lict with the welfare, safety, and rights or interests
of any other nation. Their own prosperity, happiness, and aggrandizement
are sought most safely and advantageously through the preservation not
only of peace on their own part, but peace among all other nations. But
while the United States are thus a friend to all other nations, they do
not seek to conceal the fact that they cherish especial sentiments of
friendship for, and sympathies with, those who, like themselves, have
founded their institutions on the principle of the equal rights of men;
and such nations being more prominently neighbors of the United States,
the latter are co-operating with them in establishing civilization and
culture on the American continent. Such being the general principles which
govern the United States in their foreign relations, you may be assured,
sir, that in all things this government will deal justly, frankly, and, if
it be possible, even liberally with Peru, whose liberal sentiments toward
us you have so kindly expressed.

MESSAGE TO CONGRESS RECOMMENDING COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION.

March 6, 1862

FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:--I recommend
the adoption of a joint resolution by your honorable bodies which shall be
substantially as follows:

"Resolved, That the United States ought to co-operate with any State which
may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary
aid, to be used by such State, in its discretion, to compensate for the
inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system."

If the proposition contained in the resolution does not meet the approval
of Congress and the country, there is the end; but if it does command such
approval, I deem it of importance that the States and people immediately
interested should be at once distinctly notified of the fact, so that
they may begin to consider whether to accept or reject it. The Federal
Government would find its highest interest in such a measure, as one of
the most efficient means of self-preservation. The leaders of the existing
insurrection entertain the hope that this government will ultimately be
forced to acknowledge the independence of some part of the disaffected
region, and that all the slave States north of such part will then say,
"The Union for which we have struggled being already gone, we now
choose to go with the Southern section." To deprive them of this hope
substantially ends t