aass_EA£a Book '^ 8 7 Co P/ EIGHT YEARS IN CONGRESS, 1857-1865. MEMOIR AND SPEECHES. BY SAMUEL S. COX. " It is advisable to exceed in lenity rather than in severity ; to banish but few rather than many ; and to leave them their estates, instead of making a vast number of confiscations. Under pretence of avenging the republic's cause, the avengers would establish tyranny. The business is not to destroy the rebel, but the rebellion. They ought to return as quickly as possible into the usual track of gov- ernment, in which every one is protected by the laws, and no one injured."— JlAowtesgwiew. NEW YORK : D. APPLETOK AND COMPANY, 443 & 445 BROADWAY, 1865. lx\ A 'U E.NTEEED according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by D. APPLETON & COMPANY, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. MY CONSTITUENTS IN OHIO, BY WHOSE REQUEST THIS VOLUME IS PREPARED, AS A TOKEN OF ESTEEM AND GRATITUDE. In penning this inscription, from a distant city, aloof from old associations, and devoted to new pursuits, memories of you throng, cheer, and sweeten my thoughts. Kot only do I recall the kindly courtesies and personal attachments at your firesides and meetings, but the unwavering trust you reposed, from the first effort which I made against sectionalism to the present time, when the conse- quences of that sectionalism, so sanguinary and terrible, yet re- main. I represented you truly, when I warned and worked from 1856 to 1860 against the passionate zealotry of north and south ; when I denounced, in and out of Congress, the bad fallacy and worse conduct of the secessionists ; when I voted to avert the im- pending war by every measure of adjustment ; and when after war came, by my votes for money and men, I aided the Administration in maintaining the Federal authority over the insurgent States. IV DEDICATION. Sustained by yon, I supported every measure which was constitu- tional and expedient, to crush rebellion. At the same time I have freely challenged the conduct of the Administration in the use of the means committed to it by a devoted people. Believing that a proper use of such means would bring peace and union, and be- lieving in no peace as pennanent unless it were wedded to the Union, in love and contentment, I have omitted no opportunity to forward these objects. This I have done in spite of threat and violence. For doing it your confidence has not been diminished, but increased. I know that the popiflar heart for some years will love to dwell most upon the deeds of the war. The Doers will and perhaps should outshine the Talkers. Our defenders in the field will be elevated above those in the forum. Men are prone to ad- mire the hero. When he has the solid elements of courage and virtue, added to the glitter of martial success, admiration becomes worship. Napoleon understands this. To aggrandize the great founder of his family, he makes the Caesars create events, rather than events create Caesars. But it is as true that the French Eevo- lution was indebted to Rousseau for its seminal idea, as that its events developed the greatness of Buonaparte. The great captains of our war, McClellan, Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Farragut, and Porter, whose names will shine most upon the historic roll, were but the blossoms of that growth of ideas, whose antagonism and elucidation have been the work of the Press, Pulpit, and Forum. In the humble part I have taken in these discussions, I have never underrated the magnitude of the institutions involved and their underlying principles. Augustus Schlegel said of authorship that according to the spirit in which it has been pursued, it is an infamy or a virtue. So of politics. They constitute a great moral DEDICATION. V and intellectual science. In its pursuit passions and interests should be subordinate to wisdom and trutb. Acrimony sliould give place to cbaritj if not to good bumor. Tbis is for the beboof of society, wbose tranquillity depends far more upon tbe dominant thought tban upon tbe successful sword. I would not, if I could, perpetuate any of tbe conflicts illus- trated in tbis collection. I bave bad my sbare of sucb conflicts. No ambition now actuates me save tbat I may be instrumental, tbrougb tbese pages, in mirroring tbe past eigbt years, witb tbe clearness and fidelity of trutb. Whatever my own views may have seemed to some, they are to be judged as you my constitu- ents judged them, by their expression as here given, without parti- san gloss or misrepresentation. l^otwitbstanding this volume has been prepared for your kind eye, it is published witb distrust ; therefore I crave from you the same indulgence which you have always accorded. SAMUEL S. COX. New York City, June 30, 1865. / N 00]^TEI:TTS. MEMOIK. PAGE A Constitutional Opposition 5 Classification of the Volume 9 Kansas and the Territorial Question 13 XXXVI. Congress — its Members and Views It SPEECHES. Expenses of 1858 and 1864 Compared 31 Tariff in 1864 35 Future Questions of Finance 61 Sedition in the North 06 Northern Nullifiers 67 Revolutionary Abolitionism — Reply to Mr. Corwin 72 Expulsion of Mr. Long — Reply to Speaker Colfax 87 Arguelles Case — Right of Asylum 104 Territorial Expansion — Continental Policy 109 Mexican Politics — National Growth 128 Recognition op Hayti and Liberia 151 Trent Affair 161 Democracy of the Sea — Maritime Rights 169 Secession — Compromise — Nationality 188 Eulogy of Douglas 211 Reply to Mr. Gurley on General McClellan 218 Emancipation and its Results 236 Meaning of the Elections of 1862 259 Viil CONTENTS. PAOH pukitanism in politics 281 The Conscription Bill 303 Negro Soldiers S.!*? Personal Liberty — Vallandigham's Case 32'7 Magna Charta — its Sanctity 335 Confiscation 336 Miscegenation 352 Historic Lessons — Reconstruction 370 Constitutional Amendment Abolishing Slavery 396 Admission of Cabinet into Congress 417 EIGHT YEARS IN CONGRESS. I. A CONSTITUTIONAL OPPOSITION. Outside of the " home circle " of constituents to whom this volume is inscribed, it may be read by those in search of the motives and principles which actuated a constitutional opposition in time of civil war. It was either the good or bad fortune of the writer to antagonize with the adminis- tration of his own party on the territorial questions from 1856 to 1860. But this may be overlooked by unfriendly critics. The time of war being the time of danger, the unreflecting and unphilosophical may wonder how such an opposition at such a period could consist with patriotism. Do they forget how England was saved from disgrace in the Crimean war by the onslaughts of the opposition led by the London Times f May not the Government be magnified by exposing the weakness of its admin- istration ? Is there not constant need of such criticism as will strengthen the Government while it condemns the policy of its imbecile or corrupt agents ? Lest the very function should cease by the incapacity of the functionary, should we be less heedful how we undignify the office by un- due contempt of the officer, than how we unduly dignify the officer at the expense of the office ? Hence, in all free countries an opposition is regarded as an element of the Constitution — an estate of the realm. It cannot be dispensed with without danger to Liberty. However great may be the obligation of the country to the soldier for his valiant right arm, it owes something to those who, regardless of the frowns of power or the allurements of patronage, maintained a steadfast front against the corruptions and tyran- nies incident to war. If I may quote from a letter addressed to me on the 22d of January, O EIGHT YEAES IN CONGRESS. 1865, by the Hou. James Gutlirie of Kentucky, in reference to the con- stitutional amendment abolishing slavery, I -would recognize the truth, that " the rebellion has left deep scars on the Constitution of the United States, and those of the States ; and if some are made on the road to re- union and the restoration of peace, with renewed confidence in freedom and justice, we must leave its apology to the evils and necessities of the times." Yet in recognizing this truth now, is it a reproach to a fearless representative that he was not an indiiFerent spectator while such scars were being made ? His duty before the war, and d fortiori during its con- tinuance, was to proclaim the perils to constitutional freedom and federal union involved in a violent conflict. The statue of Liberty was veiled again and again, dvmng its progress. Nor has the cessation of hostilities fully restored the freedom of the citizen. It is the writer's pride, that he never failed to protest against the eclipse of Liberty by Power. Hence, what may have seemed to a superficial observer an unpatriotic opposi- tion, was only and truly an opposition to the arbitrary proceedings with which the war was accompanied. Such an opposition was dictated by regard for the very object which the war sought to establish. Time will vindicate both the writer and others, who, while they maintained the war for the Union, did not permit theu* voices for personal and public liberty to be droi^nied in the clangor of arms. Those who contest en- croachments incident to war, are never regarded in history as enemies, but as the truest devotees of well-regulated Liberty. The key-note to these speeches, and all eiforts made by their author in and out of Congress, was struck in the heat of a debate with a member from Indiana, Mr. Julian, on the 9th of April, 1864 : — " Under no cir- cumstances conceivable by the human mind, would I ever violate the Con- stitution for any purpose. To compass its destruction as a probable or possible necessity, is,thc very gospel of anarchy — the philosophy of disso- lution." This was in reply to a Northern statesman, urging extra-con- stitutional means to suppress the rebellion. Almost the same language was used by the writer, to denounce the heresy of secession in the winter of 1860-'61. In the perusal of these pages, no one will find any aid, by speech or vote, given to those who raised the standard of revolt. In his speech on " Conciliation and Nationality," the writer, while pleading for the spu-it and measures of compromise, invoked at the same time that vigorous spirit of nationality, which could only exist with an unmutilated Union. lie warned South Carolina, that in striving to be Augustus, her fate would be less than Augustulus. When the resolution was iiuroduccd thanldng Gen. Anderson for Lis defence of Fort Sumter, the writer A CONSTTTUnOKAL OPPOSITION. 7 gave it his heartiest vote. When eulogizing Judge Douglas, after his death, at the extra session of 1861, the writer regarded it as the consum- mate glory of Douglas's life to have given his most emphatic utterance for the maintenance of the Government, even though its administration was committed to his old political antagonist, and although he knew that such expression imperilled the lives of a hundred thousand of his friends. Throughout the subsequent years of the Avar, the writer always voted for the support of the army. Withou.t refining as to the power to coerce a State, or to enforce the laws of the United States against individuals, he found the war flagrant. He acted for its vigorous maintenance. Whether the war was simply to preserve the rights of the General Govern- ment, by repelhng a direct and positive aggression upon its property or its officers ; or whether it was, in fact, a war of general hostility, carried on by the central government against a State, was considered by some be- fore the war as a momentous question. But after the war came, its red right hand made a new code. The enforcement of national supremacy overwhelmed all questions of State coercion. Why was it not compatible to favor both war and peace, without a solecism in thought or language ? When this war appeared as a speck on the horizon, I pleaded and voted for conciliation. I voted for every com- promise, including that of Crittenden. I preferred the bonds of Love to the armor of Force. I found in the Sermon on the Mount a wisdom beyond that of Presidents or priests. I never went so far as Charles Sumner in his speech on the " True Grandeur of Nations," when he pro- nounced " all international war to be civil war, and the partakers in it to be traitors to God and enemies to man ; " when he quoted Cicero to show that he " preferred the unjustest peace to the justest war ; " and Franklin, to show that there " never was a good war or a bad peace ; " or when Mr. Sumner declared "that in our age there can be no peace that is not hon- orable." — {Sumner's Works, vol. i., p. 11.) But I did and do hold that in our land it was wisest, kindest, and best to agree to any compro- mise which Crittenden framed, Douglas advocated, and to which Davis and Toombs acceded, which would have averted these horrible calami- ties. In thus believing, I sought to carry out the Democratic principle which Madison laid down before the late war of 1812 — "that war was only and rarely tolerable as a necessary evil, to be kept off as long, and whenever it takes place, to be closed as soon as possible." When this civil war began, I voted for the Crittenden Resolution of July 22, 1861, that it was not to be waged in any spu'it of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor for the purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of the States, but to defend 8 EIGHT TEAES EST CONGKESS. and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States un- impaired. I voted the money and men in the spirit of the President's Inau- gural of March 4, 1861, when he declared that he had no purpose, direct- ly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists ; " I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." It was in this spirit that on the 26tli of July, 1861, I offered a reso- lution in Congress to make undiminished and iucreased exertions by our navy and army to maintain the Government, and that a commission be appointed, consisting of Millard FUlmore and others, to meet commis- sioners, not from the rebel Government, but from the seceded States, to aid in restoring by peaceful and honorable measures the old Union and the former condition of things. I defended my resolution when it was pressed against me by the opposition. I have not swerved a hair from it. I said in 1863 : " I am as ready now to cancel confiscation and emancipation policies, and welcome Louisiana and North Carolina back to their old position, as I am to sustain our army in the field while a rebel army contests our authority on a foot of our soU." The writer opposed many of the acts of the administration. He believed then, as now, that they tended to procrastinate peace. In this view he sympathized with such statesmen as Gov. Crittenden. That the war would not end without the destruction of slavery, he believed as firmly as that it was his duty to save as much as possible of the incontes- table powers of the States over domestic matters. Mr. Stephens had warned the Georgia Convention, on the 14th of November, 1860, that "a vindictive decree of universal emancipation " would follow secession. So it did ; but it was powerless compared with the military arm which had unshackled the slave before the edict came. Peace has come. Slavery is gone. The constitutional amendment is not adopted ; but its adoption is only a form, and a question of time. The part taken by the writer concerning that amendment is shown in this volume. The country is greatly changed — politically, socially, materially, na- tionally. Novus seculorum nascitur ordo. What that new order may be, depends upon the adherence of President Johnson to his former princi- ples. We have a census of more than thirty millions, scattered over a great area. We are what Mr. Disraeli called a Territorial Democracy. When tlic census becomes 60,000,000, or 100,000,000, the questions of municipal independence. State rights, and local self-government may come with more force than ever before. In the judgment of the writer, it is CLASSIFICATION OF THE VOLTJME. 9 only By adhering to the doctrines of decentralization, that the great di- versity of interests in a union of such extent can be harmonized, and the questions of individual rights properly settled. These doctrines of local independence and self-government have been the inspiration of the words and acts here recorded. They have found expression all through these speeches. Without them, our Union will be forever endangered. With them, it will fulfil the hopes and prayers of all patriots. They furnish the key to unlock the magic chambers of our future. They are the safe and golden mean between the extremes of faction. As Tenny- son has sung : The wisdom of a thousand years Is m them. May perpetual youth . Keep dry their Light from tears, Make bright our days and light our dreams, Turning to scorn, with lips divine, The falsehood of extremes. II. CLASSIFICATION OF THE VOLUME. Tlie speeches are arranged in classes : First. — Those connected with finance and tariff. The first speech is in defence of the economy of the Government, when only sixty-five millions per year, was the appropriation. The last one is at a time when eight hundred millions per session were voted ! The speech on the tariff is the most elaborate of the collection. It is an exposition, by irrefragable data and arguments, of the robbery, under the present system, by the producer of the great bulk of the consumers. It is an earnest appeal to return to the principles of economic science and unrestricted interchange to which the civilization of the age has given body and spirit. The stupendous iniquity by v/hich one set of States and one class of men are allowed gra- tuities from the unprotected States and classes, must soon be understood. Men of all parties wlU unite to correct this gigantic injustice. As Cobden and Peel joined hands, while EUiott sang and ViUiers sp6ke, to give Eno-- land the cheap loaf; as at last that boon was wrested by an intelligent people from a landed monopoly ; so before 1868, agriculture and commerce, labor Qf all kinds, consumers of every degree, wUl join in a new Bund, to rescue famishing toil from fiscal tyranny. To this speech I challenge the scrutiny of every reflecting citizen. 10 EIGHT YEARS IN CONGRESS, Second. — Speeches "wliicli display the sedition and sectionalism of the North. The republication of such speeches may be reprehended now ; but truth compels their publication. No one can deny but that the South had gi-ievances. Their error and crime consisted in mistaking — oh ! how wofuUy — their remedy. From the beginning of the Government there have been sectional as- perities growing out of sectional interests. These were happily reconciled, in their successive eras, by statesmanship. For more than a generation past these animosities have been aggravated by zealots in both sections. Political ambition, springing out of the rank soil of sectional hate, engen- dered by the heats of theologic strife, at last culminated in thp open revolt of 1861. Not alone slavery, but questions involving provincial jealousy, representation and taxation, excise, assumption of State debts, assertion of State rights, commercial restrictions, the purchase or acquisition of ter- ritory, and the war of 1812, have from the beginning given to the slavery question additional fuel, and embroiled the States into an antagonism in which the sword leaped from the sheath. State comity and Christian feeling, at diiFerent eras of the controversy, alleviated its harshness and composed its rancor. But the conflict was declared irrepressible ; and irrepressibly it burst forth. It would be a falsehood, if not a crime, to say that the blame for these animosities rested exclusively on one section. Not alone on the South, not alone on the North, but iipon both sections, will history affix the stigma. Iliacos intra muros peccatur et extra. Vattel says that no considerable insurrection or rebellion ever existed without some grievances as the cause. These grievances the South had. They committed the great crime of striking at the Federal centre, when their complaint was against States. Besides, their remedy was ample in the Union. Revolution can never be justified unless two things concur : first, the grievances fiaust be gi-eat, and irremediable except by the sword ; and secondly, there must be a reasonable probability of success. The South had neither justification. For them to draw the sword, was to fall upon it. From this class of speeches, it will be seen that the leaders of Southern revolt copied many of their pernicious heresies and worse practices from the sedilionists of the North. Third. — Connected with the above classification, incidentally discussed, was the question of fugitives from foreign lands and the right of asylum. The occasion was the action of the administration in the ArgucUcs case. I ollercd a resolution reprobating the violation of the right of asylum. It was shelved without allowing debute. There was only one opportunity CLASSIFICATION" OF THE VOLUME. 11 to debate it. That was in connection with the return of fugitives from justice and labor, in which the analogies were pointed out. This question was met by the usual fling : " Oh ! you are defending the slave trade. You are the advocate of the enemy of om- race." But time has shown that Arguelles was not what he has been charged with being ; that Gen- eral Dulce has been dismissed for his treatment of Arguelles ; and that the precedent our nation made is a blot upon the diplomatic escutcheon of our country. Fourth. — Speeches on Foreign AiFau-s. These are mostly in vindi- cation of our traditional policy respecting this continent. They were made in 1859 and 1860. They contain words since made prophetic by the action of France, absolutely prophetic. They laid down a policy for the orderly and erect independence of Mexico ; such a policy as would give us the commercial and other results of annexation, without its troubles and dangers. If the warnings I gave in 1860 had been heeded, Maximilian would now be at his palace in Miramar, overlooking the Adriatic, and Napoleon content with quoting the Koran to prove his Ccesarism divine for Arab as well as Frank. These speeches had the honor of Spanish and French translations, and considerable circulation in Spanish America as well as Europe. But, in anticipation of our own troubles, they attracted but little attention from our own citizens. Gen. Cass did me the favor to say that he would rest his policy, as Secretary of State, on the principles enunciated in them. That these principles are destined to play a large part in our futm-e, is already " manifest." I will thank my constituents to re-read them in the light of the present time. In connection with foreign affairs, I offered, on the od of March, 1862, a series of resolutions in relation to maritime law. They grew out of the Trent affair. In December, 1861, I had discussed the questions in- volved in the seizure of the soi-disant ambassadors of the South. I did not believe that a single principle had been violated in that seizure. I am a firm advocate of the Democracy of the Sea ; I could not have spoken as I did, had I believed that it had been outraged in that case. I desired, however, that the most important international question of our age — the maritime rights of nations — should receive fresh impulse. I wished that impulse to be in the path of liberality. With a view to un- trammelling commerce from the English system, I embodied, in the reso- lutions which I offered, the best sentiment of the progressive publicists of all time. With such ability as I could command, I urged the ameliora- tion of the liabilities of neutrals and the assertion of the traditionary policy of America. Fifth. — A eulogy upon Stephen A. Douglas. This species of oratory 12 EIGHT TEARS IN CONGRESS. has not been regarded liitlierto as very successfully illustrated in our parliamentary annals. My relations with Judge Douglas ; his peculiar doctrines ; and his death, so inopportune, combined to give an interest to the theme which oratory failed to elicit. The American people have since done justice to Douglas. This eulogy will not be looked upon now as the emanation of a partial friend, but as a truthful analysis of a giant mind, energized into action by the throbbings of a great heart. Sixth. — Speeches growing out of Secession and the War. These em- brace earnest appeals to the North to tender, and the South to receive, a peaceful redress of grievances. They discard secession as an unconstitu- tional and revolutionary proceeding, unjustifiable and criminal, and ele- vate the principle of nationality to that eminence where the Constitu- tion can ever shield it. They embrace a vindication of Gen. McCleUau from the attack of the Congressional war critics ; the proper policy of conducting the war ; the errors of the fanatical and negro policies, with reference to emancipation and its results upon North and South, and upon whites and blacks ; the Conscription bill ; the Confiscation measures ; Puritanism in Politics ; Miscegenation ; and finally, the questions involved in the reconstruction of the Union and in the violation of personal liberty. In illustration of the speaker's vieAvs, I have introduced one short speech not made in Congress, upon the arrest of Mr. Vallandigham. It was made in May, 1863, a few days after the arrest. The sentiments of that speech, revivified by the classic eloquence of lion. Henry Winter Davis, liave been endorsed by the House of Eepresentatives at the end of the last session. Seventh. — The amendment of the Constitution abolishing slavery, in which the speaker maintained the power to amend, but did not believe its exercise to be judicious at the time. Eighth. — The final speech on the proposition to admit the Cabinet into Congi'ess, in which the danger of aggrandizing power in the Federal Ex- ecutive is considered. It will be observed from this arrangement and classification, that the round of political discussion has been run by the speaker. In not one of the sentences of these speeches is there a syllable that breathes aught but love of country, respect for its Constitution, reverence for its founders, and prayerful aspirations for its permanent peace and prosperity. ni. KANSAS AND THE TERRITORIAL QUESTION. The writer was thrown iuto Congress by tlie refluent wave that fol- lowed the excitement growing out of the Kansas question. The Repub- lican party had made the issue with Judge Douglas on his doctrine of sovereignty. A majority of the 35th Congress had been returned on the principle of laissez faii^e to the people of the Territories. The travail which gave birth to Kansas as a State, was the same agony prolonged -which eventuated in civil strife. Had the Democratic party, then in power, united wisely to thrust aside the fraudulent constitution of Kansas made at Lecompton, there would have been no distraction in its ranks in 1860. The Charleston Convention would have agreed. Most probably no Republican success would have made memorable that year. Hence, in inquiring into the real, if not the proximate causes of the war and the alienation of the sections, we cannot ignore the questions as to Kansas. To be sure, Kansas was the occasion, rather than the cause of conflict. The slavery agitation was the paramount cause. There is something ineffably repugnant- to the human heart in the relation of master and slave. The idea of one human being owning another human being would thrust itself forward in all these struggles, irrepressibly foremost. Whether in resistance to the constitutional authorities — as in the case of fugitives from justice and labor — or in the admission of new States, or in the organization of territories, the anti-slavery zealot, whether sincere or not, handled a weapon so tempered with seeming justice, so flashing, as it were, in defence of a higher than human law, and wreathed as with the " beauty of the lilies " by the lyric poetry of the time, that the sanctions of authority were as mere houses of cards before his blows. No wonder that with such an impulse the devotees of anti-slavery, in the language of one of their eloqxient champions, " would rend the Union to destroy slavery, though hedged round by the triple bars of the national compact, and though thirty-three crowned sovereigns, with arms in their hands, stood around it." The pro-slavery men of 1857 forgot the grow- ing power of this sentiment, and the increasing power of the North to enforce it. They desperately struggled to force Kansas into the Union as a Slave State, by a stupendous fraud. In the reaction against its perpe- tration, a fresh agitation was aroused. This new agitation outlasted the interest -in the case of Kansas. The whole country became a Kan- 2 -.