges no two States to proceed alike. It also provides for
compensation,--and generally, the mode of making it. This, it would
seem, must further mitigate the dissatisfaction of those who favor
perpetual Slavery, and especially of those who are to receive the
compensation. Doubtless some of those who are to pay, and not to
receive, will object. Yet the measure is both just and economical.

"In a certain sense, the liberation of Slaves is the destruction of
Property--Property acquired by descent, or by purchase, the same as any
other property. It is no less true for having been often said, that the
people of the South are not more responsible for the original
introduction of this Property than are the people of the North; and when
it is remembered how unhesitatingly we all use cotton and sugar, and
share the profits of dealing in them, it may not be quite