The Bedford gazette. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1805-current, 1862-03-21
MESSAGE .OF THE PRESIDENT.
WASHINGTON, March G


The President to-day Transmitted to Congress
the following message:
F'ellor-citizens of the Senate and House of
Representatives Il recommend the adoption of a
joint resolution by your honorable bodies, which
shall be substantially as follows:
Resot,ed, That the United States ought to CO.
operate with any State which may adopt grad
uaI adjustment of slavery, giving to such State
pecuniary aid to be used by such State in its
discretion to compensate for the inconvenience,
both public and dprivate, produced by such change
of system.
If the proposition contained in the resolu-
tion does not meet the approval of Congress and
the country, there is the end, but if it does COM
mand such approval. deem it of importance
that the State and people Immediately interested
should be at once distinctly notified of the fact,
so that they may begin to consider whether to
accept or reject it.
The Federal Government would find its
highest interest in such a measure as one of the
most efficient means of self-preservation. The
leaders of the existing nsurrection entertain the
hope that this Government will ultimately be
forced to acknowledge the independence of some
part of the disaffected region, and that all the
slave States north of such parts will then say,
the Union for which we have struggled beg
already gone, we now choose to 90 with the
Southern section. To deprive them of this
hope, substantially ends the rebellion, and the
initiation of emancipation completely deprives
them of it as to all States initiating 1.-THE
point is not that all the States toerating slavery
would very soon, if at all, initiate emancipation,
but that while the offer is equally made to all
the more Northern, shall, by such initiation,
make it certain to the more Southern that in no
event will the former ever join the latter in their
proposed Confederacy l say initiation because,
in my judgment, gradual and not sudden eman-
cipation is better for all.
In the mere financial or pecuniary view, any
member of Congress, with the census tables
and treasury reports before him, can readily see
for himself how very soon the current expendi-
lures Of this war would purchase, at fair valua-
proposition ON the part of the General Gov
ernmcnt sets up no claim of right by Federal
authority to interfere with slavery within State
limits, referring as it does, the absolute control
of the subject in each case to the State and its
people immediately interested. 1t is proposed
as matter of perfectly free choice with them.
| In the annual message of last December, l
thought fit to say, the Union must be preserved,
and hence all indispensable means must be en-
ployed. said this not hastily, but deliberately
War has been made, and continues to be an in
dspensable means to this end A practical re-
acknowledgment of the national authority would
render the war unnecessary, and it would at once
cease. If, however, resistance continues the
war must also continue, and it is impossible to
foresee all the incidents which may attend, and
all the ruin which may follow it.
Such as may seem Indispensable, or may OBJ,
viously promise great efficiency towards ending
the struggle must and will come-the PROPOSE
ton now made is an offer only / hope it may
be esteemed no offence to ask whether the pecu
MARY consideration rendered would not be o.
more value to the State and private persons
and property in it in the present aspect o
affairs.
While it is true that the adoption of the pro
posed resolution would be merely initiatory, ane
not within itself practical measure, it is rec
commended, in the hope that it would soon leat
to important practical results. In full view o
my great responsibility to my God and to m,
country, earnestly beg the attention of Con
gress and the people to the subject.
(Signed) ABRAHAM LINCOLN.