^ EIGHT YEARS IN CONGKESS. sas. It absorbed all the energies of debate. The first speech made by xne in Congi-ess, and, as it was noted, the first made in the new hall of the House on the 16th of December, 1857, was also the first speech against Lecompton bv any one in the lower house of Congress. 1 remember takin^^itto Judge Douglas at his house on the Sunday preceding he disculsion, to re:d him parts of it in manuscript. The Globe of that W will show the speech, and the attempt by Southern statesmen Messrs. Bococke, Quitman, Jones, and others, to cut me off from the de- bate As a consequence of this speech, my friend the postmaster at Columbus lost his office, and I lost caste with the administration. I was content to wander for four years throughout the admmislration of Pres - dent Buchanan-a Democrat who had helped his election, without influ- ence to help a single friend. As the interest in that discussion has subsided, I do not propose to re- produce these speeches. The points will appear from this extract : I propose now to nail against the door, at the ^^^^^^^^^^.^f^^f ^^T^ m-P.Q mv theses. When the proper time comes, I will detend ttiem, Se^from t^;; assauhs of p'oliLal ^iend . or foe I won d ^m ^^^^^ Z\oni sir here and now. But silence, which is said to be as hl^miiess Kmsis I maintaii :-l. That the highest refinement and greatest ut hty ''TmocJaa^pohcy-the genlns of our i-ti'"'"---*-'"' m.W r.,^^-nt 9 Thit this self-"-overnment means the AMll ot tlie majoi i:Xal°-pr;sS"3 That°.his se,f.gove,™ent and ^^^ "^e're facrldl/guaranteed In the organic -' "f.^'Jansas^^/.i ,^ n^' S guaranteed upon the question of slavery n <«"".»-* f hat domestic respect 10 alllhe domestic inslitulions oi the people. »•/'''","?"'", u timtlons mean all which are local, not ^--'-Sf ;"t wet It means that and .hat only-that always «•"'"' ^'7^, t„ fo^m be left perfectly free .0 ostahlish or '*°1'^\ f^ "fj doe Hne was rceog- -"e/if^^ytt Oft; SSra-y ^ ^''^r^'^^^t'^<^t national platil'm ; asserted by their ^^'^'-^J^'^J^l^f'^'^^ their candidates; incorporated m messages ""'> "^™'i'°"' 'Tents, who the feature which distinguished the Democracy t om "^ "W",^™'^"^ maintained (he doctrine of congressional mtcrvent.on h. il'" "2"P ton constitution, while it is asserted that '' ■' ^.f^ o s tb mi h some yet must vote one or the other ot them. ^'^^^ ''J?,, J^ ti,e constitu- tion with shivery," or " constitution with no slavery , but the tons tion they must take. KANSAS AND THE TEEEITOEIAL QUESTION. 15 These were tlie points elaborated in that discussion. Differing with Mr. Buchanan, I was constrained afterwards to differ with Judge Doug- las on the Compromise bill reported by a Committee of Conference. I voted for the latter on the ground that it returned for a fair election the fraudulent constitution to the people, and that there were people enough for a State in Kansas. I was fully justified by the subsequent action of the people under that bill. Subsequently I voted to receive the free State of Kansas ; and after justifying my former vote, scarcely exagger- ated the campaign I had undergone, when I said that — For voting for this Conference bill, even after I was justified by the popular vote of Kansas in the summer of 1858, I was compelled to meet from Republicans at home a campaign unexampled for its unprovoked fierceness, its base and baseless charges of personal corruption, its con- ceit, its ignorance, its impudence, its poltroonery, its billingsgate, its bru- tality, its moneyed corruption, its fanatical folly, its unflagging slang, its drunken saturnalia, and its unblushing libels and pious hypocrisy ! At the capital of Ohio, in its most noble and intelligent precincts, the peo- ple, ashamed of and indignant at the audacious falsehood and brazen clamor from the presses of the State, and from the little penny-a-liners and pettifoggers, who echoed the libels of members fresh from this floor — in spite of all this the people doubled my majority of 1856. I had the satisfaction — prouder than a temporary victory — of seeing the policy I had voted for with earnest conviction of duty, and with the sustaining advice of such a statesman as Robert J. "Walker, vindicated by time, and sustained by its practical operation. As the crowning act of this triumph, I shall vote for the admission of Kansas under this constitution. In doing this, I court all criticism, defy all menace, and truly represent almost every man, woman, and child in my district. Inasmuch as my vote for the Conference biU was greatly impugned and as it seemed to be a departure from the original position of Judge Douglas, I was solicitous to have the Judge explain our relations to this question. This he did during the campaign of 1860. On the 20th of September he spoke to an immense meeting at Columbus, Ohio, in which he thus explained the differences between himself and other Demo- crats : " I made the first speech in the Senate against the Lecompton Con- stitution, and without consulting Mr. Cox or any one else, and Mr. Cox made the first speech against it in the House, without consultation or dic- tation from me. We fought it through on our own responsibility until Lecompton was dead ; and when Lecompton was defeated, its friends got up the English bill to cover its retreat. Hon. Robert J. Walker, then Governor of Kansas, advised Mr. Cox and myself to go for it, giving as- surance that when presented to the people of Kansas, they wouhl kill it, ten to one. Under these circumstances, some of our men felt it their duty 16 EIGHT TEAES IN CONGRESS. to go for tlie bill. I did not thiuk it a fair submission to the will of tte peopte, and determined to fight it too. Mr. Cox said he had consulted the members of the Ohio delegation, that they all agreed to vote for it, and that under the circumstances he should vote Avith them. I told him I had no quarrel with those of my friends who differed with me honestly on that point, and afterwards I wrote letters in favor of the election of some of those who had voted for the English bill. The Judge concluded by urging his friends in the District to naU the slander by reelecting Mr. Cox." Had Judge Douglas yielded his resolution on this subject, and voted for the Conference bill, the territorial question Avould not have been mooted at Charleston, with so marked a personal application. His nomination would have been made without division. For a time, at least, secession would have been prevented, and war averted. The political battles of 1860- were fought on the question of slavery in the territories. The election of Mr. Lincoln, which took place in November, 1860, not oxAy settled the question against the South, but against the friends and doctrine of Judge Douglas. Congress met in December following ; then arose for desperate debate all the varied questions involving human servitude. It was to the composition of these questions that the good men of that time addressed themselves. That Congress was one of marked ability. The South especially was ably represented. The hidden facts, the inner life, the scenes and incidents which never appear on public record, and seldom appear even in the newspaper, when they shall transpire Avill give to that Congress the graphic interest of a battle picture. Out of its discussions, devices, and seditions, arose the bloody spectre of war ! It is my hope in the following pages to illustrate some of these incidents and scenes. I do not design to reproduce the public record ; that is done. Nor do I expect to change men's minds as to th^ merit or demerit of its men and measures. But there is m.uch of interest as yet unwritten clinging to the actors in that drama — a drama whose last act has liad its tragical dc'nouemeut in the assassination of a kind Chief Magistrate, Avhose pall, like that of the last day, still hangs over our newly-resurrected nation. XXXVI. CONGRESS— SESSION 1860-'61. ITSMEMBERS-THEIR CHARACTERISTICS, OPINIONS, AND VOTES-THE CRIT- TENDEN AND OTHER COMPROMISES. It was my intention, in this volume, to have prefixed to the speeches such recollections connected with the rise and progress of our civil war as would Illustrate its motive and Hfe. Especially did I intend to sketch those mner political facts and scenes which my position enabled me to observe. But the volume would be too much enlarged by their elabora- tion. It would require a volume by itself to connect with the recorded facts such a memorabilia. Their recital would give personal interest and piquancy to these historic events ; but that labor must be reserved It would scarcely be kind, now that the leaders of the rebeUion are under the ban, and many of them incarcerated, to add any thing to the reproba- tion which they have received, or to the fetters which weigh them down Is It Ossian, or some other writer (the sentiment hardly belon^^s to our own times), who says that while we should be a tide of man^ streams agamstthe enemies of our country, we should be as a zephyr upon the grass toward a faUen foe? I would emulate that Clu-istian philosophy, not only m writing but in acting. While recalling much that occurred during the winter of 1860-'61, it would be generous now only to record the mclmations and efforts of those under condemnation who then endeavored to stay the madness of secession. One thing is remarkable as connected with that Congress For weeks, nay months, the Southern leaders in the Senate and House openly proclaimed their doctrine of secession, argued the abstract and practical questions connected with such movements, with great formality and solemnity presented their ordinances of secession, and under their sane tions.withdiw. This was done in the presence of excited and awe-struck audiences. It was done with aU the graces of impassioned and polished 2 18 EIGHT YEARS IN CONGRESS. Terribly beautiful the serpent lay, Wreathed like a coronet of gold and jewels. It was (lone, v/itliout that protest from any one of tlic Eepublican mem- bers which their present temper would seem to have required. One by- one the States thus became unrepresented ; and not a word, except some- times debate on the abstract right to secede, or tacit acknowledgment that it was best for the time. No attempt was made to arrest any one, if we may except an affidavit by some person of no consequence, and whose name cannot now be recalled, on the basis of which he vainly lu-ged an arrest of Davis and others for treason. Even so promuient a Re°puljlican as Lieut-Governor Stanton, of Ohio, to say nothing of his namesake the Secretary of War, Mr. Gkeeley, and Mr. Chase, abetted this movement by proposing no constraint upon the departing sisters. These facts, as the forerunners of the mighty conflict of arms, would be inexplicable did we not remember that from December, 1860, until March, 1861, there was a hope, as Douglas and Crittenden telegraphed to Georgia, that " the rights of the South and of every State and section would be protected in the Union." The first efforts at . compromise were by no means confined to the Democratic Senators and members. Gov. Corwin, Mr. Adams, Mr. Edward Joy Morris, and others in the House ; Senators Cameron, Baker, Dixon, Foster, Collamer, and others in the Senate, Avere, at the beginning of the session, and for some time afterwards, regarded as not indifferent to a compromise which would at least retain the border States, if it did not stop the movement of the Gulf States. The thirty-sixth Congress was unusuaUy gifted. Especially were the Southern States represented by their most experienced and able men. They hoped that the step they were about to take would be bloodless ; that tlieir array in strength, and with the mien of resistance, would pre- vent coercion by arms. Even so late as the secession of Texas, after Judge Reagan, one of its representatives, had left his seat, he took pains to inform rac, that he thought the South would be out only for a season, and that when the excitement subsided, and especially if any guarantees were given of the protection of then- rights, they would return. In this, how signally ability and experience failed to discern the future ! Man- kind generally reckon the greatness of men by success. If this be the touchstone, the vaunted statesmanship of the South vanishes. But wliut a company of conspicuous names answered to the roll-call on the 6th ot December, 1800 ! At the head stands John C. Bueckknkidgk, offering his nam^ so proudly connected with the Iiistory of Kentucky, to the task of dismember- XXXVI. CONGRESS SESSION 1860-'61. 19 ing the Democratic party, whicli had once so honored him. He was among the last to leave his home to take the sword for the South. Now he is a fugitive upon English soil, pleading with his stricken confederates to do the best by submission to Federal rule. Foremost in influence, if not in rank, is Jefferson Davis ; how then unlike that Davis who, in Maine, but a few years before, had spoken nobly for the Union ; and how unlike that Davis, the captive of the Miclilgan cavalry, and the prisoner at Fortress Monroe ! His State was not among the foremost to secede. She waited until the 9th of January, 1861, before passing her ordinance, and her Senators lingered until the 21st before they withdrew. It is generally credited among those who were familiar with Mr. Davis's inclinations, that even after the ordinance passed he was anxious to remain. There is indubitable evidence that while in the Committee of Thirteen he was will- ing to accept the compromise of Mr. Crittenden, and recede from seces- sion. That compromise failed ; because, as Senator Hale said, on the 18th of December, 1860, the day it was introduced, it was determined the controversy should not be settled in Congress. Wlien it failed, the hero of Buena Vista became the Confederate leader. Much as he is underrated now by Southern men who opposed him during the war, he was fitted to be the leader of just such a revolt. Every revolution has a fabulous or actual hero conformable to the local situation, manners, and character of the people who rise. To a rustic people like the Swiss, William Tell, with his cross-bow and the apple ; to an aspiring race like the Americans, Washington, with his sword and the law, are, as Lamartine once said, the symbols standing erect at the cradles of these two distinct Liberties ! Jefferson Davis, haughty, self-willed, and persistent, full of martial ardor and defiant eloquence, is the symbol, both in his character and in his present situation, of the proud and impulsive, but suppressed ardors and hopes of the Southern mind. His colleague in the Senate, Gov. Brown, was, according to my recollection, still more reluctant to sever the con- nection. He was, even before the Charleston Convention, if not openly, covertly a co-worker with Douglas and others in striving to preserve the unity of the Democratic party and the country. Gov. Brown has been a member of the Confederate Congress, and has been outspoken in his criticism on the conduct of the Confederate authorities. I doubt if he had much heart or faith in the secession movement. He was over- shadowed as a Senator by Mr. Davis ; but was far more approachable, and perhaps more kind, in his relations towards other members. The most truculent Senator from the South was Wigfall, of Texas, a man of scarred face and fierce aspect, but with rare gifts of oratory ; bitter at times, if not classical, in his denunciations. But much of his strong talk 20 EIGHT TEARS IN C0NGKES8. and eccentric conduct was owing to that indulgence which the " Hole in the Wall " furnished for Congressional ^nrangle. Col. Wigfall was a master drinker. Had he lived among the ancient Persians, he would have been in high esteem. Darius Hystaspes, among his other virtues, had it recorded on his tombstone, as Wigfall might truthfully upon his : " Here lies a man, than whom no one could hold a greater quantity of liquor !" Next to him in tniculency, though not in sociality, was Senator Iyer- son, of Georgia. He was outspoken and boldsor the sudden disruption of the Union. The colleague of the latter, Mr. Toombs, was far more amenable to reason than his rough manner and boisterous logic indicated. He was a man of commanding person, reminding one, at times, of Mira- BEAU. Bating his broad Africanese dialect, he was often intensely elo- quent in the epigrammatic force of his expression. The Virginia Senators rank among the foremost in this movement. Much was expected from the moderation of Mr. Hunter, but he did little to stay the Kevolution. Little was expected of Mr. Mason, and he did less. The former was a calm, phlegmatic reasoner ; the latter had a defiant, supercilious, and autocratic demeanor, that conciliated no one. Both were imbued with the heresies of the ultra Calhoun School. Louisiana Avas represented by the malicious and unscrupulous Slidell, who combined the fox with the tiger. His savage and sneering threat to destroy the commerce of the North by privateers, I heard. As he delivered it, his manner reminded me of Mephistophcles in one of his humors over some choice anticipated deviltry. But who shall picture the sleek, plausible, and silver-tongued JuuAH r. Benjamin? His farewell speech was as full of historic gar- bling and untruth as of musical and regretful cadences. As he bade adieu to the old Union, he drew fi-om the spectators many plaudits for his rhet- oric, which he could not evoke for his logic. Next to him, in the suavity of his manner, if not in the cogency of his speech, was Judge Clay, of Alabama. He is now in prison, having voluntarily surrendered. He had a bearing that was both dignified and gi-accful ; and although never very hale in health, was too ready to assume his role in the daring drama. Tlic other Senator from Alabama, Gov. Fitzpatrick, an honest miUcr and planter at home, was a model of senatorial frankness. I have not seen his name mentioned since the war. Ho was nominated in 18G0 on the ticket with Douglas at Baltimore, and but for the incessant importu- nity, if not throats, of Southern men who thronged his room, to shake (as they did) his determination, he would have .stood by the Northern Democ- racy in its struggle against the deserters from its organization. The other Senators from the South did not play very prominent parts on XXXVI. CONGKESS SESSION 1860-'61, 21 the Congressional stage. Mr. Clingman, of North Carolina, was expected to fight the Union battle, but failed at the critical time ; he had large ex- perience in Congressional life, but, just elevated to the Senate, he rather pursued what he believed was the popular doctrine. He has since been a Colonel in the rebel service ; he is the only Southern Senator, unless it may be Wigfall, Toombs, and Chesnut, who has had any military ex- perience. The Senators from Delaware, Bayard and Saulsbury, were able men ; the latter is still Senator ; the former, a logical thinker, accom- plished in Constitutional law, and a believer in the unforced association of the States, retired from his place disgusted with that public opinion which would not allow free speech as a means to restrain usurpation, and conclude the war. The Senators from South Carolina did not appear at the opening of Congress. Although that State did not pass her ordinance until the 17th of December, her Senators had resigned on the preceding 10th. The Senator from Tennessee, Mr. Nicholson, was no speaker ; he did not make his mark ; he had been, however, a successful editor. The other Senator, Andrew Johnson, evidently made his mark. Although he had fought the battle in Tennessee for Beeckenridge against both Bell and Douglas, he came to this session as if he were a novus homo. He had great will and tenacity of purpose ; his efforts were vigorous and effective in repelling, from a Southern standpoint, the aggressive debate of the secessionists of the Senate ; his elocution was more forcible than fine — -more discursive than elegant ; he hammered away with stalwart strength upon his thought, until he brought it into shape. He rarely failed to produce the impression he intended. He is destined to act the greatest part in our future. Douglas frequently expressed his regret that Mr. Johnson had not made his blows tell earlier in the hot conflict of ideas in 1860, when Crittenden and himself were championing the inter- ests of all sections, and striving to avert in time the calamities which were pressed by extremists, North and South. The Senators from Maryland, as from Kentucky, like theu- States, occupied middle ground, and were ever ready and eager to mediate. Would that the same could be said for Arkansas ! It was undei-stood that at least one of her Senators, Mr. Se- bastian, was reluctant to foUow South Carolina ; but the other, Mr. Johnson, was nothing loath thus to act. He has recently offered himself to the authorities, in a characteristic letter, frank and manly. Of the Missouri Senators, Mr. Polk went South, where his friends did not expect him to go ; and Mr. Green, unexpectedly, remained North in the seclu- sion of private life. The former had been Governor of hisn^tate, but was not otherwise gi'eatly distinguished. The latter was a worthy foe- man of Douglas in the fierce struggle on the Lecompton question. Of the 22 EIGHT TEARS IN C0NGKE8S. Northern Senators who were supposed to be most nearly allied with the South, were GwiN of California, Lane of Oregon and Bright of Indiana. The Senators from Florida were never regarded, however they seemed, as favorable to the secession movement ; though the Representative from Florida, Judge Hawkins, was the first to urge the withdrawal of his State as a reason for his indifference to compromise, and his refusal to serve on the committee. Messrs. Malloky and Yulee have since been somewhat conspicuous in the rebellion. Mr. Malloky has been Secre- tary of the Confederate Navy, but neither of them exerted any considera- ble influence at Washington in the direction of disunion during the winter of 1860-'61. The Republican Senators of the thirty-sixth Congress who were most noted in the parliamentary conflict, were Hamlin, Fessenden, Hale, Clark, Collamer, Wilson, Sumner, Chandler, Seward, Cameron, Wade, Trumbull, Doolittle, and Baker— a galaxy of ability. Against these, as against the other extremists, stood Douglas, Crittenden, Johnson, Pugh, Latham, Fitch, Thompson, Rice, and Powell. How these tribunes labored to save the nation, only those present at their con- ferences know. I was often myself surprised at the speeches of Douglas and Pugh especially, mitigating the effect of the personal liberty bills, and other infractions of the Constitution, so as to remove from the South- ern mind their hatred of the North thus engendered. Few in number, these men did all they could, even to the last Sabbath evening before the adjournment, when Mr. Crittenden electrified all by the glorious beauty of his last earnest, though ineffectual appeal for conciliation ! In the House, the elements of disunion can be discerned lying like geo- logical strata in sections and States. The State of Maryland furnished no member who was a secessionist j^erse; although of the delegation Messrs. KuNKEL and Hughes seemed to be most sympathetic with the South. The same may be said of Kentucky ; though since, both Burnett and Symme3 have been Confederate Senators. They were both eager for compromise during the winter of 1860, and Burnett even returned to the next Con- gress °in 1861. He is now under bonds for treason. Virginia had Gak- NETT, De Jarxette, and Edmundson, most disposed toward a Southern Confederacy. Bococke, Smith, Jenkins, Leake, and others, were deter- mined to go with the State. They did not labor to foster compromise. Pryor was at times with, and at times against us. I do not think he was as eager as he seemed for a separate Confederacy. His career is known, with Us vicissitudes. The fate of Jenkins, who was a classmate of mine, was what might have been expected. He fougiit bravely and died cour- ageously at the head of his cavalry. Rich la a patrimony of splendid XXXVI. CONGRESS — SESSION 1860-'61. 