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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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 012 026 389 4 
 
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 I THREE SPEECHES 
 
 BY 
 
 HON. JAS. M. SCOVEL, 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
 OP NEW JERSEY, 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION. 
 
 1. NEW JERSEY FOR THE WAR. 
 
 2. NEW JERSEY FOR THE UNION. 
 
 3. NEW JERSEY FOR E.sTFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 Emerson. 
 "It is the heart that makes the soldier." 
 
 Napoleon 1st. 
 
 CAMDEN, N. J.: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HORACE B. DICF, 
 
 1870. 
 
THREE SPEECHES 
 
 E 458 
 
 .S43 
 
 Copy 1 
 
 BY 
 
 HON. JAS. M. SCOVEL, 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
 OF NEW JERSEY, 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION. 
 
 1. NEW JERSEY FOR THE WAR. 
 
 2. NEW JERSEY FOR THE UNION. 
 
 3. NEW JERSEY FOR ENFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 CAMDEN, N. J.: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HORACE B. DICK, 
 1870. 
 
 IV, 
 
L45?^ 
 
 Ca.mi>kx, N. J., March 2ith, 1870. 
 I dedicate these speeches to Ulysses S. Grant, who took up 
 the burdens of a New Republic where Abraham Lincoln laid 
 them down ; who, after the Rights of Man had been trampled 
 in the dust by the faithless administration of Andrew Johnson, 
 has shewn by Patience, by Courage, and by Fidelity to Prin- 
 ciple bow a President springing from the ranks of the People, 
 at once a true man, a Soldier and a Statesman, may re-create . 
 Republic, now, more than e.er., the admiration of Man and 
 the wonder of the World. ^ 
 

 ■^^ 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 As illustrating an important era, these specciies now first 
 collected, form a valuable addition to the political history 
 •of New Jersey during the war for national supremacy, which 
 resulted in the emancipation and enfranchisement of the 
 black race. 
 
 James M. Scovel was born in Harrison, Ohio, Jan. i6th, 
 1833. His father was the Rev. Sylvester Scovel, an eminent 
 minister of the Presbyterian Church; a native of Massa- 
 chusetts, who removed to the West and fdled the Presidency 
 of Hanover College, Ind. ; from which institution h.c had 
 previously received the degree of Doctor of Divinity. 
 Respected for his energy of character, theological and 
 literary attainments, and beloved for his amiability cf dis- 
 position, his benevolence and consistent piety, ho died of 
 cholera on the 4th of July, 1849, bequeathing to his son his 
 own advanced ideas of the rights of man and his consistent 
 hatred of oppression and wrong. 
 
 His grandfather (on the maternal side) was the Hon- 
 J"ame3 Matlack, who represented this District (then (}lou- 
 •cester county) for two terms in Congress. 
 
 Mr. Scovel, in 1852, delivered the valedictory address in 
 Hanover College, Ind., and taught school for one year in 
 Tipton CO., Tenn., where he first obtained a practical 
 knowledge of the workings of " tlio peculiar institution called 
 slavery." 
 
 In 1853 he became a student of law in the office of 
 Attorney General Browning, in Camden, N. J., and was 
 •admitted to practice at the bar in Nov., 18-56. 
 
Mr. Hcovc4 was a iirm and consistent follower of Stephen 
 A. Douglas, when the treasonable designs of the Southern 
 leaders^forced a war upon the North. A democrat in his 
 sentiments, he had no lot or part with those men, who 
 sustaining the nomination of Breckinridge, would have 
 sacrificed the unity of tlie States to the aggressive and ab- 
 horrent policy of the nationalization of human slavery. 
 
 New Jersey at that time Avas eminently conservative, and 
 our young aspirant would perhaps the more readily have 
 obtained political advancement from the then dominant 
 Democratic party at tlie sacrifice of his ideas ot justice: 
 Mr. Scovel,niowever. accepted no such issue; he became one 
 of the four headers of the straight Douglas element, and the 
 formation of an "Independent Douglas Ticket" resulted in 
 giving a majority of the electoral vote of the State to 
 Abraham Lincoln. (Since which time New Jersey has 
 invariably been Democratic on Presidential issues.) 
 
 On the result of that election Mr. Scovel advocated strong 
 radical measures. In 1862, after a sharp and decisive 
 contest, ho was elected by a handsome majority to the State 
 Legislature, from the 1st District over D. A. Hall, Demo- 
 cratic candidate. 
 
 Naturally gravitating to the leadership of the Republican 
 element in the House, on the delivery of his memorable 
 speech against the " New Jersey Peace Resolutions," the 
 minds of the people throughout the Union distinctly and 
 emphatically recognized in him the very head and front of 
 the uncompromising opposition to treason and retrogression 
 in the State. 
 
 At that time the nation seemed in the throes of dissolution. 
 The imbecility, incapacity or treason of a General in whom 
 all had confided, had resulted in great disaster to our arms. 
 Hurled back from the gates of Richmond after a struggle 
 which it was hoped would have dismembered and crushed 
 the serpent of rebellion, our army fled before a pursuing foe 
 who beleaguered the National Capital. Open traitors and 
 
well meaning but timid men clamored for '^ Peace," even at 
 the sacrifice of honor. The efforts of this element cul- 
 minated in two distinct propositions — one, a bill to arm 
 40,000 State militia, under the leadership of a distinguished 
 son of New Jersey, for tlie avowed purpose of resisting the 
 power of the Federal government; the other, a series of 
 resolutions proposing to hold conference with certain Rebel 
 leaders, with a view to " a satisfactory adjustment of diffi- 
 culties." 
 
 Oa the presentation of these Mr. Scovel arose. In a 
 patriotic phillippic, in which the natural rights of man, love 
 of country, reason, invective and a sense of dignity were 
 invoked to crush the efforts of those whose interpretation of 
 '•peace" was but a sj'nonym for national degradation; with 
 the energy and eloquence of Mirabeau ho pointed -out the 
 <ianger that lay concealed beneath the smootli platitudes of 
 diplomacy. He rent the flimsy veil of specious sophistry 
 that covertly counselled dishonor, by the weight of argu- 
 ments as potent and convincing as those of the English 
 Burke, and threatened that should an armed opposition to 
 the government be encouraged by the passage of these bills, 
 he would himself " arouse the people from school-house and 
 iiill-top, and by forcible means resist this treasonable 
 scheme." 
 
 The efiect was instantaneous. The bills vreve modified 
 and afterwards withdrawn. His efforts on tliat occasion 
 earned him the life enduring friendship of Abraham Lincoln, 
 Thaddeus Stevens, Edwin M. Stanton, and others. The 
 speech, fully reported in the New York Tribune, won the 
 applause of the nation and the regard and encomiums of 
 Horace Greeley. 
 
 In 1863, Mr. Scovel, appointed by Mr. Lincoln Commiii- 
 sioner for the Draft, resigned his position to accept the 
 nomination of the Republican party for the Senate. A 
 powerful faction who distrusted the integrity of any man 
 who had ever roted with the Democrats, opposed him. After 
 
the most severe political contest known in the county of 
 Camden, he was elected over Jno. R. Graham, a deservedly^ 
 popular nominee, by a majority of 113. 
 
 In the State Senate he won new laurels. The conviction 
 that the nation needed the services of the loyal black race, 
 who were anxious to lend their stalwart arms toward the 
 suppression of the rebellion, found but little favor in New 
 Jersey. Democrats and many conservative Republicans 
 alike agreed in opposition to such an " impolitic measure/^' 
 and the result was the presentation of a bill prohibiting the 
 enlistment of colored troops in the State, under penalty of 
 fine and imprisonment. As when in the House, Mr. Scovel 
 in the Senate rose to the emergency and confounded the 
 counsels of those unwilling to grant to the despised race the 
 privilege of fighting and dying for their country. We have 
 no space for extended quotation in our brief resume, but 
 may remark that the concluding portions of his speech on 
 the subject evince a power of eloquence not unworthy of the 
 greatest orators of ancient or modern time — the classic force 
 of Demosthenes, or the flowing rhetoric of the Roman 
 Cicero ; although it is stated it was hastily made, mostly 
 improvised, and in no case supervised or corrected. In his 
 third speech, on " Our Relations with the Rebel States,'' 
 Mr. Scovel elaborates and re-affirms his life-long devotion to 
 liberty and the interests of the colored race. For them he 
 claims suffrage and a full political equality, and argues 
 
 " That policy that would call the black to our aid in 
 putting down the rebellion, and then turn him over to the 
 charity of the man whom he fought against, and wLlo once 
 owned him, must be founded in inequality, injustice, and in. 
 infinite meanness." 
 
 Always a persistent advocate of the XlVth Amendment:^ 
 lohich but for his casting vote when President of the JS'eir- 
 Jersey Senate, would have been lost therein, he has been 
 equally strenuous in urging the adoption of that just enact- 
 ment known as the XVth Constitutional Amendment. His 
 
record is clear, tlefined and unmistakable on the slavery and 
 emancipation policies. Otlier Republicans have faltered, 
 fearing the loss of popularity or election in counties where 
 radical measures were of uncertain issue, but at all times 
 wherever he has expressed an opinion, it has been in the 
 advocacy of "equal and exact justice to all."' 
 
 We have said that Mr. Scovel's speeches afford evidence 
 of great oratorical power. To this may be added, a com- 
 prehensive grasp of subject and issue involved, and a 
 political forecast that is alone proof of statesmanship. To 
 youth, health and courage in his favor, a magnetic power to 
 enchain his hearers when addressing them, he joins a fear- 
 lessness that is the true criterion of manly independence. 
 His friends appreciate and his enemies respect his talents 
 and energy. 
 
 With no wish to re-open old sources of dissension, it 
 becomes necessary in the interest of truth to allude to a 
 certain event, that at the time, in tiie minds of many, 
 seriously affected Mr. v^covel's popularity. We shall refer 
 to it briefly but emphatically. 
 
 In 18G5, on the occasion of tljc selection of U. S. Senator, 
 a majority of both Houses in joint ballot decided and de- 
 clared that a plurality vote should elect. In accordance 
 with this resolution a Democrat was chosen. A powerful 
 effort was afterward (successfully) made to unseat' him. on 
 the ground that a plurality vote was illegal. Mr. Scovel 
 refused to assist in what he conceived to be an unjust 
 measure, even though his own party were thereby benefitted. 
 ^Ir. Lincoln, in a statement made, declared, that in hi.-< 
 opinion the Democratic Senator was legally and rightfully 
 elected, and Mr. Trumbull and others of the Judiciary 
 Committee of the United States Senate reported likewise. 
 
 The statement broadcast, of Mr. Scovel's •' defection '' from 
 the Republicans, spread far and wide. Interested parties 
 influenced well-meaning men into the belief of sinister 
 motives on the part of the " recreant Senator,"' and a whirl- 
 
■wiud of opprolirium, invective and opposition was evolved 
 that might well have crushed a timid or corrupt man, or at 
 all events forced him wholly into the ranks of the Democratic 
 party : but Mr. Scovel's instincts were not allied to dead 
 political issues. He did not act as self-constituted political 
 prophets predicated or desired, and after a delay, yielded 
 solely in order to save the XlVth Amendment, (then under 
 consideration), against his well-conceived ideas of justice. 
 
 Political ostracism for a time attended him. Newspapers, 
 organizations, <fcc.. vied in hurling epithets, anathemas and 
 •'manufacturing public opinion;" but he pursued the even 
 tenor of his way, uninfluenced or unawed in his convictions 
 as to the righteousness of his motives. 
 
 Popularity is often cheaply earned Viy yielding to the 
 dictum of self constituted cliques, but the people will not 
 always intrust their interests in the hands of those whose 
 political consistency is evinced in an inordinate fondness for 
 office, and whose greatest ability seems demonstrated in the 
 persistent tenacity with which they cling to the emoluments 
 and spoils of political preferment. 
 
 Terrible as are the necessities of strife and bloodshed, yet 
 the war has been prolific of great and incalculable results. 
 In a few years liave been enacted laws that would have 
 taken decades of peaceful legislation to accomplish. 
 
 Onward rolls the car of .})rogress, crushing all olistacles 
 that would else impede its way : 
 
 " There is a Divinity that shapes our ends, 
 Rough hew them as we maj." 
 
 Rights must be acknowledged and respected; folly and 
 fraud overcome and subdued; tyranny be denied and up- 
 rooted, and wisdom be imparted and received; then 
 national greatness and glory shall consist in relieving, 
 blessing and elevating all in the knowledge of truth, irre- 
 spective of race, clime or condition. 
 
 Thaddeus Stevens, the " distinguished commoner," whose 
 efforts in behalf of human liberty were only suspended hj 
 
9 
 
 his death, had a full appreciation of, and unbounded con- 
 fidence in the integrity of Mr. Scovel; as his appended 
 letter, written shortly before his decease, evidences. Abra- 
 ham Lincoln and Edwin M. Stanton bear testimony also in 
 the letters over their signatures. 
 
 HORACE B. DICK. 
 Camdex, N. J. 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 House op Representatives. 
 Washington, D. C, April, 1869. 
 Dear Scovel : — 1 wish you were in Congress to aid me: 
 cannot you get there next time. Alaljania is still out, our 
 friends not agreeing in some points. Try and come and 
 help us. We are not yet out of the woods. 
 
 TflADDEUS STEVPJNS. 
 J. M. Scovel, Esq. 
 
 Hon. W. H. Seivard : — Jas. M. Scovel, named within, 
 carried a very close Senatorial District in New Jersey for 
 US at the election, and is really one of our best friends. 
 Sec. of State, please see and hear him. 
 
 A. LINCOLN. 
 
 Nov. 18, 1863. 
 
 Washington City, 16 Sep., '68. 
 Dear Sir : — Your note of the 12th inst. reached me this 
 morning, and 1 hasten to say that you are entirely right in 
 the opinion that Mr. Lincoln reposed much confidence in 
 you as an active, zealous and faithful supporter of your 
 government, and a true patriot earnestly bent upon the 
 suppression of the rel)ellion. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 EDWIN M. STANTON. 
 Jas. M. Scovel, Esq. 
 Camden, JV. J. 
 
NEW JERSEY FOR THE WAR. 
 
