President Lincoln suggests to Congress ways gradually to end slavery in the United States

President Lincoln sent a message to Congress that recommended a joint resolution on the thorny question of ending slavery. He wrote that the federal government "ought to cooperate with any State which may adopt a gradual abolishment of slavery" and suggested economic aid to any such state "to compensate for the inconvenience, public and private, produced by such change of system."  The Congress passed a joint resolution embracing the method but the plan met with little enthusiasm in the slave states.  (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
Frank Moore, ed., The Rebellion Record: A Diary of American Events, with Documents, Narratives, Illustrative Incidents, Poetry, Etc. (New York: G.P. Putnam, 1862), IV: 51.
 
 
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