this hope substantially ends the rebellion; and the initiation of Emancipation completely deprives them of it as to all the States initiating it.  The point is that ... the more northern [States] 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.  I say ‘initiation,’ because in my judgment gradual and not sudden emancipation 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 expenditures of this war would purchase, at fair valuation, all the slaves in any named State.”

The second paragraph hinted at that which it would have been poor tact to state plainly,—­the reasons which would press the Border States to accept the opportunity extended to them.  “If 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 obviously promise great efficiency toward ending the struggle, must and will come.  The proposition now made, though an offer only, I hope it may be esteemed no offense to ask whether the pecuniary consideration tendered would not be of more value to the States and private persons concerned than are the institution and property in it, in the present aspect of affairs.”  The suggestion, between the lines, to the border slave-owners could not be misunderstood:  that they would do better to sell their slaves now than to be deprived of them later.  The President’s proposition was not cordially received.  Pro-slavery men regarded it as an underhand movement against the institution.  Mr. Crittenden expressed confidence in the President personally, but feared that the resolution “would stir up an emancipation party” in the loyal slave States.  Thus the truth was made plain that emancipation, by any process, was not desired.  In a debate upon a cognate measure, another Kentuckian said that there was “no division of sentiment on this question of emancipation, whether it is to be brought about by force, by fraud, or by purchase of slaves out of the public treasury.”  Democrats from Northern States, natural allies of the border-state men, protested vehemently against taxing their constituents to buy slave property in other States.  Many Republicans also joined the Democracy against Mr. Lincoln, and spoke even with anger and insult.  Thaddeus Stevens, the fierce and formidable leader of the Radicals, gave his voice against “the most diluted milk-and-water gruel proposition that had ever been given to the American nation.”  Hickman of Pennsylvania, until 1860 a Democrat, but now a Republican, with the characteristic vehemence of a proselyte said:  “Neither the message nor the resolution is manly and open.  They are both covert and insidious.  They do not become the dignity of the President of the United States.