Abraham Lincoln to Henry J. Raymond

Transcript: "Private, Executive Mansion Washington, March 9, 1862. Hon. Henry F. Raymond: My Dear Sir: I am grateful to the New York Journals, and not less so to the Times than to others, for their kind notices of the late special message to Congress. Your paper, however, intimates that the proposition, though well-intentioned, must fail on the score of expense. I do hope you will reconsider this. Have you noticed the facts, that less than one half day's cost of this war would pay for all the slaves in Delaware, at four hundred dollars per head? - that eighty-seven days' cost of this war would pay for all in Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Kentucky and Missouri at the same price? Were those states to take the step, do you doubt that it would shorten the war more than eighty-seven days and thus be an actual saving of expense? Please look at these things and consider whether there should not be another article in the Times. Yours very truly, A. Lincoln."