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'■^

if.. ■; an:

GREAT DEBATES IN
AMERICAN HISTORY

From the Debates in the British Parliament on the

Colonial Stamp Act (1764-1765) to the Debates

in Congress at the Close of the Taft

Administration (1912-1913)

• • • • • •

• ••••• • •

• •• •• •_•

••• • • • •

•• • • • ••

• ,« •• •• ••

• •••«• ••

• ••••••

EDITED BT

MARION MILLS MILLER, Litt.D. (Princeton)

Editor of "The Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln," etc.

• •••

•• • .

• • ••

• • • • •

• • •

IN FOURTEEN VOLUMES

^ EACH DEALING WITH A BPECIFIC SUBJECT, AND CONTAINING A SPECIAL INTRODUC-
TION BT A DISTINGUISHED AMERICAN STATESMAN OR PUBLICIST

VOLUME SIX

TuK Civil AVaic

With an Introduction by Hknry Wattkrson, LL.I).
Editor of the Louisvilh; (Ky.) Courier Journal

CURRENT LITERATURE PUBLISHING COMPANY

^ NEW YORK

• •

• • • •

• ••• •

> • • •

•• • •• «

•• •• • ,

• • ••• *

■ •

• • •

• •

,•••: •

•.: .*. •.:•..::

• •••• •• .

• • • • • •

• • r •

filL I- - -^ » uUK

rij:;!.:ci.;i:r{ARY

COPTRIOHT, 1918, BT

CURRENT UTERATURE PUBLISHING COMPANY

Pren of J. J. Little ft Ives Co., New York

CONTENTS OF VOLUME SIX

nrrBODUCnON: lineoln, the Ineamatioii of the Uidoii \ : -•' -. .1;

Bjr HiNET WATTB80N : •/ r

u «

L "THE UNION IS PERPETUAL" (Ltnooln'f First JiMif:

gwai and the Debate Thereon) ."9

Speechaa of Prendent-eleet Arraita^ Lincoln en route to ^. :'»

Inauguration. t :'"^:

Hia First Inaugural Address: "The Chorus of the Union.''^'
Debate in the Senate on the Inaugural: friendly interpretation

1^ Stephen A. Douglas (Dl).; hostile^ by Thomas L.

GuNGiCAN (N. C), Louis T. Wiofall (Tex.), James M.

Mason (Vs.).

n. THE BIGHT OF SECESSION 38

Speech of Senator James A. Bataed, Je. (Del.)^ on "The

Bight of Secession, and the Propriety of Becognidng the

Southern Confederacy."
President Lincoln's virtual reply to the same in his First

Message to Congress: "The Sophistry of Secession.

• • ••,

• • • •

- a »

UL THE WAB-MAKING POWEB: DOES IT LIE IN THE

PBESIDENT OB CONGBESSf 68

Debate in the House on "Constitutionality of the President's
Military Acts": in favor, William S. Holman (Ind.); op-
posed, Clement L. Vallandigham (O.).

Debate on the same in the Senate: in favor, Edwaed D. Bakeb
(Ore.), Kinsley S. Bingham (Mich.), Henet S. Lane
(Ind.); opposed, John C. Bbbckinbidge (Ky.).

Debate on the Trumbull Bill to suppress insurrection (on war-
making by Congress) : in favor, Ltman Teumbull (HI.),
Senator Bakeb; opposed, James A. Bataed, Je. (Del.), Wil-
liam P. Fessenden ^Me.), Senator Bebcxineidge, Jaoob

COLLAMEB (Vt.).

IV. MILITABY EMANCIPATION 119

Debate in the Senate on Bill to Punish Army Officers for Be-
tum of Fugitive Slaves: in favor, Jacob Oollameb (Vt.),
Henby Wilson (Mass.); amendment to punish officers for
enticing slaves to run away, supported by Willaed Sauls-
BUBT (Del.) and James A. Peaece (Md.).
Debate on the Bill in the House: in favor, Feancis P. Blaie,
Je. (Mo.), John A. Bingham (O.) ; opposed, Bobebt Mal-
LOBT (Ky.), Chablbs a. Wicklhtb (Ky.), Henet Geidbe

(Ky.).

• • •

iT GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

• • • • • •

• •• : . • * •*

• ••••••

• • • • • •

V. ABOLITION OP SLAVEBY IN THE DI8TBICT OP

COIiUlffllA 131

Debate in the Senate on the subject: in favor, Hsnby Wilson
(Mass.) John P. Hals (N. H.)) Jambs Hablan (Ia.)y
Ghablbs Sumner (Mass.) ; opposed, Gabbett Davis (Kj.),
Waitman T. Willey (W. Va.), Anthony Kennedy (McLJ^
Willabd Saulsbuey (Del).

VI. COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION 163

President Linooln's conference with Border State Delegates.

\ ^ ; <iDeba.te in the House on the Conkling Bill for Compensated

*»** *:feitancipation: in favor, BoscoE Conkling (N. Y.)y John

***'A.*BiNaHAM (O.), Alezandeb S. Diven (N. Y.)y Abbaham

• J: ••!: ^- ^^N (N. Y.), Owen Lovejoy (I11.)> Thaddeus Stevens

-•*':• :*••**. * (Pa>)9 John Hickman (Pa.); opposed, William A. Righ-

".'•■• •. ••.••:. msDBON (HI.), Chables A. WicKUFFE (Ky.), Daniel W.

V /*:/•*• /:;**: -Voobhees (Ind.), John J. Cbittenden (Ky.).

* * * iJebate in the Senate on the Bill : in favor. Lot M. Mobbill
(Me.), John B. Hendebson (Mo.), John Shebman (O.);
opposed, Willabd Saulsbuby (Del), James A. McDougall
(Cal.), LiAZABUs W. Powell (Ky.).
Debate in the House on the Abolition of Slavery in the Terri-
tories: in favor, Isaac N. Abnold (HI.), Owen Lovejoy
(HI.); opposed, Samuel S. Cox (O.), John W. Cbisfield
(Md.). Benjamin F. Thomas (Mass.) secures amendment
to compensate slave owners.
President Lincoln's Appeal to the Border States to accept
Compensated Emancipation.

» Vn. PUNISHMENT OF TREASON 191

I , ^v#vSt^' Debate in the Senate on Confiscation of Property of Rebels:

in favor, Lyman Tbumbull (111.) ; opposed, Edgab Cowan

(Pa.), James R. Doolittle (Wis.).
Debate in the House on the same: in favor, Thomas D. Euot

(Mass.); opposed, Benjamin F. Thomas (Mass.), Samuel

S. Cox (O.), John Law (Ind.).

Vni. EMANCIPATION 211

L Addresses of President Lincoln on Emancipation.

f- Speech of Representative William A. Richabdson (El.)

against the Emancipation Proclamation: "Enslaving the

Whites to Free the Blacks."

IX. NEGRO SOLDIERS 230

Debate in the House on enlisting negro troops in the Civil

War: in favor, Thaddeus Stevens (Pa.), John Hickman

(Pa.), Thomas M. Edwabds (N. H.), Alexandeb S. Diven

(N. Y.); opposed, John J. C^ttenden (Ky.), Samuel S.

^ • Cox (O.).

X. "THE WAR IB A FAILURE" 255

Debate in the Hous^ on the subject : in favor of the declara-
tion, Clement L. Vallandioham (O.); opposed, John A.
Bingham (O.).

CONTENTS OF VOLUME SIX

Gettysburg Speech of President Linooln: "These Dead ShaD

Not Have Died in Vain.''
Second Inaugural Address of President Lincoln: ''The Al-

mightj Has His Purposes."

CONSCRIPTION 880

Debate in the House on the Bill to Draft Soldiers: in favor,
William M. Davis (Pa.), Jambs H. Campbell (Pa.), John
'A. Bingham (O.) ; opposed, Chamjbs J. Biddlb (Pa.), Chui-
TON A. Whitk (O.), Clement L. Vallandiqham (O.),
James C. Robinson (HI.), Samuel S. Cox (O.), Danul

W. VOOBHEES (Ind.).

Xn. CIVIL VS. MILITARY AUTHORITY 317

Controversy between President Lincoln and Governor Hobatio

Seymoub (N. Y.) on the Constitutionality of the Draft.
Controversy between President Lincoln and Committee of

Ohio Democrats on Military Arrest of Clement L. Val-

LANDIGHAM.

Speeches of Fbanklin Piebcb (N. H.) and Oovemor Sbtmoub

against Military Arrests.
Address of President Lincoln justifying his acts.
Controversy between President Lincoln and Mayor IIbbnando

Wood (New York City) on Peace Proposals to the South.

Xni. "BAYONETS AT THE P0LI8" 336

Debate in the Senate on Military Interference at Elections: in
favor, Jacob M. Howabd (Mich.), James Hablan (la.);
opposed, Lazabus W. Powell (Ky.), Jambs A. MoDouoall
(Cal.), Revebdt Johnson (Md.).

ZIV. THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT (ComtituHonal Aholi-

tion of SUwery) 362

Debate in the Senate on the Constitutional Abolition of Slav-
ery: in favor, Lyman Tbumbull (111.), Henbt Wilson
(Mass.), Daniel Clabk (N. H.), Timothy O. Howe (Wis.),
Rbvebdy Johnson (Md.), John P. Hale (N. H.), Chableb
SuMNEB (Mass.) ; opposed, Gabbett Davis (Ky.), Willabd
Savlbbuby (Del), Jambs A. MoDouoau< (C!aL).

■I

ILLUSTBATIONS IN VOLUME SIX

VACS

of the Emancipation Proclamation . Thmlifpiies

Photogravare

Lincoln and Seward Banning the Union Engine 15

Colombia Demands Her Children [of Lincoln] ... 19
'^Domestic Troubles*' 23

[Mother Union and Her Runaway Ghicka]

The Battle of Booneville, or the Great Missouri Lyon

Hunt 58

The American Eagle Scotching the Snake of Secession 63

**We Want Peace*' 69

Garieature of Horace Greeley and Benjamin Wood

The Promissory Note 74

"I Promise to Subdue the South in Twenty Days— A. IM-
coin"

Opponents of the "Unnatural and Fratricidal War'' 95

[Satire on Breckinridge's Petition]

John J. Crittenden 102

Photogravure

"Contrabands" 120

[An envelope cut during the Givfl War]

What the Thirty-seventh Congress Has Done . . . 193

[Ckmilscation Act and Bankrupt Act]

Lincoln Crossing Niagara 214

"The True Issue" 228

[MeClellan stopping the division of the country by Lincoln
and Davis]

"O Massa Jeff, Dis Secesh Fever Will EiU De Nigger!" 248
Jefferson Davis 250

Photogravure

Little Mac in His Great Two-Horse Act, in the Presidential

Canvass of 1864 278

Copperheads Worshiping Their Idol 313

Southern Volunteers . 315

"Bayonets at the Polls" 343

INTEODUCTION

Lincoln, the Incabnation of the Union ^

THE war of sections, inevitable to the conflict of sys-
tems but long delayed by the compromises of pa-
triotism, did two things which surpass in impor-
tance and value all other things : it confirmed the Federal
Union as a nation, and it brought the American people to
the fruition of their manhood. Before that war we were
a huddle of petty sovereignties held together by a rope of
sand ; we were as a conmaunity of children playing at gov-
ernment. Hamilton felt it, Marshall feared it. Clay ig-
nored it, Webster evaded it. Their passionate clinging to
the Constitution and the flag, bond and symbol of an im-
perfect if not tentative compact, confessed it. They were
the intellectual progenitors of Abraham Lincoln. He
became the incarnation of the brain and soul of the
Union. *'My paramount object,*' said he, *4s to save
the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery. If ^
I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I .■
would do it; if I could save it by freeing all the slaves,
I would do it ; and if I could do it by freeing some and
leaving others alone, I would do thaf

In the sense of security which his travail and mar-
tyrdom achieved for us we are apt to forget that it was
not a localized labor system but institutional freedom
which was at stake ; that African slavery was the merest

I Adapted from an article in the Cosmopolitan, March, 1909c

2 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

relic of a semi-barbarism shared in the beginning by all
the people, but at length driven by certain laws of
nature and trade into a comer, where it was making a
stubborn but futile stand; that the real issue was free
government, made possible by the Declaration of Inde-
pendence and the Constitution of the United States, and
inseparable from the maintenance of the Union. If the
Union failed, freedom failed.

The trend of modem thought was definitely set
against human slavery; but outside the American Union
the idea of human freedom had gone no further than
limited monarchy. Though he came to awaken the wild-
^ est passions of the time, the negro was but an incident
— ^never a principal — to the final death-grapple between
'^ ' the North and the South.

No man of his time understood this so perfectly, em-
bodied it so adequately, as Abraham Lincoln. The
primitive Abolitionists saw only one side of the shield,
the original secessionists only the other side. Lincoln
saw both sides. His political philosophy was expounded
in four elaborate speeches: one delivered at Peoria,
Illinois, the 16th of October, 1854; one at Springfield,
Illinois, the 16th of June, 1858 ; one at Columbus, Ohio,
the 16th of September, 1859; and one at Cooper Insti-
tute, in New York City, the 27th of February, 1860. Of
course he made many speeches and very good speeches,
but these four, progressive in character, contain the sum
and substance of his creed touching the organic char-
acter of the Government, and at the same tinu? express
his personal and party view of contemporary affairs.
They show him to have been an old-line Whig of the
school of Henry Clay, with strong emancipation lean-
ings ; a thorough anti-slavery man, but never an extrc^m-
ist or an Abolitionist. To the last he hewed to the line
thus laid down.

It is essential to a complete understanding of Mr.
Lincoln's relation to the time and of his place in the
history of the country tlmt the student peruse closely
those four speeches: they underlie all that passed in
the famous debate with Douglas, all that their author
said and did after he succeeded to the presidency. They

INTRODUCTION S 3

will always stand as masterpieces of popular oratory.
The debate with Douglas, however — ^assuredly the most
extraordinary intellectual spectacle in the annals of our
party warfare — best tells the story and crystalizes it
Lincoln entered the canvass unknown outside the State
of niinois. He ended it renowned from one end of the
land to the other.

Judge Douglas was himself unsurpassed as a ready
debater, but in that campaign, from first to last, he was
at a serious disadvantage. His bark rode an ebbing tide,
Lincoln's a flowing tide. African slavery had become
the single issue now; and, as I have said, the trend of
modern thought was against slavery. The Democrats
seemed hopelessly divided. The Little Giant had to
face a triangular opposition embracing the Republicans,
the Administration, or Buchanan, Democrats, and a
remnant of the old Whigs, who fancied that their party
was still alive and might hold some kind of a balance
of power. Judge Douglas called the combination the
*' allied army,*' and declared that he would deal with it
*'just as the Russians dealt with the allies at Sebasto-
pol; that is, the Russians did not stop to inquire, when
they fired a broadside, whether it hit an Englishman, a
Frenchman, or a Turk. ' ' It was something more than a
witticism when Mr. Lincoln rejoined, ''In that case I
beg he will indulge us while we suggest to him that those
allies took Sebastopol."

He followed this center-shot with volley after volley,
of exposition so clear, of reasoning so close, of illus-
tration so homely and sharp, and, at times, of humor
so incisive, that, though he lost his election — though the
allies did not then take Sebastopol — his defeat counted
for more than Douglas's victory, for it made him the
logical and successful candidate for President of the
United States two years later.

What could be more captivating to an outdoor audi-
ence than Lincoln's description ''of the two persons
who stand before the people ds candidates for the Sen-
ate," to quote his prefatory words! "Judge Douglas,"
he said, "is of world-wide renown. All the anxious poli-
ticians of his party • . . have been looking upon

4 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

him as certainly ... to be President of the United
States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face
post-offices, land-offices, marshalships, and cabinet ap-
pointments, chargeships, and foreign missions bursting
and spreading out in wonderful exuberance, ready to be
laid hold of by their greedy hands. And as they have
been gazing upon this attractive picture so long they
cannot, in the little distraction that has taken place in
the party, bring themselves to give up the charming
hope; but with greedier anxiety they rush about him,
sustain him, and give him marches, triumphal entries
and receptions, beyond what in the days of his highest
prosperity they could have brought about in his favor.
On the contrary, nobody has ever expected me to bo
President. In my poor, lean, lank face nobody has ever
seen that any cabbages were sprouting."

As the debates advanced these cheery tones deep-
ened into harsher notes; crimination and recrimination
followed; the gladiators were strung to their utmost
tension. They became dreadfully in earnest. Personal
collision was narrowly avoided. I have recently gone
over the entire debate, and with a feeling I can only
describe as most contemplative, most melancholy.

I knew Judge Douglas well; I admired, respected,
loved him. I shall never forget the day he quitted Wash-
ington to go to his home in Illinois to return no more.
We sat dowm together in a doorway. **What are you go-
ing to do I ' ' said he. * * Judge Douglas, ' ' I answered, ' * we
liave both fought to save the Union; you in your great
way and I in my small way; and we have lost. I am
going to my home in the mountains of Tennessee, whore
I have a few books, and there I mean to stay.*' Tears
were in his eyes, and his voice trembled like a woman ^s.
He was then a dying man. He had burned the candle
at both ends; an eager, ardent, hard-working, pleasure-
loving man; and although not yet fifty the candle was
burned out His infirmities were no greater than those
of Mr. Clay; not to be mentioned with those of Mr.
Webster. But he lived in more exacting times. The
old-style party organ, with its mock heroics and its dull
respectability, its beggarly array of empty news columns

INTRODUCTION 5

and cheap advertising, had been succeeded by that un-
sparing, telltale scandal-monger, Modern Journalism,
with its myriad of hands and eyes, its vast retinue of
detectives, and its quick transit over flashing wires, an-
nihilating time and space. Too fierce a light beat upon
the private life of public men, and Douglas suffered
from this, as Clay and Webster, Silas Wright, and Frank-
lin Pierce had not suffered.

The presidential bee was in his bonnet, certainly ; but
its buzzing there was not noisier than in the bonnets of
many other great Americans who have been dazzled by
the presidential mirage. His plans and schemes came
to naught. He died at the moment when the death of
those plans and schemes was made more palpable and
impressive by the roar of cannon proclaiming the reality
of the 'irrepressible conflict" he had refused to foresee
and had struggled to avert. His lifelong rival was at the
head of affairs. No one has found occasion to come to
the rescue of his fame. No party interest has been iden-
tified with his memory. But when the truth of history
is written it will be told that, no less than AVebster and
Clay, he, too, was a patriotic man, who loved his country
and tried to save the Union. He tried to save the Union,
even as Webster and Clay had tried to save it, by com-
promises and expedients. It was too late. That string
was played out. Where they had succeeded he failed;
but, for the nobility of his intention, the amplitude of
his resources, the splendor of his combat, he merits all
that any leader of a losing cause ever gained in the re-
gard of posterity; and posterity will not deny him the
title of statesman.

In those famous debates it was Titan against Titan;
and, perusing them after the lapse of forty years, the
philosophic critic will conclude which got the better of it,
Lincoln or Douglas, much according to his sympathy with
the one or the other. If Douglas had lived he would have
become as Lincoln's right hand. Already, when he died,
Lincoln was beginning to look to him and to lean upon
him. Four years later they were joined together again
on fame's eternal camping ground, each followed to the
grave by a mourning people.

6 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

As I have said, Abraham Lincoln was an old-line
Whig of the school of Henry Clay, with strong free-soil
opinions, never an extremist or an Abolitionist. He was
what they used to call in those old days *'a Conscience
Whig/' He stood in awe of the Constitution and his
oath of office. Hating slavery, he recognized its legal ex-
istence and its rights under the compact of the organic
law. He wanted gradually to extinguish it, not to de-
spoil those who held it as a property interest. He was
so faithful to these principles that he approached eman-
cipation not only with anxious deliberation, but with
many misgivings. He issued his final proclamation as
a military necessity; and, even then, so fair was his na-
ture, he was meditating some kind of restitution.

Thus it came about that he was the one man in public
life who could have taken the helm of affairs in 1861
handicapped by none of the resentments growing out
of the anti-slavery battle. While Seward, Chase, Sum-
ner, and the rest had been engaged in hand-to-hand com-
bat with the Southern leaders at Washington, Lincoln,
a philosopher and a statesman, had been observing the
course of events from afar, and, like a philosopher and
a statesman, his mind was irradiated and sweetened by
the sense of humor. Throughout the contention that
preceded the war, amid the passions inevitable to the war
itself, not one bitter, proscriptive word escaped his lips
or fell from his pen, while there was hardly a day that
he was not projecting his great personality between some
Southern man or woman and danger.

Had Lincoln lived I In that event it is quite certain
that there would have been no era of reconstruction,
with its repressive agencies and oppressive lep^islation.
If Lincoln had lived there would have been wanting to
the extremism of the time the bloody cue of his takinjj:
off to mount the steeds and spur the flanks of vengeance.
For Lincoln entertained, with respect to the rehabili-
tation of the Union, the single wish that the Southern
States — to use his familiar phraseology — ** should come
back home and behave themselves,'' and if he had lived
he would have made this wish effectual as he made every-

•

thing effectual to which he seriously addressed himself.

INTRODUCTION 7

His was the genius of common sense. Of admirable
intellectual aplomb, he sprang from a Virginia pedigree
and was born in Kentucky. He knew all about the South,
its institutions, its traditions, and its peculiarities. ''If
slavery be not wrong, ' ' he said, * ' nothing is wrong, ' ' but
he also said, and reiterated it time and again : ' ' I have
no prejudice against the Southern people. They are just
what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not
now exist among them they would not introduce it. If it
did now exist among us we would not instantly give
it up.''

The idea of paying the South for the slaves had been
all along in his mind. He believed the North equally
guilty with the South for the existence of slavery. He
clearly understood that the irrepressible conflict was a
conflict of systems, not merely a sectional and partisan
quarrel. He was a considerate man, abhorring pro-
scription. He wanted to leave the South no right
to claim that the North, finding slave labor unre-
munerative, had sold its negroes to the South and
then turned about and by force of arms confis-
cated what it had unloaded at a profit. He recog-
nized slavery as property. In his message to Con-
gress, of December, 1862, he proposed payment for the
slaves, elaborating a scheme in detail and urging it with
copious and cogent argument. ''The people of the
South," said he, addressing a war Congress at that mo-
ment in the throes of bloody strife with the South, "are
not more responsible for the original introduction of this
property than are the people of the North, and, when it
is remembered how unhesitatingly we all use cotton and
sugar and share the profits of dealing in them, it may
not be quite safe to say that the South has been more
responsible than the North for its continuance."

This is the language not only of justice, but of far-
reaching statesmanship.

Something more than two hundred and sixty years
ago there arrived at the front of affairs in England one
Cromwell. In the midst of monarchy he made a repub-
lic. It had no progenitor. It left no heirs at law. Why
such cost of blood and treasure for an interval of free-

8 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

dom so equivocal and brief puzzled the wisest men and
remained for centuries a mystery, though it is plain
enough now and was long ago conceded, so that at last —
dire rebel though he was — the name of Cromwell, held
in execration through two hundred years, has a place in
the history of tlie English-speaking races along with the
names of William the Conqueror and Richard of the Lion
Heart

That which it took England two centuries to realize
we in America have demonstrated within a single gen-
eration. Northerner or Southerner, none of us need fear
that the future will fail to vindicate our integrity. When
those are gone that fought the good fight, and philos-
ophy comes to strike tlie balance sheet, it will be shown
that the makers of the Constitution left the relation of
the States to the Federal Government and of the Federal
Government to the States open to a double construction.
It will be told how the mistaken notion that slave labor
was requisite to the profitable cultivation of sugar, rice,
and cotton raised a paramount property interest in the
Southern section of the Union, while in the Northern,
responding to the impulse of modern thought and the
outer movements of mankind, there arose a great moral
sentiment against slavery. The conflict thus established,
gradually but surely sectionalizing party lines, was
wrought to bitter and bloody conclusion at Appomattox.

The battle was long though unequal. Let us believe
that it was needful to make us a nation. Let us look upon
it as into a mirror, seeing not the desolation of the past
but the radiance of the present; and in the heroes of
the new North and the new South who contested in gen-
erous rivalry up the fire-swept steep of El Caney and
side by side recmblazoned the national character in the
waters about Corregidor Island and under the walls of
Cavite, let us behold hostages for the old North and the
old South blent together in a Union that recks not of the
four points of the compass, having long ago flung its
geography into the sea.

Iiewiv^ W <0&t^A^

CHAPTEE I

"The Union Is Perpetual '*
[Lincoln's piest inaugural and the debate thereon]

Speaking Tour of the President-elect on His Way to Washington — Remarks
at Springfield, III., on "Divine Guidance"; at Indianapolis on "Pres-
ervation of the Union the People's Business, Not the President's"; to
the Indiana Legislature on "The Union: Is It a Marriage Bond or a
Free Love Arrangemcntf "; at Cincinnati on "Good Will to the
South"; to the Ohio Legislature on "Nothing Is Going Wrong"; at
Steubenville on "The Majority Should Rule"; at Pittsburgh on "Pro-
tection"; at Cleveland on "The Crisis Is Artificial"; at Buffalo on
"Waiting for Developments"; at Albany on "President, Not Party
Leader"; to the New York Legislature on "Reliance on the People".;
at Poughkeepsie on "Standing by the Pilot"; at New York on "A
Time for Silence" and "Save the Ship and Cargo— if Not Both, Then
the Ship"; to the Senate of New Jersey on "The Liberty Inherited
from the Fathers"; to the House of Representatives of New Jersey
on "Putting the Foot Down Firmly"; at Philadelphia on "The
Teachings of Independence Hall"; "The Principles of the Declara-
tion," and "The Flag of the Union"; at Harrisburg on "The Men
of Peace"; at Washington on "Misunderstanding Between the Sec-
tions" — His First Inaugural Address: "The Chorus of the Union" —
Debate in the Senate upon the Address: Thomas L. Clingman [N. C],
Stephen A. Douglas [IIl.]y Louis T. Wigfall [Tex.], James M. Mason
[Va.] ; Lafayette S. Foster [Conn.] Moves in the House to Expel Sen«
ator Wigfall; Motion Is Not Brought to Vote — The Senate Declares
That the Seats of Senators from Seceded States Axe Vacant

ON February 11, 1861, the President-elect left Ms
home at Springfield, 111., to travel by a circuitous
route to the national capital, there to be in-
augurated on March 4. In a parting speech to his
neighbors he expressed a solemn sense of his responsi-
bility and a reliance upon **that Divine Being who ever
attended Washington," the first President, upon whom
rested a similar responsibility.

10 GREAT AaiERICAN DEBATES

At Indianapolis, upon the same day, ho addressed
the citizens, saying: ''To the salvation of the Union
there needs but a single thing — the hearts of a people
like yours.'' The preservation of the Union, he re-
peated, **is your business, not mine; not with Presidents,
not with politicians, but with you is the question."

To the Indiana legislature he spoke on **The Union:
Is it a Marriage Bond or a Free Love Arrangement!"
claiming that the South regarded it as the latter.
** Coercion," he said, could not properly be applied to
the enforcement of Federal laws in South Carolina, but
it could be so applied to the attempt of that State, being
not one fiftieth part of the nation in soil and popula-
tion, to break up the nation and force a proportionally
larger subdivision of itself (the Union men in the State)
into compliance with the act.

To the citizens of Cincinnati, on February 12, being
on the border of the slave States, he expressed good will
to the South, repeating a former speech which he had
made in the city in 1859, in which he said: *'We mean
to treat you, as near as we possibly can, as Washington,
Jefferson, and Madison treated you. We mean to leave
you alone, and in no way to interfere with your institu-
tions, to abide by all and every compromise of the Con-
stitution. ' '

On February 13 he addressed the Ohio legislature
at Columbus, assuring them that he had not hitherto
preserved silence on the state of the country from any
want of real anxiety, as liad been charged. Anxiety he
felt, but not alarm, for ''there is nothing going wrong."
'*Time, patience, and a reliance on that God who has
never forsaken this people" would save the Union.

On February 14 he ad<lressed the citizens of St(Miben-
ville, 0., on the subject: "The Majority Should Tiuh»."
Where is there a judge to be found between the majority
and the minority? Since one of the two, thereof or(», nnist
rule, shall we submit to the minority? Would that be
right? Would it be just or generous?

At Pittsburgh on February 15 he declared that the
crisis was artificial, and, as if to minimize its impor-

LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL 11

tanco, he spoke on the tariff, since, even in the stress
which was threatening to tear the Union asunder, the
citizens of Pennsylvania seemed to be primarily inter-
ested in that subject.

On the same day, at Cleveland, he returned to the
theme that the crisis was an artificial one.

What they do who seek to destroy the Union is altogether yt
artificial. What is happening to hurt them? Have they not .
all their rights now as they ever have had ? Do not they have
their fugitive slaves returned now as ever? Have they not the
same Constitution that they have lived under for seventy-odd
years? Have they not a position as citizens of this common
country, and have we any power to change that position? [Cries
of ''Nor'] What, then, is the matter with them? Why all
this excitement? Why all these complaints? As I said before,
this crisis is altogether artificial. It has no foundation in fact. 7
It can't be argued up, and it can't be argued down. Let it «
alone, and it will go down of itself.

At Buffalo on February 16 he excused himself from
telling his specific plans to save the Union.

When it is considered that these difficulties are without prec-
edent, and have never been acted upon by any individual
situated as I am, it is most proper I should wait and see the
developments, and get all the light possible, so that when I do
speak authoritatively I may be as near right as possible. When
I shall speak authoritatively I hope to say nothing inconsistent
with the Constitution, the Union, the rights of all the States,
of each State, and of each section of the country, and not to
disappoint the reasonable expectations of those who have con-
fided to me their votes.

On February 18 he spoke to the citizens of Albany,
saying that he intended to be the President, not of a
party, but of the nation. On the same day he addressed
the New York legislature, which had tendered him
unanimous support, saying that he was the ''humblest
of all individuals that had been elevated to the Presi-
dency''; and yet, with a more diflScult task before him
than had confronted any, Mr. Lincoln expressed con-

12 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

fidence in the Almighty that, with the help of the people,
these difficulties would be overcome.

On February 19 at Poughkeepsie, N. Y., he ex-
pressed the sentiment that, though he had not been the
choice of all the people to *' pilot the ship of State,"
he was confident that the defeated party were desirous
of ^'running it through the tempest in safety,'' and
would loyally support him in his endeavor to do so.

On the same day lie spoke to the citizens of New
York City on the theme, ** There Is a Time for Silence."
He would wait until the proper moment to announce
details of his policy. For the present it sufficed to say
that he would propose nothing in conflict with the Con-
stitution, or the Union, or the perpetuation of the
liberties of the people.

Replying to the reception accorded him by the mayor
of the city, he returned to his former simile of the ship
of state, saying that he would save, if possible, both
ship nnd cargo, but, if necessary, the ship without the
cargo.

He addressed the Senate and House of the New
Jersey legislature at Trenton on February 21. Speaking
to the Senate on the revolutionary memories aroused by
the name of the State capital, he implored them to save
the liberty inherited from the Fathers of the country.
To the House he said, adverting to the fact that most
of them were his political opponents, he would perform
his duties in no partisan spirit.

I shall do all that may be in my power to promote a peace-
ful settlement of all our difficulties. The man does not live
who is more devoted to peace than I am, none who would do
more to preserve it, but it may be necessary to put the foot down
firmly. [Here the audience broke out in cheers so loud and
long that for some moments it was impossible to hear Mr. Lin-
coln's voice.] And if I do my duty and do right, you will sus-
tain me, will you not? [Loud cheers and cries of ''Yes, yes;
wewilL"]

At Philadelphia on February 21 Mr. Lincoln ad-
dressed the citizens on ''The Teachings of Independence

LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL 13

Hall,*' pledging himself never to do anything incon-
sistent with these. On the following day (Washington's
birthday) he spoke in Independence Hall. Amplifying
his remarks of the former day he said:

I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring
from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independ-
ence. I have often pondered over the dangers which were in-
curred by the men who assembled here and framed and adopted
that Declaration. I have pondered over the toils that were
endured by the oiBcers and soldiers of the army who achieved
tliat independence. I have often inquired of myself what great
principle or idea it was that kept this confederacy so long
together. It was not the mere matter of separation of the
colonies from the motherland, but that sentiment in the Declara-"^
tion of Independence which gave liberty not alone to the people
of this country, but hope to all the world, for all future time.
It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights
would be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all
should have an equal chance. Now, my friends, can this coun-
try be saved on that basis? If it can, I will consider myself
one of the happiest men in the world if I can help to save it.
If it cannot be saved upon that principle, it will be truly awful.
But if this country cannot be saved without giving up that
principle I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on
this spot than surrender it.* Now, in my view of the present
aspect of aifairs, there is no need of bloodshed and war. There
is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such a course ; and
I may say in advance that there will be no bloodshed unless it
is forced upon the Qovernment. The Qovernment will not use
force unless force is used against it.

My friends, this is wholly an unprepared speech. I did not
expect to be called on to say a word when I came here. I sup-
jK)sed I was merely to do something toward raising a flag. I
may, therefore, have said something indiscreet. [Cries of **No,
no."] But I have said nothing but what I am willing to live
by, and, if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, to die by.

When the flag to which Mr. Lincoln referred was
raised, he called attention to the new star which had
been placed upon it for Kansas, admitted into the Union
on January 29: ^

* Threats had been made that the President -elect would never take his
seat.

14 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

I think we may promise ourselves that not only the new
star placed upon that flag sliall be permitted to remain there
to our permanent prosperity for years to come, but additional
ones shall from time to time be placed there until we shall
number, as it was anticipated by the great historian, five hun-
dred millions of happy and prosperous people.

On the same day, at Harrisburg, Pa., he replied to
the welcome of Governor Andrew G. Curtiii, saying:

Allusion has been made to the peaceful principles upon wliich
this great commonwealth was originally settled. Allow rac to
add my meed of praise to those peaceful principles. I liope no
one of the Friends who originally settled here, or who lived
here since that time, or who lives here now, has been or is a
more devoted lover of peace, harmony, and concord than my
humble self.

While I have been proud to see to-day the finest military
array, I think, that I have ever seen, allow me to say, in regard
to those men, that they give hope of what may be done when
war is inevitable. But, at the same time, allow me to express
the hope that, in the shedding of blood, their services may never
be needed, especially in the shedding of fraternal blood. It
shall be my endeavor to preserve the peace of this country so
•far as it can possibly be done consistently with the maintenance
of the institutions of the country. With my consent or without
my great displeasure, this country shall never witness the
shedding of one drop of blood in fraternal strife.

Later he addressed the State legislature in the same
vein.

From Harrisburg Mr. Lincoln went secretly to
Washington, since tliose who were managing his tour
wished to guard against his assassination on tlie way,
which had been threatened. On his arrival at the na-
tional capital he was welcomed by the mayor. Mr.
Lincoln assured those present that he had as kindly
feeling toward the slaveholding section as toward his
own, and was confident that the enmity between the two
was only the result of a misunderstanding. Replying to
a serenade the next evening (February 28) he repeated
his assurances of fair dealing toward the whole country.

On March 4 he delivered his inaugural address be-

LINCOLN'S FraST INAUGURAL

fore a vast crowd of people assembled from all parts of
the conntry.

A tentative draft of this, the most important of his
utterances, Lincoln wrote and had privately printed
while at his home in Springfield, 111. On his way to
Washington he gave a copy to his friend, O. H. Brown-
ing, at Indianapolis, who suggested that the statement

therein that Lincoln would "reclaim" the Federal prop-
erty in the bands of the secessionists should be omitted,
as subject to construction as a threat, and as such un-
necessarily aggravating to the South. This suggestion
the -President adopted. On arriving at Washington Mr.
Lincoln gave a copy of the draft to William H. Seward,
his appointee as Secretary of State. Mr. Seward sug-
gested two important changes, one that was virtually
Mr. Browning's emendation, and the other the omission
of a statement that the President would follow the prin-
ciples of the Republican platform. Referring to the

16 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

latter, he reminded Lincoln that Jefferson, at a similar
crisis when the opposing party sought to dismember the
Government, **sank the partisan in the patriot in his
inaugural address, and propitiated his adversaries by
declaring: 'We are all Federalists, all Republicans.' "
Most of Seward's other suggestions related to improve-
ments in rhetoric. His ** general remarks'* were as
follows :

The argument is strong and conclusive, and ought not to be
in any way abridged or modified.

But something besides or in addition to argument is needful
to meet and remove prejudice and passion in the South and
despondency in the East.

Some words of affection — some of calm and cheerful confi-
dence.

Mr. Seward submitted two paragraphs of his own
as suggestions for closing the speech in a conciliatory
and cheerful manner. The second was in that poetic
vein which occasionally cropped out in Seward 's speochos
and writings, and over which Lincoln, on better ac-
quaintance, was wont good-naturedly to rally him.
Seward wrote:

I close. We are not, wo must not be, aliens or enemies, but
fellow countrymen and brethren. Although passion has strained
our bonds of affection too hardly, they must not, I am sure
they will not, be broken. The mystic chords which, procecKi-
ing from so many battlefields and so many patriot graves, pass
through all the hearts and all hearths in this broad continent
of ours, will yet again harmonize in their ancient music when
breathed upon by the guardian angel of the nation.

Lincoln took this paragraph, and by deft touches
which reveal a literary taste beyond that of any states-
man of his time, transformed it into his peroration.
More than anything else in the address, it 'was the tender
spirit and chaste beauty of these closing words that con-
vinced the people that Lincoln measured up to the high
mental stature demanded of one who was to be their
leader during the most critical period of the life of the
nation.

]

LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL 17

The Chorus of the Union
President Lincoln's First Inauour/Vl Address

The President began by assuring the people of the
South that their peace would not be endangered, as they
apprehended, by the accession of a Republican Adminis-
tration. He quoted from one of his former speeches a
declaration that he had neither the right nor the inten-
tion to interfere with slavery where it existed, and re-
ferred to a plank in the Republican platform showing
that the same was true of his party.

I add, too, that all the protection which, consistently with
the Constitution and the laws, can be given will be cheerfully
given to all the States when lawfully demanded, for whatever
cause — as cheerfully to one section as to another.

The return of fugitive slaves he regarded as a con-
stitutional obligation which ho and the national legisla-
tors were, by their unanimous oaths, bound to see exe-
cuted. If Congressmen ** would make the effort in good
temper,*' he said, ''could they not, with nearly equal
unanimity, frame and pass a law by means of which to
keep good that unanimous oath?" ,

It mattered little whether the surrender of fugitive
slaves was by national or State authority.

If the slave is to bo surrendered, it can be of but little con-
sequence to him or to others by which authority it is done.
And should anyone in any case be content that his oath shall
go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it
shall be kept ?

However, abuses of the Fugitive Slave act should be
remedied so that no free man should be delivered to
slavery.

And might it not be well at the same time to provide by law
i37^ the enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which
gnarlSntees that **tho citizen of each State shall be entitled to all
privil?Vges and immunities of citizens in the several States? '*

VI-^-2

18 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

He continued:

I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservations,
and with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by
any hypercritical rules. And, while I do not choose now to
specify particular acts of Congress as proper to be enforced, I
do suggest that it will be much safer for all, both in official
and private stations, to conform to and abide by all those acts
which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them, trusting to
find impunity in having them held to be unconstitutionaL

He then turned to the question of secession.

I hold that, in contemplation of universal law and of the
Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpe-
tuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all
national governments. It is safe to assert that no government
proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own ter-
mination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our
National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever — it
being impossible to destroy it except by some action not pro-
vided for in the instrument itself.

Again, if the United States be not a government proper, but
an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can
it, as a contract, bo peaceably unmade by less than all the
parties who made it ? One party to a contract may violate it —
break it, so to speak; but does it not require all lawfully to
rescind itT

He argued from history that the Union is perpetual.
It is older than the Constitution, having been formed
by the Articles of Association in 1774, confirmed by the
Declaration of Indei)ondence, and specifically plighted
as perpetual in the Confederation.

But the Constitution was formed to secure "a more
perfect union.'* Therefore,

If the destruction of the Union by one or by a part only
of the States be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than
b(»forc the Constitution, having lost the vital element of per-
petuity.

It follows, from these views, that no State, upon its .^g^,
mere motion, can lawfully gt»t out of the Union; that re/jolves
and ordinances to that effect are legally void ; and that / ^ta of

LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL

violence, within any State or States, against tin; authority of
the United States, are insurrectiouary or revolutioiinry, aceord-
ing to circumstancea.

I therefore consider that, in view of the Constitution and
the laws the Union is unbroktu and to the ext(.iit of my
ability I shall take care as the Constitution itself exinessly
injoins upon me that the laws of tliL I nion be taithtully
executed in all the Mates Doing this I difm to bi onlj a
simple duty on in\ part and 1 shall perfoim it so tar as prac

COLUMBIA DEMANDS HER C1ULD8EN
mm DM coUcdfon 0/ Vu JVew York BiiloHml Socttlv

ticable, unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall
withhold the requisite means or in some authoritative maimer
direct the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a
menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union that it
will constitutionally defend and maintain itself.

In doing this there needs to bo no bloodshed or violence;
and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the national
anthority. The power confided to me will be used to hold,
occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the
Goremment, and to collect the duties and imposts; but, beyond
what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no in-
Tasion, so using of force against or among the people anywhere.

20 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

Where hostility to the United States in any interior locality
shall be so great and universal as to prevent competent resident
citizens from holding the Federal offices, there will be no attempt
to force obnoxious strangers among the people for that object.
While the strict legal right may exist in the Government to
enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would
be so irritating, and so nearly impracticable withal, that I deem
it better to forego for the time the uses of such offices.

The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished
in all parts of the Union. So far as possible, the people every-
where shall have that sense of perfect security which is most
favorable to calm thought and reflection. The course here indi-
cated will be followed unless current events and experience sliall
show a modification or change to be proper, and in every case
and exigency my best discretion will be exercised according to
circumstances actually existing, and with a view and a liope of
a peaceful solution of the national troubles and the restora-
tion of fraternal sympathies and affections.

That there are persons in one section or another who seek
to destroy the Union at all events, and are glad of any pretext
to do it, I will neither affirm nor deny; but, if there be such,
I need address no word to them. To those, however, who really
love the Union may I not speak?

Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction
of our national fabric, with all its benefits, its memories, and
its hopes, w^ould it not be wise to ascertain precisely why we
do it ? Will you hazard so desperate a step while there is any
possibility that any portion of the ills you fly from have no
real existence? Will you, while the certain ills you fly to are
greater than all the real ones you fly from — will you ask the
commission of so fearful a mistake?

All profess to be content in the Union if all constitutional
rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, that any right,
plainly written in the Constitution, has been denied? I think
not. Happily, the human mind is so const it uteil that no party
can reach to the audacity of doing this. Think, if you can, of
a single instance in which a plainly written provision of the
Constitution has ever been denied. If, by the mere force of
numbers, a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly
written constitutional right, it might, in a moral j^oint of view,
justify revolution — certainly would if such a right were a vital
one. But such is not our case. All the vital rights of minori-
ties and of individuals are so plainly as8ure<l to them by affirma-
tions and negations, guaranties and prohibitions, in the Consti-

LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL 21

tution, that controversies never arise concerning them. But
no organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically
applicable to every question which may occur in practical ad-
ministration. No foresight can anticipate, nor any document of
reasonable length contain, express provisions for all possible
questions. Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by na-
tional or by State authority? The Constitution does not ex-
pressly say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories?
The Constitution does not expressly say: Mv^t Congress pro-
tect slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not ex-
pressly say.

From questions of this class spring all our constitutional
controversies, and we divide upon them into majorities and
minorities. If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority
must, or the Grovcrnmont must cease. There is no other alter-
native; for continuing the Qovernment is acquiescence on one
side or the other.

If a minority in such case will secede rather than acquiesce,
they make a precedent which in turn will divide and ruin
them ; for a minority of their own will secede from them when-
ever a majority refuses to be controlled by such minority. For
instance, why may not any portion of a new confederacy a year
or two hence arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions
of the present Union now claim to secede from it? All who
cherish disunion sentiments are now being educated to the
exact temper of doing this.

Is there such perfect identity of interests among the States
to compose a new Union as to produce harmony only and pre-
vent renewed secession?

Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of an-
archy. A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks
and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate
changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true
sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does, of neces-
sity, fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible;
the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly
inadmissible ; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy
or despotism in some form is all that is left.

I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitu-
tional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court; nor
do I deny that such decisions must be binding, in any case,
upon the parties to a suit, as to the object of that suit, while
they are also v titled to very high respect and consideration in
all parallel casc\ by all other departments of the Qovernment.

22 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

And, while it is obviously possible that such decision may be
erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it,
being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it
may be overruled and never become a precedent for other cases,
can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice.
At the same time the candid citizen must confess that if the
policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the
whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Su-
premo Court the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation
between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased
to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically re-
signed their government into the hands of that eminent tribu-
nal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or
the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink to
decide cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault
of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political pur-
poses.

One section of our country believes slavery is right and
ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and
ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute.
The fugitive slave clause of the Constitution and the law for
the suppression of the foreign slave trade are each as well en-
forced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where
the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law
Itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal
obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. This,
I think, cannot be perfectly cured; and it would be worse in
both cases after the separation of the sections than before. The
foreign slave trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ulti-
mately revived, without restriction, in one section, while fugi-
tive slaves, now only pai'tially surrendered, would not be sur-
rendered at all by the other.

Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot re-
move our respective sections from each other, nor build an im-
passable wall between them. A husband and wife may be di-
vorced, and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of
each other; but the different parts of our country cannot do
this. They cannot but remain face to face, and intercourse,
either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it
possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or
more satisfactory after separation than before? Can aliens
make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties
be more faithfully enforced between aliens than lav's can among
friends? Suppose you go to war, you cannot figfit always; and

LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL 23

when, after much loss on both sides and no gain on either, you
cease fighting, the identical old questions as to tenns of inter-
course are again upon you.

Thia country, with its institutions, bplongs to tho people
who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the exist-
ing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of
amending it, or their revolutionary right to disincmbor or over-
throw it. I cannot he ignorant of the fact that many worthy
and patriotic citizens are desirous of having the National Cou-

"douestio tsoobles"
FromOitcotitcUonoflhtNta YerK BUUrUal SocUt]/

stitation amended. While I make no recommendation of amend-
ments, I fully recognize the rightful authority of the people
over the whole suhject, to be exercised in either of the modes
prescribed in the instrument itself; and I should, under existing
circumstances, favor rather than oppose a fair opportunity being
afforded the people to act upon it. I will venture to add that
to me the convention mode seems preferable, in that it allows
amendments to originate with the people themselves, instt^ad of
only permitting them to take or reject propositions originated
by others not especially chosen for the purpose, and which might
not be precisely such as they would wish to either accept or
refnse. I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitu-
tioa — which amendment, however, I have not seen — has passetl

24 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never
interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including
that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of
what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of
particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a
provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objec-
tion to its being made express and irrevocable.

The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the
people, and they have conferred none upon him to fix terms for
the separation of the States. The people themselves can do
this also if they choose ; but the Executive, as such, has nothing
to do with it. His duty is to administer the present Govern-
ment, as it came to his hands, and to transmit it, unimpaired
by him, to his successor.

Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate
justice of the people ? Is there any better or equal hope in the
world t In our present differences is either party without faith
of being in the right ? If the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with
his eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or
on yours of the South, that truth and that justice will surely
prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American
people.

By the frame of tlie Government under which we live, this
same people have wisely given their public servants but little
power for mischief ; and have, with equal wisdom, provided for
the return of that little to their own hands at very short inter-
vals. While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no
Administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can
very seriously injure the Government in the short space of four
years. My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well
upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by tak-
ing time. If there be an object to hurry any of you in hot
haste to a step which you would never take deliberately, that
object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object
can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied
still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensi-
tive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the
new Administration will have no immediate pow(T, if it would,
to change either. If it were admitted that you who are dis-
satisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there still is no
single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriot-
ism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never
yet forsaken this favored land are still competent to adjust in
the best way all our present diflSculty.

LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL 25

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not
in mine is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government
will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being
yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in
heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most
solemn one to ** preserve, protect, and defend it/'

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We
must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it
must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of
memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to
every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will
yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as
surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Debate Upon the President's Inaugural

Senate, March 4, 1861

President Buchanan had convened the Senate in
special session on March 4 to receive and act upon such
communications as might be made by his successor. It
so met and was in session until March 28.

Upon motion made to print copies of the inaugural
address of President Lincoln, Thomas L. Clingman
[N. C] took occasion to dissent from its views as lead-
ing to war with the seceded States.

The President declares expressly that he intends to treat
those States as though they were still members of the Union;
as though the acts of secession were mere nullities ; and, as they
claim to be independent, there can be no result except a colli-
sion. In plain, unmistakable language he declares that it is his
purpose to hold, occupy, and possess the forts and arsenals in
those States. We all know that he can hold them only by dis-
possessing the State authorities. He says, further, that it is
his purpose to collect the revenue from those States. Surely I
need not argue to any Senator that this must lead to a collision
of arms. After we declared independence from Qreat Britain
nobody supposed that the colonies were willing still to pay taxes
or duties to the British Government. In point of fact, they
refused to pay them even before the Declaration of Independ-
ence.

Stephen A. Douglas [111.] replied:

26 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

Mr. President, I cannot assent to the construction which the
Senator from North Carolina [Mr. Clingman] has placed upon
the President's inaugural. I have read it carefully, with a view
of ascertaining distinctly what the policy of the Administration
is to be. The inaugural is characterized by ability and by
directness on certain points; but with such reservations and
qualifications as require a critical analysis to arrive at its true
construction on other points. I have made such an analysis,
and come to the conclusion that it is a peace-offering rather than
a war message. I think I can demonstrate that there is no
foundation for the apprehension which has been spread through
the country that this message is equivalent to a declaration of
war; that it commits the President of the United States to
recapture the forts in the seceded States, and to hold them at
all hazards; to collect the revenue under all circumstances; and
to execute the laws in all the States, no matter what may be
the circumstances that surround him. I do not understand
that to be the character of the message. On the contrary, I
understand it to contain a distinct pledge that the policy of
the Administration shall be conducted with exclusive reference
to a peaceful solution of our national difSculties. True, the
President indicates a certain line of policy which he intends to
pursue, so far as it may be consistent with the peace of the
country ; but he assures us that this policy will be modified and
changed whenever necessary to a peaceful solution of these
difficulties.

The President declares that, in view of the Constitution and
laws, the Union remains unbroken. I do not suppose any man
can deny the proposition that, in contemplation of law, the
Union remains intact, no matter what the fact may be. There
may be a separation de facto, temporary or permanent, as the
sequel may prove; but, in contemplation of the Constitution
and the laws, the Union does remain unbroken. Let us see
what there is in the address that is supposed to pledge the
President to a coercive policy. He says:

"I shaU take eare, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon
me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. '^

This declaration is relied upon as conclusive evidence that
coercion is to be used in the seceding States; but take the next
sentence :

''Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty. on my part. I shaU per-
form it, so far as is practicable, unless my rightful masters, the American

IJNriivT^^OLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL 27

people, ehall wittj jgiliold the requisite meanSi or in some other authoritative
manner direet th . « jd contrary. ' '

This cor'-^ JSitioiiy on which he will not enforce the laws in
tY ' j&&^ States, is not as explicit as I could desire. When
hie alludes to his ''rightful masters, the American people," I
suppose he means the action of Congress withholding the requi-
site means. Query: does he wish to be understood as sa3dng
that the existing laws confer upon him "the requisite means "t
or does he mean to say that, inasmuch as the existing laws do
not confer the requisite means, he cannot execute the laws in
the seceding States unless those means shall be conferred by
Congress? The language employed would seem to imply that
the President was referring to the future action of Congress as
necessary to give him the requisite means to enforce obedience
to the laws in the seceding States.
In a subsequent paragraph he says :

ii\

The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess
the property and places belonging to the Government, and to collect the
duties and imposts.''

What power? Does he mean that which has been confided
or that which may be confided? Does he mean that he will
exercise the power unless Congress directs the contrary or that
he will exercise it when Congress confers it ? I regret that this
clause is understood by some persons as meaning that the Presi-
dent will use the whole military force of the country to recap-
ture the forts and other places which have been seized without
the assent of Congress. If such was his meaning, he was un-
fortunate in the selection of words to express the idea.

He says further:

*'But, beyond what may bo necessary for these objects, there will be no
invasion, no using of force against or among tho people anywhere.''

He will use the power confided to him to hold, occupy, and
possess the forts and other property, and to collect the revenue ;
but beyond these objects he will not use that power. I am
unable to understand the propriety of the distinction between
enforcing tho revenue laws and all other laws. If it is his
duty to enforce tho revenue laws, why is it not his duty to
enforce the other laws of the land? What right has he to say
that he will enforce those laws that enable him to raise revenue,
to levy and collect taxes from the people, and that he will not
enforce the laws which protect the rights of persons and prop-

28 GREAT AMERICAN DEBASES

erty to the extent that the Constitution confers, the power in
those States? I reject the distinction; it cannot be justified in
law or in morals.

The next paragraph is also objectionable. I will r^ad it :

"Where hostility of the United States in any interior locality sli^ii c?
BO great and universal as to prevent competent resident citizens from hold-
ing the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers
among the people for that object."

I rejoice to know that he will not attempt to force obnoxious
strangers to hold office in the interior places where public senti-
ment is hostile; but why draw the distinction between *' interior
localities" and exterior places? Why the distinction between
the States in the interior and those upon the seaboard? If he
has the power in the one case, he has it in the other ; if it be his
duty in the one case, it is his duty in the other. There is no
provision of the Constitution or the laws which authorizes a
distinction between the places upon the seaboard and the places
in the interior.

This brings me to the consideration of another clause in
the message which I deem the most important of all and the
key to his entire policy.

After indicating the line of policy which he would pursue,
if consistent with the peace of the country, he tells us emphati-
cally that that course will be followed, unless modifications and
changes should be necessary to a peaceful solution of the na-
tional troubles; and if in any case or exigency a change of
policy should be necessary, it will be made *'with a view and
hope of a peaceful solution. * ' In other words, if the collection
of the revenue leads to a peaceful solution, it is to be collected ;
if the abandonment of that policy is necessary to a peaceful
solution, the revenue is not to be collected ; if the recai)ture of
Fort ^foultrie would tend to a peaceful solution, he stands
pledged to recapture it ; if the recapture would tend to violence
and war, he is pledged not to recapture it; if the enforcement
of the laws in the seceding States would tend to facilitate a
peaceful solution, he is pledged to their enforcement; if the
omission to enforce those laws would best facilitate i)eace, he is
pledged to omit to enforce them; if maintaining possession of
Fort Sumter would facilitate peace, he stands pledged to retain
its possession; if, on the contrary, the abandonment of Fort
Sumter and the withdrawal of the troops w^uld facilitate a
peaceful solution, he is pledged to abandon the fort and with- ^

draw the troops. f

I
I

LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL 29

Sir, this is the only construction that I can put upon this
clause. If this be not the true interpretation, for what pur-
pose was it inserted ? The line of policy that he had indicated
was stated vaguely ; but there is not a pledge to use coercion.

I submit, then, to the Senate whether the friends of peace
have not much to rejoice at in the inaugural address of the
President. It is a much more conservative document than I
had anticipated. It is a much more pacific and conciliatory
paper than I had expected. I am clearly of the opinion that the
Administration stands pledged by the inaugural to a peaceful
solution of all our difficulties, to do no act that leads to war,
and to change its policy just so often and w^henever a change is
necessary to preserve the peace.

Now, sir, far be it from me to intimate that the President,
in these recommendations, has not been faithful to the principles
of his party, as well as to the honor and safety of his country.
Whatever departure from party platforms he has made in these
recommendations should be regarded as an evidence of patriot-
ism, and not an act of infidelity. In my opinion, if I *have
understood the inaugural right, he has sunk the partisan in the
patriot, and he is entitled to the thanks of all conservative
men to that extent. I do not wish it to be inferred, from any-
thing I have said or have omitted to say, that I have any polit-
ical sj'mpathy with his Administration, or that I expect that
any contingency can happen in which I may be identified with
it. I expect to oppose his Administration with all my energy
on those great principles which have separated parties in former
times; but on this one question — that of preserving the Union
by a peaceful solution of our present difficulties; that of pre-
venting any future difficulties by such an amendment of the
Constitution as will settle the question by an express provision
— if I understand his true intent and meaning, I am with him.

Mr. President, if the result shall prove that I have put a
wrong construction on the inaugural, I shall deplore the conse-
quences which a belligerent and aggressive policy may inflict
upon our beloved country, without being responsible in any
degree for the disasters and calamities which may follow. I
believe I have placed upon it its true interpretation. I know I
have put the patriotic construction on it. I believe the action
of the President will justify that construction. I will never
relinquish that belief and hope until he shall have done such
acts as render it impossible to preserve the peace of the country
and the unity of the States. Sir, this Union cannot be pre-
served by wai. It cannot be cemented by blood. It can be

I.'

30 GREAT. AMERICAN DEBATES

preserved only by peaceful means. And, when our present
troubles shall have been settled, future difficulties can be pre-
vented only by constitutional amendments which will put an
end to all controversy by express provision. These remedies
and preventives have been clearly marked out by the President
in his inaugural. All I ask is that his Administration shall
adhere to them and carry them out in good faith. Let this be
done, and all who join in the good work will deserve, and they
will receive, the applause and approbation of a grateful coun-
try. No partisan advantage can be taken, no political capital
should be made out of a generous act of noble patriotism. While
I expect to oppose the Administration upon all the political
issues of the day, I trust I shall never hesitate to do justice to
those who, by their devotion to the Constitution and the Union,
show that they love their country more than their party.

Louis T. WiGPALXi [Tex.]. — It is impossible for the Senator
from Illinois, or for any other Senator to rise here, and, by giv-
ing a commentary — a construction — of the inaugural to restore
peace to the country. It is impos^ble for the Administration,
by dealing in generalities, whether glittering or not, to give peace
to the country. It is a fact that seven States have withdrawn
from this Union; that they have entered into a new compact
with each other ; that they have established a government ; and
I suppose, though it may not have yet been officially announced,
as it is a fact that is well known, I may allude to it, they have
their representatives now here, prepared to reside near this
court, and, waiving all questions of irregularity as to the exist-
ence of this (Jovemment, to enter into a treaty with it in refer-
ence to matters which musl be settled, either by treaty or by
the sword.

It is easy to indulge in general phraseology; it is easy to
write so as to be misunderstood. It is very easy to talk of
enforcing the laws ; it is very easy to speak of holding, occupy-
ing, and possessing forts; but, when you come to holding, oc-'
cupying, and possessing forts, bayonets and not words settle the
question. This Administration will, by action, be forced to
construe its inaugural. How will that inaugural be construed T
Were it not for these facts which are pressing for solution, it
might be that a Union party, both North and South, might be
organized ; and, were it not for these troublesome things called
bayonets, platforms might be adopted to be construed differently
on different sides of particular degrees of latitude ; but, unfor-
tunately for the Union-savers, these matters are prp'-tical, press-
ing for present solution ; and this Government rhay leave Fort

LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL 31

Moultrie, Castle Pinekney, and Fort Johnson in the possession
of the Confederate States, but the Confederate States will not
leave Fort Sumter in the possession of this Government.

I am one of those who deny that this Union, as it formerly
was, now exists legally, constitutionally. The Union has been
disrupted. Seven of the high contracting powers have with-
drawn from this Government (that now de facto exists at Wash-
ington) the powers heretofore exercised by them through this
Government, and invested all those powers in their separate
State governments first, and then entered into a new compact
with each other.

These are facts. How are you going to deal with themt
What is a remedy in one stage of a disease is no remedy in
another. A blue-mass pill and a cup of coffee next morning
will relieve the liver and prevent one from having a fever very
frequently; but when the disease is on you, blistering and
blood-letting may sometimes be necessary ; and when the patient
is dead, then it is necessary to have a coffin, a grave-digger,
funeral services, and things of that sort; the only question is
whether we shall have a decent, peaceable, quiet funeral or
whether we shall have an Irish wake.

''Cannot preserve this Union by war!" Why, sir, there is
no Union left. You may have reconstruction. The States that
are now in the old Union may secede from it to the other, and
come into the new Union, and, in the course of time, the thirty-
four States may all be living under the same form of government
again; but the seven States that have withdrawn from this
Union are surely never coming back. If you were to give them
a sheet of blank paper, and tell them to write their constitution
on it, they would not come in again and live under this Ad-
ministration. They are out; they have formed a union; they
have a constitution, and it is satisfactory to them; and they
will not secede again. Our doctrine of secession has been so
belittled and so belied that we are beginning to have a down-
right contemptuous opinion of it ourselves ; and we never intend
to exercise it again. Other States that have not made the ex-
periment may secede and come to us; Mohammed may come to
the mountain, but the mountain will never come to Mohammed.

You have, therefore, to deal with all these things practically.
What will you dof Getting up here and making constructions
of Mr. Lincoln 's message is not the remedy. To have persuaded
the people of the seven seceded States at one time that the
Republican party was a very conservative. Constitution-loving
party might have prevented the act of secession ; but it will do

:J2 great AMERICAN DEBATES

no good now. The act of secession has been committed ; a new
government has been formed, and new remedies must be of-
fered. Tejnpora mutantur, ei nos mutamur in illis.^ The ques-
tion now is not of saving the Union, but of saving the peace of
the country. Withdraw your troops; acknowledge the right of
self-government ; make no futile attempt to collect tribute from
pcoi)le who are no longer citizens of the United States ; do these
things and you will have peace. Send your flag into that
country with thirty-four stars upon it, and it will be fired at
and war will ensue.

The seceded States — having paid much of the money into
the Federal Treasury, with which your army was organized and
your nsLvy built, with which your lighthouses and your buoys
were placed, your harbors cleaned out, and the public domain
acquired — send commissioners here to their former associates,
and ask them to enter into a fair arrangement for the division
of the public property and the assessment of the public debt.
Will you do that t Or will you sit stupidly and idly gazing on
until there shall be a conflict of arms, because you cannot ** com-
promise with traitors" — ^because you cannot recognize the inde-
pendence of States that were States before this Government had
existence ?

Senators, what is the meaning of this declaration ? It is that,
if we acknowledge ourselves to be slaves ; if we will abandon the
right of self-government; if we will agree to be governed by
you, you promise us to govern us well. We say first acknowl-
edge our right of self-government; withdraw your troops; yield
to us the right of collecting our own revenues; divide fairly
the public property; give us our pro rata share of men-of-war
that are now afioat ; send us our pro rata share of the army —
we want two, three, or four of the regiments ; turn them over to
US; give us our share of the public domains-do these things,
and we will, pro tempore^ enter into with you a treaty of com-
merce, of peace, and amity; and if you will reorganize your
own Government, and form such a one as suits us, we may
aj^ain confederate with you and enter into a compact of com-
mon defence and general welfare. Refuse it and we will settle
tiiis question by the sword.

There is no dodging these issues. If you want war, you will
have it ; if you want i)eace, we are anxious for it ; but the time
has passed for party platforms; the time has j)assed for dema-
gogism to adopt compromises which mean nothing. These are
plain, palpable issues, and they have to be met.
Times chaiige, aiid wo change with them."

1 <(

LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL 33

The President of the United States and the Senator from
Illinois both misapprehend, utterly and wholly, the issues that
are before the country. They seem to think that the whole
difSculty is as to the question of the Wilmot proviso or squatter
sovereignty in the Territories. These are dead issues; they are
past ; they were discussed ; they have been decided upon ; they
are res adjudicata.

Seven States have withdrawn from the Union. What are
the remaining States going to do? Preserve the Union you
cannot, for it is dissolved. Conquer those States and hold them
as conquered provinces, you may. Is the play worth the candle ?
Treat with them as a separate confederacy, and you have peace.
Treat with them as States of this Union, and you have war.
One or the other you must do. Which will you do ? There is a
very strong desire on the part of many to avoid the issue, to
hold what are called the tobacco States still in the Union, and
build up what is to be called a great Union party, composed
of Free Soilism and Whiggery, and avoid a war with the cotton
States; hold things as they are at home, get through the next
succeeding three years, and elect somebody as President of the
old Union upon the ground that he has been a great Union-
saver. But, unfortunately, you cannot control facts, and mak-
ing speeches will not do this thing. Mr. Abraham Lincoln has
to remove those troops from Fort Pickens and from Fort Sum-
ter or they will be removed for him. He has to collect the reve-
nues in Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, New Orleans, or the
Confederate States will collect their own revenues. He has no
judiciary department, he has no custom house collectors, he has
none of the machinery of government there. He has to appoint
his custom house officers; he has to collect the revenues; and,
when he attempts it, you know, and I know, that resistance will
be made, and that a conflict of arms will ensue, and that war
will be the result.

As to the States that remain, you can so amend the Consti-
tution as to give them security for the future, if not indemnity
for the past; but in doing that it will not be by dividing Ter-
ritories. I say to you, though I do not represent those States,
that it is useless to blind your eyes to these facts: that no
compromise, no amendment of the Constitution, no arrangement
that you enter into will be satisfactory to those States, Senators,
unless you recognize the doctrine that slaves are property, and
that you wiU protect that species of property as you do every
other.

I have said so much in reply to the Senator from Illinois

84 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

because I did not wish his speech to go out as an explanation
of the meaning of the President of the United States. His
speech was calculated to produce the impression that Mr. Lin-
coln meant to do nothing. Masterly inactivity is a policy that
cannot now prevail. Action ! action ! action ! as the great Athe-
nian orator [Demosthenes] said, is now necessary. Tou cannot
longer serve Ood and Mammon ; you must declare ''under which
king, Bezonianf "

Senator Douglas. — The Senator from Texas is quite right
in saying that the issue cannot be long postponed; words will
not answer the purpose much longer; action must soon begin;
and that action must be in the direction of peace or war. Which
shall it be? I think the President means peace. His policy
must be peace, or it is time that Congress was in session and
two hundred thousand men ordered into the field and prepara-
tions made for war.

The Senator is unwilling to believe that Mr. Lincoln means
peace. I rejoice in the belief that he does mean peace. The
Senator and myself look at this question from different points
of view. He has told us several times that he is here merely
because you continue to call his name at the desk ; but that to
all intents and purposes he regards himself a foreigner. His
affections are with his own country ; mine are with my country.

Senator Wigfall. — Mr. President, I have tried to explain,
several times, the position which I occupy. I am not officially
informed that the State which I represent here has abolished the
office of United States Senator. When I am so advised offi-
cially I shall file at your desk that information; and then, if
after being so informed, you shall continue to call my name, I
will answer, probably, if it suits my convenience ; and, if I am
called on to vote, I shall probably give my reasons for voting;
and, regarding this as a very respectable public meeting, con-
tinue my connection with it in that way. But, while I am up,
I will ask the Senator, as he is speaking for the Administration
— ^though not a part of it, nor a large part of it [laughter] —
to say explicitly whether he would advise the withdrawal of the
troops from Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, the removal of the
fag of the United States from the borders of the Confederate
States, and that no effort should be made to levy tribute upon
a foreign people?

Senator Douglas. — ^Mr. President, as I am no part of the
Administration, as I do not speak for them — although I hope
that I speak the same sentiments which will animate them — as
I am not in their counsels nor their confidence, I shall not

LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL 35

tender them my advice until they ask it. I do not choose,
either, to proclaim what my policy would he, in view of the
fact that the Senator does not regard himself as the guardian
of the honor and interests of my country, but he is looking to
the interests of another, which he thinks is in hostility to this
country. It would hardly be good policy or wisdom for me to
reveal what I think ought to be our policy to one who may so
soon be in the counsels of the enemy and the command of its
armies.

There was much laughter and applause in the gal-
leries at this hit at Senator Wigf all's reputed ambition
to become a military leader of the Confederacy. Upon
the Vice-President making the usual threat (which was
never enforced) to clear the galleries if the applause
were repeated, Senator Wigfall hoped that the applause
would be permitted, as, the Union being dissolved, he
considered the present occasion only a public meeting.

James M. Mason [Va.] denied that the President's
message could be construed as a pronouncement of peace.

It is a declaration of the possession of political power, and d
duty to exercise it, and a purpose to discharge that duty. Now,
there are seven States out of the Union. You say they are not
out; that the Constitution and laws are still extended over
them. They say the contrary. You say you will execute the
laws in all the States, including those that have abandoned the
Union ; and common sense tells us, if you attempt it, it will be
resisted by force. Unless there be some men laboring under the
hallucination to believe that secession is a mere stage trick to
deceive and delude the (Government from which these States
have detached themselves, there can be no man who can tell me
that the President does not intend war.

I am not quarreling with the President because of the inter-
pretation that he puts upon his duty. The responsibility is
with him; let him exercise it. But what I challenge him for is
that he has not more explicitly told us what he means to do ;
that he has left it to inference, to construction, to interpretation
that may possibly mislead these people as to his actual purpose.
If the Senator from Illinois thinks that, because the President
has a peaceful view of this armed invasion of a foreign territory,
or a hope of a i)eacefnl solution, notwithstanding the armed
invasion which he declares he will exercise, I can only say to

36 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

that Senator he is more credulous than any of those around
him.

I say, sir, the message is silent only as to the question of
the time when the President will use his powers. It is reported
that Fort Sumter has provisions for only thirty daya. No one
doubts that this fort can never be reinforced by the Federal
Government, who claim to be its owners, without a struggle of
thousands and tens of thousands of armed men spilling their
blood on the sands and on the sea; therefore, within the next
thirty days, whatever of peace the Senator saw in this mes-
sage will be converted into war, real war, stern war.

No, Mr. President, there is a solution of peace, one only —
a solution that is not only not held out in this message, but
that is carefully avoided, sedulously avoided ; there is a solution
of peace of this great question between the contending sections,
and there is but one ; and, so far from that being contained in
this inaugural, it is repelled and repudiated by its whole tenor
and purpose. That solution is to admit that the Union is
broken; to yield to the existing fact; to admit that the Union
is at an end by the separation of the seven States which have
gone out ; and, whether they are acknowledged as an independ-
ent power or not, to admit the fact of their separate and inde-
pendent existence; and then withdraw the troops.

I can see no reason why that should be longer denied, even
among those statesmen who look upon this Government, as the
inaugural expresses it, as a thing so peculiar, God-given, or
otherwise that it is insusceptible of being broken. The Presi-
dent says by the universal law it is presumed to be perpetual.
What he means by the universal law I am quite as much at a
loss to understand as I was the cabalistic meaning of a phrase
used by a Senator from New York of a higher law. What is
the universal law f I know what the law of the Constitution is ;
I know what the laws of the United States are ; I know what the
international law is ; but what this universal law is, unless it be
the law of the univeinse, the law which keeps the spheres in
place, and directs their motions, and provides for their rotation
upon their axes and in their orbits, I am at a loss to know.
But it is by terms like these, not only general but unmeaning
and inapplicable, that we are to be deluded into the idea that
there is no mode by which this Government, as he calls it, how-
ever oppressive it may become, however odious to the people
under it, however cruel in its exactions, however perverse in its
infractions of constitutional duty, can be got rid of, because
of some law of the universe.

LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL 37

I have thought it a matter of moment that the policy of
this message should be eviscerated, wherever its meaning was
indirect or dark, because my own people, the people in Vir-
ginia, who are yet in the Union, are banded together upon the
fixed, unchangeable purpose of making themselves a party to
that war when the first gun is fired.

On March 8 Lafayette S. Foster [Conn.] moved to
expel from the Senate Louis T. Wigfall [Tex.] because
of his declaration that he was a foreigner. On the 11th
the matter came up for discussion. Thomas L. Clingman
[N. C] moved as a substitute:

Whereas, it is understood that the State of Texas has se-
ceded from the Union and is no longer one of the United States;
therefore be it resolved that she is not entitled to be represented
in this body.

The motion in regard to Senator Wigfall 's expulsion
was not brought to vote.

On March 13 William P. Fessenden [Me.] moved that
the names of Jefferson Davis [Miss.] and other Sena-
tors who had announced that they were no longer mem-
bers of the Senate and had vacated their seats be stricken
from the roll.

Senator Fessenden 's motion was finally amended to
** Whereas the seats of (the said Senators) have become
vacant, resolved that the Secretary be directed to omit
their names from the roll/' and was passed in this
form.

CHAPTER n
The Bight of Secession

Speech of Senator James A. Bayard, Jr., on ''The Right of Secession and
the Propriety of Becognizing the Southern Confederacy'' — The Confed-
erate Peace Commission; It Is Not Beceived — The Fall of Fort Sum-
ter — Secession of Virginia — Military Movements April-July, 1861 — ^Pres-
ident Lincoln's First Message to Congress: "The Sophistry of Seces-
sion."

ON March 30, 1861, James A. Bayard, Jr. [Del.], in-
troduced in the Senate a resolution to the effect
that, whatever view be taken of the right of
secession, seven States having withdrawn from the
Union and the enforcement there of Federal laws by the
magistracy being impracticable, the only alternative was
civil war or recognition of their secession; and that,
whereas war would not bring them back into the Union,
their independence should be acknowledged and a treaty
be made with them.

In support of his resolution Senator Bayard dis-
cussed the nature and right of secession and the causes
which had led to its adoption by the Southern States in
a speech which continued for three days.

The Bight of Segsssiok

Senator Bayard

The act of secession has been characterized in this body
by some of its members as a constitutional right, as among the
reserved rights of the States. By others it has been denounced
as treason to the United States on the part of any of the actors.
I agree with neither. It is not among the reserved rights of
the States, but is a revolution by organized communities, by
the authority of the people of the seceding States, in whom
the ultimate power of sovereignty is vested. Its effect is the

THE RIGHT OF SECESSION 39

same, whether revolutionary or legal; it severs the State from
the Union, and it suspends the operation of the laws of the
Federal Oovernment in the seceding States. It is, in the old
Roman sense of the term, rebellion — ^the revolt of a nation —
but not in the modern sense of the term rebellion.

All forms of republican government rest upon one great
general principle which is recognized in America, and has been
always recognized as the great basis, the only just basis, of all
government, **the consent of the governed." Our fathers so de-
clared it in the Declaration of Independence, but the mode of
consent depends upon the character of the government. The con-
sent of the governed as applied to the State governments, which
are purely national, and to any purely national government, is
but a political axiom called commonly the social compact, which
assumes that there is an implied contract between each individ-
ual citizen by which that government is established. The law of
that compact is, in theory and in practice, that the will of the
majority of society shall be conclusive evidence of the consent of
the whole; and, further, it has been denominated an inherent
right in society and in the majority. It is still but an axiom.
In practice, sex excludes one-half the governed from giving con-
sent. Age excludes one-fourth. Age is arbitrary; it might be
twenty-five; it is twenty-one. Further, in the origin of our
Government, though the States were all national governments
and all republican, an interest in the soil was essential for the
purpose of giving consent. Nay, still, in many of the States,
the prepayment of taxes is essential for the dissent or consent
on the part of the individual, though he is bound under the
axiom by the laws of the government established by his implied
consent. Residence of greater or less duration is requisite in
all the States; in some three months, in some six, in some a
year, and at one time two years. Yet all the individuals who
exist as inhabitants of that government or are within its juris-
diction are considered by the force of the axiom as consenting
to the government and bound by its laws. In the State of
Pennflylvania and in several other of the non-slaveholding States,
I believe, race excludes many of the community from giving their
actual consent, but their consent is implied and they are bound
by the laws. No negro can vote in the State of Pennsylvania,
and in others of the non-slaveholding States the same rule ap-
plies.

Yet the axiom is true and is a wise one; it is the founda-
tion of government on the basis of the social compact, which is
the will of goeiety, evidenced by the determination of the ma-

40 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

jority of the great body of the people who are supposed to be
competent to form government.

It is very evident, Mr. President, that revolution in a gov-
ernment founded upon such a basis could rarely, if ever, occur ;
because the majority, having it in their power to bring into
accord with their opinions the legislative authority, could always
change the form of government at will, without revolutionary
action; and I understand revolution to mean a change of gov-
ernment against the will of the existing government. The word
revolution is sometimes applied to any radical change of a
government, whether with or without the will of the ultimate
power of sovereignty; but, in the ordinary acceptation of the
term, we mean, by revolution, a change against the consent of
the existing government. The power of change, the right of
change, exists in all governments, no matter what may be their
form, and is vested of necessity where the ultimate power of
sovereignty exists; in Russia, in an autocrat. No one doubts
that the Emperor of Russia could change the form of govern-
ment of Russia. In England it is in the King, Lords, and Com-
mons. Being effected by the will of the existing government, the
idea of force and resistance is precluded, and the change of
government would be legal in all respects.

In the United States this ultimate power of government in
each State is vested in the people under the social compact, and
the majority in each State, having the ultimate sovereignty,
have the right to change the form of government under which,
they live. This I suppose to be the established and uncontro-
verted principle derived from all the publicists, as to the theory
on which purely national republics are founded, which all the
States of this Union are. But it is very evident that the prin-
ciple of the social compact cannot be applied to the United States
as an aggregate nation. Could it be, of course a majority of the
people of the United States could change the form of govern-
ment by their will. The majority of one State would be carried
into another State, and the majority of the aggregate nation
would be competent to impose the form of government they
desired over the people of all the States. Such is not the
structure of the Federal Government.

The speaker here quoted in support of his views
from the 39th number of **The Federalist,*' written
by James Madison.

I think, if the present President of the United States had
read this passage, he would have been able to understand the

THE RIGHT OF SECESSION 41

distinction between the relations of a county to a State and the
relations of a State to the Federal Government. There exists,
then, this broad distinction between the Federal and the State
governments: the State governments exist by the consent of
the governed, under the law of the social compact ; but the Fed-
eral Government exists, not as the result of the implied com-
pact which arises under that law, but by the express compact
of the several States which were independent sovereignties at
the time they created it. That compact specifies the extent of
the powers delegated to the common Government, and without
the compact it could have had no existence. Sir, whence came,
or on what do we base, the power of the Federal Government to
make or administer any lawsf Has it any other basis than the
consent given by the people of each State severally, by the adop-
tion of the Constitution framed by the representatives of States
and submitted to the people of each State for their several ac-
ceptance t Did unanimity in the State of Pennsylvania bring
the State of Georgia within the operation of the Federal Con-
stitution? Certainly not. The consent of the governed, the
consent of the community, expressed under the social compact
in the State (which is the basis of its government), forming, by
express compact with the people of other States, a common gov-
ernment for all, with special delegated powers, is the only basis
of the general Government of this Union.

Then, sir, what is the rule as to compacts of this kind ? That
they cannot be changed without the consent of all the parties to
the compact. It matters not whether the compact is a treaty
or creates a government ; the law of the compacts of sovereign-
ties is that no change can be made in terms except by the
consent of all, unless it is otherwise provided in the instrument.

The Constitution contains no provision which authorizes a
State by its own act to separate from the other States and with-
draw from the Union. Had there been no provision as to
amendments to the Federal Constitution, within the rule which
governs the compacts of sovereignties, it would have been un-
alterable in any one particular; and it can only be altered in
the mode which it provides. Neither a majority of the people
of the United States can alter the Constitution on the basis on
which it rests, nor a majority of the States; nor is the power
expressly given to any State to withdraw at will from the con-
federation and establish herself as a separate nation. I hold,
therefore, that the act of secession is a breach of the compact
on the part of the seceding States ; and that, being a breach of
compact and against the will of the Federal Government, it is

42 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

of necessity an act of revolution. But, Mr. President, it is a
revolution inaugurated by a people in their collective capacity —
a revolution and breach of the compact which, if groundless in
morals and reason, gives just cause of war, but leaves no other
remedy. You may quell insurrection, you may put down domes-
tic violence by the operation of the law, but you cannot meet
the collective action of a people in any other mode than by war
or by peaceable negotiation ; and that statesman will find that he
makes a terrible mistake who is unable to distinguish between
the collective action of a people and a mere temporary insur-
rection of factious individuals. Lord North made it, and he
lost, under the plea of executing the laws^ the brightest jewels
of the British Crown. Concession might have led to a very
different termination.

Mr. President, I can scarcely realize that it can be seriously
urged that the States of this Union were not independent and
sovereign States when they formed their original confederacy ;
that they did not, as independent and sovereign States, adopt,
by the several action of their people, the present Federal Con-
stitution; and that they did not reserve to the States and the
people thereof all rights which were not ceded to the common
Oovernment by the Constitution which they adopted. But, sir,
if the States were sovereign originally, what change was made
in their relations by the formation of the present Constitution?
The first and the most important change was the power to tax
for the purpose of its support, which was given to the general
Government, and which was the great defect of the old con-
federation. The next radical change was that the laws should
operate upon the individual citizen, instead of operating upon
the citizen through the action of the State. To that extent the
alteration made the general Government a National Government.
This change in the operation of the laws on individuals instead
of communities was intended to strengthen and give stability
to the Union by substituting for the coercion of arms — ^which
existed in the Confederacy as against the State, but was practi-
cally a useless power — ^the coercion of the magistracy upon the
individual. No more was intended, and the power it confers is
quite sufBcient for any federal government existing over inde-
pendent communities, and founded upon opinion. But the co-
ercion of a State in its collective capacity, even by the magis-
tracy, which they inserted in the Constitution when it was origi-
nally adopted, was stricken out very soon afterward by amend-
ment.

The ixif erence seems irresistible. If the power was abrogated

THE RIGHT OF SECESSION 43

which, as first inserted in the Constitution, gave the means of
coercion by the magistracy as against a State, on what princi-
ple can it be contended that the Federal Constitution gives the
right of coercion by arms against a State, while the State re-
mains in the Union f If the State, by secession, becomes alien,
you have the same right of war or peace with her that you have
with any other alien people; but, while you recognize her as a
member of the Union, coercion by arms, or by the magistracy,
against the State in its collective capacity, was neither given, nor
intended to be given, by the Federal Constitution. The attempt
to give the power in both shapes was made in the convention,
and expressly voted down, both as to coercion by arms and co-
ercion by the magistracy. It was given indirectly by the clause
which gave jurisdiction to the Supreme Court in suits by indi-
viduals against a State ; but that was stricken out, within a few
years after its adoption, by amendment. The right of secession
at wUly with or without cause, was not given, because the inser-
tion of such a clause in the Federal Constitution would but have
been an invitation to dissolution. It was left unprovided for, as
one of those exigencies in human affairs against which no gov-
ernment and no human foresight could provide.

Sir, coercion by the magistracy of the individual citizen gave
all the strength and sanction to the laws of the Federal Oovern-
ment which were requisite ; but it has no application to the collec-
tive action of the people in any State in their political capacity.
Where a State, by the action of her people, declares herself out
of the Union, or, in ordinary language, secedes, the necessary ef-
fect is that the magistracy is gone ; there is no Federal officer to
carry into execution the laws by means of the civil power, and
of course the laws must cease to operate. It is the result of rev-
olutionary action, I admit, because against the will of the exist-
ing common (Government ; but it is the action of an independent
community in their collective capacity, and has precisely the
same effect upon the relative condition of the people of that
State and the rest of the Union that the abrogation of a treaty
would have between independent nations. The treaty in such
case is at an end ; but if abrogated without sufficient cause the
annulment gives just cause of war. The Union, however,
stands; the Federal Government remains, as to all the other
States, in its entirety, and with its laws and its Constittuion, as
it stood before ; but secession has abrogated the coercion of the
magistracy within the States that have withdrawn by the action
of the people thereof. Is not this action the consent of the gov-
erned? It is revolutionary; but, still, action had by the con-

44 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

sent of the governed. Who adopted the Constitution T The peo-
ple of Georgia, by the vote of their own people alone. If they
decide to withdraw from that Union by the act of the same peo-
ple — not of the legislature — on what principle, consistent with
the Declaration of Independence, can it be denied that this same
people can change their common as well as their State govern-
ment, except on the ground that such change is a breach of the
compact which they made with the people of other States, by
adopting the Federal Constitution? If secession be, then, as I
believe, a breach of compact, yet it would be justified by suffi-
cient cause ; if resulting from caprice without grave cause of dis-
content, or sense of insecurity, it gives just right of war ; but it
does not necessarily ensue, from the right of war, that war
should follow. War is a question of morals and power com-
bined, and always must be.

The military power in this country was never intended to
be a primary power in the execution of the laws. It may bo
called in aid, under the mandate of the magistrate, as subsidiary
to the civil power. By the express terms of the Constitution,
you may, at the request of a State, use the military power in
case of domestic violence; you may repress insurrection in the
same mode ; but this Qovernment never was intended to be car-
ried on by means of the military, as a substitute and primary
power in place of the civil power — the action of the magistracy ;
and yet no other mode remains in which the laws can be en-
forced in the seceding States than by the military power, if their
enforcement is insisted on. All laws require some sanction, or
they are futile. There is but the sanction of the magistracy or
the sanction of arms. Under the old Confederacy they had to
depend entirely upon the sanction of arms, but never attempted
its exercise, relying solely on the good faith of the States. The
change made in constructing the present (Government was by
giving the power of coercion by the magistracy upon the indi-
vidual citizen ; but, of necessity, that is dependent upon the ac-
tion of the people of the State in their collective capacity ; and
if they subvert and put an end to the magistracy the laws of
the Union cannot be enforced, under our present Constitution,
without a violation of its intent. The action of the seceding
States was beyond human foresight, and one of those calamities
against which no government, unless a military despotism, can
guard.

When a State secedes by the action of her people, though its
effect severs her from the Union and makes her an alien people,
it is a breach of the compact which created this Oovemment,

THE RIGHT OF SECESSION 45

and is, in itself, just cause of war. But the right of war arises
only as consequent upon the effect of the action of the people
of the State, having made the people thereof an alien to the rest
of the Union. If still in the Union, you cannot make war upon
a State. Such is the doctrine inculcated by Mr. Madison in
**The Federalist," as the law of the compact in all governments
founded upon the express compact of sovereignties, and not, as
this Federal Oovemment certainly is not, upon the social com-
pact. It is the law, as laid down by all publicists, that the
breach of any one article absolves all the others from the en-
gagements of the compact, ^^ unless they choose rather to compel
the delinquent party to repair the breach." I will not say that
the case might not be supposed, where a State, from mere
caprice, without any cause whatever, should withdraw from the
Federal Union, hostile measure, mingled with conciliation, might
have the effect of restoring her to the Union, of repairing the
breach. Where the people were divided and the State small in
power, I can conceive that the use of hostile or coercive meas-
ures, mingled with affectionate consideration for her people,
might conduce to such a result without destroying the form of
our Oovemment, though, in such a case, hostile measures would
be a stretch of constitutional power ; but such supposition has no
relation to the case of a large section of country, having sufS-
cient population and resources to exist as an independent na-
tion, which chooses to throw off its allegiance to the Federal Gov-
ernment, and, by the action of the people, withdraw from any
further connection with it. In such a case, you cannot restore
the Union by means of the power of arms. Conciliation and
concession alone, and their consent, must bring back those States
to this Government, as by their separate consent they were origi-
nally incorporated among its members.

It has been said that the action of a State in seceding makes
all the actors guilty of treason if they attempt to support that
action by force of arms. I am unable to appreciate the force
or the humanity of such a doctrine. It may serve to excite ; it
will never serve to deter. It is not a practical question. When
revolution comes, not insurrection, it overrides and cannot be
met by the law of treason. The allegiance is due to the State
as well as to the Federal Government ; and the allegiance to the
Federal Government is due through the State. If the State, as a
political community, dissolves her connection with the Federal
Government, could there be a more revolting proposition than
that the individual man, who is domiciled in the State, and re-
siding there, shall be held in the position that he is guilty of

46 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

treason against the State if he does not side with her, and of
treason against the general Government if he does? The law of
domicile must necessarily govern the allegiance of the individual
where the political action of the community has severed the
State in which he is domiciled from the general Government.
Humanity alone requires that such a doctrine should be en-
forced. But it is really not a practical question. The charge
of treason only irritates; for the words '' treason'' and
''traitor" are terms to which no man submits without a sense
of indignation and a disposition to resistance. Practically you
can never enforce the law of treason against the collective action
of a people. It was threatened in the case of the revolution of
our own ancestors in 1776. Was it ever enforced T Must it not
always lead to retaliation where there is this collective action?
Is there a possibility that where revolution occurs — ^and this is
revolution on the part of the people of seven States in their col-
lective capacity — ^that the law of treason can be enforced T Why,
then, is the term applied unless, indeed, those who use it intend
so to increase exasperation that neither reconciliation nor re-,
union, nor even peaceful separation, shall be practicable or pos-
sible.

But, sir, though the act of secession, which, for the reasons
I have assigned, I believe to be revolutionary, is a revolutionary
right, and is a right which the people of a State alone, in whom
the ultimate sovereignty is vested, not the legislature, can exer-
cise; and it is from the use of the words "the people," by our
ancestors, to distinguish between the mere Government as an
agent and the great body of the people in which, as possessing
the ultimate sovereignty, the right to change the form of gov-
ernment reposes, that so many have been led into false views of
the act of secession. They used the word ** people" as repre-
senting the ultimate and true source of sovereignty in contra-
distinction to the mere Government. If the people of a State,
acting in the same collective capacity in which they adopted the
Constitution of the United States, as a distinct people, after-
ward choose to abrogate that Constitution, it seems clear, if they
had the authority to adopt, they must have the sovereignty to
rescind. The act is revolutionary, because it is against the will
of the common Government, and a breach of the compact which
created that Government. It becomes just cause of war, as in
any case in which one nation abrogates a compact with another,
and war alone must be the remedy or peaceful arrangement.

The remaining (question, which I wish to discuss, is as to the
power of the President and Senate, by treaty, to adjust all qucs-

THE RIGHT OF SECESSION 47

tions likely to give rise to difficulty and to collision between the
new republic which has been formed and the Federal Govern-
ment. I cannot entertain a doubt as to the existence of that
power. It is not expressly given in those terms, but the treaty-
making power is vested in the President and Senate. It is an
indefinite power. The war power, contrary to the rule which
exists in other nations, is in Congress, the legislative body, alone.
The treaty-making power is confined to the President, and two-
thirds of the Senate concurring with him in the negotiation of
the treaty. One must necessarily, in the exigencies of a nation,
be as broad as the other. What is there that prevents the United
States from ceding a portion of territory not within a State, if
the exigencies of the Government require it? You acquire ter-
ritory by means of treaty, with no express power given for the
purpose, because the external sovereignty of the Union is vested
in the Federal Government alone; and for the same reason, if
the general interests of the whole, where no particular State has
jurisdiction or authority, require that you should cede territory
of the United States to a foreign government, can anyone doubt
Ihat the cession could be made, not by Congress, but by the Pres-
ident and Senate, only by means of a treaty T You did it for the
purpose of closing a boundary in the case of Maine, within a
State, with the consent of the State. You were not able to run
the line between Great Britain and the United States; and for
the purpose of establishing a boundary and preventing collision
and war between the nations you did cede a portion of the State
of Maine, with the consent of the legislature of that State.

If one purpose will justify you in ceding a portion of the
United States to a foreign nation, on what principle is it that,
where seven States of this Union, by their consent and by the
action of their people, have chosen to withdraw themselves from
the Union and declare themselves out of the Union, you cannot
accept their declaration and treat with them? You cannot
doubt that you have the power of war against them, though not
while they are States of the Union. If you once begin war, you
treat them as an alien people. It is the necessary result of war.
Will war give a power to the President and Senate to make a
treaty, which they do not possess antecedent to the war? Is a
baptism of blood necessary in order to give authority under the
Constitution to the President and Senate of the United States
to conclude peace? If such a doctrine be tenable, the result is
that, if a collision of arms occurs with this new republic, and
you fight for a period of eight or ten years, still you are power-
less ; the President and Senate cannot treat, peace caa never be

48 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

concluded, and eternal war must be the rule of your Gbvem-
ment. No new power will be acquired by a collision of arms be-
tween you and this new republic. The power must exist now, or
it exists never.

Mr. President, I do not see how this conclusion can be es-
caped; and why you should not have the power. The treaty-
making power, beyond all question, is an indefinite power. It
embraces all relations external to the Union. If any State had
never become a party to the present Government, can anyone
doubt that, such State remaining an independent state, you
could have treated with her, and that every State of this Union
had the right to part with any portion of her territory irrespec-
tive of the consent of the general Government, if she was not a
party to that Qovemmentt It was part of their sovereignty and
their independence, as it belongs to every other nation, to either
acquire territory, which is one of the rights of sovereignty, or to
diminish her territory by cession, where the public exigencies re-
quire it. Well, then, if a State, by the action of her people, de-
clares herself out of the Union, what clause in the Constitution
forbids your acceptance of her declaration, and excludes from
the treaty-making power negotiation and treaty with her? If
you, with her consent, can cede a portion of her territory to a
foreign power, why can you not, with her consent, permit the
whole State to withdraw from the Federal jurisdiction ?

For the acquisition of territory by the United States, you
find no express authority in the Constitution ; but it results from
the nature of your Government. It is forbidden to the States ;
it is permitted to the general Government, because the right of
acquisition is incident to sovereignty.

The right to acquire territory implies the right to part with
it. There is no limit, in fact, to the power of diminishing the
territory of the Union, except in the States. As we have seen,
the general Government, with the assent of the State concerned,
did it for one purpose, in the case of the State of Maine, with-
out even the action of the people.

In the case of the seven seceded States, the people in their
original capacity, in whom the ultimate sovereignty rests ac-
cording to our Declaration of Independence, have declared
those States to be out of the Union by their representatives
elected for that purpose, and they have dissolved their connec-
tion with the Federal Government. Have we not the right, has
not this Government the power, to accept that declaration ; not
to destroy the Union, but to preserve it, and maintain peace
with those States? Tou cannot escape from perpetual and eter-

THE RIGHT OF SECESSION 49

nal war, unless yon come to this conclusiony that the President
and the Senate have the power of negotiation with a State which
secedes, if they see fit to exercise it. I admit freely that, on the
other hand, the act of secession having the effect of severing the
State from the Union, though revolutionary, and making her
people an alien people. Congress has also the right of war, and
just cause of war, if there is no cause for the withdrawal.

If you refuse to treat, if the relations between these two re-
publics are left in their present unsettled condition, the danger
of collision must be constantly existent. There is the loss also
of prestige on the part of the Federal Government, if you assert
your jurisdiction over the seceded States, and do not enforce
your laws. In fact, non-action would amount to a virtual ac-
knowledgment of the independence de facto of those States.
Why not acknowledge it by treaty, by direct action, and thus
avoid collision T Foreign governments will so act if you do not,
and thus complicate the relations between the two republics.

But, sir, it cannot be doubted that war will be the inevitable
result if the army or the navy is employed to execute the laws
of the Federal Union within the seceded States. If you do mean
war, it is a question of morals and of power. There is but one
legitimate object for such a war, and that is the restoration of
the seceded States to the Union. But you can never effect that
result by a war of subjugation. Is it consistent with your form
of government, if you could succeed in conquering those States,
to hold them as subject provinces? You must either desolate
them, if you succeed, or you must maintain your supremacy by
an immense standing army, in order to keep them in subjection.
Look at the condition of Venice and Austria. What myriads of
troops is Austria obliged to maintain in order to keep an ener-
vate people in a state of subjection against their will ! Sir, the
admiration of military glory is quite as strong a passion
among the American people as with other nations. The per-
manent maintenance of a large standing army would necessa-
rily foster and encourage that passion, and, in the end, some suc-
cessful soldier would become the military autocrat of the Re-
public, and substitute the coercion of arms for the coercion of
the magistracy, because the character of the people, under a war
of one or two generations, would change, and the love of civil
liberty that now exists throughout this nation would be seriously
diminished, or, perhaps, entirely pass away.

You cannot conquer the South any more than the South
could conquer the North. The first attempt at conquest would,
of necessity, from the cause of contest, force other alaveholding
VI— 4

50 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

States into the Southern Confederacy, and this new republic, as
it stands, has both the wealth and population to maintain a na-
tional existence. It would be no short war. The result of war,
too, is always doubtful, and far beyond human foresight. Acci-
dent will often determine a decisive battle. The individual
genius of leaders controls the events of war far beyond any con-
trol that can be exercised by human genius during a state of
peace. The genius of Andrew Jackson secured the victory of
New Orleans. Under another, though an able soldier, it might
have been lost. The majority of numbers and resources will not
insure success in war. On the plains of Marathon, ten thousand
Greeks defeated the countless hosts of Xerxes, and a compara-
tively small number of deficiently armed Swiss mountaineers
met the mailed chivalry of Charles of Burgundy, and defeated,
utterly and disastrously, the best armed and organized army of
Europe. Bannockbum must not be forgotten, and history is
filled with similar illustrations.

Again, sir, a war of invasion — ^which, if the war commences,
must be its character, if you attempt to effect your purpose un-
der the pretext of enforcing the laws — ^is always in favor of the
invaded country. Men will fight for their homes and their fire-
sides as they will not fight for conquest, and will endure the ut-
most extent of privation and suffering, rather than 3deld to the
invader ; and disparity of force never insures the conquest of an
invaded country. You have the illustration in our own contest
with Great Britain.

Great Britain might possibly, under abler military men, have
succeeded for the time; but after the first blood was shed she
never could have retained her supremacy over this country.
Conciliation might have saved her the colonies in the first in-
stance, before independence was declared, but after its declara-
tion the acknowledgment of their independence became an in-
evitable result, and was merely a question of time.

I trust the idea that it would be a legitimate act on the part
of the Federal Government, for the purpose of effecting their
subjugation, to incite servile insurrection in the States of this
new republic, is not entertained. The act would be forbidden by
common humanity and the indignant voice of the world. But if
the spirit of malignity entertain such an idea, it will be disap-
pointed. Servile insurrections may occur, and have occurred
in the history of the world, but not at the call of an invader.
Your own wars with Great Britain, in the Revolution and in
1812, illustrate this.