 KELIVEKED IN THE NEW JERSEY HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY, MARCH 17, ISCS 
 
 The New Jersey House of Assembly having under con- 
 sideration the Joint Resolutions in relation to Federal Affairs, 
 commonly called '' The Peace Eesolutions," Mr. Scovel said : 
 
 Mr. Speaker : I rise to advocate the minority report of 
 the Committee on Federal Eelations. If I no longer believed 
 in God, or if I had ceased to love my country, I might be 
 heard in advocacy of the peace resolutions offered and sus- 
 tained by the dominant party ia both Houses of the Legisla- 
 ture. Mr. Speaker, I know that this is not a time for private 
 griefs, but as 1 am charged with having renounced the party 
 with which I formerly acted, I may be allowed briefly to 
 make my defence against the accusation. 1 am content to 
 Bubmit myself to the asperities and calumnies of politics. In 
 the language of Lord Bolingbroke, " I have not renounced 
 my country nor my friends ; and by my friends I mean all 
 those and those alone who are such to their country, by 
 whatever name they have been or may be still distinguished. 
 and though in that number there should be men of whose 
 past ingratitude, injustice or malice I might complain on my 
 account with the greatest reason. These I will never re- 
 nounce. In their prosperity they shall never hear of me — 
 in their adversity always." The sincerity and tenacity with 
 which I followed the fortunes of Stephen A. Douglas are 
 
12 
 
 known to all wlio know me. I was a witness at Baltimore 
 of the shameless betrayal of the statesman of Illinois. If he 
 had served the South too faithfully, he had bitter cause to 
 repent of that service. When truest to the chosen measures 
 of the South — 1 mean the doctrine of non-interference with 
 slavery — he was displaced by Jefferson Davis from his posi- 
 tion as Chairman of the Committee on Territories. When 
 faithful at Charleston to the traditions and the principles of 
 his party, he was then betrayed, and the betrayal made com- 
 jDlete, a few months later, at the city of Baltimore. It was 
 in 1848 the Democratic Convention was of opinion that to 
 co-iintcnauce any interference with slavery by Cono-rcss was 
 dangerous to the peace and harmony of the country. We 
 live history so fast that it is well, on an occasion like this, 
 when the heart of every patriot is tremulous with anxiety 
 for the safety of the Republic, to go back and examine the 
 past, even though we should tread on "ashes thinly covering 
 lires." In the great speech of Mr. Douglas, delivered in the 
 Senate, May 15th and 16th, 1860, he says, speaking of Mr. 
 Yancey's desire for the interference with slavery by Con- 
 gress, " I shrink with horror from the consequences to which 
 his principles would lead the Republic." Well might he say 
 this, for none knew better than he, what price the South 
 would exact for their fealty to the Union. With his faults, 
 and these were the foils to set off his virtues, he was, in 
 power and magnanimity, the peer of any man in America; 
 and it is one of the proudest recollections of my political 
 career, and one I shall bear with me to the latest hour of 
 my life, that I followed, with simplicity and steadfastness, 
 his waning fortunes, and stood by the banner of Douglas till 
 it waved above his grave. He sleeps now on the sliores of 
 Lake Michigan, where corroding care cannot reach him, 
 happily removed from any participation in these the saddest 
 scenes that ever marked with gloom the slow but triumphant 
 advance of human liberty. Let us compose the pall firmly 
 und decently over the features of this patriot statesman, who 
 
13 
 
 amid the pangs of dissolution instructed his children to be 
 true to the Constitution and the Government of their Country. 
 Would to God that his warning voice could reach his 
 countrymen who have abandoned his teachings. His predic- 
 tions were verified. In March, 1860, the President of a 
 Confederacy over every foot of "which tlie old flag will yet 
 float, oftered a resolution in the Senate, among other things, 
 which declared : 
 
 '• That neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature, 
 whether by direct legislation or legislation of an indirect 
 and unfriendly character, possess power to annul or impair 
 the constitutional rights of any citizen of the United States 
 to take his slave property into the common territories, and 
 there hold and enjoy the same while the territorial con- 
 dition remains." 
 
 [Jeff. Davis' Speech oa Relation of States. 
 
 The only statesman of the South dissenting was Alex- 
 ander Stephens, of Ga., in the following letter dated Craw- 
 fordsviile, Ga., May 9th, 1862, written after the Charleston 
 Convention. He says : 
 
 " In the first place I assume as an unquestionable fact, 
 that non-intervention as stated, has been for many years 
 received, recognized and acted upon as the settled doctrine 
 of the South. By non-intervention I mean the principle 
 that Congress shall pass no law on the subject of slavery in 
 the Territories, either for or against it in any way — that 
 they shall not interfere or act upon it at all — or, in the 
 express words of Mr. Calhoun, the great leader, that "Con- 
 gress shall leave the whole subject where the Constitution 
 and the great principles of self-government place it." This 
 has been eminently a Southern doctrine. It was announced 
 by Mr. Calhoun in his speech in the Senate on the 27th 
 of June, 1848; and after two years of discussion, it was 
 adopted as the basis of the adjustment finally made in 
 1850. It was tlie demand of the South, put forth by the 
 South, and since its establishment has been again and again 
 afiirmed as the settled policy of the South, by party conven- 
 tions and State Legislatures, in every form that a people 
 can give authoritative expression to their will and wishes. 
 This cannot now be matter of dispute. It is history, as 
 indelibly fixed upon the record as the fact that the colony 
 of Georgia was settled under the auspices of Oglethorpe. 
 
14 
 
 " I refer to this matter of history counected with the sub- 
 ject under consideration, 1)arely as a standing point, to shovr, 
 how we stand in relation to it. It is not a new subject. It 
 has been up before, and whether rightly or wrongly it has 
 been decided and settled just as tlie South asked that it 
 should be — not, however, without a great effort and a pro- 
 tracted struggle. The question now is: Shall the South 
 abandon her own position in that decision and settlement? 
 This is the question virtually presented by the action of the 
 seceders from the Charleston Convention and the grounds 
 upon which they based their action^ or stated in other 
 words, it amounts to this — whether the Southern States after 
 all that has been said on the subject should now reverse 
 their previous course and demand Congressional interven- 
 tion for the protection ot slavery in the Territories, as a 
 condition of their remaining longer in the Union. For I 
 take it for granted that it would be considered by all as the 
 most mischievous Jolly to demand, unless we intend to push 
 the issue to its ultimate and legitimate result. Shall the 
 South then make the demand of Congress, and when made, 
 in case of failure to obtain it, secede from the Union, as a 
 portion of her Delegates (some under instructions, and some 
 from their own free will) seceded from the Convention, on 
 their failure to get it granted there "' 
 
 '•Thus stands the naked question, as 1 understand it" 
 (and no man in all the South understood it better than Mr. 
 Stephens) " presented by the action of the seceders in all its 
 dimensions, its length, breadth, and depth — in all its magni- 
 tude * "■ my judgment is against the demand. 
 
 " The great question then is, shall we stand by our prin- 
 ciples, or shall we. cutting loose from our moorings where 
 we have been safely anchored so many years, launch out 
 into unknown seas, upon new and perilous adventures, under 
 the guidance of those wlio prove themselves to have no more 
 fixedness of jrurpose or stability as to objects of policy, than 
 
 tlic shifting winds bv which we siiall i)e driven ?" 
 
 ■?:- ■-■ ■" -■:• " * ^- ■)(- ^- * 
 
 " There is a tendency everywliere, not only at the North, 
 but at the South to strife, discussion, disorder and anarchy. 
 It is against this that the sober minds and reflecting men 
 everywhere should now be called upon to guard. My 
 opinion then, is that Delegates should be sent to the ad- 
 journed Convention at Baltimore. The demand made at 
 Charleston by the seceders ouglit not to be insisted on. 
 
15 
 
 Harmony being restored upon tliisi point, a nomination can 
 doubtless be made of some man whom the party everywhere 
 can support with the same zeal and ardor with which they 
 entered and waged the contest in 185G, where the same 
 principles were involved." 
 
 " If in this there be a failure, let the responsibility not 
 rest upon us. Let our hands be clean of all blame. Let 
 there be no cause for casting censure at our door. If, in the 
 end the great National Democratic Party — the strong liga- 
 ment that has so long bound aiid held the Union together, 
 shaped its policy and controlled its destinies, and to which 
 we have so often looked with a hope that seldom failed, as 
 the only party North on whicli to rely in the most trying 
 hours when constitutional rights were imperilled goes down 
 — let it not be said to us in the midst of the disasters that 
 may ensue " you did it." In any and every event let not 
 the reproach of Punic faith rest upon our name. If every 
 thing else has to go down, let our untarnished honor at least 
 survive the wreck." 
 
 Upon the bloody plains of Kansas, says Jeffersor. Davis, 
 '' we have tried the doctrine of letting Slavery take care of 
 itself. Now Congress must take care of it or we will take 
 care of the North and Congress too, since we are the master 
 race ! " Surely Slavery is becoming the Colossus whicli 
 bestrides the world ! It is true, in Indiana, when Edward 
 Hannegan was elected United States Senator, and disgraced 
 America at Berlin, every other Democratic candidate gave 
 his written pledge to the caucus of his party that he opposed 
 the extension of Slavery. It is true tl:at Henry Clay had 
 said that he would never consent that the everlasting curse 
 of liuman bondage should set its foot upon free soil, but 
 Jefferson Davis was about to change all this. John C 
 Breckinridge announced m his letter of acceptance that the 
 " inexorable logic " of his position was that property in 
 negroes shpuld be protected in all the Territories. The 
 North began to say we do not intend to dictate to the South, 
 i)ut the South shall not dictate to us. For these many 
 years Slavery has been working evil under the sun. Bench 
 and bar. and hall and pulpit, and counting room, and field 
 
IG 
 
 and fireside, have been tainted with iis presence. It has 
 tampered with public and private honesty. It has debased, 
 degraded and brutalized American freemen, marring their 
 birthright. It has turned their beautiful garden into a 
 wilderness. The ignorance that disgraces, the rice that 
 demoralizes, the barrenness that lays waste the South, are 
 all its work. It has made our country a stumbling-block, a 
 hissing and a by-word to the nations. It has introduced 
 discord and brawling, insolence, rapacity and murder into 
 our National councils. The bitter hatred that fires the 
 JSouth against the North is all its doing. It has despoiled 
 US of our honor ; it has poisoned our fountains ; it has pol- 
 luted our holy things. The wide-spread treachery that has 
 desolated us like a plague and made us feel as if the solid 
 ground were failing beneath our feet, had its root and rise 
 in it.* In our own State how has this evil worked ? Read 
 the latest humiliation that has fallen npon us. I refer to the 
 election of a Senator in New Jersey. And while I know 
 that the cup of bitterness is full for those who would not 
 fall down and worship the golden image set up by the sons 
 of Essex, I would add not another drop to its bitter waters. 
 Would that the graceful pen of the historian could picture 
 the scene. Who is it tliat enters with so gay a step into the 
 Senatorial tournay, his 
 
 " Cohorts all gleaming with purple aud gold ?" 
 The contest inside the lists is between Bullion and Brain, 
 and so fickle is the fate of war, that Union and Morris go 
 down before the charge that bold rider made with the 
 helmet of Gold, while Democracy shouts " long live William 
 of Essex," and the people do not respond amen. In the 
 facts just stated, I find the reason and justification of my 
 present position, i liavc not changed. I upheld the South 
 and her institutions, so far and so long as this could be 
 rightfully done ; I defended slavery within the limits it 
 could properly and justly claim, nay I was ready to concede 
 
 * Gail Hamilton. 
 
17 
 
 to it so far as concession 'was safe. But 1 was not willing 
 that the slave power should assume the place of the govern- 
 ment, and that all the interests of the country should be 
 made subservient to it. I was not willing that the Demo- 
 cratic party itself should bo reduced to the low condition of 
 being made an instrument, a mere convenience, to be used 
 or discarded at pleasure, to be turned back at the bidding of 
 its southern masters upon its own course, and made to repu- 
 diate its own professions and principles. I am for the 
 Nation against a section ; for the Republic rather than a 
 party. This is my answer to the charge of unfaithfulness. 
 But, Mr. Speaker, in approaching the discussion of these 
 resolutions, it is well to inquire what are the causes which 
 led New Jersey to assume the position of hostility to the 
 General Government. If it is denied that the dominant 
 party are in concert with the leaders of Rebellion, why is it 
 that your cannons are fired and treason preached at Tem- 
 perance Hall in celebration of the close of the last Congress, 
 — a parliament of men who have shown no higher desire 
 than to be the supporters of a good Government and the 
 guardians of public liberty? But these friends of a mon- 
 strous rebellion against humanity and civilization must be 
 taught tliat the more genius, industry and spirit are employed 
 to destroy, the harder the task of saving our country be- 
 comes ; but the duty increases with the difficulty. In such 
 exigencies it is not enough that genius be opposed to genius; 
 spirit must be matched by spirit. They who go about to 
 destroy are animated from the first l^y ambition and avarice 
 and despair itself. With that urbanity for which he is re- 
 markable, the member from Morris (Mr. Vanatta) will allow 
 me to call his attention to his speech delivered at Trenton 
 on July 27th, 1860. He then asserted that the policy of the 
 country which would ultimately triumph was the localizing 
 of slavery, and further said of the proposed change in 
 policy, which should make slavery national : 
 
 "The people vrill say, Why this sudden change? In 
 
attempting to turn round such a square corner we shall have 
 a smash-up. After a change on such a vital question will 
 not the people say they cannot trust us ? After twelve years 
 trying to support a character for fairness let us preserve our 
 honor and self-respect by being consistent to ourselves and 
 to the State of New Jersey." 
 
