He believed that Congress had power under the Constitution to regulate all affairs in the Territories and the District of Columbia, and, after consulting with several of the leading citizens of Washington, he introduced a bill for the gradual abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. The first two sections prohibit the introduction of slaves within the limits of the District or the selling of them out of it, exception being made to the servants of officials of the government from the slave-holding States. The third section provides for the apprenticeship and gradual emancipation of children born of slave mothers after January 1, 1850. The fourth provides full compensation for all slaves voluntarily made free by their owners. The fifth recognizes the fugitive-slave law, and the sixth submits the proposition to a popular vote, and provides that it shall not go into force until ratified by a majority of the voters of the District. This bill met with more violent opposition from other parts of the country than from the slave-holders who were directly affected. The people of the South feared that it might serve as a precedent for similar actions in other parts of the country and stimulate the antislavery sentiment of the North. On the other hand, the abolitionists, with that unreasonable spirit which usually governs men of radical views, condemned the measure as a compromise with wrong, and declared that they would never permit money from the public treasury to be expended for the purchase of human beings. No action was taken in Congress. The bill was referred to the appropriate committee and was stuffed into a pigeonhole, where it was never disturbed; but it is a remarkable coincidence that less than fifteen years later it was Lincoln's privilege to approve an act of Congress for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. It is interesting to watch the development of Lincoln's views on the slavery question, as revealed by his public utterances and private letters during the great struggle between 1850 and 1860, until the people of the republic named him as umpire to decide the greatest question that ever engaged the moral and intellectual attention of a people. Here and there appear curious phrases, startling predictions, vivid epigrams, and unanswerable arguments. For example, in 1855 he declared that "the autocrat of all the Russias will resign his crown and proclaim free republicans sooner than will our American masters voluntarily give up their slaves." A reference to the dates will show that Alexander II., by imperial decree, emancipated the serfs of Russia almost upon the same day, at the same hour, that the Southern States began the greatest war of modern times to protect and extend the institution of slavery.