23 farms along the Ohio and Kanawha, surrounded by friends who elected him to Congress when barely of the constitutional age, just married to a daughter of the diplomatist Bowlin, of Paraguayan memory, and com- ino" from that part of Virginia where secession was the exception, his fate has seemed to be as unnatural as it is sad. Ex-Governor Smith, of Virginia, was perhaps the most remarkable in the delegation. He was a fluent debater, ready at repartee, and brave to a fault. I am indebted to him for aiding in the special exchange of prisoners. Since the war, when I could get little or no aid from Congress or our own Government, and scarcely a vote on my resolutions urging exchange, till too late to save the lives of thousands, I received prompt and generous aid from this inveterate insur- gent, which President Lincoln, when informed of it by me, reciprocated with the remark that " he would not be outdone by ' Extra Billy ' in ex- tra kindness." But the man among Vii'ginians who labored most nobly for the Union, was John S. Millson of Norfolk. Botelek began the same good work by moving for the Committee of Thirty-three ; but to Millson, more than to any one, did we owe the vote of Virginia in favor of the Union given in February, 1861. I franked, at his request, many thousands of his unanswerable speech to Virginians. It was complained of us, by some of the Hotspurs, that we had had the census copied, to flood that State with Millson's speech. This was true. In this work no one gave to General Millson more effective aid than Sherrard Clemens, of "Wheeling, whose eloquence never did better execution, whose zeal never flagged, and whose Unionism never wavered. In looking over the names of members from other States, I wish I could find more than I do of whom this may be said. Not counting Tennessee, led by Nelson and Maynard, Kentucky with Mallory at its head, and Missouri, led by the gallant Phelrs ; saving Joshua Hill of Georgia, Houston and Cobb of Alabama, Gilmer and Vance of North Carolina, Bouligny of Louisiana, Hamilton of Texas, and excepting such men as Branch of North Carolina, Reuben Davis of Mississippi, Boyce of South Carolina, Rust of Arkansas, and Taylor of Louisiana, distrustful of secession as the cure for Southern ills, though less pronounced in their sentiments — excepting these and a few others not so conspicuous, the whole array of Southern talent, led by Miles, Gartrell, Pugh (of Alabama), Bo- cocke, Garnett, Smith, Pryor, Crawford, Curry, Hindman, McRae, Barksdale, Lamar, Wright, and Keitt — nearly all, except Pugh and Smith, young men — was thrown in favor of precipitate action, without any Zealand little attempt to compromise. Even such men asWiNSLOw, Sjiith, and Branch, of N. C, and Reagan, of Texas, elected as conservatives against the. disunion sentiments of their districts, cowered before this band 24: EiaHT YEAES IN CONGRESS. of Southern talent and the pressure brought to bear from their homes — inspired by hopes of independence. The wives, daughters, and other fe- male connections of Southern members, were in the galleries constantly, to cheer by their presence and smiles the fervid efforts of these secession or- ators. For impetuous debate, there was Lamar, of Mississippi, scholarly and defiant ; for logical humor. Governor McRae, of the same State, suc- cessor to Gen. Qditmajst, one of the happiest of speakers, an original slave- trade secessionist, though educated in Ohio ; for parliamentary skirmish- ing, there was Bococke, of Virginia ; for vituperative philippic, there was Roger A. Prtor ; for courteous and beautiful elocution, Alexander R. BoTELER, of Harper's Ferry ; for swaggering bravado, toned Avith an elegant phraseology, there was the vain and clever Keitt ; for smooth and trenchant dialectics, there was Porcher Miles, of Charleston, who earned his place in Congress by his care of the sick in the fever-stricken city of Norfolk in 1855 ; for statesmanslike and vigorous debate, there was Brancu, of North Carolina ; for broad wit and hearty blows, there was Gilmer, of North Carolina ; for subtle ratiocination of the Calhoun pat- tern, there was Pugh, of Alabama, who had all the pith, without the ar- tistic polish, of his colleague Curry ; for offensive and vivacious readiness, there was H indman, who almost alone of these leaders has been conspic- uous in the war. Branch, Rupfin, Keitt, Jenkins, Barksdale, and Rust have had important commands, and have all met that death of which they vaunted so much, rather than submit to the Federal authority. In looking over this roll, I cannot but regret that so much of genius, energy, and goodness have been misled to their own ruin and that of their States. Among the most eloquent of this remarkable body not thus mis- led, was Nelson, of Tennessee ; the most eccentric and indomitable genius for politics, was Emerson Etiieridge ; the clearest heads for political economy, metaphysical refinement, and histoi'ic research, were William W. BoYCE and John S. Millson. K we go to the Republican side of the House, we find CoRWiN, of Ohio, incomparable for his iun, his pathos, and his soul-stin-ing eloquence ; Charles Francis Adams, with no readiness as a speaker, but a profound thinker ; Eli Thayer, as practical as a steam-engine, but with all his vast motive power occasionally getting out of order ; Morrill, of Vermont, whose skill in .tariff calculations never flagged during the excitements of the war ; Roscoe Conkling, with rare gifts of ready and pure elocution ; John Hickman, of Pennsylvania, straightforward and dashing, with a schol- ar's taste hidden imdcr the toga ; Thaddeus Stevens, the Metlcrnich of llepjiblicauism ; Galusha A. Grow, quick in tiie manual and saucy in bravado toward his opponents ; Stanton, Sherman, and Bingham, from XXXVI. CONGRESS — SESSIOiST 1860-61. 25 Ohio, all men of experience iu legislation, and leaders of tbe tlien rising party ; Colfax, of Indiana, who, like Gkow, rose to prominence by his championing with much tluency and energy the pietistic hnmanitarian- ism of his party ; Lovejoy, of Illinois, who cultivated an ignorance of parliamentary law in order to say the most indecorous things, and Avhose rugged vehemence, if not oratory, was taken for it by those who look more to the manner than the substance. These, with the affable Speaker, Penning- ton, made up the phalanx upon which the Southern cohort hui'led itself in debate. As I recall the scene which took place at my desk between Keitt and Grow, during the preceding Congress, after the hour of mid- night, when the passions of the time were incarnate in that Congress and at that hour ; as I repicture the fierce clutch and glaring eye, and the struggle between these heady champions, there come trooping down the aisles of memory, as there came trooping dovv^n the actual aisles of the House, the belligerent members, with TVashburne of Illinois, and Pot- ter of Wisconsin, leading the one extreme, and Barksdale and Lamar leading the other ; then comes the melee — the struggle, the pale face of the Speaker calling to order, the serge ant-at-anns rushing into the area before the clerk's desk, the mace as his symbol of authority, with its silver eagle, moving up and down on the wave of passion and conflict ; then the dead hush of the hot heart, and glare of defiance across the hall ! As this scene is revivified, looking at it through the red storm of the war, I cannot but think that then and there was epitomized all that has made that war bloody and desperate. Then, too, there rise up the forms of those who were then accounted moderate and middle men, like Davis and HoLMAN of Indiana, McClernand and Logan of Illinois, Mallory and Stevenson of Kentucky, Pendleton and Vallandigham of Ohio, Florence and Montgomery of Pennsylvania, Sickles and Cochrane of New York, who stood, like Douglas, Bigler, Latham, Pugh, John- son, and Crittenden, in the Senate, as a breakwater against the contend- ing tides. From these^isjecta membra of this remarkable Congress, the reader may gather sonre idea of the force and energy, tact and eloquence, passion and prejudice, which composed it. Some of the great questions which arose were foreshadowed in the President's Message ; for instance, the power to coerce a State. But there were other questions, concerning the acquisition of territory, and the gov- ernment of the territories ; the effect of the decisions of the Supreme Court ; various amendments of the Constitution so as to prohibit Congress and the people from impairing the -I'ight of property in slaves, etc. ; the fugitive slave law ; fugitives from justice ; the right of transit in free States 26 EIGHT YEARS EtT CONGRESS. of persons with slaves ; the milHfying acts of State Legislatures ; the aboli- tion of slavery and the internal slave trade ; changes by constitutional amendments in the Executive office and veto power ; the restoration of the equilibrium between the slave and free States ; the voluntary division of slave States into two or more States ; giving the slave States a vote on all questions of slavery ; making the amendments proposed unamend- ablc ; granting to the States power to appoint the Federal officers in their midst ; the peaceable withdrawal of States, and apportionment of the public debt ; dual Senates and dual Executive ; the organization at once of the remaining territories ; the foreign slave trade ; the acquisition of foreign territory by a vote of two-thirds ; questions as to ordinances of secession, and their effect ; preventing Africans from ever becoming citizens ; a constitutional convention ; these and many other questions were debated, and referred to the Committees of Thirteen in the Senate and Thirty-three in the House. They were the result of anxious cogita- tion on the problems which threatened to dispart the country. They remain upon the records to illustrate the variety and magnitude of the in- terests springing out of the institution of slavery, and the duplex charac- ter of our State and Federal Governments. They were, for the last time, thrust into the legislative tribunal for tranquil solution, before the conflict in the forum of reason should be replaced by " the intestine shock And fuiious close of civil butchery." The public record shows what result was reached by these committees, or rather how resultless were their labors. Mr. Corwin, for a majority, presented his resolutions and bills ; Mr. Adams declined to recommend even his own propositions, inasmuch as he believed that the South would ac- cept nothing that he could offer. AVashburne of "Wisconsin, and Tap- pan of New Hampshire, of the committee, offered nothing by way of compromise. The conservative men, with Taylor, Phelps, Rust, WniTELY, WixsLO^V, Nelson, Hamilton, and others of the committee, wished to go further than Governor Corwin. They rj^ommended the Crittenden proposition. The votes on the Corwin measures were strange- ly incongruous. The vote on the Crittenden proposition was well de- fined, but is not so well understood. From the frequency of inquiries since the war as to this latter vote, the people were eager to know upon whom to fix tlie responsibility of its failure. It may as well be stated that all olhcr propositions, whether of the Peace Convention, or the border State projct, or the measures of the committees, were comparatively of no moment ; for the Crittenden proposition was the only one which could have arrested the struggle. It would have received a larger vote than XXXVI. C0NGKE3S — SESSION 1860-'61. 27 any other. It would have had more effect in moderating Southern excite- ment. Even Davis, Toombs, and others of the Gulf States, would have accepted it. I have talked with Mr. Crittenden frequently on this point. Not only has he confirmed the public declarations of Douglas and Pugh, and the speech of Toombs himself, to this effect, but he said it was so un- derstood in committee. At one time, whUe the committee was in session, he said : " Mr. Toombs, will this compromise, as a remedy for all wrongs and apprehensions, be acceptable to you?" Mr. Toombs with some profanity replied, " Not by a good deal ; but my State will accept it, and I will follow my State to ." And he did. I will not open the question whether it was wise then to offer accom- modations ; it may not be profitable now to ask whether the millions of young men whose bodies are maimed, or whose bones are decaying under the sod of th* South, and the heavy load of public debt under Avhich we sweat and toil, have their compensation in black liberty. Nor will I dis- cuss whether the blacks have been bettered by their precipitate freedom, passing, as so many have, from slavery through starvation and suffering to death. There is no comfort in the reflection that the negroes vnll be extermi- nated, with the extermination of slavery. The real point is, could not this Union have been made permanent by timely settlement, instead of cemented by fraternal blood and military rule ? By an equitable partition of the terri- tory this was possible. "We had then 1,200,000 square miles. The Cpjt- TENDEN proposition wovild have given the North 900,000 of these square miles, and applied the Chicago doctrines to that quantity. It would have left the remaining fom-th, substantially, to be carved out as free or slave States, at the option of the people when the States were admitted. This proposition the radicals denounced. Notwithstanding the then President elect was in a minority of a million of the popular vote, they were de- termined, as Mr. Chase wrote to Portsmouth, Ohio, from the Peace Con- vention, to use the power while they had it, and prevent a settlement. It has been stated, to rid the Republicans of the odium of not averting the war when that was possible, that the Northern members tendered to the Southern the Crittenden Compromise, which the South rejected. This is untrue. It was tendered by Southern Senators and Northern Demo- crats to the Republicans. They, in conjunction with some half dozen re- ciLsant Southern Senators, rejected it. It was voted upon but once in the House, when it received 80 votes against 113. These eighty votes were exclusively Democrats and Southern Americans, like Gilmer, Vance, and others. Mr. Briggs, of New York, was the only one not a Democrat who voted for it. He had been an old Whig and never a Republican. The Republican roll, beginning with Adams and ending with Woodruff, 28 EIGHT YEAES IN" CONGKESS. was a unit against it. Intermingled witli them was one Soutliern ex- tremist, General Hindman, who desired no settlement. There were • many Southern men who did not vote, believing that unless the Republi- cans, who were just acceding to power, favored it, its adoption would be a delusion. The plan adopted by the Republican Senators to defeat it, was by amendment and postponement. On the 14th and 15th of January they cast all their votes against its being taken up ; and on the 16th, when it came up, Mr. Clark, of New Hampshire, moved to strike it out and in- sert something which he knew would neither be successful nor acceptable. The vote on Clark's amendment was 25 to 23 ; every " ay " being a Republican, and every " no," except Kennedy and Crittenden (Ameri- cans), being Democrats. On this occasion, six Southern Senators, in- cluding Benjamin and Wigpall, did not vote. They could have de- feated Mr. Clark's motion. In reference to this vote, we have the tes- timony of President Johnson, in a speech on the expulsion of Senator Bright, January 31, 1862, to this effect: " I sat right behind Mr. Benjamin, and I am not sure that my worthy friend [Mr. Latham] was not close by when he refused to vote ; and I said to him, ' Mr. Benjamin, why do you not vote ? Wliy not save this proposition, and see if we cannot bring the country to it? ' He gave me rather an abrupt answer, and said he would control his own actions without consulting me or anybody else. Said I : ' Vote and show your- self an honest man.' As soon as the vote was taken, he and others tele- graphed South, ' We cannot get any compromise.' " Doubtless the rest of the six Senators had the same sinister motive for their reticence in voting and readiness in telegraphing. But their re- creancy does not excuse the body of the Republicans. Nor do I know that now, since the collapse of the rebellion, they are so anxious to be ex- cused. I only write the facts of history, not to justify or condemn. When this result was announced, universal gloom prevailed. The people favored this compromise. Petitions by thousandsi,of citizens were showered upon Congress, for its passage. Had it received a majority only, they would have rallied and sustained those who desired peace and Union. One more earnest appeal was made to the Republicans. General Cameron answered it by moving a reconsideration. His motion came up on the 18lh, when he voted against his own motion. It was carried, how- ever, over the votes of ihe Republicans, althougli Wigfall voted with thcin. AVIien it was again up on tlie 2d of iMarch, 1861, the Soutliern States were nearly all gone ; cveo then it was lost by one vote only. But on that occasion all the Democrats were for, and all the Repub- XXXVI. OONGKESS SESSION 1860-'61. 29 licans against it. Tlie truth is, there was nothing but sneers and scepti- cism from the Eepublicans at any settlement. They broke down every proposition. They took the elements of conciliation out of the Peace Con- vention before it assembled. Senators Haelan and Chandler wete es- pecially active in preparing that Convention for a failure. If every South- ern man and every Northern Democrat had voted for this proposition, it would have required some nine Republicans for the requisite two-thirds. Where were they ? Dreaming with Mr. Seward of a sixty-days struggle, or arranging for the division of the patronage of Administration. The only Southern Senators who seemed against any settlement were Iverson and WiGFALL ; that no man will challenge if he will refer to the Globe (1st part, 35th Congress, p. 270) for the testimony of Douglas and Pugh, and to Mr. Bigler's Bucks County speech, September 17, 1863. The lat- ter knew it to be true, when he said that — " When the struggle was at its height in Georgia between Robert Toombs for secession, and 4- H. Stephens against it, had those men in the Committee of Thirteen, who are now so blameless in their own esti- mation, given us their votes, or even three of them, Stephens would have defeated Toojibs, and secession would have been prostrated. I heard Mr. ToOJiBS say to Mr. Douglas that the result in Georgia was staked on the action of the Committee of Thirteen. If it accepted the Critten- den proposition, Stephens would defeat him ; if not, he would carry the State out by 40,000 majority. The three votes from the Republican side would have carried it at any time ; but Union and peace in the balance against the Chicago platform were sure to be found wanting." If other testimony were wanting, I would ask a suspension of judgment until those facts, better known to Southern men, transpire. The inter- course about to be reestablished between the sections will cumulate the proof. It will also bring to the light many facts showing that, while President Buchanan was working for the Peace Conference, while Vir- ginia had been gained to our side with her ablest men, there were even then in the Cabinet those who not only encouraged revolt, but foiled hy letter and speech the efforts of the Unionists at Washington and Rich- mond. Those who sought to counteract the schemes of secession, were themselves checkmated by men now in authority. These letters and acts are referred to in the recent speech of General Blair. They will be and should be brought into the sunshine, if only to vindicate the true Union men of that dark hour, and to condemn those who have since made so much pretension with so much zealotiy, coupled with unexampled cruelty and tyranny. Whether, therefore, you consult the public record, or go beyond its veil 30 EIGHT TEARS IN CONGRESS. and consult those who knew the elements at work in the committees and in social life, one leading fact always stands stark and bold before you : that with the aid of a handful of secessionists per se, the whole body of the Repubhcans were, as President Johnson described Senator Clark, when he defeated the Crittenden resolution by his amendment, " acting out their policy." In the light of subsequent events, that policy was devel- oped ; it was the destruction of slavery at the perU of war and disunion ; or, as Senator Douglas expressed it, "a disruption of the Union, believ- ing it would draw after it, as an inevitable consequence, civil war, servile insurrections, and finally the utter extermination of slavery in all the Southern States." SPEECHES. I. FINANCES, TARIFFS, ETC, COMPARISON OF EXPENSES BETWEEN 1858 AND 1864, AND OF THE TAXATION OF ENGLAND AND AMERICA IN 1858. I msERT tlie following extracts, not so mucli for their importance, as to sliow the astounding disparity of our revenues and expenditures between the years 1858 and 1864. It is curious to see how sixty-five millions startled us in the one year, and how contemptible it seemed six years later ! The first speech was delivered on the 12th of June, 1858, and the last on the 2d day of June, 1864 : Gentlemen cannot complain of our withholding protection to ocean commerce. The West had been generous in this regard. If she were moi-e niggardly, she might have had more consideration. She does not " calculate" so much as our Atlantic States. It is high time she began it. Her own commerce, on river and lake, far exceeds that of the sea- board States, Her commerce is not so much endangered from the hostili- ty of other nations ; but it is in equal danger from the elements, from snag and rock, from storm and fire. I voted your ten sloops — not so much because I feared a war as because I wanted the peace kept, and your commerce protected from outrage by search and seizure. * * Mr. Chairman, I am one of those who believe that the splendor of a nation does not lie in the wealth and extravagance of its pampered me- tropolis. The true glory of this nation is to be found elscAvhere. Her new States, made up of men of simple habits, without artificial wants — these are the blossoms and fruits of our " secular majesty and magnificent strength." I am opposed to all these extravagant expenditures for the 32 EIGHT TEAKS IN CONGRESS. benefit of one section and of this metropolis. Let our appropriations take a wider scope and a more useful object. In discussing unjust and unequal appropriations, Mr. Cox said : There is a power arising in the West which will one day — not far ahead, either — after the next census, in 1860, perhaps, correct these evils, while it looks after its own interests, so shamelessly neglected. A few admonitory facts in this connection may not be amiss. The present rate of increase of the population of the Avestern States, particularly of the northwestern, indicates that by 1863, when the new congressional ap- portionment will be in operation, there will be on this floor, representing what may be called western interests, one hundred and twenty-five mem- bers out of two hundred and forty-one, if such should be the number of the House. Whatever the number, those States which have a common interest in western agi-iculture and commerce will have a preponderance. The Northwest alone wiU outnumber New Yoi'k ahd New England. Where it now has fifty-three, it will have, under the next census, eighty — nearly one-third of the whole number of Representatives. This will command a controlling influence. It is to be hoped it wiU be sufficient to stop the suicidal disunion cry of North and South. Let the West repose in its might. It can afford to wait. The lines of empire are on the face of the cradled Hercules. Thirty-eight years ago General Cass visited a village of ten or twelve houses, containing sixty people, by means of a bark canoe, by way of the Wisconsin River and Green Bay. That village of 1820 is the Chicago of 1858, with one hundi-ed and fifty thousand people. It is the terminus of more railways than any other city of the Union, and has become the great grain depot of the world ! This marvellous increase of one city is but the little forefinger, as it were, pointing out to the greater West of a greater future than has yet been di-eamed, when there shall be opened up to emi- gi'ation and production the great plains of America which lie between the meridian line which terminates the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota, on the west, and the Rocky Mountains, out of which twenty-four new States will arise with the same abundance of resources which marks the States of the Mississippi valley ! It is a common practice, in discussions of this character, to show the expenses of our Government when Ave were young, and, by contrast with the present, to decry the present lack of economy. One of my colleagues [Mr. SdermanJ, in an able speech this session, after giving table after table of figures showing our expenses in the past, and comparing them with the present, did not give sufficient heed, in my humble judgment, to the gi'cat increase in all the departments of industry, and in all the re- sources of our fast-growing commonwealths. Here is a sample of this sort of fallacy taken Irom his speech : " The expenses of this year, the first under Mr. Buchanan's adminis- tration, will be $5,000,000 more than the entire expenses of tlic Govoi-n- ment IVom its foundation to the close of Jefferson's administration. The aggi'egate expenses for the first twenty years of our Government were $78,363,762 ; and I have already shown that, this year, the expenses ex- ceed §83,000,000." FINAJSrCES, TAKIFFS, ETC. 33 Such statements prejudice witliout convincing. There is no compari- son to be di-awn between such a remote era as the first twenty years of our Government and the present time. Since then we have had steam- ships, steamboats, steam sea vessels of war, steam sea mail service. "We have added since then to our area five-fold. We have more than doubled the States, and we have now six Territories. Within a half century what have we done ? Moved the Indians west and further west of the Missis- sippi. We have given them missionaries and whiskey, money and schools ; and our Interior Department are trying to civihze aU the War Depart- ment do not murder. We have made our land the principal cotton and great grain-growing country of the world. Our marine now exceeds that of England in tonnage. Our manufactures now compete with Europe in South America and