 At the same meeting, Rodman M. Price denounced a pro- 
 position to unite with the friends of Breckinridge as the 
 *•' most deceptive and fraudulent proposition he ever heard." 
 And in less than one year, ex-Governor Rodman M. Price, 
 who thought James Buchanan " one of the greatest political 
 knaves of the country," (I quote The True Amtricayi^ of July 
 2Tth, I860,) published to all the world his deliberate convic- 
 tion, in these words : " I say emphatically she (New Jersey) 
 should go with the South, from every wise, prudential and 
 patriotic reason." [Letter of April 9th, 1861.] On the same 
 day, desecrating the Chamber which is now occupied by the 
 Legislature, met another Convention composed, in my 
 opinion, of the enemies of the Government, more than one 
 member of which I have heard threaten that the streets of 
 New Jersey should run with blood before a Northern army 
 should leave our soil to tight against the South. One of the 
 members of this House from Bergen (T. Dunn English) 
 whose poetry may be excellent, but whose political opinions 
 merit the scorn and execration of every patriot in the land, 
 and also the very distinguished Senator from Bergen, were 
 chosen to that Convention. They re-afiirmed the platform 
 of 1856, only to abandon it at the behest of Southern con- 
 spirators. How faithfully they have served the South, let 
 the history of these times show, when it comes to be written. 
 Certainly, the impartial verdict of the time will be that if 
 Jefferson Davis was like Satan in Pandemonium — 
 " In form and gesture, proudly eminent," 
 
 he had followers, if less distinguished, quite as notorious, in 
 the person of Clement L. Vallandigham, Rodman M. Price, 
 and the Senator from Bergen. Thus it is, while our brave 
 sons have met death in defence of the honor and perpetuity 
 of our Union, New .Tersey, by a shameful betrayal of prin- 
 
19 
 
 ■ciple, has taken the basest position to which a State can 
 descend. We elevate faction above patriotism, and tolerate 
 «nen " who sin as^ainst posterity as well as against their own 
 age, and when the consequences of their own crimes are 
 over, the consequences of their example remain." In his 
 speech, the Senator from Bergen says he was elected on a 
 platform '• in favor of a vigorous prosecution of peace," and 
 as proud to say he stands on tliat platform yet. From the 
 Senator's haste at an early hour of the session to ofter his 
 peace resolutions, we had been led to believe that he was 
 cordially in favor, with Mr. Maliony, of a vigorous prosecu- 
 tion of peace. His efforts certainly, had they l)een given in 
 an earlier revolution, would entitle him to distinguished con- 
 sideration among the Tories in our first struggle for inde- 
 pendence. But I am grateful in assurance that the Tories 
 were not the one hundredth part of the American colonies, 
 while the Rebel slaveholders in the rebellious States, for 
 whom the member fi'om Bergen apparently holds a brief, 
 constitute, all told, less than one hundred and twenty-eight 
 of the people of the United States, and less one fiftieth 
 part of the inhabitants of their own districts. And, Sir, I 
 venture the prediction this day, that the disloyal citizens of 
 New Jersey bear about the same proportion to those who 
 .•stand by the Union unconditionally, as the Tories did to the 
 patriots of 1776. I shall refer briefly to what the gentle- 
 man says about the Proclamation of Emancipation : 
 
 " Now, Mr. President, as to the Proclamation itself, I 
 express my surprise at the exposition of the law of nations, 
 given by the gentleman from Passaic. Does the gentleman 
 suppose that an enemy has the right to confiscate private 
 property within the invaded territory ? The reverse is as 
 old as the law of war itself. It is doubtless true that prop- 
 erty belonging to an enemy, found within the territory of a 
 belligerent, was formerly confiscated. If this country were 
 at war with Great Britain, private property belonging to an 
 enemy might have been confiscated under the old law, but 
 that law has been abandoned long ago. Private property 
 cannot be taken. Under the law as laid down by the Senator 
 from Passaic, to whom would the private property of the 
 
20 
 
 countries overrun hy Napoleon belong? What would have- 
 become of the private property in Mexico if that had been 
 the law? But, Sir, let me quote on authority bearing di- 
 rectly upon this point: John Quincy Adams, in 1812, being 
 Secretary of State, laid down this principle : They (the 
 British) had no right to make any such emancipation promises 
 to the negro. The principle is that the emancipation of the 
 enemy's slaves is not among the acts of legitimate war; as 
 relates to the owners it is a destruction of private property 
 nowhere warranted by the usage of war. No such right is 
 acknowledged as the law of war by writers who admit any 
 limitations. The right to put to death all prisoners in cold 
 blood, without special cause, might as well be pretended to 
 he a law of war, or the right to use poisoned weapons, or to 
 assassinate." 
 
 It seems to me tliat the Senator from Bergen is unfortunate 
 in his remarks as well as in his quotations. The Constitution 
 allows confiscation. The right to confiscate is derived from 
 a state of war. It is the right of war. It originates in the 
 principle of preservation. It is the means of weakening the 
 enemy and strengthening ourselves. The right of confisca- 
 tion belongs to the Government as the necessary power and 
 duty of making war offensive or defensive. Whiting on the 
 war poioer of the President, p. 52. Every capture of enemy's 
 ammunition or arms is in substance a confiscation, without 
 its formalities ; the exercise of this right has been sanctioned 
 by the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. 
 In the case of Cross et at v. Howard, it was clearly laid 
 down as the opinion of the Supreme Court, that the Presi- 
 dent of the United States, as Constitutional Commander-in 
 Chief of the Army and Navy, had the power to authorize 
 the military and naval commanders of the United Stptes' 
 forces in California to exercise the belligerent rights of a 
 conqueror, and to form a civil and military government for 
 the conquered territory; and that the formation of the civil 
 government in California, when it was done, was the lawful 
 exercise of a belligerent right over a conquered territory. 
 This, I contend, is a stronger case than can arise from the 
 state of the case which the resolutions before this house 
 would designate as " the subjugation of any of the Statea- 
 
21 
 
 with a view to their reduction to a territorial condition." 
 The United States had made a treaty of peace with Mexico. 
 By the conclusion of the treaty of peace, the military Gov- 
 ernment which was established over them under the laws of 
 war, as recognized by the practice of all civilized nations, 
 liad ceased to derive its authority from this source of power. 
 But was there, for this reason, no Government in California? 
 Are life, liberty, and property under the protection of no 
 existing authorities? Fortunately they are not reduced to 
 tliis sad condition. The termination of the war left an 
 •existing Government, a Government de facto, in full opera- 
 ration, and this will continue, with the presumed consent of 
 the people, until Congress shall provide for them a " Terri- 
 torial Government." The great law of necessity justifies 
 this conclusion. What necessity does the ex-President of 
 -the United States refer to, if not a legal and constitutional 
 necessity, whether you call it civil or military ? Here we 
 liave James K. Polk, James Buchanan, and Gen, Halleck, 
 then Secretary of War for the Territory of California, ap- 
 proving and sustaining the domination of the military over 
 the civil authority, and going so far as to sustain a pro- 
 visional civil government after the source of militar}' power 
 was exhausted. This law of necessity, founded on the laws 
 ■of nature and of nations, is not of recent origin, as the 
 •gentlemen on the other side maintain. In how much does 
 •our situation difler since 1847 ? Then was the Constitution 
 .strong enough to admit the conquest of California ; to allow 
 military authority, and after that the establishment of civil 
 authority, without any enactment of Congress. Now the 
 belligerent subjects who are traitors have levied war against 
 the Government under which they live. Can we enforce the 
 laws? — or, failing in that, can we subjugate the States in 
 which they live? (and for us this word " subjugation" has 
 fio terrors) and can we do it under powers granted by the 
 Constitution? We think so. Those who formed the Union 
 ;Eneant that it should be perpetual. Chief Justice Marshall 
 iBaid " Congress may pass such laws as it may deem neces- 
 
22 
 
 sary to carry into execution the great powers granted by 
 the Constitution." These powers ought to exist without;, 
 limitation, because it is impossible to foresee or define the 
 extent and variety of the national exigencies, and the cor- 
 respondent extent and variety of the means necessary to- 
 satisfy them. The mistake made by those who denounce a» 
 unconstitutional the vast powers conferred by Congress upon 
 the President is their failing to distinguish between the two> 
 classes of powers belonging to Congress and to the Execu- 
 tive, altogetiier difierent in their nature, and often incom- 
 patible with each other — the war power and the peace 
 power. The one is defined and restricted by the Constitu- 
 tion itself, the other, the war power, is limited only by the- 
 laws and usages of nations. The power is tremendous, but 
 it is constitutional ; and if need be, the liberties of the- 
 subject must be temporarily suspended, and that without 
 violence to civil liberty, if the necessities of the nation 
 require it. Rebels in front and in the rear of our armies- 
 understand this. The issue is made up. Two years we- 
 have trusted to the God of Battles, and we can still trust in 
 him, animated and sustained by the consciousness of the- 
 high trust given into our keeping by Liberty and Humanity. 
 It was in 1820 John Quincy Adams used the language' 
 attributed to him ; and if any gentleman will take occasion 
 to refer to The Congressional Globe (XXXIlId Congress,. 
 1841-42, vol. 11, p. 424), he will find that Mr. Adams uses 
 the following language concerning that statement: " It was' 
 utterly agaiust my judgment and wishes ; but I was obliged 
 to submit, and prepare the necessary despatches." Would* 
 you know what his sentiments, matured and solemnly pro- 
 nounced, are ? If so, read liis speech of the 2Gth of May,. 
 1836, in the House of Eeprcsentatives. He says in that 
 nervous English for which he was remarkable : 
 
 " I do not admit there is even among the peace powers of 
 Congress no such authority, but in war there are many ways> 
 T)y which Congress not only have the authority, but are 
 bound to interfere with tlie institution of Slavery in the 
 States. Do you imagine that vour Congress will have nQ> 
 
23 
 
 constitutional authority to interfere with the institution of 
 Slavery in any way in the States of this Confederacy ? Sir; 
 they must and will interfere with it, perhaps to sustain it by 
 war, perhaps to abolish it by treaties of peace; and they 
 will not only possess the constitutional power so to interfere, 
 but they will be bound in duty to do it by the express pro- 
 vision of the Constitution itself. From the instant that 
 your Slave-holding States become the theatre of war, civil, 
 servile, or foreign — from that instant the war power of 
 Congress extends to interfere with the institution of Slavery, 
 in every way by which it can be interfered with. * * ^^ 
 I lay this down as the law of nations. I sa}^ that military 
 authority takes, for the time, the place of all municipal 
 institutions, and Slavery amongst others; and that under 
 that state of things, so far from its being true that the State 
 Avhere Slavery exists has the exclusive management of the 
 subject, not only the President of the United States, but the 
 commander of the army has power to order the universal 
 emancipation of the slaves. I have given here more in 
 detail a principle vfhich I have asserted on this floor before 
 now, and of which I have no more doubt than that you, Sir, 
 occupy that chair." 
 
 Mr. Speaker, these are plain Vv'ords ; they are the de- 
 liberate utterance of a statesman. He is a free man whom 
 the truth makes free. The people of New Jersey have con- 
 quered their sterile soil — the white sails of our commerce 
 catch the favoring breath of every sea; but, Sir, the people 
 of New Jersey have yet to conquer their prejudices. When 
 shall we rise above the petty strife of partizans ? Why 
 quarrel about measures of policy when a common enemy is 
 at the throat of the nation, and that nation is struggling for 
 life ? And ye preachers of the gospel of peace, would yoti 
 waft back this accursed Rel)ellion with a strip of paper? 
 Will your talk about the Constitution bring back our heroic 
 dead, or will it save the living? Brave men have an in- 
 stinctive aversion for traitors and cowards, and they are 
 preparing to meet the new enemy in the rear as well as the 
 Rebel foe on our front. Sir, it is not yet two years since 
 that fatal shot was fired on that helpless garrison in Charles- 
 ton Harbor, and in those yea is how many have been the 
 eventful hours when " we could stretch an hour into eternity, 
 
24 
 
 01- crowd eternity into an hour !" We now stand at the very 
 crisis of our fate. If we are bold and vi,uilant and active, 
 the good ship will weather the storm. Cut we hear threats 
 of revolution in the North. From whom? From that 
 tender party of peace, who chose to lie partizans to do 
 Jefferson Davis' bidding-, rather than be patriots on the side 
 of the Union. They tell us that there must be a reconstruc- 
 tion on a new basis, leaving outside of this Vallandigham 
 Confederacy all agitation cf this Slavery question, and from 
 which New England must l.>e excluded ! Sir, these are only 
 new foes with old faces. Twenty-five years ago John Ran- 
 dolph of Eoanoke said, " To-day ! to-day ! let New England 
 be blotted out." Hodie ! Hodie I Carthago delenda est. 
 But, Sir, New England is not yet blotted out; while Vir- 
 ginia, the Mother of Presidents, and alas ! the parent of 
 Henry A. Wise, is a howling wilderness — part of whose 
 rich and cultivated fields have been seven times despoiled 
 by our advancing and retreating hosts. God takes care of 
 his universe, and while we cannot nnderstand all the prob- 
 lems which surround tliis momentous and terrible struggle, 
 it is enough for ns to know that God's purpose is over it all, 
 and that these peace patriots may as well hold up their 
 printed resolutions before the lightnings of heaven as to stay 
 the tide of this righteous war. We must meet the Slavejy 
 question like men. And I do not envy the head or the heart 
 of that man who will pander to the passions of the populace 
 and rise into place by appealing to prejudices against an 
 inferior race. Sir, what right has Slavery to come begging 
 and fawning at the feet of Civilization ? The Senator from 
 Bergen quotes Douglas now, Mhom he persecuted when 
 alive, by saying that this is a Government for white men. 
 We admit it. We do not believe that thirty millions of the 
 Anglo-Saxon race must yield this continent to the black 
 man, but we might as well admit that the negro has rights 
 which white men are bound to respect. Justice Taney to the 
 contrary notwithstanding. But as well might Charles 
 JjCwis, with hands dripping in t!io ItJood of liis unoiTending 
 
or, 
 
 victim, plead, as a reason why sentence of death should not 
 be passed aorainst him, that the Declaration of Independence 
 gives to every man his right to life, liberty and the pursuit 
 of happiness, as for Slavery, having slain our sons, to ask 
 leave to step over our border and desolate our Territories, 
 now free from its devastations and villainies. My creed on 
 this question is simply this, all things should be subordinate 
 to the Union. If Slavery stands in the way of the Union, let 
 it share the fortunes or the fate of war. Mr. »Speaker, I am 
 not unmindful oi the advice of Demosthenes to the Athenians 
 when he told them there was one common bulwark which 
 only the prudent employ, distrust of the enemy : " Of this 
 be mindful — to this adhere, and no calamity can befall you." 
 Sir, I distrust the efforts of those architects of ruin who steal 
 the livery of Democracy to serve the devil in ! 1 distrust 
 the editors of such papers as The JVew York World, The 
 Herald, and The True American, whose editor shed an 
 abundance of ink in behalf of the injuries inflicted upon the 
 writ of Habeas Corpus, but object to the effusion of a drop 
 of blood on behalf of an imperilled country. The editor of 
 the last named paper, an influential leader of the party 
 which now controls the destinies of the State, wrote, Nov, 
 26th, 1861, that he had received from Charleston, South Caro- 
 lina, a rosette of sky-blue silk, tastefully quilled with these 
 words, " Three Cheers for 'Sqv^ Jersey." If these resolu- 
 tions pass, the venerable wheel-horse, or war-horse of 
 Democracy, as it is, had better write over his rosette, 
 "Three Groans for New Jersey." Discarding all personal 
 feeling, if I ever entertained any, and recognizing in many 
 of them the social virtues which adorn society, I cannot but 
 regard, with rare exceptions, the leaders of the dominant 
 party in New Jersey as enemies of their Government and 
 false to their country. Through the press and on the public 
 hustings they proclaim or insinuate that there will be revo- 
 lution at home if the Conscription act is executed in New 
 Jersey. Sir, I have thought much and anxiously, and in 
 silence — when the conscience tells us life should " soar to 
 