Is there, &Ir. President, a point of honor T The Union is not

THE RIGHT OF SECESSION 51

dissolved if we let these States go. The United States remain;
the Federal Gh>vernment remains. We are a great and powerful
nation. Part of the dominions over which our laws extended
may be curtailed, and our jurisdiction over them lost, but we
remain with all the elements of a great nation, if we acknowl-
edge the new republic. But it may be said that, if we sever in
consequence of this secession, arising from the anti-slavery sen-
timent, into two separate governments, the same sentiment will
produce collision between the independent governments by the
same interference which has led to secession from the com-
mon government. The answer is that the anti-slavery sen-
timent, with the masses at least, is an honest, though, as I
think, a mistaken conviction, founded in ignorance of the rela-
tions of race. They believe, also, that there is a moral responsi-
bility on their part connected with the operations of the com-
mon government, in relation to this institution. That responsi-
bility ceases if this new republic is acknowledged as a separate
nationality.

Mr. President, if so many separate and independent com-
munities existing under a common government find that, from
dissonance of habits, of manners, of customs, or from antago-
nism of opinion, or any other cause, they can no longer remain
under that common government, and can agree by peaceful
action to separate into two republics, each pursuing its own des-
tiny according to its own views and the will of its own people,
it will afford the most pregnant and conclusive evidence that
has ever been exhibited to the world of the capacity of man for
self-government. If, on the contrary, blood must flow, and war,
prolonged civil war, be consequent upon separation, then, in-
deed, will the columns that support this Federal Government be
scattered into fragments, and probably many petty and power-
less governments arise upon their ruins. Years of conflict may
establish separate nationalities, but in that event the last hope
of the patriot, the philosopher, and the statesman, for the self-
government of man, will perish with the dissolution of the Fed-
eral Union.

Negotiations wfth Confederate Peace Commission

Prior to the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln the Con-
federate Government had selected three commissioners
to adjust the ** differences ' ' which existed between the
two governments. They were Martin J. Crawford, a

52 GREAT. AMERICAN DEBATES

former Democratic member of Congress from Georgia ;
John Forsyth, editor of a Democratic paper at Mobile,
Ala., and Andrew B. Roman, a former Governor of
Louisiana, and a Whig who had used all his influence to
prevent disunion.

On the 13th of March, 1861, the commissioners sent
a diplomatic dispatch to the Federal State Department
informing the Federal Government that they had been
appointed by the Confederate authorities as commis-
sioners empowered to open negotiations for the settle-
ment of all controverted questions between the two gov-
ernments, and to conclude treaties of peace Between ^ ^ the
two nations/'

To this note no reply was returned, but Secretary
William H. Seward made out a memorandum and filed
it with the document, simply stating that the Govern-
ment could not recognize the authority under which the
alleged conmiissioners acted, nor reply to them. The
memorandum stated that ^ ' it could not be admitted that
the States referred to had, in law or fact, withdrawn
from the Federal Union, or that they could do so in
any other manner than with their consent, and the con-
sent of the people of the United States, to be given
through a national convention to be assembled in con-
formity with the provisions of the Constitution of the
United States/'

This memorandum was withheld until April 8, when
it was at once telegraphed both to Montgomery, Ala.,
the Confederate capital, and Charleston, where it created
great excitement.

In the meanwhile Chief- Justice Taney and Assodate-
Justices Campbell and Nelson had, of their own volition
as good citizens, examined the legal question of the
right of the President to coerce a State, and had con-
cluded that there was no constitutional right so to do;
and they gratuitously advised the several members of
the Cabinet of the conclusions to which they had come,
and recommended that terms of conciliation be proposed
to the Confederate Government through the commis-
sioners.

THE RIGHT OF SECESSION 53

Secretary Seward was in favor of evacuating Fort
Sumter, and he informed Judge CampbeU, who was act-
ing as mediator, that it would be evacuated, and Camp-
beU so informed the Confederate commissioners, who in
turn informed their Government Mr. Lincoln was
taking ample time to deliberate what to do, being uncer-
tain as to the best policy. He was hopeful that Virginia
would not secede, and that the Virginia convention,
which was deliberating upon the question, would ad-
journ and so cease to be a menace to him.

On the 9th of April the Confederate commissioners
sent a letter to the Secretary of State in which they
proffered as their ultimatum of negotiation the evacua-
tion of Sumter. Secretary Seward replied that he was
not **at liberty to hold official intercourse with them.*'

Of this action the Confederate authorities were duly
apprised, and the commissioners left Washington on
Apnl 11, and returned to Montgomery.

The Fall of Fobt Sumteb

President Lincoln, against the advice of a majority
of his Cabinet, had finally resolved to send provisions
to Fort Sumter, and an expedition sailed for this pur-
pose on April 6.

Owing to a gale only the Baltic of the fleet arrived
in time to be of service to Major Anderson, and that
only to bear away the surrendered garrison. The Con-
federate Government heard of the coming of the pro-
visioning expedition and, considering the capture of the
fort necessary to the life of the rebellion, ordered ^
General Pierre G. T. Beauregard, who was in charge of
tiie investment, to procure its surrender, or, failing in
this, to bombard it On the 11th Beauregard sent to
Major Anderson a smnmons to surrender, offering to
him, in case of compliance, facilities to remove the troops,
and to the garrison the privilege of saluting their flag.
To this Anderson replied that he would surrender the
fort on the 15th if supplies did not reach him by that
time, or if he did not before then receive orders to the
contrary from his Government.

54 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

These conditions did not suit the Confederates, and

on Friday, April 12, at 3 a. m., they gave Anderson

notice that their batteries would open on the fort in an

^hour. At 4:30 the bombardment began, and continued

throughout that day and into the next.

Anderson then accepted the conditions of surrender
offered, and on the following day, Sunday, April 14, the
garrison sailed northward in the Baltic.

The Virginia Convention

Since February 13 Virginia had been holding a con-
vention to consider its policy in the crisis. The Union
delegates were in a majority. An ordinance of secession
was voted down on March 17 by a majority of ninety to
forty-five, and a similar proposition was defeated on
April 4, but still the convention declined to adjourn.
Mr. Lincoln therefore caused a letter to be sent to
George W. Summers of Charleston, Va., the most tal-
ented of the Union men in his State, requesting that he
come to Washington for conference. Summers was kept
by timidity from accepting the President's invitation,
but he sent John B. Baldwin in his place.

The interview was held on the morning of April 4.
Baldwin returned to the convention reporting that his
conference with the President was inconclusive; that
Mr. Lincoln had characterized the convention as a
* ' standing menace which embarrassed him very much, ' *
and therefore he desired that it adjourn sine die, but
that he had given no promise of what return he would
make to it for compliance with his wishes. John Minor
Botts, another member of the convention, called on the
President two days afterward, and held a conversation
in which Mr. Lincoln gave an account of the interview
with Baldwin which, as remembered by Mr. Botts, dif-
fered materially from Baldwin's report. The President,
said Botts, spoke of the fleet in New York harbor pre-
paring to sail that afternoon to provision Fort Sumter.
"Now," said Mr. Lincoln, *'your convention in Rich-
mond has been sitting for nearly two months, and all it
has done has been to shake the rod over my head

THE RIGHT OF SECESSION 55

(threatening to secede if coercion should be used to
bring back South Carolina into the Union). If the Union
majority in the Virginia convention will adjourn it with-
out its passing an ordinance of secession, this fleet shall
be kept from sailing, and, instead, Fort Sumter shall be
evacuated. I think it is a good swap to give a fort for
a State any time.'*

As a result of Baldwin 's report, the Virginia conven-
tion remained in session, and on April 8 appointed an-
other delegation, consisting of William Ballard Preston,
Alexander H. H. Stuart, and George W. Randolph, to
wait on President Lincoln, and ask him to communicate
to the convention ''the policy which the Federal Execu-
tive intends to pursue in regard to the Federal States.'*

The committee had an audience with the President
at Washington on April 13, the day after Fort Sumter
had been fired upon by the South Carolinian secession-
ists. He referred the convention to the policy expressed
in his inaugural address :

As I then and therein said, I now repeat: **The power con-
fided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the prop-
erty and places belonging to the Government, and to collect the
duties and imposts; but beyond what is necessary for these ob-
jects th^re will be no invasion, no using of force against or
among the people anywhere." ... In case it proves true that
Fort Sumter has been assaulted, as is reported, I shall perhaps
cause the United States mails to be withdrawn from all the
States which claim to have seceded, believing that the com-
mencement of actual war against the Government justifies and
possibly demands this. ...

Whatever else I may do for the purpose, I shall not attempt
to collect the duties and imposts by any armed invasion of any
part of the coimtry ; not meaning by this, however, that I may
not land a force deemed necessary to relieve a fort upon a bor-
der of the coimtry.

The report of this conunittee, followed as it was by
the President ^s call of April 15 for 75,000 militia to sup-^
press the rebellion and to be raised by the several States
of the Union, which included Virginia, caused the con-
vention, on April 17, to pass an ordinance of secession.

56 GREAT, AMERICAN DEBATES

This was followed by a similar ordinance in Arkansas
on May 6, and a military league with the Confederacy in
Tennessee on May 7.

The Confederate Government established its capital
at Richmond, Virginia, on the 21st of May, and North
Carolina, being surrounded by secession territory, se-*
ceded the same day.

The Call fob Teoops

On April 15, the day after the surrender of Fort
Sumter, the President) issued a proclamation calling
forth the militia of the several States of the Union to
the aggregate number of 75,000 to suppress combina-
tions which existed in the seceding States for the pur-
pose of opposing and obstructing the enforcement of
Federal laws, and which were * * too powerful to be sup-
pressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings,
or by the powers vested in the marshals by law/' The
concluding paragraph of the proclamation convened
Congress to meet on July 4 ' ' to consider and determine
such measures as, in their wisdom, the public safety
and interest might seem to demand/'

The call for troops was really signed on Sunday,
April 14, though dated April 15. On the evening of
the 14th Senator Stephen A. Douglas called upon Presi-
dent Lincoln and was closeted with him for two hours.
He went forth from the conference to publish by tele-
graph to the country the declaration that he was "pre-
pared to sustain the President in the exercise of all his
constitutional functions to preserve the Union, and
maintain the Government, and defend the Federal
capital. ' ' On April 25, before the Illinois legislature, he
made, in behalf of the Union, the most eloquent speech
of his life. Unfortunately for the cause which had be-
come the paramount passion of his soul, he died a little
more than a month thereafter, on June 3, at his home
in Chicago. Even measured by his few weeks of service,
his place is secure in American history as the first and
greatest of "War Democrats.'*

The governors of all the free States responded to fhe

THE RIGHT OF SECESSION 57

call for troops with enthusiasm, offering more men than
were required or could be armed. The governors of the
border States, however, indignantly refused the call.
Governor Jackson of Missouri said, *'Not one man will
Missouri furnish to carry on such an unholy crusade.'*
Governor Magoffin of Kentucky said, *'I say emphati-
cally, Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked
purpose of subduing her sister Southern States," and
Governor Harris of Tennessee said, ' ' Tennessee will not
furnish a man for coercion, but 50,000 for the defence
of our Southern brothers."

MnJTABY Movements of the Confedebacy

As an answer to Lincoln's call for troops, Jefferson
Davis, President of the Southern Confederacy, issued a
proclamation on April 17, offering letters of marque
and reprisal to privateers desiring to prey upon the
conmierce of the United States. Two days later Presi-
dent Lincoln replied by proclaiming a blockade of all
the Confederate ports, and giving notice that privateer-
ing would be treated as piracy.

General Beauregard was ordered by President Davis
into northern Virginia to assume conmiand of the forces
gathering there from the Gulf States.

Mttjtaby Movements of the Union

On May 3 the President issued a proclamation calling
for 42,034 more volunteers from the several States, and
an increase in the regular army of 22,714 men, and in
the navy of 18,000.

The first efforts of the Government were to hold the
border States in the Union. Major Eobert Anderson,
the hero of Fort Sumter, was sent to his native State
of Kentucky to recruit volunteers. Captain Nathaniel
Lyon, an ardent anti-slavery man, who was in charge
of the St. Louis arsenal, was ordered to enlist 10,000
loyal Missourians, aTid, if necessary, to proclaim martial
law in the State. £L^^ ,-he was put in charge of the
military department in wjiich Missouri was situated.

58 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

replacing General William H. Harney, a conservative,
who had been cajoled into making a compact with the
State government, which was attempting to take Mis-
souri into the Confederacy, to refrain from military
movements, since these were apt to "create excitements
and jealousy." General Lyon at once went into action,
and on June 17 defeated the State (really Confederate)
troops under General Sterling Price at Booneville. The

THE BATTLE Of BOONEVJLLE, OR TUE CR£AT )

Fnm Ou telHaDm «f Ou N«w fork BlMoHcol Sactit

governor, Claiborne F. Jackson, was forced to flee from
place to place in the State while keeping up the pretence
of a government. Missouri, under Jackson, was recog-
nized as a part of the Confederacy by the Davis Govern-
ment.

General George B, McClellan entered West Virginia
from Ohio and occnpied it for the Union, A Michigan
regiment under Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth entered
Virginia from Washington and occupied Alexandria.
Ellsworth, as he was cutting down a rebel flag on a
hotel there, was assassinated by tbe-f'Top-'ietor.

The capture of Alexandria' inangurated open conflict

THE RIGHT OF SECESSION 59

between the Confederacy and the Union in Virginia.
General Pierre G. T. Beauregard, who was looked upon
by the South as the hero of Fort Sumter, was sent on
May 31 to command the Confederate forces centering
about Manassas. General Joseph E. Johnston was in
command at Winchester, having fallen back from Har-
per's Ferry before a superior Union force under Gen-
eral Robert Patterson. On June 19 President Lincoln
called his Cabinet and the leading generals to a council
of war, at which it was decided that General Irvin Mc-
Dowell should lead the Union forces against Beauregard,
while Patterson should remain confronting Johnston in
the Shenandoah Valley, following him in a rear attack if
he should attempt to join Beauregard.

This was the situation when Congress met in special
session July 4 and listened to the President's message.

The message was in effect an answer to Senator
Bayard's speech on the right of secession.

The Sophistby of Secession

FiBST Message of PREsmENT Lincoln to Concbess

In his message President Lincoln described the state
of affairs at the time of his inauguration; the suspen-
sion of all functions of the Federal Government, save
those of the postoffice, in South Carolina, Georgia, Ala-
bama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida ; the seizure by
the several governments of these States of forts and
other Federal property, and the organization of these
States into a Confederation which ''was already invok-
ing recognition, aid, and intervention from foreign
powers." The President recounted his forbearance in
pursuing the policy expressed in his inaugural address
of exhausting all peaceful measures before resorting to
stronger ones.

He then lucidly recited the story of the assault upon
Fort Sumter by South Carolina, demonstrating that it
was in no sense an act of defence, but on the contrary

60 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

of deliberate aggression, designed to force the hand of
the Federal Government.

That this was their object the Executive well understood;
and having said to them, in the inaugural address, ''You can
have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors," he
took pains not only to keep this declaration good, but also to keep
the case so free from the power of ingenious sophistry that the
world should not be able to misunderstand it. By the affair at
Port Sumter, with its surrounding circumstances, that point was
reached. In this act, discarding all else, they have forced upon
the country the distinct issue, "immediate dissolution or blood."

And this issue embraces more than the fate of the United
States. It presents to the whole family of man the question
whether a constitutional republic or democracy — a government
of the people by the same people— can or cannot maintain its
territorial integrity against its own domestic foes. It presents
the question whether discontented individuals, too few in num-
bers to control administration according to organic law in any
case, can always, upon the pretences made in this case, or on any
other pretences, or arbitrarily without any pretence, break up
their government, and thus practically put an end to free gov-
ernment upon the earth. It forces us to ask: **Is there, in all
republics, this inherent and fatal weakness?" ''Must a govern-
ment, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own peo-
ple, or too Aveak to maintain its own existence?"

So viewing the issue, no choice was left but to call out the
war power of the Government; and so to resist force employed
for its destruction by force for its preservation.

The President then discussed the action of the border
States, particularly Virginia, pursuant to the attack on
Sumter.

The course taken in Virginia was the most remarkable — ^per-
haps the most important. A convention elected by the people
of that State to consider the very question of disrupting the
Federal Union was in session at the capital of Virginia when
Fort Sumter fell. To this body the people had chosen a large
majority of professed Union men. Almost immediately after the
fall of Sumter, many members of that majority went over to
the original disunion minority, and with them adopted an ordi-
nance for withdrawing the State from the Union. Whether this
change was wrought by their great approval of the assault upon

THE RIGHT OF SECESSION 61

Sumter or their great resentment at the Ooyemment's resist-
ance to that assault is not definitely known. Although they sub-
mitted the ordinance for ratification to a vote of the people, to
be taken on a day then somewhat more than a month distant,
the convention and the legislature (which was also in session at
the same time and place), with leading men of the State not
members of either, immediately commenced acting as if the State
were already out of the Union. They pushed military prepara-
tions vigorously forward all over the State. They seized the
United States armory at Harper's Ferry, and the navy yard at
Gosport, near Norfolk. They received — ^perhaps invited — into
their State large bodies of trooi>s, with their warlike appoint-
ments, from the so-called seceded States. They formally entered
into a treaty of temporary alliance and cooperation with the so-
called "Confederate States,'' and sent members to their con-
gress at Mcmtgomery. And, finally, they permitted the insur-
rectionary government to be transferred to their capital at
Bichmond.

The people of Virginia have thus allowed this giant insur-
rection to make its nest within her borders; and this Qovem-
ment has no choice left but to deal with it where it finds it. And
it has the less regret as the loyal citizens have, in due form,
claimed its protection. Those loyal citizens this Government is
bound to recognize and protect, as being Virginia.

The attitude of ** armed neutrality" adopted by
Kentucky the President characterized as ' ' disunion com-
pleted."

Figuratively speaking, it would be the building of an im-
passable waU along the line of separation — and yet not quite an
impassable one, for under the guise of neutrality it would tie
the hands of Union men and freely pass supplies from among
them to the insurrectionists, which it could not do as an open
enemy. ... It recognizes no fidelity to the Constitution, no
obligation to maintain the Union; and, while very many who
have favored it are doubtless loyal citizens, it is, nevertiieless,
very injurious in effect.

The President proceeded to justify his orders to
Lieutenant-General Scott authorizing him at discretion
to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, an order which
had been harshly oritioiBed as arbitrary and unconsti-
tutionaL

62 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

The provision of the Constitution that ''the privilege of the
writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when, in
cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it,"
is equivalent to a provision — ^is a provision — that such privilege
may be suspended when, in case of rebellion or invasion, the
public safety does require it. It was decided that we have a
case of rebellion, and that the public safety does require the
qualified suspension of the privilege of the writ which was au-
thorized to be made. Now it is insisted that Congress, and not
the Executive, is vested wth this power. But the Constitution
itself is silent as to which or who is to exercise the power ; and,
as the provision was plainly made for a dangerous emergency,
it cannot be believed the f ramers of the instrument intended that
in every case the danger should run its course until Congress
could be called together, the very assembling of which might be
prevented, as was intended in this case, by the rebellion.

The President concluded his message proper with
an appeal to Congress to pass those measures which
would enable him to suppress the rebellion quickly and
decisively :

It is now recommended that you give the legal means for
making this contest a short and decisive one : that you place at
the control of the Government for the work at least four hun-
dred thousand men and $400,000,000. That number of men is
about one-tenth of those of proper ages within the regions where,
apparently, all are willing to engage ; and the sum is less than
a twenty-third part of the money value owned by the men who
seem ready to devote the whole. A debt of $600,000,000 now is
a less sum per head than was the debt of our Revolution when
we came out of that struggle ; and the money value in the coun-
try now bears even a greater proportion to what it was then than
does the population. Surely each man has as strong a motive
now to preserve our liberties as each had then to establish them.

A right result at this time will be worth more to the world
than ten times the men and ten times the money. The evidence
reaching us from the country leaves no doubt that the material
for the work is abundant, and that it needs only the hand of
legislation to give it legal sanction, and the hand of the Ex-
ecutive to give it practical shape and eflSciency. One of the
greatest perplexities of the Government is to avoid receiving
troops faster than it can provide for them. In a word, the peo-

THE RIGHT OF SECESSION 63

pie will save their Oovernment if the Government itself will do
its part only indifferently well.

The latter half of the message was is its nature an
address to the country upon the fallacies of Becession

THI AUBKICAtf EAOLE BCOTCHINO THE SNASK OP SICESStOH
[Cover picture of "Vanity Fair," May 4, 1861]
From Um (oUsaion ^ at Ntw York PuftKe LOrarji

and the constitutional duty imposed upon the President
to suppress it by arms. The movers of secession, said
Mr. Lincoln, in order to undermine the loyalty of the
South to the Union, "invented an ingenious sophism,
which, if conceded, was followed by perfectly logical
steps through all the incidents to the complete destruo-

64 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

tion of the Union. The sophism itself is that any State
in the Union may, consistently with the national Con-
stitution, withdraw from the Union without the consent
of the Union or of any other State. The little disguise
that the supposed right is to be exercised only for just
cause, themselves to be the sole judges of its justice, is
too thin to merit any notice. '*

This sophism, said Mr. Lincoln, is based upon the
false doctrine of State sovereignty. **Our States,'' he
said, ^'have neither more nor less power than that re-
served to them in the Union by the Constitution — ^no
one of them ever having been a State out of the Union.
. . . The States have their statiis in the Union, and
they have no other legal status. If they break from
this, they can only do so against law and by revolution.
The Union, and not themselves separately, procured
their independence. . . . The Union is older than
any of the States, and, in fact, it created them as States. ' '

The rights of the States reserved to them by the
Constitution, argued Mr. Lincoln, are obviously ad-
ministrative powers, and certainly do not include a
power to destroy the Government itself. **This relative
matter of national power and State rights, as a principle,
is no other than the principle of generality and locality.
Whatever concerns the whole should be confined to the
whole — to the general Government, while whatever con-
cerns only the State should be left exclusively to the
State.

''The nation purchased with money," continued Mr.
Lincoln, **the countries out of which several of these
States were formed; is it just that they shall go off
without leave and without refunding? . . . The
nation is now in debt for money applied to the benefit
of these so-called seceding States in conunon with the
rest; is it just that . . • the remaining States pay
the whole f . • . Again, if one State may secede, so
may another, and when all shall have seceded none is
left to pay the debts. . . . The principle itself is
one of disintegration, and upon which no government
can possibly endure."

THE RIGHT OF SECESSION 65

It may be afi&nned, without extravagance, that the free insti-
tutions we enjoy have developed the powers and improved the
condition of our whole people beyond any example in the world.
Of this we now have a striking and an impressive illustration.
So large an army as the Qovemment has now on foot was never
before known without a soldier in it but who had taken his place
there of his own free choice. But, more than this, there are
many single regiments whose members, one and another, possess
full practical knowledge of all the arts, sciences, professions, and
whatever else, whether useful or elegant, is known in the world ;
and there is scarcely one from which there could not be selected
a President, a Cabinet, a Congress, and perhaps a Court, abun-
dantly competent to administer the Government itself. Nor do
I say this is not true also in the army of our late friends, now
adversaries in this contest ; but if it is, so much better the reason
why the Government which has conferred such benefits on both
them and us should not be broken up. Whoever, in any sec-
tion, proposes to abandon such a government, would do well to
consider in deference to what principle it is that he does it;
what better he is likely to get in its stead ; whether the substi-
tute will give, or be intended to give, so much of good to the
people? There are some foreshadowings on this subject. Our
adversaries have adopted some declarations of independence, in
which, unlike the good old one, penned by Jefferson, they omit
the words, "all men are created equal." Why? They have
adopted a temporary national constitution, in the preamble of
which unlike our good old one, signed by Washington, they omit,
"We, the people," and substitute, '* We, the deputies of the sov-
ereign and independent States," Why? Why this deliberate
pressing out of view the rights of men and the authority of the
people ?

This is essentially a people ^s contest. On the side of the
Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form
and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate
the condition of men; to lift artificial weights from all shoul-
ders; to clear the paths of laudable pursuits for all ; to afford all
an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life. Yield-
ing to partial and temporary departures, from necessity, this is
the leading object of the Government for whose existence we
contend.

I am most happy to believe that the plain people understand
and appreciate this. It is worthy of note that, while in this,
the Government's, hour of trial, large numbers of those in the
army and navy who have been favored with the o£Sces have re-

VI--5

66 GREAT, AMERICAN DEBATES

fligued and proved false to the hand which had pampered them,
not one common soldier or common sailor is known to have de-
serted his flag.

Oreat honor is due to those officers who remained true, de-
spite the example of their treacherous associates ; but the great-
est honor, and most important fact of all, is the unanimous firm-
ness of the common soldiers and common sailors. To the last
man, so far as known, they have successfully resisted the traitor-
ous efforts of those whose commands but an hour before they
obeyed as absolute law. This is the patriotic instinct of plain
people. They understand, without an argument, that the de-
stroying the Government which was made by Washington means
no good to them.

Our popular (Government has often been called an experi-
ment. Two points in it our people have already settled — ^the
successful establishing and the successful administering of it.
One still remains — ^its successful maintenance against a formi-
dable internal attempt to overthrow it. It is now for them to
demonstrate to the world that those who can fairly carry an elec-
tion can also suppress a rebellion; that ballots are the rightful
and peaceful successors of bullets; and that, when ballots have
fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be no successful
peal back to bullets; that there can be no successful appeal, ex-
cept to ballots themselves, at succeeding elections. Such will be
a great lesson of peace; teaching men that what they cannot
take by an election neither can they take by a war; teaching
all the folly of being the beginners of a war.

It was with the deepest regret that the Executive found the
duty of employing the war power in defence of the (Jovemment
forced upon him. He could but perform this duty or surrender
the existence of the (Jovernment. No compromise by public serv-
ants could, in this case, be a cure ; not that compromises are not
often proper, but no popular government can long survive
a marked precedent that those who carry an election can save
the government from immediate destruction only by giving up
the main point upon which the people gave the election. The
people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse
their own deliberate decisions.

As a private citizen the Executive could not have consented
that these institutions shall perish; much less could he, in be-
trayal of so vast and so sacred a trust as the free people have
confided to him. He felt that he had no moral right to shrink,
nor even to count the chances of his own life in what might fol-
low. In full view of his great responsibility he has, so far, done

THE RIGHT OF SECESSION 67

what he has deemed his duty. You will now, according to your
own judgment, perform yours. He sincerely hopes that your
views and your actions may so accord with his as to assure all
faithful citizens who have been disturbed in their rights of a
certain and speedy restoration to them, under the Constitution
and the laws.

And having thus chosen our course without guile and with
pure purpose, let us renew our trust in Ood, and go forward
without fear and with manly hearts.

CHAPTER in
The Wab-makino Poweb : Does It Lib in the Pbesident

OB CoNOBESSf

General George B. McQellan's Victories in Western Virginia— Union De-
feat at Manassas [Bull Run], Va. — ^Demoralization of the Country —
Lincoln's War Measures — ^War Acts of Congress — Debate in the House
on '' Constitutionality of the President's Acts"; Against the Acts^
Clement L. Vallandigham [O.] ; in favor, William S. Holman [Ind.] —
Debate on the Same in the Senate; Against the Acts, John C. Breck-
inridge [Ky.] ; in Favor, Edward D. Baker [Ore.] ; Kinsley S. Bingham
[Mich.], Henry S. Lane (Ind.) — Anti-Secession Besolutions of Bepre-
sentatiye John J. Crittenden [Ky.] and Senator Andrew Johnson
[Tenn.] ; Carried — ^Lyman Trumbull [111.] Introduces in the Senate Bill
tq Suppress Insurrection (Virtually to Make War) — ^Debate on the Bill:
in Favor, Senator Trumbull, Edward D. Baker [Ore.] ; Opposed, James
A. Bayard, Jr. [Del.], William P. Fessenden [Me.], John C. Breckin-
ridge [Ky.], Jacob Collamer [Vt.] ; Bill Is Not Pressed.

TEN days after the President had promulgated his
enheartening message. Congress, as well as the
Northern people, were rejoiced by the victories
of Oeneral McClellan at Bich Mountain and Carrick's
Ford, whereby western Virginia was secured to the
Union. A week later, however, their joyful anticipation
of an early and complete conquest of the seceded States
was turned into dismay; instead of this easy victory
perhaps it was the North which would be invaded; the
national capital might fall, and the Southern Con-
federacy dictate from the halls of Congress terms for
its recognition as a separate republic, and, indeed, the
dominant one on the continent.

Battle of Bull Bun [Manassas]

On July 21 the Confederate troops under Generals
P. G. T. Beauregard and Joseph Johnston defeated the

THE WAR-MAKING POWER 69

Union troops under General Irwin McDowell at Manas-
sas [Bull Run] Va. The Union retreat became a disor-
derly flight back to Washington. Many civilians had
gone to see the battle, and these, mingling with the re-
treating soldiers, contributed to the confusion. One
Congressraan was captured by the rebels — a salutary

! pkace"

I Wood, of tbe New York Daily News (pro-SoDth), and Horace
Greeley, of tho Tribune (anti-Blavery)
From On mlUclKm of IS* N€V York PiMlc Librani

lesson to his colleagues of the evil effects of over-confi-
dence.

The entire country was thrown into a panic, from
which it was some time in recovering. On July 29, "after
seven sleepless nights, ' ' Horace Greeley wrote a despair-
ing letter to Lincoln, in which he advised the President
that, if, in his opinion, the recent disaster was fatal,
he should not shrink even from making peace with the
rebels at once, and on tlieir own terms.

Lincoln had spent sleepless nights, not in selfish

70 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

nursing of grief, but in planning for the salvation of the
Republic, He placed General McClellan in chief com-
mand at Washington, with power to organize a new
army out of the three years' regiments beginning to
pour in upon the capital, and he devised plans for a
vigorous oflfensive campaign in the West

Congress, which, during the days of victory, had up-
held the President in granting him the legislation he
asked, did not falter in the days of defeat, but was, if
anything, more whole-hearted in its support, passing
more drastic measures than it otherwise might have
done, to exert the full military power of the Republic in
order to preserve its honor and integrity.

War Acts of Congress

It authorized a loan of $250,000,000; it passed laws
to define and punish treason ; it superseded the ' ' Morrill
Tariff, ' ' enacted during the previous session, by a * ' War
Tariff*^ in which increases of rate of duty were made
wherever these would result in increases of revenue;
it passed an income tax; it authorized the Presi-
dent to close Southern ports in cases where collec-
tion of duties was impossible, to call out 500,000
volunteers if necessary, and to confiscate the properly
of secessionists, including slaves (where these were em-
ployed against the Government) , and, in a section of the
act of August 6 to increase the pay of the army, it vali-
dated all the President's preceding acts to suppress the
rebellion, such as calling out troops, blockading Southern
ports, and suspending the writ of habeas corpus.

In the discussion upon the President's message and
the acts passed by Congress in accordance with his
reconunendations, strenuous opposition was manifested
by *' State Rights" Democrats to what they considered
to be "executive usurpation."

On July 10, 1861, Clement L. Vallandigham [Dent],
of Ohio, replied in the House to the President 's message.
On July 16 William S. Holman [Dem.], of Indiana, re-
plied to him.

THE WAR-MAKING POWER 71

CONSTITUTIONAUTY OP THE PsBSroBNT's AOTS

House op Repbesentativbs, July 10-16, 1861

Mb. Vallandigham. — ^Holding up the shield of the Constitu-
tion, and standing here in the place and with the manhood of
a representative of the people, I propose to myself to-day the
ancient freedom of speech used within these walls.

Mr. Chairman, the President, in the message before us, de-
mands the extraordinary loan of $400,000,000 — an amount
nearly ten times greater than the entire public debt. State and
Federal, at the close of the Revolution in 1783, and four times
as much as the total expenditures during the three years' war
with Great Britain, in 1812.

Sir, that same Constitution which I hold up, and to which I
give my whole heart and my utmost loyalty, commits to Con-
gress alone the power to borrow money and to fix the purposes
to which it shall be applied, and expressly limits army appro-
priations to the term of two years. Whenever this House shall
have become but a mere office wherein to register the decrees of
the Executive, it will be high time to abolish it.

Sir, it has been the misfortune of the President from the
beginning that he has totally and wholly underestimated the
magnitude and character of the revolution with which he had
to deal, or surely he never would have ventured upon the wicked
and hazardous experiment of calling thirty millions of people to
arms among themselves, without the counsel and authority of
Congress. But when at last he found himself hemmed in by the
revolution, and this city in danger, as he declares, and waked
up thus, as the proclamation of the 15th of April proves him to
have waked up, to the reality and significance of the movement,
why did he not forthwith assemble Congress, and throw himself
upon the wisdom and patriotism of the representatives of the
States and of the people, instead of usurping powers which the
Constitution has expressly conferred upon usf aye, sir, and
powers which Congress had, but a little while before, repeat-
edly and emphatically refused to exercise, or to permit him to
exercise?

At twelve o 'dock on the 4th of March last, from the eastern
portico of this Capitol, and, in the presence of twenty thousand
of his countrymen, but enveloped in a cloud of soldiery which
no other American President ever saw, Abraham Lincoln took
the oath of office to support the Constitution, and delivered his
inaugural — ^a message, I regret to say, not written in the direct

k I -. ^ ^

72 great; AMERICAN DEBATES

and straightforward language which becomes an American Presi-
dent and an American statesman, and which was expected from
the plain, blunt, honest man of the Northwest, but with the
forked tongue and crooked counsel of the New York politician
[Secretary Seward] , leaving thirty millions of people in doubt
whether it meant peace or war. But, whatever may have been
the secret purpose and meaning of the inaugural, practically for
six weeks the policy of peace prevailed ; and they were weeks of
happiness to the patriot and prosperity to the country. Busi-
ness revived; trade returned; commerce flourished. Never was
there a fairer prospect before any people. Secession in the past
languished and was spiritless and harmless; secession in the
future was arrested and perished. By overwhelming majorities,
Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Missouri
all declared for the old Union, and every heart beat high with
hope that, in due course of time, and through faith and patience
and peace, and by ultimate and adequate compromise, every
State would be restored to it.

Mr. Vallandigham then claimed that party necessity
canscd the change from this pacific policy to one of
coercion.

The peace policy was crushing out the Republican party.
Under that policy, sir, it was melting away like snow before the
sun. The general elections in Rhode Island and Connecticut,
and municipal elections in New York and in the Western States,
gave abundant evidence that the people were resolved upon
the most ample and satisfactory constitutional guaranties to the
South as the price of a restoration of Union. And then it was,
sir, that the long and agonizing howl of defeated and disap-
pointed politicians came up before the Administration. The
newspaper press teemed with appeals and threats to the Presi-
dent. The mails groaned under the weight of letters demanding
a change of policy ; while a secret conclave of the (Governors of
Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and other States assembled
here promised men and money to support the President in the
irrepressible conflict which they now invoked. And thus it was,
sir, that the necessities of a party in the pangs of dissolution,
in the very hour and article of death, demanding vigorous meas-
ures, which could result in nothing but civil war, renewed
secession, and absolute and eternal disunion, were preferred and
hearkened to before the peace and harmony and prosperity of
the whole country.

THE WAR-MAKING POWER 73

Another cause for fhe change of policy, said Mr.
Vallandighaniy was '^the passage of an obscure, ill-con-
sidered, ill-digested, and unstatesmanlike high protective
tariff act, known as the Morrill tariff/* The Confed-
erate Government had adopted the old United States
revenue tariff of 1857, the lower duties of which began
to turn trade southward

Political association and union, it was well known, must soon
follow the direction of trade and interest. The City of New
York, the great commercial emporium of the Union, and the
Northwest, the chief granary of the Union, began to clamor now
loudly for a repeal of the pernicious and ruinous tariff. Threat-
ened thus with the loss of both political power and wealth or
the repeal of the tariff, and at last of both. New England — and
Pennsylvania, too, the land of Penn, cradled in peace— de-
manded now coercion and civil war, with all its horrors, as the
price of preserving either from destruction. And, sir, when
once this policy was begun, these self-same motives of waning
commerce and threatened loss of trade impelled the great City
of New York, her merchants and her politicians and her press,
with here and there an honorable exception, to place herself in
the very front rank among the worshipers of Moloch. Much,
indeed, of that outburst and uprising in the North which fol-
lowed the proclamation of the 15th of April, as well, perhaps,
as the proclamation itself, was called forth, not so much by the
fall of Sumter — an event long anticipated — as by the notion
that the "insurrection," as it was called, might be crushed out
in a few weeks, if not by the display, certainly, at least, by the
presence of an overwhelming force.

I will not venture now to assert, what may yet some day
be made to appear, that the subsequent acts of the Administra-
tion, and its enormous and persistent infractions of the Consti-
tution, its high-handed usurpations of power, formed any part
of a deliberate conspiracy to overthrow the present form of Fed-
eral republican government, and to establish a strong central-
ized government in its stead. No, sir; whatever their purposes
now, I rather think that, in the beginning, they rushed heed-
lessly and headlong into the gulf, believing that, as the seat of
war was then far distant and difficult of access, the display of
vigor in reinforcing Sumter and Pickens, and in calling out
seventy-five thousand militia upon the firing of the first gun,
and, above all, in that exceedingly happy and original conceit
of commanding the insurgent States to "disperse in twenty

74 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

daya,*' vonld not, on the one hand, precipitate a erisifl, while,
upon the other, it would satisfy its own violent partisans, and
thus revive and restore the faUing fortonea of the Republican
party.

I can hardly conceive, air, that the President and his ad-
visers could be guilty of the exceeding folly of expecting to
carry on a general civil war hy a mere posse comitatua of three

nOUTSK TO aUBDDK THB BOVTB IN TWKNTT DATS — A. UMOOLN.'

months' militia. It may be, indeed, that, with wicked and most
desperate crinning, the President meant all this as a mere enter-
ing wedge to that which was to rive the oak asonder ; or posnbly
as a test, to learn the public sentiment of the North and West.
But, however that may be, the rapid secession and movements
of Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennesseee, taking
with them, as I have said elsewhere, four millions and a half
of people, immense wealth, inexhaustible resources, five hundred
thousand fitting men, and ike graves of Washington and Jack-
son, and bringing up, too, in one single day the frontier from
the Qulf to the Ohio and the Potomac, together with the aban-
donment by the one side and the occupation by the other of Har-

THE WAR-MAKING POWER 75

per's Ferry and the Norfolk navy yard, and the fierce gust and
whirlwind of passion in the North, compelled either a sudden
waking up of the President and his advisers to the frightful
significancy of the act which they had committed in heedlessly
breaking the vase which imprisoned the slumbering demon of
civil war, or else a premature but most rapid development of
the daring plot to foster and promote secession, and then to
set up a new and strong form of government in the States which
might remain in the Union.

But, whatever may have been the purpose, I assert here to-
day, as a Representative, that every principal act of the Ad-
ministration since has been a glaring usurpation of power and
a palpable and dangerous violation of that very Constitution
which this civil war is professedly waged to support. Sir, I
pass by the proclamation of the 15th of April summoning the
militia — not to defend this capital; there is not a word about
the capital in the proclamation, and there was then no possible
danger to it from any quarter; but to retake and occupy forts
and property a thousand miles away. The militia thus called
out, with a shadow, at least, of authority, were amply sufficient
to protect the capital against any force which was then likely
to be sent against it — ^and the event has proved it — and ample
enough also to suppress the outbreak in Maryland. Every other
principal act of the Administration might well have been post-
poned, and ought to have been postponed, until the meeting of
Congress; or, if the exigencies of the occasion demanded it,
Congress should forthwith have been assembled.

But, sir. Congress was not assembled. The entire responsi-
bility of the whole work was boldly assumed by the Executive,
and all the powers required for the purposes in hand were
boldly usurped from either the States or the people, or from
the legislative department ; while the voice of the judiciary, that
last refuge and hope of liberty, was turned away from with
contempt.

Sir, the right of blockade — ^and I begin with it — is a belliger-
ent right, incident to a state of war, and it cannot be exercised
until war has been declared or recognized ; and Congress alone
can declare or recognize war. But Congress had not declared
or recognized war. On the contrary, they had but a little while
before expressly refused to declare it, or to arm the President
with the power to make it. And thus the President, in declar-
ing a blockade of certain ports in the States of the South, and
in applying to it the rules governing blockades as between inde-
pendent powers, violated the Constitution.

76 OREAll AMERICAN DEBATES

But if, on the other hand, he meant to deal with these States
as still in the Union, and subject to Federal authority, then he
usurped a power which belongs to Congress alone — ^the power to
abolish and close up ports of entry; a power, too, which Con-
gress had also but a few weeks before refused to exercise. And
yet, without the repeal or abolition of ports of entry, any at-
tempt by either Congress or the President to blockade these
ports is a violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of that clause
of the Constitution which declares that ''no preference shall
be given by any regulation of conunerce or revenue to the porta
of one State over those of another."

Jackson, sir! the great Jackson! did not dare to do this
without authority of Congress; but the mimic Jackson of to-
day blockades not only Charleston harbor, but the whole South-
em coast, three thousand miles in extent, by a single stroke of
the pen.

Next after the blockade, sir, in the catalogue of daring ex-
ecutive usurpations, comes the proclamation of the 3d of May,
and the orders of the War and Navy Departments in pursuance
of it — ^a proclamation and usurpation which would have cost
any English sovereign his head at any time within the last
two hundred years. Sir, the Constitution not only confines to
Congress the right to declare war, but expressly provides that
''Congress (not the President) shall have power to raise and'
support armies"; and to "provide and maintain a navy." And
yet the President, of his own mere will and authority, and
without the shadow of right, has proceeded to increase, and
has increased, the standing army by twenty-five thousand men ;
the navy by eighteen thousand ; and has called for and accepted
the services of forty regiments of volunteers for three years,
numbering forty-two thousand men, and making thus a grand
army or military force, raised by executive proclamation
alone, without the sanction of Congress, without warrant of law,
and in direct violation of the Constitution and of his oath of
office, of eighty-five thousand soldiers enlisted for three and five
years, and already in the field. And yet the President now asks
us to support the army which he has thus raised ; to ratify his
usurpations by a law ex post f(icto, and thus to make ourselves
parties to our own degradation and to his infractions of the
Constitution. Meanwhile, however, he has taken good care not
only to enlist the men, organize the regiments, and muster them
into service, but to provide in advance for a horde of forlorn,
womout, and broken-down politicians of his own party, by ap-
pointing, either by himself or through the govesnors of the

THE WAR-MAKING POWER 77

States, major-generals, brigadier-generals, colonels, lieutenant-
colonels, majors, captains, lieutenants, adjutants, quarter-
masters, and surgeons, without any limit as to numbers, and
without so much as once saying to Congress, ''By your leave,
gentlemen."

Beginning with this wide breach of the Constitution, this
enormous usurpation of the most dangerous of all powers — ^the
power of the sword— other infractions and assumptions were
easy; and, after public liberty, private right soon felL The
privacy of the telegraph was invaded in the search after treason
and traitors ; although it turns out, significantly enough, that the
only victim, so far, is one of the appointees and especial pets
of the Administration. The telegraphic dispatches, preserved
under every pledge of secrecy for the protection and safety of
the telegraph companies, were seized and carried away without
search warrant, without probable cause, without oath, and with-
out description of the places to be searched or of the things to
be seized, and in plain violation of the right of the people to
be secure in their houses, persons, papers, and effects against
unreasonable searches and seizures. One step more, sir, will
bring upon us search and seizure of the public mails; and
finally, as in the worst days of English oppression — as in the
times of the Bussells and the Sydneys of English martyrdom —
of the drawers and secretaries of the private citizen; though
even then tyrants had the grace to look to the forms of the
law, and the execution was judicial murder, not military slaugh-
ter.

But who shall say that the future Tiberius of America shall
have the modesty of his Roman predecessor, in extenuation
of whose character it is written by the great historian, avertii
oculos, jussitque scelera nan spectavUt ^

Sir, the rights of property having been thus wantonly vio-
lated, it needed but a little stretch of usurpation to invade the
sanctity of the person ; and a victim was not long wanting. A
private citizen of Maryland, not subject to the rules and articles
of war — ^not in a case arising in the land or naval forces, nor
in the militia when in actual service — ^is seized in his own
house, in the dead hour of night, not by any civil oflScer nor
upon any civU process, but by a band of armed soldiers, under
the verbal orders of a military chief, and is ruthlessly torn
from his wife and his children and hurried off to a fortress of
the United States— and that fortress, as if in mockery, the very

^"He averted Ids eres that he might not see the erimes which he or-
dered."

78 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

one over whose ramparts had floated that star-spangled banner
immortalized in song by the patriot prisoner who,

'*By the dawn's early light,"

saw its folds gleaming amid the wreck of battle, and invoked
the blessings of Heaven upon it, and prayed that it might
long wave —

' ' O 'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. ' '

And, sir, when the highest judicial of&cer of the land, the
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, upon whose shoulders,
''when the judicial ermine" fell, it touched nothing not as spot-
less as itself, the aged, the venerable, the gentle and pure-
minded Taney, who but a little while before had administered
to the President the oath to support the Constitution and to
execute the laws, issued, as by law it was his sworn duty to
issue, the high prerogative writ of habeas corpus — ^that great
writ of right, that main bulwark of personal liberty, conunand-
ing the body of the accused to be brought before him that justice
and right might be done by due course of law, and without
denial or delay; the gates of the fortress, its cannon turned
toward and in plain sight of the city where the court sat, and
frowning from the ramparts, were closed against the officer of
the law, and the answer returned that the officer in command
has, by the authority of the President, suspended the writ of
habeas corpus. And thus it is, sir, that the accused has ever
since been held a prisoner without due process of law ; without
bail ; without presentment by a grand jury ; without speedy or
public trial by a petit jury of his own State or district, or any
trial at all; without information of the nature and cause of
the accusation; without being confronted with the witnesses
against him ; without compulsory process to obtain witnesses in
his favor ; and without the assistance of counsel for his defence.^
And this is our boasted American liberty t And thus it is, too,
sir, that here, here, in America, in the seventy-third year of the
Republic, that great writ and security of personal freedom
which it cost the patriots and freemen of England six hun-
dred years of labor and toil and blood to extort and to hold
fast &om venal judges and t3rrant kings; written in the great
charter at Runnymede by the iron barons, who made the simple
Latin and uncouth words of the times, nullus liber homoy^ in

1 This ease is known as ex parte MeriTman, and is found in 9 Amer.
Law Beg. 524; 1 Taney's, Dee. 246.
«**No free man,"

THE WAR-MAKING POWER 79^

the language of Chatham, worth all the classics ; recovered and
confirmed a hundred times afterward, as often as violated and
stolen away, and finally and firmly secured at last by the great
act of Charles II, and transferred thence to our own Constitu-
tion and laws, has been wantonly and ruthlessly trampled in the
dust. Ay, sir, that great writ, which no English judge, no Eng-
lish minister, no king or queen of England, dare disobey ; that
writ brought over by our fathers and cherished by them as a
priceless inheritance of liberty, an American President has con-
temptuously set at defiance. Nay, more, he has ordered his
subordinate military chiefs to suspend it at their discretion!
And yet, after all this, he coolly comes before this House and
the Senate and the country, and pleads that he is only pre-
serving and protecting the Constitution; and demands and ex-
pects of this House and of the Senate and the country their
thanks for his usurpations of power; while outside of this
Capitol his myrmidons are clamoring for impeachment of the
Chief Justice, as engaged in a conspiracy to break down the
Federal Government!

Sir, however much necessity — ^the tyrant's plea — ^may be
urged in extenuation of the usurpations and infractions of the
President in regard to public liberty, there can be no such
apology or defence for his invasions of private right. What
overruling necessity required the violation of the sanctity of
private property and private confidence? What great public
danger demanded the arrest and imprisonment, without trial by
common law, of one single private citizen, for an act done
weeks before, openly, and by authority of his State ? If guilty
of treason, was not the judicial power ample enough and strong
enough for his conviction and punishment? What, then, was
needed in his case but the precedent under which other men,
in other places, might become the victims of executive sus-
picion and displeasure?

As to the pretence, sir, that the President has the constitu-
tional right to suspend the writ of habe<is corpus, I will not
waste time in arguing it. The case is as plain as words can
make it. It is a legislative power ; it is found only in the legis-
lative article ; it belongs to Congress only to do it. Subordinate
officers have disobeyed it; General Wilkinson disobeyed it, but
he sent his prisoners on for judicial trial ; General Jackson dis-
obeyed it and was reprimanded by James Madison; but no
President, no body but Congress, ever before assumed the right
to suspend it. And, sir, that other pretence, of necessity, I
repeat, cannot be allowed. It had no existence in fact. The

80 great; AMERICAN DEBATES

Constitution cannot be preserved by violating it. It is an of-
fence to the intelligence of this House and of the country to
pretend that all this, and the other gross and multiplied infrac-
tions of the Constitution and usurpations of power, were done
by the President and his advisers out of pure love and devotion
to the Constitution. But if so, sir, then they have but one step
further to take, and declare, in the language of Sir Boyle Boche
in the Irish House of Commons, that such is the depth of their
attachment to it that they are prepared to give up, not merely
a part, but the whole of the Constitution, to preserve the re-
mainder. And yet, if indeed this pretext of necessity be well
founded, then let me say that a cause which demands the sac-
rifice of the Constitution and of the dearest securities of prop-
erty, liberty, and life cannot be just; at least, it is not worth
the sacrifice.

Sir, the power and rights of the States and the i>eople, and
of their Bepresentatives, have been usurx>ed; the sanctity of
the private house and of private property has been invaded;
and the liberty of the person wantonly and wickedly stricken
down ; free speech, too, has been repeatedly denied ; and all this
under the plea of necessity. Sir, the right of petition will fol-
low next — ^nay, it has already been shaken ; the freedom of the
press will soon fall after it ; and let me whisper in your ear that
there will be few to mourn over its loss, unless, indeed, its an-
cient high and honorable character shall be rescued and re-
deemed from its present reckless mendacity and degradation.
Freedom of religion will yield too, at last, amid the exultant
shouts of millions, who have seen its holy temples defiled and
its white robes of a former innocency trampled now under the
polluting hoofs of an ambitious and &ithles8 or fanatical clergy.
Meantime national banks, bankrupt laws, a vast and perma-
nent public debt, high tariffs, heavy direct taxation, enormous
expenditure, gigantic and stupendous peculation, anarchy first
and a strong government afterward, no more State lines, no
more State governments, and a consolidated monarchy or vast
centralized military despotism, must all follow in the history
of the future, as in the history of the past they have, centuries
ago, been written.

Sir, I have spoken freely and fearlessly to-day, as became
an American Bepresentative and an American citizen ; one firmly
resolved, come what may, not to lose his own constitutional
liberties, nor to surrender his own constitutional rights in the
vain effort to impose these rights and liberties upon ten mil-
lions of unwilling people. I have spoken earnestly, too, but

THE WAR-MAKING POWER 81

yet not as one unmindful of the solemnity of the scenes which
surround us upon every side to-day. Sir, when the Congress
of the United States assembled here on the 3d of December,
I860, just seven months ago, the Senate was composed of sixty-
six Senators, representing the thirty-three States of the Union,
and this House of two hundred and thirty-seven members —
every State being present. It was a grand and solemn spec-
tacle; the embassadors of three and thirty sovereignties and of
thirty-one million people, the mightiest republic on earth, in
general Congress assembled. The new wings of the Capitol had
then but just recently been finished, in all their gorgeous mag-
nificence, and, except a hundred marines at the navy yard, not
a soldier was within forty miles of Washington.

Sir, the Congress of the United States meets here again to-
day ; but how changed the scene. Instead of thirty-four States,
twenty-three only, one less than the niunber forty years ago,
are here or in the other wing of the Capitol. Forty-six Sen-
ators and a hundred and seventy-three Representatives consti-
tute the Congress of the now United States. And of these, eight
Senators and twenty-four Representatives, from four States
only, linger here yet as deputies from that great South which,
from the beginning of the (Government, contributed so much
to mold its policy, to build up its greatness, and to control its
destinies. The vacant seats are, indeed, still here; and the
escutcheons of their respective States look down now solemnly
and sadly from these vaulted ceilings. But the Virginia of
Washington and Henry and Madison, of Marshall and Jefferson,
of Randolph and Monroe, the birthplace of Clay, the mother
of States and of Presidents ; the Carolinas of Pinckney and Sum-
ter and Marion, of Calhoun and Macon; and Tennessee, the
home and burial place of Jackson; and other States, too, once
most loyal and true, are no longer here. The voices and the
footsteps of the great dead of the past two ages of the Republic
linger still, it may be in echo, along the stately corridors of
this Capitol; but their descendants from nearly one-half of the
States of the Republic will meet with us no more within these
marble halls. But in the parks and lawns, and upon the broad
avenues of this spacious city, seventy thousand soldiers have
supplied their places; and the morning drumbeat from a score
of encampments within sight of this beleaguered capital gives
melancholy warning to the Representatives of the States and
of the people that amid abms laws are shjEnt.

Sir, some years hence, I would fain hope some months hence,
the present generation will demand to know the cause of all

VI— 6

82 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

this; and some ages hereafter the grand and impartial tribunal
of history will make solemn and diligent inquest of the authors
of this terrible revolution.

At the close of his speech Mr. Vallandigham, merely
to record his position, presented a resolution to the
effect that the Federal Government, being the agent of
the States, should be sustained by the people in the
exercise of its constitutional powers for the preserva-
tion of the Union.

Mr. Holman, in his reply to Mr. Yallandigham, de-
clared that a pacific policy could no longer be pursued by
the Government ; indeed at no time since the secession of
the Confederate States would it have availed.

South Carolina, Florida, and Mississippi declared the sepa-
ration to be eternal. It was not an apprehension of encroach-
ment on their constitutional rights that induced secession; for,
from the very beginning of this Administration the opposition
would have controlled every measure of its policy. No, sir;
the triumph of the Republican party was not the cause, but
the pretence and the occasion, for dissolving the Union.

Thus, by the intemperate ambition of the leaders of public
opinion in the South, war became inevitable ; for upon the part
of the secession leaders it is war — ^war with all its violence and
hatred and malignity and bitterness. What, then, sir, on the
part of the loyal men of the nation, is the object of the wart

It is not vengeance ; for, in the midst of these vast prepara-
tions, the public indignation at the wanton wickedness of this
attempt to overthrow the Constitution is softened by shame and
sorrow, and the very bitterness of grief. It is not for the pur-
pose of conquest or subjugation; not to enlarge the powers of
the Government or increase its territorial limits; not to estab-
lish the supremacy of the one section of the Union, or to dimin-
ish the social or political rights of the other. But I say, sir,
here in my place, in the presence of the Representatives of the
people, on the authority of a well-defined public opinion, that
the sole and only purpose of the people of the United States in
this appeal to arms is to maintain the Union under the com-
pacts AND safeguards OP THE CONSTITUTION. The popular in-
stincts are not to be deceived. But for this high purpose, not
a farmer would have left his field or a mechanic his shop ; not a
sword would have been withdrawn from its scabbard. Not only

THE WAR-MAKING POWER 83

has this single purpose summoned your army into the field, hut
if it were possible that any other purpose ^ould he developed
— as the invasion of any constitutional right or the usurpation
of political power — ^your army would either, with irresistible
fury, hew down the new enemies of the Constitution or, over-
whelmed with grief, abandon the tented field in despair. I
tell you, sir, that, for purity of purpose, unselfishness of patri-
otism, intelligence, and cultivation, the army of the Republic
may challenge the history of the world for a parallel.

A generation unaccustomed to arms, and in the enjoyment
of unexampled blessings of peace, trampling on every selfish
consideration, is almost in a moment transformed into a nation
of soldiers ; peaceful cities and towns and villages and the scenes
of rural life, unused to even the tones of martial music, except
in celebrating the achievement of a past generation, became the
camps of gathering armies. The hereditary feuds of party,
bitter as they may have been, are silenced, and the landmarks
of political opinion, apparently indelible in the growth of more
than half a century, are, at least for the moment, swept away.
One sentiment animates every bosom: ''The Union must be
preserved."

No people have ever so clearly comprehended the necessity
of an appeal to arms. The whole people understand the origin
and immediate cause of our misfortunes. The unbridled ambi-
tion of a few men, unfortunately too great in the confidence of
the South, indulging in the delusive hope of a great Southern
empire, and, by new commercial relations, making the cities of
Charleston and Savannah and New Orleans the commercial
rivals of New York and Philadelphia and Boston, suggested the
policy of a Southern Confederacy; and the leading statesmen,
whose power was to be increased, seizing upon the intemper-
ate opinions of a few fanatical men of the North on the question
of slavery, inspired the Southern mind with the belief that
the North meditated an assault on the domestic policy of the
South and an invasion of their constitutional rights, and thus
ensnared the Southern people into the whirlpool of revolution,
and aroused such a storm of public rage as might only be sa-
tiated by overturning a Union which they themselves and their
fathers, for more than three generations, had believed to be the
very palladium of their safety.

To recognize secession or acquiesce in the right of peaceful
revolution is an end of the Oovemment, destroying the founda-
tion of public faith on which it rests. What State would aid
in the construction of forts and arsenals, or other works of

84 OREAH AMERICAN DEBATES

national necessity, within the limits of other States, with the
right of secession or acquiescence in revolution the established
policy of the €K)yemnientT To maintain the Union by an ap-
peal to arms, or submit to total national ruin, is the only alter-
native. Could a brave and free i>eople, controlled by senti-
ments of justice and honor, hesitate in their choice T

In my judgment an overwhelming majority of the people of
the free States would not only have defended the constitutional
rights of the South while in the Union, but would have made
sacrifice upon sacrifice, even of opinion, to preserve the old
fraternal relations and save us from the horrors of civil war,
but secession has left us no alternative. It has appealed to the
sword ; and bitter as may be our grief, dark and gloomy as may
be the future, we cannot escape the issue. The sword must
decide the contest. A generation, twelve months ago the most
happy and peaceful and prosperous that the world has ever
seen, may be sacrificed by the mad ambition of the hour. But,
if public liberty shall be upheld, the sacrifices of this genera-
tion, its shame and sorrow and tears, may redound to the stabil-
ity and enduring honor of the Bepublic. As generations of the
past have been, so ours may be sacrificed for the happiness and
prosperity of the future.

But, sir, I cannot suppress my astonishment that a Repre-
sentative of any part of the people of the great West, whose
interests are so indissolubly united with the free navigation of
the Mississippi River, should doubt the overwhelming necessity
of maintaining the Union at every hazard.

Recognize the Southern Confederacy, and you place the navi-
gation of the Mississippi, and with it the prosperity of the whole
West, at the mercy of a foreign government. It may be said
that mutual interests will produce treaties of mutual advan-
tage. But a right existing in nature, sustained by every con-
sideration of justice, and sanctioned by national compacts, can-
not be the further subject of treaty. It is a right whidi the
brave men of the West, following the example of their fathers,
will hold, if it must be, by the tenure of the sword, and not by
the arts of diplomacy. They will not pay one cent for the right
to navigate the Mississippi River or any of its tributaries. If
the South persists in the obstruction of this right, as she must
do if she would maintain her separate nationality, the univer-
sal sentiment will be, ''millions for war, but not one* cent for
tribute.'' If the Government shall hesitate in the vindica-
tion of this right, the people will vindicate it for themselves,
and wiU never desist until the great river of the West, from its

THE WAR-MAKING POWER 85

springs to the Gulf, shall be as free to their commerce as the
ocean is to the conunerce of the world.

So far, then, as the great 'West is concerned, there can be
but one sentiment — there can he no compromise ai the expense
of the Union; there can be no settlement of pending difficulties
except on the basis of the Constitution and the union of the
States. The constitutional rights of no loyal citizen are to be
impaired. The domestic and social policy of no State is to be
invaded. The constitutional powers of the general Government
are to be sustained, not to be enlarged. It is war for the
Union, and not for the subjugation of States. As a Democrat
and a citizen of the dominant section, I would hail with joy
any proposition for compromise and peace coming from the
people of the States the wild ambition of whose leaders has
plunged the nation into the horrors of civil war, and for the
time crushed the Union sentiment of the South. I would insist
that the Government should meet such propositions, springing
from a returning sense of patriotism and honor, in a spirit of
magnanimity, of conciliation, and kindness. I would only de-
mand, sir, that the misguided people of the South should sub-
mit, not to the supremacy of the North, or to the force of mili-
tary power, or to new forms of government, but to the majesty
of the Constitution — ^the Constitution as it was made by their
and our fathers ; and until that auspicious hour shall come, sir,
the army of the Union, following the flag of the Republic wher-
ever it ^all be unfurled, cannot with honor return their swords
to their scabbards or turn their thoughts upon the sweet bless-
ings of peace.

In the Senate on July 16 John 0. Breckinridge [Ky.]
attacked the acts of the President as unconstitutional
and denied the power of Congress to validate them.
Edward D. Baker [Ore.], Kinsley S. Bingham [Mich.],
and Henry S. Lane [Ind.] replied to hinu

Constitutionality op the Pbbsident's Acts

Senate, July 16, 1861

Senator Bbeceiniudge. — ^I deny, Mr. President, that one
branch of this Government can indemnify any other branch of
the Government for a violation of the Constitution or the laws.
The powers conferred upon the general Government by the

86 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

people of the States are the measure of its authority. Those
powers have heen confided to the different departments and the
boundaries of those departments determined with perfect exac-
titude, and I deny that one can encroach upon another, or can
indemnify it for a usurpation of powers not confided to it by
the Constitution. Sir, Congress, by a joint resohition, has no
more right, in my opinion, to make valid a violation of the
Constitution and the laws by the President than the President
would have by an entry upon the executive journal to make
valid a usurpation of the executive power by the legislative
department. Congress has no more right to make valid an
unconstitutional act of the President than the President would
have to make valid an act of the Supreme Court of the United
States encroaching upon executive power ; or than the Supreme
Court would have the right to make valid an act of the Execu-
tive encroaching upon the judicial power.

On the contrary, I think that the acts of the President were
usurpations, and that, so far from a resolution being passed
ratifying and approving them, I think the Chief Magistrate of
the country — and I have a right in my place to say it — should
be rebuked by the vote of both Houses of Congress.

The President of the United States, first, has established a
blockade of the whole Southern coast and an interior blockade
of the chief rivers. By what authority has he done it t Where
is the clause of the Constitution that authorized himt An at-
tempt was made at the last session of Congress to confer the
authority by bill. It did not pass. Congress refused to grant
this authority by law in face of the fact that seven States had
then withdrawn from the Federal Union. Will any Senator say
that the power exists, under the Constitution, upon the part
of the President to establish a blockade t It is an incident of
war, sir ; it is the exercise of the war power ; and the Constitu-
tion of the United States declares that Congress shall pass an
act to declare war, or exercise that power.

In this connection the speaker quoted from remarks
made by Daniel Webster during the troubles in South
Carolina in 1832-33, when it was suggested that Presi-
dent Jackson would blockade the port of Charleston.

"For one, I raise my voice beforehand against the nnaathorized em-
ployment of military power, against superseding the authority of the laws
by an armed force, under pretence of putting down nullification. The
President has no authority to blockade Charleston; the President has no

THE WAR-MAKING POWER 87

authoritj to employ militarj f oree^ till he shall be duly required so to do,
by law, and by the civil authorities. His duty is to cause the laws to be
executed. Hit duty is to support the civil authority.''

It is proposed, continued the speaker, to make valid the act of
the President in enlisting men for three and five years. I ask
you by what authority of Constitution or law he has done this
actt The power is not conferred in the Constitution; it has not
been granted by the law. It is, therefore, an unconstitutional and
illegal act of Executive power. The President, of his own will
— ^and that is one of the acts enumerated in this joint resolu-
tion which it is proposed to approve and ratify — ^has added im-
mensely to the force of the regular army. The Constitution
says that Congress shall raise armies, and a law now upon your
statute book limits the number of the regular force, officers
and men. Hence, sir, that is an act in derogation both of the
Constitution and of the laws.

The President has added immensely to the navy of the
United States. The Constitution says that Congress shall pro-
vide and maintain a navy, and there is now a law upon the
statute book limiting the number of men to be employed in the
navy. That, like the rest, sir, will not bear argument.

Mr. President, it needs no elaborate argument to show that
the Executive authority of the United States has no right to
suspendthe writ of habeas corpus. I content myself here, unless
some defence be offered upon this floor, with referring to the
fact that the privilege to suspend the writ in case of rebellion
or invasion is classed among the legislative powers of the Con-
stitution. That article of the Constitution which refers to the
powers of the President, executive powers, touches not the ques-
tion. I may add that upon no occasion has it ever been asserted
in the Congress of the United States, as far as I recollect our
history, that this power exists upon the part of the Executive.
On one memorable occasion in our history, Jefferson thought a
period had arrived when, perhaps, that writ might properly be
suspended. He did not undertake to do it himself. He sub-
mitted the question to Congress. He did not even recommend
that it should be done; and in the long debates that occurred
in this and the other branch of Congress upon the question of
suspending the writ, which finally was not suspended, not one
intimation was given by 4my speaker in either House, as far as
I remember, that the power existed on the part of the Presi-
dent.

What part of the Constitution is it, sir, which confers upon

88 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

the President the right to do this act more than upon any
other ofScer, executive or judicial, of the (Government t Surely
it is not that portion of the Constitution which declares that
he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed. The
most eminent commentators on the Constitution of the United
States concur in saying that it is purely a legislative act. Jus-
tice Story, one of the most eminent judicial lights of New Eng-
land, in his "Commentaries on the Constitution,'' declares it to
belong to the legislature and not to the Executive. The Supreme
Court of the United States have determined that Congress alone
can suspend the privilege of the writ. Upon a recent occasion,
in a case which arose in Maryland,^ the present Chief Justice
[Roger B. Taney], in an opinion which has never been an-
swered, and which never will be answered, exhausts the argu-
ment, and makes all other reference to the subject idle and
superfluous.

You propose to make valid the President's suspension of the
writ, without making a defence of his act either upon constitu-
tional or legal grounds. What will be the effect, sirT In ap-
proving what the President has done in this regard in the past,
you invite him to do the like in the future ; and the whole coun-
try will lie prostrate at the feet of executive power when, in the
opinion of the President, the time shall have come to suspend
the rights of individuals and to have substituted military power
for judicial authority.

I eniunerate what I regard as usurpations of the Executive
to go upon the record as a protest of those of us who are not
willing to see the Constitution subverted and the public liberty
trampled under foot, under whatever pretext of necessity or
otherwise.

The Constitution declares that Congress alone shall have
power "to declare war." The President has made war. Con-
gress alone shall have power "to raise and support armies."
The President has raised and supported armies on his own
authority. Congress shall have power "to provide and main-
tain a navy." The President has provided an immense navy
and maintains it without authority of law. The Constitution
declares that no money shall be taken from the treasury except
in pursuance of appropriations made by law. The President
has taken money from the treasury without appropriations made
by law for the purpose of carrying out the preceding unconstitu-
tional acts. One of the amendments to the Coi^tution de-
clares that —

I See page 77,

THE WAR-MAKING POWER 89

''A well-regulated militia being neceflsarj to the seeuritj of a free
State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be in-
fringed."

They have been difiarmed, and disarmed without criminal
charge and without warrant. One of the amendments to the
Constitution declares that —

''The right of the people to be Beenre in their persons, houses^ papers,
and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be vio^
lated; and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by
oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched
and the persons or things to be seized.''

The people have not been exempt from unreasonable searches
and seizures. Their property has been taken from them; their
houses have been searched without authority of law, and by a
pure military authority.

"No person*' —

says one of the amendments to the Constitution —

"shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless
on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury."

Many persons have been held to answer for infamous crimes
without presentment or indictment, and without warrant, by
military authority. The same amendment continues:

"Nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against
himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process
of law."

Citizens have, by military authority, been deprived of lib-
erty and property without due process of law.

These great and fundamental rights, sir, the sanctity of
which is the measure of progress and of civilization, which have
been carefully guarded and locked up in your Constitution, have
been trampled under foot by military power, are being now
every day trampled under foot by military power here and
hereabouts in the presence of the two Houses of Congress; and
yet, so great upon the one side is the passion of the hour, and
so astonishing the stupid amazement on the other, that we
receive it as natural, as right, as of course. !We are rushing,
and with rapid strides, from a constitutional government to a
military despotism.

The Constitution says the freedom of speech and of the press
shall not be abridged. Three days ago, in the dty of St. Louis,

90 GREAT AMERICAN DSBATES

a military officer, with four hundred soldiers — that was his
warrant — ^went into a newspaper office of that city, removed
the types, and declared that it should no longer be published,
giving, among other reasons, that it was fabricating reports
injurious to the United States soldiers in Missouri. We are
told in the same dispatch that the proprietors of the paper sub-
mitted, and intended to make their appeal — ^where, and to
whom? To the judicial authorities t No, sir; but to Major-
Qeneral Fremont when he should reach St. Louis; to appeal
from General Lyon to General Fremont. The civil authorities
of the country are paralyzed, and a practical martial law is
being established all over the land. The like never happened in
this country before, and would not be tolerated in any country
in Europe which pretends to the elements of civilization and
regulated liberty. George Washington carried the thirteen colo-
nies through the war of the Revolution without martial law.
The President of the United States cannot conduct the Govern-
ment three months without resorting to it.

Then, Mr. President, the Executive of the United States
has assumed legislative powers. The Executive of the United
States has assumed judicial powers. The executive power be-
longs to him by the Constitution. He has, therefore, concen-
trated in his own hands executive, legislative, and judicial
powers, which, in every age of the world, has been the very
definition of despotism, and exercises them to-day, while we sit
in the Senate Chamber and the other branch of the legislative
authority at the other end of the Capitol. What is the excuse ;
what is the justification; what is the pleaf Necessity. Neces-
sity 1 I answer, first, there was no necessity. Was it necessary,
to preserve the visible emblems of Federal authority here, that
the Southern coast should have been blockaded? Did not the
same necessity exist when Congress, at its last session, refused
to pass the force bill, that existed at the time the President
assumed these powers ? Was it necessary, until Congress should
meet, to the existence of the Union of these States, and of its
Constitution, that powers not conferred by the instrument
should be assumed? Was there any necessity for overrunning
the State of Missouri? Was there a necessity for raising the
largest armies ever assembled upon the American continent, and
fitting out the largest fleets ever seen in an American harbor?
Will any Senator point out the necessity for the occurrences
which are now taking place every day of arresting individuals
without warrant of law? If that be a necessity in the present
condition of affairs, and when Congress is in session here, what a

THE WAR-MAKING POWER 91

long neoessily we have before us and impending over us! Sir,
let Congress adjourn, approving and ratifying these acts, and
the same character of necessity precisely, even stronger, per-
haps, will justify the President in superseding the laws in every
State of this Union where, in his opinion, it should be done;
and, sir, there will not be a vestige of civil authority left to
rise after the passing tread of military power.

But, Mr. President, I deny this doctrine of necessity. I deny
that the President of the United States may violate the Consti-
tution upon the ground of necessity. The doctrine is utterly
subversive of the Constitution; it is utterly subversive of all
written limitations of government ; and it substitutes, especially
where you make him the ultimate judge of that necessity, and
his decision not to be appealed from, the will of one man for a
written constitution. Mr. President, the Government of the
United States, which draws its life from the Constitution, and
which was made by that instrument, does not rest, as does the
constitution in many other countries, upon usage or upon im-
plied consent. It rests upon express written consent. The Govern-
ment of the United States may exercise such powers, and such
only, as are given in this written form of government and bond
which unites the States ; none others. The people of the States
conferred upon this agent of theirs just such powers as they
deemed necessary, and no more ; all others they retained. That
Constitution was made for all contingencies; for peace and for
war.

Mr. President, is this contest to preserve the Constitution?
If so, then it should be waged in a constitutional manner. Is
the doctrine to obtain that the provisions of the Federal Con-
stitution are to be entirely subordinated to the idea of political
unity? Shall the rallying cry be, **the Constitution and the
Union," or are we prepared to say, **the Constitution is gone,
but the Union survives"? What sort of Union would it be?
Let this principle be announced, let us carry on this contest
with this spirit, and wink at or approve violations of this sacred
instrument, and, sir, the people will soon begin to inquire
what will become of their liberties at the end of the strife.
The pregnant question, Mr. President, for us to decide is
whether the Constitution is to be respected in this struggle;
whether we are to be called upon to follow the flag over the
ruins of the Constitution. Without questioning the motives of
any, I believe that the whole tendency of the present proceed-
ings is to establish a government without limitations of powers,
and to change radically our frame and character of government.

92 GREAT. AMERICAN DEBATES

Sir^ in proof of my statement that the disposition is to con-
duct tiiis contest without regard to the Constitution, witness
the remarks that fell the other day from the able and very
eloquent Senator from Oregon [Edward D. Baker]. He is a
constitutional lawyer; he knows what the Constitution of his
country is — ^no man better. He declared, in the presence of the
Senate and the country, that he meant direct war, and that for
that purpose nothing was so good as a dictator; he therefore
was for conferring upon the President of the United States al-
most unlimited powers. I heard no rebuke administered to that
eminent gentleman. Upon the contrary, I saw warm congratu-
lations from more than one Senator, apparently upon the senti-
ments and the character of the address.

In the course of the same speech to which I have referred
that eminent Senator declared that not only must that country
be ravaged by armies, but that unless the people of those States
paid willing and loyal obedience to the Federal (Government,
their State form must be changed, and they must be reduced to
the condition of Territories; to be governed by governors sent
from Massachusetts and Illinois.

Senatob Baeeb. — On the contrary, I spoke against giving
too much power to the President. I was occupying my usual
constitution guarded position against the increase of a stand-
ing army. I gave, as an excuse for voting for an army at all,
the present condition of public affairs; and, in that light and
with that purpose, I did say that, in order to save the Union, I
would take some risk of despotism. I repeat that now: I will
risk a little to save all.

Again: I expressed my sincere hope — perhaps I may have
added my conviction — ^that in a better and not a very distant
day the Southern States would not only return to their alle-
giance, but would become loyal in sentiment as well as opinion.
But I declared then what no comment of his will drive me from,
that if, contrary to that hope, they did not do it, if they would
not send members here to govern them, it was better, for the
sake of ultimate peace, for freedom, civilization, humanity, that
they should be governed as Territories are governed, rather than
permit perpetual anarchy, confusion, discord, and civil war.
[Manifestations of applause in the galleries.] I did say that
and I do believe that now; and I think the events of the next
six months will show that it would be better for the country
and the world and the Senator himself if he believed it. [Ap-
plause in the galleries.]

Sbnatob BBECKiNEmm. — ^Mr. President, I did Hot misunder-

THE WAR-MAKING POWER 93

stand the position of the Senator from Oregon, and I think that
I stated it in substance as he has stated it himself. The Senator
reaffirms upon this floor that, if it should become necessary in
the opinion of Congress, he would be in favor of reducing these
States to a territorial condition. Well, sir, if they are out of
the Union, I suppose we have the i)ower to make war on them
' under that general power which exists in all people to make
war, and conquer them and do as we please with them ; but, if
they are regarded as still being States in this Union, and to be
treated according to the provisions and the i)owers conferred
by the Federal Constitution, there is no pretence of argument,
none will be made, that the instrument contains any authority
to reduce them to the territorial condition. It is an additional
proof of the statement I made that the Constitution of the
United States is put aside in this contest. I want the people
to know it. Let them determine. They will determine as they
think best for their own interest and their own destiny. Per-
haps, sir, they will pause and consider what is likely to become
of their own liberties after this spirit shall have worked out
itself.

I consider it not only subversive of the Constitution, but I
consider it subversive of the public liberty, to clothe any man
with dictatorial powers, and to undertake, under a republican
form of government, to govern ten million people as if they were
in a territorial condition.

Mr. President, as a further proof, I will accumulate two or
three more. The excellent Senator from Connecticut [James
Dixon] , heretofore always regarded as one of the most moderate
and conservative in the political organization to which he is
attached, said in substance that, if the iostitution of African
slavery stood in the way of the Union, it must be abolished.

Let us pause one moment, Mr. President, and consider to
what that leads. Men who love the Constitution and the Union
of the States as sincerely and cordially as the Senator him-
self could possibly do consider the Union not an end, but a
means — a means by which, under the terms of the Constitution,
liberty may be maintained, property and personal rights pro-
tected, and general happiness secured. The substance of what
is declared by the Senator is that the unity of the Government
shall survive not only the Constitution, but all rights both of
persons and of property.

The institutions of the Southern States existed before the
Constitution was formed, and were intended to be secured by it.
Their proi>ert3r of any other description is no more sacred in

94 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

view of the Constitution, or of their own laws, than the descrip-
tion of property to which the Senator referred. To declare
that this contest shall be prosecuted, if necessary, to the aboli-
tion of slavery in the Southern States is in principle to declare
that, if it becomes necessary, it shall be prosecuted to the total
subversion of all State authority, to the total overthrow of all
rights, personal and political, and to the entire subversion of
their liberties, i)ossibly of ours. The conclusions are not too
large which I draw from the principle announced by the Sen-
ator ; and taken in connection with the declaration of the Sen-
ator from Oregon, taken in connection with the acts which are
treated in this joint resolution, and the other acts which I have
enumerated, it proves what I fear, and what I desire the coun-
try to understand, that the Constitution of the United States
is no longer to be held as the measure of power on one side and
of obedience on the other, but that it is to be put aside to carry
out the purposes of the majority.

I hold, sir, that it is no legitimate mode to preserve the
Union of the States by trampling the Constitution under foot;
and I do not believe that the people of the adhering States are
willing to go into this strife with vast armies, make war, abolish
institutions and political communities themselves, struggling
simply for the idea of territorial integrity and national unity,
and finding, when they come out of the contest, the Constitution
gone and themselves at sea as to the character of the institutions
with which they shall emerge from it.

Mr. President, I regret to say that what may be called the
more extreme, violent, and resolute men of the Republican or-
ganization appear to have control of its destiny at this time,
and all efforts are being made for the purpose of preventing any
return to peace, and of inflaming the public passions against the
institutions of the South. I heard a bill read at that table this
morning by its title, **A bill to suppress the slaveholders' re-
bellion.''^ If it had had a title, *'A bill to provide for the
execution of the laws," or any other parliamentary title known
heretofore in American legislative proceedings, of course I
should not have been astonished ; but when I see in a deliberative
body an attempt made, through the very heading of a bill, to
create odium and prejudice against a particular interest, which
is equally protected with others under the Constitution of your
country, it shows a frame of mind which leads all thoughtful
men to despair both of the Constitution and the country, if
such a spirit can prevail.

'Introdneed by Samnel C. Pomeroj [Kan.].

96 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

Senator Bingham. — ^I wish to ask the Senator if he denies
that the present rebellion is a slaveholders' rebellion?

Senator BBECKiNsmGE. — I do, sir. I have no doubt that
the question of slavery, and their rights as connected with that
institution, as they understand them, had a great deal to do
first with the controversies which preceded the separation, and
then with the act of separation itself ; but it is perfectly mani-
fest that, whereas the proportion of slaveholders to non-slave-
holders is very small in the seceded States, the sentiments of the
population are almost unanimous. Allow me to ask the Senator
a question. Does he approve the title of that billT

Senator Bingham. — ^I do.

Senator Breckinridge. — ^I regret to hear that answer; but
it serves to bring the mind of the country to consider the actual
condition of affairs, and the danger which is impending over us.

My colleague has this moment handed me the bill referred
to. The enacting clause, as might have been anticipated from
the title, reads as follows:

Be it enacted, That from and after the passage of this act, there shaU
be no slayery or involuntary servitude in any of the States of this Union
that claim to have seceded from the Government and are in open and armed
resistance to the execution of the laws and the provisions of the Constitation
of the United States.

I believe that is to be carried out by a proclamation of the
President.

And he it further enacted, That immediately after the passage of this
act, the President of the United States shall cause his proclamation to be
issued, setting forth the immediate and nnconditional emancipation of all
persons held as slaves in any of the aforesaid States nnder the laws thereof,
and also ordering all officers to give protection to all such emancipated
slaves, and to accept the services of all who may tender them in beh^f of
the Government, if, in the judgment of such officers, such services shall be
useful or necessary to the prosecution of this war.

It is not only a congressional act of emancipation, but it is
intended to arm the slaves against the masters. It is not only
to confiscate the whole property, but it is to foment a servile
war. That is a proposition offered in the Senate of the United
States! Sir, I shall find myself denounced in the newspapers
to-morrow morning as a man who was uttering treason here for
speaking a word in favor of the Constitution ; but not one word
will be uttered against a Senator who deliberately proposes to
trample that Constitution under his feet, and to plunge the
country into all the horrors of civil and of servile war.

THE WAR-MAKING POWER 97

I shall trouble the Senate no longer. I fcaow that arga^
ment and appeal are all in vain. The Senate pants for action.
I am quite aware that, in the present temper of Congress,
one might as well oppose his uplifted hand to the descending
waters of Niagara as to reason or to appeal against the con-
templated proceedings. The few of us left here who are faith-
ful to our convictions can only look with sadness upon the
melancholy drama that is being enacted before us. We can only
hope that this flash of frenzy may not assume the form of
chronic madness, and that in any event Divine Providence may
preserve for us and for posterity, out of the wreck of a broken
Union, the priceless principles of constitutional liberty and of
self-government. [Applause in the galleries.]

Senator Lane. — Gentlemen take a technical objection
against the action of the President, and say that he has
violated the Constitution of the United States. I remember an
incident, I think in Roman history, where an African pro-consul
was required to swear that he had not violated the laws of
Rome; instead of which, with uplifted hand, he swore that he
had saved the Roman republic. And, whatsoever differences of
opinion may this day exist in reference to the action of the
President, I take it for granted that every intelligent patriot
in the land not only believes but knows that the President has
saved the Republic by his energetic and patriotic action since
the 4th of March. I sanction and approve everything that the
President has done during the recess of Congress, and the people
sanction and approve it, and there is no power this side of
Heaven that can reverse that decision of the American people.
I not only sanction all that they have done, but I sanction all
that they are soon to do. When your victorious and conquer-
ing columns shall sweep treason out of old Virginia ; when they
shall make that old commonwealth a fit residence for the patri-
otic descendants of her revolutionary fathers, I shall sanction
and approve that. I sanction and approve the use of force now,
at once, immediately; and I would shake that traitorous com-
monwealth as with an earthquake tread of a hundred thousand
armed men.

What is it that the President has done since the last meeting
of Congress f First, he has declared a blockade of the Southern
ports, and gentlemen tell us there is no constitutional authority
for that. It is the first duty of the President to see that the
laws are faithfully executed. We have a tariff law imposing
duties upon foreign importations. That has been disregarded
by the seceding States; they have assumed to pass a tariff act

VI--7

98 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

different from ours. That law of Congress cannot be enforced
by the ordinary course of procedure under your collections of
revenue at the proper ports established by law. There is no
higher power in the Constitution of the United States delegated
to the President than the power to ''take care that the laws
be faithfully executed." These high and extraordinary powers,
although not perhaps technically granted in the Constitution,
result as an incident to the war power, which is invoked, and
constitutionally invoked, under that provision of the Constitu-
tion which authorizes the President to use force to suppress
insurrection and to put down rebellion. I sanction, then, the
proclamation establishing a blockade.

The next objection is to the declaration of martial law, by
which the writ of habecis corpus was suspended. I only regret
that when the writ was suspended the corpus of Baltimore trea-
son was not ''suspended" too. It is necessary to the enforce-
ment of the laws and to the preservation of the Union that this
writ of habeas corpus should be suspended; and the Constitu-
tion of the United States says, in express terms, it may be sus^
pended in case of rebellion and insurrection. Then the whole
question comes to this: Who is to judge? Where is the discre-
tion lodged? Clearly with the President of the United States;
and it can be safely lodged nowhere else. Suppose an insurrec-
tion breaks out during the recess of Congress: the President is
sworn to uphold the law and the Constitution; he finds armed
rebellion; has he no power to put it down? May he not use
all proper power to put down armed rebellion T I approve,
then, the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus.

What more does the honorable Senator from Kentucky say T
That General Washington prosecuted the Revolutionary War
to a successful termination without ever suspending the writ
of habeas corpus. That is true. He was in a contest with a
foreign foe. Here we are engaged in entirely a different war,
where our enemies are in our midst. What would gentlemen
have the President do 1 Suppose my distinguished friend from
Kentucky had been elected President, and seven States had
seceded and levied war against the United States, and were with
an embattled host threatening to take and capture the capital:
what would have been his action? Would he have folded his
arms? No, no. He, I doubt not, would have made a blow to
defend the Union and the Constitution of the United States.
Then what else could he have done than President Lincoln has
done ? If, as I suppose he does, the distinguished Senator from
Kentucky echoes public opinion in Kentucky or intends to

THE WAR-MAKING POWER 99

echo public opinion there, I have no doubt that that proud
commonwealth would have sanctioned and approved and ad-
vised the very step the President has taken to vindicate the
laws and to defend the Constitution of the United States.

But another charge which he made against this Administra-
tion — ^that private papers were seized. I suppose the honorable
and distinguished Senator from Kentucky refers to telegraphic
dispatches. They were seized, but not quite soon enough, as I
think ; and still they have proven a California placer of treason.
It was right and proper to seize them. It was right to seize the
dispatches to vindicate the character of honorable Senators on
this floor.

Another count in this indictment is that citizens have been
imprisoned without any authority of law, which amounts to
precisely the former charge that martial law has been declared
under the proclamation of the President in some few localities
where it was eminently necessary. Citizens of Baltimore have
been imprisoned under military authority, and, as I believe,
have been rightfully imprisoned. When a New England regi-
ment cannot march through the city of Baltimore to defend the
capital without being attacked and shot down by a mob, it is
time that the military authority should do what the civil au-
thority was not able to do-Hsuppress and put down that unau-
thorized mob. I i^rmpathize with the true and loyal citizens
of Baltimore. I sympathize with the patriotic soldiery of Mas-
sachusetts who were coming to defend the capital. I have no
sympathy to waste upon armed traitors and rebels. I leave
others to pronounce their eulogy and to show them sympathy.

Another charge is that the President has violated the Con-
stitution of the United States in this: that he has disarmed
citizens; refused them the privilege, under the Constitution, of
bearing arms. Sir, it is true that he has refused traitors the
privilege of using arms against the Oovemment of the country.
Qeneral Lyon, of Missouri, and the gallant Frank Blair, and
their associates, did disarm some fifteen hundred rebels at
Camp Jackson, near St. Louis; and for that we are told they
are violators of the Constitution. The President has not only
guaranteed by his action the right to bear arms, but he has
invited the patriotic citizens of the United States to bear arms
for the only noble purpose for which men can take arms^— in
defence of the Constitution and liberties of the people. Is the
right to bear arms in Kentucky so sacred that it may never
be violated T Then why do you not bear arms in defence of the
Constitution and liberties of the Republic t There is a right

100 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

to bear arms that is worth something. Does Kentucky stand
upon the right to bear armsf Why is she not bearing arms
upon the battlefield to-day, beside Massachusetts and Indiana
and Ohio, and the loyal States f Why does she not insist upon
her right to bear arms, wheoi traitors are seeking to tear down
the Government under which we live ? The right to bear arms,
forsooth, is a forgotten right in the chivalric old commonwealth
of Kentucky. I have listened for her voice in this war ; I have
heard it not; and why! Because her action is, as I believe,
paralyzed by the course of her State authorities; but on the
first Monday of next August the true voice of old Kentucky
will be heard, and you will have a two-thirds majority in favor
of loyalty to the Union, and the places that know her distin-
guished governor now will soon know him no more forever.

Another count in this indictment against the Administration
is that they have put down treasonable newspapers. The Ad-
ministration have shown a forbearance beyond all parallel in
history. There is no government of constituted authority upon
earth that would have tolerated either the treasonable utterance
or publications of these traitors. I say that I not only approve
of the destruction of that St. Louis paper, but I rejoice at it
as an evidence of returning common sense in those who are
to defend the Government of the country.

One word, before I forget it, on the subject of this war
and the object of the war. There is no war levied against any
State, or against any State institutions. The President has
called out troops to suppress insurrection and put down re-
bellion. These are the objects for which your troops have been
called into the field. The abolition of slavery is no object con-
templated for which this war is to be prosecuted. But let me
tell gentlemen that, although the abolition of slavery is not an
object of the war, they may, in their madness and folly and
treason, make the abolition of slavery one of the results of this
war. That is what I understand to be precisely the position
of the Administration upon the subject of this war.

The gentleman closes his very able and eloquent speech with
the assumption of a position and doctrine that I do not for
one moment admit; and that is that the States made this Na-
tional Union of ours. I have read wrongfully, and to little pur-
pose, the history of the convention that formed the Constitution
if that is historically corect. I understand the people of the
United States to have made this Constitution; and so Webster
understood it.

This doctrine of State rights, as opposed to the rights of

THE WAR-MAKING POWER 101

fhe general Government, under the Federal Constitution, is a
most dangerous and pestilent heresy, which underlies this whole
controversy. Out of that idea, and one other idea, the present
disastrous state of things has been brought upon the country.
The idea of social, political inequality among the respective mem-
bers of the Confederacy underlies this war at its very founda-
tion. We are to teach them, I hope, a lesson of respect for the
North; we are to teach them a lesson of equality. Whatever
else this war may do, it will teach a lesson of equality for a
thousand years ; nay, more, it will add a thousand years to the
glorious lifetime of this, the only republic upon the earth.

So much for these objections to what the President of the
United States has done. But the closing argument, after all,
and that upon which the gentleman places most stress, is that
an effort was made at the last session of Congress to give to
the President this very power, and that the Congress of the
United States refused to pass that bill. That is true; and whyf
Because the vacant seats around us were then filled by traitors,
many of whom are now in arms against the Republic. For
that reason, and that alone, we failed to confer this i)ower
upon the President of the United States.

But the gentleman says he is glad that the people have their
attention now directed to the true posture of American politics.
I am glad that the people have their eye turned in the same
direction. In the last sixty days four hundred thousand troops
have volunteered to defend the Stars and Stripes and to defend
the Constitution. There is no parallel in all human history to
the widespread enthusiasm which has pervaded the whole people.
The nearest parallel is when Peter the Hermit preached a cru-
sade for the recovery of the Holy Sepulcher ; and our cause is
little less sacred than that for the recovery of the grave of the
Savior of mankind, for we propose a crusade in defence of the
Constitution, the rights of man, and the liberties of the Amer-
ican people.

I understand by coercion a right to march troops whereso-
ever the Government desires to march them. You hear much
said about the invasion of a sovereign State. Who can invade a
State? The home government or a foreign government T Vir-
ginia is to-day as much a part of the United States as Indiana,
and the President has as much right to march troops there,
and I hope is now engaged in marching troops there for the
purpose of crushing out rebellion. Let us stand by the com-
promises of the Constitution. Let us hereafter send all our
pacific messages to traitors at the mouth of the cannon. Let

102 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

the politicians reflect honestly the will of the people, and your
volunteer soldiers will crush out this rebellion without leaders
and without officers. They have determined to do this very
thing.

But gentlemen say how, from the ruins, will you reconstruct
the Republic f We do not contemplate any destruction of the
Republic which involves a reconstruction* We intend to protect
the Union men of the border States, to foster the Union senti-
ment, to get up a counter revolution, which will lay all seces-
sion and treason in ruina We expect soon to readmit Tennes-
see into the Union, as we have recently readmitted old Virginia ;
we expect soon to readmit North Carolina; and we expect to
present in six months an unbroken front to all foreign powers,
no single star erased, the light of no star obliterated by treason
in any part of the country. When we get the seceding States
properly represented upon the floor of the Congress of the
United States, then we shall have nothing to do but to punish
the last remains and remnants of this most disgraceful rebel-
lion ; and the remedy, after all, is a Kentucky remedy ; we pro-
pose — ^hemp. That is the remedy for treason; not under mob
law, but under indictments in courts. We propose to have
courts and judges sworn to support the law, and who will abide
by that sacred oath. When this is done, I promise you that
treason and rebellion will be buried forever.

Anti-Secession Resolutions

The day after the Union defeat at Bull Run, John
J. Crittenden [Ky.], who had retired from the Senate
to enter the House of Representatives, introduced in
the House a resolution confirming the President's theory
of secession, namely, that war had been forced on the
Government by the Southern disunionists ; that it was
waged by the Government not for subjugating the se-
ceded States, nor interfering vnth their rights and in-
stitutions, but to maintain the supremacy of the Con-
stitution, the dignity and integrity of the Union, and
the equality of all the States; and that, so soon as these
objects were accomplished, the war ought to cease.

This was passed by the House on July 22 vnth only
two dissenting votes, those of Henry C. Burnett [Ky.]
and John W. Reid [Mo.], other opponents of the

' .■

^-rL

•..=-.v I

THE WAR-MAKING POWER 103

measure, such as Clement L. Vallandigham [0.], not
voting. On July 24 the Senate passed a resolution to the
same effect (introduced by Andrew Jackson of Ten-
nessee) with only five dissenting votes, John C. Breckin-
ridge [Ky.] being among the number.

On July 17 Lyman Trumbull [111.] introduced in the
Senate a bill to suppress insurrection in places pro-
claimed by the President, by giving the military au-
thorities power in their respective districts to suspend
the writ of habeas corpus by proclamation, arrest per-
sons on the charge of sedition and try them by court-
martial, compel suspected persons to take the oath of
allegiance, etc. This came up for discussion on July 30.

Mabtial Law by Legislative Enactment
Senate, July 30-August 1, 1861

Senator Trumbull supported his resolution. He said :

I wish to premise by saying that I am as much for standing
by the Constitution of the country and for putting down this
rebellion in a constitutional and legal way as any gentleman
here. I will not yield to the Senator from Kentucky [Mr.
Breckinridge] or any other Senator in my veneration for the
Constitution of the United States. I believe that that instru-
ment was intended by its framers to be perpetual. I believe it
contains all the power necessary to suppress even this gigantic
rebellion ; and the object of this bill is to confer the necessary
power on the military authorities, in cases of insurrection and
rebellion, to suppress them, and to regulate, as far as prac-
ticable, by law the exercise of those powers. The object of the
bill is to provide for putting down rebellion in a coiustitutional
and legal manner.

When the Constitution gives authority to call forth the
militia for the purpose of enforcing the laws of the Union it is
not a meaningless authority, and whatever authority it may be
necessary to exercise to accomplish that object I say your
militia and your army may lawfully exercise. If it be neces-
sary to suspend the writ of habecis corpus, if it be necessary to
ravage the country and plunder towns, if it be necessary to slay
persons, to search houses, to do anything that men la time of
war may do, then that authority is given in the Constitution,

104 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

You will find, by reference to the works upon international law,
that it is laid down by all writers that whenever an insurrection
assumes such formidable proportions as to be recognized by the
Government, and whenever the civil authority is unable to put
it down and the military is called out, then all the incidents
which, according to the laws of nations, may be done by an army
follow your army called out for that purpose.

The Supreme Court of the United States has so decided this
very question [Luther vs. Borden and others, in 1849, reported
in 7 Howard] . Judge Woodbury dissented from the opinion of
the court, and placed his dissent chiefly upon the ground that a
State had not this power, admitting that the (Jovemment of
the United States might exercise it.

Here is an express decision that the military power
may interfere in a case where the civil authorities are
overborne, and may arrest anyone when they have rea-
sonable grounds to believe that he is engaged in the in-
surrection, and may enter houses for that purpose; and
the court say that, if this were not so, the military array of
the Government would be mere parade, and rather encourage
than repel attack. Shall it then be said, when express power
is given by the Constitution of the United States to call out
the militia to enforce the laws of the country, that they are
merely to make a parade T What more has your military power
done in this instance than was done in the State of Rhode
Island? Have they done anything more in Baltimore than to
arrest persons suspected of favoring this insurrection t Noth-
ing. The writ of habeas corpus cannot relieve them ; the courts
cannot interfere; and this power, the court say, is essential to
the preservation of order and free institutions and the existence
of every government, and they would draw the power from the
nature of government itself if it were not expressly given in
the Constitution.

That case covers, in my judgment, every feature of the bill
now under consideration.

James A. Bayard, Jr. [Del.], considered the bill ** ex-
ceedingly dangerous to the personal liberties and rights
of every citizen of the United States, and also entirely
unnecessary for the purpose of carrying on this war with
the seceded States. ' ' In order that it might have grave
consideration he moved its postponement until n ^xt day.

William P. Fessenden [Me.] wished the bill settled

THE WAR-MAKING POWER 105

at onoe, or to be postponed indefinitely ; with his present
impressions he would vote against it.

John C. Breckinridge [Ky.] concurred with the
Senator from Maine. He said:

If there is a serious intention to pass it, at some time before
the vote is taken I may briefly express my opposition to it. I
content myself now with saying that it appears to me to com-
bine in eleven sections eve]:ything most atrocious which has been
resisted, fought against, and trampled down by a free people
for the last five hundred years; and that I think the introduc-
tion of such a bill into the American Senate is the most gloomy
commentary we could have upon the degenerate character of
the times.

After some discussion the bill was postponed until
next day, and, when it then came up, imtil the day fol-
lowing (August 1).

Jacob CoUamer [Vt.] opposed the bill as a usurpa-
tion by Congress of the powers of the President.

