information, or belief of an intention on the part of General Hunter to
issue such a proclamation, nor has it yet any authentic information that
the document is genuine; and, further, that neither General Hunter nor
any other commander or person has been authorized by the Government of
the United States to make proclamations declaring the slaves of any
State free, and that the supposed proclamation now in question, whether
genuine or false, is altogether void so far as respects such
declaration.

I further make known that whether it be competent for me, as Commander
in Chief of the Army and Navy, to declare the slaves of any State or
States free, and whether at any time, in any case, it shall have become
a necessity indispensable to the maintenance of the Government to
exercise such supposed power, are questions which, under my
responsibility, I reserve to myself, and which I can not feel justified
in leaving to the decision of commanders in the field. These are totally
different questions from those of police regulations in armies and
camps.

On the 6th day of March last, by a special message, I recommended to
Congress the adoption of a joint resolution to be substantially as
follows:

_Resolved_, That the United States ought to cooperate with any State
which may adopt a gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State
pecuniary aid, to be used by such State, in its discretion, to
compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such
change of system.

The resolution, in the language above quoted, was adopted by large