of the Union under the laws thereof, be and the same are hereby taken by the Government of the United States.  And the said claims are hereby abrogated and annulled.  And all persons of African descent within the United States, who shall, on the said ——­ day of ——­ next, be held to involuntary service or labor, except for crime of which the party shall have been legally convicted, shall be released and emancipated from such claims in as full and complete a manner as if the same had never existed; the said release and emancipation to take effect from and after the said ——­ day of ——­, thenceforth and forevermore.

And be it further enacted, that the faith of the United States be and the same is hereby pledged for the payment of just compensation to all persons who shall, on the said ——­ day of ——­, hold such claims to service or labor; provided, that such persons shall make application for such compensation in the form and manner hereinafter prescribed, and provided further, that said persons shall have been, throughout the present insurrection, and shall continue to the close of the same, true and loyal to the Government of the United States, and shall not, directly or indirectly, have incited to insurrectionary acts, or given aid or comfort to any persons engaged in the insurrection aforesaid.

    [Here should follow provisions in regard to the manner of
    application, the mode and rate of compensation, etc.]

It will probably be found that the number of slaves for the remuneration of whose lost services applications will be made by loyal claimants, under such an act, will scarcely reach the number emancipated in 1834 by Great Britain, which was about seven hundred and seventy thousand; and that the sum paid by England to colonial slave-owners, namely about a hundred millions of dollars, (the probable cost of eight weeks war,) will suffice as just compensation for all the services due to loyal claimants thus taken and cancelled.[10]

    [Footnote 10:  The exact number of slaves emancipated in the British
    colonies was 770,390; and the total amount of indemnity was
    L19,950,066 sterling.]

An act couched in the terms here proposed could not be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, without a shameless encroachment on legislative ground, nor without a reckless reversal of principles as well established, and of as high authority, as any which form the basis of constitutional law.

Those who demur to the passage of an act which meets the great difficulty before us broadly, effectually, honestly, and in accordance with the dictates of Christianity and civilization, would do well to consider whether, in the progress of this insurrectionary upheaval, we have not reached a point at which there is no prudent alternative left.  By the President’s Proclamation some three millions of slaves have been already declared free.  Sundry laws of Congress have emancipated