Mr. President, it is quite useless for men to talk about Con-
gress having the war-making power. All there is in that argu-
ment is this : Among the powers enumerated in the Constitution
is that Congress shall have power to declare war ; that is to say
that that department of the Government which can initiate a
war in this country is Congress; but that has nothing to do
with a war made upon us. If a war be waged and declared
by another nation upon this nation, I take it, it needs no dec-
laration of Congress about it; it is a state of war. The diffi-
culty that arose in my mind was this: War has been declared
by those whom we do not recognize as a sovereign power. We
do not regard it as a regularly declared war. Therefore, in
order to avoid all doubt about the fact that an insurrection
existed, in order to give to that insurrection in this country,
by whatever name called, a local and legal existence, recognized
by us, we passed a law in the early part of this session by which
we authorized the President, wherever the insurrection existed in
a State, and especially if it claimed to do so by State author-
ity, and the State authority did not disclaim it, to declare the
people of that State, or any section of it, where the insurrection
existed, in a state of war. This is what we have done in order
to give it all formal sanctipn.

Now, Mr. President, the war, I take it, exists. It has been
suggested by some gentlemen here that that war cannot be

106 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

•

legally prosecuted after Congress meets; that thoo^^ it might
be, from the necessity of the case, prosecuted by the President,
in the exercise of the powers that ordinarily belong to the
prosecution of war, until Congress met, yet when Congress did
meet he could do nothing but what Congress authorized. I ut-
terly disclaim any such principle in our Government. Why,
sir, since we have met and during the three or four weeks we
have been sitting here, the President, or those acting under
him, have sent down twenty, thirty, or forty thousand of our
own citizens into Virginia, and have killed hundreds of people.
Is this murder T Where is your law to authorize it? Look
through your acts and through all your statutes, and whiere do
you find any authority of that kind T Has it been done by any
action of Congress? Not at all. Sir, we may as well come to
it first as last: the power to prosecute war and the manner
of carrying on that war is entirely executive — ^it is so in every
country everjrwhere — ^and the laws that govern those who thus
prosecute that war are the laws of war, not the laws of munici-
palities.

They are not the laws of Congress, nor of Parliament,
nor of the National Assembly of France: they are the laws of
war; and no war can be prosecuted in any other way. The
President, or the general of our armies, in the prosecution of
this war, is to conduct it just the same as any other. I desire
no resentments or irritations about it; but they do not derive
their authority from Congress. Not only do they not derive
their authority from that source, but they cannot. The laws
of war are laws between the belligerents. When you capture a
spy you can execute him, according to the laws of war. Those
laws are recognized, and do not come out of legislation by
anybody.

Again, Mr. President, the mere powers which are absolutely
necessary to the prosecution of a war are many of them powers
which Congress, in the express words of the Constitution, is
forbidden to adopt. Now, take one feature of the bill before
us which recognizes the trying of people and punishing them
capitally, executing them, by court-martial. The Constitution
provides expressly that all crimes shall be tried by a jury, unless
they are offences committed by those who are members either
of the army or navy. That is the provision of the Constitution.
Now it is not with that clause as it may be with the habeas
corpits. That clause may be suspended; but the provision in
regard to trial by jury Congress has no power to suspend any-
where.

THE WAR-MAKING POWER 107

I mention that as one illustration. I can find a number of
others similar to it, wherein the prohibitions of the Constitu-
tion — prohibitions upon the action of Congress — ^are of that
character that shows it is not i)ossible to give, by any action of
Congress, those powers which everybody recognizes as the rights
of war, under the laws of war. Therefore, without occupying
any further time about it, the war now being in legal existence,
and, if any more particular locality should be given to it,
it is by presidential proclamation, under the statute we have
already passed; my idea is that the rights of war, the power
of prosecuting it, and the mode of carrying it on, with all its
limitations, are to be derived from what are known in the
world as the laws of war. They are entirely in the executive
administration, not derived from Congress, and, I think, ought
not to be undertaken to be legislated about in Congress, because,
as I before said, the very attempt to legislate upon them is to
negative the idea that they have any other power; and we
should want more time and more forethought and foresight to
provide for the various exigencies which may present them-
selves in war than we should ever be able to give to the subject.
Therefore, I think it better to leave it to the laws of war, where
it properly belongs.

Senator Trumbull. — The Senator from Vermont asserts
that this is war; that you cannot regulate a war by Congress;
it is the law of nations that regulates war; and he wants to
know, if this is a bill providing for war, why you do not pro-
vide for spies, and why you do not make other provisions! He
goes on to say that it is directly against the Constitution of
the United States to try a man by court-martial, because a man
is entitled to a jury trial. Why, sir, did the learned Senator
from Vermont never read the acts of Congress? It is provided
by the act of 1806, in force to-day, that —

"Whoever shall be convicted of holding correspondence with, or giving
intelligence to, the enemy, either directly or indirectly, shall suffer death,
or such other punishment as shall be ordered by the sentence of a court-
martial."

The Senator says we cannot regulate the proceedings during
a time of war; that Congress has no power over them. The
statute is full of regulations of the army in time of war; and
this very act, the very case he puts, provides the punishment
for a spy.

The statute is full of provisions controlling and governing
the army in time of war. Express authority is given to Con-

108 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

gress by the very words of the Constitution to make the rules
and regulations for the government of the army ; and yet, f or-
soothy we are told by the Senator from Vermont Congress cannot
make any laws at all; war is declared, and the President can
carry on the war just as he pleases. Now, sir, I deny his very
premises. I deny that this is a war in the sense in which he
speaks. There is a rebellion. We have treated it as a rebellion.
The Executive has treated it as a rebellion. The Senator wants
to know if it was murder when our army went over to Virginia
a few days ago and killed several hundred persons T Certainly
not. It was not necessary to write down in the statute book
that our army should have authority to go into Virginia and
shoot men; but what has Congress done? Congress has recog-
nized this existing state of things. It has voted hundreds of
millions of money and hundreds of thousands of men to put
down the rebellion. It has authorized the calling out of the
militia for the purpose of enforcing the laws; and the courts
have decided that when the militia are called out for that pur-
pose they may use all the means necessary to accomplish the
object; and the provision of the Constitution which provides
for trial by jury has no application. When the military author-
ity is called out to enforce the laws and suppress rebellion, they
have all the authority necessary to accomplish the end for which
that power is given; and if it be necessary to level houses, to
ravage the country, and to shoot men, they have the authority.
The militaiy power is not called out as a display. Nor is this a
war in the sense the Senator from Vermont would intimate.
His doctrine would recognize these Southern rebels as a govern-
ment. He wants to provide for an exchange of prisoners, and
he asks why that is not in the bill.

Senator Collameb. — I disclaimed that they were a govern-
ment. I said the reason we passed a law to authorize the Presi-
dent to issue his proclamation was because we did not recognize
such a power on earth.

Senator Trumbull. — Then, if he does not recognize this as
a war in that sense, why undertake to apply to it the rules of
war ? Is a war existing in my State ? By virtue of the military
authority men in the State of Illinois have been arrested. Is
war existing in Baltimore T By what authority are you arresting
men in the city of Baltimore and holding them in custody? Is
the Senator from Vermont, or is anybody in this country, for
leaving the power in the hands of the President, or, rather, in
the hands of your commanding general, just when he pleases^
without proclamation, to march to any locality, arrest men, put

THE WAR-MAKING POWER 109

them in prison, and do what he pleases with themT Shall we be
told that Congress has no power, although the express authority
to make rules and regulations for the government of every ofiQeer
is vested here in Congress and nowhere else? Our power is
omnipotent over this army; and they ought to have rules and
regulations by which to be governed. And, let me tell Senators,
it is no new feature for courts-martial, in time of rebellion, in-
surrection, and civil war, to bring men before them and try
them, sentence them, and shoot them without the intervention of
any grand or petit jurors.

Senator BRECKiNRmoE. — I endeavored, Mr. President, to
demonstrate a short time ago that the whole tendency of our
proceedings was to trample the Constitution under our feet and
to conduct this contest without the slightest regard to its pro-
visions. Everything that has occurred since demonstrates that
the view I took of the conduct and tendency of public aflfairs
was correct. Already both Houses of Congress have passed a
bill virtually to confiscate all the property in the States that
have withdrawn. Nothing can be more apparent than that that
is a general act of emancipation.

Again, sir : to show that all these proceedings are character-
ized by an utter disregard of the Federal Constitution, what is
happening around us every day?

The police commissioners of Baltimore were arrested by mili-
tary authority without any charges whatever. In vain they have
asked for a specification. In vain they have sent a respectful
protest to the Congress of the United States. In vain the House
of Representatives, by resolution, requested the President to
furnish the Representatives of the people with the grounds of
their arrest. He answers the House of Representatives that,
in his judgment, the public interest does not permit him to say
why they were arrested, on what charges, or what he has done
with them — and you call this liberty and law and proceedings
for the preservation of the Constitution! They have been
spirited oflf from one fortress to another, their locality unknown,
and the President of the United States refuses, upon the applica-
tion of the most numerous branch of the national legislature, to
furnish them with the grounds of their arrest, or to inform them
what he has done with them.

Well might the Senator from Delaware [Willard Saulsbury]
say that this bill contains provisions conferring authority which
never was exercised in the worst days of Rome, by the worst of
her dictators. I have wondered why the bill was introduced. I
have sometimes thought that possibly it was introduced for

110 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

the pari)ose of preventing the expression of that reaction which
is now evidently going on in the public mind against these pro-
cedures so fatal to constitutional liberty. The army may be thus
used, perhaps, to collect the enormous direct taxes for which
preparation is now being made by Congress; and, if in any
part of Illinois, or Indiana, or New York, or any State, North
or South, there shall be difiSculty or resistance the President, in
his discretion, may declare it to be in a state of insurrection, all
the civil authorities may be overthrown, and his military com-
mander may make rules and regulations, collect taxes, and exe-
cute the laws at his pleasure.

Mr. President, gentlemen talk about the Union as if it was
an end instead of a meana They talk about it as if it was the
union of these States which alone had brought into life the
principles of public and of personal liberty. Sir, they existed
before, and they may survive it. Take care that in pursuing
one idea you do not destroy, not only the Constitution of your
country, but sever what remains of the Federal Union. These
eternal and sacred principles of public and of personal liberty,
which lived before the Union and will live forever and ever
somewhere, must be respected; they cannot with impunity be
overthrown; and, if you force the people to the issue between
any form of government and these priceless principles, that form
of government will perish ; they will tear it asunder as the irre-
pressible forces of nature rend whatever opposes them.

The Senator from Vermont [Mr. Collamer] says that all these
proceedings are to be conducted according to the laws of war ; he
adds that these laws require many things to be done which are
absolutely forbidden in the Constitution ; which Congress is pro-
hibited from doing, and all other departments of the (Govern-
ment are forbidden from doing by the Constitution; but that
they are proper under the laws of war, which must alone be the
measure of our action now. I desire the country, then, to know
this fact: that it is openly avowed upon this floor that consti-
tutional limitations are no longer to be regarded ; but that you
are acting just as if there were two nations upon this continent,
one arrayed against the other ; some eighteen or twenty millions
on one side and some ten or twelve millions on the other, as to
whom the Constitution is nought, and the laws of war alone
apply.

Sir, if the Constitution is really to be put aside, if the laws
of war alone are to govern, and whatever may be done by one
independent nation at war with another is to be done, why not
act upon that practically T I do not hold that the clause of

THE WAR-MAKING POWER 111

the Constitution which authorizes Congress to declare war ap-
plies to any internal difficulties. I do not believe it applies to
any of the political communities bound together under the Con-
stitution in political association. I regard it as applying to
external enemies. Nor do I believe that the Constitution of the
United States ever contemplated the preservation of the Union
of these States by one half the States warring on the other half.
It details particularly how military force shall be employed
in this Federal system of government, and it can be employed
properly in no other way ; it can be employed in aid of the civil
tribunals. If there are no civil tribunals, if there is no mode
by which the laws of the United States may be enforced in the
manner prescribed by the Constitution, what follows? The
remaining States may, if they choose, make war, but they do
it outside of the Constitution; and the Federal system, as de-
termined by the principles and terms of that instrument, does
not provide for the case. It does provide for putting down
insurrections — illegal uprisings of individuals — ^but it does not
provide, in my opinion, either in its spirit or in its terms, for
raising armies by one half of the political communities that
compose the Union for the purpose of subjugating the other
half; and the very fact that it does not is shown by the fact
that you have to avow on the floor of the Senate the neces-
sity for putting the Constitution aside and conducting the whole
contest without regard to it and in obedience solely to the laws
of war.

Then, if we are at war, if it is a ease of war, treat it like
war. Practically it is being treated like war. The prisoners
whom the United States have taken are not hung as traitors.
The prisoners which the other States have taken are not hung
as traitors. Is it war? The Senator is right in saying it is war ;
but, in my opinion, it is not only an unhappy but an unconsti-
tutional war. Why, then, all these proceedings upon the part
of the Administration, refusing to send or to receive flags of
truce ; refusing to recognize the actual condition of affairs ; re-
fusing to do those acts which, if they do not terminate, may at
least ameliorate the unhappy condition in which we find our-
selves placed?

So much, then, we know. We know that admitted violations
of the Constitution have been made and are justified. We know
that we have conferred by legislation, and are, perhaps, still
further by legislation to confer, authority to do acts not war-
ranted by the Constitution of the United States. We have it
openly avowed that the Constitution of the Union, which is the

112 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

bond of association, at least, between those States that still ad-
here to the Federal Union, is no longer to be regarded. It is
not enough to tell me that it has been violated by those com-
munities that have seceded. Other States have not seceded ; Ken-
tucky has not seceded; Illinois has not seceded; some twenty
States yet compose the Federal Union, nominally under this Ck)n-
stitution. As to them, that instrument, in its terms and in its
spirit, is the bond of their connection under the Federal system.
They have a right, as between themselves and their comembers
of the Union, to insist upon its being respected. If, indeed,
it is to be put aside, and we are to go into a great continen-
tal struggle, they may pause to inquire what is to become of
their liberties and what their political connections are to be in
a contest made without constitutional warrant and in derogation
of all the terms of the instrument? How can this be suc-
cessfully controverted! Though you may have a right to
trample under foot the Constitution and to make war (as
every power has a right to make war) against the States that
have seceded, have you a right to violate it as to any of the
adhering States who insist upon fidelity to its provisions? No,
sir.

Edward D. Bakeb [Ore.] . — Will the gentleman be kind enough
to tell me what single particular provision there is in this bill
which is in violation of the Constitution of the United States T

Senator Breckinridge. — They are all, in my opinion, so
equally atrocious that I dislike to discriminate. The Senator can
select which he pleases.

Senator Baker. — Let me try, then, if I must generalize as
the Senator does, to see if I can get the scope and meaning of
this bill. It is a bill providing that the President of the United
States may declare, by proclamation, in a certain given state of
fact, certain territory within the United States to be in a condi-
tion of insurrection and war; which proclamation shall be ex-
tensively published within the district to which it relates. That
is the first proposition. I ask him if that is unconstitutional T
He will not dare to say it is.

Senator Breckinridge. — The State of Illinois, I believe, is
a military district. The State of Kentucky is a military
district. In my judgment, the President has no author-
ity, and, in my judgment, Congress has no right to confer
upon the President authority, to declare a State in a condition
of insurrection or rebellion.

Senator Baker. — The bill does not say a word about States.

Senator Breckinridge. — Does not the Senator know, in fact,

THE WAR-MAKING POWER 113

that those States compose military districts T It might as well
have said ''States" as to describe what is a State.

Senator Baker. — The objection certainly onght not to be
that the President can declare a part of a State in insurrection
and not the whole of it. In point of fact, the Constitution of the
United States, and the Congress of the United States acting
upon it, are not treating of States, but of the territory compris-
ing the United States ; and I submit once more to his better judg-
ment that it cannot be unconstitutional to allow the President
to declare a county or a part of a county, or a town or a part
of a town, or part of a State or the whole of a State, or two
States, or five States in a condition of insurrection, if, in his
judgment, that be the fact.

In the next place the bill provides that, that being so, the
military commander in that district may make and publish such
police rules and regulations as he may deem necessary to sup-
press the rebellion and restore order and preserve the lives and
property of citizens. I submit to him, if the President of the
United States has power, or ought to have power, to suppress
insurrection and rebellion, is there any better way to do it, or is
there any other? The gentleman says do it by the civil power.
Look at the fact. The civil power is utterly overwhelmed ; the
courts are closed; the judges banished. Is the President not
to execute the law T Is he to do it in person, or by his military
commanders? Are they to do it with regulation, or without itt
That is the only question.

Mr. President, the honorable Senator agrees with the Senator
from Vermont that there is a state of war. What then T There
is a state of public war; none the less war because it is urged
from the other side ; not the less war because it is unjust ; not the
less war because it is a war of insurrection and rebellion. It
is still war ; and I am willing to say it is public war — public as
contradistinguished from private war. What then? Shall we
carry that war on ? Is it his duty as a Senator to carry it on ?
If so, how ? By armies, under command ; by military organiza-
tion and authority, advancing to suppress insurrection and re-
bellion. Is that wrong ? Is that unconstitutional ? Are we not
bound to do with whoever levies war against us as we would do
if he was a foreigner? There is no distinction as to the mode
of carrying on war ; we carry on war against an advancing army
just the same, whether it be from Russia or from South Carolina.
Will the honorable Senator tell me it is our duty to stay here,
within fifteen miles of the enemy seeking to advance upon us
every hour, and talk about nice questions of constitutional oon-

vi—s

114 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

struction as to whether it is war or merely insurrection T No,
sir. It is our duty to advance, if we can; to suppress insurrec-
tion; to put down rebellion; to dissipate the rising; to scatter
the enemy ; and, when we have done so, to preserve, in the terms
of the bill, the liberty, lives, and property of the people of the
country by just and fair police regulations. When we took
Mexico did we not do it there T Is it not a part, a necessary,
an indispensable part of war itself, that there shall be military
regulations over the country conquered and heldT Is that un-
constitutional T

It is true that the Constitution of the United States does
adopt the laws of war as a part of the instrument itself during
the continuance of war. The Constitution does not provide that
spies shall be hung. Is it unconstitutional to hang a spy 1 There
is no provision for it in terms in the Constitution ; but nobody
denies the right, the power, the justice. Whyt Because it is
part of the law of war. The Constitution does not provide for
the exchange of prisoners; yet it may be done under the law of
war. Indeed the Constitution does not provide that a prisoner
may be taken at all ; yet his captivity is perfectly just and con-
stitutional. It seems to me that the Senator does not, will not,
take that view of the subject.

Again, sir, when a military commander advances, as I trust,
if there are no more unexpected great reverses, he will advance,
through Virginia, and occupies the country, there, perhaps, as
here, the civil law may be silent ; there perhaps the civil officers
may flee as ours have been compelled to flee. What then? If
the civil law is silent, who shall control and regulate the con-
quered district — ^who but the military commander? As the Sen-
ator from Illinois has well said, shall it be done by regulation or
without regulation? Shall the general, or the colonel, or the
captain be supreme, or shall he be regulated and ordered by
the President of the United States? That is the sole question.
The Senator has put it well.

I agree that we ought to do all we can to limit, to restrain,
to fetter the abuse of military power. Bayonets are at best il-
logical arguments. I am not willing, except as a case of sheerest
necessity, ever to permit a military commander to exercise au-
thority over life, liberty, and property. But, sir, it is part of
the law of war; you cannot carry in the rear of your army
your courts ; you cannot organize juries ; you cannot have trials
according to the forms and ceremonial of the common law amid
the clangor of arms, and somebody must enforce police regula-
tions in a conquered or occupied district. I ask the Senator

THE WAR-MAKING POWER 115

from Kentucky again respectfully, is that unconstitutional; or,
if, in the nature of war, it must exist, even if there be no law
passed by us to allow it, is it unconstitutional to regulate itT
That is the question, to which I do not think he will make a clear
and distinct reply.

I would ask the Senator what would you have us do now —
a Confederate army within twenty miles of us, advancing, or
threatening to advance, to overwhelm your Government; to
shake the pillars of the Union ; to bring it around your head, if
you stay here, in ruins T Are we to predict evil and retire from
what we predict T Is it not the manly part to go on as we have
begun, to raise money and levy armies, to organize them, to pre-
pare to advance ; when we do advance, to regulate that advance
by all the laws and regulations that civilization and humanity
will allow in time of battle T Can we do anything more? To
talk to us about stopping is idle; we will never stop. Will the
Senator yield to rebellion T Will he shrink from armed insur-
rection? Will his State justify itt Will its better public opin-
ion allow it? Shall we send a flag of truce? What would he
have? Op would he conduct this war so feebly that the whole
world would smile at us in derision? What would he have?
These speeches of his, sown broadcast over the land, what clear,
distinct meaning have they? Are they not intended for disor-
ganization in our very midst? Are they not intended to dull
our weapons? Are they not intended to destroy our zeal? Are
they not intended to animate our enemies? Sir, are they not
words of brilliant, polished treason, even in the very Capitol of
the Confederacy? [Manifestations of applause in the galler-
ies.]

What would have been thought if, in another capitol, in
another republic, in a yet more martial age, a Senator as grave,
not more eloquent or dignified than the Senator from Kentucky,
yet with the Roman purple flowing over his shoulders, had risen
in his place, surrounded by all the illustrations of Roman glory,
and declared that advancing Hannibal was just and that Car-
thage ought to be dealt with in terms of peace? What would
have been thought if, after the battle of Cannse, a Senator there
had risen in his place and denounced every levy of the Roman
people, every expenditure of its treasure, and every appeal to
the old recollections and the old glories? Sir, a Senator, himself
learned far more than myself in such lore [Mr. Fessenden^,
tells me, in a voice that I am glad is audible, that he would hav^
been hurled from the Tarpeian rock. It is a grand commentary
upon the American Constitution that we permit these words to

116 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

be uttered. I ask the Senator to recollect, too, what, aaye to
send aid and comfort to the enemy, do these predictions of his
amount to? Every word thus uttered falls as a note of inspira-
tion upon every Confederate ear. Every sound thus uttered is
a word (and falling from his lips, a mighty word) of kindling
and triumph to a foe that determines to advance. For me, I
have no such word as a Senator to utter. For me, amid tempo-
rary defeat, disaster, disgrace, it seems that my duty calls me
to utter another word, and that word is : bold, sudden, forward,
determined war, according to the laws of war, by armies, by
military conunanders clothed with full power, advancing ¥ath
all the past glories of the Republic urging them on to con-
quest.

I do not stop to consider whether it is subjugation or not.
It is compulsory obedience, not to my will, not to yours, sir, not
to the will of any one man, not to the will of any one Senate;
but compulsory obedience to the Constitution of the whole coun-
try. When we subjugate South Carolina what shall we do ? We
shall compel its <>^^ttlN^ to the Constitution of the United
States; that is all. wedio not mean, we have never said, any
more. If it be slavery that men should obey the Constitution
their fathers fought for, let it be so. If it be freedom, it is free-
dom equally for them and for us. We propose to subjugate
rebellion into loyalty ; we propose to subjugate insurrection into
peace; we propose to subjugate Confederate anarchy into con-
stitutional Union liberty. When the Confederate armies are
scattered; when their leaders are banished from power; when
the people return to a late repentant sense of the wrong they
have done to a Government they never felt but in benignancy and
blessing, then the Constitution made for all ¥dll be felt by all,
like the descending rains from heaven which bless all alike. Is
that subjugation? To restore what was as it was for the benefit
of the whole country and of the whole human race is all we de-
sire and all we can have.

Sir, how can we retreat? Sir, how can we make peace?
Who shall treat? What commissioners? Who would go?
Upon what terms? Where is to be your boundary line?
Where the end of the principles we shall have to give up?
What will become of constitutional government? What will
become of public liberty? What of past glories? What of future
hopes? Shall we sink into the insignificance of the grave — ^a
degraded, defeated, emasculated people, frightened by the results
of one battle and scared at the visions raised by the imagination
of the Senator from Kentucky upon this floor ? No, sir ; a thou-

THE WAR-MAKING POWER 117

sand times, no, sir! We will rally — if, indeed, our words be
necessary — we will rally the people, the loyal people, of the
whole country. They will pour forth their treasure, their
money, their men, without stint, without measure. The most
peaceable man in this body may st€mip his foot upon this Sen-
ate chamber floor, as of old a warrior and a Senator did, and
from that single tramp there will spring forth armed legions.
Shall one battle determine the fate of empire, or a dozen? the
loss of one thousand men or twenty thousand, or $100,000,000
or $500,000,000? In a year's peace, in ten years, at most, of
peaceful progress, we can restore them all. There will be some
graves reeking with blood, watered by the tears of affection.
There will be some privation ; there will be some loss of luxury ;
their will be somewhat more need for labor to procure the neces-
saries of life. When that is said, all is said. If we have the
country, the whole country, the Union, the Constitution, free
government — ^with these there will return all the blessings of
well-ordered civilization ; the path of the country will be a career
of greatness and of glory such as, in the olden time, our fathers
saw in the dim visions of years yet to come, and such as would
have been ours now, to-day, if it had not been for the treason
for which the Senator too often seeks to apologize.

Senator Bbegeiniudge. — The Senator asks me: ''What
would you have us do?" I would have us stop the war. We
can do it. I have tried to show that there is none of that inex-
orable necessity to continue this war which the Senator seems
to suppose. I do not hold that constitutional liberty on this
continent is bound up in this fratricidal, devastating, horrible
contest. Upon the contrary, I fear it will find its grave in it.
The Senator is mistaken in supposing that we can reunite these
States by war. He is mistaken in supposing that eighteen or
twenty million upon the one side can subjugate ten or twelve
million upon the other; or, if they do subjugate them, that you
can restore constitutional government as our fathers made it.
You will have to govern them as Territories, as suggested by the
Senator, if ever they are reduced to the dominion of the United
States. Sir, I would prefer to see these States all reunited upon
true constitutional principles to any other object that could be
offered me in life; and to restore, upon the principles of our
fathers, the Union of these States, to me the sacrifice of one un-
important life would be nothing; nothing, sir. But I infinitely
prefer to see a peaceful separation of these States than to see
endless, aimless, devastating war, at the end of which I see the
grave of public liberty and of personal freedom.

118 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

The Senator asked if a Senator of Rome had uttered these
things in the war between Carthage and that power, how would
he have been treated? Sir, the war between Carthage and
Rome was altogether different from the war now waged between
the United States and the Confederate States. I would have said
— ^rather than avow the principle that one or the other must be
subjugated, or perhaps both destroyed — let Carthage live and
let Rome live, each pursuing its own course of policy and civili-
zation.

The Senator says that these opinions which I thus expressed,
and have heretofore expressed, are but brilliant treason; and
that it is a tribute to the character of our institutions that I am
allowed to utter them upon the Senate floor. Mr. President,
if I am speaking treason I am not aware of it. I am speaking
what I believe to be for the good of my country. If I am speak-
ing treason, I am speaking it in my place in the Senate, By
whose indulgence am I speaking f Not by any man 's indulgence.
I am speaking by the guaranties of lliat Constitution which
seems to be here now so little respected. And, sir, when he
asked what would have been done ¥dth a Roman Senator who
had uttered such words, another Senator on this floor replies in
audible tones: ''He would have been hurled from the Tarpeian
rock." Since, in ancient Rome, (while the defenders of the pub-
lic liberty were sometimes torn to pieces by the people, yet their
memories were cherished in grateful remembrance,) to be hurled
from the Tarpeian rock was ever the fate of usurpers and
tyrants, this remark is an insult which ought not to be offered
on the floor of the Senate chamber to a Senator who is speaking
in his place.

Senator TrumbulPs bill was not brought to a vote,
owing to the opposition of such influential Republicans
as Senators Fessenden and CoUamer, who thought it
both unnecessary and of doubtful constitutionality.

Senator Breckinridge soon after left the Senate to
become a general in the Confederate army. Senator
Baker also shortly resigned his seat to become a Union
officer. He was killed while gallantly leading his regi-
ment in a hopeless charge at the battle of Ball's Bluff,
Va., on October 21, 1861,

CHAPTER IV

MiLITABT EmANCIPATIOIT

Gen. Benjamin F. Butler Declares Slaves Employed on Confederate Works
"Contraband of War"; the Doctrine Is Upheld by the President and
Congress — Gen. John C. Fremont Issnes an Order of Military Emanci-
pation; It Is Revoked by the President, Who Is Criticized Therefor by
Anti-Slavery Radicals-His Beply to Sen. Orville H. Browning [Ili.] —
Fremont Is Removed — Gen. Henry W. Halleck Is Put in Charge of
Department of Missouri — ^He Excludes Fugitive Slaves from the
Army — Henry Wilson [Mass.] Introduces in the Senate a Bill to Punish
Army Officers for Returning Fugitives — ^Debate: in Favor, Jacob Col-
lamer [Vt.], Sen. Wilson; Amendment to Punish Officers for Enticing
Slaves to Run Away, Supported by Willard Saulsbury [Del.], James A.
Pearce [Md.] — Francis P. Blair, Jr. [Mo.] Makes a Similar Proposi-
tion in the House — ^Debate: in Favor, Mr. Blair, John A. Bingham
[O.]; Opposed, Robert Mallory [Ky.), Charles A. WickUffe [Ky.],
Henry Grider [Ky.] — ^BiU Passed by House and Senate — Gen. David
Hunter's Proclamation of Military Emancipation; It Is Revoked by
the President.

SLAVES employed on the earthworks of General
John B. Magmder [Conf.], in May, 1861, ran away
to Fortress Monroe, Va., which was held by Union
troops nnder Benjamin P. Butler, and General Butler
refused to give them up to their owners on the ground
that, Virginia claiming to be a foreign State, its citizens
who endorsed this claim (as did the owners) could not
assert as their right a duty of the Federal Government
which extended only to its citizens.

This reasoning led to an even more advanced posi-
tion which was concisely summed up in a single phrase,
viz., that negroes employed in aid of rebellion were
^^ contraband of war, and so subject to confiscation.''
Since the Southerners regarded slaves as chattels they
could not consistently except to this conclusion.

The Government heartily approved General Butler's

119

120 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

coarse. On May 30 Secretary Cameron of the War
Department gave bim a formal order authorizing )iim
to pursue the policy he had adopted. Even the border-
State Union men did not voice any objeotions, for to do
BO would impeach their loyalty. The public generally
applauded Butter.

Congress, as we have seen (page 70), declared that
all negroes employed upon fortificationg, etc., by the
Confederates, should not, if taken by the Union troops,
be returned to their owners, and in this it was sup-
ported by public opinion in the North and even in the
border States.

When, however, Major-Qeneral John C. Fremont,
in command of the Western Department, consisting of

An envelope cut during tlie Ciril War

niinois and all the region between the Mississippi and
the Bocky Mountains, attempted to gain a similar pop-
ular acclaim by issuing on his own responsibility a proc-
lamation confiscating all property of persons in rebellion,
and emancipating their slaves, neither the Administra-
tion nor the conntry as a whole supported him, although
the Abolitionists hailed it as the most important act thus
far of the war.

To President Lincoln and his military advisers the
previous course of General Fremont had been most dis-
appointing. His neglect to reenforce the brave General
Lyon, isolated at Springfield in southwestern Missouri
among gathering rebel forces, had led to the defeat
and death of Lyon at Wilson's Creek on August 10, and
his egotism in refusing to consult with the civil auttiori-
ties and his subordinate officers had thoroughly demoral-
ized his entire department

MILITARY EMANCIPATION 121

President Liiiiioln therefore was watching for danger
in that quarter, and, as soon as he was informed of
Fremont's proclamation on August 30 of military eman-
cipation, wrote him on September 2 to modify it so that
it should conform to the act of Congress confiscating
property used for insurrection, giving as a reason for
his objection that the liberation of slaves would alarm
Southern Unionists, and perhaps precipitate Kentucky
into the Confederacy.

Before Lincoln received a reply to this he wrote to
General David Hunter a letter full of shrewd foresight
and delicate diplomacy:

September 9, 1861.
My dear Sib: General Fremont needs to have by his side a
man of large experience. Will you not, for me, take that place 1
Your rank is one grade too high to be ordered to it; but will
you not serve the coimtry and oblige me by taking it volun-
tarily?

Two days later he received an answer from Fremont
to his letter of September 2. It was full of excuses
and self -justification. Mrs. Fremont brought it in per-
son. She adopted a hostile attitude toward the Presi-
dent, and, insinuating that there was a conspiracy
against her husband, demanded a copy of the President's
Missouri correspondence. Lincoln courteously but firmly
replied :

I do not feel authorized to furnish you with copies of letters
in my possession, without the consent of the writers. No im-
pression has been made on my mind against the honor or in-
tegrity of General Fremont, and I now enter my protest against
being understood as acting in any hostility toward him.

The situation precipitated by General Fremont's
proclamation was most critical. The border States, for
whose adherence to the Union Lincoln had thus far
most successfully played, seemed about to escape from
his control Besides, soldiers from the Northern States,
who had enlisted to save the Union and not to free
the negro, were greatly disaffected by Fremont's

122 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

proclamation. On the other hand events had rapidly
developed many conservative Northerners into anti-
slavery radicals, and these, together with the original
Abolitionists, made a hero of General Fremont Such
persons had to be treated with utmost consideration.

One of these was an old friend and adviser of
Lincoln, Orville H. Browning, who had succeeded
Stephen A. Douglas in the Senate. On September 17
he wrote to the President objecting to his attitude to-
ward Fremont's proclamation. To this letter Lincoln
replied on the 22d:

My dear Sir : Yours of the 17th is just received ; and, coming
from youy I confess it astonishes me. That you should object
to my adhering to a law which you had assisted in making and
presenting to me less than a month before is odd enough. But
this is a very small part. General Fremont's proclamation as
to confiscation of property and the liberation of slaves is purely
political and not within the range of military law or necessity.
If a commanding general fmds a necessity to seize the farm
of a private owner for a pasture, an encampment, or a fortifica-
tion he has the right to do so, and to so hold it as long as the
necessity lasts; and this is within military law, because within
military necessity. But, to say the farm shall no longer belong
to the owner, or his heirs forever, and this as well when the
farm is not needed for military purposes as when it is, is purely
political, without the savor of military law about it. And the
same is true of slaves. If the general needs them, he can seize
them and use them ; but, when the need is past, it is not for him
to fix their permanent future condition. That must be settled
according to laws made by law-makers, and not by military proc-
lamations. The proclamation on the point in question is simply
"dictatorship." It assumes that the general may do anything
he pleases— confiscate the lands and free the slaves of loyal
people as well as of disloyal ones. And, going the whole figure,
I have no doubt, would be more popular with some thoughtless
people than that which has been done! But I cannot assume
this reckless position, nor allow others to assume it on my re-
sponsibility.

You speak of it as being the only means of saving the Qoy-
emment. On the contrary, it is itself the surrender of the
(Jovemment. Can it be pretended that it is any longer the
Government of the United States — any government of constitu-

MILITARY EMANCIPATION 123

tion and laws — ^wherein a general or a president may make
permanent rules of property by proclamation? I do not say
Congress might not with propriety pass a law on the point
just such as General Fremont proclaimed. I do not say I might
not, as a member of Congress, vote for it. What I object to is,
that I, as President, shall expressly or impliedly seize and exer-
cise the permanent legislative functions of the Government.

So much as to principle. Now as to policy. No doubt the
thing was popular in some quarters, and would have been more
so if it had been a general declaration of emancipation. The
Kentucky legislature would not budge till that proclamation was
modified; and General Anderson telegraphed me that, on the
news of General Fremont having actually issued deeds of manu-
mission, a whole company of our volunteers threw down their
arms and disbanded. I was so assured as to think it probable
that the very arms we had furnished Kentucky would be turned
against us. I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to
lose the whole game. Kentucky gone, we cannot hold Missouri,
nor, as I think, Maryland. These all against us, and the job on
our hands is too large for us. We would as well consent to sep-
aration at once, including the surrender of this capital. On the
contrary, if you will give up your restlessness for new positions,
and back me manfully on the grounds upon which you and other
kind friends gave me the election and have approved in my
public documents, we shall go through triumphantly. You must
understand I took my course on the proclamation because of
Kentucky. I took the same ground in a private letter to General
Fremont before I heard from Kentucky.

There has been no thought of removing General Fremont
on any ground connected with his proclamation. ... I hope
no real necessity for it exists on any ground.

Fremont's continued inaction, however, compelled the
President at last to supersede him with General David
Hunter. A few months later Fremont was placed in
charge of the Mountain Department [western Virginia
and eastern Kentucky and Tennessee].

On November 9, 1861, General Henry W. Halleck was
placed in charge of the Department of Missouri [Mis-
souri, Arkansas, western Kentucky, Iowa, Minnesota,
Wisconsin, and Illinois]^ and Hunter put in command
of the Department of Katisas [Kansas, Nebraska, Colo-
rado, Dakota, and Indian Territory].

124 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

General Halleck set himself at once to settle the vexa-
tions problem of the relation of the army to fugitive
slaves. Contrary to Fremont's policy he issued an order
on November 20 excluding these fugitives from the army
lines on the ground that they conveyed information to
the enemy. For this order he was violently attacked
by the anti-slave press and Congressmen, who averred
that, on the contrary, the fugitives brought in valuable
information about the enemy.

During the session of December, 1861-July, 1862,
several bills were proposed in both the Senate and the
House to punish officers and privates of the army and
navy for aiding owners to recover fugitive slaves. That
of Henry Wilson [Mass.] was reported on January 6,
1862, in the Senate. On January 17 it came up for
discussion.

Retubn of Fugitivb Slaves by Abmy Officebs
Congress, January 6-Mabch 10, 1862

Jacob Collamer [Vt.] said:

It is a perversion entirely to undertake to use soldiers
a mere posse comitatus, or as a mere police force, or to use them
in any way in the enforcement of the laws of any particular
section into which they may be marched. They have nothing
to do with that ; their business is to suppress the rebellion, and
disperse the insurgents wherever they may be found in arms.
I believe we are generally agreed that there is great impropriety
in military men exercising military authority within the States
in relation to their internal and municipal affairs; it is very
likely to produce collisions that ought to be avoided.

Willard Saulsbury [Del.] moved to amend the resolu-
tion by making it punish soldiers for enticing slaves
from their masters or harboring them. This amend-
ment was amended by limiting the cases to slaves of
loyal masters.

Senator Wilson was opposed to any amendment.
James A. Pearce [Md.] supported the amendment.

MILITARY EMANCIPATION 125

The bill without it is an invitation to all slaves in the vicinity
to resort to the lines of the army as a harbor of refuge where
they can be safe from the operation of the undoubted legal
rights of the owner. It is an invitation to the whole body of such
people within a loyal State, such as Maryland, to accomplish
their freedom by indirection. It is not an act of emancipation
in its terms; but, so far as it can operate and does operate, it'
leads directly to that result. I know that fact that the slaves of
masters whose titles are undoubted and their loyalty unques-
tioned have resorted to camps, and the officers sometimes have
been very unwilling and have positively refused to take any
step whatever in the matter? What is the result of that? A
great many of these soldiers come from States where they hold
this whole i^ystem of domestic servitude in such dislike that they
will not permit the master to exercise his undoubted, valid
rights, even though he goes accompanied by an officer of the
law. He cannot exercise his rights except at the peril of per-
sonal ill treatment from these soldiers, who are not to be re-
strained by a military officer and who, therefore, will make their
will the law of the case. Sir, I do not think that is right. I
think that is making a camp of the United States army a refuge
for runaway negroes. I think we are violating the rights of
loyal masters in loyal States.

As for its operation in seceded States the bill will have no
operation there anyway. Its effect is to take away the property
of the people of Maryland, and of the loyal people of Maryland
too. If it does not have that effect it will have none. I think,
therefore, the amendment ought to be retained and that equal
justice demands it. If it is not retained we of Maryland shall
have to consider that our rights in this species of property are
set aside, so far as this Government can set them aside by such
an act.

The bill was kept from a vote by the tactics of the
Democrats aided by a few conservative Republicans.

In the House, however, Francis P, Blair, Jr. [Mo.],
of the Military Committee, on February 25, reported the
substance of the Wilson resolution in an additional
Article of War. The article was strongly opposed by
Robert Mallory [Ky.], who argued with great ability
that the army was intended to aid the Government in
enforcing its laws, of which the Fugitive Slave Act was
one, and, if the articles were not intended to repeal this

126 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

act, it was a denial to the State where that law was
sought to be enforced by the aid of the general Govern-
ment in its enforcement.

"If it be the intention to repeal that law I wiah gentlemen
of the House to say so candidly and at once, and to let us know
what we are to expect in regard to this matter."

Mr. Blair refused to decide whether his bill was a
virtual repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act, contenting
himself with saying that in common with a great many
others he believed that **the army of the United States
has a great deal better business tiian returning fugitive
slaves. ' '

John A. Bingham [0.], however, took it upon him-
self to declare that:

"it is impossible by any fair construction to make the bill imply
any interference with the administration of civil justice in this
coimtry, either under the legislation of 1850 or under any act
that has ever been passed by this Qovemment. Sir, the bill
simply provides that your officers in. the army and navy, and
those under them, shall not exercise in the future, as in the past,
the fimctions which belong alone and exclusively to the civil
magistrates of the country, upon the penalty of being tried by
a court-martial, and, upon conviction, of being dismissed from
the service thus abused and disgraced."

Mr. Mallory, while granting the high legal attain-
ments of the gentleman from Ohio, was

'Wery suspicious of the accuracy of the working of his mind
upon questions of this character. [Laughter.] Upon this ques-
tion, at any rate, I cannot concur with him in opinion upon the
construction he gives to this bill."

Charles A. Wickliffe [Ky.], referring to General
Grant *s return to their owners of slaves captured at
Fort Donelson [February 16, 1862], asked the gentleman
from Ohio if the bill would prevent a military comman-
der from the exercise of such a power hereafter 1

Henry Qrider [Ky.], stating that the Bebel army had
run off with $300,000 worth of slaves in three counties

MILITARY EMANCIPATION 127

of Kentucky, asked the gentleman if the bill proposed
that these should not be intercepted and returned, and
whether he would make the military power paramount to
every other consideration, even of constitutional obliga-
tion, and turn these negroes free.

Mr. Bingham replied that the prevalent practice of
officers in the army returning without trial slaves to
those claiming to be their owners was in direct viola-
tion of the carefully guarded provisions of the B^igitive
Slave act, and this practice the bill was intended to
prevent.

This practice is a military despotism that the American
people should not tolerate for a moment, nor lose a moment in
ending by the enactment of this bill into a law. Mr. Speaker,
if I had my way, instead of having this bill provide, as it does
simply provide, that persons in the United States military or
naval service thus offending should, upon conviction by court-
martial, be dismissed from the service, I would have the bill
provide that such offenders should, by the sentence of a court-
martial, be shot as kidnappers and as invaders of the rights of
persons, as violators of justice and of the very sanctuary of
justice.

Mr. Mallory said that he did not ask that slaves be
returned where there was doubt as to their ownership.
The laws of his State, indeed, forbade it.

Mr. Bingham replied:

There is always a doubt, a doubt imposed by law upon the
conscience of every civil magistrate, in favor of the party brought
before him and attempted to be deprived of his liberty — a doubt
which should bind the magistrate to stand by the narty who is
thus sought to be deprived of his liberty until fhat doubt is
overcome by lawful evidence. But, sir, no man in the military
or naval service of this country has the right to hear evidence
or to determine that question of doubt. I go further. The
presumption of law is that every man in this land is entitled to
his liberty until the contrary shall be made to appear. I want
to know by what authority any officer in the naval or military
service of the United States has the right to assume for himself
to hear evidence and to determine against that presumption?

Mb. Mallory. — I understand my friend from Ohio to admit

128 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

in a case where there is no doubt either in law or in fact, where
the officer knows the party is the slave of the loyal master who
claims him, that he is willing that the slave should be restored
to the master by the United States officer.

Mb. Bingham. — The gentleman will pardon me ; I admit no
such thing.

Ma. Malloby. — Does the gentleman deny that in that case it
becomes the duty of the officer to restore the slave to his loyal
master?

Mb. Bingham. — I do deny it. I deny that he has the right
to entertain the question. I deny that he has the right, where
no offence is charged, to clothe himself with authority to sit
upon the right of any human being in this land to his liberty.
One of the strongest utterances of the Declaration of Independ-
ence may be repeated upon this floor this day in favor of the
enactment of this very bill. That utterance was: that "the
King," whose character is thus marked by every act which may
define a t3^ant, "has affected to render the military independent
of, and superior to, the civil power."

That is what is so offensive in this practice which has ob-
tained in your camps, from the shores of the Potomac to the
shores of the Mississippi — the attempt by the military power
to assume and exercise civil authority in contempt of the civil
power of the land. Some of your military officers of high and
low degree have been detailing their men for the purpose of
seizing, and have seized, persons not accused of crime, but sus-
pecied of the virtue of preferring liberty to bondage. Are we
to revive here in this land the hated rule of the Athenian ostra-
cism, by which men were condemned, not because they were
charged with crime or proved guilty of crime, but because they
were suspected to possess and practice the virtues of justice and
patriotism in such degree as rendered their presence in the state
dangerous to republican equality? Aristides was condemned
because he was just, and Themistoeles because he was the savior
of the city.

These alleged fugitive slaves, who are subjected to this in-
tolerable military despotism, are seized, not upon the charge
or the proof that they have stolen anybody's goods, not that
they have invaded anybody's rights, but upon the suspicion that
they have been guilty of asserting their right of personal lib-
erty, and of running away from a cruel and unjust bondage.
Some of your officers, according to the practice of late, assume
the right to sit in judgment upon the delicate question of the
liberty of these suspected persons, to seize them, to condemn

MILITARY EMANCIPATION 129

them as slaves, and to sarrender them over to stripes and punish-
ment.

I have read in the papers, and I believe it is true, that one
of these persons suspected of escaping from bondage to liberty
swam across the Ohio River, making for an encampment upon
the Indiana shore, where he saw the banner of liberty flying
which he fondly looked upon as consecrating that place, at least,
as sacred to the rights of person, and where even the rights of a
hunted bondman would be respected. After having been beaten
about, bruised, and mangled against the rocks in the channel of
the river, to whose rushing waters he committed his life that
he might regain his liberty, he reached the opposite shore.
Somebody went into the camp and reported that this man was
suspected of the crime of having run away from chains and
slavery. A company of soldiers, it is said, were detailed to seize
him, and did seize and return him as a slave to the man who
claimed him. If that practice is to be pursued by the army and
navy under the American flag it ought to cover with midnight
blackness every star that bums upon its field of azure, and with
everlasting infamy the men who dare to desecrate it to such
base uses.

What are we fighting for in this land? For the supremacy
of the laws ; for the administration of justice according to law ;
for liberty regulated and sheltered by law. We are fighting for
the principle, among others, that no man shall be deprived of
his liberty in this land without a hearing before the only tri-
bunals authorized by law to hear and determine the question.
The bill now under consideration proposes to provide against
interfering with that right, sacred as any other, guarded and
protected by the very letter and spirit of the Constitution. And
it surprises me that any gentleman should stand here to-day
objecting to the enactment of such a law.

The bill was passed by a substantially party vote-

yeas, 83; nays, 44. Coming before the Senate on March
4 it was vehemently opposed by the Democrats, and as
stoutly supported by the Bepublicans, and on March
10 was passed by 29 yeas to 9 nays — a party vote, with
the exception that James A. McDougall [Dem.] of Cali-
fornia voted for it.

The capture of Port Royal, S. C, on November 7,
1861, opened the way to the Federal occupation of the
coast of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, which

VI— 9

130 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

was formed into the military department of the South,
General Hunter being called from Kansas to com-
mand it.

General Hunteb's Emancipation Pboglamation

On May 9, 1862, General David Hunter issued a
proclamation on the ground that, martial law having
been declared in it (on April 25), slavery and martial
law were * * altogether incompatible in a free country. ' '

On May 19 the President revoked the order, saying
that he **had no knowledge, information, or belief of
an intention on General Hunter's part to issue it, nor
had the general nor any other commander or person
authority from the Government to declare the slaves of
any State free.

I further made known that, whether it be competent for me,
as commander-m-ehief 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 my-
self, and which I cannot 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.

CHAPTER V

Abolition op Slavery in the Distbict op Columbia

Ben. Wilson Introduces Bill in Senate for Abolition of Slavery in the Dis-
trict of Columbia— Debate: in Favor, John P. Hale [N. H.], Sen.
Wilson, James Harlan [la.], Charles Sumner [Mass.]; Opposed, Gar-
rett Davis [K7.], Waitman T. Willey [Va.], Anthony Kennedy [Md.],
Willard Saulsbury [Del.] ; Bill Is Passed in Senate and House— Points
Made by Bepresentative Benjamin F. Thomas [Mass.]— The President
Signs the Bill, with Bemarks.

IN his first annual message (December 2, 1861) Presi-
dent Lincoln recommended that steps be taken to
colonize the ' ' contraband * ' f reedmen and other free
negroes in a congenial climate.

To carry out the plan of colonization may involve the acquir-
ing of territory and also the appropriation of money beyond that
to be expended in the territorial acquisition. Having prac-
ticed the acquisition of territory for nearly sixty years, the ques-
tion of constitutional power to do so is no longer an open one
with us. The power was questioned at first by Mr. Jefferson,
who, however, in the purchase of Louisiana, yielded his scruples
on the plea of great expediency. If it be said that the only legiti-
mate object of acquiring territory is to furnish homes for white
men, this measure effects that object; for the emigration of
colored men leaves additional room for white men remaining
or coming here. Mr. Jefferson, however, placed the importance
of procuring Louisiana more on political and commercial grounds
than on providing room for population.

On this whole proposition, including the appropriation of
money with the acquisition of territory, does not the expediency
amount to absolute necessity — ^that, without which the Govern-
ment itself cannot be perpetuated t

On February 13, 1862, a bill drawn by Henry Wilson
[Mass.] was reported in the Senate from the Conunittee

131

132 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

on the District of Columbia abolishing slavery in the
District. It provided for compensation to the owners,
which was fixed by commissioners appointed by that
purpose, but with limitation of an average of $300 per
slave to each owner, for the punishment of kidnapping
of such freedmen and other negroes as felony, and ap-
propriated $100,000 to be expended under direction of
the President for colonizing these and other negroes
of the District, if they so desired, in tropic countries
outside of the United States.

The bill came up for discussion on March 12, six
days after the receipt of a special message from the
President proposing compensated emancipation in any
State so desiring it (see page 163).

Abolition of Slavery in the District op Columbia

Senate, March 12-April 3, 1862

Garrett Davis [Ky.] objected to the bill; he first at-
tacked the voluntary colonization feature as impractica-
ble.

Not one slave in a hundred will consent to be colonized when
liberated. The^ liberation ol the slaves in this District, and in
any State of the Union, will be just equivalent to settling them
in the country where they Jive; and whenever that policy is in-
augurated, especially in the States where there are many slaves,
it will inevitably and immediately introduce a war of extermina-
tion between the two races. Free negroes are notoriously worth-
less. A negro's idea of freedom is freedom from work as a
general rule. Where you have a few free negroes in a white
community, and the negroes have but a small association and the
examples all around them are the examples of diligence, indus-
try, and thrift, this outward influence will force them to a
modicum of labor and of thrift, too. But whenever you settle
negroes in large numbers, or liberate them in large numbers,
and they become a society to themselves, you will have a thrift-
less, worthless, indolent, inefficient population.

The negroes that are now liberated, and that remain in this
city, will become a sore and a burden and a charge upon the
white population. They will be criminals; they will become
paupers. They will be engaged in crimes and in petty mis^

ABOLITION IN FEDERAL DISTRICT 133

demeanors. They will become a charge and a pest upon this
society, and the power which undertakes to liberate them ought
to relieve the white community in which they reside, and in
which they will become a pest, from their presence.

Mr. President, whenever any power, constitutional or uncon-
stitutional, assumes the responsibility of liberating slaves where
slaves are numerous they establish as inexorably as fate a con-
flict between the races that will result in the exile or the exter-
mination of the one race or the other. I know it. We have now
about two hundred and twenty-five thousand slaves in Kentucky.
Think you, sir, that we should ever submit to have those slaves
manumitted and left among us? No, sir ; no, never ; nor will any
white people in the United States of America where the slaves
are numerous. If, by unconstitutional legislation, you should, by
laws which you shrink from submitting to the test of constitu-
tionality in your courts of justice, liberate them, without the
intervention of the courts, the moment you reorganize the white
inhabitants of those States as States of the Union, they will
reduce those slaves again to a state of slavery, or they will
expel them and drive them upon you, or south of you, or they
will hunt them down like beasts and exterminate them. They
will not do this from choice, but they will do it from neces-
sity. Emancipation will produce such a conflict between the
races as will render extermination inevitable, and there will be
no escape from it.

I maintain that it is a matter of humanity to the negro in
this city, and of justice to the white population of this city,
that, when you turn three or four thousand negroes who are now
in a state of slavery free, you should relieve them from the curse
of such a population, from its expense, from its burdens upon
this community in every form ; you ought to assume the philan-
thropy and the justice — ^the philanthropy to the negro race and
the justice to the white race — ^to remove these people from the
.District. You may refuse to do it. If you do, a few years' ex-
perience will tell you what a mistake you made. I shall speak,
though, on this subject at more length on another occasion. I
will only say now that, when the negroes are liberated in the
cotton States, it is giving up the cotton States to the negro race,
and it is expelling, in a very short time, by inevitable necessity,
the white population from that country, or it is introducing war
between the two races that will result in the exile or expulsion of
one or the other.

I know what I talk about. Mr. President, the loyal people
of the slave States are as true to this Union as any man in the

134 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

Senate chamber, or in any of the free States ; but never, never
n^ill they submit by unconstitutional laws to have their slaves
liberated and to remain domiciled among them; and the policy
that attempts it will establish a bloody La Vendue in the whole
of the slave States, my own included. If, at the time you
commenced this war, you had announced as the national policy
that was to prevail the measures and visionary schemes and
ideas of some gentlemen on this floor, you would not have had a
solitary man from the slave States to support you. Whenever
you seek to carry those measures into operation you unite the
slave States as one man. They will tell you that in resisting
such schemes they are fighting for the Union and the Constitu-
1;ion ; and they will tell you so truly. They will tell you that
your system of policy is no less aggressive and destructive upon
the Union and the Constitution than that of the rebels of Seces-
cia themselves ; and they will tell you so truly. They will feel it
as incumbent on them as men and as freemen to resist your
unconstitutional policy, by which you will overturn and trample
under your feet the principles of the Constitution, as they feel
it to be their duty to resist the war which the secessionists have
made upon the Union.

On March 18 John P. Hale [N. H.] replied to Sena-
tor Davis.

Of all the forms skepticism ever assumed the most insidious
and the most fatal is that which suggests that it is unsafe to per-
form plain and simple duty for fear that disastrous consequences
may result therefrom.

This question of emancipation, wherever it has been raised in
this country, has rarely ever been argued upon the great and
fundamental principles of right, but upon what are to be the
consequences. Men entirely forget to look at the objects that
are to be effected by the bill, in view of the inherent rights of
their manhood, in view of the great questions of humanity, of
Christianity, and of duty ; but what is to be its effect upon the
price of sugar, tobacco, cotton, and other necessaries and lux-
uries of life 1 The honorable Senator from Kentucky looks upon
it in that point of view entirely. Now, it does not become me
to venture my opinions against the opinions of that Senator who
has lived among the population of which he speaks ; but it is as
much my prerogative as it is the honorable Senator's to read a
little of history, and to know what is its teaching upon this ques-
tion, and by that test to oompare the predictions of the honor-

ABOLITION IN FEDERAL DISTRICT 135

able Senator with some other predictions of a different character
that have been made elsewhere on other occasions.

The Senator here discussed the situation of Jamaica.
He admitted that a steady decline had occurred there in
its staple industries, particularly sugar, but showed from
official British statistics that this deterioration had be-
gun long before emancipation [1838] , and was therefore
due to other causes, the chief of which, he declared, was
the system of great estates operated not by the owners,
but by overseers.

But, sir, since emancipation the island has been divided into
small proprietorships, and the proprietors of these estates have
got up a Gfystem of exports of other things, such as cocoanuts,
etc., which now amount to a very considerable sum.

But, sir, Jamaica is almost the only island that shows a
comparative decrease of wealth from the effect of emancipation.
It is different in the island of Barbadoes. That island has in-
creased in its exports, in its value, in its wealth more than
double since emancipation. Similar progress has been made in
the Leeward Islands, Antigua, Dominica, Nevis, Montserrat, and
St. Kitta

I hope that it will be gratifying to the humane feelings of
the honorable Senator from Kentucky to find that he is alto-
gether mistaken as to the effects that emancipation will produce
upon this laboring class of population. I hope that it will do
something to expel from his mind that skepticism which makes
him shrink from looking at this measure in the light in which
an enlightened and philanthropic statesman ought to look at it,
and that is in regard to its bearings upon the great question of
human rights.

Mr. President, it seems to me that in the good providence
of God He presents to this nation to-day an opportunity never
presented before. If the rebellion which is now rending this
Republic, and which is strewing our plains with the dead of our
young men who have gone out to do battle on the field, has hor-
rors, if it has miseries, if it has everything or almost everything
to make humanity weep, it is not without some aspects that re-
lieve the dark shade of the picture. If this rebellion — ^I trust
ere long to be crushed out — shall, in the progress of the great
injury that it is doing, afford this Republic, these United States,
the opportunity of trying here, iii this little District of lesa

136 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

than ten miles square, the experiment which other nations
trying upon a great scale; and if we are enabled to show to
the world that it is sometimes safe to do right, and not always
inexpedient ; then, sir, we shall have achieved something at which
humanity will rejoice and something for which our posterity, to
the latest generations, will bless us.

Sir, the governments of the world the world over are tr3dng
this experiment. The Emperor of Russia [Alexander II] over his
vast dominions is now striking the bands of oppression from his
long trodden down millions of serfs. The ameliorating influ-
ences of better principles and purer Christianity than have yet
prevailed in the monarchies of the Old World are melting those
iron despotisms and carrying into practical effect that great les-
"son of Christianity: ''to loose the bands of wickedness" and
**let the oppressed go free"; and it would be a reproach that
ought to mantle the cheek of every citizen of this Republic with
burning shame, if, at this day and this hour, when the mon-
archies of the earth are waking up to the great questions of
human rights and making Christianity, instead of being a bar-
ren speculation, a practical and efficient principle of their gov-
ernment, this nation, at a time when the providence of Ood pre-
sents this opportunity to it, should, from any skepticism or fear
of consequences, fail to meet the question and do justice by
the oppressed.

Sir, I do not ask that the Government of the United States
should trample upon the Constitution in any one of its pro-
visions. I believe that, up to a very late period in our history,
it was the conceded doctrine of this Republic, by statesmen
North and South, that the constitutional power to legislate upon
the subject of slavery in this District existed in Congress. I know
that in late years that has been questioned and even denied. I
know that within the last ten or twelve years this nation has
been rent upon a new dogma, which denied the constitutional
power of Congress to legislate for the Territories ; and, while that
question was rending the country, while it was tearing political
parties in twain, dividing churches, bringing itself home to the
hearts and consciences of this people, the Supreme Court of the
United States undertook, with their puny efforts, to throw them-
selves in the way of the great questfon by the Dred Scott de-
cision, and to say to the surging waves of humanity that, while
washing out the stains of oppression from our history, they
should go thus far and no further. The Supreme Court will find
out ere long how much that has effected. Whether it has done
more to wipe out the controversies that they wanted to crush

ABOLITION IN FEDERAL DISTRICT 137

out, or to obliterate whatever of respect there was remaining
in the public heart for themselves, they will find out before the
issue is settled.

But, sir, while by this decision the Territories of the United
States were taken theoretically from the management of the
Federal Government, I believe, though I never read the Dred
Scott decision in reference to that particular view of it, it did
not go to the extent of saying that Congress had no constitutional
power to legislate in the District of Columbia. I am glad they
did not. I think they would if they had thought of it. [Laugh-
ter.] But, sir, that is left to us. Over this little spot of ten
miles square, or what there is left of it after the retrocession of
the part ceded by Virginia, we have confessedly the right of
legislation ; and here in our midst, and by our laws, this system
of human slavery exists, and we are called upon to-day to
abolish it, to repeal the laws upon which it rests, and to the
most limited extent to try what will be the effect of emancipa-
tion upon the few slaves that are in this District.

When the midnight clock ushered in the 1st of August,
1838, the last manacle fell from the last slave in the British West
India Islands. This population knew it, and what was the as-
pect they exhibited? Riots, drinking, acts of degradation and
crime ; such scenes as you might expect from what the Senator
from Kentucky said when he predicted that they would become
pests to society? Was there anything of that kind exhibited?
No, sir ; but on the preceding night almost the whole population
gathered themselves together in their churches, in their places
of worship, and when the hour of twelve struck, which told
them that the slaves had been converted into British freemen,
they rose and sent up one united shout of thanksgiving to Al-
mighty God for the great boon He had conferred upon them;
and the conduct that these emancipated slaves have exhibited
in most, if not all, the islands since has been such as indicates
not only the wisdom and the justice but the expediency of this
measure.

Mr. President, there is nothing on earth that is more unjust,
nothing more unkind, than for this boasted white Caucasian
race to enslave the colored race, to keep them in a state of
ignorance, to keep them in a state where it is a penal offence to
teach them to read so much out of the Bible as that they may
learn that God made them and Christ died to redeem them;
I say it is cruel and unjust to such a people, denied the right
of bringing a suit in court, denied the right of testifying as
to their own personal rights and wrongs, the whole intelligence

138 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

of the world shut out by the bar of an inexorable penal statute
from enlightening their understandings; to pronounce them as
degraded, ignorant, incapable of representation, because under
the crushing weight of all these disabilities they have not made
such progress as to enable them to step at once on an equality
into a condition which their masters have enjoyed for many
years. It is cruel. The injustice of it cannot be winked out
of sight. It is as unjust as it would be to put out the eyes
of a man and then taunt him with his blindness, as unjust as
it would be to reproach any man with a personal deformity. It
is as unjust as it is possible for perverted human intellect to
be. Take off these burdens, give them a fair chance, let the light
of science shine into their minds, make it no longer a crime
punishable with imprisonment to open to them the pages of
Gtod's eternal truth, let them read something of the world that
is about them, and something of the hope which leads to the
world beyond them, give them the elevating influence of some
of the motives that have elevated you, and then, if against all
that, they fail to rise and fail to improve, then, and not till
then, will it be time to reproach them with their inability to
cope and contend with their white masters.

On March 20 Waitman T. Willey [Va.] opposed the
measure.

Sir, this bill is a part of a series of measures, already in-
itiated, all looking to the same ultimate result — the universal
abolition of slavery by Congress. The consequences, in my
judgment, involve the lives of thousands of my fellow-citizens
and the happiness of all the loyal people of all the border slave-
holding States. Perhaps I should be justified in saying that
they involved in most serious peril the restoration of the Union
and the Constitution.

Mr. President, I shall not trouble the Senate with any argu-
ment respecting the constitutional power of Congress to pass
laws emancipating slaves. The arguments already made against
this power by Congress in the States where slavery exists have
not been answered, and, I believe, they never will be. But I
do not think the argument against the expediency and practi-
cability of such laws has been exhausted. Sir, I admit that the
rebels, especially the leaders of the rebellion, should be pun-
ished. They ought, in some manner, to be made to bear the
burdens of the war they have forced upon the country, as far as
is possible, and to indemnify loyal men for the injuries inflicted

ABOLITION IN FEDERAL DISTRICT 139

npon them by the rebellion. But this punishment should be
according to law. To punish treason by unconstitutional pen-
alties is to be guilty of virtual treason ourselves, to say nothing
of the inconsistency and danger of such a procedure. And it
is worthy of remark, that no measure of emancipation yet pro-
posed contains any indemnity for injuries received by the
(Government or individuals. Simply to emancipate the slave
of the rebel may be a punishment to him, but it affords no relief
to the loyal man who has suffered by the rebellion. Nay, one
of the fundamental provisions of the confiscation bill of the Sena-
tor from Illinois [Mr. Trumbull] is to make the loyal people of
the Union contribute of their means to transport and colonize
the emancipated slaves of rebels. I cannot understand either
the justice or expediency of such a policy. It seems to me to
involve a manifest inconsistency. It punishes the traitor, indeed,
but it only increases the burdens and taxes of the loyal people.
The agitation of these questions, under existing circumstan-
ces, must be positively mischievous. Will it not create strife and
divisions here? Will it not disturb the country? Above all,
will it not afford aid and comfort to the enemy? I am sure it
will. It will be used by the leaders of the rebellion to **fire the
Southern heart." The people of the South have been taught
to believe that the object and design of the Republican party
are to abolish slavery in all the States. These propositions will
be seized upon as evidence of this intention. They will say:
"Look at their unconstitutional confiscation laws, making no
safe nor practical discrimination between Union men and seces-
sionists. Look at the bill to abolish slavery in the District of
Columbia ; it is a stepping-stone to further encroachments. " Es-
pecially will they point to the sweeping resolutions of the great
apostle of abolition, the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Sum-
ner], which, by one dash of the pen, deprive every Southern
man of his slaves. No recruiting officer wUl have such power to
replenish the thinned ranks of the rebel army as these proposi-
tions. No financial skill of Southern statesmen will have such
power to replenish the depleted treasury of the rebel Govern-
ment. Thus will these measures advance the cause of rebellion
in the South ; and so, consequently, will they prolong the horrors
of war on our part, increase our expenditures, and augment the
burdens of taxation. Worse than all, they will destroy that
Union settlement in the South on which we hope to reorganize
the State governments and restore the authority of the Constitu-
tion. They will not only encourage our enemies in the South,
but they will dishearten our friends there. Thus do the claims

140 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

of our common humanity, deprecating the evils of war, suggest
the impolicy of such legislation at this time.

There is no necessity for driving the secessionists to such des-
perate extremities. Justice, moderation, generosity will meet
a joyful response in many a Southern heart. They love the
old flag; they love the old Union. Show them that their rights
under the Constitution — ^their prejudices of education and habit,
if you please to say so — are to be respected, and you will strike
a blow more fatal to the rebel cause than a score of such victories
as that at Fort Donelson. And this will be a victory without
bloodshed. It destroys no valuable lives. It wastes no resources
of the country's wealth. It makes no widows nor orphans.
It desolates no homes. Why should not the North be generous
and forbearing? Are not moderation and forbearance the in-
variable characteristics of a great people!

I understand Mr. Lincoln himself to be actuated by such
principles. I understand that, in reference to this very matter
of abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia, he was in
1858, and I hope is still, governed by the same considerations
of expediency. If in 1858 considerations of expediency were
enough to cause the Republican party to pause in their course
at that day, now with the storm and tempest of war upon us,
and an accumulating debt pressing down the people, should
we not also hearken to the suggestions of expediency!

Why may we not to-day conquer a peace, and, after that,
in the language of Mr. Douglas just before he died, settle all
these difficulties? I will quote his words:

"When we shall have rescned the Oovernment and conntry from its
perils, and seen its flag floating in triumph over every inch of American
soil, it will then be time enough to inquire as to who and what has brought
these troubles upon us. Let him be marked as no true patriot who will
not abandon all such issues in times like these."

Again, I ask Senators to consider what may be the effect of
these extreme measures upon the public sentiment of the loyal
States. There is but one sentiment there now, but one mind,
one purpose. Therein consist our strength and the surest guar-
anty of our success. But this unity of sentiment and purpose
is predicated on the distinctly declared purpose of the war, to
wit, the suppression of the rebellion and the restoration of the
Constitution and the Government as they were prior to the re-
bellion, without change or modification. Sir, let it be under-
stood that there is a different object to be accomplished — such
as is indicated by some, if not all, of the measures to which I

ABOLITION IN FEDERAL DISTRICT 141

have alluded — and that unity and harmony of public sentiment
will be instantly destroyed. We shall thereafter in the loyal
States be ''a house divided against itself." Distraction will dis-
turb our proceedings here, division will enter the army, and the
cause of constitutional liberty will be imperiled with defeat
and disgrace. Already are there indications of dissatisfaction
in the public mind lest Congress should depart from the avowed
purpose hitherto announced as the only object of the war.

Mr. President, what must be the practical effects of these
measures of emancipation upon the welfare of the slave? Tou
cannot enact the slave into a freeman by bill in Congress. A
charter of his liberty may be engrossed, enrolled, and passed
into a law, with all the formalities of legislation, and still he
must remain, virtually, a slave. The servile nature of centuries
cannot be eradicated by the rhetoric of Senators, nor by an act
of Congress. You may call '* spirits from the vasty deep," but
they will not come. A freeman has the right of locomotion;
he has the right of going into any State and of becoming the
citizen of any State. Let me ask the Senators from Illinois
and Indiana whether, if I set my slave free, they will allow
him to come to these States. Sir, the constitutions of both of
those States prohibit free negroes from becoming citizens of
those States, or even residents thereof; and that is the liberty
which you propose for the slave. Other States are agitating
the question whether they will enact similar interdicts.

In how many States is the free negro entitled to the right
of suffrage or to be a juror, or a judge, or to a seat in the
legislature ; to make, interpret, or execute the laws of the State
in which he lives? I understand there are some negroes living
in the North who possess large estates, are well educated, and
of good morals and manners. Do you receive them into your
families on terms of equality ? Do you give them your daughters
in marriage?

We must take things as they actually exist and, legislating
for the slave, we must conform to his actually existing character
and condition — moral, intellectual, and physical. We shall not
deserve the name of statesmen if we do not ; nor shall we entitle
ourselves to the character of philanthropists if we disregard
such considerations. Sir, would you recommend the Chinese
to adopt a republican form of government ? Would you advise
the native Africans, cannibals and all, to organize a government
on the model of the Constitution of the United States? The
idea is preposterous.

And now, sir, candidly considering the ignorance, degrada-

142 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

tion, and helplessness of the slaves in the South, can jon desire
their immediate emancipation? Think of four millions of these
degraded, helpless beings, without a dollar of money, without
an acre of land or an implement of trade or husbandry, without
house or home, thrust out upon the community to maintaJTi
themselves! Sir, they would starve to death, or they would
steal, or they would murder and rob. Better drive them into
the Gulf of Mexico and end their sufferings at once than per-
petrate such a monstrous cruelty as this upon them.

We heard from the honorable Senator from New Hampshire
[Mr. Hale] in regard to the prosperity of the British West Indies
and of the French West Indies. I shall rejoice in the perfect
success of those efforts to elevate the African race. But did
not the Senator know how different was the position of the slaves
in those states from that of the slaves in the United States?
There were but few white men in those islands; the soil was
all their own; implements of husbandry were put into their
hands; and, with the moral influence and watchfulness
of great Christian nations standing beside them and breathing
upon them encouragement and words of good will, affording
them moral and physical aid and protection; and yet, with all
these advantages ; with a soil all their own ; with no white men
to overshadow them ; with a government of their own ; with the
moral influence and aid of these Christian patrons that had
set them free, it is to-day, after so many years, a question
whether it will not be a failure rather than a success. God
grant that it may be a perfect success!

And now you, men of the North, I beg to ask, what would
be the consequences of this wholesale emancipation on your own
communities? How long would it be until this miserable popula-
tion, like the frogs of Egypt, would be infesting your kitchens,
squatting in your gates, and filling your almshouses? Sir, are
you willing to receive them? If you set them free you must
receive them. Will your operatives extend to them the right
hand of fellowship and receive them as coequals and oolaborers
in your fields and shops? Meantime, what will become of the
cotton fields of the South, and the cotton factories of the North ?
While you are increasing the number of your laborers, you ¥rill
be destroying the sources of their employment. You will ruin
the industrial interests of the South and bring serious detriment
on the labor of the North.

The answer to all this is: transport and colonize the emanci-
pated slaves in some tropical country. What then? Whither
shall they be sent ? Where shall we find a tropical territory for

ABOLITION IN FEDERAL DISTRICT 143

four millions of inhabitants t And where shall we find the
money to pay for a territory sufSeient to settle four millions
of inhabitants t How much will it costt I say nothing of con-
stitutional difficulties in the way. Let them pass, along with
the suspension of the habeas corpus, et id omne genus} Where
is the money to come from Y Rhetoric and philanthropic plati-
tudes will not purchase territory nor furnish the cost of trans-
portation and the cost of the outfit and the cost of houses to be
built for the reception of four millions of people, and the cost of
implements of husbandry and tools of trade, and the cost of
food and clothing for the first year, at the least. And then, sir,
our task is just commenced. We must provide for their con-
tinued supervision, direction, and protection. And how long
must all this continue? How long will it be before this mass
of ignorant and servile population will become capable of self-
government and self -subsistence! How many generations will
it require to divest the slave of his servility and to clothe him
with the independence of the freeman ? Who can pay the debt 1
The accumulating millions of the current war debt, now rising
mountain high, and resting with the weight of mountains upon
the people, sink into mole-hills before the Atlas-like dimensions
of the sum that will be required for the accomplishment of this
stupendous scheme of philanthropy.

Mr. President, if slavery shall suflfer from the incidental and
necessary effects upon it of this war, let it be so; I shall not
regret it. I am no pro-slavery man. I wish there were no
slavery. I believe that slavery is doomed. I believe the time
is coming when it will be abolished. Heaven hasten the day
when, under the regenerating and reforming influences of Chris-
tian civilization, the slave shall be qualified for the enjoyment
of freedom, and when it shall be practicable and humane to
strike the fetters from the limbs of the last bondman of our race.
But let us abide the appointed time of divine Providence. Let
us not, in our eagerness to avenge the wrongs, real or imaginary,
of* the slave, repeat the folly of Samson, and in the frenzy of
an indiscreet zeal pull down the pillars of the Constitution
and involve both the slave and ourselves in the ruins of our
country.

On March 4 Senator Davis spoke again upon the bill.

An honorable member of the other House has proclaimed,
audaciously proclaimed, that he has attended and harangued

'And the liko.

144 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

negro meetings here, that he has told them they had tJie same
right to their masters' labor that the masters had to theirs; that
they had the same right to sell their masters as their masters
had to sell them; that they had the same right to sell their
masters' children as the masters had to sell their children. Are
these the dogmas, destructive to society, that you intend to
preach and establish in this District! Was there anything in
British oppression upon the colonial inhabitants of this country
at all comparable in grievance, in real wrong and outrage, to
what you are endeavoring now to force upon the people of this
District t Have they not as much right to say they will have
slaves as you to say that you will not have slaves? If you will
not allow them that privilege, will you not allow them the poor
privilege of voting whether free negroes shall stay here among
them or not, a curse to the soil, a blight upon this small and
poverty-stricken society?

If you are so humane, so benevolent, buy the slaves of the
poor helpless widows in this city at fair prices with your money
and take them to your homes, and there make them your neigh-
bors, if you choose, your equals in politics and in the social
circle. When you do this the world will give you credit for
benevolence and philanthropy, but now it is all cant, it is all
ambition. You and the men in the South are trying to make
the same use of the slavery question. The business of both
parties is to agitate, agitate, and never cease to agitate, because
it becomes an element of political power by which individuals
or parties may vault into oflSce. Out, out with such benevolence
and philanthropy as that !

It is not for the advantage of the white man in the agricul-
tural States that slavery exists. It is expensive labor ; it would
be better for the country if it had never been there. I am no
friend to slavery as an abstract question. If now I could decide
whether slavery should exist or not, or whether it should cease
with the colonization of all the negroes, I would colonize them
all. If my own will could prevail I would put into operation
in my own State a system of gradual emancipation that it would
take about a hundred years to consummate and the thing should
die out so gradually that nobody would be injured by it. But
I say, in relation to this District and these people, give them a
fair compensation for their slaves, and, when you get them,
remove them from the country; let the races be separated; let
the negro go to a land where, when he is buried, memory may
raise some trophies over his tomb. None, none can ever be
raised over his tomb in this land.

ABOLITION IN FEDERAL DISTRICT 145

On March 25 Senator Wilson spoke in defence of Ms
bill. He referred to certain laws in regard to slavery
in the District as barbarous in the extreme, such as
the act of May 31, 1827, that all negroes, except they
proved the contrary, were presumed to be absconding
slaves, and were to be committed to jail as such.

In what age of the world, in what land under the whole
heavens, can you find any enactment of equal atrocity to this
iniquitous and profligate statute — ^this "legal presumption" that
color is evidence that man, made in the image of Ood, is an
"absconding slave*'?

This monstrous doctrine, abhorrent to every manly impulse
of the heart, to every Christian sentiment of the soul, to every
deduction of human reason which the refined, humane, and
Christian people of America have upheld for two generations,
which the corporation of Washington enacted into an imperative
ordinance has borne its legitimate fruits of injustice and inhu-
manity, of dishonor and shame. Crimes against man, in the
name of this abhorred doctrine, have been annually perpetrated
in this national capital which should make the people of America
hang their heads in shame before the nations, and in abasement
before that Being who keeps watch and ward over the humblest
of the children of men. Men and women of African descent,
no matter in what State they were bom, no matter what rights
and privileges they possessed under the laws and institutions
of the States from whence they came, have annually been seized,
imprisoned, fined, and sometimes sold into perpetual servitude.

This doctrine, that color is presumptive evidence of slavery —
this ordinance, consigning its victims to imprisonment, offers a
tempting bribe to the base, the selfish, the unprincipled, to be-
come men-stealers and kidnappers. This bribe has converted
Government officials, justices of the peace, constables, and police
officers into manufacturers of slaves. This bribe has annually
filled your jail with its victims, making it the workshop where
the selfish, the base, the ignoble have plied their trade in the
souls and bodies of men. Hundreds, aye, thousands of men of
African descent have been seized, arrested, imprisoned since the
District of Columbia became the seat of the national capital.

The men of New England, New York, and Pennsylvania of
that generation were responsible before Ood for these deeds of
inhumanity.

But, sir, we of this age in America are not guiltless of like
enormities.

VI— 10

146 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

Here the Senator referred to the numeroxis negroes,
many of them claiming to be free, that were incarcerated
as fugitive slaves in Washington jails as late as the
foregoing December.

In this national capital lurks a race of official and unofficial
man-hunters, greedy, active, vigilant, dexterous, ever ready by
falsehood, trickery, or violence to clutch the hapless black man
who carries not with him a title-deed to freedom. Only a few
days ago these harpies of the land, more merciless than the
wreckers of the seas, pounced upon and hurried to your jail two
men your officers in the field had sent to Washington to give
important intelligence to your generals. For these deeds of
inhumanity and injustice the intelligent, patriotic, and Christian
freemen of America are responsible before man and before
God! And if we, their representatives, who now for the first
time have the power, do not end these crimes against man for-
ever, the guilt and shame will rest upon our souls, and we shall
be consigned to the moral indignation of Christendom.

Justice to a wronged and oppressed race demands that this
corrupt and corrupting doctrine, that color is presumptive evi-
dence of slavery in the capital of the Republic, shall be con-
demned, disowned, repudiated by the Government of the United
States. For two generations it has pressed with merciless force
upon a race who mingled their blood with the blood of our
fathers on the stricken fields of the war of independence. In
those days of trial black men, animated by the same mighty im-
pulse, fought side by side with our fathers to win for America
a place among the nations. They rallied at the tap of the drum
on the morning of the 19th of April, 1775, to meet the shock
of the first battle of the Revolution. They poured their unerr-
ing shots into the bosom of the veteran troops of England as they
moved up the slopes of Bunker Hill. They met, and three times,
by their steady valor repulsed the charges of British veterans
on the battlefield of Rhode Island, which La Fayette pronounced
"the best fought battle of the Revolution." They fought and
fell by the side of Ledyard at Fort Griswold. They shared
in the glorious defence and victory of Red Bank, which will
live in our history as long as the Delaware shall flow by the spot
made immortal by their valor. They endured with our fathers
uncomplainingly the toils and privations of the battlefields and
bivouacks of the seven years' campaigns of the Revolution, from
Lexington to Yorktown, to found in America a Government
which should recognize the rights of human nature. For more

ABOLITION IN FEDERAL DISTRICT 147

than sixty years, unmindful of their rights and ungrateful for
their services in our hour of weakness, we have recognized in
the capital of the nation the wicked and insulting dogma which
writes ** slave" on the brow of all who inherit their blood. Let
us of this age hasten to atone for this great wrong by erasing
that word from the brow of this proscribed race here, and mak-
ing manhood, here at least, forever hereafter presumptive evi-
dence of freedom.

What wrongs, what outrages may not be perpetrated upon
a race of men where '* color is legal presumption of slavery, *'
where they **may be arrested as absconding slaves," where their
oath cannot be received as **good and valid evidence in law,"
where "every person seizing and taking up runaways shall re-
ceive two hundred pounds of tobacco or the value thereof,"
where, '*if any slave strikes a white person, he may, upon the
oath of the person so struck, have one of his ears cropped "Y
What wrongs, what outrages may not be perpetrated upon a
race where, upon ''information to any justice of the peace thaf
any free negro or mulatto is going at large without any visible
means of subsistence such justice is required to issue his warrant
to any constable directing him to apprehend such free negro
or mulatto ; and, if such free negro or mulatto shall fail to give
security for his good behavior, or to leave the State within five
days, or if, after leaving the State, he shall return again within
six months, such justice may commit said free negro or mulatto
to the common jail; and, if such offender so committed shall
not, within twenty days thereafter, pay his or her prison charges,
the sheriff, with the approbation of any two justices of the peace,
may sell such free negro or mulatto to serve six calendar
months?"

The speaker here enumerated other oppressive laws
against free negroes in the District, such as the punish-
ment by whipping, fine, or imprisonment of frequenters
of night assemblies and the fine or imprisonment of
negroes found in the streets after 10 p. m.

Since I have held a seat in the Senate I have known colored
men, trusted and employed by the Government, while quietly
hastening to their homes after ten o'clock from their duties
in the public service, to be arrested under color of this ordi-
nance. An ordinance so oppressive, so barbarous should be an-
nulled by the Congress of the United States.

Another act requires every free colored person to furnish the

148 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

mayor of the city of Waahing^n evidence of his or her title to
freedom, and to give bonds annually for his or her orderly con-
duct, and, failing so to do, to be sent to the workhouse; this
places ten thousand free persons of color at the mercy of the cor-
poration officials of this city, who may exercise, under color
of this law, the most oppressive acts of petty tyranny.

Another act fines frequenters of religious meetings after
10 p. m.

The Christian men of New England, of the central States, of
the West, must not forget that they are not free from respon-
sibility for the existence, in their national capital, of a statute
which imposes a fine of five dollars upon Christian men and
women who may be found in a religious meeting after the hour
of ten o 'clock at night ; that in the capital of this Christian Re-
public it is made the duty of police constables, under penalties
of fine and disfranchisement, to enter a religious meeting after
the hour of ten at night and disperse Christian men and women
listening to the story of salvation, or offering up to Him who
made the humblest of the race in His own image the praises and
gratitude of contrite hearts.

The corporation of the city of Washington, from 1829 to
1841, enacted cruel and brutal laws for the punishment of slaves
within the limits of the city by whipping on the bare back for
breaking street lamps, exploding fire-crackers, etc.

Do Senators believe that there can be in the laws and or-
dinances of any Christian nation on the globe enactments so
brutal, degrading, inhuman, indecent Y It is time these bloody
statutes for lashing men and lashing women should be obliter-
ated from the laws and ordinances of the capital city of the
Republic.

In spite, however, of these oppressive and cruel enactments
which have pressed with merciless force upon the black race,
bond and free, slavery, for more than half a century has grown
weaker, and the free colored stronger, at every decade. Within
the last half century the free colored population of the District
of Columbia has increased from four to twelve thousand. In
spite of the degrading influences of oppressive statutes, and a
perverted public sentiment, this free colored population, as it
has increased in numbers, has increased also in property, in
churches, schools, and all the means of social, intellectual, and
moral development. This despised race, upon which we are
wont to look down with emotions of pity, if not of contempt or
of hate, are industrious and law-abiding, loyal to the Govern-
ment and its institutions. To-day the free colored men of the

ABOLITION IN FEDERAL DISTRICT 149

District of Columbia possess hundreds of thousands of dollars
of property, the fruits of years of honest toil ; they have twelve
churches, costing some $75,000, and eight schools for the instruc-
tion of their children. They are compelled to pay for the support
of public schools for the instruction of the white children from
which their own children are excluded by law, custom, and public
opinion. Some of these free colored men are distinguished for
intelligence, business capacity, and the virtues that grace and
adorn men of every race. Some of these men have in possession
considerable property, real and personal. The passage of this
bill by the Congress of the United States will not, cannot, dis-
turb for a moment the peace, the order, the security of society.
Its passage will excite in the bosoms of the enfranchised, not
wrath nor hatred nor revenge, but love, joy, and gratitude.
These enfranchised bondmen will be welcomed by the free col-
ored population with bounding hearts, throbbing with gratitude
to God for inspiring the nation with the justice and the courage
to strike the chains from the limbs of their neighbors, friends,
relatives, brothers, and lifting from their own shoulders the
burdens imposed upon them by the necessities, the passions, and
the pride of slaveholding society.

This bill, to give liberty to the bondman, deals justly, ay,
generously, by the master. The American people, whose moral
sense has been outraged by slavery and the black codes enacted
in the interests of slavery in the District of Columbia, whose
fame has been soiled and dimmed by the deeds of cruelty per-
petrated in their national capital, would stand justified in the
forum of nations if they should smite the fetter from the bond-
man, regardless of the desires or interests of the master. With
generous magnanimity this bill tenders compensation to the
master out of the earnings of the toiling freemen of America.
In the present condition of the country the proposed compensa-
tion is full, ample, equitable.

But the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Davis] raises his warn-
ing voice against the passage of this measure of justice and
beneficence. He assumes to speak like one having authority. He
is positive, dogmatic, emphatic, and prophetic. The Senator
predicted, in excited, if not angry, tones, that the passage of
this bill, giving freedom to three thousand bondmen, will bring
into this District beggary and crime, that the *' liberated negroes
will become a sore, a burden, and a charge*'; that they "will be
criminals"; that '*they will become paupers**; that **they will
be engaged in crimes and petty misdemeanors"; that *'they will
become a charge and a pest upon this society." Assured, con-

150 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

fident, defiant, the Senator asserts that ''a negro's idea of free-
dom is freedom from work"; that after they acquire their free-
dom they become ''lazy/' ''indolent/' "thriftless," "worth-
less," "inefficient," "vicious," "vagabonds."

The Senator from Kentucky, who speaks with so much as-
surance, may have the right to speak in these terms of emanci-
pated slaves in Kentucky ; but he has no authority so to speak of
the twelve thousand free colored men of the District of Colum-
bia. Under the weight of oppressive laws and a public opinion
poisoned by slavery they have by their industry, their obedience
to law, their kindly charities to each other, established a char-
acter above such reproaches as the Senator from Kentucky ap-
plies to emancipated bondmen.

But the Senator from Kentucky, upon this simple proposi-
tion to emancipate in the national capital three thousand bond-
men, with compensation to loyal masters, chooses to indulge in
the vague talk about "aggressive and destructive schemes," "un-
constitutional policy," the "horrors of the French Revolution,"
the "heroic struggle of the peasants of La Vendue," and the
"deadly resistance" which the "whole white population of the
slaveholding States, men, women, and children, would make to
unconstitutional encroachments." Why, sir, does the Senator
indulge in such allusions Y Have not the American people the
constitutional right to relieve themselves from the guilt and
shame of upholding slavery in their national capital? Would
not the exercise of that right be sanctioned by justice, humanity,
and religion t Does the Senator suppose that we, the represen-
tatives of American freemen, will cowardly shrink from the per-
formance of the duties of the hour before these dogmatic
avowals of what the men and the women of the slaveholding
States will dot Sir, I tell the Senator from Kentucky that the
day has passed by in the Senate of the United States for in-
timidation, threat, or menace, from the champions of slavery.

I would remind the Senator from Kentucky that the people,
whose representatives we are, now realize in the storms of battle
that slavery is, and must ever be, the relentless and unappeas-
able enemy of free institutions in America, of the unity and per-
petuity of the Republic. Slavery — perverting the reason, blind-
ing the conscience, extinguishing the patriotism of vast masses
of its supporters, plunged the nation into the fire and blood o
rebellion. The loyal people of America have seen hundreds o
thousands of brave men abandon their peaceful avocations, leave
their quiet homes and their loved ones, and follow the flag of
their country to the field, to do a soldier's duties, and fill, if

ABOLITION IN FEDERAL DISTRICT 151

need be, soldiers' graves, in defence of their periled country;
they have seen them fall on fields of bloody strife beneath the
folds of the national flag; they have seen them suffering, tor-
tured by wounds or disease, in camps and hospitals; they have
seen them return home maimed by shot or shell, or bowed with
disease ; they have looked with sorrowful hearts upon their pass-
ing coffins, and gazed sadly upon their graves among their kin-
dred, or in the land of the stranger; and they know — ^yes, sir,
they know — that slavery has caused all this blood, disease, agony,
and death. Realizing all this — ay, sir, knowing all this, they are
in no temper to listen to the threats or menaces of apologists or
defenders of the wicked and guilty criminal that now stands
with uplifted hand to strike a death blow to the national life.
While the brave and loyal men of the Republic are facing its
shots and shells on the bloody fields their representatives will
hardly quail before the frowns and menaces of its champions in
these Chambers.

Anthony Kennedy [Md.] opposed the bill on the
ground that it would tend to make his State, already
containing the highest ratio of free negroes to popula-
tion of any State in the Union,'* the great free negro
colony of the country. ' '

What must be the embittered state of feeling in Maryland
when they find that this Congress, departing from every prin-
ciple of good faith and of constitutional obligation to the com-
pact of the Union, interferes to throw more of this class of free
negroes in direct competition with the white labor of our own
State t

Speaking of the proposition of the President for
gradual compensated emancipation in Maryland he said
that '*it would produce an exodus of such of the slave-
holding population from my State as can leave, and
would force those who cannot emigrate either to manumit
or to take the little pittance that is proposed."

But, sir, the worst of it all is that you will produce an
exodus of that class of people upon whom Uie State of Maryland
has rested more than all others for her great material prosperity
— I mean her great mechanical and manufacturing class. In-
stead of the city of Baltimore being, as she has been heretofore,

,t.' ts

152 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

the third commercial emporium of this country, I fear that the
day is to come when the grass may grow in her streets and her
vessels lie rotting at her wharves.

This Government was created to promote domestic tranquility
and to insure the general welfare. The passage of this bill does
not promote either the general welfare or insure the domestic
tranquility of my State ; it will create strife in our borders as
a forerunner of that other question, which is shortly to become
a leading and important question in the future discussions and
organizations of parties, and that is the emancipation policy of
the President. You can show me no possible way by which
emancipation can be effected without colonization. If you do not
carry with emancipation colonization at the same time, if you
emancipate these eighty-seven thousand slaves in the State of
Maryland, making one hundred and seventy-five thousand col-
ored people to remain there, one race or the other will ultimately
perish ; and scenes of blood and carnage that we have little idea
of will result from it.

Sir, I am constrained to submit to the people of Maryland,
if this measure passes, how far good faith has been kept with
their trusting confidence ; how far their honor and devotion to
principle have been respected in the taunts and low flings which
have been made at various times in both branches of Congress
against their loyalty to constitutional obligations. Sir, I may
speak warmly, for I feel deeply. I feel that whatever of con-
sideration my State has had heretofore she has lost it ; that while
we of Maryland avoided the rock of secession, still clinging to
the Constitution upon which we were embarked, we may find
ourselves fast drifting into the dark and overwhelming whirl-
pool of a relentless, unyielding, and reckless sectional policy,
which will end forever, in my humble judgment, the last hope
of bringing together the dismembered and broken ties that bound
this great and prosperous nation in one fraternal bond of union
and power t In the name of my State I protest against this
measure.

Willard Saulsbury [Del.], referring to Northern mis-
sionaries going to Port Royal, S. C. (captured by the
Federal army and navy), and these embracing the
negroes as brothers and sisters, said Senators should
carry their principles to the logical conclusions and take
negroes to their bosoms.

James Harlan [la.] opposed the charge that mis-

ABOLITION IN FEDERAL DISTRICT 153

cegenation would result from emancipation, or that the
white people would rise and murder the freedmen. He
therefore opposed colonization.

Do you find white gentlemen and white ladies marrying the
free negroes that are now in this District! Do Senators find
that the amalgamation of the white and the negro race is in
progress in the States they represent t And, if so, does it pro-
gress more rapidly in the free than in the slave States t I have
known of but three cases in my own State, and all three of those
men married to wenches have been residents of slave States,
where, I doubt not, they acquired their tastes. [Laughter.]
Liberating the negroes carries with it no obligation to marry
their wenches to white men. Gentlemen may follow their tastes
afterward as now.

It is here in a slave District and in the slave States that men
learn to associate familiarly as laborers and mechanics with the
colored population ; and, as a result of that familiar association
at the daily toils of life, there is less reluctance at receiving them
into their embrace, so handsomely described by the Senator from
Delaware but a moment since. You will find in every slavehold-
ing community a much larger number of mulattoes than in the
free States.

But, then, what is to be done with these fifteen hundred lib-
erated slaves t If they are to be liberated we are told they must
be expatriated ; they must be sent into some other country, into
a strange community, and there compelled to provide in a land
of strangers for the supply of their daily wants t Where are
they now t In the bosom of the families of this metropolis. They
are the house servants and the field hands of those who now
claim to be their owners. Whence, then, a necessity for ex-
patriating themt It does not increase their number to liberate
them. If their labor is now necessary for the industrial pur-
poses and comfort of the people of this District, will it not be
as necessary after they shall have been liberated t If they are
now needed as house servants and hotel servants, laborers and
mechanics, in shops and fields, will they not be as necessary
afterward t The only change in this regard that I can perceive
is that after their liberation, those who now enjoy their
labor gi*atuitously will, if their services are continued, be
compelled to pay them reasonable compensation, the Qovem-
ment paying them a bonus of $300 each to relinquish the sup-
posed right to their labor without the payment of wages. This
is the only wrong that will have been inflicted on those who now

164 GREAT. AMERICAN DEBATES

own them. They now employ them, and give them food and
raiment and shelter for their services, without reference to their
own wishes, coercing obedience with the lash when found neces-
sary. Afterward they will be compelled to consult the will and
wishes of the employed, and to pay them probably stipulated
wages, with which the servant will provide his own supplies. No
injury is inflicted on society, no change is wrought on its or-
ganization, and no change is made in the political condition of
the emancipated. They will have acquired no political rights or
franchises. They will have acquired simply the right to enjoy
as they choose the proceeds of their own labor. But if you con-
fer this right on fifteen hundred more negroes now slaves in this
District, we are gravely warned by Senators, in most eloquent
and pathetic strains, that we will thus inaugurate a war of ex-
termination between the white and black race ! Bather than pay
the negroes just compensation for their services their former
masters, who have lived on the proceeds of their unpaid toil, will
take down their rifles and shoot them! A war of extermination
is to arise!

It is declared on the floor of the American Senate, in the face
of a Christian nation, that, if men are to be liberated from a
slavery that is more galling and degrading than any that has
ever existed on the face of the earth from the commencement of
time down to this moment, the people will rise and murder the
poor freedmen. Senators say so without expressing so much
as a regret. They thus approve and justify this savage
feeling — ^if it exists; but, sir, it does not exist; I will defend
the people of Kentucky, of Maryland, of Delaware, and of this
District from any such slanderous aspersion. They entertain no
such purpose on their part as the indiscriminate murder of the
colored population, if they should become free. I doubt not but
that the public sentiment that now exists, induced by the slave-
holders themselves, in the State to which I have referred, is bit-
terly opposed to the liberation of the slaves ; but if these slaves
should be set free it will be eflfected by their own legislatures;
and, if thus set free, no such savage war would arise.

You say that if two races are thrown together as freemen they
will necessarily engender a war of extermination. Such a war
never did commence between two races of free people ; and, until
the laws of the human mind and the human heart change, never
will. To say that men of different, so called, races are natural
enemies to each other, and will commence and wage a war of
extermination when brought into contact, is a libel on humanity.
It is a libel on the Author of the human race. The Almighty

ABOLITION IN FEDERAL DISTRICT 155

never implanted such feelings in the human heart. They never
have been cultivated by an enlightened people. Wars of ex-
termination exist only among savages; and with them only be-
tween belligerent tribes.

On March 31 Charles Sumner [Mass.] made an ex-
haustive and carefully prepared speech on the bill.

Mr. President, with unspeakable delight I hail this measure
and the prospect of its speedy adoption. It is the first install-
ment of that great debt which we all owe to an enslaved race, and
will be recognized in history as one of the victories of humanity.
At home, throughout our own country, it will be welcomed with
gratitude; while abroad it will quicken the hopes of all who love
freedom.

In early discussions of this question it was part of the tactics
of slavery to claim absolute immunity. Indeed, without such
immunity it had small chance of continued existence. Such a
wrong, so utterly outrageous, could find safety only where it was
protected from inquiry. Therefore, slave masters always in-
sisted that petitions against its existence at the national capital
were not to be received ; that it was unconstitutional to touch it
even here within the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress; and
that, if it were touched, it should be only under the auspices of
the neighboring States of Virginia and Maryland. On these
points elaborate arguments were constructed ; but it were useless
to consider them now. Whatever may be the opinions of in-
dividual Senators the judgment of the coimtry is fixed. The
right of petition, first vindicated by the matchless perseverance
of John Quincy Adams, is now beyond question, and the con-
stitutional power of Congress is hardly less free from doubt.
It is enough to say on this point that, if Congress cannot abolish
slavery here, then there is no power anywhere to abolish it here,
and this wrong will endure always, immortal as the capital
itself.