the Orient. We have increased our numbers nearly six-fold, for in 1808 our population was about six millions ; we have in- creased our federal expenses about twelve-fold, but our annual private in- come fifteen-fold ! There is no fairness in tables like those of my colleague [Mr. Sher- man], which institute comparisons between different years, and which take the increase of population only as the test of a true ratio of increase in expenses. Conclusions from such premises may well be called " mon- sters of imagination begotten on a cloud of statistics." Why, it would be hardly fail* to compare the expenses of ten or five years ago with those of the present. Last year our expenses were over sixty-five millions. In 1850 they were only $37,000,000. " What prodigality ! " says the sophist. He ought not to say it, till he remembers what empires we have opened since 1850, what new and great calls are made on our Treasury for the proper protection of added interests. In 1830 we had an expenditure of over thu-teen millions. " Now," says the sophist, " it is nearly six times as much." Think of one fact in this connection, and you will not hastily conclude on such premises. In 1830 a writer in Philadelphia glories over the wonderful fact that whereas, in 1824, only about three thousand dollars in gold from domestic sources was sent to the Mint, then, in 1830, it had increased to $130,000. But, let me add, what a change since 1830 ! Now, om* domestic yield of gold exceeds fifty millions per annum ! There is but one criterion for the increase of our expenses. It is not the increase of our population ; such a ratio is an unfair test of true economy : but it is the increase of all the interests in view of our increased national wealth, area, and importance. Whenever these interests and the honor of the nation do not demand it, our expenses must be kept down \vith rigid firmness. The expectations of the Government from the last tariff have been foiled by the financial troubles. The expenses of the Government for this year have been somewhat increased by the Utah troubles, as well as by the naturally growing demands of our growing nation. It becomes us to meet these expenses in a patriotic spirit ; to furnish means to preserve un- tarnished our national honor. Compared to the Governments of the Old World, loaded as they are with debts, our condition, at the worst, is hap- py. A hundred miUions is no debt to a nation like ours, with its resources and its energies. We throw off such debts as lightly as a summer gar- ment. 3 34 EIGHT TEARS DT CONGKESS. Far be it from me to encourage a system of national debt. If "we need money just now in our exchequer, let us borrow it ; trusting, as we may do witli reason, to the revival of business already begun, which will in- sure before long a revenue sufficient for expenses. Far better borrow than fill a treasury to overflowing by a high tariff. Let the present tariff be fully tested ; and if it fail, in a fair season, to give us a sufficient rev- enue, then let it be modified to suit the exigency. The reverses of 1837 were terrible. The country staggered under them for years. The reverses of 1857 are comparatively easy to be borne. We have now a better banking system, a more healthful curtailment of private expenditure, and a better system of public finance — the sub-treasury. We had not these twenty years ago. Already the disease of last year is weai'ing out. It is found not to be chronic. Individuals have economized manfully. Our decreased imports — which are the very cause of our loan bills and lank treasury — show a recovery going on at once healthful and invigor- ating. So that our seeming disaster of an empty treasury is the index of a restorative process which will bring prosperity. I hope that the economy which the people are now practising in their own troubles, may be practised by our Government in its embarrass- ments. We need to be reminded by misfortune of the evils of extrava- gance. This is an age of luxury. Could the people who have sent us here glance at this Hall, ornamented with all the bedizenment of gilt and paint ; could they hear but one discussion on the monster schemes and inordinate extravagance of the last Congi'ess ; and believe half their eye saw or ear heard, there would be more excitement on economical than terri- torial affairs. Their surprise would but indicate a fact, that our Govern- ment and its rulers are far in advance of the people in the vices, and far behind them in the virtues, of republican life. That simplicity which ob- tains among the masses in New England, in New York, in the West and South, has but little reflection either in the social life or political legisla- tion of the metropolis. In saying this much, I am not indifferent to the proud fact that our governments, Federal and State, are yet the models, in an economical view, to Avhich the reformers of England and the continents point, for the guidance of their OAvn governments. No man can read without patriotic emotion the plaudits of De TocqueviUe, as he discourses of the simplicity and economy of our system. Again and again liave Cobden, Hume, and Roebuck, from the English hustings and in Parliament, referred to these United States for lessons in an economy which is liberal Avithout being extravagant, and which has striven to be discriminating without being mean. It was only a few weeks ago that Mr. Bright bemoaned, in a let- ter to Birmingham, tlie suflering consequent upon the increasing taxes of England, lie could find no remedy except in the diminution of their augmenting expenditure. He startled the Engli,a twenty-five to twenty-eight cents. Mr. Mallory. More than that. Forty cents at least. Mr. Cox. Well, this I know, that whereas a yard of muslin, three years ago, cost ten cents, it now costs forty-five cents. What could be once bought with two and one-thii'd days' labor, now requires nearly four. Coffee, sugar, tea, and all the necessaries of life have not only been enhanced in their nominal price by the paper money standard, but really enhanced by the tariff also. But these taxes are patent to all. It being impossible to ascertain the precise duty imposed on cotton goods reduced to the ad valorem standard, it therefore can only be approximated. It probably ranges from 40 to 60 per cent. But to make a calculation on a basis most favorable to the manufacturer, I assume that the duties on cotton goods when reduced to the ad valorem standard Avould be 35 per cent., the ordinary ad valorem duty, when that form of duty is used, under the tariff of 1862 and the biU before the House. Upon this basis the calcu- lations are made. In the preparation of these calculations I have taken unusual pains. I have been aided by a distinguished statist, Edmund Burke, of New Hampshire, to whom the country is indebted for many valuable lessons in economy. But if any one questions the accuracy of the data upon which they are based, I present some actual transactions which confirm my conclusions. Below is the copy of a document showing the actual duties and charges paid at the Boston custom-house on a package of woollen goods and silk India-rubber fabrics imported from England and entered April 5, 1864. It is the account rendered to the importers by the brokers who transacted the business at the custom-house. The pack- age was marked B 77, and contained goods invoiced in Liverpool at £129 2s. lOcZ. In reducing the sterling currency to Federal money, the invoice, for the sake of convenience, is called £130. Boston, April 5, 1864. Messrs. Bauky & Bro. To Stone & Downkr, Dr. Charges at Liverpool as per margin. To duty on one package, per Africa 8-54 10 Permit ' $ 10 Bond - 30 Custom-house charges. t)2 Cartaj;e 'J5 Wharfd-ro 32 Revenue slaiui) 1 15 Commission 1 62 4 86 $258 96 Premium on $2C0 SO at 80 per cent i?170 55 " " 8 30 at 80 " 2 C4 173 19 $432 16 FINANCES, TAEEFFS, ETC. 43 Actual cost of importing the package above referred to, as estimated by the importer: — Duty onBII $254 10 Freight from Liverpool 22 50 Marine Insurance 1*7 55 $294 15 Premium on gold and custom-house charges 178 05 $492 20 Amount of invoice in round numbers £130 00 Duty and charges on specie basis in sterling, at $5 to the pound 90 00 £220 00 Reduced to Federal money at the rate of $8 50 to the pound 1,760 00 110 00 $1,870 00 It will be seen tliat the pound sterling is estimated at $5 in American gold, which itj higher than the actual rate of exchange, that being about $4.83 to the pound ; and therefore it is most favorable to the manufac- turer. Thus the package of goods which cost £180, or $650 in gold (calling the pound sterling $5), in England, actually cost $1,870 in the paper cur- rency of the United States, to import into this country, reckoning the dif- ference of exchange at 80 per cent, premium, as it was at the date of the transaction. Add to the cost in this country, at $1,870, the profits of the importer at 10 per cent., or $187, and the cost to the purchaser in our market is $2,057. At this point of their cost the goods come in compe- tition with goods of the same kind produced by the home manufacturer. Thus he receives a protection or bounty on the same amount of goods ($650) of $1,407, or 217 percent, ad valorem! On the same operation, calculated on a specie basis, the results will be as follows : cost in Liverpool £130 = $650. Duties and charges £90 = $450. Total cost in this country, $1,100. Add $110 for the profits of the importer — whole sum $1,210. Deduct first cost $650, and there re- mains $460 bounty to the home manufacturer on the same amount of goods, or 86 per cent, ad valorem ! This transaction shows that the actual protection given to the manufacturers of woollen and India-rubber goods by the tariff of 1862 is more than double the rates assumed in my calculation, under the heads of Woollen and India-Rubber Manufactures, which were 35 and 40 per cent, ad valorem. My demonstrations on that' basis are sufficiently startling, although they faU far below the actual fact. This single transaction demonstrates beyond cavU the immense gains which the manufacturers are making by means of a protective tariff and a depreciated paper money system. Is it surprising that they grow rich? Will it be a matter of surprise if the people should grow poor and poorer under the operation of such a cunning system of injustice and robbery? The bandit baron who, in the middle ages, ravished his tribute mone^" 44 EIGHT TEAES IN CONGRESS. witla mailed hand from tlie inBocent wayfarer, or the navigator of the river which flowed past his castle, practised an honest system compared to the shrewd schemes of the present tariff system. Again, if it still be thought that my calculations are inaccurate, I fur- nish the House with another actual transaction. Messrs. Parker, Gan- nett & Osgood, large importers of seeds, &c., in Boston, have furnished the following statement of the cost of importing an invoice of seeds : Cost of seeds in England £40, exchange ^i 85 $194 00 Cost of bags and casks 24 92 Consul's fees, &c " 5 83 War risk, with insurance 12 00 Portage 76 Duties, 30 per cent., gold §6*7 50 Premium on gold 46 24 Permit 20 Bond 40 Stamps 80 Freight 21 45 186 59 Exchange on sterling, £40 161 24 $535 33 Thus it costs in the depreciated currency of this country to import and land in Boston $535.33 on an invoice of seeds costing only £40 in En- gland, equal to 8194 in the gold currency of the United States. Add the importer's profits at 10 per cent., $53.53, in the whole $588.88, and we have the cost in our market at wholesale prices, or 205 per cent, ad- vance on the first cost in England ! This transaction demonstrates that the profits of the home manufac- facturer, as I have calculated them, derived from the combined effects of a high tariff and a depreciated paper currency, are very far below the actual truth. Seeds do not come in competition with the home producer. Manufactured articles do compete with the home manufacturer, and on those descriptions of goods imported, the duty is much higher than 30 per cent. The statement above shows that under the present system the protection given to the home manufacturer cannot be less than 200 per cent., and in most instances a great deal more. The tables herein show that it is from 148 to 150 per cent ; but in most instances they omit freight, insurance, and other small charges ; and they are constructed on the basis of paper depreciated in the ratio of only $1 GO for $100 in gold. Another fact is to be remarked in connection with the statement above. 'The importation was a quantity of seeds for the benefit of the farmer and gardener. They are taxed a duty of 30 per cent, ad valorem, ])ayablc in gold. In a table which I will hereafter insert, the House will see that all raw materials, dye stuffs, &c., used in manufacturing, are taxed with very low duties, and some are admitted duty free, rags, for instance, and some 71,000,000 of pounds of wool nearly free. This is justified by the speech just made by the gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Moruill]. Thus tlie tariff of 18G2 discriminates in almost every particular in favor of the manufacturer and atfainst tlie farmer. FINANCES, TAEIFFS, ETC. 45 How long will the class which I represent — the agricultural portion of the coramunity, the class which possesses in the aggregate three-fourths of the capital of the country, who produce the greatest share of its an- nual income, and who pay the greatest portion of its taxes — submit to be despoiled for the benefit of the manufactui-ing classes under the specious pretext that it is done to stimulate the industry of others, and is necessary for revenue to put down the rebellion and save the Union ? KECiPITULATION. I now propose to show the results of the preceding calculations in the condensed form of tables. Table I. Showing the cost of sundry articles imported from abroad at the place of importation ; the cost in our market at the point of competition with the home manufacture, includ- ing original cost ; difference of exchange; freight, on iron only ; duties, and import- er s profits, and bounties on the same amount of goods to the home manufacturer ia dollars; and rates per cent., reckoned upon the basis of the standard gold currency of the United States : Cost at Place of Importation. Cost in our mar- ket, including exchange, &c. Bounty to home manufac- turers. In dollars. Eate per cent. Iron, pig, " raih'oad, " bar, ■ Cotton, manufacture of, . . Woollen, manufacture of, . . Paper, manufacture of, . . Leather, manufacture of (tan'd) Clothing, manufactured, . . Boots and shoes, .... Soap and candles, .... India-rubber goods, .... $542,952 1,858,979 3,356,300 24,647,648 27,750,371 509,542 2,437,592 1,401,057 69,447 108,953 282,687 $1,167,668 3,619,287 6,120,108 39,041,867 43,956,386 811,512 3,727,825 2,219,273 110,003 172,579 447,761 ■ $624,710 1,760,303 2,772,808 14,394,219 16,206,215 301,970 1,289,485 818,216 40,556 63,626 165,074 115 94 80 58 58 59 53 58 58 58 58 $64,965,528 $101,394,069 $38,437,182 These articles are selected because they come in competition with the largest classes of American manufactures. This and the following tables are reconstructed upon the basis of the importations of 1861, the census returns of 1860, and the rates of duty imposed by the tariff of 1862, reduced as nearly as they may be to the ad valor-em standard. I have not included the fifty per cent, additional upon previous rates imposed by the recent joint resolution ; nor the additional tariff of the present bill. 46 EIGHT TEAHS IN CONGKESS. Table II, Showing the cost of sundry articles imported from abroad at the place of importation ; the cost in our market at the point of competition with the home manufacturer, in eluding original cost ; difference of exchange ; freight, on iron only ; duties, and import er's profits, and bounties on the same amount of goods to the home manufacturer in dollars, and rates per cent., reckoned on the basis of the paper currency of the United States, depreciated at the rate of only §160 in paper to $100 in gold. Cost at place of importation. Cost in our mar- ket, including exchange, &c. Bounty to home manufac- turers. In dollars. Rate per cent. Iron, pig, " railroad, " bar, Cotton, niannfacture of, , • Woollen, manufacture of, . Paper, manufacture of, . . Leather, mauufacture of (tan'd) Clothing, manufactured . . Boots and shoes, .... Soap and candles, .... India-rubber goods, . . . $542,952 1,858,929 3,356,300 24,647,648 27,750,371 509,542 2,437,592 1,401,057 69,447 108,953 282,687 $1,685,301 5,385,773 9,303,858 61,274,040 68,987,420 1,266,720 5,845,785 3,482,651 172,632 270,856 702,758 $142,349 3,526,794 5,947,558 36,226,412 41,237,049 757,178 3,408,193 2,081,594 103,185 161,704 419,871 210 190 170 148 148 148 140 148 149 150 148 $64,965,528 $158,377,794 $95,411,887 Table III. Showing the value of sundry manufactures produced in the United States in 1860, the bounties received by the home manufacturer under the tarift'of 1802, in rates per cent, and in dollars, and the aggregate of original value and bounties, reckoned according to the standard gold currency of the United States , Value. Bounty. Aggregate ARTICLES. Eato per cent. In dollars. Bounty. Ii-ou, pig, " bar aud rolled,* . . . Cotton, manufacture of, . . "Woollen, manufacture of, . . Paper, manufacture of, . . . Leather (tanned), .... Clothing, manufactured, . . Boots and shoes, .... Soap and candles, . . . , India-rubber goods, . . . $19,500,000 22,000,000 115,000,000 69,000,000 17,500,000 72,000,0D0 70,000,000 90,000,000 17,000,000 5,729,900 115 87 58 68 59 53 68 68 68 68 $22,425,000 19,140,000 66,700,000 40,020,000 10,325,000 38,160,000 40,600,000 62,200,000 9,860,000 3,828,842 $41,925,000 41,140,000 181,700,000 109,020,000 27,825,000 110,160,000 110,600,000 142,200,000 26,860,000 9,053,242 $497,729,900 j$802,753,842'$800,483,242 Average duty on iron — Rolled, U Bar, 80 2)174 87 per cent. FINANCES, TABIFFS, ETC, 47 Table IV. Showing the value of sundry manufactures produced in the United States in 1860, the bounties received by the home manufacturer under the tariff of 1862, in rates per cent, and in dollars, and the aggregate of original value and bounties reckoned according to the paper currency of the United States, depreciated only in the ratio of $160 in paper to §100 in gold. Paper basis. Bounty. Aggregate Per cent. In dollars. Value and Bounty. Iron, pig, " bar and rolled,* . . Cotton, manufacture of, Woollen, manufacture of, . Paper, manufacture of, . Leather (tanned), . . . Clothing manufactured, Boots and shoes, . . . Soap and candles, . . . India-rubber goods, . . . $19,500,000 22,000,000 115,000,000 69,000,000 17,500,000 72,000,000 70,000,000 90,000,000 17,000,000 5,729,900 210 180 148 148 148 140 148 149 150 148 $40,950,000 39,600,000 169,200,000 102,120,000 25,900,000 100,800,000 103,600,000 134,100,000 25,500,000 8,480,252 $60,450,000 61,600,000 284,200,000 171,120,000 43,400,000 172,800,000. 173,600,000 224,100,000 42,500,000 14,210,152 $497,729,900 $750,250,252 $1,247,620,152 Estimated according to the Standard gold currency of the United States, on an aggregate value of $497,729,900 of manufactm'ed goods of the de- scription stated in the foregoing tables, the home manufacturers, by rea- son of the difference in exchange, duties, and other expenses of importa- tion of foreign articles of the same kind, together with the importer's profits, derive, through the agency of the system of protection established by the tariff of 18G2, an aggregate bounty of $302,753,342. The tariff and the other expenses of importation enable the home manufacturers to charge and levy upon the people of the United States that enormous sum every year in gold ; supposing the manufactvu-es of the country to be the same in amount as in 1860, and the tariff the same as that of 1862. If the rates are more, as this bill proposes to make them more, the sum will be gi'eater ; if less, it ■will be less accordingly. The population of the United States in 1860 was 31,445,080 souls. Consequently the proportion per head of this enormous bounty exacted by the manufacturers in gold is $9.62. Estimated upon the basis of the irredeemable paper currency of the United States, depreciated only in the ratio of $160 in paper to $100 in gold, the aggregate bounty levied by the home manufacturers on the peo- ple of the United States on the same amount of domestic manufactures, namely, $497,729,900, is $750,250,252, or $23.88 per head. When, therefore, I propose to amend this bill so as to have these du- * Average duty on iron — Kailroad, 190 Bar, 170 2)360 180 per cent. 48 EIGHT TEAHS EST CO]!irQKESS. ties payable iu the paper currency like other public dues, I intend, with full kno-wledge of its effect, to strike off at least $14.26 per head from the burdens which labor pays from its hard earnings to protect and pam- per the " splendid paupers" who are thus living upon the bounty of others. I intend to save from the grasp of the millionnaire and manufacturer, for the benefit of the poor man and consumer, the sum of $447,496,910 on the rates of the tariff of 1862. If the people must pay bounty to the capitalist, is it not enough to pay it in the ordinary paper cui'rency by which we are measuring other values ? Is it not enough to pay a bounty in paper equal to the sum of $302,753,342 now levied in gold upon the articles enumerated ? Think of it ! For the iron which we use in all its varieties of adaptation ; for the cotton we wear, whether printed or plain, in the calico di-ess or the shirting ; for the wool in blanket, carpet, or clothing ; for the newspaper, book, and pamphlet ; for the leather we use when tanned or manufactured into boots and shoes ; for the clothing we buy already made up ; for the soap and caudles and India-rubber goods ; for these only, under our tariff of 1862, and not counting our recent in- crease or the proposed increase of this bill, we pay as gratuity to one class of persons the euormous sum of $750,250,252. Will any one pretend that all this is for revenue? What ! when the tariff does not raise one-tenth of that sum on all articles of importation ! What, then, is this $750,250,252 paid for? Not for war, not for debts, not for expenses. Is it possible that we have to pay on some ten articles onl}', in paper money, $750,000,000 to get less than $50,000,000 of revenue from them? Mr. Hays, comptroller of Chicago, with keen analysis, once showed that, by the tariff acts of 1846 and 1857, the people paid the startling sum of $338,000,000 to afford the Federal Govern- ment a revenue of $54,000,000 ; and he prophesied that by the tariff of 1862 the loss to the community would be still greater. How much greater is apparent from my calculations on the depreciated paper system and the increased duties of 1862 ! " AVhat, then, do you propose? To abohsh all tariffs?" Yes. God save the people from these indii'cct and insidious robberies ! In their name let such tariffs be abolished. Since you have begun on internal taxation, let all our revenues be thus levied. If you abolish the tariff of 1862, then, to pay the other taxes, you give to the people an increased ability to the amount of $750,250,252 on the few articles alone which I enumerated ; and hoAV much more on all manufactured articles ! Abolish 3'our tariffs, and if your direct taxes are unfair they arc not unfelt, and can be speedily corrected. Abolish your tariffs, and let every interest stand undisguised before the law ; the farmer the equal of the manufac- turer ; the laboring man the equal of the millionnaire. No mask of indus- try over the features of capital ; no unjust discriminations ; no despoiling one class of labor under the pretence of stimulating another ; no unhealthy drugging of any one business by the robbery of another. IJut instead of mitigating, you propose to aggravate these oppressions. By your joint resolution tlie other day you have added to these onerous rales of 1H62 fii'ly per cent. more. If this is not to be continued after the 1st of July, we are at Irast to pay a large increase by the present bill. We arc expected, we of the West, to pay our share of it — as I shall show, FINANCES, TARIFFS, ETC. 49 the larger share — without murmur ; because the war, instigated by the section which reaps most of these gigantic sums from our toil and sweat demands our support ! Very well. For over two years we have submitted. But if we are to keep on patiently in submission, a few years will see all our resources sucked from us by these vampu-es of the East. If taxes must be raised for war or for debts, to pay for the peculations of scoundrels or for the patriotic service of soldiers, let them be levied directly, fau-ly, justly, that all may feel their operation, and the burdens, sufficiently great for a whole people, may not be borne by a part, and that part which is the least able to bear them. The people are the victims of the joint robbery of a system of bounties under the guise of duties, and of an inconvertible and depreciated paper cm-rency under the guise of money. Is it a cause of wonder that the manufacturers accumulate weahh so rapidly, that they grow rich within a year if they were poor before ? This system is rapidly building up an aristocracy, composed of manufacturers and gamblers in irredeemable paper money. In the same proportion it is impoverishing the masses of the people. It is rapidly reducing them to the same level of destitution and degradation as that of the people of Europe. Only here it is worse, for here it is in combination with a depreciated paper-nioney system, which the aristocrats of Europe do not tolerate. This combination is rushing the American people along with headlong speed to inevitable ruin. In the name of the laboring people of my district and State, in behalf of those the results of Avhose toil are thus torn from their families to pamper wealth and arrogance, I protest against this system of oppression. In behalf of the poor men who work from day to day in shop and field, from whose labor at last all these millions are wrung ; in behalf of those who cannot and do not combine to subsidize the press, fee lawyers, importune Con- gress ; who cannot afford to take their little all from theu- families to pay sharp men for keen devices to " cheat by statute ; " in their behalf I do challenge the honesty and justice of these measures. Mr. Chairman, no man is now so wise and gifted that he can save this nation from