n; some
would remove the freed people from us, and some would retain them with us;
and there are yet other minor diversities. Because of these diversities we
waste much strength in struggles among ourselves. By mutual 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 tune, 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 pro