But as the moment of justice approaches we are called to
meet a different objection, inspired by generous sentiments. It
is urged that since there can be no such thing as property in
man, especially within the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress,
therefore all now held as slaves at the national capital are justly
entitled to freedom, without price or compensation of any kind
to their masters; or, at least, that any money paid should be dis-
tributed according to an account stated between masters and
slaves. Of course, if this question were determined according to

156 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

divine justice, so far as we may be permitted to look in that di-
rection, it is obvious that nothing can be due to the masters, and
that any money paid belongs rather to the slaves, who for gen-
erations have been despoiled of every right and possession. But,
if we undertake to audit this fearful account, pray what sum
shall be allowed for the prolonged torments of the lasht What
treasure shall be voted to the slave for wife ravished from his
side, for children stolen, for knowledge shut out, and for all the
fruits of labor wrested from him and his fathers t No such ac-
count can be stated. It is impossible. If you once begin the in-
quiry all must go to the slave. It only remains for Congress,
anxious to secure this great boon, and unwilling to embarass
or jeopard it, to act practically according to its finite powers,
in the light of existing usages, and even existing prejudices,
under which these odious relations have assumed the form of
law; nor must we hesitate at any forbearance or sacrifice, pro-*
vided freedom can be established without delay.

The clear-headed Senator from Kansas [Mr. Pomeroy] has
asked, first, has slavery any constitutional existence at the na-
tional capital? and, secondly, shall money he paid to secure its
abolition? The answer to these two inquiries will make our
duty clear. If slavery has no constitutional existence here, then
more than ever is Congress bound to interfere, even with money ;
for the scandal must be peremptorily stopped, without any post-
ponement or any consultation of the people on a point which is
not within their power.

It may be said that, whether slavery be constitutional or not,
nevertheless it exists, and therefore this inquiry is superfluous.
True, it exists as a monstrous fact ; but it is none the less im-
portant to consider its origin, that we may understand how, as-
suming the form of law, it was able to shelter itself beneath the
protecting shield of the Constitution.

It is true, there can be no such thing as property in man.
If this pretension is recognized anywhere it is only another in-
stance of the influence of custom, which is so powerful as to
render the idolater insensible to the wickedness of idolatry, and
the cannibal insensible to the brutality of cannibalism. To
argue against such a pretension seems to be vain; for the pre-
tension exists in open defiance of reason as well as of humanity.
It will not yield to argument ; nor will it yield to persuasion. It
must be encountered by authority. It was not tlie planters in
the British islands or in the French islands who organized eman-
cipation, but the distant governments across the sea, far removed
from the local prejudices, who at last forbade the outrage. Had

ABOfLITION IN FEDERAL DISTRICT 157

these planters been left to themselves they would have clung to
this pretension as men among us still cling to it. Of course,
in making this declaration against the idea of property in man,
I say nothing new. An honored Senator from Maryland, whose
fame as a statesman was eclipsed, perhaps, by his more remark-
able fame as a lawyer — I mean William Pinkney, whom Chief
Justice Marshall called the undoubted head of the American bar
— in a speech before the Maryland House of Delegates, spoke as
statesman and lawyer when he said :

"Sir, by the eternal principles of natural justice no master in the
State has a right to hold his slaves in bondage for a single hour."

And Henry Brougham spoke not only as statesman and lawyer,
but as orator also, when, in the British Parliament, he uttered
these memorable words:

"Tell me not of rights — talk not of the property of the planter in his
slaves. I deny the right — I acknowledge not the property. The principles,
the feelings of our common nature, rise in rebellion against it. Be the
appeal made to the understanding or to the heart, the sentence is the same
that rejects it. In vain you tell me of laws that sanction such a claim.
There is a law above all the enactments of human codes — the same through-
out the world, the same in all times: it is the law written by the finger of
God on the heart of man ; and by that law, unchangeable and eternal, while
men despise fraud and loathe rapine and abhor blood they will reject with
indignation the wild and guilty phantasy that man can hold property in
man."

It has often been said that the finest sentence of the English
language is that famous description of law with which Hooker
closes the first book of his ''Ecclesiastical Polity"; but I cannot
doubt that this wonderful denunciation of an irrational and in-
human pretension will be remembered hereafter with higher
praise ; for it gathers into surpassing eloquence the growing and
immitigable instincts of universal man.

Of course, here in the national capital, which is under the
exclusive jurisdiction of Congress, the force which now main-
tains this unnatural i^ystem is supplied by Congress. There-
fore does it behoove Congress to act in order to relieve itself of
this painful responsibility.

But this responsibility becomes more painful when it is con-
sidered that slavery exists at the national capital absolutely
without support of any kind in the Constitution. Nor is this all.
Situated within the exclusive jurisdiction of the CoQstitution,
where State rights cannot prevail, it exists in open defiance of
most cherished principles. Let the Constitution be rightly in-

158 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

terpreted by a just tribunal, and slavery most cease here at once.
The decision of a court would be as potent as an act of Con-
gress. If authority could add to the force of irresistible argu-
ment it would be found in the well-known opinion of the late
Mr. Justice McLean, in a published letter, declaring the con-
stitutional impossibility of slavery in the national Territories,
because, in the absence of express power under the Constitution
to establish or recognize slavery, there was nothing for the
breath of slavery, as respiration could not exist where there was
no atmosphere. The learned judge was right, and his illustra-
tion was felicitous. Although applied at the time only to the
Territories, it is of equal force everywhere within the exclusive
jurisdiction of Congress; for within such jurisdiction there is
no atmosphere in which slavery can live.

Under the Constitution Congress has '^ exclusive jurisdiction
in all cases whatsoever" at the national capital. But Congress
can exercise no power except in conformity with the Constitu-
tion. Now, looking at the Constitution, we shall find, first, that
there are no words authorizing Congress to establish or recognize
slavery ; and, secondly, that there are positive words which pro-
hibit Congress from the exercise of any such power. The argu-
ment, therefore, is twofold : first, from the absence of authority,
and, secondly, from positive prohibition.

Of course, a barbarism like slavery, having its origin in
force, and nothing else, can have no legal or constitutional sup-
port except from positive sanction. It can spring from no
doubtful phrase. It must be declared by unambiguous words
incapable of a double sense. In asserting this principle I simply
follow Lord Mansfield, who, in the memorable case of Sommer-
sett, said: **The state of slavery is of such a nature that it is
incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political,
but only by positive law. It is so odious that nothing can be suf-
fered to support it but positive law." (Howell's "State Trials,"
Vol. 20, p. 82.) This principle has been adopted by tribunals
even in slaveholding States. (See Horey vs. Decker, Walker's
R., 42; Rankin vs. Lydier, 2 Marshall, 470.) But I do not stop
to dwell on these authorities. Even the language, "exclusive
jurisdiction in all cases whatsoever," cannot be made to sanc-
tion slavery. It wants those positive words, leaving nothing to
implication, which are obviously required, especially when we
consider the professed object of the Constitution, as declared in
its preamble, "to establish justice and secure the blessings of
liberty." There is no power in the Constitution to make a king,
or, thank Ood, to make a slave, and the absence of all such

ABOLITION IN FEDERAL DISTRICT 159

power is hardly more clear in one case than in the other. The
word king nowhere occurs in the Constitution, nor does the word
slave. But, if there be no such power, then all acts of Congress
sustaining slavery at the national capital must be unconstitu-
tional and void. The stream cannot rise higher than the fountain
head ; nay, more, nothing can come out of nothing; and, if there
be nothing in the Constitution authorizing Congress to make a
slave, there can be nothing valid in any subordinate legislation.
It is a pretension which has thus far prevailed simply because
slavery predominated over Congress and courts.

To all who insist that Congress may sustain slavery in the
national capital I put the question, where in the Constitution is
the power found? If you cannot show where, do not assert the
power. So hideous an effrontery must be authorized in unmis-
takable words. Do not insult human nature by pretending that
its most cherished rights can be sacrificed without solemn au-
thority. Remember that every presumption and every leaning
must be in favor of freedom and against slavery. Do not forget
that no nice interpretation, no strained construction, no fancied
deduction, can suffice to sanction the enslavement of our fellow-
men. And do not degrade the Constitution by foisting into its
blameless text the idea of property in man. It is not there ; and
if you think you see it there, it is simply because you make the
Constitution a reflection of yourself.

A single illustration will show the absurdity of this preten-
sion. If under the clause which gives to Congress ** exclusive
legislation" at the national capital slavery may be established,
if under these words Congress is empowered to create slaves
instead of citizens, then, under the same words, it may do the
same thing in ''the forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, and
other needful buildings*' belonging to the United States, wher-
ever situated, for these are all placed within the same "exclu-
sive legislation." The extensive navy-yard at Charlestown, in
the very shadow of Bunker Hill, may be filled with slaves, whose
enforced toil shall take the place of that cheerful, well-paid
labor whose busy hum is the best music of the place. Such an
act, however consistent with slaveholding tyranny, would not be
regarded as constitutional near Bunker Hill.

A court properly inspired, and ready to assume that just
responsibility which dignifies judicial tribunals, would at once
declare slavery impossible at the national capital, and set every
slave free — ^as Lord Mansfield declared slavery impossible in
England, and set every slave free.^ The two cases are parallel ;

iThe famous Sommeraett case; see Index.

160 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

but, alas ! the court is wanting here. But the good work which
courts have thus far declined remains to be done by Congress.

But the question is asked, shall we vote money for this pur-
pose t I cannot hesitate. And here there are two considera-
tions, which with me are prevailing. First, the relation of
master and slave at the national capital has from the beginning
been established and maintained by Congress, everywhere in
sight, and even directly under its own eyes. The master held
the slave; but Congress, with strong arm, stood behind the
master, looking on and sustaining him. Not a dollar of wages
has been taken, not a child has been stolen, not a wife has been
torn from her husband, without the hand of Congress. If not a
partnership, there was a complicity on the part of Congress,
through which the whole country has become responsible for the
manifold wrong. Though always protesting against its con-
tinuance, and laboring earnestly for its removal, yet gladly do
I now accept my share of the promised burden. And, secondly,
even if we are not all involved in the manifold wrong, nothing
is clearer than that the mode proposed is the gentlest, quietest,
and surest in which the beneficent change can be accomplished.
It is, therefore, the most practical. It recognizes slavery as an
existing fact and provides for its removal. And when I think
of the unquestionable good which we seek ; of all its advantages
and glories ; of the national capital redeemed ; of the national
character elevated; and of a manganimous example which can
never die; and when I think, still further, that, according to a
rule alike of jurisprudence and morals, liberty is priceless, I
cannot hesitate at any appropriation within our means by which
all these things of incalculable value can be promptly secured.

Let this bill pass, and the first practical triumph of freedom,
for which good men have longed, dying without the sight — for
which a whole generation has petitioned, and for which orators
and statesmen have pleaded — ^will at last be accomplished. Slav-
ery will be banished from the national capital. This metropolis,
which bears a venerated name, will be purified; its evil spirit
will be cast out ; its shame will be removed ; its society will be
refined ; its courts will be made better ; its revolting ordinances
will be swept away ; and even its loyalty will be secured. If not
moved by justice to the slave, then be willing to act for your
own good and in self-defence. If you hesitate to pass this bill
for the blacks, then pass it for the whites. Nothing is clearer
than that the degradation of slavery affects the master as much
as the slave; while recent events testify that, wherever slavery
exists, there treason lurks, if it does not flaunt. PVom the be-

ABOLITION IN FEDERAL DISTRICT 161

ginning of this rebellion slavery has been constantly manifest
in the conduct of the masters, and even here in the national
capital it has been the traitorous power which has encouraged
and strengthened the enemy. This power must be suppressed at
every cost, and, if its suppression here endangers slavery else-
where, there will be a new motive for determined action.

Amid all present solicitudes the future cannot be doubtful.
At the national capital slavery will give way to freedom; but
the good work will not stop here. It must proceed. What God
and nature decree rebellion cannot arrest. And as the whole
widespread tyranny begins to tumble, then, above the din of
battle, sounding from the sea and echoing along the land, above
even the exultations of victory on well-fought fields, will ascend
voices of gladness and benediction, swelling from generous hearts
wherever civilization bears sway, to commemorate a sacred
triumph, whose trophies, instead of tattered banners, will be
ransomed slaves.

The bill was passed on April 3 by 29 yeas to 14
nays, the Senators from the border and Pacific States
and Joseph A. Wright of Indiana voting in the negative.

The bill was sent to the House and there debated
on April 10-11, the discussion including the right of
secession, the power of Congress to confiscate property
and to emancipate slaves in the seceded States.

Judge Benjamin F. Thomas [Mass.], a conservative
Republican, was the leading speaker on these subjects.
He delivered a profound legal argument showing that
there could be no secession of States, but only of citizens,
and that the acts of these were rebellion and not war;
that confiscation of the property of the rebels was un-
constitutional, unjust, and impolitic; and that emancipa-
tion of slaves could be justified only as a military
necessity.

The bill was passed upon this day (April 11), and
signed by the President on April 16. In his message
to the House communicating his act the President said :

I have never doubted the constitutional authority of Con-
gress to abolish slavery in this District, and I have ever desired
to see the national capital freed from the institution in some
satisfactory way. Hence there has never been in my mind any

VI— u

162 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

question upon the subject, except the one of expediency, arising
in view of all the circumstances. I am gratified that the two
principles of compensation and colonization are both recognized
and practically applied in the act.

One curious result of the act was that under it a
District negro (free) claimed and received compensation
for his wife and their six children, whom he had pre-
viously purchased from their white master.

CHAPTER VI

Compensated Emancipation

The President's Special Message Proposing a Bill for Compensated Eman-
cipation in States so Desiring It — His Conference with Border State
Delegates — Boscoe Conkling [N. Y.] Introduces the Bill in the House —
Debate: in Favor, Mr. Conkling, John A. Bingham [O.], Alexander S.
Diven [N. Y.], Abraham B. Olin [N. Y.], Owen Lovejoy [lU.], Thad-
deus Stevens [Pa.], and John Hickman [Pa.] Supporting the Bill under
Protest; Opposed, William A. Bichardson [111.], Charles A. WicklifTe
[Ky.], Daniel W. Voorhees [Ind.], John J. Crittenden [Ky.] — Bill
Passed — It Is Introduced in the Senate — ^Debate: in Favor, Lot M.
Merrill [Me.], John B. Henderson [Mo.], John Sherman [O.] ; Op-
posed, Willard Saulsbury [Del.], James A. McDougall [Cal.], Lazarus
W. Powell [Ky.]--The Bill Is Passed— Debate in the House on Aboli-
tion of Slavery in the Territories: in Favor, Isaac N. Arnold [HI.],
Owen Lovejoy [HI.]; Opposed, Samuel S. Cox [O.], John W. Crisfield
[Md.], Benjamin F. Thomas [Mass.] — Bill Becomes Law — The Presi-
dent Appeals to the Border States to Accept Compensated Emancipa-
tion — ^Results of Federal and State Action in Begard to CompensatecU'
Emancipation.

DURING the debates on abolition of slavery in the
District of Columbia the President sent a special
message to Congress on compensated ema/ndpch
Hon in the States so desiring it.

Compensated Emancipation

Special Message of Pbbsident Lincoln, March 6, 1862

I recommend the adoption of a joint resolution by your hon-
orable bodies, which shall be substantially as follows :

*^ Resolved, That the United States ought to cooperate with
any State which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giv-
ing 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."

If the proposition contained in the resolution does not meet

163

164 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

the approval of Congress and the country, there is the end ; but
if it does command such approval I deem it of importance that
the States and people inmiediately interested should be at once
distinctly notified of the fact, so that they may begin to con-
sider whether to accept or reject it.

The Federal Government would find its highest interest in
such a measure, as one of the most efficient means of self-preser-
vation. The leaders of the existing insurrection entertain the
hope that this Government will ultimately be forced to acknowl-
edge the independence of some part of the disaffected region,
and that all the slave States north of such part will then say,
''The Union for which we have struggled being already gone,
we now choose to go with the Southern section." To deprive
them of this hope substantially ends the rebellion ; and the in-
itiation of emancipation completely deprives them of it as to all
the States initiating it.

The point is not that the States tolerating slavery would very
soon, if at all, initiate emancipation ; but, that while the offer is
equally made to all, the more Northern shall, by such initiation,
make it certain to the more Southern that in no event will the
former ever join the latter in their proposed confederacy. I say
'"initiation" because, in my judgment, gradual and not sudden
emancipation is better for all. In the mere financial or pe-
cuniary view any member of Congress, with the census tables
and treasury reports before him, can readily see for himself how
very soon the current expenditures of this war would purchase,
at fair valuation, all the slaves in any named State. Such a
proposition on the part of the general Gk)vemment sets up no
claim of a right by Federal authority to interfere with slavery
within State limits, referring, as it does, the absolute control
of the subject in each case to the State and its people immedi-
ately interested. It is proposed as a matter of perfectly free
choice with them.

In the annual message, last December, I thou^t fit to say,
"The Union must be preserved, and hence all indispensable
means must be employed." I said this not hastily, but delib-
erately. War has been made, and continues to be, an indispen-
sable means to this end. A practical reacknowledgment of the
national authority would render the war unnecessary, and it
would at once cease. If, however, resistance continues, the war
must also continue; and it is impossible to foresee all the inci-
dents which may attend and all the ruin which may follow it.
Such as may seem indispensable, or may obviously promise great
efficiency, toward ending the struggle, must and will come.

COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION 165

The proposition now made, though an offer only, I hope it
may be esteemed no offence to ask whether the pecuniary con-
sideration tendered would not be of more value to the States and
private persons concerned than are the institution and property
in it, in the present aspect of affairs!

While it is true that the adoption of the proposed resolution
would be merely initiatory, and not within itself a practical
measure, it is recommended in the hope that it would soon lead
to important practical results. In full view of my great respon-
sibility to my God and to my country, I earnestly beg the at-
tention of Congress and the people to the subject.

Lincoln's Conference on Compensated Emancipation

WITH BORDEB StATB DELEGATES

On March 10 the President held a conference with
delegates from the border slave States. One of the dele-
gates, John W. Crisfield [Md.], reported the substance
of the conference.

The President disclaimed any intent to injure the interests
or wound the sensibilities of the slave States. On the contrary,
he declared that his purpose was to protect the one and respect
the other. We were, he said, engaged in a terrible, wasting, and
tedious war; immense armies were in the field, and must con-
tinue there as long as the war should last ; these armies came of
necessity into contact with slaves in the States we represented,
and, as they advanced, would be brought into contact with the
slaves of other States. Slaves came, and would continue to
come, to the camps, thus keeping up continual irritation. He
was constantly annoyed by conflicting and antagonistic com-
plaints. On the one side a certain class complained if the slave
was not protected by the army ; persons were frequently found
who, participating in these views, acted in a way unfriendly to
the slaveholder. On the other hand, slaveholders complained
that their rights were interfered with, their slaves were induced
to abscond and were protected within the lines. These com-
plaints were numerous, loud, and deep. They were a serious
annoyance to him, and embarrassing to the progress of the war.
They kept alive a spirit hostile to the Government in the States
we represented ; they strengthened the hopes of the Confederates
that at some day the border States would unite with them, and
thus tend to prolong the war; and he was of opinion, if this

166 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

resolution should be adopted by Congress and accepted by our
States, that these causes of irritation and these hopes would be
removed, and more would be accomplished toward shortening
the war than could be hoped from the greatest victory achieved
by Union armies. He made this proposition in good faith, and
desired it to be accepted, if at all, voluntarily, and in the same
patriotic spirit in which it was made. Emancipation was a
subject exclusively under the control of the States, and must
be adopted or rejected by each for itself; he did not claim, nor
had this Government any right, to coerce them for that purpose.

The President disclaimed that he had any ulterior purpose,
such as emancipation by Federal authority. He should lament
the refusal of the States to accept compensated emancipation,
but had no designs beyond their refusal.

In respect to the constitutionality of the proposition he said
that it presented no difficulties, proposing as it did simply to co-
operate with any State by giving it pecuniary aid. It was the
expression of a sentiment, rather than the presentation of a con-
stitutional issue. In any scheme to get rid of slavery the North
as well as the South was morally bound to do its equal share.
He thought that the institution was wrong and that it ought
never to have existed ; but yet he recognized the rights of prop-
erty which had grown out of it, and he would respect those
rights as fully as similar rights in any other property ; he recog-
nized that property can exist, and does legally exist, in slavery ;
he would get rid of the odious law,. not by violating the right,
but by encouraging the proposition and offering inducements to
give it up.

Compensated Emancipation

House of Representatives, March 10-11, 1862

On March 10 Roscoc Conklin^ [N. Y.] introduced the
President's bill in the House. He said:

This resolution is in the exact words of the President of the
United States, as sent here with the message in which he recom-
mends its passage. It relates to a subject in regard to which
almost every member, if not every one, has made up his mind ;
and those who have not made up their minds will not have their
conclusions settled by any discussion which may occur on this
resolution.

COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION 167

William A. Bichardson [Dem.], of Illinois, replied:

The gentleman from New York says that we ought to have
our minds made up on the subject of this resolution. Why, sir,
there is no subject which will engage the attention of this Con-
gress of more magnitude. I venture to say that not one half of
the members on this side of the House have had time to consider
it. We have had no time to communicate with our people.

But I am prepared to say one thiag in regard to that mes-
sage of the President. So far as it recommends the doctrine of
the rights of the States in this matter I recognize its force. My
objection to it is not of that character; I object to it upon an-
other ground altogether. I do not believe my people are pre-
pared to enter upon this proposed work of purchasing the slaves
of other people and turning them loose in our midst. I have
long entertained the idea that this class of negroes in our coun-
try are incapable of becoming the repository of freedom or gov-
ernment.

In reference to another point embraced in that message I
have but a single word to offer. Without the Constitution and
the Union there is no liberty — ^no government — and whatever
stands in the way of their preservation I am prepared to strike
down or to yield up. Whatever stands in the way of our Gov-
ernment and its integrity must be destroyed. But I do not pro-
pose to go beyond the Constitution. I do not know why a single
article of property should be singled out and made an exception.

But, sir, I am satisfied that gentlemen are not prepared to
vote upon this question to-day. It is a subject which requires
consideration; and I move, therefore, that it be postponed to
this day week.

John A. Bingham [0.]. — I hope the motion to postpone will
not prevail. If gentlemen propose to entertain the proposition
of the President they can have but little, if any, difficulty in
coming to a just conclusion upon it, as it involves no principle
save the power of the Government of the United States to con-
tribute in aid of the gradual abolition of slavery in any State
which, of its own motion, may initiate that policy. That is all
there is of the resolution.

The President has told us that he deems it important, if the
resolution meets the approval of Congress, that the people im-
mediately interested should be at once distinctly notified of the
fact, so that they may begin to consider whether they will accept
or reject the proposition. The adoption of the resolution im-
poses upon no State any obligation to act in the premises. It

168 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

interferes with no right of any State by intendment or other-
wise.

Charles A. Wicklippb [Ky.]. — The gentleman is learned in
the Constitution of the United States. Will he tell me under
what clause of the Constitution he finds the power in Congress
to appropriate the treasure of the United States to buy negroes,
or to set them free! Is it under the head of "the general wel-
fare''?

Mr. Bingham. — I supposed, Mr. Speaker, that that question
was settled long ago by those who made the Constitution. If the
gentleman will pardon me, I b^ leave to remind him again of
the words of Madison, that

"It is in vain to oppose constitutional barriers to the impulse of self-
preservation. It is worse than in vainf

And, says Hamilton :

''Congress have an unlimited discretion to make requisitions of men
and money."

Daniel W. Yoobhees [Dem.], of Indiana. — I shaU vote
against any postponement of this question. I, for one, as a
member of this House, am fully prepared to act upon it now.
If this measure is to be pressed, and to become a part of the
policy of the Government, I think it is right and proper that
the people should know it soon; that, while groaning under
almost untold burdens, while trembling under the weight of
taxation upon their shoulders, if this additional burden is to
come upon them they may prepare in season their sad and op-
pressed hearts and almost broken bodies to bear it.

I will say one thing further : that if there is any border slave
State man here who is in doubt whether he wants his State to
sell its slaves to this Government or not, I represent a people
that is in no doubt as to whether they want to become the pur-
chasers. It takes two to make a bargain ; and I repudiate, once
and forever, for the people whom I represent on this floor, any
part or parcel in such a contract. Slavery, wherever it exists
under the Constitution, I and my constituents will recognize
and respect in its legal rights; the slave trade, either domestic
or foreign, we are opposed to, and it is no favorite of the Con-
stitution. If emancipation means taxation on the free States,
now lavishing their all for the Union and the Constitution, and
ever ready to do so, I am opposed to that cause ; and I here take
my stand in the name of the people I represent against it.

COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION 169

Thaddeus Stevens [Eep.], of Pennsylvania, was in
favor of postponing the bill in order to give every mem-
ber time to consider it.

I have read it over ; and I confess I have not been able to see
what makes one side so anxious to pass it or the other side so
anxious to defeat it. I think it is about the most diluted, milk
and water gruel proposition that was ever given to the American
nation. [Laughter.] The only reason I can discover why any
gentleman should wish to postpone this measure is for the pur-
pose of having a chemical analysis made to see whether there is
any poison in it. [Laughter.]

The House adjourned with the motion to postpone
the bill before it. The discussion was resumed on the
following day (March 11). The motion to postpone
was decided in the negative — yeas, 67; nays, 71.

Charles A. Wickliffe [Ky.] opposed the bill on con-
stitutional grounds, stating that the only color of its
justification was to be found in the ** general welfare"
clause in the preamble of the Constitution.

Under this pretence of power, Congress might think that it
would be advancing the interests of the general Gfovernment to
dot the whole country over with turnpikes, railroads, and
bridges, or with schools and colleges, or to do anything or every-
thing that a legislative body, unrestrained by a constitution, may
do for the benefit of the people. I thought that this idea of a
general welfare power had long since been exploded by our
statesmen and jurists and courts whenever it was attempted to
be asserted in the State or Federal tribunals. If you were to
allow that to be taken as a granting power in the Constitution,
then there is no limit to which the Federal Government or Con-
gress may not go.

But we are told that this measure is to be consummated
under the war power. It is alleged that we are now in a state
of war, and we are told that the Constitution is, therefore, to be
disregarded. It is said that whatever is necessary to carry on
this war to a successful conclusion may be done with perfect
freedom under the license and authority, not of the Constitu-
tion, but as a military necessity. I deny that a state of war, and
especially the present state of war, enlarges the power of Con-
gress. What will be the result of that military necessity which,

170 GREAT. AMERICAN DEBATES

it is said, enables us to lay aside the Constitution T What is it,
and what has caused this line of executive and military action T
I greatly fear there are many who desire more the emancipatiod
of the slaves of the South than the restoration of the Union of
the States. If it had not been for that strong desire I think that
we would never have heard of this military-necessity power.

I suspect, sir, that these old-fashioned opinions of mine may
be taken as evidence of my want of loyalty. I have not as yet
seen any necessity why we should violate the Constitution in
order that we should do what is required of us, and that is to
furnish the men and money necessary to the restoration of the
Union — I deny that a state of war increases or enlarges the
powers of Congres&

Furthermore, the proposition is unwise. If the measures
which now seem to be the particular and favorite ones urged to
our consideration shall be carried out, if you proclaim to these
people extermination or subjugation, and the confiscation of
private property, you will have a war that will last longer than
the life of any man upon this floor. You may conquer battles,
and gain victories; but you will not in that way secure the re-
establishment of the Government and the restoration of the
Union. How do you expect to maintain the Union and to re-
establish the laws of the United States over the seceded States T
How do you expect to induce the people of those States to aid
and assist you in the restoration of the Union and of the Gov-
ernment T How do you expect to do that if you drive every man
from his homestead under the threat you make here of utter de-
struction or subjugation? You destroy all hope of peace. Leave
the peaceful non-combatants at rest; let them know that they
have the pledge of their security by this Government. If that
be done, when the war is over you will find a nucleus of Union
men in the slave States around which the inhabitants of those
States can rally, and then the Union may be restored. But if
they are to be alarmed by threats of confiscation of estates of
non-combatants, then their homesteads will be abandoned and
burned either by themselves or the enemy. You see already the
madness of the leaders of the rebellion. They urge the popula-
tion of the South to burn their homesteads, and to destroy all
their crops, in order to keep them out of the possession of what
they term their enemies. You have taken possession of a por-
tion of the South. I was glad when I heard of it. You have
alarmed the population. They have now run off and left their
slaves unprotected. What is proposed here? One gentleman
has proposed that we shall have a land office in the South, and

COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION 171

that the lands of the nabobs shall be distributed to the slaves
that have been abandoned. There are other projects equally as
absurd, and in violation of the laws of civilized war.

Suppose you emancipate the whole of the black population
of the Southern seceded States, something over three millions,
what do you intend to do with them! Have you provided any
colony to which you can send themT Do you intend to leave
them in the South where they areT Or do you intend to locate
them in the free States T One plan was before us, I think, in a
bill this morning. It is proi>osed that the Congress of the United
States shall open cotton plantations in the South, upon lands
now in the possession of the army. Is that a military necessity?
Is it a military necessity that we should employ, at the public
expense, many agents (I do not know that they are called over-
seers, as they are in the South; that would not sound well),
sub-agents or superintendents T They are none of them to be
called overseers, that would sound too much like the agent of a
Southern slaveholder. There was a peculiar provision in it — ^this
bill to which I refer. They were to force these creatures to work
— ^they were to use ^^ humane and Christian force/' I believe.
What do you mean by thatT You are to send a parcel of men
to superintend the negroes on the cotton plantations as over-
seers for the United States.

I ask the gentlemen who are advocating these propositions
if it is a ''military necessity" that this Government, with a debt
now of upward of seven hundred millions of dollars, should
commence the business of cotton planting in South Carolina and
Georgia or elsewhere ? I ask where are the power and authority
in the Government of the United States to go into the business
of farming — for it amounts to that practically? Where is the
authority for the Government of the United States to send a
parcel of men South to engage in the business of cotton-growing
who, when they get there, will know as much about raising cot-
ton as I do about preaching the Gospel, and not as much, for I
have heard the Gospel preached, and they never saw a stalk of
cotton growing. [Laughter.] If you carry out your plan it
will be the finest position for one of your modem honest men
to steal that you can find in the United States, not excepting
army contracts.

What is to be the effect of this resolution upon the warT
There seems to be an intimation, if I understand it, that there
is danger that the border slave States, as they are termed, unless
this measure shall be inaugurated, may wieih to join the slave
States of the South, not while the war is going on, but when the

172 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

Southern Confederacy, composed of the cotton States, shall have
gained its independence. Sir, I can see how this message of the
President and the vote of this House may be understood abroad
greatly to our prejudice. The inference will be inevitably drawn
there that you from the North who advocate this resolution look
to the utter impossibility of carrying out your favorite scheme
of emancipation and confiscation, and the liberation of the
slaves of the South ; that you do not desire Union until slavery
is abolished; and that you are willing to give up the cotton
States, provided you can get the border States to emancipate
their slaves.

In Kentucky and all these border States the great difficulty
that we have had to encounter from the influence of the South,
and those of our own citizens who acted with the South, was to
convince them that the Federal Government did not mean to in-
terfere with slavery. I do not mean this to apply to the man
alone who owns the slave ; for it is a strange fact that the non-
slaveholding portion of the population are most against emanci-
pation.

The speaker concluded with declarations of the Ad-
ministration, Congress, and the officers of the army,
made at the beginning of difficulties and up to this time,
that the war, being forced upon the United States, is to
be prosecuted for the maintenance of the Constitution
and the restoration of the Union as it was. He said :

To give it now a different purpose, to wage it for the destruc-
tion of the States, the abolition of slavery, would be a fraud so
infamous that it would call down upon its authors the anathemas
of all good and honest men.

Alexander S. Diven [N. Y.] believed that the reason
which urged the President to his recommendation was
that President Jefferson Davis of the Confederacy
had issued a proclamation implying that the Con-
federate forces would be concentrated for the defence
of the cotton States, and that the border States would
be abandoned to the Union, thus inducing the United
States Government to acknowledge the independence of
the cotton States.

The rebels, he said, hugged the idea that we care but little
for these States, if we could only get the border States — the

COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION 173

most valuable in a commercial point of view — and believe that
with the Union thus broken, with that holy devotion broken
which the whole country has ever had for the Union of Wash-
ington, Jefferson, and Madison, the loyalty for the Union would
be broken. It was then hoped that a petty annoyance would be
waged against the border States until they would be driven, one
by one, to join that confederation of the Gulf States. They
would thus add to their power, and secure what they now find
they cannot secure by force of arms. Seeing that they were
clinging to that hope, the President is desirous to strip them of
their last hope of refuge, and to show them that, even though
they should succeed in their rebellion, they will be disappointed
in their expectation of drawing the border States with them.
Disappointed in it by this, by a noble, just, fair proposition
upon the part of the Government not to interfere with any of the
reserved rights of these States; not, under the Constitution or
above the Constitution, to meddle with any of their institutions ;
not to assume to pass laws, if we have the right to pass them,
which could interfere with their reserved rights; but a mag-
nanimous proposition to them, that if they would stand by the
Union no injustice should be done to them. If the posses-
sion of their slaves should become intolerable they might have
an opportunity to rid themselves of them without crushing them
out and breaking them down. In a spirit of magnanimity the
President of the United States recommended that this Congress
should adopt this resolution, looking to an ultimate resort in
case any of the States at any time find it necessary, for the
protection of their rights, to adopt that ultimate resort.

When they pass a law for the emancipation of their slaves,
if they ever do pass such an act, they will make it conditional
that Congress shall pay a portion of the loss. If that condition
be not complied with they lose nothing by their law. If it be
complied with by Congress they gain. There is, I repeat, no
tampering with their rights, no infringement upon their rights.

The gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Voorhees] has thought
proper in the discussion of this proposition to refer to the ex-
pense that would be incurred. Why, sir, half a day's expense
of this war will pay for the emancipation of all the slaves in
Delaware. The cost of sustaining this war for half a month
will pay for the emancipation of all the slaves in Kentucky.
The cost of maintaining this war for a month would pay for
the emancipation of the slaves in Missouri and Kentucky. And
if we can cut off from these rebels their last hope, and in my
judgment this is their last hope, for they have already been

174 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

obliged to sarrender the hope to which they have bo fondly clung
of the intervention of European countries; and now if you will
cut off this last desperate hope which the rebel leaders still en-
tertain, you will do more to accelerate the termination of this
rebeUion than any other congressional measure that can possibly
be adopted.

Abraham R. Olin [N. Y.] replied to Mr. Wickliffe.

It is not true that either this House or the people of this
country have any other motive in the prosecution of this war
than they had in August last. They are fighting this war for
the maintenance of the Constitution and the Union. I know
that there is a difference of opinion upon another question, and
that is as to the means to be employed for the prosecution of this
war. I know that some gentlemen, and perhaps my friend from
Illinois [Owen Lovejoy] for one, think that the best way is, like
the Dutch governor of New York, to fight it by proclamations,
to proclaim liberty throughout the land to captives. Another
gentleman would say, let the negro question alone.

Mb. Lovejoy. — ^I beg the gentleman's pardon for interrupt-
ing him; but I simply desire to say that I want to fight with
bayonets and bullets, and not with proclamations.

Mr. Olin. — I am happy to hear that, and it will enlighten
the House upon that point, I have no doubt.

Now, there is, as I have observed, a difference of opinion
upon this subject. But every intelligent man in the free States
as well as in the slave States knows — the whole world knows —
that this institution of slavery, never very palatable to the free
States of the Union, has been the cause of this accursed rebel-
lion. Mr. Speaker, you remember Toombs said that that institu-
tion could only exist as long as slaveholders controlled this Gov-
ernment, and that, when they were deprived of the power and
patronage of the Government to uphold it, that institution must
fall. Slaveholders having been deprived of that power, this
rebellion is the consequence. Now, gentlemen from slave States
must treat with a little forbearance my friends upon this side of
the House. I beg you remember they, together with all the
world, know that this war has been brought upon us by men
who sought to control the destinies of this country by wielding
the influence of slavery. It is not to be wondered at that the
people of the free States do not feel very kindly disposed to-
ward that institution, or that every opportunity is sought within
the constitutional limits of the Government to strike a blow at

COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION 175

slavery, which, if it shall not destroy that institution forever,
will leave it in such a situation that it will never hereafter
be a disturbing power in the administration of this Govern-
ment.

Now, I am desirous to see this war prosecuted within the
strict limits of the Constitution. I think that this Government
is released from no obligation to my friend from Kentucky by
reason of this rebellion; that the Government is bound to pro-
tect all his rights of property and everything that is dear to him
in his social and political relations, and I wish to see the war
prosecuted successfully, if it may be, with a most sacred regard
to all the rights of every citizen. In my humble judgment the
whole strength of this accursed rebellion rests in an entire de-
lusion on the part of the Southern people. Every gentleman
who has held a seat on the floor of this House as long as I have
knows one fact, and that is that there has been for years a
strenuous, constant, and persistent effort on the part of some
Southern men in this House, and out of it, to imbue the entire
Southern mind with the idea that the party now in power, if
they ever did attain power, would, by force and violence, if
necessary, emancipate their slaves; and it is that belief that now
adds strength to their army. If that delusion could be dispelled
this rebellion would melt away like frost-work before the sun.
I believe as sincerely that that is so as I believe any truth re-
vealed from above.

What, then, is obviously the policy of the GOvemment in
respect to this measure? Why, I think — ^though, perhaps, my
opinion upon that subject is not worth much — ^that the President
is pursuing a wise and prudent course, and I think that my
friend from Kentucky is unnecessarily alarmed at the introduc-
tion of this resolution. What is it, in its whole scope and ex-
tent! Why, simply that if you gentlemen of the slave States
are willing to get rid of slavery the general Government will aid
you to do it by giving you a compensation for any loss that you
may sustain; and, although I am not worth much, GOd knows
I would divide my last crust of bread to aid our Southern
friends to get rid of slavery, and let us live in peace and har-
mony together. If these gentlemen say, ''we cannot afford to
make the sacrifice of manumitting our slaves," the President
says, ''vety well; the general GOvemment will aid you to ac-
complish it." That is the magnanimous, the great, the GOd-like
policy of the Administration. But, while it says that, it says to
you and it says to the world, "we do not propose to force this
question of emancipation upon you; you are perfectly free to

176 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

accept or to reject the offer. We disclaim entirely the right to
constrain yon in the matter."

But the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Wickliffe] says that
the offer to aid in the emancipation of the slaves is an interfer-
ence with this institution. Merciful Qod ! Does this institution
make you mad ? Must you close your eyes to what is going on
all over the civilized world ? Look, I beseech you, at this matter !
Conduct your army in the best way you can, with the most
sacred regard to every right, and when it overruns a State, as
it has overrun Missouri, what is the result f Where have gone
to-day her slave population? Nearly two-thirds of them have
fled either North or South ; and, if our army marches successfully
through Kentucky and Tennessee, to some extent this same result
will be produced there. Nay, more. As they march throu^
other States, as they are now marching through South Carolina,
thousands upon thousands of these poor negro slaves will flock to
the standard of the Union — ^the slaves of rebel masters, the
slaves of men who have taken up arms to subvert this Qovem-
ment, a Government such as was never founded by man. And
do you think, I pray you, that any power of this (Government,
judicial, military, or executive, can ever be induced to surrender
those men to those rebel masters? Oh, no; you are touching
there a chord that vibrates through the whole Northern heart,
and it says we never will consent that property of this descrip-
tion shall be returned to men thus arrayed against the Qovem-
ment by the strong arm of the Qovemment.

John J. Crittenden [Ky.] construed the proposition
as asking the border States to give up their ** domestic
institution '* of slavery as a pledge of loyalty to the
Union.

What right have you to suppose now that old Kentucky will
abandon her faith in the Constitution of the United States, and
unite herself with the South? None at all. The way to con-
ciliate Kentucky is not by pressing these questions upon her.
The way to conciliate her is to let her alone. That is the way to
show your confidence in her — ^your confidence that she will al-
ways, and under all circumstances, do her duty. That will make
the old State proud. But when you demand of her a revolution
in her domestic policy, when you make a demand of that sort
upon her, I am apprehensive it may not have the good effect
you suppose. The cardinal principle upon which our whole sys-
tem of Government is founded is that matters of a local and do-

COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION 177

mestic character ahall be under the exclucdye control of the State
governments, and national and external matters under the con-
trol of the general Oovemment. If you begin now to trench
upon that paternal and patriarchal jurisdiction which belongs
to the States by taking one domestic subject from under its con-
trol, what will be the result in the future?

I do not know how this proposition will be deceived by my
constituents. It is suddenly brought before them. It relates to
a subject about which they are very sensitive. I fear they will
think that they ought to be let alone on this subject. You urge
them to take a further step in proof of their loyalty. They will
say: "Is this the way the other States of the Union treat us?
The moment we come within their grasp, the moment we join
hands with them, and take up the sword in defence of the Con-
stitution, they desire that we shall modify our institutions in ac-
cordance with their wishes."

Do you demand of us a surrender of a part of our constitu-
tional rights, while you are professing to support the whole
Constitution?

Mb. Lovejoy. — I desire to ask the gentleman if he thinks it
would be unconstitutional if Kentucky should emancipate her
slaves, on condition that the Federal Government shall pay her
a certain amount of money ?

Mb. Cbittendbn. — ^I am not prepared to say that it would be
unconstitutional. But the gentleman looks at the matter in a
very limited way. When this Ctevemment makes a proposition
of this sort, it is equivalent to an invitation, and by such an in-
vitation agitation may be introduced at a time when we want no
agitation.

But gentlemen say that this wiU break the hopes of the re-
bellion, and that otherwise the South wiU compel you to recog-
nize her independent government. So says my friend from New
York [Mr. Diven] ; and this measure proposed is only to prevent
Kentucky and the border States from acceding to that indepen-
dent Southern government when it shall force itself upon our
acknowledgment. Sir, I hope that that day is never to come. It
is too remote a possibility to found any argument upon. If that
time ever does come, when these twenty millions of people shall
be content to see this great (Jovernment broken up ; and if, look-
ing forward beyond that infamous and disgraceful day, we shall
be told that there is a fear on the part of the North that the
border States will then join the Southern Confederacy, if you
permit that day to come I shall not want to be with you. Are
we recreantly to submit to have this country broken into pieces,

VI— 12

178 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

and then dare to think of things that are to happen afterward t
No, sir; there is no thereafter; there is no future beyond that.
I will not look into it. And yet the argument used here to-day
is that we shall, without consideration, without knowing what
will happen to this measure in Kentucky or the other border
States, base this measure only upon things that may happen in
the future, that may happen after that day of infamy. My
policy does not reach so far, nor will I act upon any supposition
of the sort.

Sir, we are in the habit of saying a great many things in the
ardor of our feelings which we would like to recall. My friend
from New York [Mr. Olin] has said so many admirable things
that he will excuse me for alluding to one extravagance of this
sort in the remarks which he has just made. He says that when
it shall be necessary for the preservation of the country he would
be willing to see the negro armed and servile war made in the
South by Southern negroes upon Southern planters — a war of
the black man upon the white man.

How can it ever become necessary for a nation to do what,
in the sight of Qod and man, is condemnable under all circum-
stances? I will not suppose such a case. It is the very argu^
menfum which ranges through the long series of resolutions here
for confiscation and emancipation — that you have a right to do
anything to weaken your enemy and to strengthen yourself. A
doctrine more at war with every principle of ethics, of morals,
and of religion cannot be proclaimed.

In the name of God, what are we fighting for this day ? Are
we not fighting to uphold the Government ; to uphold humanity ;
to put down those who violate law, who would induce to disor-
der, homicide^ and crime 1 And are you to say that you have a
right to commit all manner of crimes for the purpose of accom-
plishing your object? No matter what your enemy was, he could
not be worse than you are, if that is your morality. In a cause
like ours, a glorious cause, which seeks to maintain justice and
liberty and right among men, let not us, its chosen defenders,
sink ourselves down to the level of those who have called forth
this effort on our part to subdue them. This is a great contest.
I want to see it waged on principles that become it; that are
lofty as the subject itself is. It is not necessary for us to do
wrong. It is only necessary for us to behave dutifully toward
our country, and to enforce our laws. We shall thus do our
whole duty, and shall have nothing to upbraid ourselves with
when the war is over.

COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION 179

John Hickman [Pa.], a radical Eepublican, said that
he would vote for the bill, although he thought it of
little practical importance.

It does not possess any great intrinsic merit, for the reason
that its adoption would not constitute legislation. It would be
better distinguished as a plank in the platform of a political
party. If carried through this House it will not even bind the
present House to pass a law, much less a House that shall be
convened in the future. It is, in my judgment, simply a dec-
laration of opinion as to a policy, and nothing more. As I look
at it is is rather a compensation to the North for disappointed
hopes, and a warning to the people of the border slave States.
The President of the United States cannot be ignorant of the
fact that he has, thus far, failed to meet the just expectation of
the party which elected him to the office he holds, and his friends
are to be comforted, not so much by the resolution itself as by
the body of the message, while the people of the border slave
States will not fail to observe that with the comfort to us is
mingled an awful warning to them.

The paper is somewhat of an assurance — slight, I admit —
that the President still has convictions upon the great question
of freedom and slavery, and that in a certain event the interests
of slavery, which he seems anxious to protect, may be prostrated ;
and that, therefore, it is better for the border States to put
themselves in a position to meet a great crisis. It is, therefore,
rather a palliative and caution than an open and avowed policy ;
it is rather an excuse for non-action than an avowed determina-
tion to act. Neither the message nor the resolution is manly and
open. They are both covert and insidious. They do not become
the dignity of the President of the United States. The message
is not such a document as a full-grown independent man should
publish to the nation at such a time as the present, when posi-
tions should be freely and fully defined.

Sir, any man who sits down and carefully reads this message
cannot fail to understand just what it was the President had in
his mind at the time he penned it. In the first place, he sajrs
to the Republican party: '' Gentlemen, I am not such a great
defender of the institution of slavery as you would make the
country believe I am. I am willing that the institution of
slavery shall be sustained, and especially in the border States,
but in case a dissolution of the Union, to any extent, shall occur,
I will see, as far as my official influence extends, that those
border States shall affiliate with the States of the North." In

180 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

the second place, he says to those border States: ** Gentle-
men, I give you warning in time that in the prosecution of
the war a policy may eventually become necessary on the part
of this Administration which will lead to the destruction of the
slave interest in these States."

I am satisfied that I cannot be mistaken as to the points in
the mind of the President. He does look, and we look, and you
gentlemen from the slave States look to a contingency in which
extreme war measures may become necessary. If this Union and
Constitution are deserving of the eulogiums which have been
passed upon them by gentlemen from all sections they are worth
more than the pecuniary interests involved in any single local or
domestic institution; and if you are possessed of the patriotic
feelings which I suppose you to be possessed of, and which I am
willing to admit you are possessed of, you will regard the preser-
vation of the Constitution and the Union as paramount to the
pecuniary interests involved in any domestic institution, not
excepting slavery. That man who is not willing to save the Con-
stitution and the Union by the sacrifice of a private interest is
already a rebel, and I care not upon whose ear that declaration
may fall with harshness ; and, sir, when, a few weeks since, in a
running discussion in this Hall, I propounded the question to
gentlemen from the border slave States whether they would sus-
tain the Constitution and the Union, although it might be neces-
sary to sacrifice slavery to save them, there was but a solitary
and a very feeble voice came up in affirmative response. Now,
sir, although the North has magnanimity, the North has not too
much patience. I proclaim here a fact which has studiously
been concealed, as it seems to me, that the border States are not
in this Union because they love freedom. They are in it because
they fear force.

What means the action of Kentucky maintaining neutrality
in the hour when the Union required friends? If a man pro-
fesses to be a friend of mine I expect him to show his active
friendship in the hour of my trial and my sufferings. Kentucky,
proud, magnanimous Kentucky, as she has been designated here
this morning — and I have nothing to say against either attribute
— ^in that hour of trial and danger stood on the ground of perfect
neutrality. But when the passage of our troops to the national
capital had been secured, when the integrity of the Union
had been put out of danger for the time being, and when
the safety of Kentucky was imperiled, then she was the proud
and magnanimous State to declare herself on the side of the
Union.

COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION 181

And, sir, I do not hedtate to say that, from all I can see,
there is no slave State population that has not the well-being of
slavery so much at heart, and into the composition of whose
hearts slavery does not enter to such an extent that they love
human slavery, with its christianizing and republican influences,
its separations of husbands and wives, of parents and children,
its days of toil without recompense, its servility and utter degra-
dation, its life without hope, and its death without knowledge,
as much as they love the Government. Why, sir, I have found
but one among the Representatives of slave constituencies on this
floor who, when the Union was in the hour of its direst peril,
was ready to make the open and distinct avowal that, if the
Union and slavery could not both be saved, he would save the
Union in preference to slavery.

Now, sir, but one word more. Mr. Lincoln has found himself
between two swords — ^the sword of the party looking to a par-
ticular policy, to be pursued toward a rebellion springing from
slavery, and the sword in the hands of the border States, who
insist all the time that the war shall be prosecuted in such a way
as to save their peculiar, divine, and humanizing institution.
The President of the United States, if he has any recollection —
and I do not know whether he has or not, for I do not perceive
any evidence of the fact — if he has any recollection he will re-
member that he was taken up by a party, sustained and carried
into his high position by a party whose very life was dedicated
to the maintenance of the Constitution and the Union; and
they had the right to expect the adoption of such measures, not
inconsistent with the laws of war, as would be most likely to
crush treason at the earliest moment. And when I say to this
House that the nation at large has been somewhat disappointed
in its reasonable expectation, I may be open to a charge of in-
discretion, but not to one of misrepresentation.

I say, further, that the nation has felt a great lack of confi-
dence, not only in the President, but in those military leaders
put in the highest position by the President. He knows this
well, and has made some changes. He knows, further, that the
people of the Northern States regard this Government as sacred,
and will never allow the sacrilegious hand to touch it without
striking it off, and that its downfall cannot precede Northern
desolation and death. No matter what interests may perish, no
matter what lives may be sacrificed, they will command that the
war shall be prosecuted with the greatest vigor, and that the
Government shall be reestablished, even if it be but over smold-
ering cities and wasted lands.

182 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

I speak for myself alone ; I do not speak for organizations,
political or otherwise, and I assome the responsibility. That
may be my misfortune.

"Never mind!
My words, at least, are more sincere and hearty

Than if I sought to sail before the wind.
He who has naught to gain can have small art; he

Who neither wishes to be bound nor bind
May still expatiate freely, as will I,
Nor give my voice to slavery's jackal cry."

The bill passed the House on March 11 by a vote of
89 to 31. It came up in the Senate on March 24.

Compensated Emancipation
Senate, March 24-ApRni 2, 1862

Willard Saulsbury [Del.] denounced the bill as in
effect an interference with slavery in the States by
fomenting agitation upon the subject, and by holding
out inducements for the abolition of the institution.
Whether force or bribery was used to accomplish this
end, it was an infraction of the solemn pledge of the
Eepublican party not to touch slavery in the States.

On March 26 James A. McDougall [Dem.], of Cali-
fornia, opposed the bill on the ground that it would
be ineffectual — indeed, would defeat the very end aimed
at by arousing antagonism to emancipation through
agitating the question.

I have seen the time when I hoped Missouri would soon
provide for the gradual emancipation of her slaves, and it would
have been done but for agitation. The same thing has been
known in the history of Kentucky, Virginia, Maryland, and
Delaware. I believe that by the just administration of the Gov-
ernment of its own affairs the legitimate course of events will
accomplish all these results yet; but they never will be accom-
plished by legislation. We may have this subject agitated ses-
sion after session, year after year, Congress after Congress,
angry discussions, expensive discussions, profitless discussions —
Federal legislation cannot cure this evil ; it cannot be reached by
any such medicine; for favorable times, circumstances, events,

COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION 183

we may hope ; but if we here undertake the management of this
great social problem we will find that we are not merely antici-
pating, but that we are usurping the ways of Providence, and
assuming an office higher than any to which we have been yet
elected.

Lazarus W. Powell [Ky.] regarded the measure as
*'a pill of arsenic, sugar-coated/' its object being to
inaugurate Abolition parties in the border States.

I happened a few nights ago, through curiosity, to go to the
Smithsonian Institution, to hear a man of some distinction as an
orator and lecturer in this country. There I heard this man,
Wendell Phillips, for half an hour, and he distinctly announced,
after eulogizing the President very highly for this message, that
the interpretation of it was simply saying to the border slave
State men: ''Gentlemen, if you do not take this we will take
your negroes anyhow." That was the interpretation given to it
by some gentlemen of the House of Representatives, and that,
in my opinion, is the plain, distinct, and proper interpretation of
the message, when you take it as a whole.

Lot M. Morrill [Me.] defended the proposition of
the President as generous and just. He could not con-
ceive how it could possibly be offensive to any man
who had not made up his mind to hold slavery supreme
above the Constitution and the integrity and welfare
of the Union.

John B. Henderson [Dem.], of Missouri, supported
the bill (and, indeed, thereafter acted as an emancipa-
tionist).

It has been urged with a great deal of power in the border
slaveholding States that the design of the bill is to effect the
emancipation of the slaves in the border slaveholding States, and
then to consent to a dissolution of the Union. I have no idea
that any such thing is really contemplated.

The institution of slavery in the State of Missouri has not
been sufficient, notwithstanding it has been deemed by Senators
here to be sufficient in a great many of the States — ^because
slavery has been charged to be the cause of all our troubles —
to withdraw the people of my State from their allegiance to the

184 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

Federal Oovemment. There are other interests in Missouri
besides the interests of slavery of equal, if not superior, impor-
tance. One of the great reasons inducing them to remain firm
and fixed to the Union is that they will never consent to sur-
render their right to the Mississippi River, over every inch of it,
from the borders of Missouri to the Gulf of Mexico ; and, sir, if
they lose all idea that that is to be an object of the majority
here, it will inevitably affect their feelings in the future.

We of the South have been annually frightened by some
imaginary plot for the overthrow of slavery in the United States.
We have been regularly informed by a race of politicians^ whose
watchful and jealous regard for our true interests has been about
equal to that of the Abolitionist for the negro, that unless they
were continued in power the whole institution would be immedi-
ately upset, the owner robbed of his property, and the negro
made equal, if not superior, to the white man. We have listened
to these stories, and been made alike to fear and hate the most
unsubstantial and harmless thing on earth.

Why was this war forced upon us, and who are its authors f
However opposed I may be to some radical measures which have
been introduced in Congress, and which, no doubt, are largely
attributable to the feelings engendered by this unjustifiable war,
yet candor compels the Union men of the border States to do
justice to the President, and even to his friends in Congress.
This terrible revolution was brought about by Mr. Yancey and
his confederates, by inflaming the Southern mind against the
dangers of Abolition, which they knew to be false. They drove
the South to madness, to self-destruction.

Now, sir, what has been the result of this unnecessary strife
upon my State. In 1860 our slave population was one hundred
and fourteen thousand nine hundred and sixty-five. Our white
population at the same period was upward of one million. How
is it now? I doubt whether there are fifty thousand slaves in
the State.

The true value of real and personal property in Missouri in
1860 was $501,214,398. Aside from the depreciation of value,
which no man can now estimate, and beyond the loss of slaves
to which I have referred, I think it safe to say that ten per cent,
of this vast amount of property has been destroyed and forever
lost to the owners in consequence of this war — an amount equal
to the aggregate value of all the slaves in the State at the com-
mencement of hostilities.

If I were to add to this the loss occasioned to the people of
the State by the utter prostration of its agricultural, commercial.

COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION 185

and manufacturing interests for the last twelve months I might
add fifty millions more to the sum already named.

Looking, then, to my own State, I am not disposed to take
issue with the President in regard to the future results of the
war. I regard his expression as a prophecy, and not as a threat
— a prophecy that I feel will be realized if this war continues.
It is a new pledge of faith by the representatives of the people
that this vexed question shall be left with the people of each
State. It comes not in the spirit of arrogance, demanding con-
formity with the views of others, but with humility acknowledg-
ing if slavery be an evil it is a sin for which we are all respon-
sible, and for the removal of which we are willing to come with
practical benevolence. It means more than all this. It inti-
mates to the States that the nation would prefer gradual to im-
mediate emancipation, and that the measures now pending in
Congress, looking to such results, should be superseded by one
of conciliation and good will.

If this spirit had been more largely cultivated in dajB gone
by we would not this day be forced to witness a ruined South
and a deeply oppressed North. Why, sir, ninety-six days of this
war would pay for every slave, at full value, in the States of
Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, Delaware, and the District of
Columbia. Nine months of the expenditures of this strife would
have purchased all the slaves in the States named, together with
those in Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana, thus
preserving in peace the whole of the Mississippi to the Gulf.
Less than two years of these expenditures would have paid for
every slave that treads the soil of the nation. If Northern men
had treasured these things, and learned that kind words can
accomplish more than wrath, and if Southern men had resolved
to look upon slavery as upon other questions of moral and po-
litical economy, and both had determined to examine this as all
other subjects, in calmness and deliberation, we would have been
spared the evils that now oppress us.

Mr. President, I have made up my mind to cast my vote for
the resolution, and to leave it with the people of my State. I
am indifferent as to the result upon myself. I feel that it is
altogether a change from what we have witnessed for the last
number of years on the floor of this and the other House. In-
stead of that wrangling controversy, instead of those rushing
waves of tumult, of ill feeling, and of anger that have been en-
gendered in the discussion of this question, it marches up and
takes hold of the slavery question as a practical one, worthy of
the calm, cool, and deliberate judgment of those in whom the

186 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

nation has trosted its prosperity and its future greatness. Then,
sir, I shall cast my vote for it. I regard it as no insult to the
people of my State ; I regard it as no threat ; but I regard it as
a measure that is conciliatory, and looks to the future peace and
harmony of the country, and to the early restoration of the
Union.

On April 2 John Sherman [0.] spoke in behalf of
the billy closing the debate.

It is said that the resolution of the President now before us
looks to an interference with slavery in the Statea I do not so
construe it. It does not assert the power or advise us to inter-
fere with slavery in the States. On the contrary, it, by necessary
implication as strong as express denial, denies the power. If
the State of Maryland should, in its wisdom, see fit to commence
a system of gradual emancipation of slaves, would they not have
the right by this bill to call upon us for aid and assistance ? We
here announce beforehand that we will give them pecuniary aid,
but not until they call for it. It is right that we should announce
that doctrine. It is right that they should inaugurate that sys-
tem ; and I believe that in the providence of Almighty God the
system will be inaugurated more rapidly even than we now hope
for.

Why should we not give this aid ? By it we accomplish great
purposes. We banish from the Halls of Congress a disturbing
element which in some form or other will permeate this body and
every political organization in this country. It is for the peace
and quiet and comfort of our people we should aid any State
desiring to emancipate their slaves.

Besides, the policy of emancipation would tend to develop
the resources of the States in a wonderful degree. Why, sir, I
visited the other day the Chesapeake Bay, James River, and
York River. It surprises me beyond expression that that mag-
nificent region, with resources unrivaled in this country, is not
now peopled by a million of men. When I look upon those deep
bays, those fertile fields, requiring only energetic labor to develop
them, when I see those marts of commerce in the very center of
our Atlantic coast, I wonder in amazement that a million of men
are not now crowded there, delving and striking and working
with honest toil for an honest reward. But, sir, there is no other
cause for this lack of development except simply that labor,
upon which all civilization depends; labor which has built up
New York, New England, and the West, is there degraded by

COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION 187

the presence of slaves, so that the master mnst live on the labor
of the slaves, and the slaves must work for the master without
hope of reward.

Sixty years ago Ohio was a wilderness, now she has two and
a half millions of people. I believe that if Virginia was a free
State now, in thirty years from this time she would contain
three or four millions of people. Therefore I say that, if I
were a citizen of a border State, I would at once raise the banner
of gradual emancipation; I would call on the general Govern-
ment for aid, and, for one, if I should happen to be a member of
this body, I will give that aid cordially and freely.

But it is said that Congress by giving this aid would inter-
fere with slavery. The resolution of the President does not say
that Congress shall render this aid, but that the United States
ought to cooperate. It may be necessary to call upon the States;
and I think I can say in advance that, if Kentucky should free
her slaves, Ohio would gladly respond to anything that Ken-
tucky would ask. She would gladly pay the debt she owes from
the war of 1812 by any aid that Kentucky might ask of her.

The policy and the effect of emancipation in the border States
would undoubtedly be to induce the slaves to go southward.
They would commence a kind of hegira southward, and free
people from the Old World and from the Northern States would
go down to the border States. I have no doubt that the tide of
emigration, having now met the vast plains and deserts of the
West, will gradually seek a home southward. If you will wel-
come it, avail yourself of it, use that labor to develop your
resources, it will make the people of Kentucky and of these bor-
der States rich, prosperous, and happy. The owner of seventeen
hundred acres of land will be worth three times as much as his
lands and his slaves are now worth. Labor makes everything
and not the mere possession of land.

I am willing, therefore, to adopt the policy of the President
in regard to slavery in the States, to abolish slavery in this Dis-
trict, to promote a system of voluntary colonization. I am also
in favor of confiscation ; I think such a measure should be passed
promptly. We must seize upon the property of these men who
have taken up arms against the Government. Our people, when
they come to pay taxes, will demand it. These men know it.
They themselves are confiscating all the property of their own
citizens who will not take up arms. Tou must in war adopt the
laws and policy of war. I am, therefore, in favor of the most
rigid law of confiscation against the leaders of this rebellion;
but I would, as an act of wisdom, of amnesty, of wise forbear-

188 GREAT AMERICAN. DEBATES

ance, and moderation, authorize the President at any time to
proclaim an amnesty to the great masses of the rebels. As to
those who have led, the captains of companies, the members of
Congress, the leaders in the rebellion, all those who have staked
their property upon it, men of intelligence and character, I
would, without mercy, prosecute the laws of confiscation and
war against them to the furthest extent. Let us adopt this
policy, guided by wise moderation, controlled by a manly ear-
nestness and a determination to stand by each other, and I be-
lieve the Republican party will not only save the country, but
will put the country in a march of prosperity of which we have
heretofore had no example. If, on the contrary, any useless
measures of legislation, looking to extreme means, be adopted,
prejudicing the great mass of the people of the Southern States,
destroying their rights as citizens of those States, or reducing
the States to Territories, it will only exasperate the people of
those States more and more, will make conquest impossible, and
a reunion of all the States utterly futile. I believe that by a
wise system we may, one by one, gather these States again into
the folds of the Union ; and if the Republican party, through its
wisdom and ability, shall carry the country through this revolu-
tion, I do not fear for the verdict of the popular will. I have
heard some of my friends express a doubt, and say, ' ' let us do
this now, because after a while we may not have the power." I
will do what I think is right, and I have an abiding confidence
in the people of the United States that they will stand by those
who follow their convictions of duty with moderation and good
Bense.

The bill was then passed by a vote of 32 yeas, includ-
ing Henderson, Garrett Davis [Ky.], and Waitman T.
Willey [Va.], to 10 nays, mostly from the border States.

Abolition of Slavebt in the Tebbitobies

On March 24, 1862, Isaac N. Arnold [111.] introduced
in the House a bill abolishing slavery without compensa-
tion in every existing Territory, and prohibiting it in
all which might be formed in the future. It was re-
ferred to the Committee on Territories. On May 1 it
was reported from the committee by Owen Lovejoy [HL].
The bill was bitterly opposed by the Democrats : Samuel

COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION 189

S. Cox [0.] called it a complete justification of the
charges of the secessionists that the Republicans had
never intended to abide by the pledges of the Chicago
platform, and therefore that its title should be **A Bill
for the Benefit of Secession and of Jeff. Davis/' John
W. Crisfield [Md.] characterized the bill as **a palpable
violation of the rights of the States, and an unwarranta-
ble interference with private property — a fraud upon
those States which have made cessions of land to the
Government, and a violation of the Constitution/'
Judge Benjamin F. Thomas [Mass.] ably opposed the
bill because of the lack of compensation to slaveholders
in it, and to remove this objection the feature of com-
pensation was added. The bill was then passed by vote
of 85 yeas, including all the Republicans and two Demo-
crats, William T. SheflSeld [R. I.] and Judge Thomas,
to 50 nays.

The bill was reported in the Senate by Orville H.
Browning [111.] on May 15, and on June 9 it was passed
by a strict party vote of 28 yeas to 10 nays. On June
19 it was approved by the President

Lincoln 's Appeal to the Bobdeb States

On July 12 President Lincoln read to the border
State Representatives in Congress an appeal that their
States adopt compensated emancipation.

If the war continues loug, as it must if the object be not
sooner attained, the institution of slavery in your States will be
extinguished by mere friction and abrasion — ^by the mere inci-
dents of the war. It will be gone, and you will have nothing
valuable in lieu of it. Much of its value is gone already.

I am pressed with a difSculty which threatens divlEdon among
those who, united, are none too strong. An instance of it is
known to you. General Hunter is an honest man. He was, and
I hope stUl is, my friend. I valued him none the less for his
agreeing with me in the general wish that all men everywhere
could be free. He proclaimed all men free within certain
States, and I repudiated the proclamation. He expected more
good and less harm from the measure than I could believe would
follow. Yet, in repudiating it, I gave dissatisfaction, if not'

190 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

offence, to many whose support the country cannot afford to lose.
And this is not the end of it. The pressure in this direction is
still upon me, and is increasing. By conceding what I now
ask you can relieve me, and, much more, can relieve the country,
in this important point.

In his annual message of December 1, 1862, the Presi-
dent was forced to report on his favorite project of
colonization that no countries were willing to accept the
freedmen as citizens except Liberia and Hayti, and to
these the freedmen were unwilling to migrate.

He had, however, a more favorable report to present
of State action in regard to compensated emancipation,
a number of loyal slave States having initiated legisla-
tion looking to this end.

The passage of the Thirteenth Amendment abolish-
ing slavery superseded Federal action in regard to com-
pensation.

CHAPTER Vn

Punishment of Treason

Thomas D. Eliot [Mass.] Introdnees in the House, and Lyman Tmmbull
[lU.] in the Senate, a Bill to Confiscate Property of Bebels — Speeches
against the Bill by Sen. Edgar Cowan [Pa.] and Sen. James B. Doo-
little [Wis.]— Daniel Clark [N. H.] Introduces in Senate Bill to Eman-
cipate Slaves of Rebels, Garrett Davis [Ky.] Opposes It — Mr. Eliot In-
troduces Confiscation and Emancipation Bills in the House — Debate:
in Favor, Mr. Eliot; Opposed, Benjamin F. Thomas [Mass.], Samuel
S. Cox [O.], John Law [Ind.] — Conference of Senate and House Re-
ports Combined Confiscation and Emancipation Bill — ^It Is Passed — No
Punishments Inflicted for Treason.

THE policy of punishing treason by confiscation of
the property of rebels, at least their slaves, had
been timidly suggested in the extra session of
Congress (July- August, 1861), but no action was then
taken to this end. Early in the present session it was
more definitely proposed: on December 2, 1861, by
Thomas D. Eliot [Mass.] in the House; and on Decem-
ber 5, by Lyman Trumbull [111.] in the Senate. The
proposition with various amendments, sometimes includ-
ing other property than slaves, was hotly discussed in
both Houses throughout the session in intervals of other
measures, and in connection with these when they dealt
with the question of emancipation. By all the Demo-
crats, and by some of the more conservative Republicans,
the proposition was denounced as utterly and glaringly
in antagonism to the Constitution and the pledges of
the dominant party, and as calculated to extinguish the
last vestige of Unionism in the seceded States, and to
imperil it in the loyal border States. Thus Edgar Cowan
[Sep.], a Senator from Pennsylvania, said, on March
4,1862:

191

192 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

Against Confiscation op Rebel Pbopbbty

Senator Cowan

We are standing now squarely face to face with questions of
most pregnant significance. Shall we stand or fall hy the Con-
stitution, or shall we leave it and adventure ourselves upon the
wide sea of revolution f Shall we attempt to liberate the slaves
of the people of the rebellious States, or shall we leave them to
regulate their domestic institutions the same as before the re-
bellion f Shall we go back to the doctrine of forfeitures which
marked the middle ages, and introduce feuds which intervening
centuries have not yet sufficed to quiet T These are great ques-
tions, and they are in this bill, every one of them.

This bill proposes, at a single stroke, to strip four millions of
people of all their property, real, personal, and mixed, of every
kind whatsoever, and reduce them at once to absolute poverty ;
and that, too, at a time when four hundred thousand of them
are in the field opposing us desperately.

Now, sir, it does seem to me that, if there was anything in
the world calculated to make that four millions of people and
their four hundred thousand soldiers in the field now and for-
ever hostile to us and our (Government, it would be the promul-
gation of a law such as this. Will they yield to us sooner in
view of such a result to themT What would we be likely to do
if they were to threaten us with a similar law f Would we ever,
under any circumstances, yield on terms like those f I need
hardly ai^ that question to men descended from sires who re-
fused to pay the tax on teas, and from grandsires who rose in
rebellion and overturned a monarchy rather than pay twenty
shillings ship money — for that, I believe, was the sum demanded
from Hampden, and which cost Charles I his head.

The English conquerors of Ireland, in their long series of
forfeitures and confiscations, from the time of Strongbow down
to the rebellion of 1798, never, at any time, ventured upon such
a sweeping measure as this; their attainders exhausted them-
selves upon the Irish nobility, and they never were rash Plough
to strip the Irish people.

I do not know the value of the property forfeited by this
bill ; I cannot even approximate it, except to say that it is enor-
mous — ^to be computed by billions. But, sir, the bill goes
further, and forfeits a vast amount of property of the rebels
which, when forfeited, cannot be confiscated or put into the
coffers of the conquerors — ^I mean their property in negro staves.

PUNISHMENT OF TREASON 193

This bill would liberate perhaps three millionB of slaves surely
the most stupendous stroke for universal emaDCipation ever be
fore attempted m the world nay I think it equivalent if car
ried out to a virtual liberation of the whole four imllions of
slaves in the Union

Now I do not mean to stop here to discuss their right to this
species of property it is enough for me to say that all the
people of the slave States loyal and rebellious seem to agree as

^'l^t^.-^'}"^ "^^

WHAT THE THIKTY- SEVENTH CONQBESS HAS DONS

[ConflMation Act and Bankrupt Act]

From Ou ceOtcUoa of DM Ktu York Public Library

to this with a wonderful unanimity, and to resent with an exces-
sive sensibility any interference with it whatever. And, al-
though in the bitterness of the feuds engendered by the civil
war now raging among them, the loyalists there would be glad to
join in inilicting upon the rebels even the severest pimishments,
yet this one they abhor and refuse, because they aver that it
would be equally injurious to them as to their enemies.

But what is to be the effect of it upon the wart Will we be
stronger after it than before; or will we find we have doubled
the number of those in arms against uat They have now no
cause of war; will not this measure furnish them one, and one
they think more just a-id holy than any other! Let the loyal
VJ— 13

194 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

men who know them also answer this question. I will abide their
answer.

Those who favor this astounding bill seem determined to be-
wilder and blind us still more hy an additional project of
greater magnificence and, if possible, of greater difSculty; and
that is, in the duty it imposes upon the President, of procuring
a home for these emancipated millions in some tropical country,
and of transporting, colonizing, and settling them there, if they
desire to go, with guaranties for their rights as freemen ! Surely,
sir, we must have been recently transi)orted away from the sober
domain of practical fact, and set down in the regions of eastern
fiction, if we can for a moment entertain this proposition seri-
ously. Do the advocates of the scheme propose to confer upon
the President the gold-making touch of Midas f One would
think the universal menstruum or the philosophers' stone had
been at last discovered. Certainly, nothing short of the ring and
lamp of Aladdin, with their attendant genii, would enable us in
our present condition to assure the President of his ability to
enter upon such a task, unless, indeed, it is conceived the treas-
ury note is of equal potency in this behalf. If so, the sovereign
of the tropical country and the transportation companies ought
to be consulted in regard to the legal tender clause. I supi>08e
it is not expected that the exodus can be supported on the way
by quails and manna ; and yet, I am free to say, it will need the
miraculous interposition of Heaven quite as much as did that of
the Israelites of old.

Then there is a further consideration involved in this bill
of still greater moment than even those I have already glanced
at; and that is its direct conflict with the Constitution of the
United States, requiring us, indeed, should we pass it, to set
aside and ignore that instrument in all its most valuable and
fundamental provisions ; those which guarantee the life, liberty,
and property of the citizen, and those which define the boun-
daries between the powers delegated to th%: several departments
of the Government.

Pass this bill, sir, and all that is left of the Constitution is
not worth much. Certainly it is not worth a terrible and de-
structive war, such as we now wage for it. And it must be re-
membered that that war is waged solely for the Constitution,
and for the ends, aims, and purposes sanctioned by it, and for
no others.

I am aware, however, that some think the Constitution, is a
restraint upon the free action of the nation in the conduct of
the war, which they suppose could be carried on a great deal

PUNISHMENT OF TREASON 195

better without it, etc. Now, sir, I have no hesitation in saying
that no greater mistake ever was made in the world than is made
by such people, because, under the Constitution, we have full
and ample power delegated to the general (Government to enable
it to do, in war as well as peace, everything which a Government
ought to be allowed to do; while, at the same time, it has laid
down accurately upon its charts all those rocks upon which
other governments have been split and wrecked heretofore, with
the proper prohibitions to prevent us from seeking our destruc-
tion upon them. And I will venture to say that there is not a
restraint it imposes which is not salutary, and which, if thrown
oflf, will not prove most destructive. The real danger consists
in the fact that the prohibited measures are all of them at first
sight most plausible ; they are not roaring breakers, obvious to
all, but sunken rocks in a calm sea, where the chart of experi-
ence is most necessary to guide the political pilot, if he is pru-
dent enough to take the warning.

Congress cannot forfeit the property of rebels for longer
than their lives, by the enactment of any law whatever, for the
following reasons:

1. Those persons now in rebellion, having levied war against
the United States, are guilty of treason within the exact defi-
nition of that crime contained in the third section of the third
article of the Constitution, in which it is declared that

'' Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war
against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and com-
fort."

Hence, as soon as the rebels are arrested and brought within
the power of any law we may pass, they become eo insianii^
traitors, and obnoxious to the punishment which is imposed by
our statute for treason. As long, however, as the rebel is at
large, or in the hands of the military, he cares nothing for the
law, and is not amenable to it, because the military power can-
not try him under the law — ^that must be done by the courts.
But the second clause of that same section provides further, that

"The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason,
but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture,
except during the life of the person attainted.''

Therefore any law made for the guidance of the courts must
conform to this provision, and no other or greater penalty could

*"In that instant."

196 GREAT AlIERICAN DEBATES

be imposed than it would warrant. If, therefore, the law was
to enact an absolute forfeiture of the estates of the traitor, it
would be bad for the excess, and the judges would be obliged
to make the sentence constitutional, either hy cutting down the
statutory penalty to a forfeiture of his estates for life, or by
omitting to forfeit them at alL AU this seems to me so obvious
as not to be doubted.

2. The power assumed in this bill is also obnoxious to the
provisions of the Constitution, if it be assumed that Congress
can legislate an effectual forfeiture of the estates of rebels, as
such, without allowing them an opportunity or means of trial in
the courts. Because,

By the fifth amendment to the Constitution, it is provided :

"No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous
crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jurj, except in
cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia when in actual
service, in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject,
for tho samo oflFence, to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor
shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself;
nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensa-
tion.''

Here it is attempted to deprive a large class of persons of all
their estates and property, without any arrest, without any pre-
sentment by a grand jury, without any trial by a petit jury,
without, indeed, any trial at all in any court. This would be
to deprive them of their property in the very face of the pro-
vision requiring that it shall only be done "by due process of
law," which, all commentators and all lawyers agree, means
proceedings according to the course of the common law.

I am aware that this will seem strange to some people who
think that, as we are at war with the rebels, we ought of course
to be able to enact any law we pleased, inflicting upon them pun-
ishment befitting their crimes. Such people, however, will do
well to remember that our Government is not one of absolute
powers — it is in no respect omnipotent or restrained only by its
own sense of propriety or policy. On the contrary, its powers
are limited to those expressly delegated to it, and are not to be
implied from any supposed necessity that they ought to be there,
or that it was intended to confer them. Besides this, the powers
actually delegated are also distributed and divided to and among
the several departments of the Government which are to exercise
them. These, too, must confine themselves severally to their

PUNISHMENT OF TREASON 197

functions as fixed by the terms of the grant. Congress has its
party the President has his part, and the courts their part. Now
Congress, for instance, has no power to punish anybody (except
for contempts), and to-day, if we had half a dozen of the worst
rebels caged here in this Chamber, we could inflict upon them
no punishment. We could not order the sergeant-at-arms to
hang or behead them, no matter how certain we might be of their
guilt. Nay, more, the President himself and all his army could
not lead them away from this hall to execution. The only way
they could be punished at all would be to deliver them over to
the judges — ^the proper judges — ^because no one judge might
have a right to try all of them. Nay, it is possible every one of
them might have to be tried by his separate judge, in his sepa-
rate court and district. There, again, the functions of the
judges, in such cases, are limited — a jury shares them, and its
members are the exclusive judges of the facts, while, after the
condemnation and judgment, the sheriff or marshal would be the
only person having the right to execute the judgment.

I may also further remark that it is in this limitation of the
powers of the Government, and their distribution after the man-
ner of the Constitution, that its great merit consists. On those
accounts we love, cherish, and revere it ; and because it has such
features we are now at war with all our force and treasure to
defend and preserve it. Had we no Constitution limiting its
powers, defining its agencies, fixing the boundaries of their rights
and duties under it, nobody would lift a hand for it ; and if you
make it usurp powers not granted at all, not granted to the
usurping department, then our war for it is a great mistake if
not a great wickedness.

Again, this is further guarded against in the ninth section
of the first article and third clause, as follows:

''No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed."

A bill of attainder was a mode of proceeding resorted to in
England, as well as in some of the United States during the Rev-
olution, to condemn and punish traitors, by Parliament or the
legislature, in cases where they were out of the reach of the
process of the courts ; nay, indeed, in many cases even after they
were dead. In such cases the law-making branch of the Govern-
ment supplied the want of due process of law by blending to-
gether in one statute the law and the application of the law to
particular persons named therein, or to a class of persons by
description. Bills of attainder condemned the accused to death

198 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

(if not dead already), forfeited their estates, and corrupted the
inheritable blood of their children and heirs, so that no one
could take any estate either from or through thein. Bills, how-
ever, like the one under consideration, which does not propose
to inflict capital punishment, or corrupt the blood of the offend-
ers, but imposed other penalties of lesser grade, were called
"bills of pains and penalties."

It may be said the latter are not within the prohibition, and
therefore allowable here. It is true they are not within the let-
ter of it, but being equally within the mischief, which was that
the legislature should in any case attempt to usurp and exercise
the functions of the courts ; and construing the fifth amendment
in connection, I have no doubt they are also prohibited. Indeed,
no one can come to any other conclusion but that the convention
which framed the Constitution intended to remove every pos-
sibility of the usurpation, by Congress, of the power to punish
anybody without "due process of law."

Besides, to grant our power of passing biUs of pains and
penalties is to nullify the whole effect of the clause, inasmuch
as it is easy, by passing several of these against the same person,
to make their aggregate result precisely the same as a bill of
attainder. Such a construction would defeat the provision in-
stead of making it avail, as intended.

We are not left, however, without authority as to this point,
if any were needed to give force to the reason adduced for it,
because Judge Story, in his "Commentary on the Constitution,"
at section 1344, says:

"But in the sense of the Constitution, it seems that bills of attainder
include bills of pains and penalties; for the Supreme Court have said, 'A
bill of attainder may affect the life of an individual, or may confiscate
his property, or both.' "

And for this he cites Fletcher vs. Peck, 6 Cranch's Reports,
137; 1 Kent's Commentaries, sec. 19, p. 382; and this was well
shown by the honorable Senator from California [James A. Mc-
Dougall] .

This, then, being, in the language of the Supreme Court, a
bill of attainder, and in the stricter language of the common law
a bill of pains and penalties, is clearly within the prohibition
contained in the clause read ; and nothing which I can say is so
apposite as the remainder of the section quoted from Judge
Story, and from it all may see the view taken of such laws as
this by a jurist so eminent— one, too, sitting calmly in his closet
and free from all those exciting influences which, in troubled

PUNISHMENT OF TREASON 199

tiines like ours, are so apt to warp our judgments and blind our
reason to the truth :

"The injustice and iniquity of such acts, in general, constitute an irre-
sistible argument against the existence of the power. In a free govern-
ment it would be intolerable; and, in the hands of a reigning faction, it
might be, and probably would be, abused, to the ruin and death of the
most virtuous citizens. Bills of this sort have been most usually passed,
in England, in times of rebellion, or of gross subserviency to the Crown,
or of violent political' excitements — ^periods in which all nations are most
liable (as weU the free as the enslaved) to forget their duties, and to
trample upon the rights and liberties of others."

I now propose to go further and argue that the exercise of
such a power, even if it had been granted, would now be mis-
chievous and impolitic, and that our fathers did vdsely and well
in refusing it. By their just leniency they showed that they
looked beyond the hour of conflict to the better day of reconcilia-
tion, and offered a bounty to the heirs of the guilty that they
might be loyal. I may say, too, that the civilized world, at least
in all Christendom, have come to this same conclusion, and have
generally purged their statute-books of such a relic of angry
barbarism :

"The reasons commonly assigned for these severe punishments, beyond
the mere forfeiture of the life of the party attainted, are these: by com-
mitting treason the party has broken his original bond of allegiance, and
forfeited his social rights. Among these social rights, that of transmitting
property to others is deemed one of the chief and most valuable. More-
over, such forfeitures, whereby the posterity of the offender must suffer,
as well as himself, will help to restrain a man, not only by the sense of
his duty and dread of personal punishment, but also by his passions and
natural affections; and will interest every dependent and relation he has
to keep from offending. But this view of the subject is wholly unsatisfac-
tory. It looks only to the offender himself, and is regardless of his inno-
cent posterity. It really operates as a posthumous punishment upon them,
and compels them to bear, not only the disgrace naturally attendant upon
such flagitious crimes, but takes from them the common rights and privi-
leges enjoyed by all other citizens, where they are wholly innocent, and
however remote they may be in the lineage from the first offender. It
surely is enough for society to take the life of the offender, as a just pun-
ishment of his crime, without taking from his offspring and relatives that
property which may be the only means of saving them from poverty and
ruin. It is bad poUcy, too; for it cuts off all the attachments which these
unfortunate victims might otherwise feel for their own government, and
prepares them to engage in any other service, by which their supposed in-
juries may be redressed, or their hereditary hatred gratified. Upon these
and similar grounds it may be presumed that the clause was first intro-
duced into the original draft of the Constitution; and after some amend-
ments it was adopted without any apparent resistance. By the laws since
passed by Congress, it is declared that no conviction or judgment, for any

200 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

capital or other offences, shall work cormption of blood, or anj forfeiture
of estate. The history of other countries abundantly proves that one of
the strong incentives to prosecute offences as treason has been the chance
of sharing in the plunder of the victims. Bapacity has been thus stimu-
lated to exert itself in the service of the most corrupt tyranny; and tyr-
anny has been thus furnished with new opportunities of indulging its
malignity and revenge, of gratifying its envy of the rich and good, and of
increasing its means to reward favorites, and secure retainers for the worst
deeds." — Story's "Commentaries on the Constitution," See. 1500.

In the light of this exposition let us follow the consequences
of this bill into detail, and let us suppose its provisions fully
carried out. Our armies have overrun the whole territories of
the Confederate States; resistance has entirely ceased; and the
President and his ofScers being masters of the country, they
have time to finish the residue of their work by gathering in the
balance of the property of the rebels not already taken to supply
the ''military necessities" of the suppression. The rebels them-
selves are homeless, houseless, and propertyless ; and the ques-
tion arises, have you made them loyal by your severity! Are
you assured their love for the Union will return again after this
chastisement? Have you thought how they would shout at the
sight of the glorious old banner — ^**the stars and stripes" —
which brought them such deliverance t

Mr. President, these people are to be again our brethren and
kinsmen, if such a thing is possible ; but it does seem to me that,
by such laws as this, you will make that possibility a very remote
one. Will not their women and children hate you, and their
children's children hate and curse you down to the latest gen-
eration; and whenever they get a chance will they not rebel
against you? Have you not sown the seeds of many rebellions
by this one ill-advised act? All this might make little or no
difference if they were of hostile race and alien enemies, and if
we were making war upon them for conquest and subjugation.
But that is not the fact. We have here in these Halls of Con-
gress solemnly declared that the war was for no such purpose,
but that it was for the purpose of compelling obedience to the
Constitution and the laws; and I am for standing upon that
declaration.

The Constitution and the laws being restored and obedience
tendered, is this law one of them ? Now, we suppose that a large
number of people everywhere in the Confederate States were
constrained, even by force, to join in the rebellion — are these to
suffer upon the same scaffolds with the willing traitor; and is
there no difference to be made between the general who betrayed
his country and the soldier he has compelled to march at his

PUNISHMENT OF TREASON 201

bidding at the head of a rebel column t This bill makes none;
and, if it did, it makes no provision to try it and determine its
value when it is found ; the officers have seized the property, and
the victim of force in the beginning ends by being the victim of
wrong and injustice. To him the Constitution and laws are not
yet restored. Again : thousands of these people have been duped
into rebellion by being told that we of the North were all Aboli-
tionists — ^intent, when we had the power, to wield it for the
emancipation of their slaves, and the destruction of their social
system. What does your bill do with these— these men, who be-
lieved the falsehood because it was first asserted by Southern
demagogues and then proved and corroborated by Northern
knaves f Is there no difference here, again, between the wily
traitor and his simple dupef This bill makes none, but includes
within its terms the whole rebel population, of every state and
degree, from the lordly planter down to the negro laborer; and
the broad acres of the one, as well as the narrow hovel of the
other, are alike forfeit under it.

But the President and his officers ar^ to dispose of these con-
fiscated estates. Who will buy themT What kind of neighbor-
hood will exist between the former owner or his heirs and your
alienees or their heirs T How the delights of this society will
enhance the value of those estates to the purchasers, especially
when they reflect that the forfeiture will never be forgotten in
the family of the rebel, and that, if they have no other, they
can transmit this inheritance to their descendants unimpaired
for centuries! The tradition of it will sit continually by the
hearthstone of that family a hideous specter, deathless for ages,
prompting to revenge and inciting to rebellion. Sir, your thrifty
purchasers will not like incumbrances such as these hanging over
your forfeited estates ; and you might as well try to attract them
and their capital to your vendue by promising they should be
entitled, as appurtenant to the land offered for sale, to an Irish
feud in perpetuity or a Corsican vendetta in fee to them and
their heirs forever. Such titles have never been desirable. In the
French Revolution, even when its success seemed well assured
the holders of the assignats refused to buy the public domain
with them, although at that time (August, 1793) the franc
assignat had so depreciated that the metal franc was worth nine
of them. Sir, you might as well expect capital to seek the margin
of an extinct volcano before the lava had cooled for investments
in real estate. The only purpose forfeitures ever served in an-
cient times was to furnish a means of payment to the hardy
soldier who achieved their conquest ; his title was in his sword,

202 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

and he conld maintain it. That which is taken in war mnst be
kept in war. Every hill must have its castle, and every march
its wardens. But surely this is not one of the ** dispositions'*
the President and his officers are to make of this property.

As a Republican, standing upon the Constitution as con-
strued by that party, I protest against this bill as being a total
and entire departure from the principles of that instrument,
most mischievous at this time, because it uselessly distracts,
divides, and weakens the friends of the country when they ought
to be united and of one accord in action, if ever such were needed
before. In addition to this, it would make us do of all things in
the world that which would most gratify and strengthen our
enemies everywhere — ^worth to-day more than a hundred thou-
sand armed men to the traitors of the South, and worth more
than five hundred thousand votes to the would-be traitors of
the North ; thus enabling the latter again to get control of the
Government, to wield it as they have wielded it before. No, sir ;
pass that bill by this Congress and every falsehood uttered and
every design charged upon us in six years of desperate struggle
is verified by our deliberate act, an act as useless to the country
and to the cause in which we are engaged (apart from other
objections) as would be a law against serfdom in Russia passed
here.

Sir, I hope and trust some other and better way than this
will be found to punish those concerned in this rebeUion after
it shall have been suppressed, and that the method adopted,
whatever it may be, will not be one which will furnish cause for
future revolts. Those who are to be punished at all ought to
be punished effectually under the Constitution, and according to
the laws they have violated; and those who are to be forgiven
ought to be forgiven fully and freely as it becomes the majesty
of a great nation to forgive. Having rescued the revolted States,
and restored the dominion over them to the loyal people within
them, I would have the traitors dealt with in such way as not
to endanger in the future either the happiness or safety of
such as have remained faithful through the terrible ordeal to
which they have been subjected. In this I should consult their
wishes and defer much to their better judgment ; but certainly
I would not do that which, in their opinion, would leave them
worse with the Union restored than they would be with the Con-
federacy sustained. I would not offer bounties to make them
rebels, neither would I impose penalties or conditions having
the like effect. I look upon this bill as a measure of the latter
kind — the natural consequence of which would be to give to

PUNISHMENT OF TREASON 203

the rebels the energy of despair, and to take from the loyalists
every motive for fidelity. Pass this bill and the same messen-
ger who carries it to the South will come back to us with the
news of their complete consolidation as one man. We will then
have done that which treason could not do; we, ourselves, will
then have dissolved the Union; we shall have rent its sacred
charter and extinguished the last vestige of affection for it in
the slave States by our blind and passionate folly.

I am well aware, sir, of the object of this second clause —
emancipating the slaves of the rebels — ^and I know there are
many who think that ought to be done, because they think slavery
the only cause for the rebellion. In considering this it is well
to remember that there are now in the world, and always will
be, many great evils which Ood, in His wisdom and for His
own purposes, has put out of the reach of remedy except in His
own way and at His own time, and then His means are always
adequate and very generally apparent. Four millions of negro
slaves are now in bondage in the United States. Where are the
signs of their emancipation? Have not hundreds of thousands
of these everywhere had ample opportunities to throw off their
chains within the last few months? Have they done so? And,
if they have not done so, can you compel them to exchange
voluntary servitude for involuntary freedom? I thought the
world was old enough by this time to know that they who are
entitled to freedom themselves must strike the blow which is
to secure it. What blow has the negro struck for himself in this
his fairest opportunity? His rebel master, with a madness to
all other men incomprehensible, engaged himself in revolt, broke
up the society in which he lived, liberated all its elements, so
that they are free to act,- and thus tacitly invited him to assert
his manhood? How has he availed himself of it? Why, sir,
just in the way one might have expected; knowing nothing of
liberty, caring nothing for it, he has remained inactive as the
domestic animals around him, impelled, perhaps, by the same
unconscious instinct of dependence upon the providence of a
master wiser and stronger than himself. A child always in the
scale of development, he may have had some child's conscious-
ness that the boon of liberty so ostentatiously offered him by his
over-zealous friends might prove to him fatal as the shirt of
Nessus or the box of Pandora, and he still hesitates and hugs his
chains.

I have no hope of the negro yet, though, God knows, I would
have him free, free as I am myself, if freedom be his choice,
through the strife and agony by which he, as all men, must

204 GREAT AllERICAN DEBATES

purchase it. Eternal vigilance and continual struggle is the
price of liberty.

On May 2, 1862, James R. Doolittle [Bep.], of Wis-
consin, spoke in the Senate upon the limitations in the
Constitution upon the punishment for treason.

Against Gonfisgation of Real Estate of Tbaitobs

Senator Doolittlb

When the Constitution was formed it was a serious question
whether there should be any power given to the United States
(Government to punish treason against it. Under the old Articles
of Confederation no such power existed. It, however, is given by
the Constitution of the United States, and the same language
which gives it puts a limitation upon it. There is the power
and there its limitation. There they stand side by side, put into
the Constitution in the same clause. We cannot close our eyes
to one and open them to the other.

The power to suppress insurrection is a distinct and sub-
stantive power, without limitation, except that whatever law
shall be passed by Congress and whatever shall be done by the
Executive in suppressing insurrection should not go beyond the
powers usually exercised according to the modem usage of
nations in carrying on civilized warfare— the laws of necessity
and of humanity.

Under this Constitution Congress is not prohibited from
declaring that personal estate shall be forfeited upon the con-
viction of a traitor, but that his real estate cannot be forfeited
beyond his life upon the attainder for treason. I have received a
copy of an able argument written by Joel Parker, who stands at
the head of the law school of Harvard University. I find
he makes the same distinction. He assumes it to be almost too
clear for an argument. He says:

"The attainder spoken of in the clause cited from the Constitution
being such attainder as, according to the common law, results from a judg-
ment, it seems clear that the forfeiture, which is limited by the Constitution
to an estate for life, relates to the same general kind of property which
was forfeited by the attainder at common law; and the language of the
constitutional provision indicates that this was real and not personal prop-
erty. A forfeiture of a life estate in personal property, of which the traitor
had the absolute title, would certainly be an anomaly. But it is clear that
the forfeiture on attainder of treason was of real property only, lands, and

. T

PUNISHMENT OP TREASON 205

intereets in or rights to lands, and eonld be no other; for the forfeiture of
the personal property of the traitor was the result of the conviction which
preceded the judgment and the attainder. ' '

I will also read a sentence or two from Ghitty's Criminal
Law:

"There is this difference between conviction and judgment, that if the
traitor die after conviction and before judgment he may pass his real
estate, but not his personal property, because the goods and chattels are
forfeited on the verdict of guilty, but the lands are not divested until the
attainder, which is the pronouncing of the sentence of the court. ' '

See, also. Coke's "Commentaries on Littleton," Vol. 2, Sec.
745.

It is clear, therefore, that, under this clause of the Constitu-
tion, giving to Congress the power to declare the punishment of
treason, we may declare the absolute forfeiture of every dollar
of the traitor's personal estate upon his conviction; but, when
we come to touch his real estate, we can forfeit it for his life, and
for his life only.

I am aware that Senators here have contended that in other
countries of the world, upon a conviction of treason, men have
had not only their personal property confiscated absolutely, but
their real property also. I agree to that. Such was the law
among the Persians, the Macedonians, the Greeks, the Bomans,
and in England, too, until they passed a law, to take effect after
the death of the Pretender, to restrain its effect. The same
power was exercised in this country in most if not all of the colo-
nies during the Revolution; but not under this Constitution.
That power was exercised before this Constitution was formed,
when there was no such limitation upon them, when the com-
mon law was in full force, and the judgment of attainder for-
feited all his real estate absolutely, as his personal estate was
forfeited upon conviction.

It was with all these facts before them that our ancestors
who formed the Constitution placed this limitation in it. They
had been in rebellion themselves. In their own experience they
had learned all there is in the passions which dictate and the
consequences which follow attainders, forfeitures, and confisca-
tions. They knew it all. With all the lights of human history
before them, under the old and under the new dispensation, be-
fore and after Christ, when they met in convention to form this
Constitution, to found this new Government to be the light and
the example of nations, they determined to limit the power of
confiscating real estate to the life of the guilty party, even in

206 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

this highest of political crimes. They determined that, to the
extent of the homes and lands of the family, the rale should
be, punish the guilty, but spare the innocent.

On May 6 Senator Trumbull's bill was referred to
a select committee of seven. The chairman, Daniel
Clark [N. H.], duly reported the conmiittee's bill, which
merely authorized the President, at his discretion, to
proclaim free all slaves of persons who shall be found in
arms against the United States thirty days after such
proclamation. It came up for discussion on May 16, and
Garrett Davis [Ky.] tried to amend it by providing that
the confiscated slaves be sold, the proceeds accruing to
the Treasury. This amendment failing (only 7 votes be-
ing recorded in its favor), he then moved that no slave
should be emancipated unless provision had been made
for his inunediate colonization out of the country; this
amendment received only 6 votes. The bill was then put
aside in favor of the House [Eliot] bill.

The Confiscation and Emancipation Bills
House of Representatives, April 30-May 26, 1862

This bill had been referred in the House to the
Judiciary Committee, and was there reported against by
John Hickman [Pa.], the chairman, because the Presi-
dent had already the power that it sought to confer. It
was then referred to a select committee of seven, of
which Mr. Eliot was made chairman. By this com-
mittee it was separated into two bills, one providing for
confiscating the property of persistent rebels, and the
other providing for emancipating their slaves, and these
were reported on April 30. The debate on these meas-
ures lasted for several days. Judge Benjamin F.
Thomas [Mass.], a conservative Republican, opposed
them as a violation both of the Constitution and the law
of nations.

' ' The duty of obedience to that Constitution was never more
imperative than now. I am not disposed to deny that I have for
it a superstitious reverence. I have 'worshipped it from my

PUNISHMENT OF TREASON 207

forefathers. ' In the school of rigid discipline by which we were
prepared for it, in the struggles out of which it was bom, the
seven years of bitter conflict, and the seven darker years in
which that conflict seemed to be fruitless of good ; in the wisdom
with which it was constructed and first administered and set in
motion; in the beneficent government it has secured for more
than two generations; in the blessed influences it has exerted
upon the cause of freedom and humanity the world over, I can-
not fail to recognize the hand of a guiding and loving Provi-
dence. But not for the blessed memories of the past only do I
cling to it. He must be blinded 'with excess of light,' or with
the want of it, who does not see that to this nation, trembling on
the verge of dissolution, it is the only possible bond of unity."