bankruptcy. I believe the gentleman from Vermont [Mr. MoRFaLL] himself expressed his belief in our ultimate ruin. Mr. Morrill. I ask the gentleman to yield to me to correct his remark. I made no prophecy on the subject. Mr. Cox. I am glad to be put right. I so understood him. No borrowing system can save us. The scheme of making green- backs a legal tender, which enabled the debtor to cheat his creditor, thereby playing the old game of kingcraft, to debase the currency in order to aid the desig-ns of despotism, may float us for a while amidst the fluctuations and bubbles of the day ; but as no one possesses the power to repeal the law of the Almighty, which decrees (and as our Constitution has established) that gold and silver shall be the standard of value in the world, so they will ever thus remain, notwithstanding the legislation of Congress. Congress may make paper the measure of prices" but it can never make paper the standard of value. Such a paper system in con- aection with this tariff will, sooner or later, crush labor in this country. What then ? When our laboring masses shall have become sufficientlv 4 60 ■ EIGHT TEAES m COXGEESS. impoverished by this system, will not the transition from a republic to a despotism be easy? Will not that 2)henomenon of tyranny, the armed soldier accompanying the tax-gatherer, occur here ? Does not the ques- tion of taxation, therefore, involve the problem of liberty? Does not this system, against which in its every stage I have protested, involve an enormous wickedness against the interests and happiness of mankind ? The present tariff system has been devised for the benefit of the manufacturer, at the expense of the people, and yet it does not really aid the Treasury. If it makes the rich richer and the poor poorer, then, by this concentration of wealth in a few, the less is the proportion of it which wiU be paid into the Treasmy. Sismondi, page 79, says that all returns show that the great amount of revenue is not paid by the rich, or even by the middle classes, but by the poor and those just above them. He holds that all attempts at taxation of luxuries have failed in jDroductiveness. The state of the revenue depends mainly on the power of the poor to purchase the necessaries and comforts of life. Hence, any system like this, which aggi-andizes wealth in a few, destroys the great resources of revenue upon which we are to depend at last for our credit and our safety. Again, as many of the duties are prohibitory, no revenue is derived from them, and the Treasury again loses. Under such duties, paper, boots and shoes, soap and candles, India-rubber fabrics, in fact nearly all the articles named in the foregoing tables, enjoy a monopoly in our market, while in many instances the tariff of 1862 permits certain articles used by the manufacturers to be imported either free or at nominal duties. For instance, rags free ; India rubber, raw, 10 per cent. ; lasting for ladies' boots and shoes and for soles, 10 per cent. In 1860, $904, 852 worth of paper rags were imported duty free. These rags went into manufactured paper, and upon that amount of stock, duty free, the paper makers were permitted to charge their enormous profits. And so with regard to other articles admitted with slight duty for tlie benefit of the manufacturer. When the manufacturer produces an ample supply of goods for the home market, and has a large surplus for which he is compelled to seek a market abroad, it is just to exempt the raw matci'ial which he uses from duty, because he again carries it out of the country in the shape of manu- factured goods. In that case, it operates so far as a drawback. Such is the policy of Great Britain. But when the manufacturer has the sub- stantial control of the home market, through the agency of prohibitory duties, there can be no greater iniquity practised on the people than to permit him to tax his enormous profit upon tlie very article which the Government admits duty free, or nearly so. Is it not legalized robbery, more detc'stal)lc in its enormity than the actual crime? Yet tlie party in power have inaugurated a tariff system Avliicli aulhurizcs and sanctions this very iniquity. The estimates from Avhich I draw these conclusions cannot be ])reci.sely accurate. It is not assumed that they are. It is only claimed tliat they arc an approximation to the truth. The most important element of error is the basis of the value of home manufactures in the census tables of 1860, whether the actual cost or the price by wholesale in market. There- fore, in order to state tlie case in the most favorable fbriii tor the home 11 rmANCES, TARIFFS, ETC. 51 manufacturer, I will assume that upon the basis of the depreciated paper currency of the United States, their profits or bounties are at the rate of 100 per cent., or in the aggregate $497,729,900, or $15.83 per head of the population of the United States. To recapitulate. Rate of profit or bounty, reckoned upon the specie standard: $497,729,900, it is $302,753,342 bounty, or $9.62 per head. Paper standard : $497,729,900, it is $750,250,252 bounty, or $23.88 per head. Bounty at rate of 100 per cent.: $497,729,900, it is $497,729,900 bounty, or $15.83 per head. It will be observed that the first estimate I make upon the present tariiF is on a specie basis. On this basis, the taxation, or tribute to the manufacturer, is at the rate of $9.62 per head. My second estimate is made upon the same tarifi" and a paper-money basis depreciated in the ratio of $160 to $100. On this basis, the taxation or tribute is $23.88 per head. My third estimate is upon the basis of allowing the manufac- turer to receive a tribute of 100 per cent. On this basis the taxation or tribute is $15.83 per head. These estimates are embodied in the three following tables, from which it will appear how the tribute is levied upon the various States : Table 1 {Specie basis). States. Population. Indiana 1,350,428 IlUnois .". 1,711,951 Iowa 674,913 Kentucky 1,155,684 Kansas 107,206 Michigan 749,113 Minnesota 172,123 Missouri 1,182,012 Nebraska 28,841 Ohio 2,339,511 Wisconsm 775,881 Aggregate 10,247,663 Tablk 2 {Paper basis). States. Population. Indiana 1,350,428 Illinois 1,711,951 Iowa 674,913 Kentucky 1,155,684 Kansas 107,206 Michigan 749,113 Minnesota 172,123 Missouri 1,182,012 Nebraska 28,841 Ohio 2,339,411 Wisconsin 775,881 Aggregate 10,247,663 Per head. Tribute. $9 62 9 62 $12,991,117 16,468,968 9 62 6,492,663 9 62 9 62 11,117,680 1,031,321 9 62 9 62 7,206,467 1,655,832 9 62 9 62 9 62 9 62 11,370,955 277,350 22,506,095 7,463,975 $9 62 $99,582,415 Per head. Tribute. |23 88 $32,248,220 23 88 40,880,928 23 88 16,116,923 23 88 23 88 23 88 23 88 23 88 27,597,734 2,560,079 17,888,818 4,110,297 28,226,446 23 88 688,623 23 88 23 88 55,867,522 18,528,038 $23 88 $244,713,278 52 EIGHT YEAES IN CONGEESS. Table 3 [Bounty IQO per cent). States. Population. Per head. Ti'ibiite. Indiana 1,350,428 $15 83 821,37'7,2'75 Illinois 1,'711,951 15 83 2*7,100,184 Iowa 074,913 15 83 10,683,872 Kentucky 1,155,684 15 83 18,294,477 Kansas 107,206 15 83 1,697,321 Michigan 749,113 15 83 11,858,458 Minnesota 172,123 15 83 1,697,070 Missouri 1,182,012 15 83 18,711,250 Nebraska 28,841 15 83 456,553 Ohio 2,339,510 15 83 37,034,459 Wisconsin 775,881 15 83 11,282,196 Aggregate 10,247,663 $15 83 §160,193,115 Thus, it appears from the preceding tables that the tribute which the eleven western States pay to the manufacture of the country, residing mainly in the eastern States, in consequence of the falsely called protec- tive system and paper-money system of this country, is, as reckoned On the specie basis 899,582,414, or $9 62 per head. " jDaper basis 244,713,728, or 23 88 " " basis of 100 per cent 100,193,151, or 15 83 " Whole consumption of the articles of manufacture named in the preceding tables three and four, including cost and tribute or bounty, is as follows : On the specie basis $25 45 per head. " paper basis 39 71 " " basis of 100 per cent 31 66 " On reflection, every intelligent man will perceive that, allowing the manufacturers at the rate of 100 per cent, profit on the various fabrics and goods enumerated in the preceding tables, $31.6G per head is not a large consumption to the people of the United States. The preceding tables and calculations develop the most astounding results. They show that a tariff system under the pretext of raising revenue for the use of the Government of the United States has, in this period of war Avhen every dollar is needed, been so devised as to give the most extraordinary and unreasonable bounty to the manufacturing classes, in the case of many articles, virtually prohibiting the introduction of tlie competing ar- ticle into the country. PROTECTED AND NON-PROTECTED STATES. From the facts whicli we have presented, and tlie tables showing the leading productions of the western States, it Avill be perceived that the States of the Union may be divided into two great classes — the j)rotectcd States and the unprotected States. We speak in regard to their indus- trial interests. The manufacturing States, mainly the Now England States and Penn- sylvania, are the protected States. The agricultural States are the un- protected Stales. FINANCES, TAEIFFS, ETC. 53 States tliat produce a commodity in such abundance as to furnisli an ample supply for home consumption and a large surplus for markets abroad can derive no benefit from protective duties. Our Government might impose a duty on wheat and flour which would be absolutely prohibitory, and it wovild not increase the prices of those articles in Chicago or New York. Thus the agricultural States derive no protection from the duties imposed by the present tariff on articles pro- duced by agricultural industry. The men who devised the present tariff knew that a duty on corn, wheat, tobacco, or cotton, was of no possible benefit to the producers of those articles. They were only tubs thrown to the whale, put in the tariff for the purpose of deluding the ignorant and unreflecting Avith the mere pretence of justice. Mr. Morrill. I would like to ask the gentleman if he did not vote here the other day against the termination of the reciprocity treaty, the termination of which would admit all the agricultural products of Canada free of duty, and if it is possible to levy duties upon those agricultural products without a termination of the treaty ? Mr. Cox. I do not precisely remember how I did vote upon it, but I know how I ought to have voted. The question got a little complicated. I am for allowing the largest liberty of interchange possible. I never was afraid of buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest market I could find. That is my doctrine, which I learned from a distin- guished citizen of New England. I have never departed from that doc- trine, and therefore I am in favor of the largest reciprocity treaty ; be- lieving that the larger it is the better it is for the mass of our people. Mr. Morrill. How does the gentleman propose to remedy the matter by having a treaty of perfect reciprocity and a system of tariff duties at the same time? Mr. Cox. I propose to extend it to all other articles as soon as I can reach them, and to abolish all indirect and insidious taxation in the shape of tariffs. When interrupted I was showing that the tendency of the present tariff system, and in fact of all tariffs, revenue or protective, more or less is to drain wealth from the unprotected States and accumulate it in the protected States. It can now be understood why New England accumulates wealth so much more i\apidly than the western States. I know it is arrogantly said, " New England has more intelligence, thrift, invention, and industry." I need not deny that, and yet I can account for her immense gains on another principle. The interests of New England, and especially of Massachusetts, are all subjects of protection or bounty directly from the General Government. We have shown hoAV her leading manufacturing interests are protected. Her fishing interests are also encouraged by a direct bounty from the Treasury of the United States ; a half million, I believe it is, being yearly paid to the fishermen of Massachusetts as a mere bounty, a gratuity with- out consideration. We in the West ask and get no bounty for the white fish of our lakes or the cat fish of our rivers. We refer more particularly to Massachusetts, for the reason that to her agency more than to any other is to be attributed the civil Avar which noAV 5i EIGHT YEAES IN CONGEESS. devastates our country and threatens the destruction of its civil institutions and of republican liberty. That State has been the unceasing and un- principled agitator, the fomenter of discord between the sections, the dis- seminator of fanatical and dogmatical opinion, and the assailant of the constitutional rights of other States ; and has thus done more than all other States to bring our present calamities upon us. It is meet, there- fore, that we should consider how much she has been benefited by the Union whose very existence she has put to such fearful hazard. It is proper also, in this connection, to remark that while Massachu- setts has been most benefited during the present war by the agency of the combined tariff and paper-money system, she has done the least to support the war. Under the various calls for troops up to March 1 , 1864, Massa- chusetts has been reported deficient 20,592 men, a much larger number in proportion to her population than any other State ; and in order to fiU her quotas, instead of sending her o^vn meddlesome and mischievous citizens into the field, and exposing their precious persons to the hazards of camp and battle, she has ransacked almost every State in the Union, and even Canada and Europe, for men, filling her regiments witli worthless substitutes and negroes. She is coining money out of the precious blood of the land and the enormous waste of wealth in this terrible war, while she takes care that her own blood shall be jjreserved. She is the most arrogant and mischievous State, the most selfish and timid in the war which her mischievous propensities have provoked, and she has the least title of any of the States of the Union to the favors of the Govei-nment. Mr. Dawes. It is not only an old story, but it had its origin and was nursed into growth by the men Avho are now arrayed as rebels against the Union ; and my friend from Ohio is but repeating their old and stale charges, ground into impalpable powder by the truth long ago. Mr. Cox. I have heard the gentleman say that once before. I learned my principles not from any one in the South, but from Dr. "VVayland, known in New England and throughout the country as a good and great man; and it Avould not invalidate liis doctrines if Davis and Toombs should repeat them from morning till niglit and from year to year. It Avould not prove the truth or falsity of his principles. If Jefterson Davis should tell the gentleman tliat two and two make four, he would deny it. When Davis says that two and two make five, I deny it. Because a man now in rebellion, when once here, state ^ the truths and facts in economy, wliich I believe, while I disbelieve in secession, it does not militate against tliese economic truths that he believes in secession. It is not relevant to the argument for the gentleman to bring the heresies of secession here to disprove the injustice of the ])rotective system on tarifts. I know many abolitionists — among them Wendell Pliillips — who are free-trade men. Does it follow, therefore, that AVcndell Phillips is a disunioiiist ? I know lie is a disunionist ; but for another reason, and not tor that. Mr. Dawks. I am not troubling the gentleman whh tlie inquiry as to where he learned liis ])rinciples. Tliat is a thing I liave not the least concern about. What I said was tluit his charges against New EugUind Avere an old story, first taught by tlie men who plotted and are now carry- ing on the rebellion, and the gentleman is but repeating them here. Wlierc he got his principles will be a matter of the least concern to us of FINANCES, TAEIFPS, ETC. 55 New England, who have no disposition to follow them out or adopt them. The charges which he brings against New England to-day can be found, in hcec verba, in the speeches of southern nullifiers from John Calhoun clear down to the last of them who took his leave of us in this House in the Congress before the present. Mr. Cox. That will do. Mr. Dawes. That is all I want. Mr. Cox. Because John C. CaUioun and such men disfavored the idea of bounties to manufacturers, and also favor that of secession, therefore any opposition to bounties is a fallacy like secession ! According to that reason- ing, Adam Smith was a secessionist ; and the great body of eminent men Avho have been true economists — Sismondi, McCulloch, Cobden, and in- cluding even the venerable Dr. Wayland — who have laid down the doc- trine which I have to-day advanced, must all be, regardless of the foolish anachronism, secessionists ! Such is the result of the sapient argumenta- tion of the gentleman from Massachusetts, Daniel Webster himself advo- cated free trade once for New England, and John C. Calhoon advocated protection. As Webster was for free trade, he was a secessionist, I sup- pose ! The principles which I have applied to the facts stated do not de- pend upon who have announced them, but upon their truth. If those men in rebellion have argued in favor of ti'uth on one subject, am I to give it up ? If the devil should tell the truth, am I to deny it? The gentleman him- self may ; but he yields to the devil when he does it. I do not ; therefore I do not yield to the gentleman. Neither is it true that I have copied in this argument the speeches of southern nullifiers in hcec verba. No argu- ment on the tariff has ever been made on the basis of the census of 1860, and in connection Avith and in relation to our paper-money system. I venture to say that these views are as new as they are true. The Chairman (Mr. Schenck). The hour of the gentleman from Ohio has expired. Mr. Mallort. I hope the gentleman will be allowed to conclude. Unanimous consent being given, Mr. Cox proceeded, as follows : It may not be gratifying to the gentleman, but I propose to prove aU I said, and shall exhibit, without fear of the charge of secession, the in- tei'ests of Massachusetts which enjoy the protective bounties of the Federal Government at the expense of th^ f)eople of other portions of the Union. Capital invested and production of Massachusetts in the foUowiag manufactures in 1860 : Capital Invested. Production. Cotton* $33,300,000 $36,'745,864r WooUen 10,179,500 12,781,514 Leatherf 10,540,056 Boots and shoes 11,169,277 46,440,209 Fisheriesf 9,300,542 $54,648,777 $115,662,185 In all manufactures 133,000,000 266,000,000 * Cotton manufactured in New Hampshire, owned mainly in Massachusetts, should be added 13,780,000 16,661,531 f Capital not given in the census table. 56 EIGHT TEAES D^ CONGEESS. In the above exhibit the House can see what immense interests Massa- chusetts possesses which enjoy protection and bounty, and why it is her Representatives are so sensitive when we of other States undertake to call her to account for her unrighteous gains. By applying the principle of calculation herein before applied to the manufacturing interests of the whole country, it can be ascertained how much in dollars and cents Massachusetts unjustly abstracts in the form of protective bounties from the people of the Union, Nor, in view of this exhibit, can any one be surprised that Massachusetts, located in a rigorous climate and possessed of a sterile soU, should accumulate wealth more rapidly than any other State. We close our view of the operations of the tariff and paper-money sys- tem by appending sundry tables showing some of the leading unprotected products, contrasting the New England and western States. Perhaps my friend from Massachusetts may think before I am done, that the census was taken in Massachusetts by secessionists. Unprotected Products. Ijuniber. New England States $12,099,895 Western States 33,274,792 Cattle. New England States. Head. Maine 377,067 New Hampshire 264,467 Massacliusetts 279,914 Vermont 364,917 Rhode Island 39,105 Connecticut 241,907 1,567,377 Western States. Head. Illinois 1,505,581 Indiana 1,170,005 Iowa 536,254 Kansas 87,859 Kentucky 836,059 Micliigan 534,267 Minnesota 119,006 Missouri 1,168,984 Ohio 1,659,830 Wisconsin 512,806 In New England States Balance in favor of western States 8,130,711 1,567,377 6,563,334 Here Mr. Cox gave the same details as to these States on other arti- cles, of which the following is a KECAPITULATION. New England States. Lumber, value $12,099,895 Cattle, head ' 1,567,377 Swine, number 322,697 Slaughtered animals, value.^l 5,927,442 Wheat, l)ushol3 1,456,011 Indian corn, bushels 7,564,551 Butter, pounds 51,18(t,()83 Cheese, pounds 21,479,390 Western States. Lumber, value $33,274,793 Cattle, head 8,130,711 Swine, number 13,498,323 Slaughtered animals, value. $73,063,587 Wheat, bushels 100.656,545 Indian corn, bushels 462,012,098 Butter, pounds 164,991,279 CLccse, pounds 30,615,403 FmANCES, TARIFFS. ETC. 57 Balance in favor of Western States. Lumber, value $21,204,898 Cattle, head 6,563,334 Swine, number 13, 175, 631 Slaughtered ammals, value 857,736,145 Wheat, bushels 99,200,534 Indian corn, bushels 454,447,547 Butter, pounds 113,811,196 Cheese, pounds 9,136,107 Classification of States and Territories according to the Census of 1860. N. England States. Middle States. "Western States. Southern States. Pacific States. Maine, New York, Ohio, *''irginia. New Mexico, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Indiana, North Carolina, Utah, Vermont, New Jersey, Michigan, South Carolina, CaUfornia, Massachusetts, Delaware, Illinois, Georgia, Oregon. Ehode Island, Maryland, "Wisconsin, Florida, Connecticut. Dist. Columbia. Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky, Kansas, Nebraska. Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee. Value of Cotton manufactured in 1860. New England States ^80,301,535 Middle States 26,272,111 Southern States 7,172,293 Western States 1,391,987 Aggregate 8115,137,926 Massachusetts 836,735,864 New Hampshire (owned chiefly in Massachusetts) 16,661,531 853,397,395 In consequence of the diminislied supply of cotton, tliis branch of manufacture has considerably fallen off, but to what extent I have not the means of calculatmg. Value of Woollen manfactures in 1860. New England States 838,509,080 Middle States 24,100,488 Southern States 2,303,303 Western States 3,718,092 Aggregate 868,630,963 In Massachusetts 818,930,000 Since 1860, stimulated by the diminished supply of cotton goods, the woollen manufactures of the country have been more than doubled. In 58 EIGHT YEAKS m CONGKESS. relation to the increase of the woollen manufacture in the United States, the Boston Shipping List, under date of December 11, 1863, thus re- marks : "We have lately called attention to the rapid increase of woollen machinery, and the questionable poUcy of introducing woollen machinery into cotton mills now idle. The rush for woollens for some time past is starting up new mills in all directions. It is estimated that there has been added within the past eighteen months about 1,000 sets, an increase of 40 per cent., and manufacturers of machinery are full of contracts for several months in advance. The above does not include the woollen machinery in operation in Pennsyl- vania and other parts of the United States, which was not less than 1,000 sets eighteen months since, and the increase has doubtless been quite equal to the increase in the New England States. The product of all the machinery is estimated at from $135,000,000 to §150,000,000 worth of goods per annum." Value of tBoots and Shoes made in 1860. New England States $54,'76Y,0'7Y Middle States 22,588,291 Southern States 2,729,32'? Western States 9,465,205 Aggregate §89,549,900 In Massachusetts $46,440,762 Value of Leather manufactured in 1860. New England States 816,333,871 Middle States 36,344,548 Southern States 4,074,496 Western States ^ 5,980,457 Pacific States ' 351,469 Aggregate $63,084,751 In Massachusetts $10,354,056 Valxie of manufactured Clothing in 1860. Whole amount $64,002,975 For product of each State see Preliminary Report of Census for 1860, page 175. Value of paper manufactured in 1860. Amount $17,500,000 Census Report, page 191. Value of Soap and Candles mamifaeiurcd in 1860. Amount $7,000,000 Census Report, page 191. Value of India-ruhbcr Goods made in 1860. Amount $5,729,900 Census Report, page 1 85. FINAJSrCES, TARIFFS, ETC. 59 Discriminations in favor of the Manufacturer. Articles used in manufacturing, with duty annexed, under tlie Tariff of 1862 : Mate of Duty. Cowhides, raw 10 per cent. Emeralds 5 " Diamonds 5 " Goat-skins, raw 10 " Dyewood, extract of 10 " Gems 5 " Hatter's fur, cleaned 15 " Lastings for shoes, &c 10 " Sumach 10 " Hare skins, undressed 10 " Hides, pickled 10 " " raw 10 " " salted 10 " India-rubber, unmanufactured 10 " " milk of 10 " Orchil ■. 10 " Pig tin 15 Reindeer skins, raw 10 " Rubies .' 