But having made fast to what
he believed to be right, he would not, in panic, cast loose from it. In
the face of condemnation he was not seen to modify his course in order
to conciliate any portion of the people; but, on the contrary, in his
message he returned to his plan which had hitherto been so coldly
received, and again strenuously recommended appropriations for gradual,
compensated emancipation and colonization. The scheme had three especial
attractions for him: 1. It would be operative in those loyal States and
parts of States in which military emancipation would not take effect.
2. In its practical result it would do away with slavery by the year
1900, whereas military emancipation would now free a great number of
individuals, but would leave slavery, as an institution, untouched and
liable to be revived and reinvigorated later on. 3. It would make
emancipation come as a voluntary process, leaving a minimum of
resentment remaining in the minds of slaveholders, instead of being a
violent war measure never to be remembered without rebellious anger.
This last point was what chiefly moved him. He intensely desired to have
emancipation effected in such a way that good feeling between the two
sections might be a not distant condition; the humanity of his
temperament, his passion for reasonable dealing, his appreciation of the
mischief of sectional enmity in a republic, all conspired to establish
him unchangeably in favor of "compensated emancipation.
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