26 
 
 nobler ends thnn power" — about the dangers which threaten 
 our Republic; but at no time have 1 suffered myself to be 
 alarmed. My faith is in the intelligence, the integrity, and 
 the patriotism of the })cople ; and when the hour of danger 
 shall arrive, they will come to the rescue. As for myself, I 
 hope that the flag of my country, which floated over my 
 cradle may float over my grave. If traitors at home mean 
 treason, the sooner we know it the better; and I say, "let 
 them come on,'' for if we cannot protect the honor of our 
 State we are unflt to enjoy the blessing of liberty. But 
 what do the peace men i)ropose to do with the resolutions 
 offered to the House with the solemn protest made " unto 
 the Federal Government?" The only response I have yet 
 heard made to this inquiry was made by one of the speakers 
 in these words: " There can be," he said, " no harm in their 
 passage and there may lie a great deal of good." This, Sir, 
 which seems to me to be an answer on the lucus a non 
 lucendo principle, is the only light that has yet been given 
 to this house. Sir, who has told us why we should ask 
 peace ? True one liundrcd thousand as brave men as ever 
 stood in the front of battle have fallen victims to gratify the 
 rapacity of Jefibrson Davis. It is true we are burdened 
 w^ith debt, but loyal men everywhere I)ear their burdens 
 without repining, and their prayers go up day and night for 
 the perpetuity of our Government. Not two years ago the 
 Legislature, by a unanimous vote, passed among other 
 things, the following resolution : 
 
 ^'■Resolved, That firmly believing " that the preservation 
 of our National Union is the only security for the rights, 
 liberties and power of our own people, and the great hope 
 of oppressed humanity thi-oughout the world, we call upon 
 the National Government to put forth at once every energy 
 of which it is capable to preserve the National Union and 
 enforce obedience to the laws of the land in every point of 
 the Union, being inflexibly resolved that Bunker Hill and 
 New York and New Orleans shall never be dissevered; and 
 believing from the teaching of all history, that the most 
 certain and speedy way of restoring peace is by the most 
 vigorous prosecution of the war." 
 
27 
 
 These I know were the sentiments of the great leader of ar 
 once pr^ud party. Did these sentiments die with him ? As; 
 if Providence still extends his shelter over this suflcring 
 country, he still binds together New Orleans and New 
 York, and united by railways and telegraph, we hnd the 
 home of liberty and the grave of Washington. Man changes 
 but principles are eternal. The principles enunciated in- 
 that resolution will stand the test of talents and of time- 
 Compare them with Protest No. 7, of the late peace resolu- 
 tion " Against the power assumed in the proclamation of the 
 President, made Jan. 1, 1863, by which all the slaves m 
 certain States and parts of States are forever set free, and 
 against the expenditure of the public moneys for the emanci- 
 pation of slaves or their support at any time, under any 
 pretence whatever." The record of the party in power is 
 this: In 1861, in the month of May, they call upon the 
 National Government to put forth every energy to enforce 
 obedience to the laws and to put down rebellion. In August, 
 1862, the same party, at Trenton, in the fourth resolution of 
 their platform, enter their solemn protest " against the reck- 
 less extravagance, infamous peculations, and political out- 
 rages of the party in power," but in the next line '• advocates 
 the use of every Constitutional means to the extent of the 
 full power of the Government for the suppression of the 
 Rebellion." O, graceful preachers of peace ! 0, immacu- 
 late patriots ! what cliange has come over the spirit of your 
 dreams? I have looked in vain from the first line to tlie 
 last Resolution of tliese solemn protests " made unto the 
 Federal Government," and find nothing urging the full 
 power to crush the Rebellion. Sir, it seems to me as if in 
 August the Peace party did not know how far the audacity 
 of Secession, under the guise of State Rights, might go. But, 
 the first step taken, the poet says, the descent into hell is 
 easy! The French say, " It is the first step which costs:"' 
 and who is astonished that the audacity which offered the 
 Holsman resolutions has culminated in bending low upon its 
 knee with the request that Abraham Lincoln will allow this: 
 
28 
 
 party of peace to humiliate themselves before a perjured 
 traitor, after seeking his presence in the citj of Richmond. 
 Since James Buchanan was false to the liberties of the 
 people. I know of nothino; so humiliating as the position in 
 which the party in power seek to place New Jersey, by 
 abandoning the pledges solemnly made and reiterated in 
 every township and village of the State prior to the election 
 of November last. Resolution 4th says that Democracy is 
 actuated by no *' lurking animosity to the South." I do not 
 apprehend that such a charge would be seriously made 
 against the peace party. If they rec^uire it we fully exon- 
 erate them from such accusation. For, does not the House 
 remember that Brigadier General Runyon and four others 
 were willing, under '• proper safeguards," to seek Jefferson 
 Davis, not with " lurking animosity,"'' but on the contrary 
 with open expression of their distinguished consideration. 
 In my mind's eye 1 see them now. This mournful cortege 
 has passed the Rappahannock ; the live Commissioners, sore 
 and travel-stained, wait with appropriate humility before 
 the city where dwells the Imperial Caesar of the Southern 
 Confederacy. They are admitted to an audience, and ask 
 that the aegis of the Afontgomery Constitution may be ex- 
 tended over the North. JJut their cup of bitterness is not 
 full. Twelve hours are granted in which they must leave 
 the domain of the Satrap of Slavery, or suffer the penalty of 
 being executed, like Faganini's music, on a single string! 
 Again may the brave Brigadier be seen, with mournful cor- 
 tege, beside the bank of the Rappahannock, bidding adieu 
 to Southern institutions, solaced with the reflection that 
 
 " It is better to have loved and lost 
 Than never to have loved at all." 
 
 The Senator from Morris, for whom I have always enter- 
 tained a high respect, said that it would be better for the 
 country if we had less of John Brown and more of Me- 
 Clellan. Let me answer with a counter proposition. The 
 ^Stuarts used to sigh for an hour of Dundee, and 1 have 
 heard our soldiers say, " Oh, for one year of Fhilip Kearney!" 
 
29 
 
 And can we forget that passionate conscience of genius 
 which felt his country's danger, and knew so well the duty 
 of a soldier. Can we forget when Magruder hurled ten 
 thousand Rebels against the Spartan phalanx of our Union 
 soldiery ; when the enemy melted like snow before the morn- 
 ing sun, and when the order was, not to advance into Rich- 
 mond, but to retreat, that the hero of Chantilly said "This 
 is cowardice, or treason," The Senator has also prepared 
 an indictment against Abraham Lincoln. He seemed to 
 think that the President had changed his policy in regard to 
 emancipation, and defiantly called on any one to explain the 
 argument the President had with the Chicago delegation, 
 in which he said " the Proclamation would be the Pope's 
 bull against the comet." Will the Senator from Morris re- 
 member that the President is an Illinois lawyer ; that he 
 argued the question on both sides, and concluded with the 
 remark that, whatever seemed the leading of Divine Provi- 
 dence, that course he would pursue, and acting as a states- 
 man who knows the value of '' self-knowledge, self-reverence, 
 and self-respect," when the final triumph of our cause seemed 
 still distant, trusting to the '■ considerate judgment of man- 
 kind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God," he issued 
 that Proclamation which will liberate this continent from a 
 remorseless despotism, and will yet place the President in 
 the front rank of men who, recognizing the invisible princi- 
 ples of eternal justice, stand between a nation and perdi- 
 tion. The Senator from Morris appeared for the prosecu- 
 tion but his argument speaks for the defence ; he had better 
 enter a nolle prosequi on his indictment. But let us pause a 
 moment to touch another picture. It is one, only one, among 
 ten thousand : 
 
 Trace back to Charlemagne the annals of chivalry, and 
 you will find among the Christian Knights no record of 
 endurance more heroic, of vigils more patiently kept than 
 those which have marked the whole history of our sad and 
 glorious struggle. I had a friend, a colonel of cavalry in a 
 
30 
 
 •regiment from Ohio.* He possessed ancestral wealth, but 
 was far richer in an openness of soul and a graciousness of 
 manner which endeared him to all who approached. Culture 
 liad done much for him. and to refinement of nature was 
 added a temper full of sweetness and light. He was as 
 brave as Coeur de Leon. 
 
 He was urged to return, for a l>rief period, before the fight 
 at Murfreesboro, Tennessee. His answer, written on the eve 
 of that great battle was — "It were better that I lie buried 
 {or unburied) in these desolate fields rather than it should 
 be said of me, ' He did not dare to do his duty.' " In the 
 wild charge they made, just when the victory was won he 
 fell in a hand to hand fight with five of the Rebel cavalry — 
 resigned in death — and his latest words breathing solicitude 
 for the future of his country and tenderness for those he was 
 about to leave for ever. 
 
 While our slaughtered brethren are unavenged; while the 
 stain of dishonor, written over the flag which has trium- 
 phantly waved over a thousand fields, written by the rattle- 
 snake-braves of South Carolina, still clings to it, let that man 
 be accursed who breathes of peace. But rather let us pledge 
 again, as our fathers did, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred 
 honors, that we will not turn to the right or to the left till the 
 advancing flag of the victorious nation waves resistlessly over 
 every hill top and valley wrested from us by this remorseless 
 rebellion ! And if red-handed treason pleads for the Con- 
 fititution, let her lay down her arms that are pointed at the 
 breast of the Republic. As to compromise, it will not be so 
 much as named among us. Patriotism is not a sentiment; 
 it is a principle, and its foundation is virtue. Adversity tries 
 nations as well as individuals, and if this nation is saved it 
 will be "so as by fire." A word about the writ of habeas 
 corpus, in States and Territories sustaining the Federal Gov- 
 ernment where the public safety does not require it. Now, 
 the Constitution, Art. 1, Sec. 9, No. 2, says : "The provisions 
 of the act shall not be suspended, unless when in case of 
 
 *Col. .J. Minor Milliken, of Hamilton, Ohio. 
 
31 
 
 rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.'' I 
 know that it has been held that the proclamation of martial 
 law by a military officer is not sufficient; but I also know 
 that it has been held, in an elaborate opinion of the Attorney- 
 General of the United States, and by other Attorneys- 
 General before him, " that the President of the United States, 
 without an act of the Legislature, has power to suspend the 
 writ of habeas corpus.^' I have confidence in the chief law 
 officer of the Government, and 1 have faith in the integrity 
 and the honesty of purpose which are distinguishing char- 
 acteristics of Abraham Lincoln. It is well to remember that 
 the liberties of Rome were crushed in the iron hand of Ccesar, 
 and when Cataline and the worst citizens conspired against 
 Rome, Cicero and the best saved the Imperial City. Civil 
 liberty, as opposed to natural liberty, is the not being re- 
 strained by any law except those which, in a greater degree, 
 conduce to the welfare of mankind. It is the liberty of a 
 man in a state of society, or natural liberty so far only 
 abridged and restrained as is necessary and expedient for 
 the safety and interest of the society, State, or Nation. Ac- 
 cording to a distinguished statesman of England, government 
 without liberty degenerates into tyranny, and liberty with- 
 out good government becomes license. Good government 
 and legal liberty depend the one upon the other. Kow, if 
 society has no power to protect itself from treason, and 
 against traitors, then civil society is at an end. Justice, 
 which resides between the "endless jar" of right and wrong, 
 loses its name. There is, Sir, no danger that this nation will 
 die of tyranny, unless it be the tyranny of Jefferson Davis. 
 The American idea is to make politics moral by unity with 
 natural justice, a foundation on which a nation can rest as 
 long as the everlasting hills endure. What the nation suffers 
 from is the excess of lil)erty. When the Commons of Eng- 
 land could say to their King, " You are our servant," then 
 the Temple of Liberty was completed. Abraham Lincoln is 
 to-day the servant of the people, and cannot fire a gun, or 
 hang a traitor, without a Congress, which comes from the 
 
 s 
 
people. If the President, as Commander-in-Chief of our 
 armies and navies, desire to "ensure domestic tranquility,"' 
 how is he to do it ? One hundred thousand men advance 
 from Richmond, and are thundering at the gates of the 
 capital. -Traitors and spies invest every city of the North, 
 and the intelligence meant for our armies reaches Eich- 
 mond before the General-in-Chief has any news. You say 
 the judges are pure and the Courts are open — so they may 
 be — the prisoner enters bail, and a partisan jury, as in Indi- 
 ana, disagree or acquit. Do you tell me, then, that the war 
 powers of the President extend no further than in times of 
 peace? Those who so hold, are apt to regard the life or 
 liberty of a traitor as of more value than the safety of the 
 hation. I was elected to this House upon the clearly-enun- 
 ciated proposition that the arrest of men suspected of treason, 
 men deemed to be public enemies, was a just exercise of the 
 war powers of the President, and I do not propose now to 
 recede from that ground, which I believe returning reason 
 will say is safe and sufficiently coiiservative. Unwise arrests 
 have been made, and, in some instances, injuries may have 
 been inflicted, but I believe that such instances are the ex- 
 ceptions. The "safety of the Republic is the supreme law." 
 I am willing to leave the whole question of "arbitrary 
 arrests" to the President, believing that he means, and has 
 meant, in every act of his official life, to make "power gentle 
 and obedience liberal." Sir ! in the luminous future I track 
 the giant march of freedom; well I know, when once begun, 
 that onward march knows no retreat. The heroic spirit of 
 the slumbering dead lives again in far off Missouri, and 1 
 see the shackels of the slave shivered from his limbs, while 
 from State to State — through storm and tempest — through 
 blood and tears— the spirit of Liberty holds its resistless 
 way, striking the corrupt politician and the slaveholding 
 tyrant together to the dust ; evoking from the ruins of stately 
 cities — from the untold horrors of the battle-field — sacred 
 religion and immortal Liberty, and proclaiming in tones that 
 pierce the ears of a waiting world, that the majesty of the 
 