5 " Sheep-skins in the wool 10 " Shoddy 20 " Silk 25 Skins, pickled 10 " " dried 10 " " « fur, raw or undressed 10 " " kid, undressed 10 " Soda ash free. Muriatic acid 10 " Nickel 10 " Rags for the manufacture of paper free. Hair of alpaca goats and of other animals unknown, costing 18 cents per pound 5 " Wool, where the value is less than 18 cents per pound 5 " Wool, in the skin 10 " This last duty on wool admits a large portion of tlie raw material used by the woollen raanufacturer substantially free. In 1863 there was im- ported into the United States 71,882,128 pounds, costing $12,290,G30, averaging less than 17 cents per pound. The duty therefore on the quantity imported was about 8^ mills per pound. The wool is of a very fair grade, although dirty. It comes directly in competition with the American wool-grower. It is a discrimination in favor of the manufac- turer against the farmer. And upon this quantity imported the manufac- turer charges upon the consumer the enormous bounty which the com- bined tariff and paper-money systems enable him to charge. I have shown to what an enormous extent labor is being robbed by the unjust discriminations in favor of the privileged few. We punish the robbery of one individual by another. We hang those who take human life with malice prepense. But what shall we say of a Government which robs one class by wholesale to gratify the avarice of another, or of a Congress which takes away from the laboring poor the " means whereby they live," which is life itself to them? Even political economy, rising out of its unimpassioned logic into the higher sphere of moral science, con- templates the existence of such outrages only to denounce them with in 60 EIGHT TEAES IN CONGKESS. dignation. That great and good man to whom I have referred, and from whose lips I learned the lessons of political economy and moral science, Dr. Wayland, thus analyzes, reprehends, and pictures the consequences of such oppressive legislation as that now proposed. He says : " The rigbt of property may be violated by society. It sometimes happens that society or government, which is its agent, though it may prevent the infliction of wrong by individuals upon individuals, is itself by no means averse to inflicting wrong or violating the right of individuals. This is done where Governments seize upon the property of in- dividuals by mere arbitrary act, a form of tyranny with which all the nations of Europe were of old too well acquainted. It is also done by unjust legislation ; that is, when le- gislators, how well so ever chosen, enact unjust laws by which the property of a part or of the whole is unjustly taken away, or unjustly subjected to oppressive taxation. " Of all the destructive agencies which can be brought to bear upon production, by far the most fatal is public oppression. It drinks up the spirit of a people by inflicting wrong through means of an agency which was created for the sole purpose of preventing wrong, and which was intended to be the ultimate and faithful refuge of the friendless. When the antidote to evil becomes the source of evil, what hope for man is left ? When society itself sets the example of peculation, what shall prevent the individuals of the so- ciety from imitating that example ? Hence, public injustice is always the prolific parent of private violence. The result is that capital emigrates, production ceases, and a nation either sinks down in hopeless despondence, or else the people, harassed beyond endurance and believing that their condition cannot be made worse by any change, rush into all the horrors of civil war; the social elements are dissolved; the sword enters every house; the holiest ties which bind men together are severed ; and no prophet can predict at the beginning what will be the end." — Wat/land's rolitical Economy, p. 115. From the same wise source I have been taught that wars Aay keep the most enterprising and industrious nation always poor ; and that had Great Britain not expended in wars the incalculable sums — almost equal to our own expenditures — which the past hundred years might otherwise have added to her operative capital, there would hardly have remained the recollection of poverty on her shores. We are pursuing her career, with this difference, that in war we are our own enemies : while we are exhausting our foe wc are exhausting ourselves. We are approaching the abysses of poverty, therefore, incon- ceivably faster than ever England did. No scheme was ever before devised in this or any other country so sure to accelerate a nation to its downfall as the present and proposed tariff. No scheme ever operated so thoroughly and rapidly to transfer wealth from the pockets of the many to those of the few ; from the hands of labor to the coffers of capital, and that, too, without a particle of con- sideration. If this system shall continue in operation even for the small period of five years, it will change the whole face of society in this coun- try ; nor can I fail to sec that the rich, wlio are rioting in the honest gains of tlic poor man, may sliare with the poor the horrors of that future. If in this once happy and prosperous land, poverty rises witli its ghastly mul- titudes, to cut the throat of wcallli and then gash itself iu the wild im- patience of its own hard fate, let tlie authors of (his war and its unequal burdens bear tlie crime and curse, and seek sui-li mercy as Heaven may grant to (hose who despoil the poor for the gratiiicalion of their unhal- lowed avarice. Gradually we are approaching that terrible future. This iniquitous larilf system is accomplishing (he results aimed at by (he load- ers of old Federalism — the di.stinctions of classes, the subjugation of labor FINANCES, TAEIFFS, ETC, 61 to capital, the degradation of the masses, and the inauguration of a con- centrated and strong Government. Hence, said I not truly that this question involved the problem of lib- erty? For the party in power, in addition to their oppressive taxation, strike at the individuality and independence of the States — the great dis- tinctive and conservative feature of our national system, and -which is absolutely essential to the preservation of the liberties of the people. They have established a paper-money banking system, under the control of the General Government, which concentrates power in the Adminis- tration for the time being, and gives it control over the property and pe- cuniary interests of the people. They expend the people's money without scruple or stint, never listening to the suggestions of economy nor the admonitions of prudence, nor heeding the sufferings which follow from the burdens of taxation. Hei-e they vote appropriations for every con- ceivable project, constitutional or not. They squander the public lands, one of the soiu'ces of revenue which can help to relieve the people from taxation, on every conceivable project suggested by speculation. They boldly and sliamelessly bring the power of the national Government, both civil and military, in conflict with the freedom of elections and the libert}' of the press. They vii'tually suppress these gTeat franchises of the Ameri- can people. In short, the party in power has instituted a crusade of per- fidy against the institutions of the country and the liberties of the people, which they preach with exulting and shameless audacity, on the pretext of preserving the Union, As the proper concomitant of these acts we have this tariff system, which is to be thrust on the patience of a hitherto long-forbearing people. Will they meekly bow to this new burden? It may be that there is no retributive justice in Heaven. We cannot, however, yet believe that the almighty Euler of nations has abandoned our bleeding country to the caprice and wickedness of the leaders of the party in power. Despotic tkrones, supported by absolute authority, have in the lapse of time been shaken and liave fallen before the wi'ath of the Supreme Avenger, mani- fested through the awful might and passion of outraged peoples. Such is the lesson of history. Warned by such examples, the men now in power in this country need not hope to escape that retributive vengeance v^hich tjpir crimes against our country and constitutional liberty so justly merit. THE niMEXSE APPROPRIATIONS SINCE THE WAR.— FUTURE QUESTIONS OF FINANCE. On the 2d day of March, 1865, Mr. Cox introduced a measure to di- vide the Committee of Ways and Means ; and briefly pointed out the im- mense issues involved in the financial questions which the war had pro- duced : In relation to the division of the Committee of Ways and Means, I desire to show the importance and immensity of the labor imposed upon 62 EIGHT TEAES IX CONGRESS. that committee, with a view to a division of the labor. We divide the Ways and Means into three committees. The Ways and Means are still preserved, and their future duty is to provide "ways and means," that is, raise revenue for carrying on the Government, This includes, of course, the tai-itf, the internal revenue, the loan bills, legal-tender notes, and all other matters connected with supporting the credit and raising money. The amendments confine the duty of the Committee of "Ways and Means simply to ways and means. That was theh* original and proper sphere. The proposed Committee on Appropriations have, under this amend- ment, the examination of the estimates of the Departments, and exclu- sively the consideration of all appropriations. I need not dilate upon the importance of having hereafter one committee to investigate with nicest heed all matters connected with economy. The tendency of the time is to extravagance in private and in public. We require of this new com- mittee their whole labor in the restraint of extravagant and illegal ap- propriations. As to the Committee on National Banks and Currency, that is not necessarily connected Avith the other committees. They have a different province. They have in charge all the banking interests of the country. These interests are so connected by the relations of exchanges and cm*- rency with bank issues and banking capital in the States, that it is as much as one committee can well do to study these questions properly. It is utterly impossible in the present condition of our finances that one committee can do all this labor, and do it as well as these interests de- mand. The Committee on Rules do not by this measure mean to cast any reflection upon the Committee of Ways and Means. They have labored faithfully, but no set of men, however enduring their patience, studious their habits, or gigantic their mental grasp, when overburdened with the labor incident to the existing monetary condition of the country groAnng out of this unparalleled civil strife, can do this labor as well as the people have a right to expect of their Representatives. Therelbre Ave propose to divide the labor of the Committee of Ways and Means. We AA'ould not, and could not if Ave Avould, dim the lustre of their names, or depreciate the value of their services. I think that they have been Avell selected by the Speaker. They do not need any compliment from me. It is hardly necessary to mention them in order that the House may recall l^ir con- spicuous ability, their indefatigable industry, their abundant information, their legal talents, and their knoAvledgc of finance. Each member of the Ways and Means has his specialty — each Olympian ; and as Spenser describes the gods, " Each easy to be known by liirf own visnomic, But Jove above them all by liis great looks antl power imperial." And yet, sir, poAverfuUy as the committee is constituted, cacu their powers of endurance, physical and mental, are not adequate to the great duty Avhich lias been imposed by the emergencies of this historic tinie. Jt is an old adage, that "avIioso Avantetli rest will also Avant of might;" and even an Olympian Avonld faint and flag if tlu" burden of Atlas Avere not relieved by the broad shoulders of Hercules. I might give here a detailed statement of the amount of Inisiuess FINANCES, TAEIFFS, ETC. 63 thrown upon that committee since the commencement of the war. But I prefer to append it to my remarks. Whereas before the war we scarcely expended more than $70,000,000 a year, now, during the five sessions of the last two Congresses, there has been an average appropriation of at least $800,000,000 per session. The statement which I hold in my hand shows that during the first and extra session of the Thirty-seventh Con- gress there came appropriation bills from the Committee of Ways and Means amounting to $226,691,457.99. I say nothing now of the loan and other fiscal bills emanating from that committee. Daring the second session of that Congress bills were reported to the amount of $883,029,987.14 ; and during the last session of that Congress $972,827,829.90. During the first session of the Thirty-eighth Congress appropriation bills were reported amounting to $788,124,021.94, and during the present session I suppose it would be a fair estimate to take the appropriations of the last session of the Thirty-seventh Congress, say $900,000,000 ! These are appropriation bills alone. They are stupendous, and but poorly symbohze the immense labors which the internal revenue, tariff", and loan bills imposed on the committee. Neither do they represent the actual appropriations ; for the House has frequently increased these bills enormously. The aggregate of these appropriation bills reaches the astounding amount of $3,770,673,296.97, or nearly four thousand million dollars ! For the army alone the appropriation bills during the past five sessions are over three thousand millions ! And this business of appro- priations is perhaps not one half of the labor of the committee, lliere are various and important matters upon which they act, but vipon which they never report. Their duties comprehend all the varied interests of the United States ; every element and branch of industry, and every doUar or dime of value. They are connected with taxation, tariffs, banking, loan bills, and ramify to every fibre of the body-politic. All the springs of wealth and labor are more or less influenced by the action of this committee. Their responsibility is immense, and their control almost imperial over the necessities, comforts, homes, hopes, and destinies of the people. All the values of the United States, which in the census of 1860 (page 194) amount to nearly seventeen thousand million dollars, or, to be exact, $16,159,616,068, are affected by the action of that committee, even before tjieir action is approved by the House. Those values fluctuate whenever the head of the Ways and Means rises in his place and proposes a measure. The price of every article we use trembles when he proposes a gold bill, or a loan bill, or any bill to tax du-ectly or indirectly. In ten years these values increased at the rate of more than one hundred and twenty-six per cent., adding in one decade $8,925,481,011 to our real and personal property. Since this war began these values have been drawn upon to give credit and cash to the Government, and so drawn upon that one-half of the increase and one-fourth of aU of these values are already practically under mortgage. Can one committee properly pass upon the immense interests thus bound up, and reaching down to other generations ? Not only every rood of land has now to sustain its Hving occupant, but it has to sustain soldiers in the field and sailors on the sea, who are not producing, but destroying, what is wrought from the soil. Nay, more, it has to pay its tribute to the creditor of the nation, not only 64: EIGHT TEAKS IN CONGRESS. in tlie present, but to the inheritor of our national bonds. The laborer who works now his ten hours per diem, must work four hours more for the creditor of the nation. Thus is our nation being overburdened by the legislation of to-day ; burdened for the present and for the future. Is it not best to give every facility for the crystallization of the wisest financial policy? And does not this measure assume greater importance because of its far-reaching effects upon our finances and our future? Without discussing the wisdom of our present system of finance, is it not important, in this day when these debts are growing, to have the system as nearly safe and just as possible? Plave we not already, like other nations, instead of • providing for the principal, provided only for the interest of these great debts ? AVhat follows ? That money borrowed, being obtained without sweat or sacrifice, is spent lightly, without economy or care. Dr. Arnold well says, that " a revenue raised at the expense of posterity is sure to be squandered Avastefully. Waste begets want, and the sums raised by loans wiU commonly be large." If that be true, is it not a cogent reason for the separation of the old committee which borrows from the committee which pays ? One will be a veto on the other : and something of economy may be gained, and something of extravagance restrained. Mr. Speaker, I do not propose to discuss this change of our rules in its details. But is there not a necessity for some change ? Is it not wise to divide such labors as have been described? Who wishes to overwork any set of gentlemen in this or any future Congress? There are gentlemen Avho will be in the next Congi-ess when this change shall take effect, who will be glad to share with the old committee the solution of these financial problems. These problems are soon to agitate the country above all other questions. Peace and war depend upon them. They rise higher than peace or war. Tliey rise higher than the freedom and slavery of the blacks. Pei-petual and enor- mous debt is slavery for body and mind. Hence the interests con- nected with these economical questions arc of all questions those most momentous for the future. Parties, statesmanship, imion, stability, all depend upon the manner in which these questions are dealt with. Shall the tariff be one of bounty or of revenue only? Shall a Chinese policy ward off all foreign interchange from our shores? Or shall protection, so long abandoned by the scientific and practical men of our generglion, be again introduced into our economy ? Shall taxes be levied equally on the rich and poor? Shall the funded debt of tliis nation be paid to tlie few in gold by the sweat of the many? Shall labor be held in thrall and branded as the serf of capital ? Shall one interest or section be pam- pered at tlic expense and poverty of another? Shall Ave forever bury and keep buried the symmetric system of a gold and silver currency, as tlie standard of the Constitution and of nature, under the lush growth of greenbacks and ])aper promises? When this war shall end, and the present iuflation lias collapsed ; when the " stocks on hand " of mer- chant and ca})ilalist shall have suffered in the wreck of credit and crash of paper money ; when " settling day " shall come and the meretricious splendors of fictitious Avealth shall fade ; when the diamonds of to-day .•^liall become the paste of to-morrow; when speculation shall no longer flaunt its ujjstart pretension in the face of merit and modesty ; when a FINANCES, TAEIFFS, ETC. 65 common ruin shall ingulf both poor and rich ; when the gilded vessel gliding so smoothly over this smooth summer sea of delusive prosperity shall meet the " whirlwind's sweepy sway ;" then who will direct the whirlwind and who temper the storm ? Why not now, in the present, look these dangers in the face, and by prescience avert them ? As an adjunct in this work, let these finance committees have time and opportunity to do their work, and then it may be well done. This can only be done by a division of their labor as proposed by this amendment. Whichever party deals by these questions most nearly in the interests of labor — the procreant source of all wealth and taxes — that party will have and keep the ascendency in the political control of the Government. 5 n. SEDITION IN THE NORTH. Impartial history will not fail to record the efforts and doctrines of those who held to the supremacy of a higher law than the Constitution. Although a resuscitation of such discussions may seem inappropriate, they have their lessons. I insert a series of speeches, mostly in the ad homi- 716771 vein, upon the lawlessness engendered at the North. Such conduct provoked its like. Some of those speeches have the dramatic form of quick and earnest colloquy. The sentiment which originally antagonized with the fugitive slave law, never flagged till its repeal in 1864. These speeches show the progress of the Republican party from the time it gave a faint and echoless voice against the Federal statutes as to slavery, until its antagonism became defiant and successful. The first running debate, in which these tendencies of the Republican leaders were developed, was on the occasion of an attack by Mr. Giddings, on the 15th of January, 1859, on the Democratic party for its complicity with the slave trade. In this debate he called out his younger colleague, whom he had accused of " skulking behind the bush." I pressed him on the question of negro suffrage in retiirn. He was not ready to answer then, as he expected to be a candidate for Govenior. Avoiding and stiU avoiding the questions propounded as to allowing negroes to vote, the col- loquy ended thus : Mr. Cox. Answer the question, sir. The gentleman talked about my hiding under the bush. Let him come out, if he dare, from his covert. [Laugliter.] Mr. GiDDiXGS. I say that I do not interfere in this question as to superiority between the Democrats and the negroes. Mr. Cox. He talk of his Democratic colleague skulking under the bush ! He dare not answer my question. I will not press the gentle- man further. My respect for him will not allow me to put him to the torture further, lie never could get the nomination for the governorship if he liiid ans\vero versive of both the rights of the States and the liberties of the people, and as contrary to the plainest duties of humanity and justice, and abhorrent to the moral sense of the civil- ized world." Now, what explanation does the gentleman give us of this remarkable resolution ? He tells us that there was a clause in it, when before the committee, " that the fugitive slave law Avas unconstitutional, and tliat it was stricken out before reported." . Ay, sir, that Avas the compromise that was made in the committee. After striking that out to please the weaker Aving, then to please the dominant abolition Aving they go right into the convention and strike down tlie man Avho had decided it to be constitutional. Is not this a much more emphatic condemnation of that laAV as unconstitutional, than any resolution? If I had time, I Avould Aveary the House Avith the evidence from Republican journals and leaders, showing that Judge SAvan Avas thus immolated, and because of that A'cry decision. The selection of his competitor. Judge Gholson, was not from convenience of locality. It Avas because he Avas recommended as a prac- tical AlKjlitionist, Avho had freed his slaves in Mississippi. Well, Mr. Clerk, I might pursue this matter I'urther. I have heard my friend here [Mr. Couavin] make appeals to the patriotic, the order- loving, tlic law-abiding people of our State and of my OAvn city. The very niglit alter the convention Avas held, I heard him make a speech in Columbus. I happened to be in the audience among some of the gentle- men from the Reserve Avliile he was speaking, and many of them lliought — and gave expression to their thoughts — tliat he Avas making a Demo- cratic speech. [Much laughter.] I heard a geulleaian in my neighbor- SEDITION EST THE NOETH. 83 hood say that he believed the pro-slavery men had " yanked Governor Corwin right reound" on this question, and that " his speech was no better than one of your cursed Locofoco speeches." [Roars of laughter.] Now, you see the position of this Ohio Republican party. 1 venture the assertion that if we could poll the members of the Ohio delegation on the other side of the House, we should find them, perhaps, equally divided on this momentous question on which the union of the States is founded, and without which it never could have been made. I think that perhaps my friend on the right [Mr. Corwin] would be in a minority if he were to poll the delegation. He shakes his head. How do you think it stands ? You have how many members ? Mr. Vallandigham. Fifteen. Mr. Cox. You have fifteen members of the delegation. Did you ever poll them ? No ? You do not know how they stand upon this ques- tion. Well, my impression is that you are in a minority, and if you do want to hold a class-meeting some time, as you said, and will call in your Democratic brethren, we will take the sense or the census of the meeting. [Great laughter.] I was gratified, Mr. Clerk, to hear our friend here give us a little dia- lectics on the subject of the higher law. I would have been glad if it had been delivered in Ohio — in Cleveland — before the Harper's Ferry foray took place, before the disunion meeting there the other day. Perhaps he did deliver it. I know he did deliver some portions of it. But Mr. Wendell Phillips, whom he denounces here so eloquently, is, as I claim, in his logic and in his philosophy, the very exponent of the Republican theory and doctrine ; and I will show you how I will prove it. He holds to the idea of individual sovereignty. A Member. Squatter sovereignty? Mr. Cox. No, sir ; not squatter sovereignty, nor territorial sover- eignty, nor congressional sovereignty. He opposes congressional sover- eignty, as Republicans oppose it, unless it prohibits slavery. He opposes popular sovereignty all the time, as Republicans do ; and I will show you wherein he agrees with the Republican party in its philosophv. He says that there Qan be no civil society unless every individual member of it bows to its authority. He says that Governor Wise had no more right to hang John Brown than John Brown had to hang Governor Wise. In his opinion, the State of Virginia is no more than a piratical crew. He says that there can be no majority, no minority. Any thing which comes into opposition with his convictions must go down before those convictions, not excepting even the Constitution and laws of the country. Herein he * is in harmony with the dominant segment of the Republican party. That is the doctrine of Governor Chase, applied to the Territories. My dis- tinguished friend [Mr. Corwin] shakes his head. I will tell him where he will find it. He will find it in his message of January, 1857, where he says that he believes that the right of property in man cannot be created by any civil government ; that there is no power in any organized civil community to create the relation of master and slave ; that no ma- jority in a Territory, while such, or when it frames a State constitution, can create the relation of master and slave. He would hold that each individual has the right for himself to decide all these questions pertain- 84 EIGHT TEAKS EST CONGRESS. ing to personal liberty, any law to the contrary notwithstanding. Is not this the Republican doctrine ? Hence Governor Chase is logical when he says that Congress may prohibit slavery, but that it has no power to establish it. He would be logical, if he said that the people of a Terri- tory, by majority, might prohibit slavery, but have no power to establish it. Tliat is the legitimate consequence of this individual sovereignty preached by your Wendell Phillipses. If it has not been avowed by my honorable friend, at least he has indorsed the indorser of it. He says : "Never!" Why, in Columbus one year ago — I have the paper here — you paid your attention to my district. There you shook hands with Governor Chase, on Goodale Park platform — did you not ? You said that you had voted for him, and had stood by him. Do you not remember how facetiously you remarked on your own countenance ? You had fur- nished your complexion to the party, and he the colored principle. [Great laughter.] I remember. Don't you remember how cordially you em- braced? You shake your head again. Pardon me. I do not mean a bodily embrace — no, by no manner of means ; but you had a most affec- tionate political hug before the people of Ohio ! [Renewed laughter.] What, then, did the gentleman indorse in Governor Chase ? He indorsed the individual sovereignty of Wendell Phillips, as applied by Governor Chase to civil society and the institution of slavery in the Territories. It is the same doctrine that these fanatics have. They have a great family of isms. You can tell them all by their hereditary marks of insanity. [Laughter.] Read in the Tribune the enunciation of free-love. Stephen Pearl Andrews comes out — and mark how his logic suits Mr. Wendell Phillips, Governor Chase, and the whole Republican party. Stephen Pearl Andrews says that he is for individual sovereignty, not in reference to slavery in the Territories, but in reference to the affectiorral nature. [Laughter.] He is opposed to any affinity with any man or woman who does not come up squarely to the idea of free-love, unrestrained by the marriage relation or civil authority. He says : " What ! Bring your law to bear upon me ; enact that I shall live in a state of marriage under the civil law, against my passional attractions? What! Compel my sis- ter to keep, against her will, with her old husband ? No, I am for liberty, God and liberty ! " — which means the Devil and free lust. So they go on, and so these individual sovereigns run through the catalogue, from one end to the other. They are aU tied together by the same string of isms which our friend here has so eloquently and inconsistently de- nounced. Now, Mr. Clerk, the time for the Republican party to have denounced these dangerous doctrines, Avas not after the Harper's Ferry affair had occasioned so much dissatisfaction, anxiety, apprehension, and dismay in the South. The time to have denounced them was when INIr. Giddings made his speech hero in favor of servile insurrection. The time to have denounced them was wlien Helper came along with Iiis book ; when Gov- ernor Seward said that there was a liighi-r law than tlic Constitution whicli required the exteriniiuition of shivery, and " tliat you and 1 nuist do it." Then was the lime for denunciation, and not after .John Brown, wrought upon 1)y llie everlasting rub-a-dub of tlie al)olition drum, got to- gether his recruits, crept into the valley of the Blue Ridge, collected his SEDITION EST THE NOETH. 