State which may adopt emancipation before this
plan shall have been acted upon is hereby earnestly renewed. Such would be
only an advance part of the plan, and the same arguments apply to both.

This plan is recommended as a means, not in exclusion of, but additional
to, all others for restoring and preserving the national authority
throughout the Union. The subject is presented exclusively in its
economical aspect. The plan would, I am confident, secure peace more
speedily and maintain it more permanently than can be done by force alone,
while all it would cost, considering amounts and manner of payment and
times of payment, would be easier paid than will be the additional cost of
the war if we rely solely upon force. It is much, very much, that it would
cost no blood at all.

The plan is proposed as permanent constitutional law. It cannot become
such without the concurrence of, first, two thirds of Congress, and
afterwards three fourths of the States. The requisite three fourths of
the States will necessarily include seven of the slave States. Their
concurrence, if obtained, will give assurance of their severally adopting
emancipation at no very distant day upon the new constitutional terms.
This assurance would end the struggle now and save the Union forever.

I do not forget the gravity which should characterize a paper addressed to
the Congress of the nation by the chief magistrate of the nation, nor do
I forget that some of you are my seniors, nor that many of you have more
experience than I in the conduct of public affairs. Yet I trust that in
view of the great responsibility resting upon me you will perceive no want
of respect to yourselves in any undue earnestness I may seem to display.

Is it doubted, then, that the plan I propose, if adopted, would shorten
the war, and thus lessen its expenditure of money and of blood? Is
it doubted that it would restore the national authority and national
prosperity and perpetuate both indefinitely? Is it doubted that we
here--Congress and executive--can secure its adoption? Will not the good
people respond to a united and earnest appeal from us? Can we, can they,
by any other means so certainly or so speedily assure these vital objects?
We can succeed only by concert. It is not "Can any of us imagine better?"
but "Can we all do better?" Object whatsoever is possible, still the
question recurs, "Can we do better?" The dogmas of the quiet past
are inadequate to the stormy p