law must bo vindicated. I know that some wait for the 
 nation and its President to retrace their advancing steps. 
 Let them not be deceived ! Vestigia nulla retrorsum is the 
 motto of advancing civilization. If I read history aright, 
 when Constantinople fell the last of the Csesars folded around 
 him the imperial mantle and remembered the names which 
 he represented in the dignity of heroic death. Better that 
 the Presidenl of a free people, like the last of the Caesars, 
 dignify the last hours of a noble Republic by his courage and 
 magnanimity than to take one step backward. Waterloo, 
 says Victor Hugo, was a change of front of the universe — 
 but when the last best hope of freedom goes out, there will 
 be a sadder and more fearful change of front for the universe. 
 But, Sir, so strong is my fiiith in the people, whose hearts 
 throb for the Union, that 1 cannot believe it will be said of 
 America as was once said of Switzerland, " She has nothing 
 left but her rocks, her ruins, and her demagogues." The 
 nation will live. The patriot fires of the Revolution are 
 kindling from Maine to California. Let us be equal to our 
 destiny, and leave the issue, after our duty is done, to the 
 God of Battles. I have spoken the sentiments of my heart, 
 and, as I believe, the sentiments of a loyal and fearless con- 
 stituency. If the melancholy trial be forced upon us, which 
 will decide whether the Spirit of Faction is paramount to 
 Nationality and stronger than the Spirit of Liberty, I hope, 
 for one, that I shall be equal to the test. But if the black 
 banner of despotism floats over the Capitol of New Jersey, 
 I shall not despair. If our generation is not equal to the 
 high destiny God offers this nation — if we lay down our 
 arms, as these resolutions ignominiously ask, then Freedom's 
 battle will be bequeathed from sire to son; another and a 
 nobler generation will take up the banner of Constitutional 
 and Republican Liberty where we have laid it down, and by 
 victorious peace build a Republic forever on the imperisliable 
 principles of Justice. 
 
NEW JERSEY FOR THE UNION, 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE NEW JERSEY SENATE, MARCH 16, 18G4. 
 
 Upon the Bill jjrohibitifig the eiilistment of Colored Troops 
 
 in the State, under penalty of $500 fine, or l^iprisonment 
 
 for five years. 
 
 Mr. President : A year ago I stood in the lower House 
 of this Legislature, in opposition to the peace resolutions 
 offered and advocated by a majority of the Senators upon 
 this floor. These resolutions sought to purchase peace at 
 the price of our national honor. These resolutions, about 
 which the dominant party in the Senate have observed a 
 silence at once ominous and remarkable, united the morality 
 of Louis Napoleon with the language of Machiavelli. They 
 trifled with the conscience of the State as the rebellion has 
 sought to trifle with the conscience of the nation ; for when 
 Chief Justice Taney announced from the highest court in 
 the land that the everlasting curse of human bondage was 
 the supreme law, before which absolute justice must bend 
 and break, then the great popular heart stirred to its depth, 
 and conscience, with so delicate a voice that it is often 
 stifled, spoke in so clear a tone that its accents could neither 
 be mistaken nor its mandates disobeyed. 
 
 Some of us came up slowly to the help of the Lord against 
 the mighty. Mental servitude had become an attribute of 
 
the North as much as bodily scryitudc was the institution of 
 tlie South, till, with as much wit as truth, a son of New 
 England said, replying to Daniel Webster, " Yes, there is 
 no North; it is tlie South all the way up to Cayiada!'' 
 
 Soon it. peraieated the minds of the people that when a 
 Chief Justice said, in the latitude of Washington city, " that 
 a negro had no rights which a white man was bound to 
 respect,'' the true intent and meaning of such language in 
 the atmosphere of Charleston was, that "no Northern 
 mudsill has any right which a Southern gentleman is bound 
 to respect." Then the shotted guns of Sumter opened, 
 while manhood and moral courage took the place in the 
 mind and heart of the American people, of concession and 
 pusillanimity. 
 
 We have refused allegiance to our principles ; we have 
 refused to pay the price of national honor and virtue ; and 
 we are sued in the courts of destiny, and the case is this day 
 on trial. And I need not speak of the eagerness with which 
 the eyes of Europe are turned towards America — that land 
 which a distinguished Englishman says " privilege every 
 morning, with blatant breath, begins to curse because it 
 dares to be prosperous and happy without a monarchy, 
 without an aristocracy, and without a priesthood, who arc 
 the licensed venders of salvation wrought by love.*' 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I confess the hesitation with whicli I ap- 
 proach the discussion of this bill, which is now before the 
 Senate. My only desire is to proclaim those sentiments of 
 future policy which I believe are intimately connected with 
 the future glory of our country. And, Sir, I trust that J 
 belong to that class who believe tlie greatest glory of a free 
 man is to be a good citizen. And a good citizen prefers 
 liberty to luxury, and honor to profit. He holds that, next 
 to dying for one's country, the greatest glory is to live for 
 her interest and her honor. I have no aspirations, no am- 
 bitions, which do not go forward in longing for that peace 
 which shall daw^n upon the end of this terrible and rightcoup- 
 
37 
 
 ■war, a peace wliicli, in the language of Abraham Lincoln, 
 *' I hope may come soon, and when it does come will come 
 to stay, and will be worth the keeping." 
 
 Whenever I look upon that flag, Sir, with every impulse 
 of my heart there rises a sentiment of affection and of honor. 
 1 know that God has given the country to men who can 
 defend it, and to women who, in its service, consent to the 
 sacrifice of their husbands, their brothers and their sons. 
 And the man, whoever he is, and whatever place he may fill, 
 who will not protect and defend tlie land that gave him 
 birth, is a dastard and a coward. 
 
 The bill before the Senate. Mr. President, is entitled '* An 
 act to regulate the appropriation of moneys raised by the 
 authority of this State, for war purposes." I frankly con- 
 fess that I differ from my honorable friend, the Senator from 
 Union (Mr. Jenkins), in the views he entertains for the 
 causes and conduct of the war. General sagacity and up- 
 rightness cannot contend against the prejudices among 
 which a man is born, which are the breath of his nostrils to 
 him. As God has no attribute which sides with the op- 
 pressor, so man ennobles himself by becoming the advocate 
 ■of the oppressed. Bishop Hopkins may thunder in a small 
 way to a very select audience that slavery is a divine insti- 
 tution, and compel his auditors to bow down to the narrow- 
 est interpretation of individual texts. But the heart relying 
 on the spirit of Scripture still whispers what every grand 
 thinker the world has ever produced boldly proclaims — that 
 all men everywhere ought to he free. 
 
 You cannot make science utter a lie in the face of the 
 universe, and declare that the sun moves round the earth 
 and the earth stands still. The terrors of the Inquisition 
 are nothing, and Galileo whispers " E pur si muove." It 
 does move, though. 
 
 Aye ! And New Jersey moves. Only a year ago we 
 were threatened with revolution in the North if a single 
 soldier who wag not a white citizen should enlist and fi2:ht 
 
38 
 
 against "slavery in arms.'' And now a single township in 
 the county of Warren has paid ten thousand dollars for 
 bounties to colored soldiers ; and not less than three thou- 
 sand black soldiers have left New Jersey to revenge their 
 slaughtered brothers at Wagner, Port Hudson and at Vicks- 
 burg. Aye ! Even New Jersey moves. 
 
 Never again will an insolent majority on bended knees 
 supplicate for peace, and herald to all the world that this 
 war for law, for liberty and for humanity is " causeless in 
 its origin, and dangerous to the liberties of the people."* 
 Never again will men oflFer upon the floor of this Senate to 
 join any of the sister States of the Union to carry into 
 practical effect a war upon the Federal Government. 
 
 So wide spread and so thorough was the delusion in this 
 regard in the remnant of the Democratic party, that they 
 unconsciously became the apologists and defenders of human 
 bondage and its villainies. 
 
 We find the present Executive of this State declaring in 
 his inaugural address, (page 14, 1863): We are told that the 
 belief that slavery is the cause of the war, and that the war 
 can never cease and the life of the nation be preserved until 
 slavery be abolished, has led to a departure from the- 
 original purpose of the war. This is the radical error of the 
 Emancipationists. Slavery is no more the cause of the war 
 than gold is the cause of robbery and murder. 
 
 Compare this with the avowal of Alexander H. Stephens, 
 the associate of Jefierson Davis, in a speech delivered in 
 Savanuah, on the 21st of March, 1861. He says: "The 
 new Constitution has put to rest forever all the agitating 
 questions relating to our peculiar institutions. African 
 slavery, as it exists among us, is the proper status of the 
 negro in our form of civilization. Tms was the immediate 
 
 CAUSE OF THE LATE RUPTURE AND THE PRESENT REVOLUTION." 
 
 Between such eminent advocates of slavery as the Governor 
 of New Jersey and the Vice President of a moribund Con- 
 federacy, who shall decide ? 
 
 *Peace Resolution No. 3. 
 
39 
 
 Outside of this State, and excepting the city of New York, 
 1 do not know where it is seriously contended that *' abo- 
 litionism and secessionism " were the cause of the war. Yet 
 such was the opinion deliberately expressed by Joel Parker 
 in his inaugural address in 1863, and boldly avowed in his 
 annual message of January 12th, 1864. He thinks, too, 
 that if the policy of emancipation had not been inaugurated, 
 the mass of the people in some of the Southern States would 
 have " supplanted their rulers and returned to their alle- 
 giance." A greater fallacy was never uttered. Let Mary- 
 land and Missouri and Arkansas answer, where you cannot 
 iind any fugitive slaves, but where fugitive masters abound. 
 There, where wisdom has been born of this terrible contest, 
 they hold that slavery, like Achan's wedge of gold, is an 
 accursed thing, and they gladly tear down the rebel banner 
 and run up " our beautiful flag." 
 
 But in Kentucky, where neutrality prevailed — and neu- 
 trality in a struggle between freedom and barbarism is a 
 monstrosity — where neutrality prevailed, we now find Gov- 
 ernor Bramlette threatening to resist the enlistment of 
 negroes as soldiers. Kentucky answers New Jersey while 
 South Carolina applauds ! 
 
 And I venture the assertion that outside the rebel lines 
 there is no Legislature that dares to defy the Federal Gov- 
 ernment by passing so iniquitous a measure as the one under 
 consideration, unless it be the Legislature of the State of 
 New Jersey. No man whose heart is with his country can 
 read the bill without condemning it. It provides, " That 
 from and after the passage of the act it shall not be lawful 
 for any part of the moneys now raised, or which may be 
 hereafter raised for war purposes, to be used for the employ- 
 ment of negroes as soldiers; and any one offending against 
 the provisions of this act shall, for each and every offence, 
 upon conviction, be subject to a fine of not less than five 
 hundred dollars, and imprisonment for a term of not less 
 than five years.'' 
 
40 
 
 And I would be glad to know whether this bill meets the 
 approval of the Governor of New Jersey. When such a 
 measure was proposed for the county of Union, I said that 
 the policy of negro enlistment under the laws of the United 
 States had met the sanction of the Executive of this State. 
 1 was glad to credit him with sustaining- the Government 
 after his own fashion. I appreciate the social virtuea of 
 Joel Parker, but I am not bound to admire that easy political 
 virtue which writes a sympathizing letter to a Yallandigham 
 meeting, declares against the suspension of the writ of habeas 
 corpus, and says in the face of a popular majority of nearly 
 two hundred thousand, that the Proclamation of Emancipa- 
 tion is a mistake, intimates that it is unconstitutional, and 
 ends l)y declaring it an ''obstacle in the way of peace." Sir! 
 We have had too much of this style of supporting the Gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 New Jei-sey, to-day, is full of Union men with Confederate 
 principles. Like the Cavaliers in the days of the Pretender, 
 they hold their wine glasses over their water glasses, and 
 drink " to the King " — over the water. They say, (these half- 
 hearted Union men), 
 
 " God ble?9 tlie Ejug, God blees the faith's defender, 
 The Devil take the Pope and the Pretender; 
 But who the Pretender is, and who King, — 
 God bless us all, — is quite another thing." 
 
 I charge now, as I have charged before, that the Governor 
 of New Jersey was elected in the interest of slavery, and 
 that Democracy, as oSicered and manned in New Jersey, is 
 in sympathy with treason and rebellion. 
 
 If you decorate your Senate Chamber with an American 
 flag, a State flag must be elevated beside it. The doctrine 
 of State rights, a political falsehood, and a delusion, is boldly 
 proclaimed as part of the new gospel of peace. Three 
 weeks since, the Senator from Bergen (Mr. flolsman) declared 
 himself in favor of a vigorous prosecution of the war, and I 
 congratulated the Senate that since he was in fiivor, now, of 
 a war with white men, in the next year he would be 
 
41 
 
 eloquently for carrying the war into Afi-ica, icith Africans.* 
 But, Sir, the Peace Committee met at the New York Hotel, 
 on the 22d day of February, desecrating tlie anniversary 
 day that gave birth to George Washington, and since then 
 the Senator from Bergen, in almost the identical language of 
 the pronunciamento of the Rebel Congress, declares that he 
 is now, and has been since the firing upon Fort Sumter, 
 against the war. My accusation against " Democracy as it 
 is," hath this extent. It is without honest purpose or prin- 
 ciple. If it pretends to be for the war in Pennsylvania, it 
 is for peace in New Jersey. And when General Lee was 
 marching through the beautiful and fertile valley of the 
 Cumberland up to Harrisburg, the Democratic party was 
 joyously assembling in the State Capital of Pennsylvania, to 
 nominate George H. Woodward, who said "it was a sin to 
 think against slavery," and that the time must come wheo 
 the South could fall back upon her natural rights, and use 
 all the means she possesses, or could command, in defence of 
 her soil. No wonder that General Lee hastened to ratify a 
 nomination so opportunely made ! No wonder a single voice 
 was not raised in that convention which found the latitude 
 of Harrisburg suggestive of shot and shell. And it is not 
 singular that a retired Major General, in the U. S. Army, 
 who would make a " capital engineer for a stationary power," 
 wrote his distinguished considerations on the eve of a most 
 significant election, to Mr. Woodward, who believed that 
 "slavery was a blessing !" 
 
