Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/633

 1865] Compensation proposed but rejected. 601 the Republicans favouring, the Democrats opposing, the proposal. Gradually the latter yielded to the logic of events ; and in the final vote, taken on January 31, 1865, a sufficient number of liberal men, among both the Democratic members and those representing the border Slave States, united with the Republicans in passing the Joint Resolution by the two-thirds majority required by the Constitu- tion. The formal ratification of the amendment by three-fourths of the States was begun by Illinois on the following day, February 1, and completed within the year; and on December 18, 1865, official proclamation was made that it had become valid as a part of the Constitution of the United States. On February 3, 1865, three days after the House of Repre- sentatives had passed the XHIth Amendment, President Lincoln and Secretary Seward, as elsewhere related, met the Confederate Commissioners at the Hampton Roads conference, in which the subject of emanci- pation was earnestly reviewed. The President repeated with emphasis that while he would never change or modify his proclamation, he had issued it only as a necessary war-measure to maintain the Union. He believed, however, that the people of the North were as responsible for slavery as the people of the South, and if the war should then cease with the voluntary abolition of slavery by the States, he individually should be in favour of the government paying the owners a fair indemnity for their loss ; and he added further that he believed this feeling was widely prevalent in the North. Immediately upon his return from the Hampton Roads conference to Washington, at a Cabinet Meeting held on February 5, the President submitted to his constitutional advisers a message addressed to Congress, recommending that that body should pass a joint reso- lution offering the Slave States a compensation of $400,000,000, upon condition that all rebellion should cease, before April 1, half the sum to be paid at that date, and the other half as soon as the XIHth Amendment should become valid constitutional law, by the ratification of the requisite number of States. The proposition was, however, disapproved by the whole Cabinet; and the President, in evident surprise and sorrow at the want of statesmanlike liberality shown by his executive council, folded and laid away the draft of his message. Notwithstanding the radical disagreement, his mind strongly retained the generous impulse. "How long will the war last?" he asked, and when no one replied he answered himself, "A hundred days. We are spending now in carrying on the war $3,000,000 a day, which will amount to all this money, besides all the lives." With a deep sigh he added, "But you are all opposed to me, and I will not send the message." It is fair to infer that, even after this, he still clung to the hope that an opportunity would arise when he might make some such good- will offering to the South. In his last public address, on the evening en. xviu.