In a message to Congress, President Abraham Lincoln recommended using federal bonds to compensate any state that voluntarily abolished slavery before the year 1900. This proposal was part of Lincoln’s broader effort to encourage gradual emancipation, especially in border states that had not yet seceded during the Civil War.
Although the plan was never widely adopted, it reflected Lincoln’s evolving stance on slavery and foreshadowed his issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation just one month later, on January 1, 1863.
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