Year: 1862

The suggestions of the President in his recent
message in favor of the General Government ex-
tending pecuniary aid TO those States which may
adopt the policy of gradual emancipation. to COM
pensate them for the public and private incon-
venience attending upon such change Of system,
are considered by the leading organs of public
sentiment from entirely different stand points and
with widely different conclusions. The New
York Tribune, the organ of the radical RepubIi-
cans, halls it as "The message of freedom. =
One of those few great scriptures that live in his
tory and make an epoch in the lives of nations
and races" 1t thus interprets the suggestions OF
the President:


He sees that, however often rebellion may be
suppressed at the South, it will never be ended so
long as slavery has an assured existence. The
continuation of slavery permanent institu-
ton on which no inrUad has been made IS the
continuation of the war, for resistance to the
Federal Government must be permanently sup
pressed. and resistance brings war Whatever is
indispensable to this end must be done. and slave
~. therefore, must fall either in one way or the
other Let the slav eholders begin the reform and
we will give them our hearty aid; if they VIII not,
then we must do il without them as a necessary
I
peace and the supremacy of the Union, for slave
ry is rebellion. The South has the choice of be-
ginning the work with the help of the whole
country, and the system thus to be left to gradu-
ally disappear from natural but inevitable causes;
or she may refuse and resent the offer and take
the consequences OF continued resistance. This
is clearly Mr.. Lincoln's meaning, and his convic-
tons are OF character that do not proclaim
themselves merely in words. Taking no counsel
Il. a l. Il.
| ing his responsibility as the head of great ma
ton whose very existence is threatened. he goes
straight to the root of the disease, when he sees
the time has come, and determines upon its Grad
ication.


The New York Herald regards the proposition
of the President $50 simple, just, so profound
and comprehensive that we msy pronounce it as
reaching the final solution and settlement of the
most perpexing difficulty in our political system.
Ii regards it as conservative measure. in direct
conflict with the fanatical, uuwise and dangerous
schemes of the Abolitonists. 1t thus interprets
the Presidents policy:


Mr.. Lincoln reafirms the Institution of slavery
as a local matter absolutely under State control,
and pointedly rebukes all such violent and law
less schemes of emancipation and confscation as
those of Senator Sumner, Mr., Ashley, of Ohio,
and their radical abolition associates. With this
rebellion tightly within his grasp. Mr.. Lincoln
proclsims to the revolted States that, in returning
to the Union, their constitutional rights, as they
were, will be retained, and that each State con-
cerned will be left perfectly free to choose be
tween the retention and the gradual abolition of
slavery. This official declaration ofitself cannot
fail TO exert wholesome influence in favor of
peace throughout the South and. If seconded by
Congress, il will leave the intractable mana gers
of this rebellion without pretext of justification
among honest men at home and abroad.


The New York Journal Of Commerce the rep
resentative of another class OF public sentiment,
says:


Mr.. Lincoln does not propose any plan for re-
moving slavery. BE adopts the views of Wash
ington and his contemporaries, for which We have
so often and so laborously contended against
much obIoquy and reproach, and the principles
on which the Constitution was founded, and ex
presses his conviction, that whatever plan be
adopted, gradual emancipation would he better
than immediate abolition. Good men. from the
earliest days, have desired to see some plan for
the removal of the slave system, and the subst-
tuition OF another labor system in its place; and
their desires would long ago have been accom-
plished in several States now known as slave
States, but Tor the interference of the radical abo
lition schemes, which eifectually blocked all the
advance of free labor plans in Maryland, Virgi-
MIA and other States.


Quo:ing the resolution that the President die
tates to Congress for adoption, that paper places