d to any policy beyond the acceptance or rejection of this
scheme.

The President replied that he had no designs beyond the actions of the
States on this particular subject. He should lament their refusal to
accept it, but he had no designs beyond their refusal of it.

Mr. Menzies, of Kentucky, inquired if the President thought there was
any power except in the States themselves to carry out his scheme of
emancipation.

The President replied that he thought there could not be. He then went
off into a course of remarks not qualifying the foregoing declaration nor
material to be repeated to a just understanding of his meaning.

Mr. Crisfield said he did not think the people of Maryland looked upon
slavery as a permanent institution; and he did not know that they would
be very reluctant to give it up if provision was made to meet the loss and
they could be rid of the race; but they did not like to be coerced
into emancipation, either by the direct action of the government or by
indirection, as through the emancipation of slaves in this District, or
the 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, if 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.

[The Greely faction wanted an immediate Emancipation Proclamation. D.W.]

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