And this is true, wherever a dividing or boundary line may be fixed.  Place it between the now free and slave country, or place it south of Kentucky or north of Ohio, and still the truth remains that none south of it can trade to any port or place north of it, and none north of it can trade to any port or place south of it, except upon terms dictated by a government foreign to them.  These outlets, east, west, and south, are indispensable to the well-being of the people inhabiting and to inhabit this vast interior region.  Which of the three may be the best is no proper question.  All are better than either, and all of right belong to that people and to their successors forever.  True to themselves, they will not ask where a line of separation shall be, but will vow rather that there shall be no such line.  Nor are the marginal regions less interested in these communications to and through them to the great outside world.  They, too, and each of them, must have access to this Egypt of the West without paying toll at the crossing of any national boundary.

Our national strife springs not from our permanent part; not from the land we inhabit:  not from our national homestead.  There is no possible severing of this but would multiply and not mitigate evils among us.  In all its adaptations and aptitudes it demands union and abhors separation.  In fact, it would ere long force reunion, however much of blood and treasure the separation might have cost.  Our strife pertains to ourselves—­to the passing generations of men—­and it can without convulsion be hushed forever with the passing of one generation.

In this view I recommend the adoption of the following resolution and articles amendatory to the Constitution of the United States:  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: 

Art.—.  Every State wherein slavery now exists which shall abolish the same therein at any time or times before the 1st day of January, A. D. 1900, 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 afterwards reintroducing or tolerating slavery therein shall refund to the United States the bonds so received, or the value thereof, and all interest paid thereon.