Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 4.
Frank Moore, Ed.

Should Congress adopt this resolution, it will proclaim a policy, and assume a duty, but the means and mode of its execution,will be left open to deliberation. We do not gather from the President's words, that it is a part of his plan that the Federal Government should assume the burden of the compensation, to be paid to slave-owners on the emancipation of their slaves, but rather the Federal Government should cooperate for that purpose with the government of the States. The President intimates gently, but plainly, that the slave-owners of the Border States may fare worse if they refuse his proposition. The war has been, and will be, one for the preservation of the Union; but it is impossible to carry war into a slave State, without depreciating property in slaves. When the masters are in trouble, the blacks run away, or become unprofitable from the interruption of industry.

Such is the fair, moderate and magnanimous policy of the Government of the United States, in the hour of success. And what are the leaders of secession doing? In the face of Mr. Davis's admission, that the Confederacy attempted more than it could carry out when it undertook to force secession on the Border States, it has passed a resolution declaring “that the honor of the government imperatively demands that the existing war be prosecuted until the enemy shall have been expelled from every foot of soil within each and every one of the confederate States; and no proposition of peace shall be considered, which contemplates, however remotely, the relinquishment, by this government, of any portion of any of the States of the Confederacy.” Mr. Lincoln's Message, and the resolution of the confederate Senate, aptly distinguish the character and circumstances of the two governments.