Samuel S. Cox [DenL], of Ohio, asked:

''Must these Northern fanatics be sated with negroes, taxes,
and blood, with division North and devastation South, and peril
to constitutional liberty everywhere, before relief shall comef
They will not halt until their darling schemes are consununated.
History tells us that such zealots do not and cannot go back-
ward."

Said John Law [Dem.], of Indiana:

"The man who dreams of closing the present unhappy con-
test by reconstructing this Union upon any other basis than that
prescribed by our fathers, in the compact formed by them, is
a madman — ^aye, worse, a traitor — and should be hung as high as
Haman. Sir, pass these acts, confiscate under these bills the
property of these men, emancipate their negroes, place arms in
the hands of these human gorillas, to murder their masters and
violate their wives and daughters, and you will have a war such
as was never witnessed in the worst days of the French Revolu-
tion, and horrors never exceeded in St. Domingo, for the balance
of this century at least."

Mr. Eliot closed the debate on May 26 with a most
radical speech in favor of the bills. Of the Confiscation
Bill he said :

This bill seeks to condemn the property of the leading rebels,
and to place the proceeds in the treasury for the purpose of help-
ing to defray the expenses of the war, and also in aid of those

208 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

who have been robbed by the Confederate Qovemment. All laws
of this kind, gentlemen must be aware, must be in their terms
severe. The rebels began to confiscate a year ago. They passed
confiscation laws, and under those laws there is but little prop-
erty of loyal men left in their States. We are slow in following
their example. I am surprised that, after a year's experience of
the effects of their confiscation schemes, and after they have
used the property taken from loyal citizens against the Oovem-
ment of the United States, gentlemen should come here and speak
of this bill as being too severe. There is not a rebel of the
classes mentioned in the bill who does not deserve to be hanged
by the neck until he is dead.

I believe, Mr. Speaker, that this bill will accomplish good in
the border States. It will strengthen the hands and hearts of
loyal men. If made effectual, it will deprive the enemy of his
means of carrying on the war. It will help to weaken and sub-
due him. It will increase our strength. It will, in part, indem-
nify us against the cost of this rebellion. It will give the prop-
erty of rebels, first, to their creditors in loyal States; and, sec-
ondly, it will provide a means of indemnity for loyal men whose
property, owned in rebellious States, has been taken from them.

Sir, when it is argued that this bill affects men who are dupes
of ambitious leaders, I cannot but be struck with the audacity of
such a proposition. Who are the dupes named in the first sec-
tion of the bill? Are the President and Vice-President of this
rebel Confederacy dupes f Are the members of Congress, mem-
bers of the cabinet, members of the legislatures, members of con-
ventions, high ofScers of the Confederacy or of different States,
dupes f Have they not good sense enough to know what they are
doing f Are they not conscious and willful rebels, and enemies
against their Government f Are they not at war with usY Does
any sane man believe they do not mean what they are doing, and
that they do not know what they meanf Are they dupes Y Sir,
if we are deceived by such arguments against our bills we shall
be the dupes, and the enemy, as they wage this war and confis-
cate our property, will hold us in derision.

The Confiscation Bill was passed by a vote of 82
to 68. The Emancipation Bill was next taken up and
defeated by a vote of 74 yeas (all Republican) to 78
nays (15 of which were Republicans). It was then re-
considered, and, after elimination of its harsher features,
was passed by a vote of 82 to 54.

PUNISHMENT OF TREASON 209

The House Confiscation Bill was amended in the
Senate on motion of Daniel Clark [N, H.] by the addi-
tion of provisions under certain conditions of emancipa-
tion of slaves, and, on June 28, passed by a vote of
28 to 13, The House refused by a vote of 8 yeas to 124
nays to concur in this action, whereupon a joint con-
ference of the two Houses was brought about, which
presented a combined Confiscation and Emancipation
BUI.

This bill passed the House by 82 yeas to 42 nays, and
the Senate by 27 yeas to 12 nays, and was approved by
the President on July 17, In its final form the bill con-
tained the following provisions :

The slaves of the person convicted of treason performed after
the passage of the act should be set free, and he himself should
either suffer death, or be imprisoned not less than five years and
fined not less than $10,000, at the discretion of the court. A per-
son convicted of assisting rebellion was to have his slaves lib-
erated, and himself be imprisoned not less than ten years, or
fined not over $10,000, or suffer both penalties, all at the discre-
tion of the court. Persons convicted under the act were perma-
nently disqualified to hold o£Sce under the United States. The
President was authorized to confiscate for the support of the
army the property of any one of several enumerated classes of
persons, namely: (1) rebel military and naval o£Seers; (2) offi-
cers of the Confederate government; (3) officers of Confederate
State governments; (4) all other citizens of seceded States who
do not within sixty days after the President's proclamation of
this act return to their allegiance to the United States; and (5)
those citizens of loyal States and Territories who assist rebellion.
Fugitive and captured slaves of rebels were deemed captives of
war by the act, and ordered to be set free. Fugitive slaves of
loyal owners were to be returned to them on their taking oath
that they had not aided the rebellion ; the civil authorities were
to return these slaves — in no case the military or naval authori-
ties. The President was authorized at his discretion to employ
negroes to suppress the rebellion; and to colonize free negroes in
some tropical country beyond the limits of the United States, as
well as to proclaim amnesty to rebels.

Al the end of the rebellion there were no prosecu-
tions for treason. Says Alexander Johnston, in his
*' American Political History*':

VI— u

210 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

It has been roundly asserted that the reason for this was the
consciousness of the Government of the United States that it had
been illegally suppressing a misnamed rebellion, that treason
could only hold against a State, and that Jefferson Davis and
his associates had committed no crime and engaged in no treason,
in any sense known to the Constitution or its framers. Those
who so argue forget that Mr. Davis, at least, was no prisoner of
war ; that his surrender was unconditional and in a territory un-
der military occupation; and that, if there had been any such
impotent spite against him as this theory assignd to the Govern-
ment, a drum-head court-martial and a file of men would quickly
have made it patent, treason or no treason. The fact seems to
be that his escape was due entirely to lack of spite. The col-
lapse of the rebellion had been too complete to allow of spite.
The nation stood aghast as it realized the thoroughness of its
work; and its controlling impulse was to efface as rapidly as
possible all evidences of the conflict. Treason trials would have
been a festering sore in the body politic, and they were avoided.

CflAPTEB Vin
Emancipation

Union Victory at Antietam [Sharpsburg], Md. — ^Preaideiit Lincoln Issues
the Emancipation Proclamation — He Forestalls Objections to It in an
Address on Colonization to Negro Deputation; in a Letter to Horace
Greeley, Replying to His ''Prayer of Twenty Millions," and in an
Address on Emancipation to a Beligious Delegation — ^The Preliminary
Proclamation — Its Reception by the Country and Europe — ^The Pinal
Proclamation — Second Annual Message of the President; It Treats of
Compensated Emancipation and the Relative Advantages of Retaining
Freedmen in the Country and Deporting Them; and Pleads That Con-
gress and the Country Aid Him in His Plan for Saving the Union —
Reply of William A. Richardson (Dem.); of Illinois, to the Message:
<< Enslaving the Whites to Free the Blacks."

THE Union victory at Antietam [Sharpsburg], Md.,
on September 18-19, 1862, precipitated the eman-
cipation proclamation of President Lincoln.

By the advice of William H. Seward, Secretary of
State, Lincoln had only been waiting for a Union victory
to declare an emancipation proclamation applying to
slaves in the disloyal States. Not only did he believe
that, as commander-in-chief of the army and navy of
the Republic, he had a constitutional right to issue the
proclamation as a war measure, but he was fortified by
the special authorization of Congress to do so at his
discretion. Late in July or early in August he had
announced to the Cabinet his determination to issue such
a proclamation.

After the President had determined to issue the
proclamation he set himself to forestall the objections
which he knew the document would call forth, such as:
that it was intended to establish negro, equality; that
it proved the insincerity of the declared purpose of the
Administration to save the Union by showing this to

211

■i

212 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

have been from the beginning to free the slave, etc. On
August 14, addressing a deputation of negroes on the
subject of colonization, he said, in regard to the vexed
question of race equality:

Why should the people of your race leave the country T It
is because you and we are different races. We have between us
a broader physical difference than exists between any other two
races. Whether this is right or wrong I need not discuss; but
this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both. Your
race suffer greatly, many of them, by living among us, while ours
suffer from your presence. This affords a reason why we should
be separated. Your rafee is suffering, in my judgment, the great-
est wrong inflicted on any people. But, even when you cease to
be slaves, you are yet far remote from being placed on an equal-
ity with the white race. You are cut off from many of the ad-
vantages which the other race enjoys. The aspiration of men is
to enjoy equality with the best when free, but on this broad con-
tinent not a single man of your race is made the equal of a sin-
gle man of ours. Go where you are treated the best, and the ban
is still upon you. I do not propose to discuss this — ^but to pre-
sent it as a fact with which we have to deal. I cannot alter it if
I would. ... I believe in its general evil effects on the white
race. See our present condition — white men cutting one an-
other's throats — none knowing how far it will extend. . . . But
for your race among us there could not be war, although many
men engaged on either side do not care for you one way or the
other. ... It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated.

On August 19, 1862, Horace Greeley, in his paper,
the New York Tribu7iey addressed a letter to the Presi-
dent some weeks after this, entitled **The Prayer of
Twenty Millions," exliorting Mr. Lincoln not to proclaim
all the slaves in our country free, but to execute the laws
of the land which operated to free large classes of the
slaves of rebels. It concluded as follows :

**0n the face of this wide earth, Mr. President, there is not
one disinterested, determined, intelligent champion of the Union
cause who does not feel that all attempts to put down the re-
bellion, and at the same time uphold its inciting cause, are pre-'
posterous and futile — ^that the rebellion, if crushed out to-mor-
row, would be renewed within a year if slavery were left in full

EMANCIPATION 213

vigor — that army officers, who remain to this day devoted to
slavery, can at best be but halfway loyal to the Union — and that
every hour of deference to slavery is an hour of added and deep-
ened peril to the Union. I appeal to the testimony of your em-
bassadors in Europe. It is freely at your service, not mine. Ask
them to tell you candidly whether the seeming subserviency of
your policy to the slaveholding slavery-upholding interest is not
the perplexity, the despair of statesmen of all parties ; and be ad-
monished by the general answer !

What an immense majority of the loyal millions of your coun-
trymen require of you is a frank, declared, unqualified, un-
grudging execution of the laws of the land, more especially of
the Confiscation Act. The rebels are everywhere using the late
anti-negro riots in the North — as they have long used your offi-
cers' treatment of negroes in the South — to convince the slaves
that they have nothing to hope from a Union success — that we
mean in that case to sell them into a bitter bondage to defray
the cost of the war. Let them impress this as a truth on the
great mass of their ignorant and credulous bondmen, and the
Union will never be restored — ^never. We cannot conquer ten
millions of people united in solid phalanx against us, power-
fully aided by Northern sympathizers and European allies.
We must have scouts, guides, spies, cooks, teamsters, diggers,
and choppers, from the blacks of the South — whether we allow
them to fight for us or not — or we shall be baffled and repelled.
As one of the millions who would gladly have avoided this
struggle at any sacrifice but that of principle and honor, but
who now feel that the triumph of the Union is indispensable
not only to the existence of our country but to the well-being of
mankind, I entreat you to render a hearty and unequivocal
obedience to the law of the land.

The President replied to this appeal by telegraph
on August 22, 1862.

As to the policy which I "seem to be pursuing," as you
say, I have not meant to leave anyone in doubt. I would have
the Union. I would have it in the shortest way under the Con-
stitution.

The sooner the national authority can be restored, the nearer
the Union will be the Union as it was.

If there be those who would not save the Union unless they
could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them.

If there be those who would not save the Union unless they

•*-

214

GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

could at the same time destroy alaveiy, I do not a^ree with
them.

My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either
to save or destroy slavery.

If I could save the Uniou without freeiog any slave, I would
do it — if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it —
and if 1 could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I
would also do that.

LIHCOLN CBOBSINO NlAOA&l

[Suggested Y>j a feat of Bloodin, the tigtit-rope nalker]

What I do about slavery and the colored race I do because
I believe it helps to save this Union; and, what I forbear, I
forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the
Union.

I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing
hurts the cause ! and I shall do more whenever I believe doing
more will help the cause.

I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors ; and I
shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true
views.

EMANCIPATION 215

I have here stated my purpose according to my views of offi-
cial duty ; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed per-
sonal wish that all men ever3rwhere could be free.

But the most astute of the President's preparatory
statements was his reply, on September 13, to a com-
mittee from the religious denominations of Chicago ask-
ing him to issue a proclamation of emancipation. In
this he reviewed the arguments for the proclamation
as if he were an opponent of them, and so, by admitting
their cogency, he put himself, when ultimately he did
issue the proclamation, in the politically advantageous
position of being forced to do so. Also, by bringing ex-
pediency as a consideration to the fore, he prepared
the country for an indefinite postponement of emanci-
pation, which would be the case if there was delay in
achieving the victory upon which its promulgation de-
pended. The President said:

The subject presented in the memorial is one upon which
I have thought much for weeks past, and I may even say for
months. I am approached with the most opposite opinions and
advice, and that by religious men who are equally certain that
they represent the Divine will. I am sure that either the one
or the other class is mistaken in that belief and perhaps in
some respects both. I hope it will not be irreverent for me to
say that, if it is probable that God would reveal his will to others
on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed He
would reveal it directly to me ; for, unless I am more deceived
in myself than I often am, it is my earnest desire to know the
will of Providence in this matter. And if I can learn what it
is I will do it. These are not, however, the days of miracles,
and I suppose it will be granted that I am not to expect a direct
revelation. I must study the plain physical facts of the case,
ascertain what is possible, and learn what appears to be wise
and right. . . .

What good would a proclamation of emancipation from me
do, especially as we are now situated f I do not want to issue a
document that the whole world will see must necessarily be in-
operative, like the Pope's bull against the comet! Would my
word free the slaves, when I cannot even enforce the Constitu-
tion in the rebel States f Is there a single court, or magistrate,
or individual that would be influenced by it there T And what

216 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

reason is there to think it would have any greater effect upon
the slaves than the late law of Congress, which I approved, and
which offers protection and freedom to the slaves of rebel masters
who come within our lines? Yet I cannot learn that that law
has caused a single slave to come over to us. And suppose they
could be induced by a proclamation of freedom from me to
throw themselves upon us, what should we do with themf How
can we feed and care for such a multitude T General Butler
wrote me a few days since that he was issuing more rations to
the slaves who have rushed to him than to all the white troops
under his command. They eat, and that is all ; though it is true
General Butler is feeding the whites also by the thousands ; for
it nearly amounts to a famine there. If, now, the pressure of
the war should call off our forces from New Orleans to defend
some other point, what is to prevent the masters from reducing
the blacks to slavery again; for I am told that whenever the
rebels take any black prisoners, free or slave, they immediately
auction them off ! They did so with those they took from a boat
that was aground in the Tennessee River a few days ago. And
then I am very ungenerously attacked for it! For instance,
when, after the late battles at and near Bull Run, an expedition
went out from Washington under a flag of truce to bury the
dead and bring in the wounded, and the rebels seized the blacks
who went along to help, and sent them into slavery, Horace
Greeley said in his paper that the Government would probably
do nothing about it. What could I do ?

Now, then, tell me, if you please, what possible result of
good would follow the issuing of such a proclamation as you
desire? Understand, I raise no objections against it on legal or
constitutional grounds, for, as commander-in-chief of the army
and navy, in time of war I suppose I have a right to take any
measure which may best subdue the enemy ; nor do I urge objec-
tions of a moral nature, in view of possible consequences of
insurrection and massacre at the South. I >new this matter as
a practical war measure, to be decided on according to the ad-
vantages or disadvantages it may offer to the suppression of the
rebellion.

The committee at this point replied to the President's
objection that the measure was inexpedient, by contend-
ing that it would secure at once the sympathy, hereto-
fore in suspense, of England and France, and, indeed, of
the whole civilized world; further, that, as slavery was
dearljr the root of the rebellion, it must be eradicated

EMANCIPATION 217

if the war was to be decisively ended. The President
said:

I admit that slavery is at the root of the rebellion, or at least
its sine qua non. The ambition of politicians may have insti-
gated them to act, but they would have been impotent without
slavery as their instrument. I will also concede that emancipa-
tion would help us in Europe, and convince them that we are
incited by something more than ambition. I grant, further,
that it would help somewhat at the North, though not so much,
I fear, as you and those you represent imagine. Still, some
additional strength would be added in that way to the war, and
then, unquestionably, it would weaken the rebels by drawing
oflf their laborers, which is of great importance; but I am not
so sure we could do much with the blacks. If we were to arm
them, I fear that in a few weeks the arms would be in the hands
of the rebels; and, indeed, thus far, we have not had arms
enough to equip our white troops. I will mention another
thing, though it meet only your scorn and contempt. There are
fifty thousand bayonets in the Union army from the border
slave States. It would be a serious matter if, in consequence
of a proclamation such as you desire, they should go over to
the rebels. I do not think they all would — not so many, in-
deed, as a year ago, or as six months ago — not so many to-day
as yesterday. Every day increases their Union feeling. They
are also getting their pride enlisted, and want to beat the rebels.
Let me say one thing more: I think you should admit that
we already have an important principle to rally and unite the
people, in the &ot that constitutional government is at stake.
This is a fandainental idea, going down about as deep as
anything.

In dismissing the committee he said assuringly :

Do not misunderstand me because I have mentioned these
objections. They indicate the di£Sculties that have thus far
prevented my action in some such way as you desire. I have
not decided against a proclamation of liberty to the slaves,
but hold the matter under advisement. And I can assure you
that the subject is on my mind, by day and night, more than
any other. Whatever shall appear to be God's will, I will do.
I trust that in the freedom with which I have canvassed your
views I have not in any respect injured your feelings.

Already fhe President had laid the event in the hands

218 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

of God by vowing to issue the proclamation if Lee were
driven back over the Potomac. This result of the battle
of Antietam was not at once apparent As Lincoln said
to George S. Boutwell: **The battle of Antietam w^as
fought Wednesday, and until Saturday I could not find
out whether we had gained a victory or lost a battle.
It was then too late to issue the proclamation that day,
and ... I fixed it up a little Sunday, and Monday
(September 22) I let them have it."

In accordance with the request of Mr. Lincoln Secre-
tary Seward suggested a few minor changes in the docu-
ment, which were indorsed by his colleagues and accepted
by the President. The proclamation then received the
unqualified approval of the entire Cabinet except Post-
master-General Blair, who, while personally in favor
of it, expressed apprehension of its evil eflfect on the
border States and the army, which contained many op-
ponents of Abolition. He asked leave to file a paper
which he had prepared on the subject with the proclama-
tion. This the President readily granted. Secretary
Blair, however, changed his mind over night, and next
morning withdrew his objections. The proclamation was
published in the newspapers of the 23d. As the Presi-
dent said in response to a serenade from approving
Washington citizens at the White House that evening:
**It [was] now for the country and the world to pass
judgment, and, may be, take action upon if

The Emancipation Proclamation

The proclamation, after solemnly affirming that the
purpose of the war was, and should continue to be,
the restoration of the Union, and promising measures
of compensated emancipation to those slave States which
should adhere or return to the Union, and of colonization
to the freedmen, declared that on January 1, 1863, **aU
persons held as slaves within any State, or designated
part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in re-
bellion against the United States, shall be then, thence-
forward, and forever free.*'

EMANCIPATION 219

The country quickly gave its approval of the proc-
lamation in the most official way possible at the time.
When Confederate invasion of Pennsvlvania was im-
minent Governor Andrew G. Curtin of that State had
invited the governors of the Northern States to meet
at Altoona on September 24 to consult on emergency
measures for the common defence. Before this date
arrived the defeat of Lee had removed the original
purpose of the convocation, and the governors, after
spending a day or so at Altoona in a helpful exchange of
information upon military methods employed by their
several States, proceeded to Washington and presented
a written address to the President, pledging their sup-
port in suppressing the rebellion, with the recommenda-
tion that an army of 100,000 men be held in reserve
at home ready for such emergencies as that which had
recently occurred. To this was added an indorsement
of the new proclamation. All the governors of the loyal
States, those who were present, and the absentees to
whom it was shortly sent, signed that portion relating
to the suppression of rebellion, and all but the governors
of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Mis-
souri signed the indorsement of the proclamation.

The measure was acclaimed by the newspapers in
general and by men of prominence all over the country.
Nevertheless the President deplored the absence of ma-
terial results. On September 28 he wrote to Vice-Presi-
dent Hamlin in reply to his congratulation upon the
proclamation :

It is six days old, and, while commendation in newspapers
and by distinguished individuals is all that a vain man could
wish, the stocks have declined and troops come forward more
slowly than ever. This, looked soberly in the face, is not very
satisfactory. We have fewer troops in the field at the end of
the six days than we had at the beginning — the attrition among
the old outnumbering the addition by the new. The North re-
sponds to the proclamation suflSciently in breath; but breath
alone kills no rebels.

The passage of the Emancipation and Confiscation

220 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

Acts of Congress, followed as these were by the Eman-
cipation Proclamation of the President, converted the
Opposition, which had hitherto with few exceptions sup-
ported every other measure for the suppression of the
rebellion, into a peace party. A number of Democrats
continued to support the Administration in the vigorous
prosecution of the war, and, in order to admit these
into their ranks without committing them to other than
the war issues, the Republicans assumed temporarily
the character and designation of a ''Union" party.
''Union League" clubs for the support of the Adminis-
tration began to spring up in the large cities of the
country. By strenuous appeals to patriotism the Union
party, in the congressional elections of the fall of 1862,
retained its majority of Representatives, although with
greatly decreased pluralities.

Abroad the proclamation secured inmiediately and
enduringly the sympathy of the common people and
their representative statesmen for the Northern cause,
and so sounded the knell of Southern expectations of
foreign aid and intervention.

Lincoln's Proposed Emancipation Amendments to the

Constitution

In his annual message of December 1, 1863, the Presi-
dent proposed amendments to the Constitution which
would provide compensation in the form of United
States bonds to those States or loyal individuals which
should free the slaves under their control at any time
before January 1, 1900, and which would authorize Con-
gress to colonize f reedmen abroad. The articles he dis-
cussed at length, advocating them as embodying a plan
of mutual concession between loyal and honest slave-
holders and loyal and honest Abolitionists.

Doubtless some of those who are to pay, and not to receive,
will object. Yet the measure is both just and economical. In
a certain sense the liberation of slaves is the destruction of
property — property acquired by descent or by purchase, the
same as any other property. It is no less true for having been

EMANCIPATION 221

often said that the people of the South are not more responsi-
ble than are the people of the North; and when it is remem-
bered how unhesitatingly we all use cotton and sugar and share
the profits of dealing in them, it may not be quite safe to say
that the South has been more responsible than the North for
its continuance. If, then, for a common object this property is
to be sacrificed, is it not just that it be done at a common
charge ?

Of the economic advantage of this plan the Presi-
dent said, prophesying a population at the end of the
century of 100,000,000 :

The proposed emancipation would shorten the war, per-
petuate peace, insure this increase of population, and propor-
tionately of the wealth of the country. With these we should
pay all the emancipation would cost, together with our other
debt, easier than we should pay our other debt without it.

On the subject of the competition of the freedmen
with white laborers the President remarked at length,
presenting economic arguments as to the relative advan-
tages of retaining the freedmen in the country and of
deporting them.

I cannot make it better known than it already is that I
strongly favor colonization. And yet I wish to say there is an
objection urged against free colored persons remaining in the
country which is largely imaginary if not sometimes malicious.

It is insisted that their presence would injure and displace
white labor and white laborers. If there ever could be a proper
time for mere catch arguments, that time surely is not now. In
times like the present men should utter nothing for which they
would not willingly be responsible through time and in eternity.
Is it true, then, that colored people can displace any more
white labor by being free than by remaining slaves? If they
stay in their old places, they jostle no white laborers; if they
leave their old places, they leave them open to white laborers.
Logically, there is neither more nor less of it. Emancipation,
even without deportation, would probably enhance the wages
of white labor, and very surely would not reduce them. Thus,
the customary amount of labor would still have to be performed ;
the freed people would surely not do more than their old pro-
portion of it, and very probably for a time would do less, leav-

222 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

ing an increased part to white laborers, bringing their labor
into greater demand, and consequently enhancing the wages of
it. With deportation, even to a limited extent, enhanced wages
to white labor is mathematically certain. Labor is like any
other commodity in the market — increase the demand for it and
you increase the price of it. Reduce the supply of black labor
by colonizing the black laborer out of the country, and by
precisely so much you increase the demand for, and wages of,
white labor.

But it is dreaded that the freed people will swarm forth
and cover the whole land? Are they not already in the land?
Will liberation make them any more numerous? Equally dis-
tributed among the whites of the whole country, and there
would be but one colored to seven whites. Could the one in
any way greatly disturb the seven? There are many communi-
ties now having more than one free colored person to seven
whites, and this without any apparent consciousness of evil from
it. The District of Columbia and the States of Maryland and
Delaware are all in this condition. The District has more than
one free colored to six whites ; and yet in its frequent petitions
to Congress I believe it has never presented the presence of free
colored persons as one of its grievances. But why should eman-
cipation south send the free people north ? People of any color
seldom run unless there be something to run from. Heretofore
colored people, to some extent, have fled north from bondage;
and now, perhaps, from both bondage and destitution. But, if
gradual emancipation and deportation be adopted, they will have
neither to flee from. Their old masters will give them wages
at least until new laborers can be procured ; and the freedmen,
in turn, will gladly give their labor for the wages till new homes
can be found for them in congenial climes and with people of
their own blood and race. This proposition can be trusted on
the mutual interests involved. And, in any event, (cannot the
North decide for itself whether to receive them ?

He said in conclusion:

It is doubted, then, that the plan I propose, if adopted,
would shorten the war, and thus lessen its expenditure of
money and of blood? Is it doubted that it would restore the
national authority and national prosperity, and perpetuate both
indefinitely? Is it doubted that we here — Congress and Execu-
tive — can secure its adoption? Will not the good people re-
spond to a united and earnest appeal from ust Can we, can

EMANCIPATION 223

they, by any other means so certainly or so speedily assure
these vital objects? We can saccecd only by concert. It is
not **Can any of us imagine better?" but '*Can we all do bet-
ter?*' Object whatsoever is possible, still the question occurs,
'*Can we do better?" The dogmas of the quiet past are inade-
quate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with
difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is
new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disen-
thrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Con-
gress and this administration will be remembered in spite of
ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare
one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass
will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest genera-
tion. We say we are for the Union. The world will not for-
get that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The
world knows we do know how to save it. We — even we here —
hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom
to the slave we assure freedom to the free — honorable alike in
what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or
meanly lose the last, best hope of earth. Other means may suc-
ceed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, gener-
ous, just — ^a way which, if followed, the world will forever
applaud, and God must forever bless.

Acts of Cokobess

Congress failed to legislate upon the subject of com-
pensated emancipation; the Senators and Representa-
tives from the border States holding that Congress
under the Constitution had no authority to appropriate
public money for such a purpose.

In other respects Congress loyally upheld the hands
of the President. It ratified his suspension of the writ
of habeas corpus in the cases of persons suspected of
treason, and broadly authorized him to suspend the writ
in the future **at such times, and in such places, and
with regard to such persons, as in his judgment the
public safety may require.'* An act was passed to en-
roll and draft in the national service the militia of the
whole country, each State contributing its quota in the
ratio of its population. By this the nation's power to

224 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

compel the military services of its citizens was for the
first time declared and maintained.

Of the attacks made by the opposition upon the
President's message the following, delivered in the
House on December 8 by William A. Richardson [111.],
is typical :

Enslaving the Whites to Free the Blacks
Attack on the President's Message
By WujUAm a. Richardson, M. C.

Sir, it is a remarkable document. It is an extraordinary
message, when we come to think of its sum and substance. To
feed, clothe, buy, and colonize the negro we are to tax and
mortgage the white man and his children. The white race is to
be burdened to the earth for the benefit of the black race.

A friend of mine from New England the other day made a
mathematical analysis of the message. He said, one from one
and naught remains. Naught from naught and the message is
the result. [Laughter.]

So far as it relates to the white race, that mathematical cal-
culation is right. So far as it relates to the negro, or, in the
court language of the President, the * * free American of African
descent, ' ' rivers of blood and countless millions of treasure are
not enough for his benefit and advantage.

Now, sir, when our people have anxiously looked to the mes-
sage from the President of the United States to learn what they
have to hope of a restored Union, and a return of the blessings
of peace once more to their firesides, by inference we learn, if not
directly, that, if we will carry out all of the President's plans,
if we will carry out his schemes, thirty-seven years from now
the people may again behold the restoration of the Union and
the return of peace. True, the message states that at the end
of those thirty-seven years but few of us will then be living to
enjoy the blessings we once enjoyed in this now distracted and
divided country.

But, Mr. Chairman, there are a few passages in the message
so extraordinary, so wonderful, that they require at least a
passing notice. There has been, and still is, a great anxiety
felt and expressed by our people that this negro population shall
not interfere with them; that it shall not jostle them in the
occupations they have heretofore pursued in the various indos-

EMANCIPATION 225

trial pursuits of life in the great fertile regions of the West.
The President tells our people, those who supported him because
they believed he and his party intended to keep the non-slave-
holding States and all the Territories of the Union for the sole
occupation of the white race, if you do not like my plan of
disposing of this black race; if you fear from their introduc-
tion among you that their labor will be brought into compe-
tition with that of your own, all you have to do to avoid this
competition is to quietly leave your present fields of labor, homes
to which, perhaps, you may be attached, and the graves of
your kindred, and emigrate southward, and occupy the places
made vacant by the exodus of what His Excellency terms the
**free Americans of African descent/' That is the sum and
substance of it.

But, for sake of argument, admit, if you choose, that all the
plans of the President touching emancipation and colonization
of the negro were to-day successfully carried out, what would
it accomplish in the great work of restoring the Union? Noth-
ing — worse than nothing.

The President recommends in his annual message three prop-
ositions to amend the Constitution of the United States. The
first, second, and third are for the benefit of the negro. The
people are sick and tired of this eternal talk upon the negro,
and they have expressed that disgust unmistakably in the recent
elections. The President's proposed amendments as a whole, or
either of them, could not receive the suffrages of a majority of
the people of more than two States of this Union.

While upon this subject I desire to call the attention of the
committee to a single feature in relation to these amendments.
In the message he recommends an amendment to the Consti-
tution as follows:

"Art. — . Congress may appropriate money, and otherwise provide
for colonizing free colored persons, with their own consent, at any place or
places without the United States."

In this recommendation he seeks to give power to do what
he claims he has the power to do without it ; and by this recom-
mendation he admits he has been exercising unauthorized and
illegal authority. Is not this in itself an admission that the
Constitution, unamended, grants no power to Congress or the
Executive to appropriate or use the money of the people for
any purposes contemplated in this amendment ? He calls upon
us to compromise. What compromise is that? For whom does
he propose a compromise? WTiat for? In order that you may

VI— 15

226 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

have more power to advance the negro. That is all there is to it,
and there is nothing less of it. He tells us there are differ-
ences of opinion among the friends of the Union "in regard
to slavery and the African race among us." He says, to all of
those who differ with him, surrender your convictions and come
to my plan — and he calls that compromise ! Compromise ! Yes,
I trust in God the day is not far distant when the people of this
country will compromise and save the Constitution and the
Union for the white people, and not for the black people. Our
people are for no other compromise than that.

There are other portions of the message upon which I should
like to bestow some attention, but I will forbear to do so now,
for I desire to call the attention of the committee to another
proposition of the President which is connected with this sub-
ject.

The proclamation of the 22d of September last, issued by
the President, took the country by surprise, and no one of the
citizens more than myself. I had fondly hoped and been anx-
ious that the President of the United States should so conduct
himself in his high office as Chief Magistrate that I could lend
him my support. I have been driven, with thousands of others,
into opposition to the policy contained in that proclamation, for
reasons which must commend themselves to every reflecting man
sincerely desirous of terminating this war and suppressing the
rebellion.

Mr. Lincoln, on the 4th of March, 1861, on the east j>ortico
of this Capitol, took a vow, which he said was registered in
Heaven, to support the Constitution of the United States. In
his inaugural address delivered on that occasion he said he
had no lawful authority or inclination to interfere with the
institution of slavery in the States where it exists. In his
proclamation of the 22d of September last he assumes that he
has power to forever free **all persons held as slaves within any
State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall be
in rebellion against the United States," thus violating the pledge
so solemnly made in his inaugural address.

If the object of the proclamation was not to aid the rebel-
lion, its effect was. It has strengthened the rebellion by driving
into their army every person in the South that it was possible
to drive there. Was its intent to affect those alone in rebellion 1
Certainly not. The slaves of every man in a rebellious State
were to be free. The loyal man owning twenty slaves and the
man in the rebel army owning a like number were by that
proclamation to be affected precisely the same. The object of

EMANCIPATION 227

the proclamation was to benefit the negro, not to restore the
(Jovernment or preserve the Constitution. It was nothing more,
nothing less. It goes a bow-shot beyond anything done by this
House at the last session of Congress.

But again. If the proclamation is to be carried into effect,
the war must continue until every slave is free. If every rebel
should lay down his arms on the 2d day of January next, or
any subsequent day, and submit himself to the laws and Con-
stitution of the United States, the war would still have to go
on, unless the slaves were all free, for the proclamation declares
that **the executive Government of the United States, including
the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and
maintain the freedom of such persons." It strengthens the arm
of the rebellion, and postpones the time of restoring peace to
this country, by the declaration of the purpose for which the
executive power shall be used. In what respect has our cause
— the cause of the Union — been advanced? Up to that time,
throughout the great Northwest, you had but to call for volun-
teers and they rushed to the army. Since then you have had
no volunteering. Prior to that time it was not necessary, as the
Secretary of War — as I am told, for I have not read his report —
now declares it is necessary, to have provost marshals in every
county to arrest deserters from the army.

We are informed that but a few days before the issuing of
this proclamation the President himself declared, in a confer-
ence with some gentlemen who were urging him to this step,
that it would not only be wholly inoperative in the object sought,
but would directly weaken us in the border States, but signifi-
cantly added that it might increase our strength in the North.
I pause here to inquire where that additional strength in the
North was to be obtained; not certainly from the Democratic
element in the North. If additional vigor was infused into the
service, it must come from some other quarter which until then
had not heartily sustained the policy of the Administration. I
need not particularize what class of individuals were to be thus
induced to lend their support — ^the country well knows the bale-
ful influences of this class, and the ends they seek to accom-
plish.

But this is not all. The record of the military operations
shows to-day almost conclusively what the country had for some
considerable time suspected : that success in a military point of
view was not so much the object sought as the bringing about a
condition of things when a proclamation of this sort could be
urged as the only means of securing to us success.

228

GliEAT AMERICAN DEBATES

Here the speaker went on to prove that on two ocoa-
Hions General McCletlan could have captured Bichmond
had he not been interfered with by the Administration,
and that finally McClellan had been removed from com-
mand because, in his orders to tlie army, he had failed
to indorse the President's Emancipation Proclamation,
intended as it was to enslave the white man by freeing
the black.

B TRUB IB8UE"

[McCIctlan Btoppiog the ilivisioD of the country by Lincoln ani] Daria]
From tlu eolltctlim of Ott Nra York MlMUrical Soeittv

The speaker tlien adverted to the despotic acts of
the Administration.

Arrests of thousands of men in loyal States, without due
process of law. by the order of the executive officers of this
Ooveriiment, at the times and places where, in all cases, courts
of justice were entirely open and the execution of the laws
wholly unobstruetwl. The most remarkable page in the history
of our race is the fact that, while these outrages have been com-
mitted upon the rights of our people, no resistance has been
offered, no violence done, and no life has been taken as the

EMANCIPATION 229

penalty for the wrong. The desire of the people to preserve
the peace in their own midst has restrained them thus far from
the commission of violence.

But they are in earnest. They mean to preserve their liber-
ties and their rights. The results of the last elections were
of no temporary character. Such a triumph has never before
been witnessed in this country. There is not a man who voted
the Democratic ticket last fall throughout the country who is
not prepared, when the proper time comes, to lay down his life
rather than sacrifice his liberty. Do not misunderstand us. We
are for union. We are for liberty — constitutional liberty. Our
ancestors, in all times past, have vindicated it; and their de-
scendants, after long suffering, will, if need be, vindicate it
before God and the world. They do not wish to be slaves, and
do not mean to be made slaves.

Perhaps I should not anticipate the course of the President
of the United States in regard to his proclamation. I trust that
he will reconsider it; that he will pause and not go forward
with it. This Government cannot be restored by the sword alone.
You must carry with it the olive branch. The President says
we are making history. I trust we are not making such history
as the incendiary* who swung his lighted torch in the air to
burn the temple of Diana at Ephesus, and who has left his
name behind, while the name of him who reared that temple
has perished from our memories. I think we may expect that,
under a change of policy, the blessings of the Union may yet
be restored and made perpetual.

* HerostratoB.

CHAPTER IX
Nbobo Soldiebs

Negro Soldiers in the Bevolntion — In the War of 1812 — Organization of
Negro Companies by Union Generals in 1862 — Jefferson Davis Orders
Execution for Felony of Union Officers Engaged in Such Organiza-
tion — Congress Passes Act of July 17, 1862, Accepting Negroes for
General Service in the Army — Thaddeus Stevens [Pa.] Introduces Bill
in the House Specifically Employing Negroes as Soldiers — ^Debate: in
Favor, Mr. Stevens, John Hickman [Pa.], Thomas M. Edwards [N. H.],
Alexander S. Diven [N. Y.] ; OJpposed, John J. Crittenden [Ky.],
Samuel S. Cox [O.] — Bill Is Passed by the House, and Rejected by
the Senate as Conferring Power Already Granted — ^History of Negro
Troops in the War — Employment of Negroes by the Bebels — ^Retaliation.

CRISPUS ATTUCKS, a mulatto and a fugitive
slave, led the patriot mob at the Boston mas-
sacre. It was Peter Salem, one of the enfran-
chised negroes who fought at Bunker Hill, that shot
dead Major Pitcairn, leader of the British marines, as
he leaped over the breastworks crying, **The day is our
own.**

The Revolutionary Conmiittee of Safety, feeling that
it was inconsistent with the principles of the conflict and
reflecting dishonor on the colonies to employ slaves
as soldiers, decreed, on May 20, 1775, that only those
negroes who were free should be admitted into the army.
Many patriots thereupon freed their slaves that these
might be permitted to fight.

In the Continental Congress Mr. Edward Rutledge,
of South Carolina, moved, on September 26, 1775, that
all negroes be dismissed from the patriot armies, but the
opposition was so formidable and so determined that
the motion did not prevail. Negroes, instead of being
expelled from the service, continued to be received, often
as substitutes for ex-masters or their sons; and, in Vir-

230

NEGRO SOLDIERS 231

ginia especially, it gradually became a custom to give
a slave his freedom on condition of his taking his mas-
ter's place at the front

The Congressional Conrndttee of Conference with
General Washington before Boston, headed by Benja-
min Franklin, ordered on October 23, 1775, that negroes,
*^ especially such as are slaves,** should no longer be
enlisted; but, on Washington's representation that the
negro soldiers whose time had expired were much dis-
satisfied with the order, and that he feared some might
show their resentment by deserting to the enemy. Con-
gress, on January 16, 1776, permitted these to reenlist.

Already (in November, 1775) Lord Dunmore, Royal
Governor of Virginia, in order to * ^ reduce ' ' the colonists
*^to a proper sense of their duty to His Majesty's crown
and dignity," had invited slaves to enter the British
army, offering them freedom if they would do so.

The Virginia patriots, to offset the effect of this
proclamation, called the attention of the slaves to the
fact that enlistment in the British army would leave
their families at the mercy of **an enraged and injured
people." Many enlisted, however, though almost all
were destroyed by a malignant fever contracted in the
camps.

On August 24, 1778, 775 negroes were enrolled in the
Continental army. On August 29 a black regiment, all
of whose members had been freed by the Rhode Island
legislature on condition they enter the State militia,
fought with notable gallantry at the battle of Rhode
Island. The legislatures of other Northern States fol-
lowed the example of that of Rhode Island, and in the
South this policy was urged by leading patriots. It is
highly probable, says Horace Greeley in his ** American
Conflict, ' ' that had the Revolutionary War lasted a few
years longer slavery would have been abolished through-
out the 'country.

So great was the fear of the British commanders
that negroes would be set free and enrolled in the pa-
triot army, that Sir Henry Clinton, on June 30, 1779,
issued a proclamation offering protection and employ-

232 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

ment to all slaves who should enter the British lines.
Lord Cornwallis, in his Southern campaign, proclaimed
freedom to all slaves who should join him. Thomas Jef-
ferson, in a letter to Dr. Gordon, from Paris, on July 16,
1788, estimated that this policy in one year cost Vir-
ginia 30,000 slaves, most of whom died of small-pox and
camp-fever. Thirty of these were his own, and he char-
acteristically said: **Had this been to give them free-
dom he (Lord Cornwallis) would have done right ^'

In the beginning of the War of 1812 the policy was
generally adopted of not enlisting negroes, but toward
its close, under the stress of military necessity, the re-
striction was abandoned. Thus the New York legisla-
ture, on October 24, 1814, authorized in several quarters
the raising of two regiments of negroes, freeing those
who were slaves, and compensating their owners with
the negroes' pay. On September 21, 1814, Gen. Andrew
Jackson, in a proclamation from Mobile, Ala., vigorously
denounced the ** mistaken policy'' of excluding m&groes
from the army, and gave high praise to the bravery of
those who had fought under him, which was shortly
afterward confirmed in the defence of New Orleans
(January 8, 1815), where a number of negroes fought
side by side with the white soldiers, repelling from be-
hind the breastworks the advance of the trained British
soldiers under Pakenham with the same ardor w^hich
Peter Salem and his black companions had displayed at
Bunker Hill.

In the Civil War, before Gen. David Hunter's procla-
mation of military emancipation had been revoked [see
page 130], he had organized some of the slaves of his
department into companies.

In his report to the Secretary of War [Edwin M.
Stanton], on June 23, 1862, General Hunter gave this
testimony to their eflSciency:

The experiment of arming the blacks, so far as I have made
it, has been a complete and even marvelous success. They are
sober, docile, attentive, and enthusiastic ; displaying great natu-
ral capacities for acquiring the duties of the soldier. They are
eager beyond all things to take the field and be led into action ;

NEGRO SOLDIERS 233

and it is the unanimous opinion of the officers who have had
charge of them that, in the peculiarities of this climate and
country, they will prove invaluable auxiliaries — fully equal to
the similar regiments so long and successfully used by the Brit-
ish authorities in the West India Islands.

On July 16, 1862, Congress passed an act authorizing
the President to accept negroes for **any war service for
which they may be found competent, ' ' though not speci-
fying fighting as one of these services. The act was ap-
proved by the President on July 17.

On August 25, 1862, Secretary Stanton issued a spe-
cial order to Gen. Rufus Saxton, military governor of
the sea islands off the coast of South Carolina, to enlist
and drill not over 5,000 negroes and to give them tlie pay
of white soldiers. Saxton was ordered to cultivate the
plantations with other negroes, and in every way to
*^ withdraw from the enemy their laboring force and
population."

Brigadier-General J. W. Phelps, a Vermont Aboli-
tionist serving under Benjamin F. Butler at New Or-
leans during the summer of 1862, organized five com-
panies of negroes, who, he announced to his chief, were
*^all willing and ready to show their devotion to our
cause in any way it may be put to the test. ' ' He recom-
mended that they be used as soldiers under the com-
mand of recent graduates of West Point and the more
promising non-commissioned officers and privates.

General Butler, in response, instructed General
Phelps to employ his ** contrabands ' ' upon the fortifica-
tions instead of organizing them as soldiers. This Gen-
eral Phelps peremptorily declined to do, saying, ^*I am
not willing to become the mere slave-driver you pro-
pose, having no qualifications that way,** and thereupon
he threw up his conunission.

Later (on July 31, 1862) General Butler felt con-
strained by the necessities and perils of his position to
appeal to the free colored men of New Orleans to take
up arms in the national service, which appeal was re-
sponded to with alacrity and enthusiasm, and a first
regiment, 1,000 strong, was filled within 14 days — all its

234 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

line officers being colored, as well as the rank and file.
His next regiment, filled soon afterward, had its two
highest officers white, all the rest colored. His third was
officered by the best men that could be had, regardless
of color. His two batteries were officered by whites
only; for the simple reason that there were no others
who had any knowledge of artillery.

On the reception at Richmond of tidings of Gteneral
Hunter's and General Phelps's proceedings with refer-
ence to the enlistment of negro soldiers for the Union
armies. President Jefferson Davis issued an order di-
recting that said generals be no longer regarded as pub-
lic enemies of the Confederacy, but as outlaws; and that,
in the event of the capture of either of them, or of any
other commissioned officer employed in organizing, drill-
ing, or instructing slaves, he should not be treated as a
prisoner of war, but held in close confinement for execu-
tion as a felon, at such time and place as he should order.
It is not recorded that anyone was ever actually hung
under this order.

Employment of Neobo Soldesbs
House of Bepbbsentatives, January 29-Febbuaby 2, 1863

On January 27, 1863, Thaddeus Stevens [Pa.] in-
troduced in the House a bill authorizing the President
to raise and equip 150,000 negro soldiers, and as many
more as he deemed it expedient ; to receive the same pay
and treatment as white soldiers ; to serve for five years,
if necessary; the officers to be white or black; conmds-
sioned by the President; recruiting stations to be estab-
lished in both free and slave States; all the slaves
among the negroes to become free at discharge, the
Government purchasing those belonging to loyal citi-
zens.

The bill was hotly opposed by Representatives from
the border States, and by the * * Peace ' * Democrats of the
North. Of the speeches of the former class that by
John J. Crittenden, made on January 29, is representa-
tive.

NEGRO SOLDIERS 235

You propose by this bill to raise a force of one hundred
and fifty thousand slaves as soldiers. You include, to be sure,
and permit to be enlisted, free men of color. How can you
approve of it? You say the war is a contest for freedom, a
contest for liberty ; and diall we, sir, stigmatize our constituents,
our brothers, the white free-bom men of this land, as being
so degenerate as to shrink from this contest, and compel you
to appeal to your own black men to defend the liberties of the
white man?

The bill proposes to raise one hundred and fifty thousand
Americans of African descent. You stigmatize them, while you
invite them into the field. You employ them as soldiers to fight
your battle, but give them only one-half pay and exclude them
from command to a great extent.

This distinction which the white race makes in its own
favor against the negro may be an unjust one. It is not neces-
sary for me to enter into that question or to define exactly
the degree of superiority on the one side or of inferiority on
the part of the other race. We know that it exists; it exists
North, it exists South, and it exists everywhere. The feelings
of our people in reference to it are founded upon instincts that
have come down from one generation to another. There is not one
of you here who would admit a black man to social equality or
to any species of equality. Yet what are you striving to do?
You propose to enlist the negro for five years. We are engaged
in a mighty war now, a war caused by revolution and pregnant
with revolution. What will be the result if we do not conquer
a peace shortly? Before long the term of service of your white
troops will have expired. Is the nation to be left to a standing
black army, with the President at its head, clothed with almost
illimitable war powers? Would anyone dare to propose such a
policy as that to the American people — ^to leave the defence of
the country and the lives and liberties of its people in the
guardianship of any President with one hundred and fifty thou-
sand myrmidons like these, without a knowledge of the simplest
principles upon which our Cbvemment depends, and without
any possibility of their being able to appreciate that liberty
for which you are willing to fight and to send your sons to
fight? The janizaries are safer depositaries of the liberties of
the Ottoman than would be this army of slaves to protect our
liberties.

All nations which have held slaves have been found to re-
ject their services for military purposes in time of war. My
learned friend from Ohio [Samuel Shellabarger] , who the other

236 GREAT AMEUICAN DEBATES

day was comparing tluise rebtJs to Catilino, is well enough ac-
quainted with his history, and can bear testimony that he, that
bold conspirator, had Roman pride enough left in the midst of
his vices to reject the assistance, even in his extremest hour of
peril, of slaves and gladiators, although they were white slaves,
men who had been bom free, men who had been made captives
in war, and reduced by the inhuman policy of that age to the
condition of slavery; they had been tainted and marked with
that degradation, and that was enough; even Catiline would
not be their leader, and preferred to face the perils of the
battle alone. And what a spectacle is here presented! The
representatives of a nation which has ever boasted of its readi-
ness to shed the last drop of its blood in defence of the liberties
of its people are calling upon slaves to defend it and to defend
them ! Sir, it is a mockery — a mockery of the American people.
It is a policy unlike that of any other nation. It is an insult
to your army. It is a crime against the civilization of the age.
It is a crime against the Constitution. It is an act of hostility
against the Union. These are the sentiments with which I am
compelled to regard this measure.

I say it is a crime against the Constitution. You send out
your recruiting officer, and you authorize him to go into the
State of Maryland, for instance, and to any gentleman's house
and seduce away his slave and persuade him to enlist by the
promise of his freedom, or, perhaps, the promise of a captaincy,
and that dave the property of the master! Mr. Lincoln says
the owner has property in his slave ; that, he says, is plain and
cannot be contested. And yet your recruiting officer is author-
ized to enlist the slave ; to take from the lawful ownership of a
loyal man his slave and put him in the army. Did injustice
ever go further than this?

John Hutciiins fPa.]. — I would like to ask the gentleman
from Kentucky a question. Do not the Gtovemment of the
United States take minors and apprentices, whose services by
law belong to the father or master, and put them into the
army of the United States?

Mr. Crittenden. — Sir, if the gentleman can mislead himself
by any such ideas as those that his question suggests, I cannot
help him. I tell him now that the free-born boy owes no obliga-
tion of slavery to anyone. His father is his guardian; the
owner of the slave is his master. To those who cannot under-
stand that distinction I can make no explanation that will enable
them to understand it.

]Mr. Speaker, your law is impracticable. My friends, just

NEGRO SOLDIERS 237

think of what you are doing ! One hundred and fifty thousand
negroes are to be enlisted. I say your army will consider it an
insult and a degradation.

I remember that the distinguished gentleman from Pennfifyl-
vania, last session of Congress, was in favor of this same meas-
ure. The topics of our conversation then were the battles near
Richmond, and there was much sympathy over the great slaugh-
ter there. It was then that he introduced this idea of a negro
army; they would have saved so many of our dear sons. It
seems to me that the gentleman's idea, fairly translated,
amounted to this: that he wanted a negro to march before
every white man in the field of battle. What a shame it is that
proud Republicans, who talk so much about their liberties,
should require to have poor negroes held before them in battle
as a sort of shield ! Do you want this negro army for such a
purpose ? Sooner advise your sons and brothers to desert. That
may escape the attention of history. But, if you want to make
the cowardice of our army memorable and historical, bring out
your one hundred and fifty thousand black men, put them in
the front of the battle, and shelter your white soldiers behind
them.

Whenever the American sinks so low ; whenever that pusil-
lanimous policy is adopted by him, the liberties of such men
are not worth much. The pride and heroism of the American
name will have all gone. Let not the man who wants such a
defence as that go forth to battle. Let him stay at home. That
is not the way to train up a great people. Sparta had her
slaves. So had Athens. Did they ever send these slaves into
the battle? They were small republics, and were often greatly
harassed by war, but they never used their slaves as soldiers.
Shall we alone voluntarily degrade ourselves below the condition
of other nations? Have not our citizens the courage and
strength to defend the country? Have they not the public
virtue that is absolutely necessary for the defence of their na-
tional existence and of their public liberties? When we shall
abandon that defence to slaves we ought to give up our coun-
try.

Sir, you cannot execute such a law, and you know it. If
you want to make war directly in Kentucky, I assure you, much
as I deprecate and deplore it, that this will produce it. It is
not in the power of the Government, State or Federal, to pre-
vent actual hostilities there on the very day this sort of recruit-
ing shall be entered on. Your recruiting officers will be driven
pell-mell out of the State, or they will be hung, just as the

238 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

temper of the people may happen to be. I tell you that this
is a fact, and that the passage of this measure, instead of assist-
ing to restore the Union, will enlarge and embitter the war. I
do not believe that you can, by any measure, drive Kentucky to
go out of the Union, and to make alliance with the secessionists
and rebels of the South ; but the people of Kentucky will resist
oppression, come from where it will. They are for the Consti-
tution and are against the rebels, because the rebels are the
enemies of the Constitution ; and they will be against you, too,
whenever you resort to unconstitutional measures. We are fight-
ing so that when peace comes our Constitution and liberties will
be restored to us with it. But for that hope there would be
no heart for the fight. But if, while we are carr3ring on a war
against the rebellion, the Constitution of our country is to be
destroyed piece by piece behind us, and we are to have nothing
but the ruins of it left, why should we not be hostile to those
who have done this work of destruction ?

Sir, this plan of bringing black men into your military serv-
ice will prove an act of cruelty to the slaves, but of profit to
no one. Can they sympathize with us in the motives that actu-
ate us in carrying on this war? That Constitution for which
we are fighting makes them slaves; and yet you now call upon
them to assist you in restoring its supremacy. What claim
have you upon their services in any such cause f What do
you bring them to the field for? Do you believe in your hearts
you can ever make soldiers of them? There may have been
brave seamen in the Pacific Ocean of the African race, and
there may have been a brave company of black men which Gen-
eral Jackson saw fit to compliment after the battle of New Or-
leans; but do you expect your army of one hundred and fifty
thousand blacks will prove to be of that class? Let me tell you
that if you do you will be disappointed. You will gain no
strength to your army by such means. For every black soldier
you may muster into the service, you will disarm more brave
soldiers who will think you have degraded them by this sort
of military association. You cannot carry into the field, I re-
peat, an army made up of the African race. The slave is not a
soldier, and he cannot be a soldier. It is not in the nature of
things.

I protest, then, against the President, Mr. Lincoln, under-
taking to garrison our important posts with negro soldiers. They
are not safe, and never will be safe. I care not though the
forts are in New York or Massachusetts; they are as much mine
as they are yours. They belong to the United States, and I^

NEGRO SOLDIERS 239

protest against their being placed in the hands of sach de-
fenders.

But, sir, I do not care so much about the employment of these
men in respect to their inefficiency as soldiers as I do in respect
to the character their employment will give to the war itself.
Tou put one white man to command a thousand negroes at the
South, and will he restrain them? Will it not result in servile
war? It will be a servile war led by white men.

The speech of Samuel S. Cox [0.] is representa-
tive of the views of the Northern Democrats. On Janu-
ary 30 he spoke against the bill. He declared that those
who promoted it were, in so doing, not the true friends
of the negro, but rather his enemies.

The Confederate States will not treat our black soldiers as
the equals of their white soldiers or of our white soldiers; and
the result will be, as many negroes at the North are shrewd
enough to foresee, that they will, if captured, receive none of
the advantages of the laws of war, but all the terrible conse-
quences of being outlawed from the international code, slavery,
imprisonment, and perhaps death. And how, sir, can we retali-
ate for any such injuries or outrages? As the gentleman from
Kansas argued the other day, and as Vattel argued before him,
a rebellion, when formidable, demands, in the name of humanity,
the observance of the laws of civilized warfare, the laws of mod-
eration and honor. There is a distinct society, organized de
facto, in the South; and the laws of war obtain the same as
between two nations with regard to prisoners of war. These
men in the South have the power, and, although it may have
been obtained wrongfully and outrageously, we must legislate
on the facts as they exist. We must not shut our eyes to the
fact that they are a power so formidable that we cannot, as
an act of humanity to our soldiers, refuse to observe the laws
of war, not as we would interpret them, but as they also may
interpret them. No genuine friend of the negro would try to
persuade him to take the position of a soldier in our army,
knowing how the Confederate Government has determined to
treat negro soldiers. The men who would try to dragoon him
into that position are not his friends. The poor negro, if he
survive this conflict, will bitterly curse the very men who seem
most to champion him, but whose championship has in it more
of political consideration than of generous feeling.

Thomas M. Edwards [N. H.]. — I understand the gentleman

240 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

to say that, if these black soldiers in our army should be cap-
tured by the enemy and be handed over to the civil authorities
to be treated as felons and their lives taken, or any other conse-
quence visited them not known to the rules of civilized war-
fare, the United States Government would have no remedy.

IVIr. Cox. — ^What is your remedy?

Mb. Edwards. — Retaliation.

Mr. Cox. — Retaliation — that is a rule which will soon turn
this into a barbarous war. It has no limit — no law. It has but
one end — bloody extermination.

Mr. Edwards. — I would hang or shoot one of their soldiers
every time they hung or shot one of ours.

Mr. Cox. — ^Would you have the President retaliate upon
white rebels because they abuse the captured negroes? You will
answer yes. Then what? Retaliation again from them upon
our white soldiers, and so on, until the war becomes unbearable
to the Christian world and an outrage upon all civilized codes.

Furthermore, the measure is inadvisable because many
white soldiers will not serve when black soldiers are enlisted.
We can never eradicate from the great body of the white people
of America that prejudice against the black race which has been
carried from private life into the public service, and which, if
you run counter to it, will destroy the vigor and esprit of the
army.

Why, Mr. Speaker, perhaps one-third of our present army
is made up of Irishmen. I tell you, sir, these Irishmen will not
light side by side with the negro. You would listen to such,
warnings if indeed you wished the army to succeed and the
Union restored.

The bill was stoutly defended by Bepublicans, the
most typical speech being by Mr. Stevens, mover of the
} bill, made on February 2.

It is said that we have already so large an army that we
have no need of more soldiers, and that this bill will cause a
needless expense. Let us look at this. It will require some
three or four months to raise one hundred and fifty thousand.
By that time, about June, the time of the two years' men of
New York and of the nine months' men will expire. They will
take from the army, I think, at least three hundred thousand
men. How are you to supply their place except by colored sol-
diers? It is said by our opponents that in the present temper
of the country you could not raise in the whole North fifty thou-

NEGRO SOLDIERS 241

sand men by voluntary enlistment, and that to enforce con-
scription is out of the question. It may be so; and, if it be,
it is useless, perhaps, to inquire what has produced this con-
dition of the public mind. No doubt the unhappy management
of the war, and want of successful battles, have done something
toward it. An unsuccessful war is always unpopular.

Another great cause is the conduct of partisan demagogues.
The Democratic leaders — ^and when I speak of Democrats in
these remarks I beg to be understood as not including those
true Democrats who support the war and give their aid to the
Administration — the Democratic leaders, I say, have been busy
for the last year in denouncing the war and the Administration.
They tell the people that this is an Abolition war, a war for
the negro and not for the Union; that our Southern brethren
have been injured and that we ought to lay down our arms and
compromise. During the last electioneering campaign through-
out Pennsylvania, and I suppose the whole North, when the new
volunteers were called for, Democratic leaders traveled every-
where and advised that no Democrat should volunteer, but stay
at home and carry the election and regain power. The masses
followed their advice; scarcely any Democrats joined the vol-
unteers.

Another thing that has cooled the ardor of the people is the
rivalry among the officers and the evident sympathy of a large
portion of them with the rebels. Our armies have been in the
hands of men who had no heart in the cause and who have
demoralized the army; and such demoralization has been trans-
ferred to their friends at home. Hence, if we are to continue
this war, we must call in the aid of Africans, slaves as well as
freemen.

But gentlemen speak boastfully of the power of the white
men of the North, and that we have a million men in the field,
and need no other aid. Sir, I have as high an opinion of the
valor of Northern men as any man can have; but, instead of
having a million, I do not believe we have now half that num-
ber of effective soldiers. Sickness, the sword, and absenteeism
have taken half our troops ; and in four months one-fourth more
will be taken by the expiration of their time.

But suppose we could recruit our armies by white volun-
teers, is that any argument against employing blacks? Why
should our race be exposed to suffering and disease when the
African might endure his equal share of it? Is it wise, is it
humane, to send your kindred to battle and to death, when you
might put the colored man in the ranks and let him bear a

VI— 16

242 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

part of the conflict between the rebel and his enfranchised
slave f Why should these bloody graves be filled with our rel-
atives rather Jban with the property of traitors slain by their
own masters, who, in their turn, would fall by the hands of
the oppressed? I have but little respect for the Northern man
who would save the rebels' property at the expense of the life of
white men.

We have heard repeated the usual slang of Democrats, so
freely and falsely used by them to prejudice the minds of the
people, that Republicans are trying to make the black man equal
in all things to the white. The distinguicdied gentleman from
Kentucky [Charles A. Wickliffe] and his allies from Ohio have
talked of Sambo's commanding white men. Sir, the bill contains
no such provisions. They are to be employed only as soldiers or
non-commissioned officers as is provided by the original bill and
by the amendments as now proposed. I do not expect to live
to see the day when, in this Christian land, merit shall counter-
balance the crime of color. True, we propose to give them an
equal chance to meet death on the battlefield. But even then
their great achievements, if equal to those of Dessalines, would
give them no hope of honor. The only place where they can
find equality is in the grave. There all Gh>d's children are
equal.

But it is said that our soldiers would object to their employ-
ment in arms. It would be a strange taste that would prefer
themselves to face the death-bearing heights of Fredericksburg,
and be buried in trenches at the foot of them, than to see it
done by colored soldiers. I do not believe it. My colleague
[Hendrick B. Wright] said that he had heard some of our
officers say that if we thuif used them they would lay down
their arms and retire from the army. In G^'s name let them
go. They are rebels in heart, and ought to be in the Confed-
erate army rather than in ours, to demoralize our soldiers. My
colleague ought to report their names to the proper department,
that they may be tried and inexorably shot.

The gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Crittenden] objects to
their emplo3nnent lest it should lead to the freedom of the
blacks. He says that he fights only for the freedom of his own
white race. That sentiment is unworthy the high reputation of
the friend and compeer of the great statesman of the West
[Henry Clay]. That patriotism that is wholly absorbed by
one's own country is narrow and selfish. That philan-
thropy which embraces only one's own race, and leaves
the other numerous races of mankind to bondage and to

V- \

NEGRO SOLDIERS 243

misery, is cruel and detestable. But we are not fighting
for the freedom of the slaves; we are fighting for the
life of the nation; and, if in the heat of such strife the
chains of the bondman are melted off, I shall thank Qod all
the more. The distinguished, and, I would fain believe, the
learned, gentleman from Kentucky exclaimed, '*when before did
any civilized country call on slaves to fight their battles f When
did Sparta, or Athens, or Bomef " I must attribute this inter-
rogative assertion to lack of memory.

I ask when did any civilized nation refuse to use their slaves
in the defence of their country when its exigencies required itt
Never! All have used them, and uniformly given them their
freedom for their services. Sparta and Athens on many occa-
sions armed their Helots. They were always their armor-
bearers. That I may not be suspected of speaking without au-
thority I will read a few passages from Roman history. In
Arnold's '*Rome" it is said:

"But there is no reason to donbt that Gracchns gained an important
victory; and it was rendered famous by his giving liberty to the volunteer
slaves, by whose valor it had mainly b€«n won. The soldiers marched back
to Beneventum in triumph, and the people poured out to meet them, and en-
treated Gracchus that they might invite them all to a public entertainment.
Tables were set out in the streets, and the freed slaves attracted every one's
notice by their white caps, the well-known sign of their enfranchisement.
The whole delighted the generous and kind nature of Gracchus; to set free
the slave and to relieve the poor, appear to have been hereditary virtues in
his family. ' '—Page 205.

How different was the heart of the pagan Oracchus from
the heart of the Christian Eentuckian !

But we are told that Kentucky will resist; that our recruit-
ing officers will be driven pell-mell from the State; that the
proclamation is unconstitutional ; and that we and the President
are doing mischief and aggravating the South. Sir, that sounds
so exactly like what I was accustomed to hear from that side
of the House some years ago, when those seats were occupied by
those who are now officers in the rebel army, that I am fain to
inquire whether their spirit has not been left behind them.

Two years ago, when I had occasion to address this House,
I declared my conviction that neither Congress, nor the Ad-
ministration, nor the people, realized the magnitude of the war
in which we were engaged, and the difficulty of its suppression ;
that the rebels were as brave as we, and had better generals,
who were more in earnest than our own; that men who, after
a deliberation of thirty years, had entered upon so perilous an

244 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

enterprise, involving property, wife and children, and their
own lives, would never submit until they were totally exhausted
and unable to continue the war ; and that that would never be
done until you took from them their support — ^the slaves. I
have seen no reason to change my opinion. I have seen two
years of bloody war elapse with balanced success. I have seen
our debt accumulate to a grievous amount. I have seen many
a bleeding heart, many a mother weeping for her slaughtered
son, tens of thousands of our neighbors gone to an untimely
grave, and the rebels are not yet subdued. And yet we are told
that we must not stop the further effusion of white blood by the
employment of the oppressed slave against his oppressor. Sir,
to which side do such men belong? Are they with the Republic
or are they like Cethegus and Lentulus, sitting in the Roman
senate, while their associate, Catiline, was with the rebel army
outside the walls?

But they say this tends to excite servile war. I believe no
such thing. Disciplined troops under the articles of war do not
engage in insurrection. But suppose it were so: which is the
mo^ cruel, which the most to be deprecated — an exterminating
war between the oppressed and his oppressor or a murderous
warfare by uninjured citizens against the unoffending (Govern-
ment which had protected them and was the hope of the free-
dom of the world? Can servile war produce more inhuman
scenes than are now enacted by the rebels?

Here the speaker cited murders of innocent negroes
committed in cold blood by rebel soldiers.

If a servile war were the only means to save this Republic,
I should welcome it as a measure of humanity.

It is said that colored soldiers are cowardly and unfit for
battle. But all history contradicts it, from the time of Juba
and Syphan and the terrible Numidian cavalry down through
our Revolution and the armies of General Jackson to the pres-
ent time. I send you living evidence in the letter of General
Saxton, which the Clerk will please read.

The Clerk read as follows :

Beaufort, South Cabolina, Jannary 25, 1863.
Deab Sib: I have the honor to report that the organization of the first
regiment of South Carolina volunteers is now completed. In no regiment
have I ever seen duty performed with so much cheerfulness and alacrity;
and as sentinels they are peculiarly vigilant. I have never seen, in any
body of men, such enthusiasm and deep-seated devotion to their officers as

NEGRO SOLDIERS 245

exist in this; they will surely go wherever they are led. Every man is a
volunteer, and seems fully persuaded of the importance of his service to
his race.

Alexander S. Diven [N. T.]. — ^Mr. Speaker, in connection
with the testimony furnished in favor of the emplojnnent of the
slave I desire to supply the testimony of the most remarkable
man of modern Italy, who, while an exile from his beloved coun-
try, with all the ardor of his nature, entered the service of the re-
publicans of Brazil, who were seeking to extricate themselves
from the tyranny of the Brazilian emperor. In the description
of one of the battles between the republican and imperial parties
I find this passage :

"The terrible lancers of Canabarro had already made a movement for-
ward, confusing the right flank of the enemy, which was therefore obliged
to change front in confusion. The brave freedmen, proud of their force,
became more firm and resolute, and that incomparable corps presented to
view a forest of lances, being composed entirely of slaves liberated by the
republic and chosen from the best horse tamers in the province, and all of
them blacks, even the superior officers. The enemy had never seen the
backs of those true sons of liberty. Their lances, which were longer than
the common measure, their ebony faces and robust limbs, strengthened by
perennial and laborious exercise, and their {>erfect discipline, struck terror
into the enemy."

A Member. — ^What do you read from?

Mb. Diven. — From the **Life of Garibaldi," by himself,
page 63.

Mr. Stevens. — I believe that if the courise which we now pro-
pose had been adopted eighteen months ago we should now
have peace and universal liberty on this continent. But the
timidity of conservatives, the clamor of Democratic demagogues,
and the insidious counsels of Kentucky prevented our excellent
and kind-hearted President from making stern resolves and using
every legitimate means to crush the rebels. Sir, I would not
have on my conscience the blood of the tens of thousands who
have thus been sacrificed, and which must rest on the souls of
its authors, for all the spoils of office, for all the allurements
of the presidential chair, nor for all the diamonds that ever
glittered in Golconda.

The bill was passed on February 2 by a vote of 83 to
54. The bill then went to the Senate, where it was re-
ferred to the Committee on Military Affairs. On Febru-
ary 12 Henry Wilson [Mass.] stated that the committee

246 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

reported it back to the Senate with the recommendation
that it do not pass, because the authority intended to be
given by it to the President was already conferred on
him by the act of July 17, 1862.

Bbaveby of Negbo Soldiebs

President Lincoln from this time on devoted a large
part of his energy to enlisting negro troops, his old fear
that the former slaves would make ineflBcient soldiers
having been outweighed by consideration of the great
moral force of the policy. To Governor Andrew John-
son of Tennessee, who was contemplating the raising in
his State of a negro military force, he wrote on March
26, 1863:

In my opinion the country now needs no specific thing so
much as some man of your ability and position to go to this
work. When I speak of your position I mean that of an emi-
nent citizen of a slave State and himself a slaveholder. The
colored population is the great available and yet unavailed of
force for restoring the Union. The bare sight of fifty thousand
armed and drilled black soldiers upon the banks of the Missis-
sippi would end the rebellion at once ; and who doubts that we
can present that sight if we but take hold in earnest? If you
have been thinking of it, please do not dismiss the thought.

As we have seen. General David Hunter had already
organized negro troops in his department. From the
beginning the experiment was an unqualified success. It
was a pleasure to the President that he could now write
a letter of congratulation to the Abolitionist general
whom less than a year before he had been compelled to
reprimand for biff premature act of emancipation.

I am glad to see the accounts of your colored force at Jack-
sonville, Fla. I see the enemy are driving at them fiercely, as
is to be expected. It is important to the enemy that such a
force shall not take shape and grow and thrive in the South,
and in precisely the same proportion it is important to us that
it shall. Hence the utmost caution and vigilance are necessary
on our part. The enemy will make extra efforts to destroy
them, and we should do the same to preserve and increase thenu

r
/■

NEGRO SOLDIERS 247

In all their snbsequent battles the negro soldiers ac-
quitted themselves with such valor that in the war re-
ports the sentence, **the colored troops fought bravely/'
became a stock expression.

On the occasion of their soldierly conduct at the
assault of Port Hudson late in May, 1863, George Henry
Boker wrote a poem called **The Black Regiment, '* in
which he extolled their patriotism and pleaded for their
recognition as comrades by the white soldiers.

* ' Freedom ! * * their battlecry, —
''Freedom! or leave to die!"

Ah ! and they meant the word,

Not as with us 'tis heard,

Not a mere party shout ;

They gave their spirits out,

• • • • •
Hundreds on hundreds fell;

• • • . •
Oh, to the living few.
Soldiers, be just and true,
Hail them as comrades tried ;
Fight with them side by side ;
Never, in field or tent.
Scorn the black regiment!

On June 1, 1863, through Senator Charles Sumner
of Massachusetts, the President made a tentative offer
to General Fremont to place him in conmiand of all the
negro troops to be raised. The offer was not accepted.
Had it been, Fremont at the close of the war would have
conmianded an army of almost 200,000 men, second in
number only to Grant's.

Employment of Neoboes by the Confederates

As early as June 1, 1861, negroes were employed by
the secessionists in constructing fortifications at Charles-
ton, S. C. As soon as Virginia went out of the Union
free negro volunteers were accepted in that State.

On June 28, 1861, after the legislature of Tennessee
had formed a military alliance with the Confederacy, it

248 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

authorized the governor, Isham G. Harris, "to receive
into the military service of the State all male free per-
sons of color, between the ages of 15 and 50," paying
each $8 per month, with clothing and rations. It was
further enacted that, if sufficient volunteers did not
present themselves the sheriflfs should press enough of
such persons to make up the required number. Early
in September it was announced in the Memphis Ava-

"O UAS3A JEFF, UIB SECESH FE^TR WILL KILL DE NIOGEBI "
From Oil collttUon of On Ntte Yort UiMorical SoeUtu

lanche that many negroes had volunteered for such
service, and, armed and equipped with shovels, axes,
blankets, etc., and under the leadership of white officers,
were marching through the streets shouting for Jeff.
Davis and sini[>^ng war songs. In very sinister fashion
the paper added ; ' ' Their riestination is unknown, but
it is supposed that they are on their way to the 'other
side of Jordan.' "

About this time Alabama organized free negrro vol-
unteers, one regiment consisting of as many as 3,400.

In February, 1862, the Confederate legislature of

NEGRO SOLDIERS 249

Virginia passed a bill to enroll in the military service
all the free negroes in the State.

Retaliation

In despite of these acts, when President Lincoln's
preliminary emancipation proclamation appeared on
September 22, 1862, the Confederate anthorities ex-
hibited great indignation over what they charged to be
a deliberate purpose of the Union Government to in-
cite a servile insurrection in the South. On October
13 General Pierre G. T. Beauregard wrote to a Con-
federate congressman at Richmond:

Has the bill for the execution of abolition prisoners, after
January next, been passed ? Do it, and England will be stirred
into action. It is high time to proclaim the black flag after that
period. Let the execution be with the garrote.

On December 23 Jefferson Davis, President of the
Confederacy, proclaimed the outlawry of the Union
generals who had enlisted negroes as soldiers, and de-
creed that all slaves and their white oflBcers captured
in arms be turned over to the State governors to be
dealt with according to law. In his third annual mes-
sage to his Congress on January 12, 1863, he stigma-
tized the final proclamation as a violation of President
Lincoln's inaugural pledge and the platform on which
he had been elected. He added:

It has established a state of things which can lead to but one
of three possible consequences — ^the extermination of the slaves,
the exile of the whole white population of the Confederacy, or
absolute and total separation of these States from the United
States. This proclamation is also an authentic statement by the
Government of the United States of its inability to subjugate
the South by force of arms, and, as such, must be accepted by
neutral nations, which can no longer find any justification in
withholding our just claims to formal recognition. It is also, in
effect, an intimation to the people of the North that they must
prepare to submit to a separation, now become inevitable; for
that people are too acute not to understand that a restitution

250 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

of the Union has been rendered forever impossible by the adop-
tion of a measure which, from its very nature, neither admits
of retraction nor can coexist with union.

But the passage which more especially concerns
negro soldiers is the following:

We may well leave it to the instincts of that common hu-
manity which a beneficent Creator has implanted in the breasts
of our fellowmen of all countries to pass judgment on a meas-
ure by which several millions of human beings of an inferior
race — peaceful and contented laborers in their sphere — are
doomed to extermination, while at the same time they are en-
couraged to a general assassination of their masters by the in-
sidious recommendation to abstain from violence unless in neces-
sary self-defence. Our own detestation of those who have at-
tempted the most execrable measures recorded in the history of
g^ty man is tempered by profound contempt for the impo-
tent rage which it discloses. So far as regards the action of
this government on such criminals as may attempt its execu-
tion, I confine myself to informing you that I shall — unless in
your wisdom you deem some other course more expedient —
deliver to the several State authorities all commissioned officers
of the United States that may hereafter be captured by our
forces in any of the States embraced in the proclamation, that
they may be dealt with in accordance with the laws of those
States providing for the punishment of criminals engaged in
exciting servile insurrection. The enlisted soldiers I shall con-
tinue to treat as unwilling instruments in the commission of
these crimes, and shall direct their discharge and return to
their homes on the proper and usual parole.

The Confederate Congress took up the subject soon
afterward, and, after protracted consideration, ulti-
mately disposed of it by passing the following resolu-
tion:

Sec. 1. That, in the opinion of Congpress, the commissioned
officers of the enemy ought not to be delivered to the authorities
of the respective States, as suggested in the said message, but
all captives taken by the Confederate forces ought to be dealt
with and disposed of by the Confederate Government.

Sec. 2. That, in the judgment of Congress, the proclamations
of the President of the United States and the other measures of

■ J.

r.} :

.'-^^-

NEGRO SOLDIERS 251

the Government of the United States and of its authorities,
commanders, and forces, designed or tending to emancipate
slaves in the Confederate States, or to abduct such slaves, or
to incite them to insurrection, or to employ negroes in war
against the Confederate States, or to overthrow the institu-
tion of African slavery, and bring on a servile war in these
States, would, if successful, produce atrocious consequences, and
that they are inconsistent with the spirit of those usages
which, in modern warfare, prevail among civilized nations;
they may, therefore, be properly and lawfully repressed by
retaliation.

By Section 3 President Davis was authorized to "cause full
and ample retaliation to be made for every such violation, in
such manner and to such extent as he may think proper."

By Sections 4, 5, and 6 white officers of negro troops in the
service of the Union, or those inciting the slaves to rise against
their masters, were, if captured, to be put to death, or be other-
wise punished at the discretion of the court.

Sec. 7. All negroes taken in anns against the Confederate
States or who shall give aid or comfort to the enemies of the
Confederate States shall, when captured, be delivered to the
State authorities, to be dealt with according to the present or
future laws of such State.

Some of the leading rebel journals, says Horace
Greeley in his ** American Conflict," on reflection ad-
mitted that this was unjustifiable — that the Confederacy
could not prescribe the color of citizens of the free
States, never in bondage at the South, whom our Gov-
ernment might justifiably employ as soldiers. But the
resolve nevertheless stood for years, if not to the last,
unrepealed and unmodified, and was the primary, fun-
damental impediment whereby the exchange of prisoners
between the belligerents was first interrupted; so that
tens of thousands languished for weary months in
prison-camps, where many thousands died of exposure
and starvation.

Secretary Stanton, having learned that three Union
black soldiers captured with the gunboat Isaac Smith
at Stone River had been placed in close confinement,
ordered three South Carolinian prisoners to be treated
likewise, and the fact to be communicated to the Con-

252 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

federate leaders. The Richmond Examiner, comment-
ing on this resolution, said:

It ifl not merely the pretention of a regular government
affecting to deal with rebels, but it is a deadly stab which they
are aiming at our institutions themselves — ^because they know
that, if we were insane enough to yield this point, to treat black
men as the equals of white, and insurgent slaves as equivalent
to our brave soldiers, the very foundation of slavery would be
fatally wounded.

After one of the conflicts before Charleston an im-
mediate exchange of prisoners was agreed on, but when
the Union prisoners came to be received only whites
made their appearance. A remonstrance against this
breach of faith was met by a plea of want of power to
surrender blacks taken in arms because of the resolve
of the Confederate Congress just quoted. This caused
President Lincoln, on July 30, 1863, to issue a general
order :

**It is the duty of every government to give protection to its
citizens, of whatever class, color, or condition, and especially to
those who are duly organized as soldiers in the public service.
The law of nations and the usages and customs of war, as car-
ried on by civilized powers, permit no distinction as to color in
the treatment of prisoners of war as public enemies. To sell or
enslave any captured person on account of his color, and for
no offence against the laws of war, is a relapse into barbarism,
and a crime against the civilization of the age.

**The Government of the United States will give the same
protection to all its soldiers; and, if the enemy shall sell or
enslave anyone because of his color, the offence shall be pun-
islied by retaliation upon the enemy's prisoners in our pos-
session.

**It is therefore ordered that, for every soldier of the United
States killed in violation of the laws of war, a rebel soldier shall
be executed; and for every one enslaved by the enemy or sold
into slavery, a rebel soldier shall be placed at hard labor on
public works, and continued at such labor until the other shall
be released and receive the treatment due to a prisoner of war."

Either the threat of tlie Confederates was an idle
one, or Lincoln's order deterred them from putting it

NEGRG 50LDIERS 253

into execution, for with but one important exception
they gave negroes captured in battle the same treat-
ment that was accorded white prisoners. At the storm-
ing of Fort Pillow, Tennessee, on April 12, 1863, the
Confederate General Forrest massacred at least three
hundred of the garrison, most of them negroes and their
white oflScers, after these soldiers had thrown down their
arms.

A rumor of this act came to the President just be-
fore he delivered an address at a sanitary fair in Balti-
more on April 18, 1864, and in his speech he solemnly
promised that if the charge against Forrest proved
upon investigation to be true retribution would be surely
executed. He said:

There seems to be some anxiety in the public mind whether
the Government is doing its duty to the colored soldier, and to
the service, at this point. At the beginning of the war and for
some time the use of colored troops was not contemplated ; and
how the change of purpose was wrought I will not now take
time to explain. Upon a clear conviction of duty I resolved to
turn that element of strength to account ; and I am responsible
for it to the American people, to the Christian world, to history,
and in my final account to God. Having determined to use the
negro as a soldier, there is no way but to give him all the pro-
tection given to any other soldier. ... If, after all that has
been said it shall turn out that there has been no massacre at
Port Pillow, it will be almost safe to say there has been none,
and will be none, elsewhere. If there has been the massacre of
three hundred there, or even the tenth part of three hundred, it
will be conclusively proved; and, being so proved, the retribu-
tion shall as surely come. It will be a matter of grave considera-
tion in what exact course to apply the retribution; but in the
supposed case it must come.

A congressional investigation found that the inmior
was true, and had not been exaggerated. Yet the bru-
tality revealed was so monstrous that the tender-
hearted President refrained, in spite of his promise,
from a retribution which, to be effective, would have
to be coextensive with the offence, and, because visited
in cold blood upon innocent prisoners, would be even

254 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

more brutal than the massacre, which was perpetrated in
the blood-lust of conquest.

Accordingly, the public interest being concentrated
at the time on the bloody Wilderness campaign of Grant
in Virginia, the Fort Pillow incident was allowed by the
Government to pass without action upon it.

Toward the end of the war, when the collapse of
the rebellion was in plain sight, the Confederate Gov-
ernment debated the question of arming the slaves ; the
measure failed by one vote. Mr. Lincoln expressed his
sentiments upon this unique phase of the conflict begun
in defence of slavery in a speech on the occasion of
a presentation of a captured rebel flag to Governor
Morton of Indiana.

While I have often said that all men ought to be free, yet
would I allow those colored persons to be slaves who want to be,
and next to them those white people who argue in favor of mak-
ing other people slaves. I am in favor of giving an appoint-
ment to such white men to try it on for these slaves. I will
say one thing in regard to the negro being employed to fight
for them. I do know he cannot light and stay at home and
make bread too. And, as one is about as important as the other
to them, I don't care which they do. I am rather in favor of
having them try them as soldiers. They lack one vote of doing
that, and I wish I could send my vote over the river so that I
might cast it in favor of allowing the negro to fight. But they
cannot fight and work both. We now see the bottom of the
enemy's resources.

CHAPTER X
*'Thb Wab Is a Failubb*'

Clement L. Vallandigham [O.] Speaks in the House on the Failure of the
War, and Demands Armistice with the Confederacy to Arrange Terms
of Peace — Reply by John A. Bingham [O.] Declaring the Union Is
Worth th^ Costliest Sacrifice of Blood and Treasure to Maintain It —
Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech: "These Dead Shall Not Have Died in
Vain" — Second Election of Lincoln — His Inaugural Address on the
Prosecution of the War: ''The Almighty Has His Purposes."

THE Union disaster at Fredericksburg (December
11-12, 1862) and the strong resistance of the Con-
federates at Vicksburg, overweighing in popular
opinion the costly Union victory at Stone River (Decem-
ber 30, 1862-January 4, 1863), caused the Opposition in
Congress to inaugurate its peace policy — the view that
the **war is a failure,*' *Hhe South cannot be con-
quered,*' and therefore that the Government should
speedily make the best terms it could with the enemy.

On January 14, 1863, Clement L. Vallandigham [0.]
spoke as follows in the House :

Peace and Reunion

Clement L. Vallandigham, M. C.

Sir, twenty months have elapsed, but the rebellion is not
crushed out ; its military power has not been broken ; the insur-
gents have not dispersed. The Union is not restored; nor the
Constitution maintained; nor the laws enforced. A thousand
millions have been expended and three hundred thousand lives
lost or bodies mangled ; and to-day the Confederate flag is still
near the Potomac and the Ohio, and the Confederate Govern-
ment stronger, many times, than at the beginning. Not a State
has been restored, not any part of any State has voluntarily re-

255

256 GREAT AMERICAN DEBA'.?ES

turned to the Union. And has anything been wanting that
Congress, or the States, or the people in their most generous
enthusiasm, their most impassioned patriotism, could bestow f
Was it power! And did not the party of the Executive control
the entire Federal (Jovemment, every State government, every
county, every city, town, and village in the North and West?
Was it patronage ? All belonged to it. Was it influence ? What
more? Did not the school, the college, the church, the press,
the secret orders, the municipality, the corporation (railroads,
telegraphs, express companies) , the voluntary association, all, all
yield it to the utmost ? Was it unanimity ? Never was an Ad-
ministration so supported in England or America. Five men
and half a score of newspapers made up the opposition. Was it
enthusiasm? The enthusiasm was fanatical. There has been
nothing like it since the Crusades. Was it confidence? Sir, the
faith of the people exceeded that of the patriarch. They gave
up Constitution, law, right, liberty, all at your demand for
arbitrary power that the rebellion might, as you promised, be
crushed out in three months and the Union restored. Was credit
needed? You took control of a country, young, vigorous, and
inexhaustible in wealth and resources, and a Government al-
most free from public debt, and whose good faith had never
been tarnished. Your great national loan bubble failed miser-
ably, as it deserved to fail ; but the bankers and merchants of
Philadelphia, New York, and Boston lent you more than their
entire banking capital. And when that failed, too, you forced
credit by declaring your paper promises to pay a legal tender
for all debts. Was money wanted? You had all the revenues
of the United States, diminished, indeed, but still in gold. The
whole wealth of the country, to the last dollar, lay at your feet.
Private individuals, municipal corporations, the State govern-
ments, all in their frenzy gave you money or means with reck-
less prodigality. The great Eastern cities lent you $150,000,000.
Congress voted first $250,000,000 and next $500,000,000 more in
loans; and then first $50,000,000, then $10,000,000; next $90,000,-
000, and in July last $150,000,000 in treasury notes; and the
Secretary has issued also a paper * * postage currency, ' ' in sums as
low as five cents, limited in amount only by liis discretion. Nay,
more: already since the 4th of July, 1861, this House has ap-
propriated $2,017,864,000, almost every dollar without debate
and without a recorded vote. A thousand millions have been
expended since the 15th of April, 1861; and a public debt or
liability of $1,500,000,0(X) already incurred. And to support all
this stupendous outlay and indebtedness a system of taxation,

THE WAR IS A FAILURE 257

direct and indirect, has been inaugurated, the most onerous
and unjust ever imposed upon any but a conquered people.

Money and credit, then, you have had in prodigal profusion.
And were men wanted? More than a million rushed to arms!
Seventy-five thousand first (and the country stood aghast at the
multitude), then eighty-three thousand more were demanded;
and three hundred and ten thousand responded to the call. The
President next asked for four hundred thousand, and Congress,
in its generous confidence, gave him five hundred thousand ; and,
not to be outdone, he took six hundred and thirty-seven thou-
sand. Half of these melted away in their first campaign ; and
the President demanded three hundred thousand more for the
war, and then drafted yet another three hundred thousand for
nine months. The fabled hosts of Xerxes have been outniun-
bered. And yet victory strangely follows the standards of the
foe. From Great Bethel to Vicksburg, the battle has not been
to the strong. Yet every disaster, except the last, has been fol-
lowed by a call for more troops, and every time so far they
have been promptly furnished. From the beginning the war
has been conducted like a political campaign, and it has been
the folly of the party in power that they have assumed that
numbers alone would win the field in a contest not with ballots
but with musket and sword. Yet after nearly two yeara of
more vigorous prosecution of war than ever recorded in his-
tory; after more skirmishes, combats, and battles than Alex-
ander, CoMsar, or the first Napoleon ever fought in any five years
of their military career, you have utterly, signally, disastrously
— I will not say ignominiously — failed to subdue ten millions of
** rebels," whom you had taught the people of the North and
West not only to hate but to despise. Rebels, did I say 1 Yes,
your fathers were rebels, or your grandfathers. He who now
before me on canvas looks down so sadly upon us, the false,
degenerate, and imbecile guardians of the great Republic which
he founded, was a rebel. And yet we, cradled ourselves in re-
bellion, and who have fostered and fraternized with every insur-
rection in the nineteenth century everywhere throughout the
globe, would now, forsooth, make the word ** rebel" a reproach.
Rebels certainly they are ; but all the persistent and stupendous
efforts of the most gigantic warfare of modern times have,
through your incompetency and folly, availed nothing to crusli
them out, cut off though they have been by your blockade from
all the world, and dependent only upon their own courage and
resources. And yet they were to be utterly conquered and sub-
dued in six weeks or three months! Sir, my judgment was

VI— 17 '

258 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

made up and expressed from the first. I learned it from
Chatham: '' My lords, you cannot conquer America. " And you
have not conquered the South. You never will. It is not in the
nature of things possible; much less under your auspices. But
money you have expended without limit, and blood poured out
like water. Defeat, debt, taxation, sepulchers, these are your
trophies. In vain the people gave you treasure and the soldier
yielded up his life. ** Fight, tax, emancipate, let these," said the
gentleman from Maine [Frederick A. Pike] at the last session,
'*be the trinity of our salvation." Sir, they have become the
trinity of your deep damnation. The war for the Union is, in
your hands, a most bloody and costly failure. The President
confessed it on the 22d of September, solemnly, officially, and
under the broad seal of the United States. And he has now
repeated the confession. The priests and rabbis of abolition
taught him that God would not prosper such a cause. War for
ihe Union was abandoned ; war for the negro openly begun, and
with stronger battalions than before. With what success? Let
the dead at Fredericksburg and Vicksburg answer.

And now, sir, can this war continue ? Whence the money to
carry it onf Where the men? Can you borrow? From whom?
Can you tax more? Will the people bear it? Wait till you
have collected what is already levied. How many millions more
of ** legal tender" — to-day forty-seven per cent, below the par
of gold — can you float ? Will men enlist now at any price ? Ah,
sir, it is easier to die at home. I beg pardon ; but I trust I am
not ''discouraging enlistments." If I am, then first arrest Lin-
coln, Stanton, and Halleck, and some of your other generals ; and
I will retract; yes, I will recant. But can you draft again?
Ask New England — New York. Ask Massachusetts. Where are
the nine hundred thousand ? Ask not Ohio — ^the Northwest. She
thought you were in earnest, and gave you all, all — ^more than
you demanded.

"The wife whose babe first smiled that day,

The fair, fond bride of yester eve,
And aged sire and matron gray,
Saw the loved warriors haste away,

And deemed it sin to grieve."

Sir, in blood she has atoned for her credulity; and now
there is mourning in every house and distress and sadness in
every heart. Shall she give you any more?

But ought this war to continue? I answer, no — not a day,
not an hour. What then ? Shall we separate ? A -^ain I answer,

THE WAR IS A FAILURE 259

no, no, no! What thent And now, sir, I come to the grandest
and most solemn problem of statesmanship from the beginning
of time; and to the Qod of Heaven, lUuminer of hearts and
minds, I would humbly appeal for some measure, at least, of
light and wisdom and strength to explore and reveal the dark
but possible future of this land.

CAN THE UNION OF THESE STATES BE RESTORED? HOW SHALL IT

BE DONE?

And why nott Is it historically impossible? Sir, the fre-
quent civil wars and conflicts between the states of Greece did
not prevent their cordial union to resist the Persian invasion;
nor did even the thirty years' Peloponnesian war, springing in
part, from the abduction of slaves, and embittered and disas-
trous as it was — let Thucydides speak — wholly destroy the fel-
lowship of those states. The wise Romans ended the three
years' social war after many bloody battles and much atrocity
by admitting the states of Italy to all the rights and privileges
of Roman citizenship— the very object to secure which these
States had taken up arms. The border wars between Scotland
and England, running through centuries, did not prevent the
final union, in peace and by adjustment, of the two kingdoms
under one monarch. Compromise did at last what ages of
coercion and attempted conquest had failed to effect. England
kept the crown, while Scotland gave the king to wear it; and
the memories of Wallace and the Bruce of Bannockburn be-
came part of the glories of British history. I pass by the union
of Ireland with England — a union of force, which Qod and
just men abhor; and yet precisely ''the Union as it should be"
of the abolitionists of America. Sir, the rivalries of the houses
of York and Lancaster filled all England with cruelty and
slaughter; yet compromise and intermarriage ended the strife
at last, and the white rose and the red were blended in one.
Who dreamed a month before the death of Cromwell that in
two years the people of England, after twenty years of civil war
and usurpation, would, with great unanimity, restore the house
of Stuart in the person of its most worthless prince, whose
father but eleven years before they had beheaded? And who
could have foretold in the beginning of 1812 that within some
three years Napoleon would be in exile upon a desert island and
the Bourbons restored 1 Armed foreign intervention did it ; but
it is a strange history. Or who, then, expected to see a nephew
of Napoleon, thirty-five years later, with the consent of the peo-

260 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

pie, supplant the Bourbon and reign Emperor of France f Sir,
many states and people, once separate, have become united in
the course of ages through natural causes and without conquest,
but I remember a single instance only in history of states or
people once united, and speaking the same language, who have
been forced permanently asunder by civil strife or war, unless
they were separated by distance or vast natural boundaries. The
secession of the Ten Tribes is the exception : these parted with-
out actual war ; and their subsequent history is not encouraging
to secession. But when Moses, the greatest of all statesmen,
would secure a distinct nationality and government to the He-
brews, he left Egypt and established^ his people in a distant
country. In modern times the Netherlands, three centuries ago,
won their independence by the sword ; but France and the Eng-
lish Channel separated them from Spain. So did our Thirteen
Colonies; but the Atlantic Ocean divorced us from England.
So did Mexico and other Spanish colonies in America; but the
same ocean divided them from Spain. Cuba and the Canadas
still adhere to the parent government. And who now. North or
South, in Europe or America, looking into history, shall pre-
sumptiously say that because of civil war the reunion of these
States is impossible? War, indeed, while it lasts, is disunion,
and, if it lasts long enough, will be final, eternal separation first
and anarchy and despotism afterward. Hence I would hasten
peace now, to-day, by every honorable appliance.

Are there physical causes which render reunion imprac-
ticable 1 None. Where other causes do not control, rivers unite ;
but mountains, deserts, and great bodies of water — oceani dis'
sociabiles^ — ^separate a people. Vast forests originally and the
lakes now also divide us — not very widely or wholly — from the
Canadas, though we speak the same language and are similar in
manners, laws, and institutions. Our chief navigable rivers run
from north to south. Most of our bays and arms of the sea
take the same direction. So do our ranges of mountains. Natu-
ral causes all tend to Union, except as between the Pacific Coast
and the country east of the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic.
It is *' manifest destiny.'' Union is empire. Hence, hitherto we
have continually extended our territory, and the Union with it,
south and west. The Louisiana purchase, Florida, and Texas all
attest it. We passed desert and forest, and scaled even the
Rocky Mountains, to extend the Union to the Pacific. Sir, there
is no natural boundary between the North and the South, and
no line of latitude upon which to separate; and if ever a line

^ '* Friendship-barring oceans."

THE WAR IS A FAILURE 261

of longititude shall be established it will be east of the Missis-
sippi valley. The Alleghanies are no longer a barrier. High-
ways ascend them everywhere, and the railroad now climbs their
summits and spans their chasms, or penetrates their rockiest
sides. The electric telegraph follows, and, stretching its con-
necting wires along the clouds, there mingles its vocal lightnings
with the fires of heaven.

And now, sir, is there any difference of race here so radical
as to forbid reunion? I do not refer to the negro race, styled
now, in unctuous official phrase by the President, ''Americans
of African descent." Certainly, sir, there are two white races
in the United States, both from the same common stock, and
yet so distinct — one of them so peculiar — ^that they develop dif-
ferent forms of civilization, and might belong, almost, to dif-
ferent types of mankind. But the boundary of these two races
is not at all marked by the line 'which divides the slaveholding
from the non-slaveholding States. If race is to be the geograph-
ical limit of disunion, then Mason and Dixon's can never be the
line.

Speaking of the natural causes which had formed the
Union, Mr. Vallandigham said:

And now, sir, what one of them is wanting? What one
diminished? On the contrary, many of them are stronger to-
day than in the beginning. Migration and intermarriage have
strengthened the ties of consanguinity. Commerce, trade, and
production have immensely multiplied. Cotton, almost unknown
here in 1787, is now the chief product and export of the country.
It has set in motion three- fourths of the spindles of New Eng-
land, and given employment, directly or remotely, to full half
the shipping, trade, and commerce of the United States. More
than that: cotton has kept the peace between England and
America for thirty years; and, had the people of the North been
as wise and practical as the statesmen of Oreat Britain, it
would have maintained Union and peace here. But we are being
taught in our first century and at our own cost the lessons
which England learned through the long and bloody experience
of eight hundred years. We shall be wiser next time. Let
not cotton be king, but peacemaker, and inherit the blessing.

A common interest, then, still remains to us. And union
for the common defence, at the end of this war, taxed, indebted,
impoverished, exhausted, as both sections must be, and with
foreign fleets and armies around us, will be fifty-fold more essen-

2(52 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

tial than ever before. And finally, sir, without union, our do-
mestic tranquility must forever remain unsettled. If it cannot
be maintained within the Union, how, then, outside of it, with-
out an exodus or colonization of the i)eople of the one section
or the other to a distant country t Sir, I repeat that two gov-
ernments so interlinked and bound together every way by physi-
cal and social ligaments cannot exist in peace without a com-
mon arbiter. Will treaties bind ust What better treaty than
the Constitution t What more solemn, more durable t Shall
we settle our disputes, then, by arbitration and compromise t
Sir, let us arbitrate and compromise now, inside of the Union.
Certainly it will be quite as easy.

