[238] that he puts himself in opposition to all violent revolutionary measures affecting the loyal in the same manner as the disloyal. Whenever the question of emancipation in this State, or any other, comes up for the consideration of the people who are alone interested in it, and who alone can determine it, then it will be time enough to take a hand in it. If Congress shall stop all agitation just where Mr. Lincoln proposes to leave it, and kick the whole subject out of it, the citizens of the several States will be in a better temper to discuss it, in all its bearings. [From the St. Louis News.] The President's Special Message to Congress, recommending the adoption of a resolution declaratory of the duty of the Federal Government to cooperate with any State that may adopt a plan for the gradual removal of slavery, brings before the public a subject of vast importance, and yet suggests it with a carefulness and a prudence of manner fitting the dignity of the question . . . . It leaves the subject of emancipation where it properly belongs, to the States themselves merely proposing to aid such a measure if a State should adopt it. Such being the character of the President's recommendation, we cannot but think it will meet with the deliberate and decided approval of the conservative minds of the country. The radical press will, no doubt, vehemently oppose it, since it overthrows their revolutionary idea of confiscatory abolition, by substituting the better and wiser measure of gradual emancipation; but the assaults of the radicals against the proposition will only demonstrate its wisdom and eventually lead to the adoption of it as a policy. [From the National Intelligencer.] We have been greatly gratified to observe that the recent Message of President Lincoln, recommending the adoption of measures looking to the “gradual and not sudden emancipation” of slaves as being “better for all” concerned, and this too on terms recognising the right of slave-owners to be reimbursed for the sacrifice of the interest they now possess in persons held to service for life under the laws of certain States, is received with favor by the only class who might have been suspected of an unwillingness to accept a proposition so just and at the same time so prudent in its leading features. We allude, of course, to that class of men who have been distinguished for the fervor of their anti-slavery opinions, and in whose eyes the very act of slaveholding, however entailed on its unwilling, or, in many cases, at least, its unassenting subjects, has seemed such an odious anomaly in morals, politics, and religion, that nothing short of its immediate and unconditional abolition could satisfy the demand of justice. From time to time the project of paying for the slaves of the South, out of the national purse, has been suggested by many well — meaning and thoughtful men, but the idea has been loudly denounced by those who held that the “body and soul” of man could not be made the subject of pecuniary purchase or compensation, except at the sacrifice of admitting the rightfulness of the slave-owner's “claim” to his “pretended property.” In the proposition now submitted to Congress, the President very clearly signifies that he has no sympathy with this extreme theoretical view, and therefore aims to treat a great practical subject as a practical man, “in full view of his responsibility to God and his country.” Should any object to the proposition on the ground of its expensiveness, he suggests that “in the mere financial or pecuniary view, any member of Congress, with the census tables and the Treasury reports before him, can readily see for himself how very soon the current expenditures of this war would purchase, at a fair valuation, all the slaves in any named State.” To this we may add that, as the President contemplates a “gradual and not a sudden emancipation of slaves,” the cost of their “purchase” will, on his theory, be spread over a wide space of time. It is well said by a contemporary that the policy advocated by the President recognises three distinct principles, which underlie the foundations of the social system of slavery, and which are necessary to be regarded in the ultimate removal of the institution: 1. That the relation of master and slave is a relation of ownership and property, for which compensation ought to be made. 2. That the people of the whole nation, North and South, either from having in common tolerated the system, which once existed by British law and under British protection throughout the land, or for other political reasons, may of right be called on to aid those who are pecuniarily interested in the system to remove or modify it, so as gradually to extinguish the quality of property now sanctioned by State law in the relation of master and slave. 3. That the several States are the proper and only powers to accept or reject emancipation plans. Such being the nature and effect of the proposition, it should be a matter of gratification to find that it has received such an unanimous approval at the hands of the ultra-anti-slavery journals equally with the more moderate organs of public opinion in the country. And it is so received with a cheerful recognition of its true character, and with very little disposition, so far as we can perceive, to bring it, by construction or misconstruction, into conformity with individual wishes or opinions. In illustration of this fact, we may cite the subjoined language of the New-York Tribune, a leading anti-slavery paper:
The Message ought, and we think will, unite all parties. The conservative, who abhors rash measures, and dreads innovation, will approve a measure which proposes to get rid of the cause of rebellion, to give the country permanent peace and not periodical panic, and to do this gradually and with as little injustice as is possible in so great a social revolution. The radical will not withhold his approbation from a proposal that