85 $10,000 worth of rifles and pikes, and in the night, when no premonition had been given, when all was hushed — Mr. Miles. On Sabbath. Mr. Cox. Yes, sir, when there was no sound to disturb the quiet but the chui'ch-goiug bell, took possession of an armory with one hun- dred thousand stand of arms, imprisoned inoffensive citizens, and killed others. Why did you not denounce these doctrines in the bud ? Why did you not stop the bloody instructions of which this is the fruit ? Why were they not denounced from the pulpit, forum, and rostrum? Why not denounced from these seats in Congress? You come up at this late day and say, " Oh ! we do not approve of this thing. The people of the free States do not approve of it." Neither do they. My friend [Mr. Corwin] was right when he said that the people of Ohio, outside of the Western Eeserve, are not in favor of insurrection and dissolution. I think that the Eeserve ought to be cut off and slid over to Canada, for which it has more affinity than for the United States. [Laughter.] Mr. HuTCHiNS. Why, then, cut off a part of the Union? Mr. Cox. I am sure that our people would be glad to change those counties of the Western Reserve for Cuba and cheap sugar and molasses. [Great applause and laughter.] My friend is a correct exponent of the sentiment in Ohio in reference to this insurrection. I am glad he has re- ferred to it in the way he has. I will add my testimony — feeble as it is — to the testimony of the gentleman, to convince the South that these ma- rauders and murderers have no sympathy with the mass of the people of that State, from which most of them seem to have come, and within whose borders they concocted their fell designs. It is due to the gentlemen of the South who have showTi so much apprehension on this subject, to say that at least one hundred and seventy-one thousand two hundred and sixty- six Democratic voters of Ohio put their seal of disapprobation on all the men connected either by sentiment or act with this matter. [Applause in the galleries.] That was the vote last year ; and if it were properly rep- resented in this HaU, instead of six Democratic members only, we would now have ten. From the sentiment of this year, fom* of these Republican gentlemen would be compelled to bid adieu to this scene of congressional Hfe. But the distinguished gentleman who preceded me [Mr. Coewin] says, and says truly, that there is no sentiment in the southern part of our State, at least in that part of the State which he and I represent, which would not disapprove, in toto, of the men who have preached and acted out this servile insurrection. There is no sentiment in that part of Ohio which does not at once and forever protest against that horrible spectre of history — a servile insurrection. I may go further and do justice to the Republi- can vote of Ohio this year. It was one hundred and eighty-four thousand five hundred and two ; more than half that number, sir, in my judgment, thoroughly condemn this raid upon Virginia. While I admit the sentiment is different in the Reserve and at Cleveland ; while I admit that the noisy leaders and blatant journalists who undertake to manage and do control the Republican party in its platform and candidates, are not blessed with the same genuine spirit, I freely and willingly bear my testimony to the public execration which in Ohio has followed the insurgents at Harper's Ferry, their aiders and abettors. Let me go further. 86 EIGHT YEAES IN C0NGEES8. When you come to the great Northwest you find one million one hun- dred and sixty-two thousand voters in "her seven States. This is a hun- dred thousand more than all the voters in the South, one-third of the whole Union, and three times as many as New England. I believe, sir, that more than one-half of these votes Avill be cast in 18G0 for the Democratic party, for the rights of the States and the permanence of Federal concord. You will find these voters warm in favor of the Union, and the Constitu- tion, which is the only ligament which holds that Union together. You Avill find this attachment not merely in our party, but among the very men who voted for my friend [Mr. Corwin] and many of the Republicans upon this floor. Look to the great Northwest, and to its power as it is now, and as it Avill be. She has a lake and river tonnage of four hundred thou- sand tons, and five thousand miles of river and lake coast. She has, and must have ever, the Mississippi River as her outlet. Has she nothing at stake ? She will be able to protect herself and the Union besides. In 1860 she Avill have as many Representatives upon this floor as the whole South will then have, and three membei'S to one from New England. You will find in her a conservative clement Avhich Avill say to the North, with its extremists, and to the South, Avith its extremists, " Thus far shalt thou go, and no further ; here shall the Avaves of disunion be stayed ! " You AviU find in the NorthAvest a conservative element, which, if aa'c have the Cincinnati platform unaltered, Avill rise up to the support of the Demo- cratic party, as the only safe repository of that constitutional power by which this Government is to be carried on. It is said by men of science that the least disturbance of the laAV of gravitation in the universe will not only disturb the stars in their courses, but that it Avill change the position of the lightest flower upon the lace of the earth. So it is with respect to that political gravitation by Avhich the States are held in their spheres as they revolve around the Federal centre. Not only Avill the disturbance of our Confederation and Constitution, and the laAvs made in pursuance of it, in the least particular, Avhether by re- sistance to law or by riotous insurrection, distm-b the relation of the vari- ous States, but it -Avill disturb that concord of feeling in each individual citizen Avhich is the flower of our patriotism — Avithout Avhicli the Consti- tution and the Union cannot be preserved. Without fraternity of feeling that Constitution is a dead letter — a mere Avisp of straw — a rope of sand. There is a sentiment in the NorthAvest Avhich cannot and will not listen to a disunion sentiment. I regret to hear upon this side of the Chamber the dissolution of the Union spoken of as a contingency. I Avish to say in behalf of the na- tional Democrats of Ohio, that with them there is no such Avord as that rung in our ears by Southern gentlemen — "dissolution of the Union pe?' se." AVc know of no dissolution ^er se. We have no dead or living lan- guage to phrase such sentiments. We are for the Constitution and for the Union. We have no language to express any thing Avith respect to break- ing those ties, so eloquently depicted by my I'rioud [Mr. CouAVix], Avhich bind us together. Tliose ties are os old us the Constitution. 1 am pre- pared, as the gentleman from New York [Mr. John Cochrane] said the other day, to sail over many a stormy sea in the protection of tliat Union and Constitution. If I have read aright the history of the formation of SEDITION IN THE NORTH. 87 the Constitution 5 its framers had troubles and trials far more vexatious and arduous than those we have undergone in preserving it. It was as long as from Mai'ch to September, 1787, before they could agree upon an instrument, and before it could go out to the States for their rati- fication. They quarrelled about the slave trade ; they quarrelled about the three-fifths representation of slaves in making up this body ; and it was not until such patriotic appeals were made as we have heard here by gentlemen upon this side of the Chamber, that they could come together and agree upon this common Constitution. Too many of their descend- ants are too quick to listen to the cry of disunion. We of the Northwest have no affinity with any one who utters that cry, whether from the North or South. I remember an incident that occurred in the late Sepoy rebellion in India — a servile insurrection, which might have found more than its counterpart, if the late affair at Harper's Ferry had been consummated as it was designed. You remember that Lucknow was besieged for months by those fiends in human shape, who did what Brown would have had the negi'oes of Virginia do. Death stared the beleaguered garrison in the face. The engineers even gave up hope. A day, and all would be lost ! A fever-stricken Scotch lassie, overcome with fatigue, lay upon the ground, wrapped in her plaid and slumber. Suddenly she gave a cry of joy. Her delirium passed away. She exclaimed: " Dinna ye hear it? Dinna ye hear it? Ay, I am no dreamin'. It's the slogan of the Highland- ers. We're saved ! We're saved ! " The young girl had a keen ear for her national music. She was from the Highlands — the home of the Mac- Gregors and the Douglas ! The duUer ear of the Lowlanders did not catch the inspiring strain. I think, sir, I may be pardoned for saying that we of the Northwest have a quicker ear for the music of the Union. Through the noise of strife and the cannonade of insurrection, and while other sections have dulled their sense by too frequent allusions and reflections upon disunion, there remains in the Northwest the ready love, the unself- ish devotion, and the patriotic zeal which is quick to hail the music of the Union as the harbinger of oui* safety and repose !. [Applause from the galleries.] NORTHEEN DISUNIONISTS AGAIN. EXPULSION OF A MEMBER. THE REPUBLICANS ARRAIGNED FOR THEIR INCITISM. On the 9th of April, 1864, the Speaker, Colfax, offered a resolution to expel Mr. Long, of Ohio. Without any knowledge or expectation of such a movement, Mr. Cox took the floor after the Speaker, and said : I approach this matter with becoming seriousness. The extraordinary spectacle is presented of our Speaker descending from the chair to make a motion to expel one of the members of this House for words spoken in debate. The occasion calls for more than the usual gravity of delibera- tion. I was nc»l; present when my colleague [Mr. Long] made the re- 88 EIGHT YEAES EST CONGRESS. marks "wliich have called out this resolution. I am told by members around me that his remarks do not bear the interpretation given to them by the speech and resolution of the honorable Speaker. Before a resolu- tion of this startling nature was introduced, we should have had the official report of those remai'ks in the Globe. If action be demanded for the ex- pulsion of a Representative of the people, for the exercise of his constitu- tional right of free debate, Ave should have the most authentic record of that debate. As I am informed, the language of my colleague was so qualified as to make it far less objectionable than the statement of it in the resolution. Still, sir, it may be obnoxious, and yet there may be no just ground for this proceeding of expulsion. Had I been in my seat yesterday, with all due respect to my colleague, I should have promptly risen and disavowed, on behalf of all the delegation from Ohio with whom I have conversed, any sentiments uttered by him or any one else, looking to the recognition of the Confederate Government as an independent Power. So far as I can learn, there is not a member acting with this side of the House, unless it be my colleague, who is not opposed in every conceivable view, directly or indii-ectly, to such recog- nition.* I speak earnestly and consciously of this, because an attempt was made yesterday to make partisan capital for the other side out of the speech of my colleague. But it should be borne in mind that he said that he spoke only for himself, and not for his party. He was frank, true, and honest in that avowal. He did not speak, nor pi-opose to speak, for his party. He did not speak for his Democratic colleagues. Very recently w^e have had a convention of the Democratic people of Ohio, representing over one hundred and eighty-five thousand voters. In that convention, sir, no sentiments w^ere uttered, and none would have been tolerated, like those to which exception has been taken. On the con- trary, the only person whose name was presented to that convention as a Relegate to the Democratic national convention, who avowed sentiments looking toward the recognition of the Confederate States, and who printed a learned and able pamphlet to circulate among the members of the con- vention, in exposition of his views, received but a few votes among several hundred in that convention ; showing that the Democrats of Ohio, for * As Mr. Pendleton afterwards called this remark iu question, I republish the follow- ing card : "IIorsE OF Repeesentatites, ) Wasuington, D. C, May 20. ) " On the evening after Jlr. Long delivered his speech, the undersigned members of the Democratic delegation in Congress from Ohio, consulted with such of tlieir colleagues as they could meet, in reference to the propriety of protesting against the sentiments ox- pressed by Mr. Long, ' that the alternative was now presented between subjugation and annihilation, or recognition.' The following named persons concurred in protesting against tlie doctrine of recognition, viz. : Messrs. Bliss, Noule, IIutcihns, Johnston, Le Blonh, J. W. White, Mouius, Finck, O'Neil, Cox, and McKinnev. The other members were not seen. Tliose who were not consulted, agreed to meet in caucus next morning before the meeting of Congress, to agree upon the form of protest. Seven met, and be- fore the others came to the place of meeting or any action was had, the ywere nolilied that a resolution was introduced to expel Mr. Long, whereupon they repaired to the House, and Mr. MoKinnky informed Mr. Cox (who was not at the meeting) of the agree- ment of tlic eleven members aliove mentioned. J. F. McKinney, Geo. Bliss." SEDITION IN THE NOETH. 89 whom I speak, are not prepared in any shape, however plausible, to ac- cept the disintegrating doctrine to which this resolution refers. On the contrary, the Democratic people of that State, when the Avar came, which they endeavored but failed to avert, rallied to the defence of this Govern- ment. They sustained it in every emergency. We, the members upon this side of the House, had and yet have our bi'others and our friends in the Army doing battle for the Republic, although they do not agree with the pecidiar African policies pursued by this Administration. I refer to the position of the Ohio Democracy with pride, because of the imputations thrown upon them by my colleague [Mr. Gaefield]. He followed the speech of my colleague from the second district [Mr. Long], and strove to make political points for his party, not by misrep- resenting him so much as by misrepresenting the Democracy. Now, I propose to show that if the sentiments attributed to my colleague are unpatriotic and treasonable, the prominent men of the Republican party are amenable, for similar sentiments, to the same condemnation. There is scarcely a leading member of the opposite party, from the Executive down, who is not committed in doctrine, if not in practice, to the separation of these States. I shall show that members opposite deserve expulsion by the same rule which they would mete out to my colleague. I pass over for the present the sacred, constitutional right of free de- bate in this Chamber of American Representatives, and proceed to show that this resolution comes with a bad grace from that quarter in which so much sedition and revolution have been expressed and acted. And first, I desire to ask of the Speaker if he had forgotten when he penned this resolution, that in the last Congress a most acute member of the Republican party, in good standing and sweet fellowship — Judge Conway, of Kansas — not only made a remarkable speech in favor of the recogni- tion of the South, but offered solemn resolutions affirming the heinous doctrine. If the honorable Speaker has forgotten the fact, let him turn to the Journal of the House of December 15, 1862, page 69, and he will find the following resolutions offered by Mr. Conway. I quote such of them as bear on the points in discussion : "Ecsolved, That freedom and slavery cannot coexist in the same Government without producing endless strife and civil war ; that ' a house divided against itself cannot stand ; ' and that ' this nation must be all free or all slave.' ^'JRcsolved, That the American Union consists of those States which are now loyal to the Federal Constitution. '■'■Resolved, That the restoration of the Union as it existed prior to the rebellion would be a greater calamity than the rebellion itself, since it would give new life to the ' irrepres- sible conflict,' and entail upon the nation another cycle of bitter contention and civil war. "■Resolved, That the seceded States can only be put down, if at all, by being regarded as out of constitutional relations with the Union, and by being assailed upon principles of ordinary warfare as between separate nations. "Resolved, That it is a matter for serious reflection whether another election of Presi- dent must not supervene before the rightful authority of the nation can be estabhshed ; and whether in the mean time it is not a flagrant waste of our energies to continue the war. "Resolved, That unless the Army of the West shall have swept through the valley of the Mississippi to its mouth, and the Army of the Potomac annihilated the legions of Lee and Jackson, thus subverting the mihtary power of the rebellion within a reasonable time, the best interests of the country and humanity will require a cessation of hostiUties. ''Resolved, That the States of the North composmg the American nation, andwieldmg its power, must ever remain one and indivisible on the basis of freedom for all, without 90 EIGHT YEARS IN CONGEESS. distinction of race, color, or condition ; that their mission must ever be to extend their own civilization over the entire continent ; and that whatever derangements, difficulties, checks, or defeats they may encounter, they must forever cherish and pursue the inspiring idea of nationality and continental dominion." From which it will appear that, after affirming the irrepressible con- flict, it was resolved that the American Union consisted only of those States which are now loyal to the Federal Constitution ; that the restora- tion of the old Union would be a greater calamity than the rebellion itself; that the seceded States should be regarded as out of constitutional relations \vith the Union ; that until the election of another President it was a flagrant waste of our energies to continue the war. Does the honorable Speaker remember that those resolutions recognized that only the States North composed the American Union ? K he did, why did not this sensi- tive gentleman [Mr. ColfaxJ, avIio was not then in the chair but upon the floor, come forward with a resolution for the expulsion of his friend Mr. Conway? I ask the Speaker to respond to that question. Why did you not do it, sir? Is such a resolution fair towai'd a member on this side and unfair toward a member on the other ? You were for free speech and free resolution then ; I am for it now as then. Why do you pursue my colleague to disgrace him, when you did not lisp a word about expel- ling one from your 0"\\ti ranks who Avas in favor of disparting the old Union and recognizing the nationality of the Southern confederacy ? The Speaker does not, for he cannot, answer. I Avill yield to liim to respond. Mr. Colfax. The gentleman from Indiana claims the floor whenever he sees fit to claim it, and declines speaking in the midst of the speech of the gentleman from Ohio. Mr. Cox. The gentleman is distinguished as well for his prudence as for his sagacity. Mr. Allison. I desire to ask the gentleman from Ohio if he believes that Mr. Conway ought to have been expelled from the last Congress un- der the circumstances. Several Members. Oh, that is not the question. Mr. Cox. When the gentleman on the other side answers my ques- tion, I will answer him. 1 will do it any how. I do not think tliat he should have been expelled any more than we should expel the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens] lor his speech in favor of re- garding the Confederacy as a de facto government, and that war sliould be carried on against it, according to the law of nations, as an independent Power established by its arms and recognized by the nations. The mem- ber fi-om Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens], if I remember his speech on that subject, quoted Vattel in I'avor of his policy, which he predicated upon the idea of the independence of the southern government. Ay, and my col- league [Mr. Gakfield], who is a fair debater generally, has taken the same ground as the gentleman from Peinisylvania, holding that an insur- rection as formidable as this requires the laws of war to be applied as between two distinct and independent sovei'cignties. The men who hold that doctrine are not the men to expel another mi'mber who holds to the same doctrine. Mr. Gakfiicm). Will my colleague yield to me for a moment? Mr. Cox. With great pleasure. I would not do my colleague any injustice. SEDITION EST THE NOETH. 