Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/619

1862] The Slave States rqject compensation. 587 While the joint resolution merely pledged the government to a policy, not only the two-thirds vote, by which it was passed, but further manifestations also showed the willingness of Congress to carry out that policy in practical legislation. A joint resolution was introduced in the Senate to grant aid to the States of Maryland and Delaware ; and in the House a select committee on emancipation was appointed, which reported a comprehensive bill authorising the President to give com- pensation at the rate of $300 for each slave, to any one of the States of Delaware, Maryland,- Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, that might adopt immediate or gradual emancipation. This was as far as the House could go until a response came from the States ; and no such response followed. In the next session indeed, a bill appropriating $15,000,000 to aid emancipation in the State of Missouri was agreed upon, and carried well-nigh through all the stages of legislative enact- ment in both houses. But it finally failed, partly through the press of business in the last days of the session, and partly through the unyielding opposition of three strongly pro-slavery Missouri represen- tatives, aided by the obstructive parliamentary tactics of the Democratic minority. While the loss of property value in slaves in the Confederate States was a just punishment for their rebellion, the final loss of property value in slaves in the loyal Slave States is fairly chargeable to the stubborn conservatism of their people and their statesmen, which refused to accept the compensation so generously and sincerely offered them by President Lincoln and Congress. One practical measure of relief, however, resulted from the President's plan. In the District of Columbia, though the domestic slave-trade had been abolished, slavery still existed. The subject had formed a bone of contention throughout nearly the whole history of the government. While liberal men urged the removal of this stain from the Federal capital, pro-slavery partisans had clung to its retention with stubborn tenacity, more as an argument than as a practical advantage. The changes wrought by the war, however, left it neither excuse nor defender. Congress passed, and on April 16, 1862, the President signed an Act for the immediate emancipation of slaves in the District of Columbia, with compensation to owners at the rate of $300 per slave. Mr Lincoln thus had the satisfaction of assisting in the consummation of a reform for which he had introduced a bill in the House of Representatives when a member of that body in 1849. While President Lincoln was thus energetically pushing his policy of compensated abolition, the subject of military emancipation was once more brought sharply into official and popular discussion. On May 9, 1862, Major-General Hunter issued an order reciting that the Department of the South, which he commanded, was under martial law, adding: "Slavery and martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible. The persons in these three States, Georgia, Florida, and CH. XVIII.