Lincoln Proposes an Amendment to the Constitution regarding Slavery [1862]

"ARTICLE-.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of both houses concurring), That the following articles be proposed to the legislatures (or conventions) of the several States as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all or any of which articles when ratified by three fourths of the said legislatures (or conventions) to be valid as part or parts of the said Constitution, viz.:

"ARTICLE-.

"Every State wherein slavery now exists which shall abolish the same therein at any time or times before the first day of January in the year of our Lord one thousand and nine hundred, shall receive compensation from the United States as follows, to wit:

"The President of the United States shall deliver to every such State bonds of the United States, bearing interest at the rate of ____ per cent. per annum, to an amount equal to the aggregate sum of ____for each slave shown to have been therein by the eighth census of the United States, said bonds to be delivered to such State by installments, or in one parcel at the completion of the abolishment, accordingly as the same shall have been gradual or at one time within such State; and interest shall begin to run upon any such bond only from the proper time of its delivery as aforesaid. Any State having received bonds as aforesaid, and afterward reintroducing or tolerating slavery therein, shall refund to the United

"ARTICLE-.

 "All slaves who shall have enjoyed actual freedom by the chances of the war at any time before the end of the rebellion, shall be forever free; but all owners of such who shall not have been disloyal shall be compensated for them at the same rates as are provided for States adopting abolishment of slavery, but in such way that no slave shall be twice accounted for.

"Congress may appropriate money and otherwise provide for colonizing free colored persons, with their own consent, at any place or places without the United States."