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Federal government and colonization of the freed negroes in Hayti, South America and Liberia; for he believed that the abolition of slavery by the slave States in the Union would make it difficult for the Southern Confederacy to maintain the contest much longer. Before Congress adjourned, he invited the senators and representatives of the Union border slave States to the White House [July 12] and asked them earnestly to influence their States to adopt his policy. “If the war continues long,” he said, “slavery in your States will be extinguished … by the mere incidents of the war. It will be gone and you will have nothing valuable in lieu of it. How much better for you and for your people to take the step which at once shortens the war and secures substantial compensation for that which is sure to be wholly lost in any other event!” He told them of the pressure upon him to interfere with slavery and of the dissatisfaction with him by the Radical supporters of the government, threatening “division among those who united are none too strong.” “Our common country is in great peril,” he continued; and as lofty views and bold action on their part would bring speedy relief, he begged them to emancipate their slaves. But Lincoln was unable to secure the assent of the border States to his plan. Bound up as was slavery with their social and political life, they could not understand that its doom was certain. 9 The lack of military success hampered the President in this as in all other action. It was a part of the plan that payment for the slaves should be made in United States six per cent bonds, and, though property in negroes had become admittedly precarious, the question must have suggested itself, in view of the enormous expenditure of the government, the recent military reverses and the present strength of the Confederacy, whether the nation’s promises

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