And now, sir, to all these original causes and motives which
impelled to union at first must be added certain artificial liga-
ments which eighty years of association under a common Gk>v-
emment have most fully developed. Chief among these are
canals, steam navigation, railroads, express companies, the post-
ofSce, the newspaper press, and that terrible agent of good and
evil mixed — ** spirit of health, and yet goblin damned" — ^if free,
the gentlest minister of truth and liberty; when enslaved, the
supplest instrument of falsehood and tyranny — ^the magnetic tele-
graph. All these have multiplied the speed or the quantity of
trade, travel, communication, migration, and intercourse of all
kinds between the different States and sections; and thus, so
long as a healthy condition of the body-politic continued, they
became powerful cementing agencies of union. The numerous
voluntary associations, artistic, literary, charitable, social, and
scientific, until corrupted and made fanatical ; the various eccle-
siastical organizations, until they divided; and the political
parties, so long as they remained all national and not sectional,
were also among the strong ties which bound us together. And
yet all of these, perverted and abused for some years in the
hands of bad or fanatical m^i, became still more powerful in-
strumentalities in the fatal work of disunion ; just as the veins
and arteries of the human body, designed to convey the vitaliz-
ing fluid through every part of it, will carry also, and with
increased rapidity, it may be, the subtle poison which takes life
away.

Nor is this all. It was through their agency that the im-
prisoned winds of civil war were all let loose at first with
such sudden and appalling fury ; and, kept in motion by political
power, they have ministered to that fury ever since. But, potent
alike for good and evil, they may yet, under the control of the
people, and in the hands of wise, good, and patriotic men, be

THE WAR IS A FAILURE 263

made the most efFective agencies, under Providence, in the re-
union of these States.

Other ties also, less material in their nature, but hardly less
persuasive in their influence, have grown up under the Union.
Long association, a common history, national reputation, treaties
and diplomatic intercourse abroad, admission of new States, a
common jurisprudence, great men whose names and fame are
the patrimony of the whole country, patriotic music and songs,
common battlefields, and glory won under the same flag. These
make up the poetry of union ; and yet, as in the marriage rela-
tion and the family with similar influences, they are stronger
than hooks of steel. He was a wise statesman, though he may
never have held an office, who said, ''Let me write the songs of
a people and I care not who makes their laws." Why is the
** Marseillaise" prohibited in France t Sir, "Hail Columbia"
and the ''Star Spangled Banner" — ^Pennsylvania gave us one
and Maryland the other — ^have done more for the Union than
all the legislation and all the debates in this Capitol for forty
years; and they will do more yet again than all your armies,
though you call out another million men into the field. Sir, I
would add "Yankee Doodle"; but first let me be assured that
Yankee Doodle loves the Union more than he hates the slave-
holder.^

What, then, I ask, is the immediate, direct cause of dis-
union and this civil wart Slavery, it is answered. Sir, that is
the philosophy of the rustic in the play — ^"that a great cause of
the night is lack of the sun." Certainly slavery was in one
sense — very obscure indeed — ^the cause of the war. Had there
been no slavery here, this particular war about slavery would
never have been waged. But far better say that the negro is
the cause of the war ; for, had there been no negro here, there
would be no war just now. What thent Exterminate himt
Who demands it t Colonize himt Howt Where t Whent At
whose cost t Sir, let us have an end of this folly.

But slavery is the cause of the war. Whyt Because the
South obstinately and wickedly refused to restrict or abolish
it at the demand of the philosophers or fanatics and demagogues
of the North and West. Then, sir, it was abolition, the purpose
to abolish or interfere with and hem in slavery, which caused
disunion and war. Slavery is only the subject, but abolition the
cause, of this civil war. I will not be stopped by that cry of
mingled fanaticism and hypocriqr about the sin and barbarism

^ In trnth, the Bong was written in derision, bj a Britisli offieer, and ngt
by an American,

264 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

of African slavery. Sir, I see more of barbarism and sin, a
thousand times, in the continuance of this war, the dissolution
of the Union, the breaking up of this Oovemment, and the en-
slavement of the white race by debt and taxes and arbitrary
power. The day of fanatics and sophists and enthusiasts, thank
Ood, is gone at last ; and though the age of chivalry may not,
the age of practical statesmanship is about to return. Sir, there
is fifty-fold less of anti-slavery sentiment to-day in the West
than there was two years ago; and, if this war be continued,
there will be still less a year hence. The people there begin, at
last, to comprehend that domestic slavery in the South is a
question, not of morals, or religion, or humanity, but a form of
labor, perfectly compatible with the dignity of free white labor
in the same community, and with national vigor, power, and
prosperity, and especially with military strength. They have
learned, or begin to learn, that the evils of the system affect
the master alone, or the community and State in which it exists;
and that we of the free States partake of all the material bene-
fits of the institution, unmixed with any part of its mischiefs.
They believe also in the subordination of the negro race to the
white where they both exist together, and that the condition of
subordination, as established in the South, is far better every
way for the negro than the hard servitude of poverty, degrada-
tion, and crime to which he is subjected in the free States. All
this, sir, may be **pro-slaveryism," if there be such a word.
Perhaps it is; but the people of the West begin now to think
it wisdom and good sense. We will not establish slavery in our
own midst ; neither will we abolish or interfere with it outside
of our own limits.

Sir, you cannot abolish slavery by the sword; still less by
proclamations, though the President were to ** proclaim" every
month. Of what possible avail was his proclamation of Sep-
tember ? Did the South submit ? Was she even alarmed ? And
yet he has now fulmined another **bull against the comet" —
brutum fulmen — and, threatening servile insurrection with all
its horrors, has yet coolly appealed to the judgment of mankind,
and invoked the blessing of the (Jod of peace and love! But
declaring it a military necessity, an essential measure of war to
subdue the rebels, yet, with admirable wisdom, he expressly
exempts from its operation the only States and parts of States
in the South where he has the military power to execute it.

Neither, sir, can you abolish slavery by argument. As well
attempt to abolish marriage or the relation of paternity. The
South is resolved to maintain it at every hazard and by every

THE WAR IS A FAILURE 265

sacrifice ; and if ' ' this Union cannot endure part slave and part
free/' then it is already and finally dissolved. Talk not to me
of **West Virginia.'' Tell me not of Missouri, trampled under
the feet of your soldiery. As well talk to me of Ireland. Sir,
the destiny of those States must abide the issue of the war.
But Kentucky you may find tougher. And Maryland —

''E'en in her ashes live their wonted itreB.*'

Nor will Delaware be found wanting in the day of trial.

But I deny the doctrine. It is full of disunion and civil
war. It is disunion itself. Whoever first taught it ought to be
dealt with as not only hostile to the Union, but an enemy of
the human race. Sir, the fundamental idea of the Constitu-
tion is the perfect and eternal compatibility of a union of States
**part slave and part free"; else the Constitution never would
have been framed nor the Union founded ; and seventy years of
successful experiment have approved the wisdom of the plan.
In my deliberate judgment a confederacy made up of slave-
holding and non-slaveholding States is, in the nature of things,
the strongest of all popular governments. African slavery has
been, and is, eminently conservative. It makes the absolute
political equality of the white race everywhere practicable. It
dispenses with the English order of nobility, and leaves every
white man, North and South, owning slaves or owning none, the
equal of every other white man. It has reconciled universal
suffrage throughout the free States with the stability of govern-
ment.

What, then, sir, with so many causes impelling to reunion,
keeps us apart to-day T Hate, passion, antagonism, revenge, all
heated seven times hotter by war. Sir, these, while they last,
are the most powerful of all motives with a people, and with
the individual man; but fortunately they are least durable.
They hold a divided sway in the same bosoms with the nobler
qualities of love, justice, reason, placability ; and, except when at
their height^ are weaker than the sense of interest, and always,
in States at least, give way to it at last. No statesman who
yields himself up to them can govern wisely or well; and no
State whose policy is controlled by them can either prosper or
endure. But war is both their offspring and their ailment, and
while it lasts all other motives are subordinate. The virtues of
peace cannot flourish, cannot even find development in the midst
of fighting; and this civil war keeps in motion the centrifugal
forces of the Union, and gives to them increased strength and

266 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

activity every day. But such, and so many and powerful, in my
judgment, are the cementing or centripetal agencies impelling
us together that nothing but perpetual war and strife can keep
us always divided.

And now, sir, if it be the will of all sections to unite, then
upon what terms? Sir, between the South and most of the
States of the North, and all of the West, there is but one subject
in controversy — slavery. It is the only question, said Mr. Cal-
houn twenty-five years ago, of sufficient magnitude and potency
to divide this Union; and divide it it will, he added, or drench
the country in blood if not arrested. It has done both. But
settle it on the original basis of the Constitution, and give to
each section the power to protect itself within the Union, and
now, after the terrible lessons of the past two years, the Union
will be stronger than before, and, indeed, endure for ages. Woe
to the man, North or South, who, to the third or fourth genera-
tion, should teach men disunion.

And now the way to reunion: what so easyt Behold to-
day two separate governments in one country, and without a
natural dividing line; with two presidents and cabinets, and a
double congress; and yet each under a constitution so exactly
similar, the one to the other, that a stranger could scarce dis-
cern the difference. Was ever folly and madness like thist
Sir, it is not in the nature of things that it should so continue
long.

But why speak of ways or terms of reunion now t The will
is yet wanting in both sections. Union is consent and good will
and fraternal affection. War is force, hate, revenge. Is the
country tired at last of war? Has the experiment been tried
long enough T Has sufficient blood been shed, treasure expended,
and misery inflicted in both the North and the South? What
then? Stop fighting. Make an armistice — ^no formal treaty.
Withdraw your army from the seceded States. Reduce
both armies to a fair and sufficient peace establishment.
Declare absolute free trade between the North and South. Buy
and sell. Agree upon a zollverein. Recall your fleets. Break
up your blockade. Reduce your navy. Restore travel. Open
up railroads. Reestablish the telegraph. Reunite your express
companies. No more Monitors and ironclads, but set your
friendly steamers and steam ships again in motion. Visit the
North and West. Visit the South. Exchange newspapers. Mi-
grate. Intermarry. Let slavery alone. Hold elections at the
appointed times. Let us choose a new President in sixty-four.
Alid when the gospel of peace shall have descended again from

THE WAR IS A FAILURE 267

Heaven into their hearts, and the gospel of abolition and of
hate been expelled, let your clergy and the churches meet again
in Christian intercourse, North and South. Let the secret or-
ders and voluntary associations everywhere reunite as brethren
once more. In short, give to all the natural and all the artificial
causes which impel us together their fullest sway. Let time do
his office — drying tears, dispelling sorrows, mellowing passion,
and making herb and grass and tree to grow again upon the
hundred battlefields of this terrible war.

''But this is recognition." It is not formal recognition, to
which I will not consent. Recognition now, and attempted per-
manent treaties about boundary, travel, and trade, and parti-
tion of Territories, would end in a war fiercer and more disas-
trous than before. Recognition is absolute disunion; and not
between the slave and the free States, but with Delaware and
Maryland as part of the North and Kentucky and Missouri part
of the West. But wherever the actual line, every evil and mis-
chief of disunion is implied in it. And for similar reasons, sir,
I would not at this time press hastily a convention of the States.
The men who now would hold seats in such a convention would,
upon both sides, if both agreed to attend, come together full
of the hate and bitterness inseparable from a civil war. No, sir ;
let passion have time to cool and reason to resume its sway. It
cost thirty years of desperate and most wicked patience and
industry to destroy or impair the magnificent temple of this
Union. Let us be content if within three years we shall be able
to restore it.

But certainly what I propose is informal, practical recog-
nition. And that is precisely what exists to-day, and has
existed, more or less defined, from the first. Flags of truce,
exchange of prisoners, and all your other observances of the
laws, forms, and courtesies of war are acts of recognition. Sir,
does any man doubt to-day that there is a Confederate Oovern-
ment at Richmond, and that it is a '' belligerent "t Even the
Secretary of State has discovered it at last, though he has writ-
ten ponderous folios of polished rhetoric to prove that it is not.
Will continual war, then, without extended and substantial suc-
cess, make the Confederate States any the less a government in
fact?

''But it confesses disunion." Yes, just as the surgeon who
sets your fractured limb in splints, in order that it may be
healed, admits that it is broken. "But the Government will have
failed to 'crush out the rebellion.' " Sir, it has failed. You
went to war to prove that we had a Government. With what

268 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

result? To the people of the loyal States it has, in your hands,
been the Oovemment of King Stork, but to the Confederate
States, of King Log. ''But the rebellion will have triumphed."
Better triumph to-day than ten years hence. But I deny it.
The rebellion will at last be crushed out in the only way in
which it ever was possible. ''But no one will be hung at the
end of war.*' Neither will there be, though the war should last
half a century, except by the mob or the hand of arbitrary
power. But really, sir, if there is to be no hanging, let this
Administration, and all who have done its bidding everywhere,
rejoice and be exceeding glad.

And now, sir, allow me a word upon a subject of very great
interest at this moment, and most important it may be in its
influence upon the future — foreicin medution. I speak not of
armed and hostile intervention, which I would resist as long as
but one man was left to strike a blow at the invader. But
friendly mediation — the kindly offer of an impartial power to
stand as a daysman between the contending parties in this most
bloody and exhausting strife— ought to be met in a spirit as
cordial and ready as that in which it is proffered. It would
be churlish to refuse. Certainly it is not consistent with the
former dignity of this Government to ask for mediation ; neither,
sir,,would it befit its ancient magnanimity to reject it. As pro-
posed by the Emperor of France,* I would accept it at once.
Now is the auspicious moment. It is the speediest, easiest, most
graceful mode of suspending hostilities. Let us hear no more
of the mediation of cannon and the sword. The day for all
that has gone by. Let us be statesmen at last.

Very grand, indeed, would be the tribunal before which the
great question of the union of these States and the final destiny
of this continent for ages should be heard, and historic through
all time the embassadors who should argue it. And, if both bel-
ligerents consent, let the subjects in controvewry be referred to
Switzerland, or Russia, or any other impartial and incorruptible
power or state in Europe. But at last, sir, the people of these
several States here, at home, must be the final arbiter of this
great quarrel in America; and the people and States of the
Northwest, the mediators who shall stand, like the prophet, be-
twixt the living and the dead, that the plague of disunion may
be stayed.

The speech of Mr. Vallandigham was replied to by
John A. Bingham [0.].

1 Napoleon IIL

THE WAR IS A FAILURE 269

The Union Worth the Costliest Sacrifice

John A. Bingham, M. C.

My colleague tells us that the war ought to stop; that it
should not continue a day nor an hour. He is for the Union,
he tells us, and against the employment of the only means by
which the Union can be this day maintained, the armed power
of the people themselves. There can be no Union as it was,
unless by arms you sustain, over all the Republic, the Constitu-
tion as the supreme law of the land ; and yet the gentleman says
the war ought to stop ; that it should not continue a day nor an
hour. Half of his speech is devoted to the task of satisfying
the people that he is for the Constitution as it is and the Union
as it was. Let us see. He tells us frankly that he voted neither
men nor money to carry on the war. Suppose all the representa-
tives in this hall had followed his example, had acted as he de-
clares he has acted in the cause of the Union, what would have
been the result? No bill authorizing the enlistment of volim-
teers in defence of your flag, no appropriation of money for
arming, equipping, and keeping in the field six hundred thou-
sand defenders of the Union, no arm lifted to support the tot-
tering pillars of the Republic, shaking in this wild storm of re-
bellion. All would have been abandoned. The gentleman who
says he is for the Union as it was would have abandoned all to
the tender mercies of this armed rebellion, which has multiplied
those graves all over the land to which the gentleman refers with
so much tenderness, and so much regret for those who fill them ;
fallen, as he says, by reason of this unconstitutional war. The
gentleman could not find it in his heart to denounce the re-
bellion as unconstitutional, but only the war on the part of the
Government for the suppression of that rebellion is unconstitu-
tional.

This is the last phase of that democracy which has brought
this ruin upon the country. I do not say that everybody of the
party to which the gentleman belongs was of his mind ; but I do
say, and I challenge contradiction in saying it, that, but for the
aid and comfort which that gentleman and his party have given
to this rebellion from its inception to this hour, this ruin, to
which he points so significantly to-day, wrought by this terrible
conflict of arms, and which has reached almost every hearthstone
in the land, never had been. In my judgment, the gentleman,
and those of his party who have agreed and cooperated with
him, are not clear of the blood shed in this war. I am as toler-

270 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

ant of conflicting opinions as the gentleman or any other man;
but I cannot be expected to be tolerant of the charge made by
the gentleman this day, that those who stand by the country and
by the Constitution, by reason of their fidelity to duty, violate
the Constitution ; nor can I be tolerant of the demand that the
only means by which the Government can be maintained shall
be withdrawn from its support, and the country left naked to its
enemies. That is the point I make with the gentleman to-day.
He seems to assume that there is no difficulty in the way to a
restoration, a speedy restoration of peace and of the Union, if
your armies are disbanded, if the war for the Union only ceases,
and ceases at once. There is not a word of denunciation from
the gentleman's lips against this rebellion, and he assumes and
takes it for granted that secession is a constitutional right ; and
by way of glorifying these infernal architects of our country's
ruin inquires, were not our fathers rebels like unto them ? I thank
him for his candor in so plainly announcing his opinion, though
constrained to differ with him in his opinions and his conclu-
sions.

My colleague, who talks to-day about the Union as it was,
is the same gentleman who introduced, in February, 1861, in aid
of this rebellion, the proposition to ** divide the United States into
four sections," and to arm, by an amendment to the Constitu-
tion, the rebellious section of country — ^the fifteen slave States —
with the power to legalize secession, in utter disregard of every
free State in the Union, and without the consent of any of
them. I do not think that a gentleman occup3ring that position
upon the records of the country has a right to denounce any-
body as opponents of the Constitution and the Union; much
less do I suppose it becomes him to assume that he is the spe-
cial guardian of the ''Constitution as it is and the Union as
it was."

The gentleman was very correct in remarking that it would
be a most singular spectacle, indeed, to have two separate gov-
ernments within the limits of territory which God and nature
had designed should be under one government, and be the com-
mon heritage of one people. I agree with him ; and yet the gen-
tleman managed and contrived a device by which the American
people, if they had accepted the proposition, would have con-
sented that that very result might be accomplished.

And yet the gentleman is for **the Union as it was." The
gentleman seems to be horrified by the thought of two separate
governments existing upon this common heritage of one people,
which God, by its mountains, and its lakes, and its magnificent

THE WAR IS A FAILURE 271

rivers, has declared shall never be partitioned. His premises
and his conclusions are strangely at fault with each other. The
gentleman is for the Union, and at the same moment for dis-
union. Disband your armies, and let the war for the Union
cease, says the gentleman.

What then ? The South would be independent of the North,
and the South would be triumphant over your violated Consti-
tution and shattered Union. The gentleman so assumed, and
hence his resolutions of this session contemplate and speak of
'*a final treaty of peace" with these rebels as a foreign and in-
dependent power. The gentleman further assumes — and I
would like to know by what authority — ^that if we withdraw
our armies, if we lay down our arms, if we cease to make war
upon the rebels, they will come back into the Union under a
treaty of peace. I would like to know by what authority he
says so. If he knows it, he ought to give the House the benefit
of his information. If it is a mere matter of speculation with
him, why, of course, he has a right to indulge in his specula-
tions, but we may be pardoned if we question the correctness
of them. Has he any definite information T The gentleman is
silent upon that subject.

Mr. Vallandigham. — ^Will you allow me time to finish my
speech ?

Mr. Bingham. — That is an unreasonable request.

Mr. Vallandigham. — Then I have said all I desire to say
to the gentleman.

Mr. Bingham. — I supposed the gentleman had. I have this
to say in reply to the gentleman, that I doubt very much
whether the gentleman is authorized to speak for these rebels
to that extent. To whatever extent he may be their mouthpiece,
I venture to doubt his authority to say for them that if we lay
down our arms and surrender to them, and allow them to pro-
claim their independence and their triumph over us and over
our common (Jovernment, they will then consent to come back
and be governed by the Constitution and the laws. I have no
doubt that the gentleman may say many things by their au-
thority, but that is one thing I do not think he is allowed to say
by his master, Jefferson Davis, yet.

Here the speaker discussed the conduct of President
Buchanan's Administration as based on the policy pro-
posed by Mr. Vallandigham, and charged that this con-
duct had brought on the war.

272 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

And with such a role as was thus played in the capital of the
nation by that Democratic cabinet council, this gentleman who
helped to put them there has the effrontery to come here and
arraign men for making war on these innocent, unoffending
rebels. According to his logic we should have sat silent, and
allowed those gentlemen to plunder the i)eople of the money in
their treasury on the one hand, and to rob them of the means
of self-defence and self-preservation on the other. The sugges-
tion of the gentleman is in perfect keeping with the conduct of
that Cabinet. Disband your army, he says. Leave the field to
these rebels. Allow them to proclaim themselves to all the
world independent of your authority. Allow the Union to be
dissevered, and thereupon go to work and settle the difficulty,
in the language of the gentleman's resolution, by '*a final treaty
of peace." That would be a spectacle for gods and men to look
on with wonder — the Government of the United States engaged
in a final treaty of peace with Robert Toombs and Jefferson
Davis, and John B. Floyd and John Letcher of Virginia, and
John Slidell and James Mason, with the gentleman from Ohio
chief in their counsel.

But the gentleman, not content with simply making this
suggestion, comes here to-day to discredit the Government in
the face of the world, and says, with an air of triumph, **how
can you carry on the war? Can it continue? Can you borrow
more money T Can you obtain any more revenue by taxation ? * *
And he undertakes to answer, for all the loyal people of this
great country, **no." I ask him again for his authority. I
deny the correctness of his conclusion. I would despair of the
Republic if I thought that the millions who people all this broad
land of ours, from the rock-bound coast of New England to
the golden gates of the Pacific, were, like the gentleman from
Ohio, ready to lay their hands upon their mouths, and their
mouths in the dust,* crying before these armed rebels and
thieves, ** unclean, unclean, unclean." The i)eople, sir, occupy
no such position, thank God, and I trust they never will; be-
cause I believe that the spirit of the Puritans, at which the gen-
tleman affects to sneer to-day, runs through their veins. ** Ah,'*
says my colleague, **you can borrow no more money; you can
raise no more revenue by taxation." I take it that, in this in-
stance, the wish of my colleague is father to the thought. He
would, if he could, have those who hold the purse-strings in this
land withhold from the Government the means of support. I
have the right to infer, from his words, that he would, if he

1 See speech of Geo. E. Pugh, Vol. V, page 242.

THE WAR IS A FAILURE 273

could, induce the loyal people of the land to withhold the pay-
ment of taxes in support of their own Government. And yet
he is for the Union as it was and for the Constitution as it is !

The gentleman refers to Washington, whose bones, he says,
are disturbed by this unconstitutional war for the Union. Has
the gentleman, when he talks thus — suggesting to the people a
disregard of law, a withholding of taxes, a refusal to support
their Government — ^forgotten those grand words of Washington,
which ought to be written to-day over the lintel of every door
in the land: ''the Constitution which at any time exists is sa-
credly obligatory on all until changed by the act of the whole
people"! I think that admonition of Washington a sufScient
response to the suggestions of the gentleman to the good people
of this land to pay no more taxes, not to submit to their own
laws, to allow the Union to be dismembered, and the heritage,
which God himself has declared should be the common heritage
of one people, to be divided. And for what purpose? Why,
that it may be united again. I suppose the gentleman 's philoso-
phy is that the best way to preserve a man's life is to kill him,
in the first place, merely for the purpose of showing his skill
in restoring him to life again. He would destroy the Union
to-day by disbanding the army; he would destroy the Union
to-day by destroying the public confidence in the Government;
he would destroy it by withholding from the Government the
revenues necessary to carry on the war. And after that is done,
he would restore it by some strange machinery, by some curious
power of enchantment which he possesses. I warn the gentle-
man to lay no such flattering unction to his soul. He who
would put out the light now burning on your altars had better
be careful, before he does that work, to inquire what earthly
power shall that light relume.

My colleague would consent that the pillars of the temple of
our liberties should be shaken down, in the vain belief that he
has the power to rear them again in all their just and beautiful
proportions. I trust in (Jod that my colleague's day-dream is
not to be realized. I feel the conviction that those who reared
the proportions of this beautiful fabric of American empire
were mighty men, whom God taught to build for glory and for
beauty. They were men who are cot seen in every generation,
or in every century. They were men of that large discourse
that looks before and after. They were men fitted of (Jod to
accomplish the great work of laying the foundations of a great
and free commonwealth.

In this hour of peril my colleague tells us to follow the ex-

VI— 18

274 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

ample of Moses. He said he was one of the greatest statesmen
that ever lived. I think it most likely. He wants us to follow
the example of Moses; but what he meant by the suggestion I
am not sure that I fully comprehend.

Owen Lovejoy [111.]. — To lead the slaves out of the house
of bondage.

Mr. Bingham. — He informed us that Moses, when he wanted
to do justice to his people, when he wanted to restore the au-
thority of good government, took care to leave the land of
Egypt, and lead them out of that country. Does the gentleman
mean by that suggestion that we ought to follow the lead of
some Moses — himself for example — get up and leave this goodly
heritage of ours to be occupied exclusively by those rebels in
arms, who have sworn that they will not have this Gk)vemment
of the people to rule over them ? I cannot infer an3rthing else.
And if that be what he means, then I have this to say to him :
that the right of expatriation is a right secured under the Con-
stitution and laws of the United States to all its citizens ; and if
it be according to his mind to gather up his bundle under his
arm, and to go into distant parts in order to accommodate these
rebels, he has a perfect right to exercise his privilege. But I
beg leave to suggest that those of us who think otherwise shall
be permitted to stand by the old flag, and to remain on our
native heath undisturbed, so long as it shall please God to let
us live.

If he meant anything else than this bright suggestion,
I would like to know what he did mean ? My friend on my left
suggests that he meant to lead the people out of their bondage
into the land of their liberty. [Laughter.]

I hope the gentleman will not repudiate the law of his great
law-giver — and he is also my great law-giver and model states-
man. If we have any respect for Moses's law, in my belief .the
first act to be done by the nation should be to proclaim to these
rebels, in the words uttered by this great law-giver, which he
received from the Almighty himself in the midst of the darkness
and earthquake of the mountain: **Thou shalt not steal."
[Laughter.] They are attempting to steal your country and
mine; they are attempting to steal your property and mire;
they are attempting to steal the heritage of your children and
mine. I ask my colleague whether he will consent that they
shall steal any portion of this conunon territory of our country
or not?

Mr. Vallandiqham. — I will consent that my colleague may
volunteer to prevent it, if he wishes.

THE WAR IS A FAILURE 275

Mb. Btnoham. — ^Will my colleague really consent that I may
volunteer ? [ Laughter. ]

Mb. Vallandigham. — ^Yes, sir. My colleague and myself
will be in the same category, at leisure after the 4th of March,
and perhaps we may volunteer together.

Mb. Bingham. — I take courage from that, for the inference
to be drawn, both from the spoken arguments of my colleague
and his official conduct in this House, is that he would permit
nobody to volunteer. [Applause in the gallery.]

The gentleman would disband your army, withhold all sup-
plies, and permit me alone to volunteer against all these rebels
in arms. That is magnanimity. Talk about volunteering,
sneeringly, when you, who have sworn to support the Constitu-
tion of the United States, stand by and see it torn and rent in
tatters, and deny the right to maintain it by arms. When vio-
lent hands are laid upon the old flag of the Union, stained, as
it is, all over with the blood of its defenders, shed by their
assassins and murderers, you deny the right to uphold it, and
refuse to vote supplies to your citizen soldiery, who peril all
things earthly for the majesty of the law and in defence of
their own institutions. You talk about volunteering! [Ap-
plause in the galleries.]

My colleague said that you cannot maintain this Union, or
the authority of this Government, by force of arms; that you
must do it by compromise ; and he undertakes to make this good
by some carefully considered references to history. There
is one thing in the history of the world which he has over-
looked, and that is this great fact, that there is not a single
well-authenticated instance upon record of a great government,
assailed by internal dissensions and armed rebellion, which sub-
mitted and surrendered to the rebellion and survived — ^not one.
Yet the gentleman would have us, in the light of that great
warning, lay down our arms, disband our armies, submit to
the rebellion for the time being, and undertake to settle this
great controversy afterward in favor of republican institutions
by compromise! No government can survive a base surrender
of its own authority to armed rebels. The rebels in that event
become the government.

Mr. Speaker, I know the effect of such an appeal to the peo-
ple of the country. I know that the good people of this land,
who have given the first bom of their homes for the defence of
the Union and the Constitution and the suppression of the re-
bellion, love their noble sons and cherish them as they do the
apple of their eye. I know that after their day's work is done,

276 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

in the quiet twilight of the evening they mourn over their ab-
sence and the broken circle of their homes. I beg them to re-
member that, though by disbanding your army they may for
the moment make whole again the golden circle of their homes,
they may thereby lose to themselves and their children a coun-
try. I ask them to remember that beautiful utterance, than
which none more beautiful ever fell from human lips, of one of
the dying Fathers of the Republic, * * I commit my spirit to God
and my daughter to my country." How could he, how could
any man, die in peace while leaving his child without a coun-
try and a government to shelter and protect it when he was
gone!

No, sir, there is something more important to be considered
here to-day than the question whether this life or that life, even
though it be the noblest and the most promising in the land,
shall survive this war, and that question is, shall the Republic
live immortal among the nations, and cover with the aegis of its
protection your children and mine, and all the children of this
land, when we ourselves shall be no more upon the earth T Yes,
sir, the great question of to-day is, shall the Republic livet
Any sacrifice of blood, any present loss to us of ''this intel-
lectual being/' is not too great to be made, if thereby we may
maintain intact that Constitution which our fathers gave us.

The theme of Mr. Bingham's speech received sim-
pler and briefer but even more effective treatment by the
President a few months later.

On November 19, 1863, the National Cemetery of
soldiers killed at the battle of Gettysburg was dedicated
in the presence of a vast array of people assembled
from all parts of the Union upon the battlefield. The
orator of the day was Edward Everett. At the close
of his long address, composed in the finished periods
of that ** classic'' order of American oratory of which
he was the greatest living master, when the thunder
of applause that it evoked had ceased, President Lin-
coln rose and spoke a few heart-felt words which so
moved the deeps of emotion in his hearers that many
sat spell-bound and silent after the speaker had finished.
As the President's letter to Mr. Everett, written on the
following day, indicates Mr. Lincoln inferred from this

THE WAR IS A FAILURE 277

reception that the speech was a ''failure, *' but he was
quickly disabused of that idea by evidences coming from
every part of the Union of the deep impression it had
made on the hearts of his countrymen.

>* These Dead Shall Not Have Died in Vain''
Speech of President Lincoln at Getttsbub«

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on
this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated
to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether
that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can
long endure: We are met on a great battlefield of that war.
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final rest-
ing-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation
might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should
do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — ^we cannot con-
secrate — ^we cannot hallow — this ground. The brave men, liv-
ing and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above
our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note
nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget
what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedi-
cated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here
have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here
dedicated to the great task remaining before us — ^that from
these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause
for which they gave the last full measure of devotion ; that we
here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain ;
that this nation, under Qod, shall have a new birth of freedom ;
and that government of the people, by the people, for the peo-
ple, shall not perish from the earth.

The declaration that "the war is a failure" was em-
bodied in the next national platform of the Democracy
[1864], but the party's candidate for President, General
George B. McClellan, virtually repudiated it. Lincoln
was triumphantly reelected, and in his second inaugural
address, on March 4, 1865, justifiied the prosecution of
the war until slavery, the curse from which it sprang,
should forever be abolished.

GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

"Thb Almiohtt Has Hib Pubposeb"

Second Inaugural or pBEsmsNT LiNcoiiN

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the da<
ration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that
the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the
conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph,
and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the

.LITTLE 1£AC. IN

FmrnOuceatctiOH^OuNtiB York Hltlerltal Soclttt

same Bible, and pray to the same Qod ; and each invokes his
aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men
should dare to ask a just Qod's assistance in wringing their
bread from the sweat of other men's faces; hut let us judge
not, that we may be not judged. The prayers of both could not
be answered — that of neither has been answered fully.

The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world
because of offences! for it must needs he that offences come, but
woe to that man by whom the offence cometh." If we shall
suppose that American slavery is one of those offences which,
in the providence of Qod, must needs come, but which, having
continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove.

THE WAR IS A FAILURE 279

and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war,
as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we dis-
cern therein any departure from those divine attributes which
the believers in a living Gkxl always ascribe to him f Fondly do
we hope — fervently do we pray — ^that this mighty scourge of
war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue
until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and
fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every
drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another
drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago,
so still it must be said, ''The judgments of the Lord are true
and righteous altogether."

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firm-
ness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive
on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds;
to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his
widow, and his orphan — ^to do all which may achieve and cher-
ish a just and lasting peace among ourselveSy and with all na-
tions.

CHAPTER XI

CONSCBIPTION

Henry Wilson [Mass.] Proposes in the Senate Bill to Draft Soldiers — His
Speech on the Bill — It Is Passed — Debate in the House on the Bill:
in Favor, William M. Davis [Pa.], James H. Campbell [Pa.], John H.
Bingham [O.j; Opposed, Charles J. Biddle [Pa.], Chilton A. White
[O.], Clement L. Vallandigham [O.], James 0. Robinson [UL], Samuel
8. Cox [O.], Daniel W. Voorheet [Ind.]— Bill Is Passed— Conscription
by the South.

ON February 16, 1863, Henry Wilson [Mass.]
brought before the Senate a bill for a draft of
soldiers between the ages of twenty and forty-
five to prosecute the war.

It was passed upon the same day after considerable
debate and amendment. After a long and heated dis-
cussion in the House it was passed by that body, with
various amendments, on February 25. The House
amendments were accepted by the Senate on March 2,
and the bill was approved by President Lincoln on
March 3.

In its final form its preamble read as follows :

Whereas there now exist in the United States an insurrection
and rebellion against the authority thereof, and it is, under the
Constitution of the United States, the duty of the Qovemment
to suppress insurrection and rebellion, to guarantee to each State
a republican form of government, and to preserve the public
tranquillity; and, whereas, for these high purposes, a military
force is indispensable, to raise and support which all persons
ought willingly to contribute; and, whereas, no service can be
more praiseworthy and honorable than that which is rendered
for the maintenance of the Constitution and Union, and the con-
sequent preservation of free government ; be it enacted, etc.

280

CONSCRIPTION 281

The Conscbiption Act
conabess, fsbbuabt 16-25, 1863

Senator Wilson. — The needs of the nation demand that we
riiould fill the regiments now in the field, worn and wasted by
disease and death, by enrolling and drafting the population of
the country under the constitutional authority ''to raise and
support armies."

That grant of power carries with it, in the language of ''The
Federalist," "all the powers requisite to the complete execution
of its trust. ' '

Sir, this grant to Congress of power "to raise and support
armies" carries with it the right to do it by voluntary enlist-
ment or by compulsory process. If men cannot be raised by vol-
untary enlistment then the Government must raise men by in-
voluntary means, or the power to raise and support armies for
the public defence is a nullity. James Monroe said, in a letter to
the chairman of the Military Committee of the House of Repre-
sentatives, in 1814, that —

"Tt would be absurd to suppose that Congress could not carry this
power into effect otherwise than by accepting the voluntary service of indi-
viduals. It might happen that an army could not be raised in that mode,
whence the power would have been grajited in vain."

It is a high and sacred duty, resting alike upon all the citi-
zens of the Republic, upon the sons of toil and misfortune and
the more favored few, to labor, to suffer, ay, to die, if need be,
for their country. Never since the dawn of creation have the
men of any age been summoned to the performance of a higher
or nobler duty than are the men of this generation in America.
The passage of this great measure will clothe the President with
ample authority to summon forth the sons of the Republic to the
performance of the high and sacred duty of saving their coun-
try, now menaced, and the periled cause of civilization and free-
dom in America, and of winning the lasting gratitude of coming
ages, and that enduring renown which follows every duty nobly
and bravely done. The enactment of this bill will give confidence
to the Government, strength to the country, and joy to the worn
and weary soldiers of the Republic around their camp fires in
the land of the rebellion.

There was unanimous acceptance by the Senate of
the principles of the bill, the discussion being upon its

282 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

•

details. In the House, however, the principle was
strenuously opposed, chiefly by the Northern ** Peace'*
Democrats, when the bill came up for discussion on
February 23. A provision to punish by fine or im-
prisonment any one who should violently resist the
draft or who should counsel or aid any person to re-
sist it was the particular object of attack.

Charles J. Biddle [Pa.] objected to the bill. He said
the effect of it was to turn the militia, the constitutional
defence of the people against any aggression of their
rights, into a regular army, the unquestioning instru-
ment of the Government

The Executive, empowered, as the very word shows, only to
execute known laws, establishes ''martial law," that is, ''the will
of a conqueror, " over all the people of the North. I feel a per-
sonal interest, an interest as a citizen, that things should not go
on thus ; for I believe it is at the constant risk of lighting up the
flame of social revolution around your hearthstones and mine.
Let us be warned in time. Have you noted the significant cir-
cumstance of men fresh from unjust imprisonment in Federal
dungeons being received with high public honors and elevated
to high positions?

Wn.LiAM M. Davis [Pa.]. — ^Will the gentleman inform the
House who it is that will inaugurate a revolution in the North —
the Bepublican party or the party with which the gentleman
actsT

Mb. BmoLE. — I think, sir, it will be an outraged people, with-
out respect to party. I believe that the spirit which animated
Hampden and the men of the English Revolution is not extinct
in the age in which we live. That flame was brightened by the
great example of the men of our own Revolution.

James H. Campbell [Pa.] replied to his colleague
(Mr. Biddle).

Mr. Speaker, in the early stages of this rebellion it became
necessary to exercise an extreme power to arrest the traitors who
were circulating through the Northern States hatching treason
and poisoning the minds of the people, because at that time the
life of this nation was in daily and hourly peril; no man knew
the extent of the conspiracy against the Union; we were sur-
rounded by spies and traitors everywhere. They were in the

CONSCRIPTION 283

legislative bodies of the countiy; they were with the armies in
the field; they were in every town, village, and hamlet of the
North ; and I commend the President and War Department for
the vigor with which they caused traitors to be arrested and
incarcerated, until it could be ascertained where the country
stood, and proper measures could be perfected for their trial
and conviction.

Sir, in all ages and under all civilized governments there
have been instances of the exercise of extreme power whenever
the life of the nation has been in peril. Extreme peril makes
extreme necessity; and nations, like individuals, must act ac-
cordingly. When the assassin enters your house at night you do
not pause to take the ordinary measures that might be resorted to
in broad daylight and under ordinary circumstances. Tou first
defend the Uf e of your family, and afterward take the necessary
measures to convict and punish the culprit.

Let me tell gentlemen on the other side that, so far from con-
demning these arrests, it would be better for them if they could
read the writing on the wall, and make their peace with liberty
and their country while there is yet time. If they cannot see
the evidence of a healthy reaction among the masses they are
blind to the signs of the times. The error of the Oovernment
has been leniency. If it had given to traitors a drum-head court-
martial and hempen cord, it would better have pleased the loyal
men in the United States. [Applause in the galleries.] If I mis-
take not, the day is not far distant when the people will be so
aroused against rebellion that traitors, their aiders and abettors,
will call upon the rocks and mountains to cover them.

Now, sir, there was an intimation thrown out by my colleague
—often repeated from that side of the House — ^that if we pro-
ceed with proper measures — ^measures which they are pleased to
call unconstitutional — ^to make arrests and put down the rebel-
lion, we will stir up revolution at the North. I am not afraid of
any social or political revolution in the free States. If gentle-
men see proper to inaugurate social or political armed revolution
at the North, I hope they will do it at once ; the sooner the trai-
torous effort is made the better. There is loyalty enough in the
North to take care of any treason that can be found among the
free States. Our soldiers in the army can take care of the rebels
in front, and loyal men enough will rise up in the free States to
dispose of the rebels within their limits. [Applause in the gal-
leries.]

Until the last traitor is compelled to submit to lawful au-
thority, to the Constitution and laws, we can have no peace ; till

284 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

that is done peace is infamy, peace is anarchy, peace is destruc-
tion, and no loyal and judicious man will advocate it. The rebels
scout and scorn all propositions of peace, even if we were dis-
posed to listen to them. There is no alternative but to conquer
or be conquered ; to live freemen or die slaves. And I am one of
those who are ready to vote the last man and the last dollar for
the accomplishment of the great object before us. I am ready
to fight it out by land and by sea, as long as may be necessary to
crush out the rebels themselves, and all their sympathizers at
home and abroad. [Applause in the galleries.]

Chilton A. White [O.] followed Mr. Campbell in
a speech against the bill.

This bill provides for the appointment of a provost marshal
in every congressional district in the United States. It provides
for the appointment of persons for taking the census of those
who are subject to military duty. It provides for the appoint-
ment of draft commissioners. All these officers will be appointed
by the executive officer of the United States, and they will be
violent political partisans, holding the personal liberty and the
personal security of every citizen within the congressional dis-
tricts of the United States, as it were, in the hollow of their
hands. These provost marshals are armed with the power to
arrest for treasonable practices. In God 's name, what does that
mean f This is the most singular definition of crime I have ever
seen embodied into any statutory enactment of this or any other
country. What are treasonable practices? Who are to deter-
mine what they are 1 Are these provost marshals, many of them
unskilled in the law, to determine that question T Why, it will
have as many definitions and as many meanings as there are
provost marshals to construe the statute. If a man gets up and
argues upon the stump against this wicked, this corrupt, and this
usurping Administration, he will be denounced as engaged in
treasonable practices, according to the view of these political
partisans, who are made the judges of the loyalty of every man
in this country.

Why, sir, if the devil himself were to tax his ingenuity he
could not invent a more complete device for destroying the lib-
erty and happiness of the people than this bill, as illustrated in
the light of the history of this country for the past eighteen
months.

Treasonable practices ! Why, sir, in the opinion of many of
those gentlemen upon this floor who assume to be the especial

CONSCRIPTION 285

guardians of the loyalty of the country, I have no doubt I would
be considered as engaged in treasonable practices while denounc-
ing this measure and this scheme, as I do denounce it here and
now.

Oh, but it is said that these men are only to be arrested and
detained for a short period of time, and for a temporary pur-
pose, which will pass away with the occasion, and that after the
draft is all over they are to be delivered over to the judicial
tribunals of the country. Delivered over! what fort Is there
any man here who ever expects that anybody will ever be tried
for treasonable practices? No, sir; it is a device; it is a catch;
it is an excuse ; it is an apology, to afford some justification for
this monstrous and outrageous provision. No trial is intended,
and no judicial tribunal will ever hear of any of these treason-
able practices. This clause is incorporated here to afford an
apology for illegal arrests. Men will be arrested without oath,
and without show of probable cause. They will be detained with-
out the benefit of a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury
of the country. It is but the renewal of that reign of terror
which we passed through but a few days before our election last
fall.

But another new kind of trial is established and invented by
this bill. If any person shall dissuade another from the per-
formance of military duty he is to be considered as guilty of
crime and subject to summary arrest and trial. What does that
mean 1 Does it mean that if a man denounces the policy of this
Administration as wicked, corrupt, and dangerous to the liberties
of the people ; if he denounces the acts of usurpation of which
it has been guilty; if he denounces the monstrous policy upon
which it at present conducts the war in open and flagrant viola-
tion of the Constitution, and in derogation of the rights and es-
tablished institutions of the States, is he to be taken and held
as discouraging persons from the performance of military duty T
If so, then I suppose he would be held guilty, and would be sub-
ject to military arrest.

We all know what construction will be placed upon this pro-
vision. They are unjust and ingenious devices by which the
people are to be deprived of this last vestige of liberty. All this
might be borne if the injured citizen could appeal to the local
State judicial tribunals for the redress of injuries thus inflicted
upon him ; but by your indemnity bill provision is made for tak-
ing all this class of cases, by a novel and unusual mode of ap-
peal, to the United States courts; and when thus appealed you
have provided that under the plea of the general issue evidence

286 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

may be offered to show that the wrong was committed upon
probable cause, or under color of authority derived from the
President or a law of Congress, and such proof shall constitute
a good and valid defence to the action, and the court shall so
charge the jury, and the jury shall so find. Thus you declare by
law what shall be a defence; you put the charge to the jury in
the mouth of the court, and compel the jury to find accordingly.
What more effectual immunity could be granted for the commis-
sion of these wrongs upon the rights and the liberties of the
citizen than are here given 1 Not only the independence, but the
very existence of the local State judicial tribunals is struck
down so far as this class of cases is concerned, and it is sought
to dog him into submission to these wrongs by compelling him to
seek redress in distant courts, under circumstances of great in*
convenience and at great cost ; and as a further penalty for seek-
ing redress it is provided that if he is non-suited, or fails in the
action, he shall pay double costs.

When you have overthrown the constitutions of the States;
when you have overthrown the judicial authorities of the States;
when you have removed from the citizens every possible means
for the protection of their personal liberty and property; when
you have done all this, the only refuge which is left, the only
appeal which the injured and outraged citizen can make, is to
the God of justice and the God of right. And if these outrages
are carried to the extent I apprehend they will be, that appeal,
as God reigns in heaven, will be made. I tell you that in my sec-
tion of the State of Ohio the spirit of our citizens will no longer
tolerate these things. They will defend the rights of the citizen ;
and, if you close all the judicial tribunals and every mode of
legal redress to them, they will plant themselves upon the consti-
tution of their States and of the United States, and defend
themselves in the possession of the rights and liberties guaran-
teed to them by those instruments, with and by all the means
which God and nature have placed in their possession. They
have already borne too much, and I tell you they will not bear
more.

^^7) gentlemen upon the other side of the House say there
has not been enough of this thing; that there have not been as
many political arrests as should have been made. And they talk
about liberty, about free government, and about republican in-
stitutions. My God! what ideas of republican institutions, of
free government, and of liberty must such men have! What
do they mean by these words T Is it that kind of license which
permits one party, because they have the power, to seize, with-

CONSCRIPTION 287

out authority of law, condemn without trial, and imprison with-
out process the partisans of another party 1 Is that the kind of
free government they wantT Is that the kind of republican in-
stitutions which it is desired to perpetuate in this country? Is
that the liberty of which you boast so much 1 Sir, I want liberty,
but I want it regulated by law, not by license, not subject to the
capricious will of any one man. This bill strikes at the very
roots of every immunity that belongs to the citizen. It not only
affects his personal liberty, but it even affects the freedom of his
speech ; it puts a gag in his mouth and will subject him to ar-
rest and imprisonment for words spoken. Why, sir, the theory
of our Government is that even error of opinion may be toler-
ated so long as reason is left free to combat it, or until it seeks
to perpetuate itself by force.

We are willing to extend to you, without let or hindrance on
our part, all the rights we claim for ourselves. We invite you
into the arena before the people, to a full, fair, and unrestrained
discussion of the questions at issue between us. Bring to your
aid every argument and every reason you can to support your
sinking cause; and let it be understood that these same rights
which we concede to you we claim and intend to exercise for
ourselves, and no earthly power shall prevent us from doing so.
Ood, by a law of His own making, made thought free and left
each individual free to select his own form and mode for its ex-
pression ; and it is not for you, gentlemen, to ascend the throne
of the Almighty and attempt to set boundaries to the range of
opinion or prescribe the forms of speech in which it shall be ex-
pressed, and to denounce your judgments upon men who do not
think and speak according to prescribed forms. When Qod
made man in His own image, the noblest of all sublunary beings,
a creature endowed with reason and free will, an intellectual
being, it became his high prerogative, each one for himself and
not one for another, to exercise these faculties; not as he must
answer to you, but as he must answer to his Creator, for him-
self, so he must use and improve his talents for himself ; and it
is only when opinion seeks to perpetuate itself by force, and not
by argument and consent, that it may be met with force. In
these respects our Government is but a reflex of the divine mind,
and while we on our side support our cause by the persuasive
influences of truth, reason, and argument, you on your side have
no right to resort to coercive measures against us. If you do, I
warn you that an eye for an eye and tooth for tooth will be the
law. We intend to walk in the light of our own reason, forming
our own judgments and pursuing our own conclusions, support-

288 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

ing them by the inherent power of truth, illastrated by saeh
reason and argument as we can bring to bear. Were we, on all
fitting and proper occasions, to refuse to do so, we would violate
a trust reposed in us by God himself, and prove ourselves un-
worthy of our divine Master, fit subjects for degradation and
slavery.

Now, sir, I wish to say that I believe this to be a bill that
would strike down the rights of the States and the liberties of
the citizen, and that, if attempted to be enforced and executed,
it will lead to results and calamities in this country which will
sadden all our hearts and the hearts of right-minded men every-
where. The time has passed when the people of this country
will submit longer to the state of things which has been inaugu-
rated by the party now in power. They know their rights, and,
knowing them, they are bent and determined upon maintaining
them at all costs and at all hazards. Gentlemen on the other
side may take all the comfort they can from any apparent re-
action they see going on in the country. We have suffered im-
prisonment ; we have suffered wrongs, and insults, and indigni-
ties ; our motives of patriotism have been impugned ; thousands
of our citizens are to-day languishing in your prisons and bas-
tiles, snuffing the damp vapors of solitary dungeons, separated
from their families, their business, and all the associations and
endearments that cluster around home ; and all, sir, for no other
crime or offence than that their views and opinions do not ex-
actly correspond with your own; men whose ruling passions
are an uncompromising devotion to the Constitution and the
Union, but differ with you as to the best means to be employed
for their maintenance and support.

Clement L. Vallandigham [0.] followed his colleague
in opposing the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I do not propose to discuss this bill at any
great length in this House. I am satisfied that there is a settled
purpose to enact it into a law, so far as it is possible for the
action of the Senate and House and the Prudent to make it
such. I appeal, therefore, from you, from them, directly to the
country; to a forum where there is no military committee, no
previous question, no hour rule, and where the people them-
selves are the masters. I commend the spirit in which this dis-
cussion was commenced by the chairman of the Military Com-
mittee [Abraham B. Olin, of New York]. Only let me caution
him that he cannot dictate to the minority here what course

CONSCRIPTION 289

th^ shall pursue. But, sir, I regret that I cannot extend the
commendation to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Camp-
bell] who addressed the House a little while ago. If he or any
other gentleman of the majority imagines that any one here
is to be deterred by threats from the expression of his opinions,
or from giving such votes as he may see fit to give, he has utterly
misapprehended the temper and determination of those who
sit on this side of the chamber. His threat I hurl back with
defiance into his teeth. I spurn it. I spit upon it. That is
not the argument to be addressed to equals here; and I there-
fore most respectfully suggest that hereafter we shall be spared
personal denunciation and insinuations against the loyalty of
men who sit with me here ; men whose devotion to the Constitu-
tion and attachment to the Union of these States are as ardent
and immovable as yours, and who only differ from you as to
the mode of securing the great object nearest their hearts.

Mr. Campbell. — ^The gentleman will allow me

Mb. Vallandigham. — I yield for explanation.

Mr. Campbell. — Mr. Speaker, it is a significant fact that
the gentleman from Ohio has applied my remarks to himself
and others on his side of the House. Why was this donet I
was denouncing traitors here, and I will denounce them while
I have a place upon this floor. It is my duty and my privilege
to do so. And, if the gentleman from Ohio chooses to give my
remarks a personal application, he can so apply them.

Mr. Vallandigham. — That is enough.

Mr. Campbell. — One moment.

Mr. Vallandigham. — Not another moment after that. I
yielded the floor in the spirit of a gentleman, and not to be
met in the manner of a blackguard. [Applause and hisses in
the galleries.]

Mr. Campbell. — ^The member from Ohio is a blackguard.
[Benewed hisses and applause in the galleries.]

James C. Robinson. [111.]. — I rise to a question of order. I
demand that the galleries be cleared. We have been insulted
time and again by contractors and plunderers of the Oovem-
ment in these galleries, and I ask that they be now cleared.

Samuel S. Cox [O.]. — ^I hope my friend from Illinois will
not insist on that. Only a very small portion of those in the
galleries take part in these disturbances. The fool-killer will
take care of them.

Mr. Vallandigham. — ^I have already said that it is not my
purpose to debate the general merits of this bill at large, and
for the reason that I am satisfied that argument is of no avail

VI— 19

290 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

here. I appeal, therefore, to the people. Before them I pro-
pose to try this great question — ^the question of constitutional
power, and of the unwise and injudicious exercise of it in this
bill. We have been compelled, repeatedly, since the 4th of
March, 1861, to appeal to the same tribunal. We appealed to
it at the recent election. And the people did pronounce judg-
ment upon our appeal.

Talk to me, indeed, of the leniency of the Executive ! too few
arrests ! too much forbearance by those in power ! Sir, it is the
people who have been too lenient. They have submitted to your
oppressions and wrongs as no free people ought ever to submit.
But the day of patient endurance has gone by at last. Mistake
them not. They will be lenient no longer. Abide by the Consti-
tution, stand by the laws, restore the Union if you can restore
it — ^not by force ; you have tried that and failed — Try some other
method now — ^the ancient, the approved, the reasonable way —
the way in which the Union was first made. Surrender it not
now — ^not yet — ^never. But unity is not union ; and attempt not,
at your peril — I warn you — ^to coerce unity by the utter destruc-
tion of the Constitution and of the rights of the States and the
liberties of the people. Union is liberty and consent : unity is
despotism and force. For what was the Union ordained? As
a splendid edifice to attract the gaze and admiration of the
world? As a magnificent temple — a stupendous superstructure
of marble and iron, like this Capitol, upon whose lofty dome the
bronzed image — hollow and inanimate — of freedom is soon to
stand erect in colossal mockery, while the true spirit, the living
goddess of liberty, veils her eyes and turns away her face in
sorrow, because, upon the altar established here and dedicated
by our fathers to her worship, you, a false and most disloyal
priesthood, offer up, night and morning, the mingled sacrifices of
servitude and despotism? No, sir. It was for the sake of the
altar, the service, the religion, the devotees that the temple of
the Union was first erected ; and, when these are all gone, let the
edifice itself perish. Never — never — ^never will the people con-
sent to lose their own personal and political rights and liberties
to the end that you may delude and mock them with the splendid
unity of despotism.

Sir, what are the bills which have passed, or are still before,
the House ? The bill to give the President entire control of the
currency — ^the purse — of the country. A tax bill to clothe him
with power over the whole property of the country. A bill to
put all power in his hands over the personal liberties of the peo-
ple. A bill to indemnify him, and all under him, for every act

CONSCRIPTION 291

of oppression and outrage already consummated. A bill to
enable him to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in order to
justify or protect him, and every minion of his, in the arrests
which he or they may choose to make — arrests, too, for mere
opinions' sake. Sir, some two hundred years ago men were
burned at the stake, subjected to the horrors of the Inquisition,
to all the tortures that the devilish ingenuity of man could in-
vent — for whatT For opinions on questions of religion — of
man's duty and relation to his Ood. And now, to-day, for opin-
ions on questions political, under a free (Government, in a coun-
try whose liberties were purchased by our fathers by seven
years' outpouring of blood and expenditure of treasure — ^we
have lived to see men, the born heirs of this precious inheritance,
subjected to arrest and cruel imprisonment at the caprice of a
President, or a Secretary, or a constable. And, as if that were
not enough, a bill is introduced here to-day, and pressed forward
to a vote, with the right of debate, indeed — extorted from you
by the minority — but without the right to amend, with no
more than the mere privilege of protest — a bill which enables
the President to bring under his power, as Commander-in-Chief,
every man in the United States between the ages of twenty and
forty-five — three millions of men. And, as if not satisfied with
that, this bill provides, further, that every other citizen, man,
woman, and child, under twenty years of age and over forty-five,
including those that may be exempt between these ages, shall
be also at the mercy — so far as his personal liberty is concerned
—of some miserable ''provost marshal" with the rank of a cap-
tain of cavalry who is never to see service in the field; and
every congressional district in the United States is to be gov-
erned — ^yes, governed — ^by this petty satrap— this military
eunuch — this Baba — and he even may be black — ^who is to do
the bidding of your Sultan, of his Grand Vizier. Sir, you have
but one step further to go— give him the i^jrmbols of his o£Bce —
the Turkish bow-string and the sack.

What is it, sir, but a bill to abrogate the Constitution, to
repeal all existing laws, to destroy all rights, to strike down the
judiciary and erect upon the ruins of civil and political liberty
a stupendous superstructure of despotism. And for whatT To
enforce lawT No, sir. It is admitted now by the legislation
of Congress, and by the two proclamations of the President, it
is admitted by common consent that the war is for the abolition
of negro slavery, to secure freedom to the black man. You tell
me, some of you, I know, that it is so prosecuted because this is
the only way to restore the Union; but others openly and can-

292 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

didly confess that the purpose of the prosecution of the war
is to abolish slavery. And thus, sir, it is that the freedom of
the negro is to be purchased, under this bill, at the sacrifice of
every right of the white men of the United States.

Sir, I am opposed, earnestly, inexorably opposed, to this
measure. If there were not another man in this House to vote
against it, if there were none to raise his voice against it, I, at
least, dare stand here alone in my place, as a Representative,
undismayed, unseduced, unterrified, and heedless of the mis-
erable cry of ''disloyalty," of i^srmpathy with the rebellion and
with rebels, to denounce it as the very consummation of the
conspiracy against the Constitution and the liberties of my
country.

Where, now, are your taunts and denunciations, heaped upon
the Confederate Gk>vernment for its conscription, when you,
yourselves, become the humble imitators of that government and
bring in here a conscription act more odious even than that
passed by the Confederate Congress at Richmond t What is
this bill? A confession that the people are no longer ready to
enlist ; that they are not willing to carry on this war longer, until
some effort has been made to settle this great controver&fy in
some other way than by the sword. And yet, in addition to the
one million two hundred and thirty-seven thousand men who^
have voluntarily enlisted, you propose now to force the entire
body of the people, between the ages of twenty and forty-five,
under military law and within the control of the President sa
Commander-in-Chief of the army for three years, or during the
war — ^which is to say ''for life'*; aye, sir, for life, and half
your army has abeady found, or will yet find, that their enlist^
ment was for life, too.

Sir, what does all this mean 1 You were a majority at first ;
the people were almost unanimously with you, and they were
generous and enthusiastic in your support. You abused your
power and your trust, and you failed to do the work which you
promised. You have lost the confidence, lost the hearts of the
people. You are now in a minority at home. And yet what a
spectacle is exhibited here to-night ! You, an accidental, tempo-
rary majority, condemned and repudiated by the people, are
exhausting the few remaining hours of your political life in at-
tempting to defeat the popular will, and to compel, by the most
desperate and despotic of expedients ever resorted to, the
submission of the majority of the people, at home, to the min-
ority, their servants here. Sir, this experiment has been tried
before in other ages and countries wd its issue always, among

CONSCRIPTION 293

a people born free or fit to be free, has been expulsion or death,
to the conspirators and tyrants.

Have a care, have a care, I entreat you, that you do not press
these measures too far. I shall do nothing to stir up an already
excited people — ^not because of any fear of your contemptible
petty provost marshals, but because I desire to see no violence
or revolution in the North or West. But I warn you now, that
whenever, against the will of the people, and to perpetuate power
and office in a popular Government which they have taken from
you, you undertake to enforce this bill, and, like the destroying
angel in Egypt, enter every house for the first-bom sons of the
people — remember Poland. You cannot and will not be per-
mitted to establish a military despotism.

What do you propose to make the duty of each provost mar-
shal in carrying out the draft? Among other things, that he
shall ''inquire into and report to the provost marshal-general"
— ^what? Treason No. Felony? No. Breach of the peace, or
violation of law of any kind ? No ; but ' ' treasonable practices' ' ;
yes, treasonable practices. What mean you by these strange,
ominous words? Whence come they? Sir, they are no more new
or original than any other of the cast-off rags filched by this
Administration from the lumber-house of other and more anti-
quated despotisms. The history of European tyranny has taught
US somewhat of this doctrine of constructive treason. Treason-
able practices! Sir, the very language is borrowed from the
old proclamations of the British monarchs some hundreds of
years ago. It was this that called forth that English act of
Parliament of twenty-fifth Edward III, from which we have
borrowed the noble provision against constructive treason in
the Constitution of the United States. Arbitrary arrests for
no crime known, defined, or limited by law, but for pretended
offences, herded together under the general and most compre-
hensive name of ''treasonable practices," had been so frequent
in the worst periods of English history, that in the language of
the act of Henry IV, "no man knew how to behave himself or
what to do or say for doubt of the pains of treason." The
statute of Edward III had cut all these fungous, toadstool trea^
sons up by the root; and yet, so prompt is arbitrary power to
denounce all opposition to it as treasonable that, as Lord Hale
observes —

"Things were so carried by parties and factions in the succeeding
reign of Richard II, that this statnte was but little observed but as this
or that party got the better. Bo ... it came to pass that almost every
offence that was or aeemed to he a breach of the faith and allegiance due

294 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

to the Idng was, by cotutruetion, eonaequenee, and interpretation, railed
into tlie offence of high treason."

But steadily, in better times, the people and the Parliament
of England returned to the spirit and letter of the act of Ed-
ward III, passed by a Parliament which now, for five hundred
years, has been known and honored as Parliamentum benedictum,
the ''blessed Parliament" — ^jnst as this Congress will be known,
for ages to come, as ''the accursed Congress." Among many
other acts, it was declared by a statute, in the first year of the
fourth Henry's reign, that **in no time to come any treason be
judged, otherwise than as ordained by the statute of King Ed-
ward III." And for nearly two hundred years it has been the
aim of the lawyers and judges of England to adhere to the plain
letter, spirit, and intent of that act, "to be extended," in the
language of Erskine in his noble defence of Hardy, "by no new
or occasional constructions — to be strained by no fancied analo-
gies — to be measured by no rules of political expediency — ^to be
judged of by no theory — ^to be determined by the wisdom of
no individual, however wise — ^but to be expounded by the simple,
genuine letter of the law."

Such, sir, is the law of treason in England to-day ; and so
much of the just and admirable statute of Edward as is applic-
able to our form of government was embodied in the Constitution
of the United States. And yet what have we lived to hear in
America daily, not- in political harangues or the press only, but
in official proclamations and in bills in Congress! Yes, your
high officials talk now of "treasonable practices" as glibly "as
girls of thirteen do of puppy dogs." Treasonable practices!
Disloyalty ! Who imported these precious phrases and gave them
a legal settlement heret Your Secretary of War. He it was
who by command of our most noble President authorized every
marshal, every sheriff, every township constable, or city police-
man in every State in the Union to fix, in his own imagination,
what he might choose to call a treasonable or disloyal practice,
and then to arrest any citizen at his discretion, without any
accusing oath and without due process or any process of law.
And now, sir, all this monstrous tyranny, against the whole
spirit and the very letter of the Constitution, is to be deliber-
ately embodied in an act of Congress ! Your petty provost mar-
shals are to determine what treasonable practices are and "in-
quire into, ' ' detect, spy out, eavesdrop, insnare, and then inform,
report to the chief spy at Washington. These, sir, are now to
be our American liberties under your Administration. There is
not a crowned head in Europe who dare venture on such an

CONSCRIPTION 295

experiment. How long, think you, this people will submit t But
words, too — conservation or public speech — are to be adjudged
** treasonable practices." Men, women, and children are to be
haled to prison for free speech. Whoever shall denounce or
oppose this Administration; whoever may affirm that war will
not restore the Union, and teach men the gospel of peace, may
be reported and arrested upon some old grudge, and by some
ancient enemy, it may be, and imprisoned as guilty of a treason-
able practice.

Sir, there can be but one treasonable practice under the Con-
stitution in the United States. ''Treason against the United
States,*' says the Constitution, ''shall consist only in levying
war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them
aid and comfort.'* [Here a Republican member nodded several
times and smiled.] Ah, sir, I understand you. But was Lord
Chatham guilty of legal treason, treasonable aid and comfort,
when he denounced the war against the colonies and rejoiced
that America had resisted 1 Was Burke, or Fox, or Barr6 guilty
when defending the Americans in the British Parliament and
demanding conciliation and peace? Were even the Federalists
guilty of treason, as defined in the Constitution, for "giving
aid and comfort" to the enemy in the war of 1812? Were
the Whigs in 1846 ? Was the Ohio Senator liable to punishment,
under the Constitution, and by law, who said, sixteen years ago,
in the Senate chamber, when we were at war in Mexico: "If
I were a Mexican as I am an American, I would greet your vol-
unteers with bloody hands and welcome them to hospitable
graves?" Was Abraham Lincoln guilty because he denounced
that same war while a Representative on the floor of this House ?
Was all this "adhering to the enemy, giving him aid and com-
fort'' within the meaning of this provision?

A Member. — The Democratic papers said so.

Mb. Vallandigham. — Sir, I am speaking now as a lawyer and
as a legislator to legislators and lawyers acting under oath and
the other special and solemn sanctions of this chamber, and
not in the loose language of the political canvass.

The speaker here denounced the treatment accorded
those who had been arrested by the Government.

Newspapers, the Bible, letters from home, except under sur-
veillance, a breath of air, a sight of the waves of the sea, or
of the mild blue sky, the song of birds, whatever was denied
to the prisoner of Chillon, and more, too; yes, even a solitary

296 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

lamp in the casemate, where a dying prisoner straggled with
death, all have been refused to the American citizen accused
of disloyal speech or opinions by this most just and merciful
Administration.

Says the Constitution:

"The aeeoBed shall enjoy the right to have the aurirtanee of eooiiBel
for hie defence.''

And yet your Secretary of State, the ''conservative" Seward
— ^the confederate of Thurlow Weed, that treacherous, dissem-
bling foe to constitutional liberty and the true interests of his
country — forbade his prisoners to employ counsel, under penalty
of prolonged imprisonment.

And here is another order to the same effect, signed by
William H. Seward himself, and read to the prisoners at Fort
Warren on the 29th of November, 1861 :

' ' Diflconntenancing and repudiating all eneh practices ''^-

The disloyal practice, forsooth, of employing counsel —

''the Secretary of State desires that all the State prisoners may understand
that they are expected to revoke all 9%ich engagements now existing and
avoid any hereafter, as they can only lead to new complications and embar-
rassments to the cases of prisoners on whose behalf the Qavemment might
"be disposed to act vnth liberality."

Most magnanimous Secretary I Liberality toward men guilty
of no crime, but who, though they had been murderers or pirates,
were entitled by the plain letter of the Constitution to have
' ' the assistance of counsel for their defence. * ' Sir, there was but
one step further possible, and that short step was taken some
months later when the prisoners of state were required to make
oath, as the condition of their discharge, that they would not
seek their constitutional and legal remedy in court for the
wrongs and outrages inflicted upon them.

Sir, incredible as all this will seem some years hence, it has
happened, all of it, and more yet untold, within the last twenty
months in the United States. Under executive usurpation and
by virtue of presidential proclamations and cabinet orders it
has been done without law and against Constitution; and now
it is proposed to sanction and authorize it all by an equally un-
constitutional and void act of Congress. It is a vain thing to
seek to cloak all this under the false semblance of law. Liberty
is no more guarded or secured and arbitrary power no more

CONSCRIPTION 297

hedged in and limited here than under the executive orders of
last summer. We know what has already been done, and we
will submit to it no longer. Away, then, with your vain clamor
about disloyalty, your miserable mockery of treasonable prac-
tices. We have read with virtuous indignation in history ages
ago of an Englishman whose favorite buck the king had killed
and who suffered death as a traitor for wishing, in a fit of vexa-
tion, that the buck, horns and all, were emboweled in the body of
the king. But what have we not lived to see in our own time?
Sir, not many months ago this Administration, in its great and
tender mercy toward the six hundred and forty prisoners of
state, confined for treasonable practices at Camp Chase near the
capital of Ohio, appointed a commissioner, an extra-judicial
functionary, unknown to the Constitution and laws, to hear and
determine the cases of the several parties accused and with power
to discharge at his discretion or to banish to Bull's Island in
Lake Erie. Among the political prisoners called before him
was a lad of fifteen, a newsboy upon the Ohio River, whose only
offence proved, upon inquiry, to be that he owed fifteen cents —
the unpaid balance of a debt due to his washer-woman — possibly
a woman of color — who had him arrested by the provost marshal
as guilty of ** disloyal practices.*' For four weary months the
lad had lain in that foul and most loathsome prison, under mili-
tary charge, lest, peradventure, he should overturn the Govern-
ment of the United States; or, at least, the administration of
Abraham Lincoln!

And yet. Senators and Representatives, catching up the
brutal cry of a bloodthirsty but infatuated partisan press, ex-
claim ''the Gx)vemment has been too lenient, there ought to have
been more arrests!"

Well did Hamilton remark that ''arbitrary imprisonments
have been in all ages the favorite and most formidable instru-
ments of tyranny"; and, not less truly, Blackstone declares that
they are "a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more
dangerous engine of arbitrary government" than executions
upon the scaffold. And yet, to-night, you seek here, under the
cloak of an act of Congress, to authorize these arrests and im-
prisonments, and thus to renew again that reign of terror which
smote the hearts of the stoutest among us, last summer, as "the
pestilence which walketh in darkness."

Sir, if your objects are constitutional, you have power abun-
dantly under the Constitution, without infraction or usurpation.
The men who framed that instrument made it both for war and
peace. Nay, more, they expressly provide for the cases of

298 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

insurrection and rebellion. Ton have ample power to do all
that of right you ought to do — all that the people, your masters,
permit under their supreme will — ^the Constitution. Confine,
then, yourselves within these limits, and the rising storm of
popular discontent will be hushed.

Here the speaker denounced arbitrary arrests as
illegal even under the suspension of habeas corpus.

The gentleman from Rhode Island [William P. Sheffield]
said, very justly, that the suspension of the writ of habeas
corpus does not authorize arrests except upon sworn warrant,
charging some offence known to the law and dangerous to the
public safety. He is right. It does not; and this was so ad-
mitted in the bill which passed the Senate in 1807. The sus-
pension only denies release upon bail, or a discharge without
trial, to parties thus arrested. It suspends no other right or
privilege under the Constitution — certainly not the right to a
speedy public trial by jury in a civil court. It dispenses with
no "due process of law," except only that particular writ. It
does not take away the claim for damages to which a party il-
legally arrested, or legally arrested, but without probable cause,
is entitled.

And yet it has been assumed by the party in power that a
suspension of the writ of habeas corpus is a suspension of the
entire Constitution and of all laws, so far as the personal rights
of the citizen are concerned. Why, then, sir, stop with arbitrary
arrests and imprisonments? Does any man believe that it
will end here ? Not so have I learned history. The guillotine !
the guillotine! the guillotine follows next.

Sir, when one of those earliest confined in Fort La Fayette
— I had it from his own lips — ^made complaint to the Secretary
of State of the injustice of his arrest and the severity of ther
treatment to which he had been subjected in the exercise of
arbitrary power, no offence being alleged against him, "why,''
said the Secretary, with a smile of most significant complacency,
"my dear sir, you ought not to complain; we might have gone
further." Light flashed upon the mind of the gentleman and
he replied : " Ah ! that is true, sir; you had just the same right
to behead as to arrest and imprison me."

Sir, it is this which makes revolutions. A gentleman upon
the other side asked this afternoon which party was to rise
now in revolution. The answer of the able and gallant gentle-
man from Penniqrlvania [Mr. Biddle] was pertinent and just —

CONSCRIPTION 299

*'No party, but an outraged people.*' It is not, let me tell you,
the leaders of parties who begin revolutions. Never. Did any
one of the distinguished characters of the Revolution of 1776
participate in the throwing of the tea into Boston Harbor?
Who was it 1 Who, to-day, can name the actors in that now his-
toric scene 1 Good men agitate ; obscure men begin real revolu-
tions; great men finally direct and control them. And if,
indeed, we are about to pass through the usual stages of revolu-
tion, it will not be the leaders of the Democratic party — ^not I,
not the men with me here to-night — ^but some man among the
people, now unknown and unnoted, who will hurl your tea into
the harbor ; and it may even be in Boston once again ; for the
love of liberty, I would fain believe, lingers still under the
shadow of the monument on Bunker Hill. But, sir, we seek no
revolution — except through the ballot-box. The conflict to which
we challenge you is not of arms but of argument. Do you be-
lieve in the virtue and intelligence of the people? Do you
admit their capacity for self -government ? Have they not intelli-
gence enough to understand the right, and virtue enough to
pursue it? Come then: meet us through the press, and with
free speech and before the assemblages of the people and we will
argue these questions, as we and our fathers have done from the
beginning of the Government — ^**Are we right or you right,
we wrong or you wrong?" And by the judgment of the people
we will, one and all, abide. We have a Constitution yet, and
laws yet. To them I appeal. Give us our rights ; give us known
and fixed laws; give us the judiciary; arrest us only upon
due process of law ; give us presentment or indictment by grand
juries; speedy and public trial; trial by jury and at home; tell
us the nature and cause of the accusation; confront us with
witnesses; allow us witnesses in our behalf, and the assistance
of counsel for our defence; secure us in our persons, our houses,
our papers, and our effects; leave us arms, not for resistance to
law or against rightful authority, but to defend ourselves from
outrage and violence; give us free speech and a free press; the
right peaceably to assemble ; and, above all, free and undisturbed
elections and the ballot; take our sons, take our money, our
property, take all else ; and we will wait a little, till, at the time
and in the manner appointed by Constitution and law, we shall
eject you from the trusts you have abused and the seats of power
you have dishonored, and other and better men shall reign in
your stead.

John A. Bingham [0.] replied to his colleague.

300 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

The argument to which we have listened to-night, with what
degree of patience we could, has been characterized by two most
remarkable assumptions. The one is that the gentleman from
Ohio, who addressed the House [Mr. Vallandigham] , and those
whom he is supposed to represent, are the sole guardians of
the Constitution of the United States of America. And the
other is that, when he and his especial associates will it, that great
instrument will perish in the fierce breath of revolution. In my
judgment, sir, these assumptions are unworthy of my colleague,
as they are unworthy of any man who has grown to man's estate
under the shelter of the Constitution of the United States. The
care of that Constitution is in the hands of the people, the whole
people, who ordained it for the establishment of justice and
the security of liberty. That great people the gentleman no
more represents than I do. When they choose basely to surren-
der the sacred trust of the Constitution it will fall ; but, so long
as it pleases them to stand by it, it will be maintained.

If this be so, how comes it that the gentleman should assume
that he is sole interpreter and protector of the Constitution, and
that, by a breath of his mouth, it may be destroyed? Why, sir,
it is but a few days ago that, upon this floor, in the very spirit
of the speech which he has made to-night, my colleague under-
took to demonstrate, by mutilating a letter of the Secretary
of State, that the Constitution of the United States does not
allow the American people to protect and maintain by force of
arms their (Government and their nationality against armed
treason.

Mr. Vallandigham. — I have spoken many times here ; I have
never referred to the gentleman ; yet, since Uie beginning of this
session, he has felt himself called upon not only to attempt to
reply to what I have said, but to draw me into a wrangle upon
this floor, a thing for which he is eminently qualified but for
which I have the most sovereign contempt and of which I shall
take no notice whatever.

Mb. Binohah. — As the gentleman interrupted me for no pur-
pose of denial or explanation he has no right to interrupt me
either to question my motives or announce his contempt for all
who choose to dissent from his arrogant assumptions. I suppose,
from the tone and temper of my colleague's interruption, that
he deems me guilty of the great crimen Ubscb majestatis,^ if I
dare to lisp when his majesty rises in his place here and assumes
to speak the law of the land.

He is not clothed, sir, with any such power over either my

'Crime of contemning majesty.

CONSCRIPTION 301

person as a citizen or my right as a Representative. The gentle-
man makes a virtue of necessity and, after rambling through half
an hour of his speech to show that we were breaking through the
intrenchments of the Constitution, that we were trampling upon
the right of habeas corpus, of freedom of speech, of freedom of
the press, and of the right of trial by jury; after denouncing
us in set phrases for all this, he now rises and complains that I
should venture to strike back, and says that I seek to draw him
into a wrangle. Why, the gentleman is the last man on this
footstool that I would want to have any wrangle with. [Laugh-
ter.] Now, that expression may be a little ambiguous, and the
gentleman may have the benefit of it. [Laughter.] Perhaps the
gentleman felt that the world would understand, when he calls
attention to the fact that I once before in my life, and I be-
lieve only once, ventured to reply to a speech of his, I thereby
sought to immortalize myself by coupling my name with so dis-
tinguished a person as himself! If that is the gentleman's idea,
I beg him to count me out. [Laughter.] But, sir, whatever
false motives the gentleman may attribute to me, I wish him to
understand that I shall not sit silent here when I see a deliberate
attempt made on this floor to convince this House, on the one
hand, and the people of this country, on the other, that we have
no right by law to authorize, and compel, if you please, the em-
pIo3anent of all the able-bodied men of the country to crush out
rebellion against the supremacy of the (Government, the Consti-
tution, and the laws. GK) read those words that the gentleman
dwelt upon with such emphasis the other day, and feel the blush
of shame mount to your cheek that any American citizen of this
Republic should utter such a sentiment.

Talk about freedom of speech, talk about the right of trial
by jury, talk about personal liberty, talk about the privilege of
the writ of habeas corpus, talk about your construction of 25
Edward III, and then come here and proclaim to this House
that ^'only an imperial or despotic government could subjugate
thoroughly disaffected and insurrectionary members of the
State!"

The gentleman to-night has sought to justify this remarkable
utterance. Hence his elaborate argument to show the limitation
of the provision of the Constitution, that ''treason against the
United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or
in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort."

Mr. Speaker, I do not desire to take up any unnecessary
time in the discussion of this great and important question ; but,
as the gentleman has seen fit to attempt to justify his words

302 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

that the United States Oovemment has not the constitutional
right to subjugate traitors and suppress armed rebellion by
force, I deem it my duty to refer the House to the construction
of the statute of 25 Edward III, which the gentleman says is
literally the same as the treason clause of the Constitution of
the United States. Let this construction of the statute of Ed-
ward go out with the gentleman's argument, in order that the
antidote may go along with the poison which he attempts to
infuse into the public mind. The construction of that statute be-
fore the Constitution was made, and, therefore, before its pro-
visions were incorporated into the Constitution, was that the
words '^adhering to the enemy,'' etc., applied to cases only of
adherence to a foreign^ not a domestic, enemy. What then?
Whoever adheres to a domestic enemy engaged in rebellion is,
according to the legal construction of that great statute, instead
of being indictable under the second clause thereof, indictable
under the first clause, and to be held chargeable with levying
war. That is all there is of it.

For the sake of the argument, grant it that words encourag-
ing treason and inciting to treason do not constitute the crime
of treason, does it result that such utterances are not a crime,
and, as such, to be so declared and punished under the Con-
stitution of the United States? I know, sir, that by a high
authority it is said: ''It seems clearly to be agreed that, by the
common law and the statute of Edward III, words spoken
amount only to a high misdemeanor and no treason. " Orant this
to be the true construction of the statute of Edward III, as the
same stand incorporated in the treason clause of our Consti-
tution, what comfort can my colleague derive from that con-
struction in support of his argument against the bill now under
discussion, that you may not provide, as in this bill is provided,
to punish, not as treason but as ''a high misdemeanor," the ut-
terance of words spoken, written, or printed, with intent to
counsel and advise resistance to the laws, or to dissuade drafted
soldiers from the performance of their duty?

I suppose that the reference of my colleague to the provision
of the statute of 25 Edward III, defining treason, was to pro-
claim in advance that all of this legislation which provides for
punishing as a crime those who, in any way, aid in encouraging
desertion or forcible resistance to the laws is unconstitutional;
that you cannot punish persons who favor this rebellion, except
those who actually take up arms and levy war against the Re-
public. I do not believe it. I wish to say, in addition, that,
notwithstanding his suggestion that the Supreme Court would

CONSCRIPTION 303

declare this law unconstitutional and deny the power of the
Government to punish and restrain the ^treasonable practices"
defined in and prohibited by this bill, in my opinion that court
will never so decide; never, sir. The gentleman says that, if
you pass this and kindred bills for the suppression of this rebel-
lion, then we must have revolution.* The people only can make
revolution. I rather think that my colleague is not well in-
formed about the purposes of the people to say that they will
rush into revolution. He may be ready for revolution, and,
doubtless, he may wish to lead that revolution; but are the
people ready to assent to that ? So long as the people are faith-
ful to the great trust of maintaining free representative govern-
ment they will take care of a revolution either inaugurated by
him or any of his associates who howl against the Executive for
protecting and defending that Government against armed rebel-
lion.

What is the gentleman's argument against this bill? One
objection by him urged is that the bill provides for what he
is pleased to call arbitrary arrests. What is the provision?
Simply that whoever shall resist any draft of men enrolled under
this act, or counsel or aid any person to resist such draft, or
assault any officer in making such draft, shall, for the time be-
ing, be subject to summary arrest by the provost marshal, and
shall be delivered to the civil authorities, and, upon trial and
conviction, be subject to fine and imprisonment. That is what
my colleague calls arbitrary arrests. His logic, I suppose, is
that men may resist a lawful draft, may aid resistance thereto,
may brutally assault drafting officers, but shall not be inter-
rupted in their crime until affidavit is made before and warrant
obtained from some United States commissioner or judge, re-
mote, it may be, hundreds of miles. He would not allow the
marshals of the United States to be the conservators of the public
peace, nor even the judges of the United States to be conserva-
tors of the peace, though the steps of the temple of justice and
the laws may be stained by the blood of the citizen shed by
lawless violence in their presence, and in forbidden resistance
to the laws which they are sworn to support and execute. The
gentleman's argument means, though he has not the candor
plainly to declare it, that traitors and all their aiders have
the right to go on with their crime and murder until legally
arrested upon complaint and warrant in due form of law, and
only after such legal arrest to be made to answer for their crimes
upon the verdict of an impartial jury of the State and district
in which they may have committed their offences.

304 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

We are not to arrest them summarilj, for that is arbitrary,
he argues, but we are to proceed literally according to the pro-
visions of the Constitution.

If the argument is good for such aiders of the rebellion it is
of equal force as to the rebels, for they are persons as well as
their aiders, and, like them, are included in the provisions of the
Constitution cited. What sort of logic and reason is this upon
a question of this sort when three hundred thousand rebels are
in armsf Does not the gentleman himself see that there is a
hiatus in his logic wide enough to drive a coach and six through t

Now, let us see how this rule, as stated by him, would work
practically. Jefferson Davis has three hundred thousand rebels
drawn up in line of battle before the capital of the United
States, and you are mustering your forces under this conscrip-
tion act to beat back this rebel host. While this is going on,
the gentleman from Ohio stands with the Constitution in hand
and calls out to the people all over the North to refuse to come
to the rescue of their imperiled capital and violated Constitu-
tion because the act under which they are summoned is un-
constitutional. By such utterances would my colleague keep
back from the field all the loyal people of this land, while traitors
in arms were seizing their capital, burning their towns, laying
waste their fields, and setting at defiance and overthrowing their
Government and laws. While this ruin is being wrought the
people are to be greeted with the cry of my colleague: "Hold
back! these rebels are citizens, and, though they may be guilty
of treason, you must not interfere with them, nor with those
who aid them, except you act strictly under the warrants and
indictments known to the law.'' That is the substance of his
argument.

The gentleman, not content with his endeavor to fetter the
Government by requiring the jury rather than the army to
try traitors, complains that we are interfering with the freedom
of speech, and again he quotes the Constitution and attempts to
hold it up as a shield between these men who commit or aid and
abet this great treason against the Republic, and the right and
duty of the people to crush them by force under the express
sanction of law. I understand that the freedom of speech which
is guaranteed by the Constitution is not that freedom of speech
which consists in saying that these rebels in arms ''ought to be
induced to invade the Northern States,'* and rob and bum the
habitations of Northern people. My colleague is learned in the
reading of the Constitution, and I would be glad to have him
point out a single line ever written by an American citizen or

CONSCRIPTION 305

uttered by an American jurist whose opinion is entitled to any
consideration which ever gave any such interpretation as that
to the ^aranties of the Constitution of the United States. No,
sir; freedom of speech is the inborn right of every man, whether
citizen or stranger, but it is a right which he may not exercise to
the detriment of the commonwealth, and, therefore, for its abuse
he is to be held responsible, as he is to be held responsible for
the abuse of any other element of his personal liberty. The
right of locomotion is as sacredly guarded under your Consti-
tution as is the right of freedom of speech ; but, if a citizen, in
the exercise of his right of locomotion, sees fit to creep burglar-
iously into the habitation of his neighbor and thereby commit
felony it is in vain that he holds up the Constitution as a shield
and tells us that that secures him the right of liberty and prop-
erty. He has the right to play the honest man and loyal citizen,
but he has not the liberty to play the part of a common thief or
a burglar.

So it is with this guaranteed freedom of speech. I say it is
the right of the people to punish and imprison every man in
this land who, either by oral, written, or printed words, urges
or advises any portion of the American people to quench in
blood this last, great experiment of republican government. If
there is any man here now who has the effrontery to deny that
proposition, I should like to hear him.

The gentleman says that habeas corpus can only be suspended
within the limits of the rebellion. That is a remarkable sug-
gestion. I suppose, according to that doctrine, that when this
rebellion was confined to the corporate limits of Charleston and
Sullivan's Island, it would have been highly improper to have
suspended the privilege at Columbia or Georgetown in South
Carolina, where they were beating up recruits to swell their
cowardly cohorts to ten thousand strong, designed to do mur-
der on the seventy brave men within the walls of Port Sumter.
Who ever heard before of such an interpretation as that being
put upon your Constitution? I say here, and I challenge con-
tradiction, that the fair construction of that provision is this,
that the people, through their representatives, are the sole
judges of the extent to which the privilege of the writ may be
suspended in time of rebellion or invasion; and if, in their
opinion, the public safety in time of such rebellion or invasion
requires a suspension of the privilege of the writ in all cases
throughout the limits of the Republic, it is their right to declare
it and their duty to execute it.

Well, sir, the gentleman says that the suspension of the priv-

VI— 20

306 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

ilege of the writ does not confer the power of arrest. I answer
that the power to suspend the privilege of the writ for the public
safety necessarily implies the power of arrest and detention. But
the gentleman says you must give all persons charged with con-
spiracy a speedy trial. Does not he know that by the provision
of the Constitution, if a citizen commit treason or other crime
against the United States, in South Carolina or North Carolina,
he must be tried within the State and district in which he com-
mits the offence t Meantime you have no courts there to try
such offenders, and, according to the gentleman's argument, you
must not restrain them of their liberty by summary arrest, but
allow them to go at large and practice their treason and con-
spiracy, and give aid and comfort to the enemy, until such time
as your civil process and courts are again restored and the su-
premacy of your laws acknowledged or enforced within the
limits of such jurisdiction ! Does any man fail to see that such
objections to this needful legislation are, after all, disguise it as
you may under professions of love for the Constitution and the
rights of the people guaranteed under the Constitution, but an-
other attempt to aid this rebellion and secure to it an easy
triumph over the Constitution and laws?

Ah, but, says the gentleman, your bastiles are open to receive
these victims of executive despotism. I should have been glad if
the gentleman had particularized who these persons are that
have such a claim upon his Efympathy. There was a man arrested
for inciting the mob at Baltimore. The gentleman was careful
not to name him. It is a name that is in bad association. It is
the name by which was designated the first of murderers, on
whose brow was set the damning blotch of fratricide. This man
was arrested and sent to the ''bastile"; and my colleague arises
in his place and cries out: ''A violation of the Constitution."
According to his logic, Kane should have been left at large to
incite men to cast iron bars from the tops of their houses in
Baltimore upon the heads of our citizen soldiery.

There was another arrest made, to which I suppose the
gentleman refers, although he was not pleased to name the
party, in our own State. I remember well, Mr. Speaker — who
does not remember? — ^that, about the time that arrest was made
in Ohio, for seven long days a battle raged before Richmond.
During that protracted struggle, while that field of conflict
was covered with the thick darkness of battle and the shadow
of death, and in all the loyal homes of our people hands were
raised in silent prayer for the Republic and its defenders, a
cry came up from the banks of the York and the James Rivers:

CONSCRIPTION 307

Help ! help ! help ! brothers of the free North and West, or we
perish, and our banner of glory and of beauty goes down before
the armed legions of treason. In response to that call the people
rushed to the conflict from the hills of New England to the
golden sands of California, filling the continent with their
shout —

"We are coming, we are coming,
Six hundred thousand more.''

•

It was in the presence of this sublime uprising of the free-
men of this land for the defence of their homes and country,
and the rescue from an unequal struggle of your gallant army,
that a partisan in Ohio, it is said, dared to outrage and disgrace
humanity by saying to his neighbors: **Stop, brother Democrats,
stay at home and vote; and let the army of the Union perish."
It is said that man was arrested by order of the President.

Several Members. — ^Who was heT

Mb. Bingham. — I prefer to let history, the avenger, name
him.

Samuel S. Cox [0.]. — ^Will my colleague yield to me for a
moment?

Mb. Bingham. — I do not yield.

Mr. Cox. — I know my colleague will oblige me.

Mb. Bingham. — This does not affect my colleague.

Mb. Cox. — It affects one of my constituents.

Mb. Bingham. — I have said, Mr. Speaker, that such an utter-
ance is said to have been made and published, and that the
author of it was arrested.

Mb. Cox. — ^Why was he not tried T

Mb. Bingham. — ^I now submit to the country that, if there
were any such utterance made, the author of it should not only
be arrested and imprisoned, but that the man who, in such an
hour of peril, would attempt to keep back citizens from the
defence of their homes and the relief of their brothers in arms,
should not only be imprisoned, but should be hung by the neck,
without judge or jury, till he be dead. [Applause.]

Daniel W. Voorhees [Ind.] closed the debate.

Mr. Speaker, it is either my good fortune or my bad fortune
never to have been a member of a legislative body until I took
my seat in this Congress. Consequently, I may not be so fa-
miliar with the rules of propriety that obtain among members
of deliberative bodies as others who have had more experience.
But, I must confess, Mr. Speaker, that, with my limited experi-

308 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

ence, I have observed the course of this debate with amazement,
and with some degree of honest indignation.

This debate was opened by the gentleman from New York
[Mr. Olin] with a lecture to this side of the House, informing
us how he desired we should discuss this question. We were
desired to behave ourselves and to pursue a certain line of con-
duct marked out for us in advance by his magisterial authority.
The air of a testy, domineering pedagogue pervaded the style
and substance of all his remarks.

After him comes the strap-and-button gentleman from Penn-
sylvania [Mr. Campbell], who howled forth his threats on this
floor like some angry animal in pursuit of prey. Possibly it has
affected somebody's nerves. Doubtless it did affect his own.
I must say, however, that it did not affect mine at all, except as a
gust of harsh and discordant sound is always more or less jarring
to my nervous system. It passed by this side ofi the House as
mere wind, somewhat unpleasant and disgusting, but entirely
harmless. I submit that the military and malicious gentleman
from Pennsylvania has no right thus to afQict and annoy the
persecuted minority in this hall.

After him, in the order of debate, on the other side, comes
that strange and eccentric gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Bingham]
who so often holds this House and these galleries in listening
and wondering suspense and attention. In his private inter-
course he is one of the kindest and most amiable gentleman
whom I ever had the good fortune to meet ; but on this floor a
stranger would take him to be, not merely Cato the Censor, for
I believe Cato was very dignified, and certainly the gentleman
from Ohio hardly ever is [laughter], but some furious actor in
a play, whose part required him to scold and rave at every hu-
man being who was so unfortunate as to fall beneath his dreadful
scowl. He is stormy and terrible to those who know him not, but
to those who know him well gentle as summer and as tender as
the dove who woos his mate. I am apologizing for his manner
to those who do not understand him. His terrific outbreaks
here against the minority may be regarded as a sort of pleasant
episode to the grave proceedings of this House, a little ridiculous,
but perfectly innocent. It is only his manner that is severe, not
his matter. He starts out by telling us that the language of the
distinguished gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Vallandigham], who
held spell-bound this House from the position in which I st^nd,
with one of the ablest arguments I ever heard, was all unworthy
of a member of this body. Who constituted him a judge of his
colleagues? Where does he find the authority to arraign his

CONSCRIPTION 309

peers on this floor! Sir, there Is but one reply to language and
conduct like this. We reject with scorn your unasked advice;
we spurn your offensive lectures ; we despise your puerile threats ;
we defy the malice which actuates them ; we hold you and your
outrageous insolence in sovereign and most unmitigated contempt.

Sir, it ill becomes gentlemen who have met with repudiation
at the hands of their people ; who, for their policy and conduct
on this floor, have 'been rejected by their own constituents, and
who stand condemned before the country, to come here and lec-
ture Democratic members. In common decency you ought to
keep silent, as mere cumberers of the ground whose days are
numbered. Popular majorities have been piled up against you
by thousands and tens of thousands. Loyal people have spoken
your knell ; the funeral bell has been tolled over your political
graves by patriotic hands ; the grass is growing green on the sod
which covers you. And yet you dare come here to lecture living
men ! We bear in our bodies political vitality ; you are political
ghosts, specters from political graveyards, where the people
buried you last fall, and wrote on your tombstones: **No resur-
rection." How dare you lecture the living, who yet stand on
the shores of time, and who have something to do with earthly
affairs? [Laughter.] I invoke the spell of decency and of re-
gard for propriety, and, in the name of that spell, I exorcise
these spirits, and tell them **down, down, to whence you came."
[Laughter.]

You talk about what is worthy and unworthy. Shall I ac-
cept gibbering and squeaking political ghosts, who will troop
home on the 4th of March to the vast charnel-house of repudiated
politicians, as my masters? I own but one master in this Gov-
ernment — it is the sovereign people.

The days of this Congress are drawing to a close and we
may as well have a plain talk among ourselves before we part.
If you propose at this time, with Government credit at sixty
per cent, below par; if you propose, with $2,500,000,000 of in-
debtedness; if you propose, with a distracted country, with the
agricultural pursuits depressed, and the whole land groaning
from the effects of this war ; if you propose, in full view of all
these things, to tax the people, in addition to what is necessary to
sustain the Government, to an unlimited extent — ^perhaps hun-
dreds of millions — for the purpose of accomplishing compen-
sated emancipation, for the purpose of flooding the free States
with free negroes, then you may make up your minds for trouble.
The money will not be paid, and you cannot compel it. You will
find at last who owns and controls this Government. The people

310 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

will assert the original divine right of the oppressed and out-
raged. They will say to you, in the language of the Constitu-
tion: **Wej the people, made this Government; you are not our
masters, but our servants."

A strange error has crept into the public mind. Men talk
as if they could force and coerce public sentiment. The very
theory of our Government forbids it. The theory of our Gov-
ernment is that, not Abraham Lincoln, not his Cabinet, not you
men whose lingering footsteps are just departing from these
places forever, constitute this Government, but that the people
made it all, and constitute all its parts. They made it and they
will uphold it in the mode which satisfies themselves. But not
only that ; they will make you obey the Constitution in its spirit,
which ia the concentrated will of the people.

For the purpose of uniting public sentiment and of prosecut-
ing the war with unity of purpose I presume comes the procla-
mation of the President of September. Ten days before he is-
sued it he said, himself, to the Chicago ministers that he had
not the power to promulgate such a document and that it would
do no good if he did. In that he was right, for once. But I
suppose he gave way to pressure. He was pressed. By whomT
By Horace Greeley, that political harlot, who appeared in a
praying attitude in behalf of twenty million people. He gave
way to pressure brought to bear, too, by the Governor of Massa-
chusetts [John A. Andrew] . He gave way to the pressure and,
I have no doubt, experienced relief. This was Jacksonian, very.
It showed what is known as backbone. I have an immense re-
spect for an Executive who violates his oath under the pressure
of impertinent meddlers. But the President was told of the
moral and military effect of such a proclamation, and I presume
he beliered all he heard was true. But the gentleman from Ohio
[Mr. Bingham] was unfortunate in his musical recitation of the
New England song a few minutes ago :

"We are coming, Father Abraham,
Six hundred thousand strong."

for if anybody is on the way here to swell the broken ranks of
the army under the inspiration of that proclamation he is tarry-
ing long. His arrival has not been noticed in the papers.

Lo! the mountain had labored, and the mouse came forth!
Massachusetts, this hour, instead of crowding the highways and
bjrways with her sons, has her Senator [Henry Wilson] in the
other end of the Capitol, the chairman of the Committee on
Military Affairs, pressing a conscript bill through the Senate,

CONSCRIPTION 311

when his own State stands in defiance of the call made ai>on her
last summer. To-day her quota is not full, and her Gfovemor
has become an itinerant recruiting sergeant in search of negroes
to fill up the regiments of Massachusetts troops under the call
made last fall by the President of the United States. This is
the response of Massachusetts to the proclamation.

And the gentleman from New York, the chairman of the
Committee on Military Affairs of this House [Abraham B. Olin] ,
comes here and has to admit his State is delinquent thirty thou-
sand troops, under the calls already made upon her.

Mb. Olin. — And that deficiency is principally owing to a
deficiency of troops which ought to have been sent from the city
of New York, where the Democracy of the Five Points has held
undisputed sway. [Laughter.]

Mb. Voobhees. — ^You propose to put the black man alongside
of the loyal white soldier. You propose to buy negroes, steal
negroes, fight for negroes, obtain negroes in any way, and then
humiliate and disgrace the white soldier by his presence and
contact in the ranks.

