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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: spent the day after his return in drawing up a new proposal
designed as a peace offering to the States in rebellion. On the
evening of February 5 he read this to his cabinet. It offered the
southern States $400,000,000 or a sum equal to the cost of war
for two hundred days, on condition that all fighting cease by the
first of April, 1865. He proved more liberal than any of his
advisers; and with the words, "You are all against me," sadly
uttered, the President folded up the paper, and ended the
discussion.
* Mr. Lincoln had freed the slaves two years before as a military
necessity, and as such it had been accepted by all. Yet a
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