Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the Third Session Thirty-seventh Congress

Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.

CIRCULAR.

Department of State, Washington, July 14, 1862.

Sir: I send you a copy of an important bill which the President this day submits to Congress, together with a copy of his message recommending the same. We trust that Congress may adopt the bill at once. But however that may be, there is no reasonable doubt that the policy involved cannot be long in winning the favor of the country, and in assuring the stability of the Union.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.

[Same to all the ministers of the United States in Europe.]

[Untitled]

[July 14, 1862].

Fellow-citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:

Herewith is the draft of a bill to compensate any State which may abolish slavery within its limits, the passage of which, substantially as presented, I respectfully and earnestly recommend.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

July 14, 1862.

Be it 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, it shall be the duty of the President, assisted by the Secretary of the Treasury, to prepare and deliver to such State an amount of six per cent, interest-bearing bonds of the United States, equal to the aggregate value, at $—per head, of all the slaves within such State, as reported by the census of the year 1860 ; the whole amount for any one State to be delivered at once if the abolishment be immediate, or in equal annual instalments if it be gradual; 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 reintroduce or tolerate slavery within its 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 whosesoever hands they may be, and such State shall refund to the United States all interest which may have been paid on such bonds.