You have thus outraged and insulted all classes of citizens,
but the soldier most of all. Is it strange, then, that no more
volunteers come to the standard of warT You have betrayed
the loyal heart of the country, and that betrayal rises up in
judgment against you; and its offspring, the birth of that be-
trayal, is this fearful, odious, and despotic conscription bilL

No conservative general can stand before the consuming
flames that emanate from the seething caldron, the boiling cess-
pool of fanaticism which controls this Administration. Aye, sir,
you struck down McClellan at the head of the army. You struck
him down because he was in the way of your radical abolition
schemes. It was another step in the betrayal of the people. Gk>
with me to the townships in Indiana, Mr. Speaker; go to the
hamlets, go to the school-houses and meet there the loyal farmers
who pay their taxes from their well-worn pocketbooks — not your
flash speculators in stocks on Wall street ; not your i>olitical or
banking gamblers and swindling contractors, who control this
Government and who surround this Capitol like jackals and
unclean beasts, like kites and carrion crows, watching and snuf-
fing for plunder amid the misfortunes that have befallen the
country ; not that class of men, but men who are devoted to the
old Constitution, who worship reverently after the old forms
of religion, who love their country and maintain their own
honor — ^go and ask these men, upon whom you have to rely for
this Government, what they think of the removal of George B.

312 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

McClellan from the command of their sons. They will tell you
that their sons love him as no chieftain was ever loved by his
troops since the days of the great Napoleon. They will tell you
that, in spite of all jealousies and assailants, he is the only man
who has ever gained a battle at the head of the army of the
Potomac; and, as plain people, they will tell you that, in their
minds, his removal was caused by the machinations, the mis-
chievous machinations, of the radical element which prevails
here, and which is now running the Government to destruction
in this Capitol. This, sir, is the firm belief of the country, and
you will have to meet it.

You may call us disloyal if it will ease your hearts any, but
our opinion upon this side of the House is just as firm, just as
sharply and clearly made up, that the majority of this House
has been disloyal in the acts I have enumerated and in the gen-
eral scope of its conduct to the Constitution of the country as if
you had been convicted of overt treason, and stood ready to be
executed according to law.

But there is another feature in the conduct of this Adminis-
tration and its supporters that goes as a reason why troops can-
not now be brought into the field as volunteers, and a despotic
conscription bill has to be passed. The people of the country
have seen public economy disregarded. They have seen thieves
and plunderers in the high places of the (Government not only
unrebuked, but rewarded by promotion to higher honors in
place and profit. They have seen fortunes more than mountain
high made in a single night by political favorites. No, sir ; keep
still, sir. The gentleman from Pennsylvania [John Covode, who
made a remark in his seat] can speak feelingly and knowingly
and understandingly, I have no doubt, upon the subject to
which I allude. He has his friend, the late Secretary of War,
the late minister to Russia, the late candidate for United States
Senator in Pennsylvania, I presume, in his mind. I have no
doubt it is a delicate point with him. I have by my side, how-
ever, my very distinguished and reliable friend from Massachu-
setts [Henry L. Dawes], who always comes to my relief, and, if
I cannot prove by him that Simon Cameron and some of his
friends are plunderers and public thieves, I will give up the
case. [Laughter.]

These contractors and lobby thieves surrounding this Capitol,
creating a swell mob in these galleries, the greediest of the
greedy, the hungriest of all animals that ever infested in droves
and packs the haunts of political oflfal, are the men who are loud-
est and most persistent for the continued prosecution of this war.

CONSCRIPTION

313

No abuse can be denounced that we do not hear the ery of trea-
son from their hungry lips. What does it matter to them that the
poor soldier lies stifE in the snow upon hia thin blanket T They
go upon the motto, ' ' Put money in thy purse. ' ' If you think that

O TIIKIR IDOL
hy Vallnndighain and Seymour]
(At coUanan of llu Nra Yart UUMtieal HoeMB

314 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

the people are blind to this state of affairs you are mistaken.
They know that these loathsome cormorants are encamped here
to eat out their substance. They know that they are the Hessians
of this war, and that no peace will be permitted to revisit this
bleeding land so long as villainy can find pay in the coffers of the
(Jovernment, if this evil brood can prevent it.

But, sir, I thank God that the hand-writing is on the wall.
The corrupt and impious feast of Belshazzar, the king, his
princes, his parasites and concubines, is about over. The fingers
of the American people are busily engaged in writing a doom
against those who have turned the temple of our fathers into a
den of thieves.

The people have seen other things, however, to discourage
them in the prosecution of this war. They have seen you take
advantage of the political condition of the country — ^you men
who represent the spindles and looms of New England; they
have seen you coming here and forcing on the agricultural i)or-
tions of the country a tariff which is a robbery, a direct plunder
on honest labor; they have seen you develop the most selfish,
greedy, degrading element of the human heart — the love of
gain by unfair means — taxing the whole country for the pur-
pose of carrying out merely personal interests. To-day the
Western farmer, the Western mechanic, pays three or four times
the ordinary price for the articles which he has to buy from
you and which he can buy nowhere else.

The people understand it well. They know that this increase
of price does not go into the treasury of their beloved country;
that it does not go even into the coffers ** where thieves break
through and steal"; but that it goes directly into the pockets
of the millionaire, the nabob, the monopolist of the manufactur-
ing districts. They know all that. It makes them tired of war.
They are sore at heart and see no hope of success, justice, union,
or constitutional liberty at your hands.

Further, I say to you, gentlemen, that, as the Lord (Jod reigns
in heaven, you cannot go on with your system of provost mar-
shals and police officials arresting free white men for discharging
what they conceive to be their duty within the plain provisions of
the Constitution and maintain peace in the loyal States. Blood
will flow. You cannot and you shall not forge our fetters on
our limbs without a struggle for the mastery.

The great American heart is fired anew with the love of
liberty, and the people are arousing like the giant after his
sleep. They have erected their heads and warn you not to lay
the weight of your finger, of your smallest finger, on one of the

CONSCRIPTION

great mmiimraiti of personal freedom which adorn the his-
tory of the world. If yoa do, it ia at your most deadly periL

CONSCKIPTION BY THE SoUTH

Conscription in the Soutliem States, says Alexander
Johnston in his "American Political History," pre-
ceded, and, to some extent, compelled, the adoption of
conscription by the Federal Government. The act of

80UTIIEBK VOLUNTEERS
From (fw colltctUm of Hit Nea York BUurital Sceltty

April 16, 1862, with the amentlment of September 27,
186^ was rather a levy en masse tlian a conscription.
It made no provision for draft, but placed all white men
between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, resident in
the Confederate States, and not legally exempt, in the
Confederate service.

July 18, 1863, by proclamation, President Jefferson
Davis put the conscription law into operation, and
directed the enrolment to begin at once. February 17,
1864, a second conscription law was passed. It added
to the former conscript ages those between seventeen
aad eighteen, and between forty-five and fifty, who were

316 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

to do duty as a garrison and reserve corps. It excepted
certain classes, such as one editor to each newspaper,
one apothecary to each drug store, and one farmer to
each farm employing fifteen able-bodied slaves, and pro-
vided that all persons who should neglect or refuse to
be enrolled should be placed in the field service for the
war. No substitutes were or could be accepted, for
every person able to do military duty was himself al-
ready conscripted.

Very little resistance was made to this sweeping
levy, for the Government of the Confederate States
showed little mercy to opposition of any kind. Only
through the conscription were the Southern armies
filled for the last two years of the war, and its enforce-
ment was so rigorous and inquisitorial that toward the
end of the war the Confederacy generally had more men
in the field than it could provide with arms.

CHAPTER Xn

Civil vs. Militabt Authobity

Draft Riots in New York City— The President's Controversy with Gov.
Horatio Seymour [N. Y.] on the Constitutionality of the Draftr-Gen.
Ambrose E. Bumside Imprisons, by Martial Law, Clement L. Yallan-
digham [O.] for Inciting Resistance to the Draft — ^The President
Changes the Sentence to Exile into the Confederacy — Democratic Reso-
lutions of Protest — The President Replies Justifying Military Arrests —
Vallandigham, in Exile in Canada, Is Nominated by Ohio Democrats as
Governor — ^Reply of the President to Committee of Ohio Democrats —
Speeches against the Administration by Franklin Pierce and Gov.
Horatio Seymour [N. Y.] — ^Vallandigham Is Overwhelmingly Defeated
by Aid of the National Administration — Republican Victories in State
Elections — Address of the President to Illinois Voters Justifying His
Acts — His Replies to Mayor Fernando Wood, of New York City, and
Others Volunteering to Mediate with the South — His Refusal to Accept
Alexander H. Stephens [Ga.] as Envoy of the Confederacy.

THE draft ordered by the conscription met with
little resistance outside of New York City and
a few Democratic counties in Ohio.
In New York the law was put into operation on
July 11, 1863. On the following Monday a mob broke
into the office of the provost marshal, destroyed the
wheel which contained the names of possible conscripts,
and, setting fire to the building and preventing the fire-
men from extinguishing the flames, caused it to be
burned to the ground. On the Superintendent of Police
endeavoring to enforce order, he was set upon and
barely escaped with his life. The police being unable
to cope with the disorder, New York City regiments
at the front were telegraphed for; they were unable
to arrive for four days, and during this time the mob,
increasing in number, committed many outrages, hang-
ing negroes, and, after driving the little inmates into
the street, pillaging and burning a colored orphan

317

318 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

asylum. Collecting in Printing House Square on Mon-
day they were about to destroy the oflSces of the news-
papers which supported the Administration — particu-
larly the Tribune — when Governor Horatio Seymour
caused them to desist temporarily from executing their
design by speaking to them from the steps of the City
Hall. On Tuesday he issued a proclamation against
rioting, but this had no effect. On the return of the
troops the mob dispersed.

The draft, however, was not enforced in the city
for some time. On August 3 Governor Seymour ap-
pealed to the President to suspend execution of the
law until the courts could decide on its constitutionality,
which had been questioned. The President replied that
the draft must go on, leaving the question of constitu-
tionality to be decided later.

My purpose is to be in my action just and constitutional, and
yet practical, in performing the important duty with which
I am charged : of maintaining the unity and the free principles
cf our common country.

The draft was resumed on August 19, and was con-
cluded in an orderly fashion.

Arbest of Vallandigham

A less tragic yet politically more important develop-
ment of Northern resistance to military authority oc-
curred in Ohio during the summer and fall of 1863.
General Ambrose E. Burnside in his new department
(headquarters Cincinnati) issued an edict known as
*' General Order No. 38,'' forbidding acts committed
for the benefit of the enemy, and stating that persons
conamitting such offences would be tried as spies or
traitors, or sent over into the lines of their friends, the
rebels.

Clement L. Vallandigham, whose term in Congress
had expired in March, and who had been defeated for
reelection, repeated in various public speeches the sen-
timents he had uttered in the House of Representatives,

MILITARY ARRESTS 319

assailing such acts of the Administration as the con-
scription law as unconstitutional and despotic.

On May 4 General Burnside arrested Mr. Vallan-
digham at his home in Dayton, and brought him to
headquarters at Cincinnati for trial by court-martial.
His counsel, ex-Senator George E. Pugh, applied for a
writ of habeas corpus, which the judge refused, on the
ground that the action of General Burnside was in the
interest of public safety. Mr. Vallandigham was tried
on the 6th, found guilty, and sentenced to imprison-
ment in a Federal fortress. General Burnside desig-
nated Fort Warren in Boston Harbor as the place of
incarceration. The President, however, changed this
sentence into the alternative presented by Order No.
38, and sent the prisoner over into the Confederate
lines. From the South Mr. Vallandigham ran through
the blockade, finally arriving in Canada.

Public meetings were held all over the country to
denounce the Administration for its despotic act. Gen-
eral Burnside, fearing that he had been unwise in bring-
ing this storm of criticism upon the Government, offered
his resignation. In reply the President telegraphed
him on May 29 as follows:

When I shall wish to supersede you I will let you know.
All the Cabinet regretted the necessity of arresting, for instance,
Vallandigham, some perhaps doubtiag there was a real neces-
sity for it; but, being done, all were for seeing you through
with it.

The brunt of seeing Burnside through, however, fell
on the President, and ably did he fulfil the difficult task.
Opposed to him were some of the shrewdest constitu-
tional lawyers in the country. At their instigation able
resolutions in denunciation of Vallandigham 's arrest
as unconstitutional were passed at various public meet-
ings. The President chose to reply to the resolutions
passed at Albany, N. Y., on May 19. To this Governor
Seymour had sent an address, in which he said: *'If
this proceeding is approved by the Government, and
sanctioned by the people, it is not merely a step to-

320 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

ward revolution — it is revolution; it will not only lead
to military despotism — it establishes military despo-
tisnL" The resolutions closed with a denunciation of
**the blow struck at a citizen of Ohio'* as ** aimed at
every citizen of the North,*' and ** against the spirit of
our laws and Constitution.'* They earnestly called on
the President **to reverse the action of the military
tribunal which has passed a cruel and unusual punish-
ment upon the party arrested, prohibited in terms by the
Constitution,'' and to restore him to liberty.

The President took his time in preparing a reply,
with the result that the letter, when it was finished on
June 12, proved to be one of his notable papers, com-
parable for its cogent argument to his Cooper Union
address.

MiLITABT ArBESTS JUSTIFIABLE

President Lincoln

He began by analyzing the resolutions of the meet-
ing and showing that their movers and himself had a
common purpose, the maintenance of the nation, dif-
fering only in the choice of measures for effecting that
object. **The meeting, by their resolutions, assert and
argue that certain military arrests, . . . for which
I am ultimately responsible, are unconstitutional. I
think they are not. ' ' He then argued that these arrests
were not made for ** treason," as charged, but on
*' totally different grounds," t. e., for purely military
reasons. He narrated the manner in which the enemy
with which the country was in open war had, under cover
of ''liberty of speech," ''liberty of the press," and
'^ habeas, cor pus," kept a corps of spies in the North,
which had aided the secessionist cause in a thousand
ways. "Yet," said the President, "thoroughly imbued
with a reverence for the guaranteed rights of individ-
uals, I was slow to adopt the strong measures which
by degrees I had been forced to regard as being within
the exceptions of the Constitution, and as indispensable
to the public safety." But the evil had to be dealt

MILITARY ARRESTS 321

with, and by more effective means than afforded by the
civil courts, on whose juries sympathizers with the ac-
cused were apt to sit, ^'more ready to hang the panel
than to hang the traitor. '^ And again, said Lincoln,
there are crimes against the country which may be so
conducted as to evade the cognizance of a civil court,
such as dissuading a man from volunteering or induc-
ing a soldier to desert. These are cases clearly coming
under that clause of the Constitution which permits sus-
pension of the writ of habeas corpus ''when, in cases
of rebellion or invasion, public safety may require it."
The President then proceeded to draw a distinc-
tion between civil and military law. He said:

The former is directed at the small percentage of ordinary
and continuous perpetration of crime, while the latter is di-
rected at sudden and extensive uprisings against the Govern-
ment, which, at most, will succeed or fail in no great length of
time. Li the latter case arrests are made not so much for what
has been done, as for what probably would be done. The latter
is more for the preventive and less for the vindictive than the
former. In such cases the purposes of men are much more easily
understood than in cases of ordinary crime. The man who
stands by and says nothing when the peril of his Government is
discussed cannot be misunderstood. If not hindered, he is sure
to help the enemy; much more if he talks ambiguously — ^talks
for his country with **but8," and '*ifs," and **ands."

The President showed how greatly the country had
suffered through deferring arrests for treason, by cit-
ing the cases of John C. Breckinridge, Bobert E. Lee,
Joseph E. Johnston, and other connnanders in the Con-
federate service who had all been vdthin the power of
the Government after the outbreak of the war, and
who were well known to be traitors at the time. Said
the President:

In view of these and similar cases, I think the time not un-
likely to come when I shall be blamed for having made too
few arrests rather than too many.

Mr. Lincoln then examined the contention of the
committee that even during a war military arrestc were

VI— 21

322 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

unconstitutional outside of the region of hostilities. To
this the President replied:

Inasmuch, however, as the Constitution itself makes no such
distinction, I am unable to believe that there is any such con-
stitutional distinction. I concede that the class of arrests com-
plained of can be constitutional only when, in cases of rebellion
or invasion, the public safety may require them ; and I insist that
in such cases they are constitutional wherever the public safety
does require them, as well in places to which they may prevent
the rebellion extending as in those where it may be already pre-
vailing; as well where they may restrain mischievous interfer-
ence with the raising and supplying of armies to suppress the
rebellion, as where the rebellion may actually be ; as well where
they may restrain the enticing men out of the army, as where
they would prevent mutiny in the army. . . .

Mr. Vallandigham 's arrest was made because he was labor-
ing, with some effect, to prevent the raising of troops, to en-
courage desertions from the army, and to leave the rebellion
without an adequate military force to suppress it. He was not
arrested because he was damaging the political prospects of
the Administration or the personal interests of the commanding
general, but because he was damaging the army, upon the exist-
ence and vigor of which the life of the nation depends. He was
warring upon the military, and this gave the military constitu-
tional jurisdiction to lay hands upon him. If Mr. Vallandigham
was not damaging the military power of the country, then his
arrest was made on mistake of fact, which I would be glad to cor-
rect on reasonably satisfactory evidence.

With an argument appealing even more to the hearts
than the heads of his critics, Mr. Lincoln continued :

I understand the meeting whose resolutions I am considering
to be in favor of suppressing the rebellion by military force —
by armies. Long experience has shown that armies cannot be
maintained unless desertion shall be punished by the severe pen-
alty of death. The case requires, and the law and the Constitu-
tion sanction, this punishment. Must I shoot a simple-minded
soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily
agitator who induces him to desert t ... I think that, in
such a case, to silence the agitator and save the boy is not only
constitutional, but a great mercy.

MILITARY ARRESTS 323

In fine, said the President :

I can no more be persuaded that the Gk>yemment can consti-
tutionally take no strong measures in time of rebellion, because
it can be shown that the same could not be lawfully taken in
time of peace, than I can be persuaded that a particular drug
is not good medicine for a sick man because it can be shown
not to be good food for a well one. Nor am I able to appreciate
the danger apprehended by the meeting, that the American
people will by means of military arrests during the rebellion
lose the right of public discussion, the liberty of speech and
the press, the law of evidence, trial by jury, and habeas corpus
throughout the indefinite peaceful future which I trust lies be-
fore them, any more than I am able to believe that a man
could contract so strong an appetite for emetics during tempo-
rary illness as to persist in feeding upon them during the re-
mainder of his healthful life.

The President gently rebuked the memorialists for
introducing partisan politics into the affair by desig-
nating themselves as ''Democrats'* rather than ''Amer-
ican citizens." Nevertheless he accepted the challenge,
and showed that Andrew Jackson, the idol of the Demo-
cratic party, had made a military arrest of the author
of a denunciatory newspaper article, and refused the
service upon himself of a writ of habeas corpus, being
fined for so doing; thirty years later, after a full dis-
cussion of the constitutional aspects of the case, a Demo-
cratic Congress refunded him principal and interest of
the fine.

At the conclusion of his letter the President stated
that he had been pained when he learned of Mr.
Vallandigham's arrest, and he promised to release him
with pleasure when he felt assured that the public
safety would not suffer by it

Treason Made Odious

On June 11 the Ohio Democratic convention nomi-
nated Vallandigham for governor of the State upon a
platform which protested against the emancipation
proclamation, military arrests in loyal States, and, in

324 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

particular, the banishment of Vallandigham. A com-
mittee presented these resolutions to the President, and
on June 29 he replied to them in the tenor of his letter
to the Albany meeting, elaborating the constitutional
argument, and closing with the following proposition:

Your nominee for governor ... is known ... to
declare against the use of an army to suppress the rebellion.
Your own attitude, therefore, encourages desertion, resistance
to the draft, and the like, because it teaches those who incline
to desert and to escape the draft to believe it is your purpose to
protect them and to hope that you will become strong enough to
do so. . . .

I cannot say I think you desire this effect to follow your
attitude; but I assure you that both friends and enemies of
the Union look upon it in this light. It is a substantial hope,
and, by consequence, a real strength to the enemy. If it is a
false hope, and one which you would willingly dispel, I will
make the way exceedingly easy. I send you duplicates of this
letter, in order that you, or a majority, may, if you choose, in-
dorse your names upon one of them, and return it thus indorsed
to me, with the understanding that those signing are thereby
committed to the following propositions, and to nothing else : —

1. That there is now rebellion in the United States, the
object and tendency of which is to destroy the national Union ;
and that, in your opinion, an army and navy are constitutional
means for suppressing that rebellion.

2. That no one of you will do anything which, in his own
judgment, will tend to hinder the increase, or favor the de-
crease, or lessen the eflSciency of the army and navy, while en-
gaged in the effort to suppress that rebellion; and, —

3. That each of you will, in his sphere, do all he can to
have the ofiScers, soldiers, and seamen of the army and navy,
while engaged in the effort to suppress the rebellion, paid, fed,
clad, and otherwise well provided for and supported.

And with the further understanding that upon receiving
the letter and names thus indorsed I will cause them to be pub-
lished, which publication shall be, within itself, a revocation of
the order in relation to Mr. Vallandigham.

The conamittee, put upon the defensive by this
clever device of the President, took the only attitude
which was possible short of capitulation, and rejected
the proposition as an insult to their loyalty.

MILITARY ARRESTS 325

Distinguished members of the Democratic party in
other States took the same position as the Ohio com-
mittee. Ex-President Franklin Pierce delivered a care-
fully prepared oration at a great Democratic meeting
held in Concord, N. H., in midsunmier. He said:

**MoBAL Force, Not Abms, Will Save the Union'*

Franklin Pierce

Do we not all know that the cause of our calamities is the
vicious intermeddling of too many of the citizens of the North-
em States with the constitutional rights of the Southern States,
cooperating with the discontents of the people of those States t
And now, war! war, in its direst shape — war, such as it makes
the blood run cold to read of in the history of other nations
and of other times — war, on a scale of a million of men in arms
— ^war, horrid as that of barbaric ages, rages in several of the
States of the Union, as its more immediate field, and casts the
lurid shadow of its death and lamentation athwart the whole
expanse, and into every nook and corner of our vast domain.
Nor is that all; for in those of the States which are exempt
from the actual ravages of war, in which the roar of the cannon,
and the rattle of the musketry, and the groans of the dying are
heard but as a faint echo of terror from other lands, even here
in the loyal States, the mailed hand of military usurpation
strikes down the liberties of the people and its foot tramples on
a desecrated Constitution. Aye, in this land of free thought,
free speech, and free writing — ^in this Republic of free suffrage,
with liberty of thought and expression as th^ very essence of
republican institutions — even here, in these free States, it is
made criminal . . . for that noble martyr of free speech,
Mr. Vallandigham, to discuss public affairs in Ohio — aye, even
here, the temporary agents of the sovereign people, the transitory
administrators of the government, tell us that in time of war
the mere arbitrary will of the President takes the place of the
Constitution, and the President himself announces to us that
it is treasonable to speak or to write otherwise than as he may
prescribe ; nay, that it is treasonable even to be silent, though we
be struck dumb by the shock of the calamities with which evil
counsels, incompetency, and corruption, have overwhelmed our
country.

This fearful, fruitless, fatal civil war has exhibited our
amazing resources and vast military power. It has shown that,

326 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

united, even in carrying out, in its widest interpretation, the
Monroe Doctrine, on this continent, we could, with such pro-
tection as the broad ocean yirhich flows between ourselves and
European powers affords, have stood against the world in
arms. I speak of the war as fruitless ; for it is clear that, prose-
cuted upon the basis of the proclamations of September 22 and
September 24, 1862, prosecuted, as I must understand those
proclamations, to say nothing of the kindred brood which has
followed, upon the theory of emancipation, devastation, subju-
gation, it cannot fail to be fruitless in everything except the
harvest of woe which it is ripening for what was once the
peerless Republic.

Now, fellow citizens, after having said thus much, it is
right that you should ask me. What would you do in this fear-
ful extremity! I reply, Prom the beginning of this struggle
to the present moment my hope has been in moral power.
There it reposes still. When, in the spring of 1861, I had
occasion to address my fellow citizens of this city, from the
balcony of the hotel before us, I then said I had not believed,
and did not then believe, aggression by arms was either a suit-
able or possible remedy for existing evils. All that has oc-
curred since then has but strengthened and confirmed my con-
victions in this regard. I repeat, then, my judgment impels
me to rely upon moral force, and not upon any of the coercive
instrumentalities of military power. We have seen, in the ex-
perience of the last two years, how futile are all our efforts to
maintain the Union by force of arms; but, even had war been
carried on by us successfully, the ruinous result would exhibit
its utter impracticability for the attainment of the desired end.
Through peaceful agencies, and through such agencies alone,
can we hope to 'form a more perfect Union, establish justice,
insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence,
promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty
to ourselves and our posterity': the great objects for which,
and for which alone, the Constitution was formed. If you turn
round and ask me. What if these agencies fail, what if the
passionate anger of both sections forbids, what if the ballot-
box is sealed 1 Then, all efforts, whether of war or peace, hav-
ing failed, my reply is. You will take care of yourselves; with
or without arms, with or without leaders, we will, at least, in
the effort to defend our rights as a free people, build up a
great mausoleum of hearts, to which men who yearn for liberty
will, in after years, with bowed heads and reverently, resort,
as Christian pilgrims to the sacred shrines of the Holy Land.

MILITARY ARRESTS 327

Governor Horatio Seymour [N. Y.] addressed a
large gathering in New York City about the same time.
He said:

The Revolutionary Dogtbinb op Public Necessity

Governor Seymour

A few years ago we stood before this community to warn
them of the dangers of sectional strife; but our fears were
laughed at. At a later day, when the clouds of war overhung
our country, we implored those in authority to compromise
that diiSculty: for we had been told by that great orator and
statesman, Burke, that there never yet was a revolution that
might not have been prevented by a compromise opportunely
and graciously made. [Great applause.] Our prayers were
unheeded. Again, when the contest was opened, we invoked
those who had the conduct of affairs not to underrate the power
of the adversary — ^not to underrate the courage, and resources,
and endurance of our own sister States. This warning was
treated as sympathy with treason. You have the results of
these unheeded warnings and unheeded prayers; they have
stained our soil with blood; they have carried mourning into
thousands of homes ; and to-day they have brought our country
to the very verge of destruction. Once more I come before you
to offer again an earnest prayer, and beg you to listen to a
warning. Our country is not only at this time torn by one of
the bloodiest wars that has ever ravaged the face of the earth,
but, if we turn our faces to our own loyal States, how is it
there t You find the community divided into political parties,
strongly arrayed, and using with regard to each other terms of
reproach and defiance. It is said by those who support more
particularly the Administration that we, who differ honestly,
patriotically, sincerely, from them with regard to the line of
duty, are men of treasonable purposes and enemies to our coun-
try. ['*Hear, hear."] On the other hand, the Democratic or-
ganization look upon this Administration as hostile to their
rights and liberties; they look upon their opponents as men
who would do them wrong in regard to their most sacred fran-
chises. I need not call your attention to the tone of the press,
or to the tone of public feeling, to show you how, at this mo-
ment, parties are thus exasperated, and stand in defiant atti-
tudes to each other. A few years ago we were told that sec-
tional strife, waged in words like these, would do no harm to

328 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

our country; but you have seen the sad and bloody results.
Let us be admonished now in time, and take care that this
irritation, this feeling which is growing up in our midst, shall
not also ripen into civil troubles that shall carry the evils of
war into our own homes.

Upon one point all are agreed, and that is this: Until
we have a united North we can have no successful war. Until
we have a united, harmonious North we can have no beneficent
peace. How shall we gain harmony t How shall the unity of
all be obtained t Is it to be coerced t I appeal to you, my
Sepublican friends, when you say to us that the nation's life
and existence hang upon harmony and concord here, if you
yourselves, in your serious moments, believe that this is to be
produced by seizing our persons, by infringing upon our rights,
by insulting our homes, and by depriving us of those cherished
principles for which our fathers fought, and to which we have
always sworn allegiance. [Oreat applause.]

We only ask that you shall give to us that which yon claim
for yourselves, and that which every freeman, and every man
who respects himself, will have — freedom of speech, the right
to exercise all the franchises conferred by the Constitution ui>on
American citizens. [Oreat applause.] Can you safely deny
us these t Will you not trample upon your own rights if you
refuse to listen t Do you not create revolution when you say
that our persons may be rightfully seized, our property con-
fiscated, our homes entered t .Are you not exposing yourselves,
your own interests, to as great a peril as that with which you
threaten ust Remember this, that the bloody, and treasonable,
and revolutionary doctrine of public necessity can be pro-
claimed by a mob as well as by a government. [Applause.]

To-day the great masses of conservatives who still battle
for time-honored principles of government, amid denunciation,
contumely, and abuse, are the only barriers that stand between
this Government and its own destruction. If we should ac-
quiesce in the doctrine that, in times of war, constitutions are
suspended, and laws have lost their force, then we should ac-
cept a doctrine that the very right by which this Government
administers its power has lost its virtue, and we would be
brought down to the level of rebellion itself, having an exist-
ence only by virtue of material power. When men accept des-
potism they may have a choice as to who the despot shall be.
The struggle then will not be, Shall we have constitutional
liberty? But, having accepted the doctrine that the Constitu-
tion has lost its force, every instinct of personal ambition, every

MILITARY ARRESTS 329

instinct of personal security, will lead men to put themselves
under the protection of that power which they suppose most
competent to guard their persons.

In condnsion he said:

We stand to-day amid new-made graves, in a land filled
with mourning; upon a soil saturated with the blood of the
fiercest conflict of which history gives us an account. We can,
if we will, avert all these calamities and evoke a blessing. If
we will do whatt Hold that Constitution, and liberties, and
laws are suspended t — shrink back from the assertion of right?
Will that restore themt Or shall we do as our fathers did,
under circumstances of like trial, when they combated against
the powers of a crown t They did not say that liberty was
suspended ; that men might be deprived of the right of trial by
jury; that they might be torn from their homes by midnight
intruders t [Tremendous and continued applause.] If you
would save your country and your liberties, begin right ; begin
at the hearthstones, which are ever meant to be the foundations
of American institutions; begin in your family circle; declare
that your privileges shall be held sacred; and, having once
proclaimed your own rights, take care that you do not invade
those of your neighbor. [Applause.]

The Ohio Democrats went into the campaign fore-
doomed to defeat The Republican party determined
to ''make treason odious'* by piKng up an enormous
majority of votes against him. They nominated John
Brough, a '*War Democrat," to make the issue as clear
as possible. By a State law the soldiers in the field
were permitted to vote, and they, as well as the citizens
at home, cast their ballots under conditions which would
be far from satisfactory to a ballot reformer of the
present day. Brough won the election with over 100,000
votes to spare. Soon after his defeat, Vallandigham re-
turned openly to Ohio, evidently daring the Government
to arrest him again. The President, however, realizing
that Vallandigham *8 power to injure the draft was
broken, ignored his presence in the country. Undoubt-
edly he would have taken a similar course from the be-
ginning, had not Bumside's action in arresting Vallan-

330 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

digham forced him to carry out an autocratic policy.
For Lincoln did not approve of supplying martyrs to
the opposition, and, therefore, when forced to do so,
he contrived to make them as unheroic, and even
ridiculous, as possible. Brilliant orator though he was,
Clement L. Vallandigham 's connection with his party
became a positive detriment to it, and he soon retired
from politics to devote himself to law, in the practice
of which he met his death in a strange and tragic
fashion. In defending a man accused of murder he
shot himself, as he was illustrating the manner in which
his client might have discharged his pistol by accident
while drawing it from his pocket.

The political campaign of 1863 in other States as
well as in Ohio was waged along the lines laid down by
the President, with the result of sweeping guberna-
torial victories for the Administration.

The President not only sounded the keynote of the
campaign, and formulated the Administration's plat-
form, but wrote, as it were, the campaign text-book of
his party, reviewing the acts of the Administration and
supporting its policies so completely and cogently that
nothing essential could be added. All this he did in
an address which he sent to a mass-meeting of ** un-
conditional Union men" at Springfield, 111., and which
was there read on September 3 amid the greatest en-
thusiasm.

Justification op His Administration

President Lincoln

After tendering the nation's gratitude to those
*' noble men whom no partisan malice or partisan hope
can make false to the nation's life," the President
plunged at once into a justification of his course.

There are those who are dissatisfied with me. To such I
would say: You desire peace, and you blame me that we do
not have it. But how can we attain it! There are but three
conceivable ways: First, to suppress the rebellion by force of
arms. This I am trying to do. Are you for itt If you are,

MILITARY ARRESTS 331

80 far we are agreed. If you are not for it, a second way is
to. give up the Union. I am against this. Are you for itf
If you are, you should say so plainly. If you are not for force,
nor yet for dissolution, there only remains some imaginable
compromise. I do not believe any compromise embracing the
maintenance of the Union is now possible. All I learn leads to
a directly opposite belief. The strength of the rebellion is its
military, its army. That army dominates all the country and
all the people within its range. Any offer of terms made by
any man or men within that range, in opposition to that army,
is simply nothing for the present, because such man or men
have no power whatever to enforce their side of a compromise,
if one were made with them.

To illustrate. Suppose refugees from the South and peace
men of the North get together in convention and frame and
proclaim a compromise embracing a restoration of the Union.
In what way can that compromise be used to keep Lee's army
out of Penni^lvania f Meade's army can keep Lee's army out
of Penni^lvania, and, I think, can ultimately drive it out of
existence. But no paper compromise to which the controllers
of Lee's army are not agreed can at all affect that army. In
an effort at such compromise we should waste time which the
enemy would improve to our disadvantage; and that would be
all. A compromise, to be effective, must be made either with
those who control the rebel army, or with the people first lib-
erated from the domination of that army by the success of our
own army. Now, allow me to assure you that no word or in-
timation from that rebel army, or from any of the men con-
trolling it, in relation to any peace compromise, has ever come
to my knowledge or belief. All charges and insinuations to the
contrary are deceptive and groundless. And I promise you
that, if any such proposition shall hereafter come, it shall not
be rejected and kept a secret from you. I freely acknowledge
myself the servant of the people, according to the bond of serv-
ice — the United States Constitution — and that, as such, I am
responsible to them.

But to be plain. Yon are dissatisfied with me about the
negro. Quite likely there is a difference of opinion between
you and myself upon that subject. I certainly wish that all
men could be free, while I suppose you do not. Yet I have
neither adopted nor proposed any measure which is not con-
sistent with even your view, provided you are for the Union.
I suggested compensated emancipation, to which you replied
you wished not to be taxed to buy negroes. But I had not

332 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

asked you to be taxed to buy negroes, except in such way as
to save you from greater taxation to save the Union exclusively
by other means.

You dislike the emancipation proclamation, and perhaps
would have it retracted. Tou say it is unconstitutional. I
think differently. I think the Constitution invests its com-
mander-in-chief with the law of war in time of war. The most
that can be said — if so much — is that slaves are property. Is
there — ^has there ever been — any question that, by the law of
war, property, both of enemies and friends, may be taken when
needed ? And is it not needed whenever taking it helps us, or
hurts the enemy t Armies, the world over, destroy enemies'
property when they cannot use it; and even destroy their own
to keep it from the enemy. Civilized belligerents do all in their
power to help themselves or hurt the enemy, except a few things
regarded as barbarous or cruel. Among the exceptions are the
massacre of vanquished foes and non-combatants, male and fe-
male.

But the proclamation, as law, either is valid or is not valid.
If it is not valid it needs no retraction. If it is valid it cannot
be retracted, any more than the dead can be brought to life.
Some of you profess to think its retraction would operate fa-
vorably for the Union. Why better after the retraction than
before the issue? There was more than a year and a half of
trial to suppress the rebellion before the proclamation was is-
sued, the last one hundred days of which passed under an ex-
plicit notice that it was coming, unless averted by those in re-
volt returning to their allegiance. The war has certainly pro-
gressed as favorably for us since the issue of the proclamation
as before.

I know as fully as one can know the opinions of others that
some of the commanders of our armies in the field, who have
given us our most important victories, believe the emancipation
policy and the use of colored troops constitute the heaviest
blows yet dealt to the rebellion, and that at least one of those
important successes could not have been achieved when it was
but for the aid of black soldiers.

Among the commanders who hold these views are some who
have never had any affinity with what is called ''abolitionism,"
or with ** Republican party politics," but who hold them purely
as military opinions. I submit their opinions as entitled to
some weight against the objections often urged that emanci-
pation and arming the blacks are unwise as military measures,
and were not adopted as such in good faith.

MILITARY ARRESTS

You say that you will not fight to free negroes. Some of
them seem willing to fight for you; hut no matter. Fight you,
then exclusively, to save the Union. I issued the proclamation
on purpose to aid you in saving the Union. Whenever you
shall have conquered all resistance to the Union, if I shall urge
you to continue fighting, it will be an apt time then for you
to declare you will not fight to free negroes. I thought that in
your struggle for the Union, to whatever extent the negroes
should cease helping the enemy, to that extent it weakened the
enemy in his resistance to you. Do you think differently t I
thought that whatever negroes can be got to do as soldiers
leaves just so much less for white soldiers to do in saving the
Union. Does it appear otherwise to you? But negroes, like
other people, act upon motives. Why should they do anything
for us if we will do nothing for themt If they stake their
lives for us they must be prompted by the strongest motive,
even the promise of freedom. And the promise, being made,
must be kept.

The letter closed with a glowing exordium, such as
those which, in the days of the fight for free territory,
had roused his auditors to a frenzy of enthusiasnL
In classic phrase it pictured the soldiers and sailors
of the Union marching on to certain Victory. It paid
tribute to the courage of the negro troops, and with
Cromwellian ire contrasted their patriotism with the
hypocritical pretensions of the * * malignants " of the
peace party. Yet its oratorical fever was restrained
from soaring into bombast by a ballast of conmion
sense, and its tense feeling was relieved by a touch of
grotesque humor, to which, as President even more than
as citizen, Lincoln was wont to give loose in his most
serious moments. Virtually his ''last stump-speech,''
it was unquestionably his most characteristic and best
one.

The signs look better. The Father of Waters again goes un-
vexed to the sea. Thanks to the great Northwest for it ; nor yet
wholly to them. Three hundred miles up they met New Eng-
land, Empire, Keystone, and Jersey, hewing their way right
and left. The sunny South, too, in more colors than one, also
lent a helping hand. On the spot, their part of the history
was jotted down in black and white. The job was a great na-

334 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

tional one, and let none be slighted who bore an honorable part
in it. And, while those who have cleared the great river may
well be proud, even that is not all. It is hard to say that any-
thing has been more bravely and well done than at Antietam,
Murfreesboro, Gettysburg, and on many fields of less note. Nor
must Uncle Sam's web feet be forgotten. At all the watery
margins they have been present. Not only on the deep sea, the
broad bay, and the rapid river, but also up the narrow, muddy
bayou, and wherever the ground was a little damp, they have
been and made their tracks. Thanks to all: for the great re-
public — for the principle it lives by and keeps alive — ^f or man 's
vast future — ^thanks to all.

Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will
come soon, and come to stay, and so come as to be worth the
keeping in all future time. It will then have been proved that
among free men there can be no successful appeal from the bal-
lot to the bullet, and that they who take such appeal are sure
to lose their case and pay the cost. And then there will be
some black men who can remember that with silent tongue, and
clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-jwised bayonet, they
have helped mankind on to this great consummation, while I
fear there will be some white ones unable to forget that with
malignant heart and deceitful speech they strove to hinder it.

Still, let us not be over-sanguine of a speedy final triumph.
Let us be quite sober. Let us diligently apply the means, never
doubting that a just Ood, in his own good time, will give us
the rightful result.

That reference in the address to oflfers of compro-
mise made by representatives of the Confederacy was
evoked by various propositions made for self-advertise-
ment by irresponsible parties such as Fernando Wood,
a Democratic politician of New York, who boldly con-
fessed his sympathy with the South and virtually of-
fered himself as a mediator. To him Lincoln had re-
plied (on December 12, 1862) :

Understanding your phrase, '*The Southern States would
send representatives to the next Congress," to be substantially
the same as that "the people of the Southern States would
cease resistance, and would reinaugurate, submit to, and main-
tain the national authority within the limits of such States,
under the Constitution of the United States," I say that in

MILITARY ARRESTS 335

such case the war would cease on the part of the United States,
and that if, within a reasonable time, ''a full and general
amnesty" were necessary to such end, it would not be withheld.
I do not think it would be proper now for me to communicate
this formally or informally to the people of the Southern
States. My belief is that they already know it ; and when they
choose, if ever, they can communicate with me unequivocally.
Nor do I think it proper now to suspend military operations to
try any experiment of negotiation.

It is true, however, that a no less responsible party
than Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President of the Con-
federacy, had presented to the Navy Department on
July 4, 1863, a request that he be permitted to come
to Washington bearing ''a conmiunication in writing
from Jeflferson Davis, Conmiander-in-Chief of the land
and naval forces of the Confederate States, to Abraham
Lincoln, Commander-in-Chief of the land and naval
forces of the United States,'* but there was no state-
ment of the nature of the conmiunication. As the re-
quest studiously avoided recognition of the President in
other than the military capacity of that office, Mr. Lin-
coln very wisely and properly ordered the Secretary
of the Navy [Gideon Welles] to reply:

The request of A. H. Stephens is inadmissible. The cus-
tomary agents and channels are adequate for all needful com-
munication and conference between the United States forces and
the insurgents.

CHAPTEE Xm
^^ Bayonets at thb Polls''

Lazarus W. Powell [K7.] Introduces Bill in Senate to Prevent Military
Interference with Elections — Debate: in Favor of Bill, Senator Powell ,
James A. McDougall [Cal.], Beverdy Johnson [Md.]; Opposed, Jacob
M. Howard [Mich.], James Harlan [la.].

OWING to charges that there had been military
interference by the order of the President with
elections held in the border States during the
summer and autumn of 1863, Lazarus W. Powell [Ky.]
introduced in the Senate on January 5, 1864, a bill to
prevent officers of the army and navy from interfering
in elections in the States. This was finally referred
to the Committee on Military Affairs, which reported
against it, and presented an elaborate report justifying
the action of the President On March 3 Senator
Powell's bill was brought before the Senate as in Com-
mittee of the Whole.

Mtt.ttarv InTEBFEBENCE WITH ELECTIONS

Senate, March 3-5, 1864

On March 3 and 4 Senator Powell spoke in favor of
the bUl.

It cannot be doubted that upon the keeping of the elective
franchise absolutely free depends the very existence of our form
of government and our republican institutions. Free States in
all ages have regarded the purity of the elective franchise as of
the greatest and most vital importance, and have enacted se-
vere penal laws for the punishment of those who interfered by
force or fraud to prevent free elections. I believe there is no
government on the face of the earth in which elections have
been carried on for the purpose of appointing any of the offi-
cers of the government, save and except the United States of

336

"BAYONETS AT THE POLLS" 337

America, that has not had laws to punish, and severely punish,
those who should interfere with the freedom of the elective
franchise. All the republics of antiquity had the severest laws
punishing those who interfered with the freedom of their elec-
tions.

By the laws of Great Britain persons convicted of bribery,
force, or fraud at elections are punished severely. At the com-
mon law bribery and kindred offences were crimes, and the Brit-
ish statutes punished persons guilty of such offences on convic-
tion with fines of £500, and deprived them of the privilege ever
after of voting or holding any office of trust or honor under
that government. One section of this bill provides that the
soldiers of the army of the United States shall not be permitted
to be kept within one mile of any poll where an election is going
on, on the day of election. I find similar provisions in the Eng-
lish law.

Mr. Tucker, in his notes to Blackstone's Commentaries, in
reference to the British law requiring soldiers to be removed
from the place of voting, says, ''A similar regulation in the
election of Representatives to Congress seems highly proper and
necessary." It is strange to me that we have never had such
a law on our statute book. I suppose the only reason for the
absence of such a law is that our elections have been regulated
heretofore by officers appointed by the States, and it is only
very recently that the armies of the United States have at-
tempted to interfere in our elections.

By the spirit of the Constitution of the United States, and
by the constitution of every State in the Union, the military is
to be kept in strict subordination to the civil power ; and I sup-
pose that those who went before us never thought we should
have rulers so wicked and corrupt as to use the machinery of
the Federal Government for the purpose of prostrating the free-
dom of elections in the States; otherwise, I am sure that such
laws as the one before us would have been enacted long before
this. I find upon examination that seven of the States of the
Union have enacted statutes to prevent soldiers making their
appearance on election day at the places where the elections are
held — Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Penn^l-
vania, Maine, and Massachusetts. The constitution of the State
of Maryland provides that, upon conviction for the offence of
giving or receiving bribes or influencing any man to give an il-
legal vote, not only the man giving the bribe, but the man giving
the illegal vote shall forever after be disqualified from voting
and from holding any office of trust, honor, or profit under the

VI— 22

338 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

State govenmient. Every State in the Union has severe penal
lawSy providing for the punishment of all who in any way inter-
fere to prevent free elections.

With ns, Mr. President, sovereignty resides in the people,
and the people by the exercise of free suffrage declare their
will and appoint their agencies to carry on the government.
He who attempts to interfere with this most inestimable right,
whether he be President, major general, or citizen, is an enemy
to the Bepublic and deserves the harshest punishment. In or-
der to have free elections, there must be free speech and a free
press; the sovereign people must have an opportunity of forming
an enlightened public opinion upon the questions at issue, which
can only be done after full and free discussion. Free speech
and a free press in a government like ours are the soul of re-
publican institutions; free suffrage is the very heart-strings of
civil liberty. To be free, the elections must be conducted in ac-
cordance with laws so framed as to prevent fraud, force, in-
timidation, corruption, and venality, superintended by election
judges and officers independent of the executive or any other
power of the Government; the military must not interfere, but
be kept in strict subordination to the liaw, which should be so
framed as to prevent absolutely such interference. The only
duty of the Executive is to see that the law is faithfully exe-
cuted. The Executive must not use the power intrusted to him
to prevent free elections.

It is certainly a subversion of the very foundation of the
Gh)vemment for the Executive to use the force and the power
that the Oovemment has placed in his hands for defensive pur-
poses to overthrow the free suffrages of the people and to ai>-
point those to power who will be his truckling menials, his sub-
servient agents to carry out his will, to aid him it may be to
overthrow the liberties of the people whom they should repre-
sent, betray the Constitution that they should preserve and pro-
tect, destroy everything that makes the Government desirable
and worthy of the support of an honest and free people. Yet,
sir, such things have been done, and I regret to say that there
are those in the Senate chamber who not only do not denounce,
but who approve these usurpations, these plain, palpable viola-
tions of the Constitution of their country.

Mr. President, let us for a moment see what are the powers
of the President of the United States. From whence does he
derive this power to regulate elections and to appoint repre-
sentatives of the people Y for when stripped of its verbiage that
is really what has been done in many parts of the States of

•^BAYONETS AT THE POLLS'' 339

Maryland, Missouri, Kentucky, and Delaware. Where, I ask,
does the Executive of the United States derive such power? He
certainly does not derive it from the Constitution.

He is commander-in-chief of the armies of the United States,
and under that clause I suppose those who oppose the bill claim
that the President can rightfully exercise the power that he has
exercised in overthrowing the freedom of elections in Maryland
and other States. They claim it under the war power, which I
will notice in another part of my remarks. The President is to
"take care that the laws be faithfully executed." What laws
are they that the President shall see faithfully executed? The
Constitution declares that —

"This Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be
made in pursaance thereof, and all treaties made or which shall be made
under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the
land."

These are the laws that the President is to see faithfully
executed. Whenever he goes beyond that he is a usurper. The
President, under the Constitution, can exercise no implied
power. AH the implied powers that can be exercised under our
Qovemment must be exercised by another and a different body
of magistracy, to wit, the legislative; and that is the express
language of the Constitution.

In the States to which I have alluded, the President, or those
acting under his orders, have prescribed the qualifications of
voters and the qualifications of candidates for ofSce, and that,
too, in, direct violation of the Constitution of the United States.
This is a grave charge, but it is one that I will make good by
testimony that none can doubt. Let us see who it is that has
the right to prescribe the qualifications of voters. I suppose
that no Senator will deny that as to all State offices the States
have the power to prescribe the qualifications of the officer as
well as of the voter. That power not having been delegated by
the Constitution to the general Qovemment, the States neces-
sarily retain it. But there is an express provision of the Consti-
tution. The tenth amendment, which declares ''The powers not
delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor pro-
hibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively
or to the people,*' and the Constitution very clearly indicate
who are qualified voters for members of Congress. The second
section of the first article of the Constitution declares who shall
be qualified electors for members of Congress. It fixes the
qualification as the one ordained by the State government for

340 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

the members of the most numerous branch of their legislature.
That is the fundamental law of the land; but in violation of
that provision of the Constitution the military have seen fit, by
military orders, to fix the qualifications of voters in the States.
They have gone further, and fixed the qualifications for office.
Not only the military have done this, but the President of the
United States himself has done it. I am not going to waste all
my time upon those who do the chief magistrate's bidding, but
it is my purpose to-day to expose his atrocious violations of the
Constitution. I trust that I shall speak of the President in a
manner that is courteous, but I certainly shall do it in very
plain language. The charges that I have to make I trust will
not be misunderstood by anyone. I will not deal in innuendo,
insinuation, or hint, but I will make the charge directly, and I
have the proof to sustain it.

The Committee on Military Affairs, who made a very elab-
orate report, which I have before me, and which I shall pres-
ently review, justify the military in all they have done in con-
trolling elections. The sole object of the committee in their
report seems to be the justification and vindication of the
military authorities for their atrocious assault on the rights
of the States and the liberties of the people and their wicked
and illegal interference in elections; and they assault every per-
son who says or does anything tending to prove that the military
have usurped powers that belong to the civil officers of the
States and to the people. The committee justify the President
and the military authorities for this interference in elections
upon the ground that it was right and proper that the military
arm should have been so used to protect the voters, ''the loyid
voters," as they are called in the report. The Constitution
prescribes the duty of the chief magistrate on this subject in
article four:

The President of the United States has no anthoritj or power to send
his military into one of the adhering States for the purpose of preventing
domestic violence at the polls unless he has been invited to do so I7 the
State authorities.

But for this provision of the Constitution a corrupt, venal,
or ambitious President could by means of the military force,
under some imaginary plea of domestic violence, invade any
State in this Union on the eve of an election, and dictate the
persons who should be returned as members of the other House
of Congress, who should be returned as members of the legisla-
ture, who should be returned as governors of the States. In a

**BAYONETS AT THE POLLS" 341

word, if you allow him to use the army in this way without the
invitation of the State authorities, a wicked and corrupt man
would have it in his power to prostrate every State government
in the Union, and to elect officers who would do his bidding, and
thus overthrow the liberties of the people, and establish a con-
solidated despotism of which he would be the master.

The speaker referred in particular to military in-
terference in the gubernatorial election in Kentucky,
where Charles A. Wickliffe was the Democratic can^-
date.

The committee say that Mr. Wickliffe and the gentlemen
who invited him to become a candidate desired rebels to vote.

The committee say that they invited those whose hands were
red with the blood of Unionists, and who were loaded with the
spoils of the plundered friends of the Union, to come to the
polls. The committee were drawing upon their fancy for their
facts in making such a statement, and a most distempered fancy
it must have been. They could not have been deluded by the
words ''Southern rights," because this address states distinctly
that the Southern rights men were not secessionists, and were
not implicated in the rebellion.

The organization that put Mr. Wickliffe forward as a can-
didate was the Democratic party under its old name and under
its old flag.

In this report the committee impugn the loyalty of Mr.
Wickliffe; and upon what ground? Mr. Wickliffe was one of
the first and stanchest Union men in the State of Kentucky. In
the other end of this Capitol he voted men and money to carry
on the war ; and he never failed to do so until the last session,
when he voted against an appropriation bill because the House
would not insert a clause in it that the money should not be
used for the purx)ose of freeing negroes and reducing States to
provinces. It is well known that Mr. Wickliffe was a strong
and warm friend of the war up to that time, until he thought
the radical policy of the President was such as would destroy
every hope of the restoration of the Union.

Well, sir, that sterling old patriot became the candidate of
a party that were prevented from exercising the right of suf-
frage in Kentucky; and in order to justify that outrage and
the striking of his name from the polls by the ruthless hand of
the military, this committee say he is disloyaL I have no doubt
if an angel of the Lord had appeared before the Committee on

342 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

Military Affairs and told them there had been military inter-
ference in the elections in Maryland and Kentucky, that it was
seen and known by all who were present at the polls, the writer
of the report of the conmiittee would have asserted that the
angel was disloyal. Every man — I do not care how elevated
his position or upright his standing in society, or how devoted
he may have been in the past or the present to the Union — ^who
asserts that there was interference in the elections, the coi&mit-
tee say is disloyal, or they impute some unworthy motive to
him.

(General Bumside, on the 31st of July, issued an order
placing Kentucky under martial law, declaring that it was to
prevent the rebel troops interfering in the election. There was
no necessity for that order. At the time it was issued there
were not in Kentucky more than about a thousand rebel sol-
diers, and they were cavalry in one portion of the State in
rapid retreat; and on the day of election there were no Con-
federate soldiers in the State.

I will not now discuss the question as to whether Gteneral
Bumside had the power to declare martial law. It is well
known to the Senate that I hold there is no power in the (Gov-
ernment, in the President, or any of his commanders, to declare
martial law ; but if it did exist it should be confined to besieged
cities and localities occupied by the army. But certainly there
is no power to declare martial law in the adhering States, when
they are not occupied by the forces of the enemy.

General Burnside plainly and palpably violated the Consti-
tution of his country when he issued that order interfering with
elections. Let me ask, did Kentucky invite General Bumside
to bring his forces there to protect the election? No, sir. The
legislature did not do it; the governor, in the language of the
day a loyal man, never invited him to do it.

What did General Burnside do? What were the orders i&-
sued by his subordinates Y Here is an extract from one of
them:

"Judges and derka so appointed are hereby directed not to place the
name of any person on the poll books to be voted for at said election who
is not a Union man, or who may be opposed to furnishing men and money
for a vigorous prosecution of the war."

There is appended to that order an oath which varies from
the oath prescribed by the law of Kentucky. The constitution
and laws of Kentucky do not require that a man shall be in

"BAYONETS AT THE POLLS"

343

favor of fumiBhing men and money for a vigoroos prosecation
of the war to qualify him to hold ofiSce.

In many of the counties the name of the whole Democratic
ticket was stricken from the poll book by the military authori-
ties. In many voting places and in entire counties of Kentucky
DO man was cjlowed to vote for that ticket.

In many places the candidates were arrested. In the first
congressional district Judge Trimble, the candidate for Con-

"batonbtb at thk pollb"

rtoni tt< eallKHtn or »• JVm rork BbKrkal SocMv '

gress, as loyal a man and as true to the Constitution and Union
of his fathers as lives in the Union, was arrested by military
authority. He was brought to the city of Henderson, a town
just without his district, and there he was kept in military con-
finement near a month, until after the election was over. They
told him that, if he would decline being a candidate for Con-
gress, they would release him. He would not so degrade his
manhood as to decline the canvass at the bidding of military
tyrants and usurpers, and he was kept in prison. They found
that he would be elected by a large majority notwithstanding
bis imprisonment, and then they sent the military over his dis-
trict and bad his name stricken from the polls in almost every
voting precinct in the district. The genUeman who beat bim

344 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

got some four thousand votes in a district that poUa about
twenty thousand.

Mr. Anderson, who now occupies the seat in Congress from
the first district in Kentucky, frankly acknowledges that he was
elected by the bayonets.

Such were the terrorism and interference by the military that^
Mr. Wickliffe, the Democratic candidate for governor, in some
six or seven of the strongest Democratic counties in the State,
did not get a single vote, and in many other strong Democratic
counties he received very few votes.

In the case of the Maryland election the speaker
afforded proof that the President was directly respon-
sible for military interference at the polls.

The Athenians were so watchful and so jealous of the right
of free suffrage that a stranger who interfered in the assem-
blies of the i)eople was regarded as a traitor, and was punished
by their laws with death. Had President Lincoln and General
Schenck lived in the time of the free commonwealth of Athens,
and interfered with the assemblies of the people as they did
with the right of free suffrage in Maryland, they would have
been executed as traitors and felons, and would have justly de-
served their fate.

The doctrine of those gentlemen who desire to clothe the
Executive with this supreme power, with this absolute power,
with this more than dictatorial power, places this great Re-
public in that humiliating attitude. I do not think that a citi-
zen in a country governed by law was ever driven to the neces-
sity of appealing to one man for protection. Sir, the citizen
who for the time being fills the chief executive office is bound
to see that the laws are faithfully executed: that is his sworn
duty. There is no liberty save in the supremacy of the law.
In all free govemmenta the citizen appeals to the law for pro-
tection.

Mr. President, all usurpers and all tyrants that have gone
before us, those who have overthrown the liberties of every peo-
ple who have lost their liberties, claim their powers under this
plea of necessity. Caesar, when he led his army from Gaul,
crossed the Rubicon, and overthrew the liberties of his country,
did it upon the plea of necessity, and tyrants the world over
have done the same thing. The President seems to me to follow
in the footsteps of Caesar, Pompey, and Cromwell. The Chief
Magistrate, I regret to say, seems to copy all the faults, while

"BAYONETS AT THE POLLS" 345

he has exhibited none of the virtues of those distinguished men.
Speaking of Caesar Montesquieu says:

"He raised tronblee in the eity by his emissaries; he made himself
master of all elections; and consuls, pmtors, and tribunes purchased their
promotions at their own price."

''He made himself master of all elections." That is what
is being done here.

Mr. President, from the authorities I have read it seems
that we are following in the footsteps of nations whose liberties
have been overthrown and trampled down beneath the iron heel
of military despotism.

AUow me to tell you, Senators, that one reason why the peo-
ple have submitted so quietly, so uncomplainingly, to the many
usurpations of the Executive is that they hoped in a short time
to have the privilege of relieving themselves of the President
by means of free suffrage ; but if you allow the military to pre-
vent free elections you not only stab the Republic in its very
vitals, but you will by that means cause many persons who
think that these usurpations of power ought to be resisted only
at the ballot box to look about for other means to redress their
grievances. If you do not wish blood to flow in this land, if
you wish to preserve our institutions, allow the people the privi-
lege of turning out every four years their President if they de-
sire to do so.

Sir, the President and his satraps had better beware. A
brave people will not stand these things always. A day of
reckoning will come, and an awful day it will be to those guilty
men who have overthrown and trodden under foot the Constitu-
tion and laws of their country, and unlawfully deprived the
people of their dearest rights.

It is pleasant when we see that a gleam of light has broken
in upon persons from whom we expected little good. I hold in
my hand an extract from a speech of the most distinguished
radical in America — a man of learning, a man of eloquence, in-
deed of rare elocution. I had thought that his whole soul was
fully absorbed in this negro question, and that he could not
talk without bringing it in. I mean Wendell Phillips. But
while I think him a fanatic of the deepest dye, he differs from
others of his party; he sometimes has lucid intervals. Allow
me to read an extract from a speech of that eloquent man on
this very point :

"But let me remind you of another tendency of the time. Tou know,
for instance, that the writ of habeas corpus, by which so^o^nient is bound

346 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

to render a reason to the judiciary before it lays its hands upon a eitisen,
has been called the high-water mark of English liberty. The present
Napoleon, in his treatise on the English Constitution, calls it the germ of
English institutions. Lieber says that that, with free meetings like this,
and a free press, are the three elements which distinguish liberty from
despotism, and all that Saxon blood has gained in the battles and toils of
two hundred years are these three things. Now, to-day, every one of
these — hdbeM corpus, the right of free meeting, and free presa — ia annihi-
lated in every square mile of the Bepublie. We live to-day, every one of
us, under martial law or mob law. The Secretary of State puts into hia
bastile, with a warrant as irresponsible as that of Louis, any man whom
he pleases; and you know that neither press nor lips may venture to
, arraign the government without being silenced.

"We are tending with rapid strides — ^you say, inevitable; I don't deny
it, necessarily; I don't question it; we are tending to that strong govern-
ment which frightened Jefferson; toward that unlimited debt, that endleaa
army. We have already those alien and sedition laws which, in 1798,
wrecked the Federal party and summoned the Democratic into existence.
For the first time on the continent we have passports, which even Louis
Bonaparte pronounced useless and odious. For the first time in our history,
government spies frequent our great cities."

That, sir, is a very graphic and truly eloquent picture of
the times in which we are, and I hope the country will take
warning. We seem to have yielded everything to the military
power, and I regret to say with a tameness and submission
which, in my judgment, are unbecoming members of an Amer-
ican Congress.

A military republic we have, and we have a republic but in
name — ^the animating principle, the security of the citizen in
life, liberty, and property is gone.

There never was a time, it does not exist now, and has not
existed since this unfortunate civil war commenced, in which
it was necessary for the President to overthrow the Constitu-
tion and elevate the military above the civil power. There is
power enough .inHJ^ Constitution to furnish the President every
dollar and eveQr maiL needed for this war. Congress can give
him the sword^iuid ub purse. What more can you confer?
Nothing. Whene) then, the necessity and the excuse for these
wanton violations of the Coitstltution, this reckless overthrow of
the liberties of the people, thillssetting at naught the laws and
the cons;);itutions of the States, this regulating of elections by
. the sword 1 None. ' None. The genius of our Government is
founded upon the principle that the military shall be kept in
strict subordination to the civil power. But the friends of the
President claim it as a matter of necessity to save the life of
^ the nation, when they must see that the President is trampling
' / V, under his feet the Constitution, and crushing out the liberties

i' •

"BAYONETS AT THE POLLS'* 347

of the people, and destroying every vital principle that gives
value to free government.

But, sir, we have had other great chieftains before. There
was a man who lived in this Republic that I suppose was
thought by all wise and good men to be almost as great as Abra-
ham Lincoln is thought to be by his cringing, truckling, and
obsequious followers; that man was George Washington. He
led our armies through a seven years' war in most trying times,
when the organization of the civil authority was very defective ;
when there was great difSculty in procuring men for the army
and money to defray the necessary expenses of the (Govern-
ment, many of the States failing to furnish their quotas of men
and money. Did Washington, during that long and arduous
struggle, ever think it necessary to subordinate the civil to the
military authority? No, sir; no. In 1783, when he resigned his
commission at Annapolis, Thomas MifSin, President of the Con-
tinental Congress, addressed him as follows:

"Yon have eondncted the great military contest with wiadom and forti-
tude, invariably regarding the rights of the eivil power through all disasters
and dangers."

This I regard as the highest and most deserved compliment
that was ever bestowed upon mortal man.

Sir, I would that this vacillating, dissembling, weak, and I
fear wicked and corrupt man in the White House had been in-
fused with the wisdom, virtue, and patriotism that animated the
soul and prompted the actions of the great Washington in our
revolutionary struggle. Washington and his compatriots were
engaged in a struggle for civil liberty ; the sword was used only
to resist the encroachment of tyrants, and was subordinated to
the civil power. The resistance was successful. They then laid
broad, deep, and strong the foundation of civil and religious
liberty. They proclaimed the Constitution as the fundamental
law, and threw it as a strong and impenetrable shield around
the rights of the States and the liberties of the people. The
Executive is now using the sword which should only be directed
against the armed enemies of the Republic for the sacrilegious
purpose of suppressing free speech, free press, and free suffrage,
and the overthrow of the Constitution, the rights of the States,
and the liberties of the people of the adhering States.

On March 23 Jacob M. Howard [Mick] spoke against
the bill.

348 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

This measure is brought forward at an unpropitious time, at
a time when the country is engaged in a struggle against an im-
mense armed rebellion which calls for the exertion of all the
faculties, all the power of the (Jovemment, all its means, and
for the exercise of every patriotic quality which belongs to
American freemen. In the strictest sense of the law of nations
it is a civil war, it has been so adjudged to be by the Supreme
Court of the United States.

The two governments being, in respect to each other, not
foreign and independent, but their citizens being citizens of
the same common government, and in law subject to the same
authority, there cannot be drawn between them that exact line
of distinction which exists between the subjects of two belliger-
ent foreign governments at war with one another ,* yet there is,
because there must be somewhere, a test, recognized by the law
of war, which is to determine the treatment that one party may
exercise toward the subjects of the other, and by which one
party may be known from the other. It is that line of de-
marcation which divides the loyal from the disloyal. It is the
test and touchstone by which the heart of every citizen is
to be tried and by which it is to be determined whether
he is in favor of the old Government or whether he is opposed
to it. All those who in their hearts are friendly to the old Gov-
ernment, who are willing to support and uphold it, are loyal —
they have the rights of loyal belligerents; while all those who
in their hearts are opposed to the old (Government, or even in-
different to its preservation, who are willing to destroy and
overthrow it, or to see it destroyed or overthrown, and espe-
cially those who directly or indirectly give actual aid and com-
fort to the rebellion, are disloyal, and are to be treated as ene-
mies. I know of no other rule by which a distinction can be
established between the two classes, those who are loyal and those
who are disloyal.

In the midst of this clash of arms, while the whole hemi-
sphere is lighted up by the lurid flames of war, extending from
the Atlantic Ocean far west to the Rocky Mountains, while
every loyal man is filled with anxiety for the final result of the
contest, while along this frontier, marked by a line of bristling
bayonets for more than fifteen hundred miles, the war is wag-
ing with fury, and the line itself constantly fluctuating, the
Senator from Kentucky brings forward a bill prohibiting the
military authorities, in any case, in any manner, to interfere
with what he calls the freedom of election in the States, se-
verely punishing military men for fighting battles, in certain

"BAYONETS AT THE POLLS'' 349

cases, as well as for preventing the enemy liimself from partici-
pating in State elections!

That honorable Senator will admit that for a measure so
novel in its provisions, so extraordinary in the results which it
aims to accomplish, there should be evidence of some great and
intolerable evil which may be cured by such a measure. It is
not sufScient that there may be a few trifling instances of
wrong and misuse of military power; the evil should be so
enormous as to address itself to the conscience of every mem-
ber of the Senate, and the evidence of it so clear and over-
whelming as to leave no doubt or hesitation in the mind. I
shall show, I think, before I conclude my remarks, that there is
no such evil ; and that, if there be any evil of even considerable
magnitude, the evidence of its existence has not been presented
to us by the honorable Senator from Kentucky or any other
member in such form as to deserve our serious attention.

And, sir, in Umine, I have to say, in respect to this bill, that
it contains a provision which, in my judgment, is utterly un-
supported by any clause of the Constitution of the United
States, and is as clearly obnoxious to the objection of unconsti-
tutionality as any bill which has ever been presented to the
Senate.

I beg to know from what provision of the Constitution it is
that the Senator from Kentucky derives the power of employing
the courts or other authorities of the United States to punish
persons who may violate a State law regulating elections or de-
fining the qualifications of State voters? Whence does he de-
rive the power to punish by Federal sentences in Federal courts
violations of a law >¥hich it is competent for a State and a
State only to enact?

Will ite Senator tell me in reply that Congress have a right
to inflict this punishment upon a man because he is in the mili-
tary or naval service of the United States? Such a proposi-
tion is not capable of argument. Men are placed in the mili-
tary service of the United States for the purpose of acting in
that capacity; and the power of Congress in such cases only
goes to the extent of controlling and regulating their conduct
according to the code of war; and there it stops. It cannot be
pretended that because a man is a soldier in the army and goes
home and commits a murder in the State to which he belongs
Congress therefore may declare by a law that he shall be tried
and punished for the murder in a Federal court. The crime in
such a case is committed against the peace and dignity of the
State, not against the peace and dignity of the United States;

350 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

and, although if committed by him while in actual service and
in the ranks, he might be punished by court-martial, yet the
offence would be against the code of war and not the laws of
the State.

Let us, then, sir, hear something less, if the Senator pleases,
of these continued, bitter denunciations against the majority of
this body for violations of the Constitution. For one, sir, I say
to that Senator, I do not acknowledge him as a safe teacher.
*'Non tali auxiUo, nee defensoribiis isiis." Give us no such
aid, no such defenders.

Mr. President, we are told by the Senator from Kentucky
that the Government of the United States have no power to
restrain persons who are rebels, or who are suspected to be
rebels, from voting in the States. I do not agree with the Sen-
ator as to the power of the (Government to prevent disloyal men
voting at a State poll. In the present state of things every man
who is not for us is against us. Every man, as I said before,
who is not friendly to the (Government of the United States
in his heart is opposed to it. Every man who is not willing to
use reasonable and ordinary means, military means, for de*
fending and upholding it at such a moment as this, is an enemy
of the United States, and deserves to be treated as an enemy.

Sir, I stand by the doctrine laid down in the report of the
Committee on Military Affairs. I hold that these persons
whose hearts are against their Government, who are willing that
the (Government should be destroyed — and I go as far as to de-
clare that those who are unwilling in such a crisis as this to
come to the support of the (Government and render it their aid,
and even those who affect to occupy a position of mere indiffer-
ence toward it, are also within the category of enemies of their
country — ought not, in justice, to be suffered to go to the polls.
There must be a distinction somewhere, in this war, between
enemies and friends. A friend is the man whose heart is at-
tached to the (Government and who is willing, according to his
means, to do something to uphold it. He is not the only enemy
who takes up arms or furnishes supplies to those in arms, but
who looks upon this struggle with indifference, whose heart has
no pulsation in favor of the cause, but who is ready whenever
an occasion presents itself to go over and join the rebels, or to
welcome them when they come as invaders into our midst.

The Senator tells us that the military authorities have no
right whatever to interfere in a State election ; and if I under-
stood him rightly he went so far as to declare that every per-
son who is not prohibited by the laws of the State itself from

"BAYONETS AT THE POLLS'' 351

voting has a right to vote, and that the United States have no
authority to intervene for the purpose of preventing it, al-
though he may be a rebel, stained from the crown of his head
to the soles of his feet with the blood of loyal men. I am about
to quote an authority which will perhaps have some weight with
that Senator. I believe the first example of such interference
in a State election was set by General McClellan while com-
mander of the army of the Potomac. In response to a letter of
request, addressed to him by (Governor Hicks of Maryland,
dated October 26, 1861, he issued the following order, dated
October 29, 1861, to General N. P. Banks:

Genebal: There is an apprehension among Union citizenB in many
parts of Maryland of an attempt at interference with their rights of
suffrage by disunion citizens on the occasion of the election to take place
on the 6th of November next.

In order to prevent this the major-general commanding directs that you
send detachments of a sufficient number of men to the different points in
your vicinity where the elections are to be held to protect the Union voters,
and to see that no disunionists are allowed to intimidate them, or in any
way to interfere with their rights.

He also desires you to arrest and hold in confinement until after the
election all disunionists who are known to have returned from Virginia re-
cently, and who show themselves at the polls, and to guard effectually
against any invasion of the peace and order of the election. For the pur-
pose of carrying out these instructions you are authorised to suspend the
habeas corpus.

If this power exists in the (Jovemment of the United States
in any of its departments, in time of war, then no State can
interfere with its exercise, but the citizens of the State must
submit it as to the exercise of any other Federal power, because
it acts upon those citizens as individuals. In short, if the (Gov-
ernment have this tutelary authority, if they have the right to
treat rebels or rebel sympathizers, or those who aid and abet the
rebellion, as enemies, as they undoubtedly have, then they may
use it through the military arm or any other instrumentality to
which they see fit to resort. They may thus prevent those
enemies from exercising any of the rights of citizens in the
State. For this we have at least the sanction of General Mc-
Clellan — certainly, with a certain portion of the members of
this body, a high authority ; and I am very happy to be able for
once to concur fully in the opinions of the general. The power
is thus, as we see, sanctioned by that distinguished military
leader, the heir-apparent of the Democratic party to the next
Presidency, and the promising help and support, I suppose, of
the cause of the Union as they would restore it. At all events.

352 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

it is sufficient for my purpose that I have his complete sanction
of the principle that it is the right of the military arm to inter-
fere in State elections so far as to prevent traitors from voting,
although they may happen to possess the formal qualifications
of electors of the State. I think he was entirely right, and I
am free to give him that praise.

If we have that power, as General McClellan agrees we have,
then it belongs to us exclusively, and the States have nothing to
do but to permit its exercise. It is a power peculiarly pertain-
ing to the United States, and as much to be respected and
obeyed as the judicial power of the (Government. The two
jurisdictions are here as separate and distinct as in any other
case. The States have just as much right to trespass on any
other constitutional power belonging to the (Government as upon

Sir, in my judgment, the case comes clearly and distinctly
within the principle laid down by the Supreme Court of the
United States in the case of Booth, in which the decision of
the court was delivered by the present chief justice [Soger B.
Taney] . (See 21 Howard 's Reports, p. 524.)

Ajid I say here that, whenever a military officer has issued
an order for the purpose of keeping traitors away from the
polls, and the order is regular in form, no State has in a time
of rebellion or civil war any right to dispute or obstruct its
operation; and whenever the governor of a State, a judge of
election, or other State magistrate, undertakes to resist such
an order, he brings himself within the principle laid down by
the Supreme Court, asserting that such interference may be
resisted even by violence. It is nothing more nor less than this,
that the authority of the United States is supreme ; and it rests
with the Senator from Kentucky, and those who entertain his
views, to establish the principle that the Government of the
United States is not supreme in the treatment of its enemies.
The Senator has not argued that question. He has assumed
that it is not. It is with him a mere petitio principii, the as-
sumption of the truth of a proposition that remains to be
proved. Let him by fair and candid argument, by reference
to the books of authority, show, if he can, that the Government
of the United States in the prosecution of a war is not supreme
and has no right to define and declare who are enemies of the
United States and who are friends. He will find it a vain task ;
and I indulge the fancy that he will not be swift to under-
take it.

Sir, the rebels on this subject have been our instructors.

"BAYONETS AT THE POLLS'^ 353

They have found no constitutional difficulty in treating persons
within their limits attached to the Government of the United
States, and acknowledging their allegiance to it as enemies.
Without scruple or hesitation they proceeded at an early day
to enact a statute, now in force among them, by which every
Union man born in a State still adhering to the Union is pro-
scribed and expelled from their territorial limits.^

But, sir, the Senator from Kentucky has made another novel
discovery in the field of constitutional law, to which I must be
indulged in paying some slight attention. He tells the Senate
in his speech on this bill that the Government of the United
States has no right whatever to send troops into any State un-
less it be at the request of the legislature while in session, or of
the Executive when the legislature cannot be convened ; and he
is extremely earnest and confident on this point. He flatters
himself that he has at length discovered the great touchstone by
which this whole war is proved to be unconstitutional, and ** co-
ercion" a tyranny and an outrage. This is the first time in
my professional life that I ever heard it asserted by a gentle-
man professing to be a judge of the principles of the Constitu-
tion, and a good lawyer, that the right of the Government of
the United States to employ military force to put down an in-
surrection was derived from and is solely dependent upon that
clause of the Constitution to which he refers. The clause de-
clares that the Government of the United States shall protect
each State against domestic violence when called upon by the
State. The very language itself shows that the violence against
which the State is to be protected is violence not against the
authority of the United States, but against the authority of the
State, and of the State only.

Domestic violence in a State is violence against the author-
ity of the State, and that violence may be in perfect consist-
ency with the loyalty of the persons who commit it to the Gov-
ernment of the United States.

It is merely local violence against the regular government
of the State, and does not embrace an insurrection or rebellion
against the Federal Government. And such is the meaning
given to the clause in '*The Federalist,'' if the Senator will see
fit to consult it. It may be entirely consistent with the authority
of the United States, like the Dorr rebellion, in Rhode Island,
or the more ancient insurrection of Shay, in Massachusetts. The
present war is a rebellion against the authority of the United
States, not that of any one particular State, and is not there-

''An act respecting alien enemies," approved Aagost 8^ 186L
VI— 23

354 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

fore a case of mere domestic violence as mentioned in the clause
on which the Senator relies.

This, however, is the Senator's logic: the States in rebellion
are agitated by domestic violence; in such cases the Govern-
ment of the United States cannot interiKise, except upon the re-
quest of the legislature of the State when in session, or of the
Executive when the legislature cannot be convened; and be-
cause the legislature and Executive of all the seceded States
have omitted to apply to the Government of the United States
for aid to put down this violence ; ergo, the Government of the
United States has no right to march its troops into those
States; ergo, the whole war is unconstitutional, and we who
are engaged in prosecuting this war within the limits of these
seceded States are guilty of a perpetual violation of our oaths
and of the Constitution of our country. Such is the Senator's
logic.

The Senator seemed to forget that, aside from this particu-
lar clause, there is given to Congress in express terms power to
suppress rebellion and insurrection against the Federal Gov-
ernment itself. We are now acting under this broader and gen-
eral power. We are acting under a power by no means neces-
sary to have been incorporated in the Constitution-^the power
to suppress rebellion and insurrection — because from the very
nature of Government itself, from the very necessity of its be-
ing, the Federal Government, like every other government,
must be held to have the right of self-defence, the right to put
down resistance to its authority, the right to enforce its own
laws, for that cannot be called a government which has no
power to carry its own enactments into execution. It is of the
very essence of all governments to command, and if a govern-
ment may command, it is the duty of those who are commanded
to obey ; so that even without the clause expressly giving to Con-
gress the power to put down an insurrection they would have
plenary power so to do.

But the framers of the instrument saw fit to grant the power
in express terms, as if in anticipation of this ''State rights"
objection. (See **The Federalist," 43.)

My conscience will not be troubled by the fanciful consti-
tutional objection that the Government of the United States
have no right to ''sub jugate. a State." We have, sir, the same
right to subjugate a State in insurrection as to subjugate a
foreign country with which we are at war; and the Senator
from Kentucky will find it impossible, I apprehend, to draw
anything like a sensible distinction between the two cases.

"BAYONETS AT THE POLLS'' 355

The report of the committee alleges that at the date of a cer-
tain letter, which is included in the pamphlet, addressed to Mr.
Wickliffe, of Kentucky, and dated June 13, 1863, the business
of recruiting blacks was in active progress. It is against that
policy that the letter is particularly denunciatory. The writers
of the letter used the following language :

^^We hold this rebellion utterly unjustifiable in its inception, and a
dissolution of the Union the greatest of calamities.

''We would use all just and constitutional means adapted to the sup-
pression of the one and the restoration of the other.''

Again they say:

''It is now obvious that the fixed purpose of the administration is to
arm the negroes of the South to make war upon the whites, and we hold
it to be the duty of the people of Kentucky to enter against such a policy
a solemn and most emphatic protest."

What is the plain implication from this language addressed
to Mr. Wickliffe, that the writers hold the rebellion unjustifiable
''in its inception"? Is it not tantamount to a declaration that,
although in its inception the rebellion was utterly unjustifiable,
it had, nevertheless, become otherwise in consequence of the
acts of the Administration, and particularly the act authorizing
the recruiting of black troops f

And the Senator says that, at the very time this solemn pro-
test was entered by these leading gentlemen of Kentucky, there
was no such thing in Kentucky as the recruiting of black
troops.

What, then, is the pith and point of the declaration that
the rebellion had become justifiable, although unjustifiable in its
inception? Not because recruiting of black troops was going
on in Kentucky, but because it was going on somewhere else,
and because these troops were to be used as aids in suppressing
the rebellion. Sir, this is an audacious presumption on the
part of Kentucky. No, sir, I will not say Kentucky; I do not
mean the people of Kentucky ; I mean the demagogues who as-
sume to be the leaders of the people of Kentucky. What right
have they to dictate to the United States what troops they shall
raise, or where they shall raise them, or how employ them, so
long as the people of Kentucky are not affected by the proceed-
ing?

Mr. President, if there ever was a necessity for the vigor-
ous interposition of military authority to guard the polls
against the intrusion of rebels, if there was ever a case in the

356 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

history of the United States in which the strong arm of military
power was invoked by every interest of community, it was the
case of Kentucky; and I undertake to say that, without this
interference, Kentucky, in all human probability, would to-day
have been regularly installed as a member of the rebel confed-
eration. Nothing but the loyal hearts and strong arms of
Northern men who hurried from their homes has prevented that
State, with all its glorious memories, going over to the rebellion.

I do not stand here to pretend, and I will not assert, that
there may not have been abuses in the execution of some of the
orders. But you may say the same of the execution of any law.
Every power, every law is liable to be abused; but this is no
reason for denying or extinguishing the power itself, for re-
pealing it or for repealing the law.

The leader of the Democratic party, Mr. WickliBfe, was
plainly unfriendly to the Government of the United States. He
was their candidate for governor. The letter inviting him to
stand as such declares that the writers ''hold this rebellion ut-
terly unjustifiable in its inception," plainly, as I have already
remarked, intimating that it had become justifiable. The writ-
ers of the pamphlet observe: '*Mr. Wickliflfe, in accepting the
nomination which had thus been tendered him, expressed
his hearty concurrence in our view"; that is, his hearty
concurrence in the statement that the rebellion had be-
come no longer unjustifiable. I submit, sir, that a man who, at
such a time, can so far forget what is due to his country as to
intimate that this rebellion had become a justifiable one was not
a fit person to be voted for at the polls. And I say boldly that
I think the military authorities in Kentucky did exactly right
when they instructed the judges of election not to permit Mr.
Wickliffe's name to appear on the poll list as a candidate for
governor, although, notwithstanding several orders of that kind,
he received a very considerable vote in Kentucky.

But, sir, there is no allegation, even in the pamphlet itself,
that any one single individual known to be a true and loyal man
was hindered from voting at the election in Kentucky on the
3d of August, 1863. It is very true, as the writers of the pam-
phlet remark, that the aggregate vote at that election compared
with the number of male persons over twenty-one years old in
1862 was small. But the smallness of the vote shows not so
much that voters were excluded from the polls as that multi-
tudes kept away because of their own disloyal proclivities, while
thousands upon thousands had emigrated or gone into the rebd
army or into the Union army.

"BAYONETS AT THE POLLS'* 357

The declarations of the authors of the pamphlet show a dif-
ferent kind of loyalty from mine. It is the loyalty of neutral-
ity, which is no loyalty, and just as inconsistent with the duty
which a State and its people owe to the Government of the
United States as open rebellion.

Neutrality, sir, Kentucky neutrality, what is it in law, and
what would it be if practically carried out there or elsewhere?
If the agreement said to have been made by General McClellan
with Buckner recognizing the neutrality of the State had been
carried into execution practically Kentucky would have been as
eflfectually out of this Union as is now the State of South Caro-
lina. Neutrality, let me say to the Senator, is an attribute be-
longing exclusively to a sovereign power, an independent na-
tion. You cannot predicate neutrality of any community that
does not possess the right of sovereignty as an independent na-
tion, for there are certain rights and duties pertaining to neu-
trality which can be exercised only by an independent nation,
and with which any subordinate or dependent condition is
totally incompatible.

Sir, let us contemplate for a moment the condition that Ken-
tucky would have been in if she had carried out eflfectually her
idea of neutrality. The Government of the United States would
have been disabled from recruiting a single man within her
limits, such recruiting being forbidden by the laws of war and
nations within neutral territory. Again, the United States
could not have marched a single platoon across the border of
Kentucky, although the enemy had been in her midst. The
Ohio and the IMississippi would have been sealed up against the
navigation of the United States. Kentucky would have been
flourishing in all the peace and comfort of neutrality, keeping
the Union forces away upon the one side and possibly inviting
the rebels upon the other, while at the same time she would
have been at complete liberty to carry on trade and commerce
in everything not contraband of war with both the belligerent
parties.

In short, she would have been enjoying a harvest of profits
in her trade with the rebels, and a like harvest in her trade
with the Union armies, and at the same time feeling none of
the inconveniences of the war. Such, sir, was manifestly the
idea at the bottom of Kentucky neutrality.

Is it founded upon the Constitution? Will the gentleman
say that under that instrument it is the right of any one of the
States to set up to be neutral in a war, whether a civil or a for-
eign war? No, sir. It is as plainly prohibited as open re-

358 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

bellion, and the claim is as incompatible with fidelity to the Gov-
ernment as the claim of nullification or secession.

Sir, it is amazing that a gentleman who has so much to say
about the violation of the Constitution of the United States, a
gentleman who has not hesitated to say upon this floor that if
justice had been done to Abraham Lincoln for his imputed un-
constitutional interference in State elections he would have
been hanged like those who were denounced as traitors by the
laws of Greece for voting at elections where they had no right —
it is amazing that such a Senator can stand up here and advo-
cate in the same breath the right of a State to assume the con-
dition of neutrality in a war. It is nothing more nor less than
actual secession, because it implies an utter repudiation of the
obligations of the State to the general Government. Sir, I
thank Heaven that the President of the United States at an
early day rebuked this pretension.

The speaker then turned to the Maryland election.
Referring to the proclamation of Governor Bradford
he said:

This proclamation was a direct invitation to the judges of
election and the people of Maryland to disregard the order
[of Gen. Schenck], and, if need be, to resort to violence in re-
sisting it. It was a threat to produce an insurrection, and to
drive out the United States troops by force. The report of the
Military Committee holds that the governor had no right to
issue it, or to instruct the judges in this manner. The Senator
from Kentucky, in his emphatic reply to this part of the report,
tells us that the Governor of Maryland had ''a right to issue
a proclamation concerning elections." Who denies it? The
Senator was combating a proposition the committee had not
made.

Undoubtedly, sir, the (Jovernor of Maryland, like any other
governor, has a right to issue a proclamation on any subject
connected with his duties; but neither the Governor of Mary-
land nor any other governor has the right to say to the judges
of elections, ''Your duties are such and such, and you must do
so and so." The law, not the governor's proclamation, regu-
lates their duties. And whatever may be that law, whether in
the shape of a State statute or the order of a military man for
the protection of the polls, such as that of Ckneral Schenck,
it is nevertheless law, and Governor Bradford had no more
right to say to the judges that they were not to obey General

"BAYONETS AT THE POLLS'' 359

Schenck's order than to tell them they were not to obey a stat-
ute of the United States. It did not lie in the mouth of the
Governor of Maryland to dispense them from that obligation.

Sir, if the judges of election had been as hasty as the gov-
ernor, if they had resorted to the power of the county or other
force for the purpose of resisting the execution of this order, it
is easy to see that before the sun of the 3d of November went
down below the western horizon the soil of ancient Maryland
would have been stained with fraternal blood, and hundreds,
perhaps thousands, of her sons would have been weltering in
their gore; for it would inevitably have led to a violent col-
lision between the troops of the United States and the people
of Maryland.

The Senator alleges that the judges were prevented from
executing the laws. In many cases, he says, they were impris-
oned. Let me say, with the utmost personal respect for that
Senator, that I have discovered no case, from the beginning to
the end of this vast amount of written testimony, which shows
or conduces to show that the judges of election were prevented
in any case from executing the laws. If there be any such case,
I hope the honorable Senator will be able to lay it before the
Senate. There are but two cases in which the judges of elec-
tion were arrested; the one the case in Kentucky, where the
judges of election openly and contemptuously refused to recog-
nize the military authority and to execute the orders, and were
therefore placed under arrest; the other in Maryland, where
an investigation ordered by the President showed that the per-
sons arrested were not judges, but citizens, who had abandoned
their posts as officers.

As I said in the beginning, Mr. President, in order to justify
Congress in passing this bill, the proof of existing evils should
be plain, indubitable, and irresistible. The times especially re-
quire it. Were it a time of peace, I admit the military authori-
ties of the United States would have no power to interfere with
State elections; but it is not a time of peace, but of war; a
time in which the feelings of every man in the nation are tak-
ing a fixed direction, either in favor of the Government or
against it ; a time when it is absolutely necessary for the preser-
vation not only of the Federal Government, but of the State
governments, that a line of demarcation should be drawn be-
tween the loyal and the disloyal, between men who are friendly
and men who are unfriendly ; and I insist that, in view of the
evidence before us, there is no sufficient reason for the passage
of this bill had we even the power to pass it.

360 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

The bill was debated at varions times until June 22,
when, through the persistent efforts of Senator Powell,
it was finally brought to a vote. Several amendments,
however, were first offered by the Senator himself; the
most important of which was one providing that soldiers
may be stationed at the polls if *4t shall be necessary
to repel the armed enemies of the United States. ' ' This
and other amendments were adopted.

Samuel C. Pomeroy [Kan.] then moved to add to Sen-
ator Powell's amendment the words: **or to keep the
peace at the polls. ' '

Senator Powell, James A. McDougall [Cal.] and
others objectea to this amendment as destroying the
effect of the bill. It expressed, they declared, the very
pretext upon which the recent outrage against the free
ballot had been committed. This amendment, however,
was adopted by a vote of 16 to 15. The bill was then
passed by a vote of 19 to 13.

James Harlan [la.] moved to reconsider the passage
of the bill. The motion was entered.

On June 23 Senator Howard spoke in favor of recon-
sidering the measure.

This bill gives permission for the employment of the mili-
tary forces of the United States at elections only where there
shall be armed enemies of the Federal Government at the polls,
or where it shall be necessary to employ a military force to
keep the peace. It therefore leaves the implication perfectly
irresistible that in all other cases it shall not be lawful for the
military authorities to employ their forces, although there
might be thronging around the polls rebels who had just left
the field of battle, and whose hands were crimsoned with the
blood of loyal men. This bill allows notorious rebels to come
to the polls and cast their ballots without the slightest fear of
interference on the part of the military authorities.

It is said, Mr. President, that it is the exclusive privilege of
the States to protect their own polls. But this is true only in a
time of peace. For in a time of war a State government is not
competent to extend to a person who is a public enemy of the
National Gk)vemment, and against whom and against whose
class or coipununity the United States as a nation is waging
war, any political right or privilege whatever ; and I do assert

"BAYONETS AT THE POLLS" 361

that such a person is in all respects and at all times subject
to the laws of the Federal Oovemment relating to him as a
public enemy, and subject to those laws in exclusion of any
conflicting law of a State. For a State cannot legally be en-
gaged in war ; the whole of the war power pertains exclusively
to the Federal Government.

Eeverdy Johnson [Md.] replied to Senator Howard.

Who is to ascertain what men are public enemies of the
United States? Shall a citizen of Maryland, for instance, de-
cide that I am not entitled to vote at an election in my own
State? There is but one subject upon which the Federal Gov-
ernment has any authority to interfere with elections. Over
the times, the places, and the manner, the Constitution gives
to the several States the exclusive authority with two excep-
tions, which have nothing in the world to do with the manner
in which the franchise is to be exercised or with the parties
who are to exercise it. Upon all other subjects, therefore, than
of time and manner, the jurisdiction of the States is just as
paramount and exclusive as it was before the Constitution was
adopted.

Mr. President, we hold our rights under the Constitution
consecrated by the blood of our ancestors. We have proved
ourselves worthy to enjoy them by meeting the enemies of our
country upon the field and the ocean, and we are doing it now.
Oh, save us, save us in the name of freedom, from the rule of
military despotism!

On June 28 the motion to reconsider the vote on the
bill was defeated by a vote of 19 to 23.

CHAPTER XIV

The Thibteenth Amendment

[constitutional abolition op slavery]

Lyman Trambull [HI.] Moves in the Senate a Constitutional Amendment
Abolishing Slavery — Debate: in Favor, Sen. Trumbull^ Henry Wilson
[Mass.], Daniel Clark [N. H.], Timothy O. Howe [Wis.], Beverdy
Johnson [Md.], John P. Hale [N. H.], Charles Sumner; Opposed, Gar-
rett Davis [Ky.], Willard Saulsbury [Del.], James A. McDougall
[Cal.] — Resolution Is Carried in the Senate, and Defeated in the
House — It Is Passed at the Next Session.

ON March 28, 1864, Lyman Trumbull [111.] intro-
duced in the Senate, from the Committee on
the Judiciary, the following proposed amend-
ment to the Constitution:

ABTiCLE zm

Sec. 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as
a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place
subject to their jurisdiction.

Sec. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this artide by
appropriate legislation.

Abolition of Slaveby

Senate, Mabch 28- April 8, 1864

Senator Trumbull. — ^Without stoppiag to inqtdre into all
the causes of our troubles, and of the distress, desolation, and
death which have grown out of this atrocious rebellion, I sui>-
pose it will be generally admitted that they sprung from slav-
ery. If a large political party in the North attribute these
troubles to the impertinent interference of Northern philan-

362

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 363

tbropists and fanatics with an institution in the Southern
States with which they had no right to interfere, I reply, if
there had been no such institution there could have been no
such alleged impertinent interference; if there had been no
slavery in the South, there could have been no Abolitionists in
the North to interfere with it. If, upon the other hand, it be
said that this rebellion grows out of the attempt on the part of
those in the interest of slavery to govern this country so as to
perpetuate and increase the slaveholding power, and failing in
this that they have endeavored to overthrow the Government
and set up an empire of their own, founded upon slavery as its
chief corner-stone, I reply, if there had been no slavery there
could have been no such foundation on which to build. If the
freedom of speech and of the press, so dear to freemen every-
where, and especially cherished in this time of war by a large
party in the North who are now opposed to interfering with
slavery, has been denied us all our lives in one-half the States
of the Union, it was by reason of slavery. If these halls have
resounded from our earliest recollections with the strifes and
contests of sections, ending sometimes in blood, it was slavery
which almost always occasioned them.

Senator Trumbull here reviewed the acts of the
President and Congress relating to negroes, previously
to the Emancipation Proclamation.

But, sir, had these laws, all of them, been efficiently exe-
cuted they would not wholly have extirpated slavery. They
were aimed only at the slaves of rebels. Congress never under-
took to free the slaves of loyal men; no act has ever passed for
that purpose.

At a later period, the President by proclamation undertook
to free the slaves in certain localities. Notice of this proclama^
tion was given in September, 1862, and it was to become effec-
tive in January, 1863. Unlike the acts of Congress, which un-
dertook to free the slaves of rebels only, and of such as came
under our control, the President's proclamation excepted &om
its provisions the regions of country subject to our authority,
and declared free the slaves only who were in regions of coun-
try from which the authority of the United States was expelled,
enjoining upon the persons proposed to be made &ee to abstain
from all violence unless in necessary self-defence, and recom-
mending them in all cases, when allowed, to labor faithfully for
reasonable wages.

364 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

The force and effect of this proclamation are understood
very differently by its advocates and opponents. The former
insist that it is and was within the constitutional power of the
President, as commander-in-chief, to issue such a proclama-
tion ; that it is the noblest act of his life or the age ; and that
by virtue of its provisions all slaves within the localities desig-
nated become ipso facto free; while others declare that it was
issued without competent authority, and has not and cannot
effect the emancipation of a single slave. These latter insist
that the most the President could do, as commander of the
armies of the United States, would be, in the absence of legis-
lation, to seize and free the slaves which came within the con-
trol of the army ; that the power exercised by a commander-in-
chief, as such, must be a power exercised in fact, and that be-
yond his lines where his armies cannot go his orders are mere
hrutum fulmen,^ and can work neither a forfeiture of property
nor freedom of slaves ; that the power of Fremont and Hunter,
commanders-in-chief for a certain time in their departments,
who assumed to free the slaves within their respective com-
mands, was just as effective within the boundaries of their com-
mands as that of the commander-in-chief of all the departments,
who as commander could not draw to himself any of his presi-
dential powers; and that neither had or could have any force
except within the lines and where the army actually had the
power to execute the order; that to that extent the previous
acts of Congress would free the slaves of rebels, and if the
President 's proclamation had any effect it would be only to free
the slaves of loyal men, for which the laws of the land did not
provide.

I will not undertake to say which of these opinions is
correct, nor is it necessary for my purposes to decide. It is
enough for me to show that any and all these laws and procla-
mations, giving to each the largest effect claimed by its friends,
are ineffectual to the destruction of slavery. The laws of Con-
gress if faithfully executed would leave remaining the slaves
belonging to loyal masters, which, considering how many are
held by children and females not engaged in the rebellion,
would be no inconsiderable number, and the President's procla-
mation excepts from its provisions all of Delaware, Maryland,
Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, and a good portion of Louisi-
ana and Virginia — almost half the slave States.

If then we are to get rid of the institution, we must have
some more efScient way of doing it than by the proclamations

'Idle thunder.

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 365

that have been issued or the acts of Congress which have been
passed.

Some, however, say that we may pass an act of Congress to
abolish slavery altogether, and petitions are sent to Congress
asking it to pass such a law. I am as anxious to get rid of
slavery as any person; but has Congress authority to pass a
law abolishing slavery everywhere, freeing the slaves of the
loyal, the slaves of the friends of the Oovernment as well as
the slaves of the disloyal and of the enemies of the (Govern-
ment ? Why, sir, it has been an admitted axiom from the foun-
dation of this Government, among all parties, that Congress had
no authority to interfere with slavery in the States where it
existed. But it is said this was in a time of peace, and we are
now at war, and Congress has authority to carry on war, and
in carrying on war we may free the slaves. Why so ? Because
it is necessary ; for no other reason. If we can do it by act of
Congress it must be because it is a necessity to the prosecution
of the war. We have authority to put down the enemies of the
country ; we have the right to slay them in battle ; we have au-
thority to confiscate their property; but, mark you, does that
give any authority to slay the friends of the country, to con-
fiscate the property of the friends of the country, or to free
the slaves of the friends of the country 1

But it said that freeing slaves would aid us in raising
troops; that slaves are unwilling to volunteer and enter the
public service unless other slaves are made free, and that we
could raise troops better, sooner, and have a more eflScient army
if slavery were declared abolished. Suppose that were so, is
it a necessity? Can we not raise an army without doing thisf
Has not the Congress of the United States unlimited authority
to provide for the raising of armies by draft, by force to put
any and every man capable of bearing arms into its service?
Have we not already passed a law compelling men to enter the
service of the Government in its defence and for the putting
down this rebellion? Then there is no necessity to free the
slaves in order to raise an army.

