PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



721 



Done at the City of Washington this 19th day of 

 May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hun- 

 dred and sixty-two, and of the independence of the 

 United States the eighty-sixth. 



(Signed) ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



By the President : 



W. H. SBWAKD, Secretary of State. 



Appeal of President LINCOLN to the Border 

 States on Emancipation. 



The Representatives and Senators of the 

 Border Slaveholding States having, by special 

 invitation of the President, been convened at 

 the Executive Mansion on Saturday morning, 

 July 12, President LINCOLN addressed them as 

 follows from a written paper held in his hands : 



GENTLEMEN: After the adjournment of Congress, 

 now near, I shall have no opportunity of seeing you 

 for several months. Believing that you of the Border 

 States hold more power for good than any other equal 

 number of members, I feel it a duty wh'ich I cannot 

 justifiably waive to make this appeal to you. 



I intend no reproach or complaint when I assure 

 you that, in my opinion, if you all had voted for the 

 resolution in the gradual emancipation Message of last 

 March the war would now be substantially ended. 

 And the plan therein proposed is yet one of the most 

 potent and swift means of ending it. Let the States 

 which are in rebellion see definitely and certainly that 

 in no event will the States you represent ever join their 

 proposed Confederacy, and they cannot much longer 

 maintain the contest. But you cannot divest them of 

 their hope to ultimately have ybu with them so long 

 as you show a determination to perpetuate the insti- 

 tution within your own States. Beat them at elec- 

 tions, as you have overwhelmingly done, and, nothing 

 daunted, they still claim you as their own. You and I 

 know what the lever of "their power is. Break that 

 lever before their faces, and they can shake you no 

 more forever. 



Most of you have treated me with kindness and con- 

 sideration," and I trust you will not now think I im- 

 properly touch what is exclusively your own, when, 

 for the sake of the whole country, I ask, Can you, for 

 your States, do better than to take the course I urge ? 

 Discarding punctilio and maxims adapted to more 

 manageable times, and looking only to the unpreced- 

 entedly stern facts of our case, can you do better in 

 any possible event? You prefer that the constitution- 

 al relation of the States to the nation shall be practical- 

 ly restored without disturbance of the institution : and 

 if this were done, my whole duty, in this respect, 

 under the Constitution and my oath of office, would be 

 performed. But it is not done, and we are trying to 

 accomplish it by war. The incidents of the war can- 

 not be avoided. If the war continues long, as it must 

 if the object be not sooner attained, the institution in 

 your States will be extinguished by mere friction and 

 abrasion by the mere incidents of the war. It will be 

 gone, and you will have nothing valuable in lieu of it. 

 Much of its value is gone already. How much better 

 for vou and for vour people to take the step which at 

 once shortens the war, and secures substantial com- 

 pensation for that which is sure to be wholly lost in 

 any other event ! How much better to thus save the 

 money which else we sink forever in the war ! How 

 much" better to do it while we can, lest the war ere 

 long render us pecuniarily unable to do it! How 

 much better for you, as seller, and the nation, as buy- 

 er, to sell out and buy out that without which the war 

 could never have been, than to sink both the thing to 

 be sold and the price of it in cutting one another's 

 throats ! 



I do not speak of emancipation at once, but of_a 

 decision at once to emancipate gradually. Boom in 

 South America for colonization can be obtained cheap- 

 ly, aud in abundance, and when numbers shall be 

 VOL, II.-46 



large enough to be company and encouragement for 

 one another, the freed people will not be so reluctant 

 to go. 



I am pressed with a difficulty not vet mentioned 

 one which threatens division among tnoae who, united, 

 are none too strong. An instance of it is known to 

 you. Gen. Hunter is an honest man. He was, and I 

 hope still is, my friend. I valued him none the less 

 for his agreeing with me in the general wish that all 

 men everywhere could be free. He proclaimed all 

 men free within certain States, and I repudiated the 

 proclamation. He expected more good aud less harm 

 from the measure than I could believe would follow. 

 Yet, in repudiating it, I gave dissatisfaction, if not 

 offence, to many whose support the country cannot 

 afford to lose. And this is not the end of it. The 

 pressure in this direction is still upon me and is in- 

 creasing. Bv conceding what I now ask you can re- 

 lieve me, and, much more, can relieve the country in 

 this important point. 



Upon these considerations I have again begged your 

 attention to the Message of March last. Before leaving 

 the Capitol, consider and discuss it among yourselves. 

 You are patriots and statesmen, and as such I pray 

 you consider this proposition ; and at the least com- 

 mend it to the consideration of your States and people. 

 As you would perpetuate popular government for the 

 best people in the world, I beseech you that you do in 

 no wise omit this. Our common country is in great 

 peril, demanding the loftiest views and boldest action 

 to bring a speedy relief. Once relieved, its form of 

 government is saved to the world ; its beloved history 

 and cherished memories are vindicated, and its happy 

 future fully assured and rendered inconceivably grand. 

 To you, more than to any others, the privilege is given 

 to assure that happiness and swell that grandeur, and 

 to link your own names therewith forever. 



At the conclusion of these remarks some 

 conversation was had between the President 

 and several members of the delegations from 

 the Border States, in which it was represented 

 that these States could not be expected to 

 move in so great a matter as that brought to 

 their notice in the foregoing address while as 

 yet the Congress had taken no step beyond the 

 passage of a resolution, expressive rather of a 

 sentiment than presenting a substantial and 

 reliable basis of action. 



The President acknowledged the force of 

 this view, and admitted that the Border States 

 were entitled to expect a substantial pledge of 

 pecuniary aid as the condition of taking into 

 consideration a proposition so important in its 

 relations to their social system. 



It was further represented, in the confer- 

 ence, that the people of the Border States were 

 interested in knowing the great importance 

 which the President attached to the policy in 

 question, while it was equally due to the conn- 

 try, to the President, and to themselves that 

 the representatives of the Border Slaveholding 

 States should publicly announce the motives 

 under which they were called to act and the 

 considerations of public policy urged upon them 

 and their constituents by the President. 



With a view to such a statement of their 

 position, the members thus addressed, met in 

 council to deliberate on the reply they should 

 make to the President, and, as the result 

 comparison of opinions among themselves, they 

 determined upon the adoption of a majority 

 and a minority answer. 