 And, while this subject is in my memory, let me say that 
 the saddest sight that my eyes ever beheld was the sight of 
 the weary thousands who tlironged the bridge across the 
 
 'In appreciation of Mr. Scovel's consistent elTorts on behalf of the 
 colored race, he was presentad with a cosily and beautiful silk American 
 flag, inscribed on the one side — 
 
 " We repose faith in God : To our country we are irue : TVe make no 
 distinction of Races." 
 
 On the reverse — 
 
 "Presented to the Hon. James M. Scovel by the African American 
 citizens of Camden couatr, N. J., Dec. 201,h, 18ti(i." — II. H. D. 
 
42 
 
 Susquehanna, on the 19th day of June, in the year of grace 
 1863 ; old men, tender women, and helpless children, for the 
 first time in their lives aliens to their hearths and home- 
 steads, they had gathered together their household gods, and 
 sought shelter from the Goths and Vandals of barbarism — 
 sought shelter and protection on the peaceful banks of the 
 Juniata. The recollections of these scenes can never be 
 effaced, and till they have passed from my mind, let no more 
 ask me to pause in my efforts to point to my countrymen the 
 perils which threaten the republic. One of the finest passages 
 in Roman history tells us that after the battle of Cannae, 
 when disaster and defeat had followed the Roman general, 
 the Senate went beyond the wails of the imperial city to 
 thank their general that he had not despaired of the republic. 
 To that man who would stop the victorious banners of the 
 armies of the Union, by cavilling at the proclamation of 
 emancipation, I would answer that it was six months after 
 the head of the nation had invoked the "considerate judg- 
 ment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God," 
 on that proclamation, before — standing by the unnumbered 
 graves of our dead in the nation's cemetery — we could say, 
 "of the two great efforts to enslave the English race in body 
 and mind, the first met its grave at Marston Moor, the second 
 at Gettysburg." 
 
 But to return to the political decline and fall of New Jer- 
 sey. In 1849 both Houses of this Legislature, by joint reso- 
 lution, declared slavery to be an evil, and instructed our 
 Senators and Representatives in Congress to vote against the 
 extension of human bondage in the Territories. {Pamph. 
 Laws, p. 334, 1 849.) But soon the leading politicians who 
 represented the dominant power became — by social ties, or 
 by the powerful influence of interest — wedded to the cause 
 of slavery. New Jersey became pro-slavery in sentiment, 
 or at least, the dominant party were for slavery rather than 
 for the Union. 
 
 It sent Senators to Con<2:ress who defended the institution. 
 
43 
 
 It sent members to the lower House who worshipped at the 
 shrine of Jefferson Davis — then, as now, the leading spirit 
 of Southern aggression. 
 
 A monster monopoly, which subsidized newspapers, and 
 treated the consciences of legislators as a merchantable 
 article — a corrupt corporation, which may yet learn that 
 "corruption wins not more than honesty" — aided and abetted 
 this spirit of pro-slavery fanaticism. A man who was for 
 liberty, and against the despotism of men who called them- 
 selves the "master race," was ostracised in private and in 
 public life. 
 
 It was during the time when James Buchanan made Le- 
 compton a test. He and his viceroys made power tyranny, 
 and they made tyranny contemptible. I then felt as I now 
 feel — that obedience to such behests was a crime. 
 
 I declared in 1858 that if the creed of Buchanan on the 
 Kansas question became the policy of New Jersey, and in 
 the country, the Democratic party would become a political 
 and moral abomination. 
 
 The money power and the slave power triumphed, and 
 controlled the Democracy in the district in which I resided. 
 The Kansas candidate, who believed in Buchanan, was nomi- 
 nated and defeated. 
 
 I said, in the Philadelphia Press of October lOtli, 1858: 
 " The man -who is chosen to bear the Democratic standard 
 this fall must bend to the auti-Lecompton sentiment; the 
 principle will not bend to him, and no shifting or truckling 
 on that question will satisfy the people or subdue the voters 
 of the First District, and woe be to the candidate for Con- 
 gressional honors who has already pledged himself against 
 the double-dealing of a treacherous Administration and has 
 then turned back." 
 
 From that day to this I have been in undying hostility ta 
 that sort of Democracy which hates liberty, loves slavery, 
 and would rather celebrate the funeral rites of constitutional 
 liberty amid the incantations and orgies of Secession and 
 
44 
 
 Rebellion, than see the triumphant advance of civilization 
 which strikes the shackles from the slave and tells the op- 
 pressed to go free. 
 
 Since 1860, the history of New Jersey has been written 
 so that all the world has read it. I yield, Sir, to no Senator 
 on this floor in regard for the honor of New Jersey — dearer 
 to me than life itself. For her I have labored, for her I have 
 •made sacrifices which it docs not become me here to narrate, 
 and for her future destiny I shall do battle with my latest 
 breath, hoping — aye, and praying — that she may yet be free. 
 But, Sir, and I say it with shame, the political history of this 
 State for three years is one of which no patriot can be proud, 
 save as its darker lines are made glorious and lustrous by 
 the deathless courage of New Jersey soldiers, who have 
 made crimson on every battle field from Roanoke to Gettys- 
 burg, with their biood, the banner of victory. 
 
 Mr. President, I am charged with being political, rather 
 than argumentative. But, Sir, this is a political question ; 
 it is a capital cause we are trying. The nation is on trial 
 for its life. 'J'he Democratic party has already been tried 
 and condemned. Has it anything to say why sentence of 
 death should not l)e pronounced against it? I pause for a 
 reply. Who are its advocates ? Is it the sage of Monticello, 
 Thomas Jefferson — a Virginian when Virginia was the 
 mother of Presidents, and not the grave of Northern patriots? 
 No. Who is it, then, who cometh with dyed garments to 
 defend "Democracy as it is?" Ah! Now I behold the 
 melancholy procession ! At its head I do not find the sage 
 of Monticello, or the "War Horse of the Hermitage," but I 
 behold Chauncey Burr, the Senator from Bergen (Mr. Hols- 
 man), and David Naar ! 
 
 And now, Sir, a few words upon this measure, which I 
 understand has the sanction of the Democratic caucus, and I 
 have done. I oppose the bill because — 
 
 First. It contravenes the laws of Congress. 
 
 Second. Because it is against public policy and against the 
 righta of mankind. 
 
45 
 
 The laws of Congress passed in and since the year 1862, 
 authorize the President to enroll, arm, equip, and to receive 
 into the land and naval service of the United States such 
 number of volunteers of African descent as he may deem 
 useful to suppress the present rebellion, for such term as he 
 may prescribe. 
 
 Under and by virtue of these several acts of Congress, as 
 I am informed by the chairman of the Military Committee 
 of the United States, 80,000 colored men, many of whom 
 were once slaves and are now freedmen, are enlisted in the 
 armies of the Union. At least 30,000 more of these despised 
 Africans, about whom the majority of the Senate talk so 
 much and care so little, are employed by the Government, 
 though they do not wear a soldier's uniform. These black 
 men carry a flag which is the symbol of nationality, of power, 
 and of liberty, and they have never disgraced it. It is, then, 
 the settled policy of the United States Government to em- 
 ploy black soldiers. The experiment has been made under 
 the laws of Congress. It has succeeded. 
 
 And now I suppose the Legislature of New Jersey sends 
 greeting to the War Department, with instructions to de- 
 sist from enlisting, under a penalty (for citizens of this State) 
 of "a tine not less than $500, or imprisonment for a term of 
 not less than five years.'^ I am pleased to be able to state 
 that Democracy with Edwin M. Stanton does not mean 
 "strategy and peace," but means " fidelity to one's country." 
 The prospect, therefore, of impressing the peculiar views of 
 a majority of this House in that quarter is quite slender. 
 
 The object of this bill is either to deceive the people or to 
 embarrass the Government. If to deceive the people, it is 
 not a new game which is now played for the first time ; if 
 to embarrass the Government, it is only a new foe with an 
 old face, for the election of Horatio Seymour on a war plat- 
 form was soon made the occasion for organizing an armed 
 mob, who declared for peace in the city of New York with 
 torch and sword ! 
 
46 
 
 Let there be sincerity between us. TLe South began this 
 war in the interest of slavery. We began the war for the 
 Union ; we carry it on for the IJnion ; and we will end it 
 by subduing the rebellion, and by subjugating the " fugitive 
 masters " in the South. The war for us is necessarily and 
 justly in the interest of Freedom, for Slavery is the lion in 
 the way. God binds up the nation's wounds with emancipa- 
 tion. The Constitution was meant to "-secure liberty, ^^ not 
 to protect slavery. 
 
 No principle of law is plainer than the one which denies 
 to a State the power to pass laws in conflict with the laws of 
 the United States ; and this bill practically raises the banner 
 of resistance, because it resists the law of the Federal Gov- 
 ernment ; and 1 am glad that the Senator from Union (Mr. 
 Jenkins) abjures the political heresy of State Rights. Per- 
 haps we can meet on friendly grounds, as I learn he was 
 once a Whig, when I quote the language of Henry Clay : 
 "If Kentucky unfurl to-morrow tlie banner of resistance, 
 / will not fight under that flag. I owe allegiance to my na- 
 tive State, but 1 owe a paramount allegiance to the United 
 States Government." 
 
 If it were required, Sir, I could produce volumes of testi- 
 mony to the bravery and efficiency of our colored soldiers. 
 General Hunter, in speaking of the First Regiment of South 
 Carolina Volunteers, said: "I am glad to be in Ihe midst of 
 you — glad to have seen so fine an exhibition of proficiency 
 as you have shown this day. I only wish I had a hundred 
 thousand of you to fight for the freedom of the Union." 
 
 Commodore Dupont wrote from Port Royal his gratitude 
 to the contrabands who had rallied around him, and his 
 declaration is : " They serve us with zeal, make no bargains 
 for their remuneration, go under fire without the slightest 
 hesitation, and, indeed, in our cause are as 'insensible to 
 fear' as Governor Pickens. Some of them are very intelli- 
 gent." 
 
 At Wagner, when the gallant Shaw, of the Fifty-fourth 
 
47 
 
 Massachusetts, fell with his feet to the foe and his back to 
 the field, a black sergeant, wounded and bleeding, dragged 
 himself forward when the color-bearer fell, and, wrapping 
 the flag about his body, crawled back, amid a deadly rain of 
 artillery; and when he whispered to the white soldiers in 
 the hospital, "I saved the flag," three cheers went up for the 
 black sergeant of the Fifty-fourth, 
 
 Let me assure the other side of the chamber that the reign 
 of force is ended, and even chivalry begins to understand 
 that ideas rule the world; civilization wrestles with preju- 
 dice as the angel of old wrestled with the patriarch, and 
 prejudice will be smitten to the death. 
 
 I oppose this bill because it is against the rights of man- 
 kind. The nation has outgrown the Dred Scott decision, 
 and the conscience of the nation is at last satisfied that God's 
 lesson for America is that absolute justice to the African is 
 mental and moral emancipation to the white man. 
 
 I beg leave to refer to George Bancroft's views upon the 
 efibrt to betray the rights of man at the command of passion 
 and prejudice. He says: "That ill-starred disquisition is 
 the starting point of this rebellion, which, for a quarter of a 
 century, has been vainly preparing to raise its head. ' When 
 courts of justice fail, war begins.' The so-called opinion of 
 Taney, who J trust did not intend to hang out the flag of 
 disunion — that rash offence to the conscious memory of the 
 millions — upheaved our country with the excitement which 
 swept over those of us who vainly hoped to preserve a strong 
 and sufficient, though narrow, isthmus that might stand be- 
 tween the conflicting floods. No nation can adopt that judg- 
 ment as its rule and live ; the judgment has in it no element 
 of political vitality. I will not say it is an invocation of the 
 dead past ; there never was a past that accepted such opin- 
 ions. If we want the opinions received in the days when 
 the Constitution was framed, we will not take them second- 
 hand from our Chief Justice. We will let the men of that 
 day speak themselves. How will our American magistrate 
 
48 
 
 sink when arraigned, as he will be, before the tribunal of 
 humanity I How terrible will be the verdict against him 
 when he is put in comparison with Washington's political 
 teacher, the great Montesquieu, the enlightened magistrate 
 of France, in what are esteemed the worst days of her mon- 
 archy ! 
 
 " The argument from the difference of race which Taney 
 thrusts forward with passionate confidence as a proof of com- 
 plete disqualification, is brought forward by Montesquieu as 
 a scathing satire on all the l)rood of despots who were sup- 
 posed to uphold slavery as tolerable in itself The lights 
 OP MANKIND — that precious word which had no equivalent 
 in the language of Hindostan, or Judea, or Greece, or Rome, 
 or any anti-Christian tangue — found their supporter in Wash- 
 ington and Hamilton — in Franklin and Livingston, in Otip, 
 George Mason and Gadsden — in all the greatest men of our 
 early history. 
 
 " The one rule from which the makers of our first Con- 
 federacy, and then of our National Constitution, never 
 swerved, is this : To fix no constitutional disability in any 
 one. Whatever might stand in the way of any man from 
 opinion, ancestry, weakness of mind, inferiority, or incon- 
 venience of any kind, was itself not formed into a perfect 
 disfranchisement. 
 
 " The Constitution of the United t^tates was made under 
 the recognized influence of the eternal rule of order 'and 
 right,' so that, as far as its jurisdiction extends, it raised at 
 once the numerous class who had been chattels into the con- 
 dition of persons. It neither originates nor perpetuates 
 inequality." 
 
 If the Constitution does not perpetuate inequality shall 
 we ? 
 
 Thomas Jefferson said: " The opinion that they (the colored 
 race) are inferior in the faculties of reason and imagination, 
 must be hazarded with great diffidence." (Jefferson's Works, 
 Vol. Fill, p. 3S6.) He said afterward: "I expressed these 
 views, therefore, with great hesitation ; but, whatever be their 
 
49 
 
 degree of talent, it is no measure of their right. Because Sir 
 Isaac Newton was superior to others in understanding-, he 
 was not, therefore, lord of the person and property of others." 
 
