The age-herald., 1901-04-07
Q the Editor of the Age-Herald.

To the Editor of the Age-Herald.
 notice from the press dispatches of your issue of today that the Hon. John IL Reagan of Texas takes the position that MT. Lincoln did not propose to pur- chase or pay for slaves. in conference held at Hampton Roads on February 3, 1865. between President Lincoln and Sec retary Seward, as representatives of the United States, and Messrs. Alexander H. Stevens. R. M T. Hunter and John A. Campbell, representing the Confectionery.
 I do not care to get into a controversy with the Hon. MT. Reagan, or any one else, on this question, but desire to sub- init for the consideration of the curious a brief statement of the facts as I gather them from public documents
 On March 6, 1862, MT. Lincoln recom- mended to the Senate and House of Rep resentatives the adoption of the following resolution:
 Resolved, That the United States ought to cooperate with any State which may adopt gradual obolishment of slav- cry, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State, in It's discretion to compensate for the inconvenience, pub lie and private, produced by such change of system"
 And on July 14, 1862. Mir. Lincoln sub mitted to the Senate and House of Rep resentatives the following bill which he respectfully and earnestly recommended the said Senate and House to pass:
 "Be 1t enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That whenever the President of the United States shall be satisfied that any State shall have lawfully abolished slavery within and throughout such State either immediately or gradually, 1t shall be the duty of the President, assisted by the Secretary of the Treasury, to prepare and deliver to such State an amount of per cent. interest-bearing bonds of the United States equal to the aggregate value at S- per head of all the slaves within such State as reported by the oen- sus of the year 1880; the whole amount for any one State to be delivered at once if the abofishment be immediate or In equal annual miscellaneous if it be grad ual. interest to begin running on each bond at the time of its delivery, and not before
 And be it further enacted, That if any State, having so received any such bonds, shall at any time afterwards by law re- introduce or tolerate slavery within it's limits contrary to the act of abolishment upon which such bonds shall have been received said bonds so received by said State shall at once be null and void, in whatsoever hands they may be, and such State shall refund to the United States all interest which may have been paid on such bonds"
 And in his second annual message of December 1. 1862, he recommended that the Constitution be amended as follows:
 Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled two thirds of both Houses concurring), That the following articles be proposed to the legislatures Cor conventional of the sew eral States as amendments to the Consti- tuition of the United States, all or any of which articles, when ratified by three- fourths of the said legislatures Cor con- ventions). to be valid as part or parts of the said Constitution, viz:
 7" Art-Every State wherein slavery now exists which shall abolish the same therein at any time or times before the 1st day of January, A. D. 1900. shall re- ceive compensation from the United States, as follows, towit:
 ''The President of the United States shall deliver to every such State bonds