He now recommended a measure in the line of his conservative policy, to which he attached great weight, and from which he anticipated important consequences.
On the 6th of March, 1862, the President sent a message to Congress recommending the adoption of a joint resolution declaring that "the United States ought to co-operate with any State which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to each State pecuniary aid to be used in its discretion to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system." Mr.Lincoln believed that if the leaders of the existing Rebellion could conquer their independence, the Border slave States would necessarily join them from sympathy with their institutions.

By the initiation of emancipation all possible desire or tendency in that direction would be removed, and thus a severe blow be given to the Rebellion.
He believed in compensation to the slave-holder, and expressed his opinion that "gradual and not sudden emancipation is better for all." He asked Congress to consider "how very soon the current expenses of the war would purchase at a fair valuation all the slaves in any named State." When the message reached the House it was referred to the Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union.

Four days later Mr.Roscoe Conkling moved to suspend the rules in order to bring the resolution before the House "in the exact form in which the President had recommended it." The motion prevailed by 86 to 35.

Francis P.
Blair of Missouri and the representatives from West Virginia were the only Border State men who voted to suspend the rules.

Mr.
Conkling thought an immediate vote might be taken because he presumed "every member had made up his mind on the question involved." But the Kentucky delegation desired time for consultation.