 We are now paying the price of our national vices, as well 
 as virtues. If this nation had been without virtues, we 
 would possibly have been at peace, but it would have been 
 the peace which follows dissolution and death. 
 
 The monument at Bunker Hill stands for Prescott and 
 Putnam and Warren, and it also stands for Salem, the colored 
 man who shot the gallant Pitcairn as he mounted the parapet. 
 
 Red Bank in the Revolution, and Bladensburg and New 
 Orleans, at a later day, attest the valor of the colored soldier. 
 
 Our unfriendly legislation will not stay the eternal laws 
 of order and right. Let us rather hasten the advance of 
 that day when we may "realize truth without suffering, and 
 follow the triumphant road of justice without watering it 
 with tears." The revolution through which we are passing 
 is a necessary one, and if we are true to ourselves it will be 
 one fortunate for all the world. Let us endeavor to elevate 
 a race which for centuries has been despised, and in doing 
 this we elevate ourselves. 
 
 The struggle will soon be over. The right never fails in 
 the eternal years of God. And this country will become 
 what Garibaldi and Cavour dreamed that Italy might be. 
 Privilege will no longer stalk in our streets, while justice 
 speaks with •• bated breath and whispering humblances^" 
 and as we look over this continent, we will say of our native 
 land in the next four years that, •■ L'nder such an Adminis- 
 tration as that of Abraham Lincoln this country will become 
 what it ought to be, and what I believe its Divine Author 
 intended it to be — not a vast plantation for the breeding of 
 human beings for the purposes of lust and bondage, but a 
 new valley of Jehosophat, in which the nations of the earth, 
 acknowledging and worshipping a common God, will 
 assemble and celebrate the resurrection of human freedom.'' 
 
NEW JERSEY FOR ENFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE NEW JERSEY SENATE. PEBRUARY 2T, 18GG. 
 
 Mr. President: He must be a buoyant philosopher as 
 well as the most charming of optimists who will deny, since 
 the 22d day of February, that there is vitality in the spirit 
 of slavery. 
 
 It belongs to brave and creative intellects to forget the 
 past, and 1 did not, Mr. President, take my place upon the 
 floor of the Senate to-day to indulge in any historical detail 
 of the sad but glorious recollections of the past four years 
 through which the American Republic has struggled, suf- 
 fered and triumphed. 
 
 But, sir, events which have so recently shaken political 
 opinion to its centre teach me to 
 
 "Be wary and mistrustful ; 
 The sinews of the soul are these." 
 
 And without effort 1 recall the session of that defiant 
 Convention which nominated a candidate for President 
 because he had never won a battle, and then, with unblush- 
 ing and unbridled audacity asked the world to believe that 
 a just war was a failure, and that a cessation of " hostilities" 
 was demanded by justice, and liberty, and humanity ! 
 
 But the God of our Fathers, and not the wisdom of man, 
 rescued the Republic. 
 
 Sherman, within a month after the Chicago surrender, 
 with the glittering bayonets of his hundred thousand, 
 stamped Mr. Vallandigham's utterances as a political false- 
 hood. 
 
51 
 
 The Empire of Liberty moved forward. As we fondly 
 imagined, the reign of peace had come. That kindest and 
 most loving of men — he who was most deeply versed in 
 the unwritten laws of humanity, the trusted and most well 
 beloved leader of the nation's cause, walked hand in hand 
 with his little child, unguarded, through the streets of Rich- 
 mond. 
 
 Not one year ago, upon that wild and awful night in 
 April, Booth's bullet stilled the pulse of that mighty heart. 
 The grass has not yet grown green over the grave where 
 we laid him. 
 
 Where was the great criminal ? 
 
 Mr. President, he lives to-day, not the leading spirit of a 
 lying civilization, comfortable in a casemate of Fortress 
 Monroe and rejoicingly celebrating the 22d day of Feb- 
 ruary, in the year of Grace 1866 — not Alexander H. 
 Stephens, who saw "a ray of light" through the Chicago 
 platform and now sees another as he complacently refers to 
 President Johnson as his " great standard bearer," and 
 generously hopes that the present policy of restoration may 
 " receive the cordial support of every well-wisher of his 
 country." 
 
 Elected to the Senate of the United States by an unre- 
 generate rebel constituency who scorned a constitution 
 under whose shelter they basely endeavor again to creep, 
 Mr. Stephens, of Georgia, even promises that the black man 
 may start equal before the law in the possession and enjoy- 
 ment of all rights o^ personal liberty and property. 
 
 Small thanks for strong deservings ! The Constitutional 
 Amendment gives to the dark-skinned citizens of the Re- 
 public a right to l)e free, therefore in tliis you yield him 
 nothing, sir. 
 
 The free black in all the States has heretofore enjoyed 
 the right to hold property, and in Maryland he (the colored 
 man) voted with the whites for the Constitution of the 
 United States. 
 
Then if we are just to the Vice President of a dead Con- 
 federacv, you yield to the black man who carried a bayonet 
 or who merged his rights in the will of his master whea 
 slavery existed in name nothing but the bare right to live 
 and to hold property — if he can get it. 
 
 No! Mr. Stephens, you still persist in your denial of the 
 rights of nian ; and in these days there are more simple 
 infidels to man than infidels to God. 
 
 No state Government has ever been recognized which 
 ostracised a majority or any great mass of the people. The 
 right of the State to ostracise the great mass of free negroes 
 has never been recognized. 
 
 If this precedent be set now it is for the first time. 
 
 When negroes become free they become a part of the 
 nation, and to ostracise them is to sanction a principle fatal 
 to American government. 
 
 There have been for the bondman two hundred and 
 fifty years of unrequited toil ; for forty years the African has 
 been the subject of conflict in politics, in the pulpit, and in 
 the halls of Congress. 
 
 Wise men and Statesmen insisted that servitude was hi& 
 proper status ; Congress declared by solemn resolutions that 
 he should no longer be talked about. But he was talked 
 about. He grew into colossal proportions. The black man 
 fronted the stars. God raised up (or permitting the use of 
 the Devil's instruments for his own excellent purposes) such 
 abolitionists as John C. Breckinridge and Jefferson Davis. 
 
 By their avarice and their ambition, seeking to limit the 
 ends of Government to the protection of property, and to 
 blend the lofty commerce of spirit with spirit into the base 
 bargaining of political selfishness, they at last succeeded, 
 against their will, in breaking the bonds of the slave, while 
 they strive to burst asunder the bonds of the Union, and to- 
 day, thank God, the negro stands before the world a fixed 
 figure on the canvas of history. No longer three-fifths of a 
 man, but a whole man under an amended Constitution. lie 
 
53 
 
 has rights which a white man is bound to respect — these 
 rights will be secured to him by the fidelity of such men as 
 Ulysses Grant and Horace Greeley, and if the political 
 Moses at the White House is not yet out of the Bulrushes, 
 there are 20,000,000 freemen in the North vrho have twice 
 dared at the ballot box, in 1860 and four years later, to 
 declare that some Moses must l)e found to lead the lonjr- 
 waiting African through any Red Sea over to tlie promised 
 land where he shall find, after 90 years of bondage, the 
 stone of ignorance and prejudice has rolled away from the 
 sepulchre and that he walks a freeman whom the truth 
 makes free, in the light of a morning which breaks upon 
 the new resurrection of human freedom. 
 
 But I have asked where is the great criminal who menaces 
 the life of the Nation ? 
 
 He lives yet as he has lived during the Rebellion, cor- 
 rupting the heart and animating the minds of the men of 
 whom Mr. Shellaberger says : 
 
 "They planned one universal bonfire of the North from 
 Lake Ontario to the Missouri, They murdered by systems 
 of starvation and exposure sixty thousand of your sons, as 
 brave and heroic as ever martyrs were. They destroyed in 
 the five years of horrid war another army so large that it 
 would reach almost around the glolie in marching columns ; 
 and then to give to the infernal drama a fitting close, and to 
 concentrate into one crime all that is criminal in crime, and 
 all that is detestable in barbarism, they killed the President 
 of the United States." 
 
 But the great criminal died not with the rebellion. 
 
 We think we exorcised the evil spirit in New Jersey last 
 November; but that he is utterly dead, I beg leave to 
 doubt. 
 
 1. He lives among the nutmeg men of Connecticut, who 
 refuse the negro the right to vote, and yet impose upon him 
 the double duties of fighting for the Union and paying taxes 
 incurred in breaking down a slave-holders' rebellion. 
 
 2. He lives in the swamps of South Carolina, where black 
 
54 
 
 codes are enacted, creating Slavery in fact on one hand, 
 while they pretended to abolish it in name on the other. 
 
 3. The great criminal lives wherever in high places men 
 shout " this is a white man's government;" and it live and 
 moves and has a being wherever caste flourishes and torturer 
 its victims with the remorselessness of the Spanish Inqui- 
 sition. 
 
 Society is, simply, human nature existing in combinations, 
 sometimes natural, but generally artificial. It cannot be 
 denied that for half a century the American Nation have 
 not been homogeneous. The North might be properly 
 called the labor States, and the South the capital States. 
 
 With us labor took care of itself, with them habits of 
 idleness were perfectly consistent with ideas of dignity. 
 Labor was menial. They firmly believed in the curse, but 
 not in the nobility of labor. 
 
 My dead, but immortal friend, Henry Winter Davis, him- 
 self once a slave-owner, and one of the grandest and purest 
 soldiers who ever fought for the liberation of humanity, 
 said of the South : 
 
 " It was resolved by them to become a power and cease- 
 to be merely an interest. 
 
 "It could be tolerated as an interest, it could not be tol- 
 erated as a power, which by political coalition became the 
 dominant power of the Nation (the addition of the great 
 regions of Florida and Louisiana to the domain of the 
 United States, fired the blood of its supporters with the 
 determination of ruling). It first asserted itself as a power 
 in the great Missouri compromise so long worshiped by all 
 men as the emltlem of our peace. Texas was its conquest. 
 The compromise of 1850 was the recognition of its equality 
 with freedom in disposing of the fortunes and fate of the 
 Nation. 
 
 " The repeal of the Missouri compromise was its assertion, 
 not merely that it was a power, but that it had power to 
 rule. The war in Kansas was its struggle, to assert againsls 
 a reluctant people, its right to rule. The Dred Scott 
 decision Avas the sanction of its most insolent claims by 
 the supreme judicial authority of the Nation before which 
 bowed every dissenting voice in the South. 
 
" It had made for itself a permanent home in the South, a 
 home full of ideas and arguments for its maintenance and 
 advancement; it seized upon and taught the doctrine of 
 State rights as one of its bulwarks." 
 
 (And John C. Calhoun was the wicked and persistent 
 evangelist of this pernicious idea, which^ when backed by 
 the terrible unity of Southern politicians, and the conscience- 
 less tyranny of executive courts, had well nigh taken the 
 life of American Liberty.) 
 
 The Dred Scott decision cultivated submission to the local 
 authorities, so that in case of collision the men of the South 
 might prefer their State to the nation. Slavery was first 
 wrong, then excusable, then defensible, then defended by 
 Scripture, historical and political arguments 5 then advocated 
 and vaunted as the highest development of social organi- 
 2iation. 
 
 Every principle of human reason was confounded in the 
 deliberate attempt to make right of a wrong. 
 
 It created a new theology, a new history, a new ethnology 
 for itself. " They dreaded the intrusive eye of freedom, 
 tolerated it only blindfold, and thus firmly imbued with con- 
 victions scientifically and logically wrought, with a social 
 system strong in arguments for its support, at peace Avith 
 their consciences, given over to believe a lie, a territory 
 equal in area to the greatest empire in the world — filled 
 with an energetic, brilliant, brave and devoted people., 
 educated in the idea that the State is supreme and could 
 secede at will, and that even if the State had not that right, 
 it could sanction, and by its authority, which they were 
 bound to obey, excuse all who, under its bidding, took arms 
 against the nation; armed against moral reprobation by 
 pride — strong against the law of the land in arms, in the 
 sympathy of many at the North, in a generation educated 
 and devoted to those ideas for which they were ready to die. 
 they drew the sword! throwiijg away the scabbard, to: 
 assert that slavery is the true corner-stone of freedom. . 
 
56 
 
 That corner-stone on which they sought to raise a new em- 
 pire, now lies crumbled and shattered at the feet of ad- 
 vancing freedom." 
 
 The empire is dead, but, alas! slavery lives. Its cat-like 
 step walks the courts, and its Judas Benjamins still live on 
 this side of the Atlantic. 
 
 Its Janus face and its iron hand, encased in a velvet glove, 
 are softly found peeping over the cushions of Northern 
 pulpits, and 1 have heard gentle prayers, whispered in words 
 worthy of Sydney, the sweet Secretary of Eloquence, in 
 thanks to God for haviHg " converted the Southern heart to 
 loyalty." Slavery dead ! My God ! No, Sir ! No ! Clasping 
 the Bible with handcuffs, and festooning the Cross of Christ 
 witii chains, it murders one President at Ford's theatre on 
 the anniversary of the fall of Fort Sumter, and on the 
 anniversary of the day that gave birth to the Father of his 
 Country, at another theatre in Washington, slavery clasps 
 its collar around the neck of another President, while Sunset 
 Cox, of Ohio, with t^raceful mien, gets ready a rehearsal of 
 his new play, entitled 
 
 -C^SAR AND MOSES, 
 
 OR 
 CROSSING THE RUBICON! 
 
 IN A BASKET OF BCLRUSHES ! 
 
 During the performance, Yallandigham hangs out his flag 
 and fires a hundred guns ! The people do not say " amen." 
 But let us turn to a more agreeable picture ; for if •' we 
 count time by heart-throbs," these have been long and weary 
 days in which we have watched the flank movement of a 
 pro-slavery army with banners, readily recognizing a new 
 foe with an old face. 
 
 We turn from the " nervous man to the men of nerve." 
 But when we behold the able and courtly Fessenden, and 
 the true-hearted Sumner, whoso fidelity to principle is, to- 
 day, the marvel of two worlds, wc sigh as we are forced to 
 
57 
 
 the conclusion that John C. Breekinridg-e, a refugee and a 
 traitor, is supposed to have more power in this Government 
 than Maine or Massachusetts. 
 