But it is a convenience, perhaps some wiU say. Sir, it is not
because a measure would be convenient that Congress has au-
thority to adopt it. The measure must be appropriate and
needful to carry into effect some granted power, or we have no
authority to adopt it. I can imagine a thousand things that
would aid us to raise troops, which no one would contend Con-
gress had authority to do. We now find that it is costing us a
large sum of money to carry on this war. There are apprehen-

366 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

sions in some quarters that the finances of the country will not
be sufficient to prosecute it to the end. A measure that would
enable us to carry on the war cheaper would certainly be one
in aid of this war power. In consequence of the prosperity
which prevails in the country, wages at this time are very high.
Men are unwilling to enlist without large bounties and large
pay, because they get high wages at home. Suppose we intro-
duce a bill that no man shall be paid in any manufacturing
establishment, at any mechanic art, or for his daily labor, more
than ten cents a day, and we visit with penalties and punish-
ment any man who shall give to his employee more than that
sum; do you not think that would hold out an additional in-
ducement to volunteer? But who would contend that Con-
gress had any such authority 1 Manifestly it has not. Nor can
I find the constitutional authority to abolLsh slavery everywhere
by act of Congress as a necessity to prosecuting the war.

Then, sir, in my judgment, the only eflfectual way of rid-
ding the country of slavery, and so that it cannot be resusci-
tated, is by an amendment of the Constitution forever prohibit-
ing it within the jurisdiction of the United States. This amend-
ment adopted, not only does slavery cease, but it can never be
reestablished by State authority, or in any other way than by
again amending the Constitution. Whereas, if slavery should
now be abolished by act of Congress or proclamation of the
President, assuming that either has the power to do it, there is
nothing in the Constitution to prevent any State from reestab-
lishing it. This change of the Constitution will also relieve us
of all difficulty in the restoration to the Union of the rebel
States when our brave soldiers shall have reduced them to
obedience to the laws.

Henry Wilson [Mass.] followed in a speech, enti-
tled ''The Death of Slavery Is the Life of the Nation.**

I think it is reasonable to suppose that if this proposed
amendment passes Congress it will within a year receive the
ratification of the requisite number of States to make it a part
of the Constitution. That accomplished, and we are forever
freed of this troublesome question. We relieve Congress of sec-
tional strifes, and, what is better than all, we restore to a whole
race that freedom which is theirs by the gift of God, but which
we for generations have wickedly denied them.

Slavery is the conspirator that conceived and organized this
mighty conspiracy against the unity and existence of the Re-

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 367

public. Slavery is the traitor that madly plunged the nation
into the fire and blood and darkness of civil war. Slavery is
the criminal whose hands are dripping with the blood of our
murdered sons. Yes, slavery is the conspirator, the traitor, the
criminal that is reddening the sods of Christian America with
the blood of fathers and husbands, sons and brothers, and bath-
ing them with the bitter tears of mothers, wives, and sisters.

Sir, slavery — ^bold, proud, domineering, with hate in its
heart, scorn in its eye, defiance in its mien — ^has pronounced
against the existence of republican institutions in America,
against the supremacy of the Gtovemment, the unity and life
of the nation. Slavery, hating the cherished institutions that
tend to secure the rights and enlarge the privileges of mankind ;
despising the toiling masses as mudsills and white slaves; de-
fying the Government, its Constitution and its laws, has openly
pronounced itself the mortal and unappeasable enemy of the
Republic. Slavery stands to-day the only clearly pronounced
foe our country has on the globe. Therefore, every word
spoken, every line written, every act performed, that keeps
the breath of life in slavery for a moment, is against the exist-
ence of democratic institutions, against the dignity of the toil-
ing millions, against the liberty, the peace, the honor, the re-
nown, and the life of the nation. In the lights of to-day that
flash upon us from camp and battlefield, the loyal eye, heart,
and brain of America sees and feels and realizes that the death
of slavery is the life of the nation ! The loyal voice of patriot-
ism pronounces, in clear accents, that American slavery must
die that the American Republic may live!

Sir, under the Constitution, framed to secure the blessings
of liberty, slavery strode into the chambers of legislation, the
halls of justice, the mansions of the Executive, and, with
menaces in the one hand and bribes in the other, it awed the
timid and seduced the weak. Marching on from conquest to
conquest, crushing where it could not awe, seduce, or corrupt,
slavery saw institutions of learning, benevolence, and religion,
political organizations and public men, aye, and the people,
too, bend before it and acknowledge its iron rule. Seizing on
the needed acquisitions of Louisiana and of Florida to extend
its boundaries, consolidate its power, and enlarge its sway,
slavery crossed the Mississippi and there established its bar-
barous dominion against the too feeble resistance of a not yet
conquered people. Controlling absolutely the policy of the
South, swaying the policy of the nation, impressing itself upon
the legislation, the sentiments, and opinions of the North,

368 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

slavery moved on to assured dominion. Under its aggressive
advances emancipation societies, organized by the men of the
revolutionary era in the first bright ardor of secured liberty,
one by one disappeared ; presses and churches forgot to remem-
ber those in bonds as bound with them, and recreant sons dis-
owned the sentiments, opinions, and principles of a glorious
ancestry. And slavery, in the pride of power, proclaimed it-
self in the halls of Congress, through its apostles and cham-
pions, its Calhouns and McDufiies, **a positive good," **the only
stable basis of republican institutions," 'Hhe corner-stone of
the republican edifice."

But amid this general defection from the faith of the states-
men and heroes of the revolutionary age, a fearless and faith-
ful few clung to the teachings of Washington and Franklin,
Jefferson and Jay, and their illustrious compeers. Unawed by
its power, unseduced by its blandishments, they opposed to the
aggressions of slavery — aye, to slavery itself — a stem and un-
yielding resistance. They proclaimed emancipation to be the
duty of the master and the right of the slave. To advance the
cause of emancipation and to improve the condition of free peo-
ple of color they avowed their readiness to use **all means sanc-
tioned by law, humanity, and religion." Slavery marked and
branded these heroic men as political and social outlaws; com-
pelling them, in the words of John G. Whittier, **to hold prop-
erty, liberty, and life itself at the mercy of lawless mobs."
Slavery cast its malign influence over all the land, maddening
the brain and firing the heart of a deluded people against the
fearless few who opposed its aggressions and pitied its hapless
victims. Passion — ^blind, unreasoning passion — ^ruled the hour.
Cities were lighted by the sacked and burning dwellings of a
proscribed and hated race. Churches, institutions of learning,
and presses were often forcibly closed or destroyed at the bid-
ding of slavery by the lawless violence of "gentlemen of prop-
erty and standing."

Slaves were held in the District of Columbia, and slave pens
and the slave trade polluted and dishonored the national cap-
ital under the color of laws for which the people of America
were responsible in the forum of nations and before the throne
of Almighty God. Christian men and women, oppressed with
the sin and shame, humbly petitioned Congress to relieve them
from that sin and shame by making the national capital free.
Slavery bade its tools — ^its Fattens, its Pinckneys, and its Ather-
tons — violate the constitutional right of petition, and willing
majorities hastened to register its decree. Slavery arraigned

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 369

before the bar of the House of Representatives John Quiney
Adams, the illustrious champion of the right of petition and
the freedom of speech, and it expelled the fearless and faithful
Giddings for the offence of daring to construe the Constitution
of his country and interpret the law of nations. Slavery stepped
upon the decks of Miassachusetts ships in the harbor of Charles-
ton, seized colored seamen, citizens of the commonwealth, and
consigned them to prisons, to be fined, to be lashed, and to be
sold into perpetual bondage. Massachusetts, mindful of the
rights of all her citizens, sent Samuel Hoar, one of her most
honored sons, to test the constitutional rights of her impris-
oned citizens in the judicial tribunals. Slavery cast him vio-
lently from South Carolina, and enacted that whoever should
attempt to defend the rights of colored seamen in the courts
of that commonwealth should suffer the ignominy of imprison-
ment.

Slavery cast its devouring eye upon the broad, rich fields of
Texas, and sent its pioneers to wrench them from the feeble
grasp of the Mexican republic. By the pen of Calhoun, its
great champion, slavery in the name of the nation demanded,
in the face of Europe, the annexation of that slaveholding re-
public, to defeat ultimate emancipation there, and to tighten the
fetters of the bondmen here. In obedience to the humiliating
demand of slavery, Texas was forced into the Union by an
unconstitutional joint resolution, and the nation plunged into a
war with Mexico. When peace returned, it brought with it
half a million square miles of free territory. The North, the
humiliated North, timidly asked that this territory, made for-
ever free by Mexican law, should be forever consecrated to free-
dom by national legislation ; but slavery demanded the right to
extend itself over these free Territories, and threatened the dis-
memberment of the Union if that claim was denied. California
framed a constitution and asked admission as a free common*
wealth, but slavery resisted her admission with menaces of dis-
union and civil war. To appease slavery, a pliant Congress or-
ganized Utah and New Mexico, so that slave masters could
range over them with their fettered bondmen, gave fifteen thou-
sand square miles of the free soil of New Mexico to slavehold-
ing Texas, and with them $10,000,000, and enacted the uncon-
stitutional, inhuman, and unchristian Fugitive Slave Act, that
has dishonored and humiliated the nation before earth and
heaven. Slavery then, in its hour of complete triumph, inso-
lently demanded that the two great political parties, who had
shrunk appalled before its menaces of disunion and civil war.

370 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

who had betrayed the cause of freedom, humanity, and civili-
zation in America, should now declare these its acts ''finali-
ties,'* and bid the people forever cease ** agitation."

Having forced these parties to pronounce its legislation of
1850 a ''finality in principle and substance," slavery strode like
an imperial despot into these chambers and demanded the re-
peal of the Missouri prohibition of the 6th of March, 1820, and
a faithless Congress and a subservient Executive hastened to
open half a million square miles, in the central regions of the
Republic, consecrated forever to freedom and free labor, to the
footsteps of the bondman. Northern freemen went to that mag-
nificent Territory to found there the institutions of freedom.
Slavery made its brutal tools invade Kansas, seize the ballot
box, elect a territorial legislature, enact inhuman and unchris-
tian laws, bathe the virgin soil of that beautiful region with the
blood of civil war, frame a slave constitution by fraud, and
force it upon a free people. Faithfully did the propagandists of
slavery labor in Kansas and in Congress, and in the executive
departments of the Government, to execute its decrees. They
invaded the Territory, they usurped the government, they en-
acted slave statutes, they robbed and burned, they murdered
brave men contending for their lawful rights. In Congress, the
champions of slavery were hardly less brutal than in the wilds
of distant Kansas. My colleague [Mr. Sumner] portrayed the
crimes of slavery against Kansas, and he was smitten down
upon the floor of the Senate by "a brutal, murderous, and cow-
ardly assault." The propagandists of slavery framed a slave
constitution, sustained it by fraud and violence, and the weak
and wicked administration of James Buchanan, in obedience to
the imperative demands of slavery, attempted to force it by cor-
ruption through Congress upon an unwilling people, but for the
first time slavery was baffled, defeated, dishonored. Freemen
triumphed ; Kansas came into the Union radiant with liberty.

Sir, slavery saw its waning power ; it saw, too, that its crim-
inal victories of the past were but barren and fruitless tri-
umphs that turned to ashes on the lip. It then wrung from
the Supreme Court the Dred Scott decision, by which it hoped
to control the vast Territories of the Republic, even against the
will of the actual settlers. It bade the legislature of New Mex-
ico enact a slave code, and also a code for the enslavement of
white laboring men. It sent Walker and his filibusters to Cen-
tral America to win slave territory. It sighed for Cuba, which
it could not clutch. It mobbed, flogged, expelled, and some-
times murdered Christian men and women in the South for no

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 371

offence against law, humanity, or religion. It maddened the
Southern brain and fired the Southern heart. It turned large
masses of the people of the South against the institutions and
the people of the North, against the Constitution and the old
flag of their country. It came into the Thirty-sixth Congress
threatening to dismember this Union of constellated common-
wealths if the people of America should elect a President op-
posed to its admission into the Territories. It rushed into the
Democratic national convention, and, as the first step toward
disunion, severed the Democratic party. It then went into the
presidential election, seeking defeat, yet threatening the ven-
geance of disunion and civil war if defeated. Regardless, how-
ever, of its treasonable menaces, the people went to the ballot
boxes and made Abraham Lincoln President of the United
States. Slavery instantly raised the banner of treason, dragged
South Carolina with headlong haste into open rebellion, and
forced other States swiftly to follow her example. Slavery or-
ganized conspiracies in the cabinet, conspiracies in Congress,
conspiracies in the States, conspiracies in the army, conspiracies
in the navy, conspiracies everywhere for the overthrow of the
Government and the disruption of the Republic. At the bid-
ding of slavery the oft-vaunted Southern Confederacy, the
dream of slaveholding traitors for thirty years, rose upon the
recognized basis that bondage was the normal condition of all
men of the African race. Slavery bade those of its champions
who were in the service of the nation leave cabinets and Sen-
ates, military posts and naval stations, for the service of the
rebellion ; and, at the bidding of slavery, Floyd, its truest expo-
nent, left the cabinet when there seemed nothing more for him
to steal ; and Davis and Toombs, Slidell and Mason, Hunter and
Benjamin, and their guilty compeers in treason, in solemn
mockery left the chambers of Congress when the plots, con-
spiracies, treacheries, and perjuries imposed upon them by the
great architect of ruin seemed accomplished.

Sir, not content with seizing forts, arsenals, arms, and pub-
lic property everywhere within the rebel States, slavery bade
the frowning batteries menacing Sumter fire upon the Star of
the West sailing under the protecting folds of the national flag,
and freighted with bread for starving soldiers; and when that
act of armed treason failed to arouse to action an insulted but
patient and forbearing country, slavery bade those rebel bat-
teries open their fire on Sumter and its few starving but heroic
defenders; and those consuming batteries, in obedience to its
command, burled shot a^d shell upon that devoted fortress till

372 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

the glorious old flag of united America came down, and the
rebel banner waved over the smoking ruins. And thus slavery,
after an aggressive warfare of two generations upon the vital
and animating spirit of republican institutions, upon the cher-
ished and hallowed sentiments of a free and Christian people,
upon the enduring interests and lasting fame of the nation, or-
ganizes a treasonable conspiracy, raises the standard of revolt,
and plunges the nation into a bloody contest for the preserva-
tion of its menaced life. To the full comprehension of every
man in America whose heart, brain, and soul have not been
poisoned by its seductive arts and malign influence slavery is
the cause, the whole cause, of this foul, wicked, and bloody re-
bellion. Every loyal American whose reason is unclouded sees
that slavery is the prolific mother of all these nameless woes —
these sunless agonies of civil war. He sees that every loyal sol-
dier upon the cot of sickness, of wounds, and of death was laid
there by slavery ; that every wounded and maimed soldier hob-
bling along our streets was wounded and maimed by slavery;
that the lowly grave of every loyal soldier fallen in defence of
the country was dug by slavery ; that mourning wives and sor-
rowing children were made widows and orphans by slavery.
Before the tribunal of mankind of the present and of coming
ages, before the bar of the ever-living God, the loyal heart of
America holds slavery responsible for every dollar sacrificed,
for every drop of blood shed, for every pang of toil, of agony,
and of death, for every tear wrung from suffering or affection,
in this godless rebellion now upon us. For these treasonable
deeds, for these crimes against freedom, humanity, and the life
of the nation, slavery should be doomed by the loyal people of
America to a swift, utter, and ignominious annihilation.

But slavery, Mr. President, should not only be doomed to an
ignominious death, to perish utterly from the face of the coun-
try, for the treasonable crime of levying war upon the (Jovern-
ment, but the safety if not the existence of the nation demands
its extermination. The experience of nearly three years of civil
war has demonstrated to the full comprehension of every loyal
and intelligent man in America that slavery is the motive
power, the heart and soul and brain of the rebellion.

Sir, slavery not only fires the Southern heart, brain, and
soul, and nerves the Southern arm in council hall and on the
battlefield with its malignant hate and bitter scorn of Yankee
laborers and Yankee institutions, its lofty contempt for the
principles and policy of freedom, its haughty defiance of the
authority of the national Government, and its gorgeous visions

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 373

of the future power of the Southern Confederacy, extending its
imperial sway over Cuba, Mexico, and Central America, and
commanding the commerce of the world by its tropical produc-
tions and its millions of slaves, but it uses the bones and sinews
of more than three millions of the bondmen of rebel masters in
support of the rebellion. These slaves of rebel masters sow and
reap, plant and gather the harvests that support rebel masters
and feed rebel armies. By their ceaseless, unpaid toil, these
millions of bondmen enable their traitorous masters and the
poor white men of the rebel States to leave their fields and shops
and rush to the battlefield to shed the blood of our loyal coun-
tr3anen, of our neighbors and friends and brothers and sons.
These bondmen throw up fortifications, dig trenches and rifle
pits, make roads and bridges, fell forests and build barracks,
drive teams, and relieve in many ways the toil of rebel soldiers,
thus making more efficient the rebel armies. The spade and
hoe of the slaves of rebels support the rifle and bayonet of rebel
soldiers. Slavery is not only the motive power, the heart and
soul of the rebellion, but it is the arm also. Therefore the
preservation of the life of the country, and the lives of our
brave soldiers battling for national existence, as well as the just
punishment of conspiracy and treason, demand that the loyal
men of the Republic shall swear by Him who liveth evermore
that slavery in America shall die.

Not only the punishment of its appalling crimes, not only
the lives of our countrymen and the preservation of the life of
the nation, demand the utter extermination of slavery, but the
future repose of the country also demands it. Slavery has
poisoned the very fountains of existence in the South; it has
entered into the blood and bone and marrow and the soul of
our Southern countrymen. It has filled their bosoms with bit-
ter, fierce, unreasoning hate toward their countrymen of the
North, and the institutions, the Government, and the flag of
their country. So long as slavery shall live, it will infuse its
deadly and fatal poison into the Southern brain, heart, and
soul. Then let slavery die a felon's death, and sink into a
traitor's grave, amid the curses of a loyal nation. Then, when
slavery shall sleep the sleep that knows no waking, in the grave
of dishonor and infamy, reason will assume its mild sway again
over our now maddened, poisoned, and intoxicated countrymen
of the South. Take the maddening cup from the trembling
hand of the drunkard, who, in his wild delirium, hates the
mother who bore him, the wife of his bosom, and the children
of his love, and that drunkard will be a man again, and love.

374 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

cherish, and protect the mother, wife, and children he would
smite down in his madness. Smite down slavery, strike the fet-
ters from the limbs of its hapless victims, and slave masters
will become loyal again, ready to pour out their blood for the
Government they now hate and the country they now assail.
They will recur to the recollections of the early days of the Re-
public with gratitude and patriotic pride, they will look for-
ward with undoubting confidence in the future of their coun-
try. Their hearts will again throb with kindly regard for their
countrymen of the North, and they will hail once more the
beneficent institutions of a united country. The old flag, un-
der which the men of the North and of the South fought and
bled, side by side, on land and wave, will again be an object
of affection and pride; its stars, now obscured to their vision,
will gleam again with brighter luster and more radiant beauty.

Congress, not by the consent of the loyal States or loyal
masters, but by the will and power of the nation, has made free
at once and forever every slave who enlists into the military
service. The Attorney-General pronounces the black man, who
was said to have no rights that white men were bound to re-
spect, a citizen of the United States. The Secretary of State
gives the black man the passport of citizenship, which in every
quarter of the globe is evidence that the bearer is a citizen of
the North American Republic. The Secretary of War com-
missions a black man to be a surgeon in the military service of
the United States, and the President organizes a hundred and
twenty regiments, of eighty thousand black men, who are bear-
ing upon their flashing bayonets the unity of the Republic and
the destinies of their race.

Sir, slavery in America, though upheld by interests, cus-
toms, and usages, trenched about by inhuman statutes, and
hedged around by passionate, vehement, and unreasoning preju-
dices, is fast crumbling to atoms beneath the blows rained upon
it by a liberty-loving and patriotic people. But let anti-slavery
men listen to no truce, to no compromise, to no cry for mercy.
Let them now be as inflexible as justice, as inexorable as des-
tiny. Whenever and wherever a blow can be dealt at the vitals
of the retreating fiend, let that blow be struck in the name of
the bleeding nation, and of the ''dumb, toiling millions bound
and sold." A truce with slavery is a defeat for the nation. A
compromise with slavery is a present of disaster and dishonor
and a future of anarchy and blood. Mercy to slavery is a crime
against liberty. The death of slavery is the annihilation of the
rebellion, the unity of the Republic, the life of the nation, the

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 375

harmonious development of republican institutions, the repose,
culture, and renown of the people.

The hideous Fugitive Slave Act still blackens the statutes of
this Christian land, reminding us of the degradation and hu-
miliation of our country when the heel of that master was on
its neck. Justice and humanity, self-respect and decency, all
demand that the lingering infamy shall be obliterated from the
page it blackens.

If this amendment shall be incorporated by the will of the
nation into the Constitution of the United States, it will ob-
literate the last lingering vestiges of the slave system.

Our country is now floating on the stormy waves of civil
war. Darkness lowers and tempests threaten. The waves are
rising and foaming and breaking around us and over us with
ingulfing fury. But amid the thick gloom, the star of duty
casts its clear radiance over the dark and troubled waters, mak-
ing luminous our pathway. That duty is, with every concep-
tion of the brain, every throb of the heart, every aspiration of
the soul, by thought, by word, and by deed to feel, to think,
to speak, to act so as to obliterate the last vestiges of slavery
in America, subjugate rebel slave masters to the authority of
the nation, hold up the weary arm of our struggling Govern-
ment, crowd with heroic manhood the ranks of our armies that
are bearing the destinies of the country on the points of their
glittering bayonets, and thus forever blast the last hope of the
rebel chiefs.

Then shall the waning star of the rebellion go down
in eternal night, and the star of peace shall ascend the heavens,
casting its mild radiance over fields now darkened by the
storms of this fratricidal war. Then, when *'the war drums
throb no longer and the battle flags are furled," our absent
sons, with the laurels of victory on their brows, will come back
to gladden our households and fill the vacant chairs around our
hearthstones. Then the star of United America, now obscured,
will reappear, radiant with splendor on the forehead of the
skies, to illume the pathway and gladden the heart of strug-
gling humanity.

On March 30 Garrett Davis [Ky.] spoke against the
proposed amendment.

I am opposed to the pending proposition to amend the Con-
stitution of the United States for several reasons intrinsic to
the subject. In the first place, it strikes at one of the most

376 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

essential principles of our commingled system of national and
of State governments.

To maintain the Union, to hold it in its harmonious and per-
fect action, it is as essential that the existence of the authority
and powers of the States within their reserved sovereignty
should be upheld, maintained, and preserved as it is that the
limited and delegated powers and sovereignty of the general
Government should exist, be supported, defended, and exer-
cised.

The absorption of the sovereignty not delegated by the Con-
stitution to the general Government, and consequently reserved
to the States, or any portion of it, by the President or Con-
gress, would be revolutionary and destructive of our system, as
would be the absorption by the States of the sovereignty, or any
portion of it, delegated to the Government of the United States.
The encroachment of either upon the other is equally unauthor-
ized and criminal, and the persons engaged in making it are
punishable for parallel offences by their respective judicial
tribunals. Mr. President [Mr. Powell in the chair], it is clearly
and imperatively the duty of you and myself to defend the re-
served rights and sovereignty of Kentucky against the en-
croachments of Abraham Lincoln and his party, as it is to de-
fend the limited sovereignty of the United States against the
assaults of the rebels. To fail in either would be equally delin-
quent and criminal. Whoever, and by whatever command, has
resisted by an array of force the execution of the laws of Ken-
tucky has committed the offence of treason against that State,
and should suffer the penalty denounced against the crime. The
President of the United States, the Secretary of War, and gen-
erals high in command have moved armed bodies of men into
Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri, to resist and de-
feat the execution of the election laws of those States, and have
themselves, by the power of the sword, driven their free citi-
zens from their own polls, and themselves virtually appointed
the minions of executive power to seats in the House of Repre-
sentatives of Congress and to State offices. Those high func-
tionaries thereby committed treason against those States, and
the most important and imperative duty of their authorities
and people is to have those great delinquents arraigned and pun-
ished for their crimes by the judgment of the courts of the
States against which they were committed. The punishment of
Federal officers so high in authority for the commission of trea-
son against the States, by the just and firm execution of the
law in their civil courts, would be an example of the most salu-

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 377

tary influence. To suppress the rebellion by force of arms, and
to punish by the due administration of the law its most guilty
authors, and also the great violators of the Constitution of the
United States, who profess to be acting under its authority, and
who have committed treason against States, would effect more
in the support and preservation of constitutional liberty, and
to vindicate the capacity of the people for self-government than
the performance of any other duty or work.

But to the objection that the proposed amendment of the
Constitution would infringe the right of the States to manage
their local and domestic affairs, it may also be answered that
slavery concerns all the States as well as those in which it ex-
ists. If there be truth in this position, it may be replied that
there is no important property interest, pursuit, or institution
in any State that does not, directly or indirectly, concern the
people of every other State; and that argument would require
the Constitution of the United States to be so amended as to
give the Federal Government power over all of them, which
would establish a perfectly consolidated Government and vir-
tually annihilate the States.

There are many matters, the control of which is left by our
Government wholly and exclusively with the States, and over
which the people would not have confided to Congress and the
President a particle of power when the Constitution was
formed, that much more closely and momentously concern all
the States than the continuance of slavery in some of them. Re-
ligious faith is one. The Federal Government has no power to
interfere in any way with the subject of religion. The entail-
ment of real and personal property, the principle of primogenp-
ture, a system of railroads and other internal improvements in
the several States connecting with the systems of other States —
all these are subjects of domestic and local concern within
every State, of which it has the exclusive management ; and yet
each one more nearly, and with larger interest and greater
sympathy, would concern the people of all the other States
than does slavery in the slave States the people of the free
States.

Slavery, in this day and generation, has for the people of
the United States a factitious but an absorbing interest ; in the
future, under altered circumstances, the others, and especially
religion, may still more strongly possess them. If this proposed
alteration of the Constitution be accepted it will be a precedent,
and may establish a principle that may carry those other do-
mestic concerns, and still others not now thought of, into the

878 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

domain of an encroaching and centralized despotism, and which
would be a very great stride.

If it were conceded that the power to amend the Constitu-
tion, as established and regulated by the fifth article, would by
its terms and letter authorize the proposed change, it would be
in fatal conflict with its intent and spirit, and, therefore, ac-
cording to a universal rule of construction, void and of no ef-
fect. It never was the purpose of those who made it to subject
many of its great principles to be expunged by the exercise of
this power of amendment. The power to amend is but the
power to improve, and any alteration to be legitimate should
be an amendment. To this it may be said that as there is no
certain test by which this question of amendment can be tried
it is necessarily decided by the amending power. Granting
this argument to be sound, still there is another and very im-
portant question connected with this power of amendment.
Does it import the power of revolution? Of making such es-
sential change in the nature, form, powers, and limitations of
the Government as would be revolutionary of it— of its impor-
tant structure, of its characteristic principles, of the great and
essential rights and liberties assured by it to the citizen? The
true and precise question is, does the proposed change, or
amendment, carry a revolutionary principle and power? I
hold that the framers of the Constitution did not intend it to
be, and that it is not, in its nature or in fact, a revolutionary
power; that there is a boundary between the power of revolu-
tion and the power of amendment, which the latter, as estab-
lished in our Constitution, cannot pass; and that if the pro-
posed change is revolutionary it would be null and void, not-
withstanding it might be formally adopted. It would not be a
part of the Constitution, and would consequently have no effect.
An amendment proposing to abolish all the popular elective
features of our Government, or that Representatives should
hold their offices for life; that the place of Senator should be
hereditary, coupled with a title and the privileges of nobility ;
that the President should be a king, and transmit his crown
and throne as in England, would be revolutionary, and out of
the power of the pale of amendment. Neither the legislative,
executive, nor judicial branch of the Government could be swept
away under the guise of the exercise of this power of amend-
ment. The States and their governments are as essential and
indispensable parts of our compound system of government as
the United States and the Federal Government, and could not
be expunged by this power of amendment. The retention by

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 379

the States of their exclusive rights, and the right to ordain,
manage, and control them, independent of all control or inter-
ference by the United States Government any more than of a
foreign power, is a great and essential feature of our system,
and it cannot be revolutionized, destroyed, by this power of
amendment. If it can take cognizance of slavery, it may of
every other local and domestic concern of the States. That
would be revolutionary, and is therefore out of the domain of
amendment. The power of amendment can only be made to em-
brace the forms and the provisions and principles of secondary
importance.

If the principle involved by the proposed amendment be
sound, and, it, if formally adopted, would be valid and obliga-
tory, then in the same mode the terms of the members of the
House could be extended for seven years; Senators could be
metamorphosed into hereditary nobles, with titles, and the
President into a monarch ; and any other changes, utterly revo-
lutionary and destructive of our Qovernment and the popular
freedom it establishes, could be made. No, sir, this power of
amendment does not carry the power of revolution, in whole or
in part, to be executed in solido or in detail, to burst forth at
once in full-grown proportions, or to be cautiously developed
from time to time and by gradual accumulation, l^e Mr. Lin-
coln's war policy, untU the whole work is consummated.
Neither the subversion of our free and popular Government,
nor any of its great distinctive and essential features, or of those
preexisting and vital rights and liberties to secure and perpetu-
ate which to the people were its object and its mission, is within
the legitimate scope and operation of the power of amendment.
That would be in both aspects, not amendment, but destruc-
tion and revolution.

Nor, sir, is the present condition of the country and the peo-
ple at all propitious or fit to enter upon the most grave and
important work of amending, altering the Constitution of our
Government, the paramount law which regulates and controls
within its orbit the constitutions, laws, and administrations of all
the States and every official act of Congress, of the President,
and of every other officer of the United States. The revision of
the work of the preeminently great and patriotic men who put
together that wonderful political structure, so admirably ad-
justed and balanced, so novel yet so complete, so free and yet
possessed of all the necessary and proper powers and vigor, is
one of the most delicate and important tasks which those who are
to perform it can possibly undertake. They ought to be free

380 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

from all sectional prejudice and excitement, and bring to it
calm and unperturbed reason and broad and true patriotism
and statesmanship. The condition of the country should be
fixed, that of settled and stable repose, that any changes and
modifications might be safely and wisely adapted to its perma-
nent relations, interests, and tranquillity.

There is every probability that when the war is closed mod-
ifications of the Constitution will then be highly necessary and
proper; but their nature, extent, and the features and powers
of the Government in which they may be required cannot be
possibly divined. Now to make any might mar rather than
improve.

But when to this consideration, the unsettled condition of
the country, is added the present state of the mind and pas-
sions of the people, nationally, sectionally, and individually, the
position that now is not the proper time to intermeddle with
the Constitution cannot, with any reason, be controverted. No
man is free from apprehension and excitement, and with vast
numbers it approximates frenzy, mania. Sectional opinions and
prejudices were never before so rife and extreme. Hatred to
slavery and slave owners by the members of the Republican
party generally has demented them. They are wholly incapable
of any fair and just consideration of the rights of slaveholders,
in relation not only to that property, but all their other rights
individually and collectively as slaveholding States. Extreme
aversion and prejudice with both of those classes of the people
have usurped the place of reason and truth. Neither enter-
tains for the other any sentiments of kindness, fraternity, char-
ity, or justice. I have no belief that there is in either House
of the present Congress, or that there would be in the legisla-
ture or convention of any one of the States, a single member
whose mind and passions are so little affected by the present
condition of public affairs as not to be disqualified for the deli-
cate and difficult work of revising and altering the common
government of all the States and all the people of the United
States. I believe with the most of them that unfitness would
exist to such an extent as to make it impossible for them to de-
liberate and act, not only impartially and justly for their ad-
versaries in politics and their sections, but also wisely and safely
for themselves and their own States.

Another objection of overruling weight is that no revision
of the Constitution in any form ought to be undertaken under
the auspices of the party in power. Its leaders have always
been hostile to the compromises on the subject of slavery, and

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 381

the protection which it gaarantees to the owners of that prop-
erty. From a much earlier day than secession was thought of
in the South, those leaders had determined on the destruction of
slavery; and, if they could not succeed by any other means, even
to revolutionize the (Government to effect it. They did not
bring on a general war to that end, though they had long as-
saulted it in every other form; and as soon as the rebellion
broke forth they quietly decided, if possible, to make it the
occasion and to furnish the means of the overthrow of slavery.
Mr. Lincoln had been an extreme abolitionist from early life;
and it was that consideration that procured him the nomination
cf the Chicago convention. When he and the chiefis of his
party in Congress, at the commencement of the war, unani-
mously declared that their purpose and policy were not to at-
tack slavery, or any other rights or institutions of the insurgent
States, but only to vindicate the authority and laws of the
United States over the rebels, they were di^embling, and then
lying in wait to make an onset on slavery. They knew that
their purpose could be effected only by breaking over constitu-
tional guaranties, and by the power of the army to subdue all
opposition to their scheme. There is no right of person or
property that the President and Congress have not outrageously
infracted and trampled out, under and by the agency of the
iron heel of military despotism, to subjugate or awe every per-
son disposed to offer even legal and peaceful resistance to their
flagrant abuses and usurpations of power. As they progressed,
and met with impunity in their nefarious work, their objects
were enlarged. They determined not only to consummate the
destruction of slavery, so that it could never be restored, but
also to continue themselves and their party in place and power.
The first they consider substantially as an accomplished fact;
and they are, and have been for more than a year, moving with
increasing energy and boldness toward the other as their now
paramount object. They affect to adhere to the forms of the
Constitution, while they utterly disregard not only its spirit,
but also its express provisions and all the liberty and protec-
tion which it assures to the citizen. They have devised the
boldest and most revolutionary measures under the guise of law
and executive administration as the machinery of their opera-
tions. The first in time was the erection of West Virginia into
a new State, and her admission into the Union in palpable vio-
lation of the Constitution, so admitted and avowed by many of
their leaders both in and out of Congress; and attempted to be
justified by them on the ground that the country was in a state

382 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

of rebellion and revolution, and the Constitution of no obliga-
tion whatever. The President took the ofScial opinion of the
Attorney-General, which was that the measure was without
constitutional authority, and yet he approved it.

After the congressional elections in the fall of 1862 it was
apparent that, if those which were to take place in the other
States in 1863 were to be decided by the free suffrages of their
people, Mr. Lincoln and his party would be in a minority in the
present House. The success of their projects and the retention
of power by them made it necessary that they should have the
majority in the House as well as in the Senate. He therefore
ordered the military authorities to interfere and overthrow
the freedom of elections, and to depose the State laws and
officers for conducting them in Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland,
and Delaware, to the extent of securing a majority for him in
the House. To that extent he was equally a usurper with
Cffisar, Cromwell, and Bonaparte.

But Mr. Lincoln has long since imbibed other views and
projects of personal ambition. A desire for reelection has
seized upon him. It now possesses all the mind and heart and
soul that he has. He is no statesman, but a mere political
charlatan. He has inordinate vanity and conceit. He is a
consummate dissembler, and an adroit and sagacious dema-
gog. He has the illusion of making a great historical name
for himself in connection with the total abolition of slavery in
the United States. He also loves power and money. He has
long foreseen that in his desire for reelection he would have
several competitors from his own party. He is not fierce or
revengeful, or even boldly audacious and radical; and, though
not marked by any sense of benevolence, humanity, or justice,
he does not possess positively the opposite qualities, and, though
a radical, is not reckless or rash. He is, and always has been,
as uncompromisingly opposed to slavery as the most ultra rad-
ical, but preferred to overthrow it with some show of legal
and constitutional authority; and that it should be effected
gradually, and not by sudden and violent change. Such were
his first and individual views and policy in relation to slavery ;
but, being rather of flexible but still obstinate nature, the
pressure of the bold and more energetic radicals has pushed
him pretty well nigh to their extreme position. As this "mar-
shaled him the way he was going," he is well disposed to
accept it, and, if it promised to aid him materially in his pur-
pose of a reelection, he would not hesitate to take it with
alacrity. But he understands that most of the radicals prefer

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 383

other men to himself, and, while he must manage to satisfy and
win them if possible, and especially as their second choice, he
must hold on to all the moderate men of the Republican party,
and by some show of conservatism win others outside. This
keeps him very bu^ at his favorite game of ''playing for all
the pockets."

But he regards, and with much truth, that his personal,
ofScial, and distinctive party consists of the officeholders and
seekers, contractors and those seeking contracts, whose num-
bers are greater than our armies in the field. To those pr»tor-
ian, not cohorts, but legions, he was determined to add others
in his own especial interests. Hence he issued another edict,
the effect of which was to demolish all the constitutions and
governments of the rebel States, and among them Tennessee
and Arkansas and other States whose constitutions have not
been changed in a particle within many years before the re-
bellion ; and to authorize one-tenth of as many people as voted
in them at the last presidential election to reconstruct and to
carry on their State governments. But he prescribed as the
indispensable condition that all men who took part in the recon-
struction must renounce their negro property and take an oath
to support his war policy as embodied in all his proclamations
and the laws of Congress passed by his party. He pledged his
faith to support and defend these spurious State governments
by the power of the United States armies and navies. All their
elections were to be under the surveillance of the President's
military subordinates; and consequently none but his minions
and tools could vote or hold office. The reorganization of those
States is to be virtually by him and for all his purposes. They
were designed to be dependencies and he the autocrat. The
world never witnessed a more lawless and daring political enter-
prise, and, except in the feature of blood, it comes up to the
measure of the greatest usurpations. The people of the States
are the only legitimate power to construct or reconstruct their
civil governments; and Congress, and not the President, is the,
authority to admit them primarily, or secondarily, into the
Union, and to guarantee to them republican forms of govern^
ment, Mr. Lincoln seizes upon all this power. Under this presi-
dential autocracy, old, or Eastern, as well as West Virginia,
Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, and other rebel States have
been or are to be readmitted into the Union, and to take part
with the other States in its government. By the present ratio
all Virginia, east, west, and rebel, would be entitled to eleven
Representatives in Congress. The new State has three, and it

384 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

is a question what portion of the residue the few counties of
the other division of the State within our military lines can
rightfully have, and, a yet more difficult one, what number of
electoral votes in the presidential election will be the right of
those few counties. The new State having but three for her
Representatives and two for her Senators, if those few counties
can elect the residue for the whole of the remaining State, and
also for its two Senators, the new State and a small fractional
part of the remainder of the State would cast together fifteen
electoral votes. That vote by those counties would give them
a very undue and unconstitutional weight over the people of
the other States in the presidential election. If that will be
permitted may depend, I presume, upon the problem whether
it would be necessary to reelect Mr. Lincoln. To effect that
object I believe a separate State could and would be organ-
ized out of East Tennessee, and two in Maryland, one upon
the eastern and the other upon the western shore, without the
least regard to constitutional difficulties. When Louisiana is
readmitted she will be entitled to seven electoral votes, Ten-
nessee to ten, Arkansas to five, and all Virginia to fifteen. So
that by the organization of these four ''rottenborough" and
unauthorized States there would be secured to Mr. Lincoln not
only thirty-seven electoral votes in the presidential election,
but, what may be even of more importance, that number in the
Republican nominating convention at Baltimore. I take it for
true that these illegitimate States, being the progeny of Mr.
Lincoln, will support him when and where and anyhow they
can. They will also be ready to vote for this proposed amend-
ment of the Constitution.

But Mr. Lincoln is a cautious and farseeing man. He has
had still another provision made, first and mainly for his own
personal success, subordinately for that of his party. The
Territories of Colorado and Nevada have already, at the present
session, been admitted as new States into the Union; and the
chairman of the Committee on Territories has told us, and no
doubt truly, that Nebraska will also be admitted. Thus there
will be admitted three more new States, each with one Repre-
sentative and two Senators, having an aggregate of eleven elec-
toral votes and an equal strength in the Baltimore convention.
I believe, both on principle and policy, that no Territory ought
to be admitted as a State until it has a population equal to
the ratio of representation. That ratio is now 127,000. By the
census of I860, Colorado had a population of 34,277 ; Nebraska,
28,841; and Nevada, 6,857.

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 385

Thus by military interference at elections, the destruction
and reorganization of States, the admission of new States with
but a small fraction of the ratio of population, all by infrac-
tion of the Constitution, and in opposition to right, justice, and
policy, and chiefly by the power and under the supervision of
Mr. Lincoln, a great and dangerous strength has been accumu-
lated to him as President to be exercised to promote his own
selfish and ambitious views in the first place; and, secondly,
to continue his party in power to enable it to protract the
aggrandizement of its leaders, the pecuniary advantages of its
masses, and the complete consummation of its most wicked and
destructive policy and measures.

Our own Government has become so abused and perverted,
so unjust and oppressive to all who will not bow to those who
administer it in unquestioning submission, so fruitful and gen-
eral a source of evil and practical despotism, that hundreds of
thousands and millions of the most loyal people of the United
States are in doubt whether it, as administered, or the rebellion
is the greatest national scourge. The assaults, wrongs, and op-
pressions of both on the border slave States is such as to be
passing them, as it were, between the upper and nether mill-
stone. The greatest good that could now fall to the lot of the
people of those States would be the speediest suppression of
the rebellion by all constitutional measures and means, and by
the expulsion from power of the party that has possession of
the Government and is ruling the country and so recklessly
rushing both upon ruin. I look for the consummation of the
first to the continued eflPorts of our brave and numerous sol-
diery and the submission of the rebels. For the second I still
rely upon the peaceful remedy of the ballot-box, applied by
the sovereign power of the United States; and, if it were
applied so as to produce that great change, I believe that the
cessation of the war, the submission and reconciliation of the
rebels, the reconstruction of the Union, and the vindication of
the laws and Constitution, with renewed guaranties and
strength, would all speedily ensue. But if the dominant party
can continue their power and rule, either by the will or acqui-
escence of the people or the exercise of the formidable powers
which it has usurped, I am not able to see any termination of
the present and still growing ills short of the ordeal of general
and bloody anarchy.

On March 31 Willard Saulsbury [Del.] replied to
Senator Trumbull.

VI— 25

386 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

Mr. President, we are told that the reason why this amend-
ment should be made is that slavery has caused the present
national difficulties; that if it had not been for the existence
of slavery there would be no war. The honorable chairman of
the Judiciary Committee tells us that even if the present
troubles have been brought on by the interference of Northern
fanatics with the institution of slavery, then if slavery had not
existed there would have been nothing for them to interfere
with, and the rebellion would not have taken place; that if it
was brought on by the desire of the people of the South to
strengthen and encourage the institution, then if it had not
existed the rebellion would not have taken place ; and he seems
to think that to it we owe the loss of freedom of speech, free-
dom of the press, and most of the ills under which we are now
suffering. He therefore proposes as the great remedy, — I pre-
sume not only to heal our present troubles, but as a bond of
peace in the future — that the institution of slavery shall be
wiped out by a change of the Constitution.

If there had been no fire, so large a portion of the city of
New York as was burned down in 1835 would not have been
burned down. If there was no water, there would be no over-
flowing foods. If there was no sun in the heavens, no man
would fall prostrate to the earth and die from the heat of that
sun. Let the Senator correct all the ills of life. Let him
quench the fire that warms all the human race, and no incen-
diary then could burn our dwellings; let him dry up the foun-
tains of the deep and close the windows of heaven, that there
shall be no more water; let him pluck the sun from on high,
that his heat shall no more cause death.

But, sir, I hold that if you adopt this amendment, and you
could get three-fourths of the States to ratify it, it would not
be obligatory upon the others for another reason; and that is
that you cannot propose this amendment to all the States, as
contemplated by the Constitution of the United States. There
are confessedly some eight or nine of these States now out of
the Union, over which the Federal Government does not pre-
tend to exercise control. What is the meaning of the clause
that the Congress of the United States may propose amend-
ments which, when ratified by three-fourths of the States, shall
become a part of the Constitution! It means that you shall
propose those amendments, not to a portion of the States, but
to all the States, so that all the States may have the power to
act upon them.

The Constitution of the United States is the same as any

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 387

other contract. It is a contract between the States, who, in the
language of Mr. Madison, are parties to it, and the plain, evi-
dent, honest import of this clause of the Constitution giving
the power of ratification to three-fourths of the States is and
must be so understood by all right-thinking men, that all the
States shall have the power of passing upon that proposed
amendment, of ratifying or rejecting it, and that, if that privi-
lege is denied any State, if your amendment is not proposed
to any State, it cannot operate upon that State, because it
would be in violation of the just terms and fair interpreta-
tion of the Constitution.

If you wish to make an amendment to the Constitution of
the United States which shall be binding and obligatory in all
future time upon the parties to that Constitution, why not
wait till peace is restored ; why not wait till passion ceases to
inflame the breast and madness to warp the judgment and
craze the brain of men ? The fundamental law of a great people
should never be changed amid the shock of arms. Reason
should sit calmly on her throne; judgment should be brought
to the ''line" before acting on such a question.

But, sir, I oppose this proposed amendment on another
ground. It is impossible for it to be ratified by a vote of three-
fourths of the States. The Senator from Illinois,^ the chair-
man of the Committee on the Judiciary, said it would require
twenty-eight States, and he named the States which he sup-
posed would vote to ratify it. He included all the adhering
States with the exception of my own, and he thought she
could not stand against it Let me tell the honorable Senator
that, if the resolution is passed, I do not suppose my State
will be in the way of it; not because she will approve of it;
not because the majority of her people will not be honestly
opposed to it and would not vote against it, but because you
do not intend that they shall ever act upon it. The Senator
said that Maryland had inaugurated this policy, and she would
be in favor of it. I have some acquaintance with the people
of that State. She will agree to it, just as the Senator, if
met by a highwayman, solitary, alone, and unarmed, presenting
a pistol at his head and demanding his purse, would agree to
give it up.

But he expects to receive accessions from Arkansas, Ten-
nessee, North Carolina, and Louisiana in favor of this pro-
posed amendment. Does the Senator believe that, if the people
of those States were free to act, and could pass upon his

I LTman Tnimball.

388 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

proposed amendment according to their wish or judgment, there
would be one man in ten who would vote to ratify it?

What is your government in Arkansas, in Louisiana, and in
Tennessee? Take away your soldiers, and there would be
scarcely one man in fifty in either of those States that would
either approve your amendment or recognize your authority.
And yet the Senator would aflPect the rights of nearly one-half
of what was once this Union by going through — ^I say it in no
disrespect to the honorable Senator, but I say it because I
believe it and think it — going through the farce of an election
under military control and restraint, and then come in the
presence of the Senate of the United States and before the
people of the country and of the world, and proclaim that the
people of three:fourths of the States of the Union, in the spirit
which their fathers intended them to act and in the free exer-
cise of their judgments and their opinions as guaranteed to
them by their fathers, have agreed to amend their Constitu-
tion and forever hereafter wipe out the foul blot of slavery !

Mr. President, nothing is to be gained by this except one
thing, and that you may accomplish. You may succeed by
such an amendment as this, by an election — no, not by an elec-
tion, but by a farce enacted in the border States and by a
worse farce enacted in some of the seceded States — ^you may
succeed in abolishing slavery in the States of Delaware, Mary-
land, Kentucky, and Missouri. That is what you can do. Tou
can succeed in injuring those who never tried to injure you;
but, unless you conquer the South, unless you make them pass
under the yoke as you avow your purpose to do, unless you take
bodily hold of their slaves and draw them within your lines
and keep them there, you have accomplished nothing. You have
regarded them as belligerents, and consequently the slave you
take to-day from them and put your uniform upon, if he is
recaptured by them, is not free, though proclamations and
legislative enactments may so declare, but is a slave still, and
not only a slave by reason of the fact that he is in possession
of his original master, but, by a sound principle of the law
of nations, the jus postliminii, he reverts to his original owner.

Daniel Clark [iN. H.] rebutted the argument that the
time was not ripe for the amendment.

I am told that this is not the time for such an amendment
of the Constitution. Pray when, sir, will it come? Will it be
when the President has issued more and more calls for two or

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 389

three hundred thousand men of the country's bravest and bestt
Will it be when more fathers and husbands and sons have
fallen, and their graves are thicker by the banks of the rivers
and streamlets and hillsides? Will it be when there are more
scenes like this I hold in my hand, of a quiet spot by the side
of a river, with the moon shining upon the water and a lonely
sentinel keeping guard, and here in the open space the head-
boards marking the burial places of many a soldier boy, and an
open grave to receive another inmate, and underneath the
words, **A11 quiet on the Potomac"? [Exhibiting a photograph
to the Senate.] Will it be when such scenes of quiet are more
numerous, not only along the Potomac but by the Rapidan, the
Chickahominy, the Stone, the Tennessee, the Cumberland, the
Big Black, and the Red? Sir, nowj in my judgment, is the
time, and the fitting time. Never until now could this amend-
ment have been carried, and now I hope and believe that it can
be carried. ''Whom the gods would destroy they first make
mad."

Slavery's strongest and safest guaranties were in the Con-
stitution, and its supporters were made when they cast away
and threw off those guaranties. Remaining in the Union, no
one would probably have moved for an amendment of the Con-
stitution. Loyal to the Government, hostile armies would not
have set free their slaves, nor laws now necessary and expe-
dient have authorized their employment against their masters
in arms.

But now, sir, every free State will gladly, it is hoped and
believed, vote for the proposed amendment. Most would re-
joice to do it; while numbers of the slave States, aghast at the
miseries of secession and the horrors of this cruel Civil War,
recognizing slavery as the cause of all this disturbance and all
these woes, would be among the foremost to sweep it forever
away.

Now, sir, is the time to do it. And not only is now the
time, but the necessity and the duty of doing it are upon us.
We can have no permanent peace nor restored Union until it
is done.

There are those who cry, "The Union as it was and the
Constitution as it is!" But I am free and bold to confess
that I am for a Union without slavery, and an amended Con-
stitution making it forever impossible. This revolt was to pre-
serve slavery, and we shall fail of our whole duty if we do
not remove the inciting cause. To restore this Union with slav-
ery in it when we have subdued the rebel armies would be

,^-

390 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

again to build your house on its smoking ruins when you had
not put out the fire which burned it down.

If the dire calamities now befalling us be the ''retributions
of Providence upon a stupendous crime," what mad folly to
hug that crime, and seek to avoid its future punishment! "Let
my people go." But Pharaoh would not let them go; and
then came sufferings, and plagues, and the smiting of the first-
born. Oh! how many of our first-born have been smitten and
fallen. Let us be wise and heed the teaching. There is a Provi-
dence in the great events now transpiring. The people see the
hand. It points the way. They are filled with hope and faith.
They follow the pillar and the cloud, and will struggle and
endure.

I know, Mr. President, that the suppression of the rebel-
lion will necessarily wound and maim slavery. I know that
every victory over the rebels is a victory also over the cause
of the rebellion, and I know, too, that the arming of the slaves
will make the future enslaving of these men and their kindred
well-nigh impossible; but slavery will still exist, not in much
vigor or strength, but in the root and principle. This amend-
ment will dig out the root and repudiate the principle.

Mr. President, in a quiet churchyard, near his home, is the
grave of a soldier who returned to die. At the head of his
grave is a marble slab, and on it these few but expressive
words, ** Mustered out." Let both Houses of Congress, by a
two-thirds vote, recommend this amendment abolishing slavery,
and let three-fourths of the States, burying slavery by their
ratification, come and write its epitaph on the Constitution,
** Mustered out."

The soldier was ** mustered out," we trust, to enlist again
in the shining cohorts in advance of earth's extreme picket line,
but let this be ''mustered out" to go, like Judas, to its own
place.

On April 4 Timothy 0. Howe [Wis.] spoke upon the
likelihood of the border States accepting the amend-
ment and upon the status of the seceded States.

The State of Delaware will adopt this amendment; her
people will adopt it in the exercise of their free judgment.
The Senator from Delaware [Mr. Saulsbury] shakes his head.
I do not know but that he will oppose the amendment ; that he
will advise the people of Delaware not to adopt it; but his
advice will not prevail, I humbly trust and I humbly believe.

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 391

Undertake to persuade that little State of Delaware not to
enfranchise her few slaves when all the rest of the Union are
crying for it! Dame Partington, Mr. President, standing on
the beach of the Atlantic, trying to put back its waves with
her mop, would be a model of practical sagacity compared
with the Senator from Delaware if he should stand on the
borders of that little State and undertake to persuade her not
to let the deluge of freedom, which God has commanded to
sweep the continent, flow over that little patch of His pasture.
Delaware will adopt the amendment, and so will Kentucky.
Sir, Henry Clay sleeps in Kentucky. Let her people reject
this proposition to amend the Constitution under the pressure
of this great national necessity, and they would see the bones
of the great hero rise from his grave and stalk indignantly
from the borders; they would not rest there any longer. Ken-
tucky will adopt this amendment. Every State will adopt it.
I know that there are eleven States which have declared them-
selves independent of this Constitution and of all amendments
to it. What are you going to do with them? There are those
communities of people. They are States or they are not. It
is a question that you ought to settle. In my judgment, there
are no American States there. Decide the matter as you will :
if they are States, they are going to vote upon this amend-
ment, and they are going to vote for it; every man who votes
at all upon it will vote to adopt the amendment. If they are
not States, they are not to vote upon it, and their votes are
not to be counted, and you still have a unanimous verdict from
the States of the American Union in favor of this amendment
to the Constitution.

On April 5 Eeverdy Johnson [Md.] spoke in favor
of the amendment.

To manumit at once nearly four million slaves who have
been in bondage by hereditary descent during their whole lives,
and who, because they were in bondage, and as one of the
consequences of the condition in which they were placed, have
been kept in a state of almost absolute ignorance, is an event
of which the world's history furnishes no parallel. Whether
if it succeeds it will be attended by weal or by woe the future
must decide. That it will not be followed by unmixed good
or by unmixed evil is perhaps almost certain; and the only
question in my view that presents itself to statesmen is, first,
whether the measure itself be right, independent of its conse-

392 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

quences; and, secondly, whether those consequences may be
such as render it inexpedient, because inhuman in other par-
ticulars, to do what is right.

There was a period in our own time when there was but
one opinion upon the question of right. The men who fought
through the Revolution, those who survived its peril and shared
in its glory, and who were called to the convention by which
the Constitution of the United States was drafted and recom-
mended to the adoption of the American people, almost without
exception thought that slavery was not only an evil to any
people among whom it might exist, but that it was an evil of
the highest character, which it was the duty of all Christian
people, if possible, to remove, because it was a sin as well as
an evil.

Its recognition in the Constitution (for it is idle, as I
think, to deny that it is there recognized), the authority given
by implication to a trade which might lead to its increase by
immigration, was not because a large majority of the members
of the convention, and a large majority of the people of the
United States in the mass favored the institution, but because
they believed that without provisions of that description it
would be diflScult to have a Union adopted. Whether they were
right or wrong it is now useless to inquire. Judging by what
was occurring at the time, it is possible, and perhaps even
more than probable, that they were right; but, if they made
a mistake as to that fact, if the Union could have been adopted
without the recognition of the institution in the government
which formed it, if its gradual extirpation could have been
provided for, no one who is a spectator of the scenes around
us will now fail to regret that it had not been done.

My private opinion has ever been that slavery is an evil.
But in the public situation in which I now stand I have deemed
it my duty to recognize the binding and paramount authority
of the Constitution, to yield my moral convictions to the obli-
gation of that instrument, and not to esteem myself as excus-
able or justified in construing it by any views of morality
which I might entertain, or in construing out of it any pro-
visions that might be found in it inconsistent with such views.
With these views, I appeal to the authority of the Constitution
itself as a justification for the vote which I shall give upon
this measure.

I shall not stop to inquire whether slavery produced the
war or not. One thing, in my judgment, is perfectly clear,
^ow that that war is upon us, that a prosperous and perma^

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 393

nent peace can never be secured if the institution is permitted
to survive; and will it not survive unless a measure like that
upon your table shall receive the sanction which the Constitu-
tion requires? That brings me to inquire into the legality and
the effect of the other means by which it is proposed to get
rid of it.

First, can it be accomplished by the President Y He does not
claim for himself — ^he has not gone to that extent — ^the author-
ity to abolish slavery except as an incident of the military
power with which in the state of civil war in which we are
engaged he is vested as Commander-in-chief of the army. The
Supreme Court has asserted, what cannot be denied, because
your own legislation had recognized its existence, and because
the fact, independent of that recognition, was apparent, that
a state of war did exist. But in so saying, and in meeting
the objection that, although in one sense it was a war, yet in
another sense it was a mere rebellion in which each one of
the parties concerned in the seceded States was committing
from day to day, and as often as he denied the authority of
the United States and attempted to maintain his denial by
force of arms, treason, they said that these parties were not
the less to be considered as enemies because they were traitors.

The Supreme Court never pretended and never intimated,
as I read their opinion, that the existence of that belligerent
relation terminated all the civil obligations which the citizens
of the seceded States were under to the Government of the
United States; but, on the contrary, announced it as the in-
evitable inference, from the statement which I have just made,
that in their view they were enemies although traitors; that,
although they were enemies ; they were not less so because they
were traitors; that in point of fact, as the parties then stood,
there was due from each one of the citizens or inhabitants of
the seceded States an allegiance and an obligation to fulfill it,
and of course to observe the laws and jrield to the authority
of the United States, which, at the end of the war, if that
end should be so successful as to reinstate the Government of
the United States in authority, might proceed against them
under the laws of the land as traitors, and in the sense of the
Constitution which defined the crime of treason.

It would be monstrous, Mr. President, as I think, if it were
otherwise. There are now — I think the number has been less-
ened, and it is due to truth, as I think, so to state, by the policy
which has been adopted in the prosecution of the war — ^but
there are now in the rebellious States hundreds and thousands

394 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

of citizens just as devoted to the Union as any member of the
Senate, and just as anxious to see its authority restored as any
member of this body. These are entitled, therefore, to the pro-
tection of the Government. Their obedience in point of fact
and their ostensible obedience to the eye of the power which is
around them, in itself a government de factOf is an obedience
which they have no power to resist, and upon the well-estab-
lished principles of the laws of nations is an obedience in which
there is no crime.

If it be true that it is a legal exercise of a belligerent right
to manumit the slaves of the enemy, one thing is perfectly
certain as a proposition equally applicable to a civil war, which
in this aspect, with reference to the power which it confers
on the President, stands precisely in the condition in which his
power stands in the case of an international war, that he has
no practical power to effect the manumission of slaves belong-
ing to the enemy where he has not the physical power to attain
that result. The President never uttered a truth more abso-
lutely sound than when he stated that a proclamation of manu-
mission or of freedom could have just as much effect upon
the slaves of the enemy as a popish bull would have upon
the course of a comet. All, therefore, in my view, that can be
accomplished by means of presidential power derived from his
being by the Constitution placed at the head of the armies of
the United States in this war is that, if he can get the slave
under the control of the Union, he can manumit him.

If these slaves come to the standard of the United States,
or if that standard is carried within the territorial limits of
the foe and the slaves are there within its control, discharged
actually from the domination of their masters, the proclamation
which declares them free may, and I am inclined to think will,
have that effect. But just as sure as anything in the future
can be said to be sure is it, in my judgment, that, if the war
was to terminate without any provision being made for the
condition of the slaves who have not come within the actual
control of the military authority of the United States, they
will be decided by the courts of the United States to be slaves
still.

It is evident that the tendency of the President 's own mind
led to that result. In his proclamation of amnesty he says, in
effect: When I offer to you an amnesty, coupled with the
condition not only that you are to support the Constitution of
the United States and the laws made in pursuance of the
Constitution by Congress, but that you are to support any

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 395

proclamations that may have been or may hereafter be issued
by the Executive from time to time, I am willing that you
shall take that oath subject to the right of having that question
decided judicially in the future.

Second, can emancipation be accomplished by the legislative
power? It is true that the Congress of the United States by
the Constitution is clothed with an authority to declare war;
and it is maintained that, under the authority to declare war,
slaves may be emancipated. That may be true ; but it may not
be true so as to do away with the necessity of the measure
upon your table. They may be emancipated, quo modoP The
power, like whatever emancipating power the President may be
clothed with under his authority as Commander-in-chief ex-
ecuting the war power, is limited by the practical exercise of
that war power. How far do your troops go? Against whom
are they fighting? Get the slaves under the protection of your
standard, and, if you think proper then is the time (and
before then you are impotent to accomplish it), make them
free; but until then the effort to accomplish it by the mere
exercise of legislative authority, in my judgment, is just as
futile as the effort to accomplish it by the mere exercise of
executive authority.

That is not all. In order to gain the end which, in com-
mon with a majority of the Senate, I have at heart, the aboli-
tion of slavery by means of the exercise of this legislative war
power must go a step further and show that it is a power
which may be exerted over the loyal as well as the disloyal
States. Will that proposition bear examination? The Con-
stitution of the United States, as we all know, in a state of
peace gives no power to any branch of the Government of the
United States to interfere with slavery in the States. A few
wild men, carried away by some loose and undefined notions
of human liberty with which the Constitution does not deal,
think that they find, in the principles of the Declaration of
Independence and in the great principles which were the object
for establishing the Constitution of the United States, prin-
ciples so inconsistent with human slavery that the Constitu-
tion not only does authorize the legislative department of the
Government to put an end to it, but makes that the duty of
the Government; or rather that it is so inconsistent with the
principles upon which the Government is founded that the
judiciary, if called upon to decide, will decide that there can
be no human slavery. I will not stop to examine that. I as-

^"In what mannerf'

396 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

sume what, with the exception of a few persons to whom I
have just alluded, has been the universal opinion — ^the opinion
pronounced by the convention which nominated the present
incumbent of the presidential chair, over and over again an-
nounced on the floor of Congress, announced upon the floor of
Congress by overwhelming majorities since this rebellion com-
menced — ^that with the existence of human slavery in the States
the Constitution of the United States in a time of peace has
nothing whatever to do. If in time of war, the (Government
of the United States may in a certain condition of things effect
the object of freeing slaves, putting an end to the institution
under the military power, it can only be in those cases and
against those people against whom they have a right to exert
their power. Because one or more States have seceded and
have carried their secession to an extent that they have become
belligerents in a certain sense toward the United States, what
right have the United States, in the exercise of the power which
they are authorized to wield for the purpose of putting down
the rebellion and reinstating the authority of the (Government,
to interfere with the loyal States of Maryland, or Kentucky, or
Missouri ? Have they any right to declare war upon Maryland,
or upon either of the other States that I have named t Cer-
tainly not; and, if so far from having the authority to carry
on war against a loyal State they are carrying on the war
against the disloyal States by means of the power of the
loyal States, including Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri,
it is a contradiction in terms that in the exercise of that war
power they can, as against themselves, against the loyal States,
exert an authority incident alone to the war power, when the
war power itself is applicable alone to a state of war.

There remains a third method of emancipation — ^by an amend-
ment to the Constitution. Now it is said it cannot be done in
that mode. The honorable member from Kentucky [Mr. Davis],
if I understand him correctly, in the very elaborate speech
which he delivered upon the subject a few days since, full of
all the learning which belongs to the question and pregnant
with a very ingenious application of that learning, seems to
think that there is something in the admitted sovereignty of
the States which is inconsistent with the authority of the people
of the United States to amend the Constitution so as to trench
at all upon the existing authority of the States. The honor-
able member from Delaware [Mr. Saulsbury] takes another
ground, and that is that, as slaves are made property by the
laws of the States, that property, like every other description

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 897

of property, is not the subject of government interference, ex-
cept as that interference may be necessary for its protection.
Now, a word or two upon each objection.

The honorable member from Kentucky is right in saying
that in a certain sense the States are sovereign; but, if he
means by that to say that the United States in another sense
are not equally sovereign, he is mistaken. The school of which
Mr. Calhoun was the head, and the antecedent school by whose
teachings he professed to be governed, that which had for its
head Mr. Madison, seemed to have been under the impression,
and unfortunately succeeded in inculcating it upon the public
mind too strongly for the peace of the country, the safety and
prosperity of his own section, that the only sovereignty was
that which belonged to the States. There never was a greater
political heresy. The States, in the first place, were never
disunited. As one they declared independence. As one they
fought and conquered the independence so declared. As one,
in order to make that independence fruitful of all the blessings
which they anticipated from it, they made the Constitution
of the United States. They met in convention, they adopted
the Constitution in convention, and recommended it not to the
States in the capacity of States, not to the governments of
the States as governments, but to the people of the States for
their adoption; and they could have submitted it in no other
way. Any other mode of laying it before the country would
have been inconsistent with the preamble to the instrument,
which states that :'*: is the work of the people as contradistin-
guished from the States. How the people were to assemble,
where they were to assemble, what influences were to govern
them in deciding for or against the Constitution is immaterial
When they once decided in its favor, the people of each State
agreed as a people with the people of every other State that
that should be the form of government. They consented in
adopting the Constitution as a people that the Constitution, if
adopted by the people of nine States, should be the Constitu-
tion of the people of those States in the aggregate.

So said the Supreme Court of the United States in the case
of McCulloch vs. The State of Maryland in the opinion given
by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall. So said the same court in the
opion given, and it was the unanimous opinion, in the case of
Booth V8. The United States by the present Chief Justice.
They both announced as the clear operation of the Constitution,
and as a fact ever to be borne in mind in construing the Con-
stitution of the United States, that it was the adoption of the

398 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

people of the United States, and that the sovereignty of the
United States to the extent of the powers conferred upon the
Government of the United States, and the sovereignty conferred
upon the governments of the States by the people of the States
respectively, was precisely the same and no more than it would
have been if they had been framed and adopted at the same
time. That is to say, each State, except so far as the people
as a people had gone with other people in depriving themselves
of the powers with which they were antecedently clothed, had
no authority, as long as that other Constitution remained, to
take any step inconsistent with the powers conferred by that
Constitution ; or, in the language of the court, that each, within
the sphere of the authority with which it was clothed, was
supreme. There was no absolute sovereignty; that is to say,
there was no sovereignty coextensive with the whole scope of
political power belonging to the government of either; but
each was invested with a portion of the sovereignty which the
people might create, and each therefore within the extent of
the portion allowed it was to the extent of that portion supreme.
Now a word or two in answer to the honorable member
from Delaware. He says that, vnth reference to the Constitu-
tion of the United States, the institution of slavery is not
within the amendatory clause, because, with reference to the
Government of the United States, it is not a subject for polit-
ical interference. Let me ask the honorable member, and he
can answer it hereafter if he thinks proper, could human slav-
ery have been abolished by the Constitution originally ? I sup-
pose no one will doubt that. Then why is it that it cannot be
done now under the clause which gives to the people of the
United States the authority to amend the Constitution? It
can only be that it has been taken entirely out of the scope
of governmental power, the scope of the political power of the
people, because it was not abolished by the Constitution. Why,
Mr. President, what says the preamble to the Constitution?
That justice itight be established; that tranquillity might be
preserved ; that the common defence and general welfare might
be maintained; and, last and, chief of all, that liberty might
be secured. Is there no justice in putting an end to human
slavery ? Is there no danger to the tranquillity of the country
in its existence? May it not interfere with the common de-
fence and general welfare? And, above all, is it consistent
with any notion which the mind of man can conceive of human
liberty? The very clause under which we seek to put an end
to the institution, the amendatory clause, may have been, and

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 399

in all probability was, inserted into the instrument from a
conviction that the time would come when justice would call
so loudly for the extinction of the institution that her call
could not be disobeyed, when the peace and tranquillity of the
land would demand in thunder tones the destruction of the
institution as inconsistent with such peace and tranquillity ; and
when the sentiment of the world would become shocked with
the existence of a condition of things in the only free govern-
ment upon the face of the globe as far as the white man is
concerned, and founded upon principles utterly inconsistent
with any other form of government than a government which
secures freedom.

On the following day Senator Saulsbury replied to
Senator Johnson's argument based on the preamble of
the Constitution. He said that a preamble to any in-
strimient was effective in constniing the meaning of the
body of the instrimient only when the latter was doubt-
ful, and that the body of the Constitution was clear and
plain upon the relative powers of the Federal Govern-
ment and the States. But, accepting Senator Johnson's
view of the bearing of the preamble of the Constitution
upon the license allowed in the emendation of that in-
strument, he said:

That, because this Constitution was ordained ''to form a
more perfect Union, to establish justice, insure domestic tran-
quillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general
welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty," it does not follow
that any such amendment as this can be made, because the
instrument itself shows for whom these blessings were intended
to be preserved — ^to us and to our posterity. What connection
had the slave population of the United States with the formar
tion of this Constitution? Did they constitute any part of "us
and our posterity" in the contemplation of the framers of this
instrument T Not at all. Without elaborating this idea, I sub-
mit that no just or legitimate argument can be drawn from
the preamble of the Constitution that the Congress of the
United States have authority to propose this amendment, or
that it would become binding in consideration of the ratification
of three-fourths of the States.

John P. Hale [N. H.] followed Senator Saulsbury.

400 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

Our friends who oppose this resolution die hard, very hard.
I remember reading that when the British Parliament sat in
judgment upon Charles I, and sentenced him to lose his head,
they were apprehensive that when it came to the last, and he
was actually required to bow down and put his head under the
axe, he might resist, and the Commons, with great prudence and
prescience, had prepared pulleys and machinery by which, if
he resisted, he should actually be drawn under the axe and his
head severed from his body. That is history that I think is
not without its teaching in the present day. I think that the
judgment has gone forth that slavery must die. The commons
have passed that sentence; and I tell you, sir, that, if slav-
ery is refractory, and does not quietly submit, the Commons
will prepare pulleys by which to bring the victim under the
axe.

Mr. President, permit me to say that this is a day when
the nation is to commence its real life, a day when the nation
is to be disembarrassed of the inconsistencies which have marked
its history and its career.

Sir, what is the truth t We have had upon the pages of
our public history, our public documents, and our public rec-
ords some of the sublimest truths that ever fell from human
lips; and there never has been in the history of the world a
more striking contrast than we have presented to heaven and
earth between the grandeur and the sublimity of our profes-
sions and the degradation and infamy of our practice. That
day is to pass away, and to pass away, I trust, right speedily.

But I desire to say a word, in all sincerity and in all kind-
ness, to those gentlemen who still linger here, the representa-
tives, or rather the administrators de bonis non,^ of what was
once the old Democratic party. [Laughter.] They pretend to
think — and I am not the man to stand here and say they do not
believe what they pretend to believe — ^that it is in their power,
if they had the control, to save the country and restore the
Union. I am willing to concede, for the purposes of all that
I have to say, that they actually believe it; that that is their
faith; and I apprehend, from some things that have fallen
from some gentlemen even in this neighborhood, that my hon-
orable and venerable friend from Kentucky [Mr. Davis] is
not far from entertaining similar opinions, that the Democratic
party might, by some possibility, save the country and save
the Union; and, what is more than all that, save themselves,
too. Sir, it is a delusion, an utter delusion. Let me ask their

*"0f no goods.''

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 401

attention for a moment or two to some considerations which
induce me to believe that it is an utter delusion.

How can they do it? Patrick Henry, the great orator of
the Revolution — ^no offence to Massachusetts [laughter] — said
that he knew of no other lamp to guide his feet but the light
of experience. Taking that as a maxim or as a text, let me
ask what there is in the history of this Democratic party that
gives countenance to the idea that by any possibility, even if
they had everything their own way, they could save the country
and save the Union? This rebellion, revolution, or whatever
you please to call it — I believe it has been judicially decided
that we are not at war — commenced under James Buchanan, a
Democratic President. They had a Democratic Senate, a Demo-
cratic House of Representatives, a super-Democratic Supreme
Court of the United States, and a large majority of all the
officers of every organization, moral and physical, in the coun-
try, including the army and navy and ministers. They could
not keep the peace with all that. They lost it. Nay, more than
that, they had a little love feast of their own down at Charles-
ton; there was no Abolitionist, no Federalist there to vex and
plague them; and they could not keep family peace. They
could not keep national peace, and they could not keep family
peace, but split, broke, went asunder, every man his own way,
and the present is the result of it.

How are they going to do any better now than they did
then? They lost eleven States at one slide that they had
then. They are all gone ; and I say it with great respect and great
kindness to them they have lost, besides, pretty nearly every
respectable man they had in the free States that gave charac-
ter and stability to their party. I need not go out of the
Senate chamber to prove that. Well, sir, they have lost all
that; and now, in the days of their dissolution and weakness,
when their preaching here sounds in one respect something
similar to that of John the Baptist — ^''the voice of one crying
in the wilderness'' [laughter] ; for there is only here and there
one of them — ^they are still impressed with that insane delusion
that if they had the power they could save the country and
save the Union and save themselves.

It is said to be a hard thing for an individual to find out
when his mental faculties begin to fail him. It is not difficult
for him to find out when his physical strength fails him, but it
is very rare that a man finds out when his mental vigor begins
to fail him. I suppose what is true of individuals is true of
parties and of collections of men. But let me ask my friendSi

VI— M

402 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

do they not feel in their own experience that the day of the
strength of the Democracy has departed, that it has gone or
is going? It seems to me that they must. I appeal, then, to
all who hear me, is it not the part of wisdom to submit
to what is inevitable? Charles I did not compel the Commons
to put the pulleys on to haul him under the axe; but when
he found the axe was up and that the Commons had decreed
that his head should go under it and the axe should come
down, like a sensible and well-bred gentleman as he was, he
put his head under.

Mr. President, what is to be cannot be avoided ; and if there
is any one thing which, it seems to me, the indications from
every side everywhere teach us, it is that the day of this power is
over ; and there is no indication more conclusive of it than the
Christian and statesmanlike effort made by the honorable Sena-
tor from Maryland yesterday. I ask everybody who hears me, do
you not rejoice that the day has come ? Are you not glad that this
nation, blind and deaf so long to the teachings of history and
the commands of Ood, has at length aroused itself from its
lethargy, listened to the voices which heaven and earth, (Jod
and nature, are proclaiming, and is preparing to put itself in
alliance with the Power which cannot be resisted and whose
fiat will most surely be executed.

Whenever, unconditionally and without equivocation, we
come up to the mark and place ourselves on the high standard
of Christian duty, and resolve that, despite of all extraneous
circumstances, of all doubtful contingencies, of all questions of
expediency, we will place ourselves firmly upon the everlasting
rock of duty and our action shall be in accordance with our
conscientious convictions, then, and not till then, will that pil-
lar of cloud by day and of fire by night which led the chosen
people from the house of bondage to the land of promise be
ours. Then we shall indeed and in truth be worthy of our
genealogy and our history. Then the sublime teachings of the
Pilgrim Fathers, who left everything behind them that they
might come hither and plant in this wilderness a temple of
liberty and throw wide open its doors for the oppressed of
earth to enter and be at rest — ^then will all that be realized.
Then without shame, without reproach, and without apology,
we can stand in this nineteenth century, soldiers of the new
civilization and of an old Christianity, going forth to battle
with every impulse of our hearts and every purpose that we
entertain in full accordance with the best wishes and hopes of
the good on earth and of the God in heaven; when we take

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 403

this position and take it firmly and ably, then and not until
then shall we triumph; then and not till then shall we see the
beginning of the end.

Mr. President, let me say one word more. When the Savior
of man, with the ^3rmpathy and pathos with which He loved
the chief city of His native land, wept over Jerusalem His
lamentation was, ''If thou hadst known in this thy day the
things that belong to thy peace!" Sir, that is what this nation
ought to know; that is what the nation ought to understand.
It is what I believe; and by a vigorous prosecution of this
measure we shall evidence to heaven and earth that we do
understand and mean to perform the things which belong to
our nation's peace.

On April 8 Charles Sumner [Mass.] closed the
debate in a long and brilliant speech in favor of the
amendment.

Under the influences of the present struggle for national
life, and in obedience to its incessant exigencies, the people
have already changed, and in nothing so much as slavery. Old
opinions and prejudices have dissolved, and that traditional
foothold which slavery once possessed has been gradually weak-
ened until now it scarcely exists. Naturally this change must
sooner or later show itself in the interpretation of the Con-
stitution. But it is already visible even there, in the conces-
sion of powers over slavery which were formerly denied. The
time, then, has come when the Constitution, which has been so
long interpreted for slavery, may be interpreted for freedom.
This is one stage of triumph. Universal emancipation, which
is at hand, can be won only by complete emancipation of the
Constitution itself, which has been degraded to wear chains so
long that its real character is scarcely known.

Sometimes the concession is made on the ground of militiiry
necessity. * The capacious war powers of the Constitution are
invoked, and it is said that in their legitimate exercise slavery
may be destroyed. There is much in this concession ; more even
than is imagined by many from whom it proceeds. It is war,
say they, which puts these powers in motion; but they forget
that wherever slavery exists there is perpetual war — ^that slav-
ery itself is a state of war between two races, where one is for
the moment victor — pictured accurately by Jefferson when he
described it as ''permitting one-half of the citizens to trample
on the rights of the other, transforming those into enemies and

404 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

these into despots." Therefore, wherever slavery exists, even
in seeming peace, the war power may be invoked to pat an
end to a condition which is internecine, and to overthrow pre-
tensions which are hostile to every attribute of the Almighty.
But it is not on military necessity alone that the concession
is made. There are many who, as they read the Constitution
now, see its powers over davery more clearly than before. The
old superstition is abandoned; and they join with Patrick
Henry when, in the Virginia convention, he declared that the
power of manumission was given to Congress, (1) in the '' gen-
eral welfare" clause. He did not hesitate to argue against the
adoption of the Constitution because it gave this power. And
shall we be less perspicacious for freedom than this Virginia
statesman was for slavery T Discerning this power, he confessed
his dismay; but let us confess our joy.

2. Next comes the clause, ''Congress shall have power to
declare war, to raise and support armies, to provide and main-
tain a navy." A power like this is from its very nature un-
limited. In raising and supporting an army, in providing and
maintaining a navy. Congress is not restrained to any par-
ticular class or color. It may call upon all and authorize that
contract which the Government makes with an enlisted soldier.
But such a contract would be in itself an act of manumission;
for a slave cannot make a contract. And if the contract be
followed by actual service, who can deny its completest eflScacy
in enfranchising the soldier-slave and his whole family T Shake-
speare, immortal teacher, gives expression to an instinctive
sentiment when he makes Henry V, on the eve of the battle of
Agincourt, encourage his men by promising,

''For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be mj brother; he he ne'er so vHe
This day shall gentle his condition,*^

3. There is still another clause: ''The United States shall
guarantee to every State in this Union a repubUcan form of
governments* But the question recurs. What is a republican
form of government? John Ad-^ms, in the correspondence of
his old age, says:

"The customarj meanings of the words republic and commonwealth
have been infinite. Thej have been applied to every government under
heaven; that of Turkey and that of Spain, as well as that of Athens and
of Rome, of Geneva and San Marino.'' — John Adams's Works, VoL 10,
p. 378.

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 405

But the guaranty of a republican form of government must
have a meaning congenial with the purposes of the Constitu-
tion. Evidently it must be construed so as to uphold the Con-
stitution according to all the promises of its preamble, and Mr.
Madison has left a record showing that this clause was originally
suggested in part by the fear of slavery. But no American
need be at a loss to designate some of the distinctive elements
of a republic according to the idea of American institutions.
These will be found first in the Declaration of Independence, by
which it is solemnly announced "that all men are endowed by
their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these
are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." And they will
be found, secondly, in that other guaranty and prohibition of
the Constitution, in harmony with the Declaration of Inde-
pendence; *'no person shall be deprived of life, liberty , or prop-
erty without due process of law.** Such are some of the essen-
tial elements of a "republican form of government," which
cannot be disowned by us without disowning the very muni-
ments of our liberties; and it is these which the United States
are bound to guarantee. But all these make slavery impossible.
It is idle to say that this result was not anticipated. It would
be, then, only another illustration that our fathers "builded
wiser than they knew."

4. But, independent of the clause of guaranty, there is the
clause just quoted, which in itself is a source of power; "no
person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without
due process of law." This was a part of the amendments to
the Constitution proposed by the first Congress, under the
popular demand for a Bill of Rights. Brief as it is, it is in
itself alone a whole Bill of Rights. Liberty can be lost only
by "due process of law," words borrowed from the old liberty-
loving common law.

Such is the protection which is thrown by the Constitution
over every "person," without distinction of race or color, class
or condition. There can be no doubt about the universality
of this protection. Its natural meaning is plain; but there is
an incident of history which makes it plainer still, excluding
all possibility of misconception. A clause of this character was
originally recommended as an amendment by two slave States
— North Carolina and Virginia — ^but it was restrained by them
to freemen, thus: "No freeman ought to be deprived of his
life, liberty, or property but by the law of the land.** But
when the recommendation came before Congress the word "per-
son" was substituted for "freeman," and the more searching

406 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

phrase, "due process of law," was substituted for *'the law of
the land." In making this change, rejecting the recommenda-
tion of two slave States, the authors of this amendment re-
vealed their purpose, that no person wearing the human form
should be deprived of Uberty without due process of law ; and
the proposition was adopted by the votes of Congress and then
of the States as a part of the Constitution. Clearly on its face
it is an express guaranty of personal liberty and an express
prohibition against its invasion anywhere.

In the face of this guaranty and prohibition — for it is both
— ^how can any ''person" be held as a slave? But it is some-
times said that this provision must be restrained to places
within the exclusive jurisdiction of the National Government.'
Let me say frankly that such formerly was my own impression,
often avowed in this Chamber; but I never doubted its com-
plete efiScacy to render slavery unconstitutional in all such
places, so that "no person" could be held as a slave at the
national capital or in any national territory. Constitutionally
slavery has always been an outlaw wherever that provision
of the Constitution was applicable. Nobody doubted that it
was binding on the national courts, and yet it was left unexe-
cuted — ^a dead letter, killed by the predominant influence of
slavery, until at last Congress was obliged by legislative act to
do what the courts had failed to do, and to put an end to
slavery in the national capital and national Territories.

But there are no words in this guaranty and prohibition
by which they are restrained to any exclusive jurisdiction.
They are broad and general as the Constitution itself ; and since
they are in support of human rights they cannot be restrained
by any interpretation. There is no limitation in them, and
nobody now can supply any such limitation without encounter-
ing the venerable maxim of law, Impitis ac crudelis qui
Uhertati non favet — ^''Impious and cruel is he who does not
favor liberty." Long enough courts and Congress have merited
this condemnation. The time has come when they should merit
it no longer. The Constitution should become a living letter
under the predominant influence of freedom. It is this con-
viction which has brought petitioners to Congress, during the
present session, asking that the Constitution shall be simply
executed against slavery and not altered. Ah ! sir, it would be
a glad sight to see that Constitution, which we have all sworn
to support, interpreted generously, nobly, gloriously for free-
dom, so that everywhere within its influence the chains should
drop from the slave. If it be said that this was not antici-

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 407

pated at the adoption of the Constitution, I remind you of
the words of Patrick Henry at the time when he said, ''the
paper speaks to the point.*' No doubt. It does speak to the
point. Cicero preferred to err with Plato rather than to think
right with other men. And pardon me if, on this occasion,
when my country is in peril from slavery, and when human
rights are to be rescued, I prefer to err with Patrick Henry,
the contemporary of the Constitution, rather than to think
right with Senators who hesitate against slavery.

But all these provisions are something more than powers;
they are duties also. And yet we are constantly and painfully
reminded in this Chamber that pending measures against slav-
ery are unconstitutional. Sir, this is an immense mistake.
Nothing against slavery can be unconstitutiondL It is only
hesitation which is unconstitutional.

And yet slavery still exists — in defiance of all these require-
ments of the Constitution; nay, more, in defiance of reason
and justice, which can never be disobeyed with impunity — ^it
exists, the perpetual spoiler of human rights and disturber of
the public peace, degrading master as well as slave, corrupting
society, weakening government, impoverishing the very soU it-
self, and impairing the natural resources of the country. Such
an outrage, so offensive in every respect, not only to the Con-
stitution, but also to the whole i^stem of order by which the
universe is governed, is plainly a national nuisance, which, for
the general welfare and in the name of justice, ought to be
abated. But at this moment, when it menaces the national
life, it will not be enough to treat slavery merely as a nuisance ;
for it is much more. It is a public enemy and traitor wherever
it shows itself, to be subdued, in the discharge of solemn guar-
anties of Government and of personal rights, and in the exer-
cise of unquestionable and indefeasible rights of self-defence.
All now admit that in the rebel States it is a public enemy and
traitor, so that the rebellion may be seen in slavery, and slav-
ery may be seen in the rebellion. But slavery throughout the
country, everywhere within the national limits, is a living unit,
one and indivisible — so that even outside the rebel States it is
the same public enemy and traitor, lending succor to the rebel-
lion, and holding out ''blue lights" to encourage and direct its
operations. But whether regarded as national nuisance or as
public enemy and traitor, it is obnoxious to the same judgment,
and must be abolished.

If, in abolishing slavery, any injury were done to the just
interests of any human being or to any rights of any kind.

408 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

there might be something ''to give us pause/' even against
these irresistible requirements. But nothing of the kind can
ensue. No just interests and no rights can suffer. It is the
rare felicity of such an act, as well outside as inside the rebel
States, that, while striking a blow at the rebellion, and assuring
future tranquillity, so that the Republic shall no longer be a
house divided against itself, it will add at once to the value of
the whole fee simple wherever slavery exists, will secure in-
dividual rights, and will advance civilization itself.

There is another motive to abolish slavery at this time.
Embattled armies now stand face to face, on the one side fight-
ing for slavery. The gauntlet that has been flung down we
have yet taken up only in part. In abolishing slavery entirely
we take up the gauntlet entirely. Then can we look with confi-
dence to the blessings of Almighty Qod upon our arms. So
long as we sustain slavery, so long as we hesitate to strike at
it, the heavy battalions of our armies will fail in power. Sir
Giles Overreach^ found his sword, as he attempted to draw it,
''glued with orphans' tears." Let not our soldiers find their
swords "glued" with the tears of the slave.

There is one question and only one which rises in our
path; and this only because the national representatives have
so long been drugged and drenched with slavery, which they
have taken in all forms, whether of dose or douche, that, like
a long-suffering patient, they are not yet emancipated from its
influence. I refer, of course, to the question of compensation
under the shameful assumption that there can be property in
man. Sir, there was a moment when I was willing to pay
money largely, or at least to any reasonable amount, for eman-
cipation; but it was as ransom, and never as compensation.
Thank God! that time has now passed, never to return; and
simply because money is no longer needed for the puri)ose.
Our fathers under Washington never paid the Algerines for the
emancipation of our enslaved fellow citizens, except as ransom,
and they ceased all such tribute when emancipation could be
had without it. Such must be our rule now. Any other rule
would be to impoverish the treasury for nothing. The time
has come for the old tocsin to sound, "Millions for defence,
not a cent for tribute." Ay, sir; millions of dollars — ^with mil-
lions of strong arms also — to defend our country against slave-
masters ; but not a cent for tribute to slave-masters.

But if money is to be paid as compensation, clearly it can-
not go to the master who for generations has robbed the slave

* A character in "A New Way to Pay Old Debts,'' by Philip Maasixiger.

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 409

of his toil and all its fruits, so that, in justice, he may be
regarded now as the trustee of accumulated earnings with in-
terest which he has never paid over. Any money paid as com-
pensation must belong, every dollar of it, to the slave. If the
case were audited in Heaven's chancery, there must be another
allowance for the denial of inestimable rights. The loss of
wages may be estimated, but where is the tariff or price-current
by which those other losses which have been the lot of every
slave shall be determined? Mortal arithmetic is impotent to
assess the fearful sum total. In presence of this infinite re-
sponsibility the whole question must be referred to that other
tribunal where master and slave will be equal, while infinite
wisdom tempers justice with mercy.

But the proposition of compensation is founded on the in-
tolerable assumption of property in man, an idea which often
intrudes into these debates, sometimes from its open vindicators
and sometimes from others who reluctantly recognize it, but
allow it to influence their conduct which is thus ''sicklied o'er"
with slavery. Sir, parliamentary law must be observed ; but if
an outburst of indignant hisses were ever justifiable in a par-
liamentary assembly it ought to break forth at every mention
of this proposition, whatever form it may take — ^whether of
daring assumption or the mildest suggestion, or equivocation
even. Impious toward Gk>d and insulting toward man, it is dis-
owned alike by the conscience and the reason ; nor is there any
softness of phrase or argument by which its essential wicked-
ness can be disguised. The fool hath said in his heart that
there is no Ood ; but it is kindred folly to say that there is no
man. The first is atheism, and the second is like unto the
first.

Again, we are brought by learned Senators to the Constitu-
tion, which requires that there shall be ''just compensation"
where "private property" is taken for public use. But plainly
on the present occasion the requirement of the Constitution is
absolutely inapplicable, for there is no "private property" to
take. Slavery is but a bundle of barbarous pretensions, from
which certain persons are to be released. At what price shall
these pretensions be estimated? How much shall be paid for
the controlling pretension of property in man? How much
shall be allowed for that other pretension to shut the gates of
knowledge and keep the victim from the book of life? How
much shall be expended to redeem the pretension to rob a
human being of all the fruits of his toil? And, sir, what "just
compensation" shall be voted for the renunciation of that

410 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

Heaven-defying pretension, too disgusting to picture in its de-
tails, which despoils the slave of wife and child, and hands
them over to lust or avarice? Let these pretensions be re-
nounced, and slavery ceases to exist; but there can be no ''just
compensation'' for any such renunciation. The human heart,
reason, religion, the Constitution itself, rise in judgment
against it. As well vote ''just compensation'' to the hardened
offender who renounces his disobedience to the Ten Command-
ments and promises that he will cease to steal, that he will
cease to commit adultery, and that he will cease to covet his
neighbor's wife. Ay, sir, there is nothing in the Constitution
to sanction any such outrage. Such an appropriation would
be unconstitutional.

Putting aside, then, all objections that have been interposed,
whether proceeding from open opposition or from lukewarm
support, the great question recurs, that question which domi-
nates this whole debate. How shall slavery be overthrown?
The answer is threefold: first, by the courts, declaring and
applying the true principles of the Constitution; secondly, by
Congress, in the exercise of the powers which belong to it;
and, thirdly, by the people, through an amendment to the
Constitution. Courts, Congress, people, all may be invoked,
and the occasion will justify the appeal.

1. Let the appeal be made to the courts. But, alas! one
of the saddest chapters in our history has been the conduct of
judges who have lent themselves to the support of slavery.
Injunctions of the Constitution, guaranties of personal liberty,
and prohibitions against its invasion have all been forgotten.
Courts which should have been asylums of liberty have been
changed into barracoons, and the Supreme Court of the United
States, by a final decision of surpassing infamy, became the
greatest barracoon of all. It has been part of the calamity of
the times that, under the influence of slavery, justice, like
AstraBa of old, had fled. But now at last, in a regenerated
Republic, with the power of slavery waning, and the people
rising in judgment against it, let us hope that the judgments
of courts may be reconsidered, and that the powers of the Con-
stitution in behalf of liberty may be fully exercised, so that
the blessed condition shall be fulfilled when

"Ancient frauds shall fail,
Returning justice lift aloft her scale."

Sir, no court can afford to do an act of wrong. Its business
is justice ; and when under any apology it ceases to do justice

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 411

it loses those titles to reverence which otherwise are so willingly
bestowed. There are instances of great magistrates who have
openly declared their disobedience to laws ''against common
right and reason," and their names are mentioned with grati-
tude in the history of jurisprudence. There are other ipstances
of men holding the balance and the sword, whose names have
been gathered into a volume, as ** atrocious judges." If our
judges, who have cruelly interpreted the Constitution in favor
of slavery, do not come into the latter class, they clearly can
claim no place among those others who have stood for justice
like the rock on which the sea breaks in idle spray. Doubtless
the model decision of the American bench, destined to be quoted
hereafter with the most honor, because the boldest in its con-
formity with the great principles of humanity and social order,
was that of the Vermont judge who refused to surrender a
fugitive slave until his pretended master should show a title
deed from the Almighty.

But the courts have no longer any occasion for such bold-
ness. They need not step outside the Constitution. It is only
needed that they should follow just principles in its interpre-
tation. Let them be guided by a teacher like Edmund Burke,
who spoke as follows:

Men cannot covenant themselves out of their rights and their duties;
nor by any other means can arbitrary power be conveyed to any man.
Those who give to others such rights perform acts that are void as they
are given." . . . "Those who give and those who receive arbi-
trary power are alike criminal, and there is no man but is bound to resist
it to the best of his power, wherever it shall show its face in the world.
It is a crime to bear it where it can be rationally shaken off. ' ' — Speech on
Impeachment of Warren Hastings.

Or let them be guided by that other teacher, Lord Chatham,
when he said:

"With respect to the decisions of the courts of justice I am far from
denying their due weight and authority; yet, placing them in the most
respectable view, I will consider them, not as law, but as an evidence of
the law; and, before they can arrive even at that degree of authority, it
must appear that they are founded in, and confirmed by, reason; that they
are supported by precedents, taken from good and moderate times; that
they do not contradict any positive law; that they are submitted to with-
out reluctance by the people; that they are unquestioned by the legislature
(which is equivalent to a tacit confirmation) ; and, what in my judgment
is by far the most important, that they do not violate the spirit of the con-
stitution," — Speech of Lord Chatham in 1770, with regard to the proceed-
ing on the Middlesex election.

412 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

If courts were thus inspired, it is easy to see that slavery
would disappear under their righteous judgments.

2. But unhappily the courts will not perform the duty of
the hour, and we must look elsewhere. An appeal must be
made to Congress; and here, as has been fully developed, the
powers are ample, unless in their interpretation you surrender
in advance to slavery. By a single brief statute Congress may
sweep slavery out of existence.

But, even if Congress be not prepared for that single de-
cisive measure which shall promptly put an end to this whole
question and strike slavery to death, there are other measures
by which this end may be hastened. The towering Upas may be
girdled, even if it may not be felled at once to the earth.

The Fugitive Slave bill, conceived in iniquity and imposed
upon the North as a badge of subjugation, may be repealed.

The coastwise slave trade may be deprived of all support
in the statute book.

The trafBic in human beings, as an article of '^ commerce
among States," may be extirpated.

And, above all, that odious rule of evidence, so injurious
to justice and discreditable to the country, excluding the testi-
mony of colored persons in national courts, may be abolished.

Let these things be done. In themselves they will be much.
But they will be more as the assurance of the overthrow sure
to follow.

3. But all these will not be enough. The people must be
summoned to confirm the whole work. It is for them to put the
cap-stone upon the sublime structure. An amendment of the
Constitution may do what courts and Congress decline to do,
or, even should they act, it may cover their action with its
panoply. Such an amendment in any event will give com-
pleteness and permanence to emancipation, and bring the Con-
stitution into avowed harmony with the Declaration of Inde-
pendence. Happy day, long wished for, destined to gladden
those beatified spirits who have labored on earth to this end,
but died without the sight.

The founder of political science in modern times, writer as
well as statesman, Machiavelli, in his most instructive work,
the ** Discourses on Livy," has a chapter entitled, **To have
long life in a republic, it is necessary to draw it back often to
its origin"; and in the chapter he shows how the original vir-
tue in which a republic was founded becomes so far corrupted
that, in the process of time, the body-politic must be destroyed ;
as in the case of the natural body, where, according to the

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT 418

doctors of medicine, there is something added daily which per-
petually requires cure. He teaches under this head that re-
publics are brought back to their origin, and the principles in
which they were founded, by pressure without or prudence
within, and he affirms that the destruction . of Borne by the
Oauls was necessary that the republic might have a new birth,
and thus acquire new life and new virtue, all of which en-
sued when the barbarians had been driven back. The illustra-
tion, perhaps, is fanciful, but there is wisdom in the counsel,
and now the time has come for its application. The Oauls are
upon us, not, however, from a distance, but domestic Oauls;
and we, too, may profit by the occasion to secure for the Re-
public a new birth, that it may acquire a new life and new
virtue. Happily, in our case the way is eaefy, for it is only
necessary to carry the Republic back to its baptismal vows, and
the declared sentiments of its origin. There is the Declaration
of Independence : let its solemn promises be redeemed. There
is the Constitution: let it speak, according to the promises
of the Declaration.

The amendment to the Constitution was passed by
a vote of 38 to 6 (more than the two-thirds required),
the negative votes being cast by Lazarus W. Powell and
Garrett Davis, of Kentucky; Willard Saulsbury and
George B. Riddle, of Delaware; James A. McDougall,
of California, and Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana.

Upon announcement of the vote Senator Saulsbury
rose in his seat ** simply to say*' that he now ^'bade
farewell to any hope of the reconstruction of the Amer-
ican Union/'

Senator McDougall objected to the decision of the
Vice-President that the resolution had passed, saying
that a two-thirds majority of a full Senate, counting
two votes from each of the seceded States, was in his
opinion necessary to pass a measure in which all the
States were vitally concerned under the Constitution.
The chair overruled the objection, and Senator Mc-
Dougall did not contest the overruling.

The Senate resolution came before the House on
May 31, and a motion to reject it was voted dowa by 55
yeas to 76 nays. It was thoroughly debated (the argu-
ments being largely repetitions of those in the Senate)

414 GREAT AMERICAN DEBATES

until June 15, when it was put to the vote, with the re-
sult of 93 yeas and 65 nays, 23 Representatives not
voting. The measure thus failed of passage, not receiv-
ing the two-thirds majority required by the Constitu-
tion. It was not brought forward again during this
session.

The subject was brought forward at the next ses-
sion and| after considerable debate in which few new
arg^uments were presented, a joint resolution submit-
ting the amendment to the States for ratification was
passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and approved
by the President on February L Upon ratification by
the requisite three-fourths majority of the States it went
into effect by proclamation on December 18, 1865.

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