Amendment to the National Constitution recommended by President Lincoln in his Message to Congress of December I, 1862.
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled: 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 parts of the said Constitution, namely:
Article.—Every State wherein Slavery now exists, which shall abolish the same therein, at any time or times before the 1st day of January in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred, shall receive compensation from the United States as follows, to wit:
(Then follows a provision to issue bonds of the United States Government, which shall be delivered to the States in amounts sufficient to compensate the owners of slaves within their jurisdictions for the loss of their slave property.)
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 is provided for States adopting abolishment of slavery, but in such way that no slave shall be twice accounted for.
Article.—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.