 But, Mr. President, I propose to return to the considera- 
 tion of the resolutions before the Senate. There never was 
 any jar or discord between generous sentiments and sound 
 policy. Nature never says one thing and wisdom another. 
 
 And when 1 advocate an enactment by Congress which 
 will give to every soldier twenty-one years of age, who has 
 served liis country since April 14. 1861, the right to vote, 1 
 believe such a law would be sanctioned both by good sense 
 and by sound policy. 
 
 I may be met with the objection that the Constitution is 
 silent upon the question of suffrage, and that this question 
 ought to be left to the States themselves. But the Consti- 
 tution puts the badge of inequality upon no one. And 
 shall we? 
 
 That policy which would call the black to our aid in 
 putting down the Rebellion, and then turn him over to the 
 charity of the man whom he fought against, and who once 
 owned him, must be founded in inequality, injustice and 
 infinite meanness. 
 
 " If you did not wish to have the negro hereafter to enjoy 
 the rights of a man, why did you bring him on the battle- 
 field?'' 
 
 When he could relieve us from an impending draft, we 
 did not stop to discuss his right to political privileges then. 
 "If he is their and your equal (and Thomas Jefferson said 
 the measure of the black man's talent is no measure of his 
 rights) on the battle field, in the service of the country, he 
 is and should be at the ballot-box, and if he is not your 
 equal on the battle-field, tlien you have cheated the United 
 States, to the injury of the national cause, to save yourselves 
 from service." 
 
 But above all, this question is not purely a question of 
 justice and humanity. We are bound by Article IV^, Sec- 
 
58 
 
 tion 4 of the Constitution, to give to the South a Republican 
 form of government. Congress has imposed not conferred 
 this paramount duty. 
 
 There cannot in the nature of things be a loyal majority 
 in the eleven States in rebellion, where, if jou exclude the 
 nameless martyr of East Tennessee, there was found no 
 single man to make head against a revolution which very 
 soon, in the South, was led by the men who originally 
 opposed it. 1 tell you, Sir, there is nothing to hope and 
 everything to fear from those States, of which Carl Shurtz, 
 the President's appointed agent, says : 
 
 " The loyalty of the masses and most of the leaders of the 
 Southern people, consists of submission to necessity. There 
 is, except in individual instances, an entire absence of that 
 national spirit which forms the basis of true loyalty and 
 patriotism. 
 
 " The emancipation of the slaves is submitted to only in 
 so far as chattel slavery in the old form could not be kept 
 up. But although the freedman is no longer considered 
 the property of the individual master, he is considered the 
 slave of society, and all independent State legislation will 
 share the tendency to make him such. 
 
 " The ordinances abolishing slavery, passed by the Con- 
 vention under the pressure of circumstances, will not be 
 looked upon as barring the establishment of a new form of 
 servitude.'^ 
 
 Alexander Stephens may say on the 22d of February, as 
 he did at the inauguration of the Rebellion : " My only 
 hope is founded in the virtue, the intelligence and the 
 patriotism of the American people." But if he means to 
 describe, as doubtless he does, the people with whom he 
 lives, what have we to expect of unregenerate rebels, whose 
 average civilization is that of the middle ages, and who 
 believed or assumed to believe, that the laws of war justi- 
 fied starving 60,000 Union prisoners till they died at An- 
 dersonville. 
 
 In the States now represented in Congress we rely upon 
 the educated intelligence of the people, and not upon such 
 
59 
 
 bliad servility as that which followed without question the 
 great Satrap of Slavery till he was captured among the 
 swamps of Carolina, a fugitive in woman's apparel. 
 
 And what can be said of the patriotism of a people who 
 hunger and thirst for the ruin of this government they 
 have despised and reviled for four years, and now seeking 
 its protection blot from our language the word Mankind, 
 which enriches it — a word that never passed the lips of 
 Plato, Aristotle or Socrates. Shame on the patriotism that 
 tells us, " come take away these 4,000,000 of God's creatures 
 and expatriate them, or they shall suffer extermination at 
 our hand in the coming '• War of Races." This is the same 
 spirit that said to Tristram Burgess, '• to-day, to-day let 
 New England be blotted out." 
 
 Sir, this is first a question of right. Then it is a question 
 of power. It is first a question of morals (for the forces 
 always go with the virtues), then it is a question of salvation. 
 We are to choose whether we will have a friendly and a 
 Republican Government in eleven States lately in rebellion, 
 or whether the old Oligarchy shall come back into the 
 Union, governing themselves within a year of the time they 
 pursued us with fire and sword, and more than this, coming 
 back when aided by discontented partizans in the North 
 with the privilege of governing us. I am not an alarmist. 
 But 1 have lived among the younger leaders of the Rebellion 
 and in the Southern States. 1 know their temper, and much 
 as I hate their injustice, 1 have a still livelier contempt for 
 that hypocrisy here, which under the thin guise of a love for 
 " the restored Union," eagerly waits to strike hands with 
 the men who headed the Rebellion at the South, when they 
 say with a terrible show of truth : 
 
 " Once more 
 Erect the standard there of ancieut rigkt, 
 Yours be the advantage all, miue the revenge." 
 
 I speak that I do know when I affirm that it has come to 
 this — that the question of suffrage is now not so much, or so 
 wholly a question of justice and humanity, as it is for all of 
 
60 
 
 lis a question of 5-20.S and 7-30s. Southern Senators and 
 members of Congress will never vote to pay the debt created 
 in subjugating them unless you add their debt incurred to 
 subjugate us. We need the vote of the colored men, and in 
 strengthening the hands of the party of reconstruction it is 
 the right intention not the philosophic judgment which 
 casts the votes. In the Rebel States we absolutely need 
 numbers as well as intelligence. But I am met by the ob- 
 jection that the States are in the Union and must regulate 
 these questions for themselves. If we grant that, there is 
 vitality in the Rebel State governments; and second, that 
 they have the right to regulate the question of suffrage, then 
 our argument is at an end ; but we make no such admission. 
 A " State" is defined to he a " body politic." A Government 
 '/ the persons who administer the laws." Well, then, the 
 body politic cannot go out and has not gone out of the 
 Union, but since the Supreme Court, the recognized arbiter 
 of conflict between a State and Federal authority, by the 
 voice of all its Judges has unanimously declared that from 
 the 13th day of July, 1861, a civil territorial war has ex- 
 isted between the United States and the Confederate States ; 
 since such war has existed, the State Governments — the 
 persons who administer the laws are outside the pale of the 
 Constitution, because they become belligerents and enemie 
 of the United States. These State Governments, then, have 
 ceased to exist. Their suspended animation will know no 
 revival. They ceased to exist in law when they renounced 
 the Constitution. They ceased to exist in fact because such 
 governments were expelled by force of arms. If the Presi- 
 dent of the United States counts heads and calls that the 
 people, he at once takes the power from Congress, for it is 
 the joint action of the House of Representatives, Senate and 
 Executive which constitutes Congress, and places it in the 
 Executive, where it docs not properly belong. 
 
 That point has thus been ably demonstrated. I ask that 
 gentlemen will go and read that great argument of Daniel 
 Webster in the Rhode Island case before the Supreme Court 
 
61 
 
 of the United States, where he met this semi-revolutionary 
 attempt to count heads and call that the people, and main- 
 tained, and so the Supreme Court judged, when it refused to 
 take jurisdiction of the question that the great political law 
 of America is that every change of government shall be 
 conducted under the supervising authority of some existing 
 legislative body, throwing the protection of the law around 
 the polls, defining the rights of voters, protecting them in 
 the exercise of the elective franchise, guarding against fraud, 
 repelling violence, and appointing arbiters to pronounce the 
 result, and declare the persons chosen by the people, and we 
 say, greatly to the honor of the American people, it would 
 take him to the going down of the sun to enumerate the 
 instances in which almost every Constitution in the United 
 States has been changed, without one ever having been 
 changed by a revolutionary process, not under the Eegis of 
 law, not guided by pre-existing political authority. He 
 maintained it to be the great fundamental principle of the 
 American Government that legislation shall guide every 
 political change^ and that it assumes that somewhere within 
 the United States there is always a permanent organized 
 legal authority which shall guide the tottering footsteps of 
 those who seek to restore governments which are disorgan- 
 ized and broken down. We have then^ Mr. President, 
 governments disorganized and broken down. What will we 
 do with them ? 
 
 Before I answer that question I shall summon one to 
 whom public law is scarcely less indebted but who wrote a 
 century later, thatVattel may reiterate with more precision, 
 that 
 
 " A civil war ))reaks the bands of society and government, 
 or at least, suspends their force and effect; it produces in 
 the Nation two independent parties who consider each other 
 as enemies, and acknowledge no common judge. These two 
 parties, therefore, must necessarily be considered as consti- 
 tuting, at least, for a time, two distinct societies." 
 
 Need I appeal to Requielme, who declares that when a 
 
62 
 
 part of a State takes up arms against the government, if it 
 is sufficiently strong to resist its action, and to constitute 
 t^o parties of equally balanced forces, the existence of civil 
 war is thenceforward determined. If the conspirators 
 against the government have not the means of assuming this 
 position their movement does not pass beyond a Rebellion, 
 as true civil war breaks the bonds of society by dividing it 
 in fact into two independent societies. It is for this con- 
 sideration that we treat of it in international law. Since 
 each party forming as it were a separate Nation, both should 
 be regarded as subject to the laws of war. This subjection 
 to the law of Nations is the more necessary in civil wars, 
 since these, by nourishing more hatred and resentment than 
 foreign wars, require more the execution of the law of 
 Nations in order to moderate their ravages. 
 
 In God's government as well as in every wise human 
 government, the enforcements of obligations are coupled 
 with and inseparable from the enjoyment of rights. With 
 what semblance of reason can people administering govern- 
 ments in place of those extinguished by war claim the rights 
 and powers of a State under a Constitution, which they have 
 for years scorned, derided and despised ? 
 
 After destroying that army which I have said in solid 
 column would nearly reach around the globe they would 
 modestly ask (the vanquished in conference with the victor) 
 leave to submit, lor their own approval, the laws under 
 which they desire to hold their property and enjoy every 
 right undisturbed as if there had never been any Rebellion. 
 Dare we trust implicitly that these men will with cheerful 
 resignation come back under a flag which they hate? but 
 which we love, ten thousand times better than ever, because 
 €very stain on its folds has been washed white in tlie blood 
 of the brave. 
 
 And when I contemplate the solemn questions of the hour, 
 when I stared, astonished at the indecent haste with which 
 red-handed Rebellion pleading most ])iteously a new-born 
 
63 
 
 love for the Constitution ; and when I see men in high 
 places " wincing under Southern thunder," just as American 
 politicians have winced, and wincing yielded, for eighty- 
 seven years, then I begin to tremble for my country. 
 
 It is no solace for our fears that Mr. Alexander Stephens 
 so recently said: " Should all the States be brought back to 
 their practical relations under the Constitution, we shall 
 have still left the essentials of free government contained 
 and embodied in^the old Constitution untouched and unim- 
 paired. 
 
 1 may be excused from trusting too far, these gift bearing 
 Greeks ! 
 
 I fail to discern that candor in the late Vice President's 
 carefully prepared oration, spread upon the journals of both 
 Houses of the Georgia Legislature, which so touchingly 
 turned the periods of his last and most eloquent plea for the 
 Union of our fathers in 1860. (Our Southern friends under- 
 stand the play, " She Stoops to Conquer.") 
 
 I would recall to his mind his Milledgeville letter, in 
 which he says more than four years ago : " If everything 
 else has to go down let our untarnished honor, at least sur- 
 vive the wreck." 
 
 If they get back on their own terms, they themselves have 
 predicted that the next war will be inside the Union for 
 Southern rights. Sir, Southern honor did not survive the 
 14th day of April It becomes us to meet these questions 
 without passion, but with that courage which is often the 
 loftiest prudence. The supreme hour for the nation has 
 struck. 
 
 If we are just and fear not, we can teach the men so eager 
 for the power they voluntarily abandoned, that '• Conquering 
 may prove as lordly and complete a thing in lifting upward 
 as in crushing low." 
 
 If the Conflict which is to decide whether the peace we 
 have won by the sword is worth having and has come to 
 stay ; if that conflict must come, let it come. Let it come now, 
 for with God's help and man's fidelity we will never, never 
 
012 026 389 4^ (^4 
 
 be recreant to that trust sanctified to us and to the world 
 by the valor of the dead, and dear to us all by the sacrifices 
 made by the living. We cannot, we will not, we dare not 
 omit to do that which the safety of the Union requires. The 
 statesman is never regardless of consequences. But the man 
 who is tiue to himself and just to others accepts all conse- 
 quences which follow the discharge of public duty. As for 
 myself 1 belong neither to the party of Cassar nor to that of 
 Brutus. America will never be cursed with a Dictator, and 
 assassination does not thrive since the days of the Roman 
 Senate. We are engaged in a conflict of ideas nobler and 
 more far reaching than the clash of bayonets. 
 
 If Congress does not give us Manhood Suffrage, we will 
 have an Amendment to the Constitution prohibiting repre- 
 sentation except upon the basis of those who are entitled to 
 vote. The deep throbbing of the popular heart cannot be 
 baulked in its purpose. If I do not live to see it my children 
 will live to behold the day when no man shall be denied a 
 political right on account of his complexion. A democracy 
 and an aristocracy of sentiment and manners I can under- 
 stand. But a Democracy of Laws which compels the able- 
 bodied to bear arms and pay taxes, but prohibits the able 
 minded from having either vote or voice in the policies 
 which control them, is a monstrosity in legislation, a false- 
 hood in politics, and a sandy foundation for a Republic. 
 
 My soul expands to a Divine altitude when 1 contemplate 
 my Country, oft baffled, oft defeated, but finally triumphing 
 over all her oppressors. And in my mind's eye I behold the 
 granite base from whence rise the pillars of Constitutional, 
 Republican and Universal Liberty in America. Its founda- 
 tion is broader and its columns more beautiful than the 
 Grecian Parthenon, upon whose snowy front the sunsets of 
 two thousand years have left their golden stains ; and upon 
 this granite rock, baptized with the blood of our best and 
 bravest, will be written by each succeeding generation in 
 letters of light that imperishable truth of history : There is 
 no Poivn- without Justice. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 012 026 389 4 ^