91 Mr. Garfield. My colleague does do me injustice in what lie lias just uttered. If he will do me the honor to read my speech on confisca- tion, on this particular he will find that I take most decisive ground against the position of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, and therein deny in toto the doctrine that these are a foreign people. On the contrary, I therein claim that they are in the Union, and that all the obligations of the Con- stitution overhang them. But in putting down this rebellion we have been told by the Supreme Court that we are to pursue them by the laws of war. the same as the laws between foreign nations, but nyt thereby ad- mitting that they are a foreign nation. Mr. Cox. Well, I cannot understand that distinction, but I accept it ; and then I ask my colleague, if he holds that the Confederacy is not an independent nation, and if he thus antagonizes the position of the gentle- man from Pennsylvania, why he is not in favor of expelling that gentle- man for holding that doctrine and avowing it openly ? Did I understand that my colleague does not follow the leader of his party in this House upon this doctrine ? I pause if my colleague will favor me Avith a reply. Mr. Garfield. I draAV a most marked and broad distinction be- tween the opinion of the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania and the opinions of my coUeagxie from the second district [Mr. Loxg]. The gentleman from Pennsylvania is in favor of prosecuting the war to the uttermost to bring back these revolted States. The member from the second district of Ohio is opposed, in the first place, to all further prose- cution of the war ; in the second place, he holds that all compromise is impossible ; and in the third place, he declares openly in favor of throw- ing up the Avliite flag and acknowledging that they have conquered us and are independent, and that we will call back our armies and make no at- 'tempt, either by conference or by war, to restore the Union. There is the diiFerence. Mr. Thayer. I wish to make a statement. I am sure the gentleman from Ohio will not object. Mr. Cox. I will yield to the gentleman one moment. Mr. Thayer. I simply wish to remind the gentleman from Ohio that my colleague to whom he has referred [Mr. Steyens] is not in his seat, being detained therefrom by sickness. I think, therefore, it is better not to indulge in these remarks in regard to him in his absence. Mr. Cox. Oh I Mr. Speaker, the remarks of the distinguished gen- tleman from Pennsylvania are as well known as his great capacity. They are printed. I will do him no injustice, but quote them here : " It is, however, essential to ascertain what relation the seceded States bear to the United States, that we may know how to deal with them in reestablishing the national Government. There seems to be great confusion of ideas and diversity of opinion on that subject. Some think that those States are still in the Union and entitled to the protection of the Constitution and laws of the United States, and that they, notwithstanding all they have done, may at any time, without any legislation, come back, send Senators and Repre- sentatives to Congress, and enjoy all the privileges and immunities of loyal members of the United States. That whenever those ' wayward sisters ' choose to abandon their frivoli- ties and present themselves at the door of the Union and demand admission, we must re- ceive them with open arms, and throw over them the protecting shield of the Union, of which it is said they had never ceased to be members. Others hold that, having com- mitted treason, renounced their allegiance to the Union, discarded its Constitution and laws, organized a distinct and hostile Government, and by force of arms having risen from 92 EIGHT TEAES IN CONGRESS. the condition of insurgents to the position of an independent Power de facto, and having been acknowledged as a belligerent both by foreign nations and our own Government, the Constitution and laws of the Union are abrogated so far as they are concerned, and that, as between the two belligerents, they are under the laws of war and the laws of nations alone, and that whichever Power conquers may treat the vanquished as conquered prov- inces, and may impose upon them such conditions and laws as it may deem best." Again lie says : " Is the present contest to be regarded as a public war, and to be governed by the rules of civilized warfare, or only as a domestic insurrection, to be suppressed by criminal prosecutions before the courts of the country ? " I need not tell the House how the member from Pennsylvania answered this question. He founded upon it his argument in favor of confiscation by the laws of nations and of war. He quoted from Judge Grier to prove the war a public war, and not a domestic insurrection. He con- structed an argument to show that this Avas not a contest with individu- als, but with States, known under the name of the " Confederate States." He held it to be idle to regard individuals as making war. " War is made," said he, " by chartered or corporate communities, by nations or States." "^Vhen an insurrection becomes sufficiently formidable to entitle the party to belliger- ent rights, it places the contending Powers on precisely the same footing as foreign na- tions at war with each other." * * « "No one acquainted with the magnitude of this contest can deny to it the character of a civil v.'ar. For nearly three years the Con- federate States have maintained their declaration of independence by force of arms." * * "What, then, is the effect of this pubUc war between these belligerent, these foreign na- tions ? Before this war the parties were bound together by a compact, by a treaty called a 'Constitution.' They acknowledged the validity of municipal laws mutually binding on each. This war has cut asunder all these ligaments, abrogated all the obligations." " What, then, is the effect of this public Avar, between these belligerent, ihQsa foreign nations f" Foreign nations ! Foreign? Why? Because not under our Constitution, but alien from it by the maintenance of their independence by force of arms. Nations? Having all the autonomy and independence of a belligerent Power in Europe. Yet for these sen- timents, who had the courage to question, censure, or propose to expel the gentleman from Pennsylvania? Ah! he is a Republican, and has a dispensation from the higher powers to recognize by his logic (which my colleague imhappily followed) tlie existence of the South as a separate nation. He is the leader of that side of the House, and may debate without question these momentous issues. My colleague foUoAvcd him in his premises, although he drew another conclusion. Now, I ask my colleague [Mr. Gakfield] whether he did not vote for a gentleman in Ohio lor Lieutenant-Governor who held the same doctrine of recognizing the southern confederacy? I reier to Lieutenant- Governor Stanton, who announced that doctrine on this floor. He never was expelled for it. No one sought tlien to abridge his free debate. I heard his remarks. I Avill send (hem up to be read before my colleague ansAvers the question. Mr. (iAKKiBLD. If the gentleman Avill allow me, they can as Avellbe read afterwards. Mr. C'<).\. \jv\. them be read now. The Clerk read as follows : SEDITION m THE NOKTH. 93 " Mr. Speaker, when there were fifteen slaveholding States acknowledging allegiance to the Federal Government, and therefore, having in their hands the power to protect them- selves against any invasion of their rights on the part of the Federal Government, it was a matter of very'Uttle consequence whether such an amendment as that was incorporated in the Constitution or not. But the state of the country is now radically and essentially changed. Seven or eight States now deny their allegiance to this Government, have or- ganized a separate confederacy, and have declared their independence of this Govern- ment. Whether that independence is to be maintained or not is with the future. If they shall maintain their position, and sustain the authorities there for a year or two to come, so as to show that nothing but a war of subjugation and conquest can bring them back, I, for one, am disposed to recognize that independence." — Congressional Globe, February 23, 1861, page 1285. Mr. Cox. I will now yield to my colleague to say whether he did not vote for that man as Lieutenant-Governor of Ohio, after it was known throughout the State that he thus favored the independence of this con- federacy ? Mr. Gaufield. I answer my colleague that I did not vote for that gentleman nor for any candidate on the ticket that fall, for the simple reason that I was in the army. If I had been in Ohio, I should have voted for that gentleman, and I do not excuse myself on any other ground than the simple lack of being present at the time of the election. Now, allow me to say that there was a large class of men on both sides of the political questions of that day who in the beginning of this war felt a doubt whether it was not better to let these people alone for a time, hoping that reason might return to them by delay. There were others who said "we cannot ?eave them alone;" and to that class belonged a number of distinguished gentlemen in the parties on both sides. That is one thing. But now, after that question has been adjudicated, after the great American people have determined on war and determined on putting down the rebellion, after three years of war have passed, and when we are almost in the hour of daylight and victory, to arise now and throw up the contest is treason. Mr. Cox. Mr. Speaker, I only asked the gentleman to answer my question, not to go oil' into a definition of what is treason in his judgment. I would rather take the constitutional definition of treason. I do not think my friend takes the Constitution as his authority, for he has said twice on this tloor that he would overleap that Constitution. When you talk of treason, and in the same breath talk of overleaping the Constitu- tion, you are the traitor, if there be such a traitor in this House. Mr. Gaefield. "Will the gentleman teU me what question it is that he desires I shall answer? Mr. Cox. I do not ask the gentleman any more questions. I am satisfied with his position. It is enough that I have shown that he is not the man to vote for the expulsion of any member for expressing sentiments in favor of the recognition of this southern confederacy. It is not for him who would have voted for a man who was in favor, in advance of war, of the recognition of the southern confederacy, and who thus encouraged the rebels to proceed in their rebellion when it was in its bud, to reflect upon gentlemen on this side of the House who have voted against seces- sion, against recognition, and in favor of sustaining the war for the Union upon the proper policy. It is not for him to censure or expel my col- league, when he has declared that he himself would in some cases over- leap the Constitution. 94 EIGHT YEAES EST CONGEESS. Mr. Garfield. I only desire to say that my colleague misreiiresents me, I presume unintentionally, when he says that I have on two distinct occasions declared my readiness to overleap the Constitution. That I may set myself and him right on that question, I will say, once for all, that I have never uttered such a sentiment. What I have uttered is this : When asked if I would, under any circumstances, override the Constitution, I said this, and this only — premising, as I believed, that the Constitution Avas ample enough of itself to put down this rebellion, that its powers were most capacious, and there was no need to override it — that if such a time ever should come that the powers of the Constitution were not sufficient to sustain the Union, if that impossible supposition should ever prove true [laughter from the Democratic side of the House], then I would say that we have a right to do our solemn duty under God, and go beyond the Constitution to save the creators of the Constitution. Mr. Cox. I am informed by the members around .me, and the re- port of my colleague's remarks in the Globe wiU show, that he put no con- dition like that which he makes now. I ask gentlemen on both sides, whether my colleague ever qualified his remarks by saying, that it w^ould be forever impossible in the future for the Constitution to be infringed by making war. Why make the statement of overleaping the Constitution, if it be forever impossible to do it in carrying on this Avar ? Mr. Garfield. Will the gentleman allow me ? Mr. Cox. Certainly. Mr. Gakfield. I said so in answer to the question of my colleague now upon the floor. I said so, secondly, in answ^er to the gentleman from Illinois, and put the same question to him. I explained it in the same way. The gentleman is at liberty to look at the manuscript, which I have not yet seen, and may quote from it. Mr. Cox. I have only the Chronicle's report of the debate of yester- day. Perliaps it is good authority for the members on the other side. I will quote from its report : " Mr. Garfield then controverted his colleague's position. The issue was now made up. We should use the common weapons of war. If with these we should not succeed, he would take means, as he would against the savage who attacked himself or family. He would resort to any element of destruction, and, if necessary, he would fling all con- stitutional sanctions to the winds rather than lose his country." There is nothing about the impossibility of the Constitution proving insufficient to put down the rebellion, and in Avhich case alone he would overleap it. Overleap an impossibility ! I would like to see the per- formance. Another question. I remember that my colleagtie, on the confiscation bill, said that ho would under certain circumstances overleap the Constitu- tion. What did lie mean then by that? In (hat debate his language was precisely this : " I would not break the Constitution at all, unless it should become necessary to over- leap its barriers to save the Government and the Union." Notliitig aljout (lie impossibility of ever breaking the Constitution, not a word or syllabic, for he contemplates its breach for certain purposes. My colleague cannot escape from the dilemma in which he is placed. And yet he undertakes to make political capital out of the speech of my SEDITION IN THE KOKTH. 95 colleague from the second district, after such declarations ! If he does not, gentlemen on that side of the House do. They are, I learn, subscribing for that speech by hundreds and thousands to distribute it for partisan pm'poses ; and yet they have advocated the very heresies upon which they ground the present accusation, and give them circulation by sending out the speech of my colleague. I want it understood that the Republican members who have favored recognition, and favored the men who favored it, are now striving to expel a member for the same license of speech which they have indulged ; that at home they have favored for high offices a public character who took ground in favor of recognizing the rebellion if it should maintain itself " for a year or two." I might well ask my colleague, in view of his position, whether he did not know what were the sentiments of Governor Stanton, when he would have voted for hira if he had been at home? To come to the question : was he not thus com- mitted to the pohcy of dissolving the Union, if the rebellion could sus- tain itself for a year or two ? Then I ask him, how much better is he than the member whom he seeks to expel? Wherein does he diffijr from that member upon this subject of recognizing lawlessness? More than that ; the Republicans elected a man Senator from Ohio who had uttered the same sentiments, as the sentiments of that party. He is the per- sonal and political friend of my colleague. I mean Senator Wade. I will send his remarks to the Clerk's desk to be read, that we may know who are in favor of dissolution and recognition. The Clerk read as follows, from the Congressional Globe of the third session of the Thirty-fourth Congress, page 25 : " But southern gentlemen stand here, and, in almost all their speeches, speak of the dissolution of the Union as an element of every argument, as though it ^-ere a peculiar condescension on their part that they permitted the Union to stand at all. If they do not feel interested in upholding this Union, if it really trenches on their rights, if it endangers their institutions to such an extent that they cannot feel secure under it, if their interests are violently assailed by means of this Union, I am not one of those who expect that they will long continue under it. I am not one of those tcho would ask them to continue in such a Union. It loould be doing violence to the platform of the party to which I be- long. We have adopted the old Declaration of Independence as the basis of our poUtical movement, which declares that any people, when their Government ceases to protect their rights, when it is so subverted from the true purposes of government as to oppress them, have the right to recur to fundamental principles, and, if need be, to destroy the Govern- ment under which they live, and to erect on its ruins another more conducive to their wel- fare. I hold that they have this right. I will not blame any people for exercising it, whenever they think the contingency has come. You cannot forcibly hold men in this Union ; for the attempt to do so, it seems to me, would subvert the first principles of the Government under which we live." Mr. Cox. Now, there is the broadest doctrine laid down in favor of the right of revolution and against the right of coercion. " It would be doing violence to the platform of the party to which I belong," says the Republican leader of Ohio, ''to ask the South to continue in such a Union." " You cannot forcibly hold men in this Union ; it would subvert the first principles of the Government." Ah ! you reelected him Senator after those avowals, and now would you expel men for the same avowals? If they are treason in a Representative, what are they in a Senator ? I ask my colleague if he did not sustain that Senator? Did he not vote for him for Seaator, or would he not have voted for him ? 96 EIGHT TEAKS EST CONGKESS. Mr. Garfield. I had not the pleasure of voting for the distinguished Senator from Northern Ohio, but it would have given me great pleasure, and had I had that privilege I should have enjoyed it and acted upon it. Mr. Cox. Does the gentleman approve of Senator Wade's docti-ine? Mr. Garfield. Will the gentleman allow me a moment? Mr. Cox. With great pleasure. Mr. Garfield. I wish to send to the desk, to be read — [Cries of " No ! " "No!"] Mr. Cox. If it does not come out of my time I will not object. [Cries of " Well ! " " Well ! " and " No ! " " No ! "] Mr. Garfield. I recall the paper. Mr. Cox. Will the gentleman indicate what it is ? Mr. Garfield. I will only say in reference to this colloquy, that if I cannot make my part of the colloquy as I choose, I will make it when the gentleman has concluded his remarks. Mr. Cox. The gentleman can have the paper read if* he pleases. I shrink from no responsibility in this debate. Mr. Garfield. I desire to have read an authority which the gentle- man himself, I tlunk, acknowledges. It is upon the same point that has just been in debate between us, and when it is read I have only a word to say. Mr. Cox. Who is the authority? Mr. Garfield. Thomas Jefferson. The Clerk then read as follows : Mr. Jefferson, in a letter to J. B. Colvin, September 20, 1810, says : "The question you propose, whether circumstances do not sometimes occur which malie it a duty in officers of high trust to assume authorities beyond the law, is easy of solution in principle, but sometimes embarrassing in practice. A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the highest duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in dan- ger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose the law itSelf, with life, liberty, property, and all those who are en- jojing them with us ; thus absolutely sacrificing the end to the means." — Jeffersoii's Works, vol. 5, p. 542. Mr. Garfield. I have only to state that that paper states, more ably and more eloquently than I can, the very doctrine wliich I have uttered, and for Avliich the gentleman condemns me. Mr. Cox. Now, I do not know as to the authenticity of that quota- tion presented by the gentleman ; but if the gentleman quotes it for the purjiose of vindicating the lawlessness against the United States authori- ties which has been rampant in that part of Ohio wliere lie lives, just as it was prevalent in South Carolina, I doubt if Jefferson would have sanc- tioned such a pernicious and disorganizing practice. I know the gentle- man and his party are in favor of a higher law than the Constitution, or the laws made in pursuance thereof, when, in their opinion, those laws impinge upon their consciences. But I deny all such seditious and anar- chical iloctrint'. Notwithstanding every authority, whether it be from Jefferson, Wade, or my colleague, I deny utterly the right of any one, se- cessionist or aI)olitionist, to infract or nullity any law of the United States or any clause of its Constitution, for any j)urpose. I am in iavor of the enforcement of the laws everywhere equally upon e\ery citizen of the SEDITION IN THE NOKTH. 97 United States. But my colleag:ue takes the other ground, and quotes Jef- ferson to sustain it. But with such a lawless programme how can he vote for the expulsion of my friend from Ohio because, as it is alleged, he maintained the same principle? How can a defender of law-breakers expel another for recognizing the breach of the very fundamental law of the Union ? But I asked my colleague a question to which he did not respond. It was whether he was in favor of the sentiments of Senator Wade in refer- ence to the right of revolution and against coercion. He said he would have voted for him. Where does that place my colleague ? In the cate- gory of my friend from Cincinnati, according to the allegation. How, then, can my colleague vote for the expulsion of a man who agrees with him and with his Senator ; and who agrees with another and the principal light of the Republican party ? Horace Greeley in his paper states what I will send to the Clerk to be read for the information of the gentleman. The Clerk read the followins from the New York Tribune of the 2d of March, 1861 : "We have repeatedly said, and we once more insist, that the great principle embodied by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, that Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, is sound and just ; and that, if the slave States, the cotton States, or the Gulf States only, choose to form an independent nation, they have a moral right to do so ! " Mr. Cox. Now, I ask my colleague whether he favors that doctrine of Horace Greeley ? He has been hitherto very prompt to answer. I have given him every chance. I ask my colleague whether he believes in that " moral right of the Gulf or cotton States to make an independent nation " ? Mr. Garfield. I am perfectly willing to answer the gentleman, if he will proceed with his ©wn remarks, and I can then get the floor. I would prefer to answer him categorically then. Mr. Cox. I will give the gentleman a qhance to answer as I go along. It is so much more interesting. I like that dramatic and viva- cious form of debate. My colleague is so apt and ready in debate. Mr. Garfield. I prefer to wait until the gentleman is through. Mr. Cox. I am afraid people will draw a wrong conclusion from my colleague's refusal to answer. He may not get a chance to answer to- day. But as he seems unwilling, I ask the privilege of printing a few more extracts from the great editorial light of his party, Mr. Greeley, in reference to letting the southern States go. Nobody ever attempted to expel him out of the Republican party for such sentiments. "If the cotton States shall become satisfied that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we insist on the letting them go in peace. The right to secede may be a rev- olutionary one, but it exists nevertheless." * * * " We must ever resist the right of any State to remain in the Union and nullify or defy the laws thereof To withdraw from the Union is quite another matter; whenever a considerable section of our Union shall deliberately resolve to go out, we shall resist all coercive measures designed to keep it in. AVe hope never to live in a republic whereof one section is pinned to another by bayonets." — Tribune of November 9, 1860. " If the cotton States unitedly and earnestly wish to withdraw peacefully from the Union, we think they should and would be allowed to do so. Any attempt to compel them by force to remain would be contrary to the principles enunciated m the immortal 7 98 EIGHT YEAES IN CONGEESS. Declaration of Independence ; contrary to the fundamental ideas on which human Uberty is based." — Tribune, November 26, 1860. " If it (the Declaration of Independence) justified the secession from the British Em- pire of three million colonists in 1776, we do not see why it would not justify the secession of five millions southrons from the Union in 1861." — Tribune, December 17, 1860. " Whenever it shall be clear that the great body of the southern people have become conclusively alienated from the Union, and anxious to escape from it, we will do our best to forward their views." — Tribune, February 23, 1861. Can it be possible tliat sucli opinions have been uttered and tbe paper not suppressed? Can it be that members who read it approvingly, day by day, seek to expel a member of this House for copying its worst feat- ures? Why was not the Constitution " overleaped " to suppress that jour- nal and exile its editor? Gentlemen opposite take this journal and swear by it as the gospel of emancipation and the exponent of Republican policy. They cannot get along without it. Why, then, are they so sensitive when it is alleged that a Democrat is going in the direction pointed out by their own shining beacon ? Mr. Speaker, I need not ask my colleague whether he voted for Abra- ham Lincoln for President. I know that so far as the past is concerned he is committed to Mr. Lincoln and to his record and sentiments. I pro- pose to have read, for the information of my colleague, an extract from a speech made by Mr. Lincoln, in Congi-ess, on the 14th of February, 1848, and printed by Gideon & Co. especially fur circulation among such gen- tlemen as my colleague. Here is the extract, and to it I solicit his atten- tion. I ask him if he approves of the doctrine. If he does, he cannot consistently vote for the expulsion of my colleague. The Clerk will read from the original and genviine document. The Clerk read as follows, from the pamplilet : " Any people, anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have a right to rise up and shake off the existing Government and form a new one that suits them better." Mr. Cox. I may be allowed, before the Clerk reads any further, to call the attention of the distinguished. Speaker to that extract. He voted for Mr. Lincoln. Nobodj^ knows whether he is for him or not now. [Laughter.] I want to ask him whether he approves of the doctrine. The Clerk read as follows : " This is a most valuable, a most sacred right, a right which wc hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing Government may choose to exorcise it. Any portion of such a people that can, may revolutionize and may make their oion so much of the territory os they inhabit. Moic than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority intermingled with or near about them who may oppose their move- ments." Mr. Cox. I get no response from the Speaker. He must approve of the revolutionary sentiments of the President, and be disgusted witli his own resolution of expulsion. Perhaps he Avill move to lay his resolution upon tlic table, or else vote to imj)each Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Colfax. In reply to the remarks of the gentleman from Ohio, I have (o repeat that the gentleman from Indiana upon this side of the House does not speak in the midst of another genllenian's speccli l)y Ids courtesy, liable to be stopped by him as the gentleman stopped his col- SEDITION m THE NOETH. 99 league recently. He speaks when he obtains the floor, and has no secret about his opinions in regard to any subject. Mr. Cox. Oh ! Mr. Speaker, when the leading man of this House comes down from his high position to offer a resolution to expel a mem- ber who comes here by the same right that he does, he cannot escape on account of his peculiar dignity. When he descends to tliis floor, the com- mon platform of us all, and condescends to mingle vriih us in debate, he cannot and shall not escape. Is he or is he not in favor of the doctrine laid down by the President in the extracts which have been read ? That is a very simple question. You will lose no dignity, sir, by answering it now. [Laughter.] We will look upon you with pride and pleasure as the Speaker of this House, if you will condescend to delight us by evincing your opinion upon that subject. I pledge myself that you shall not be inter- rupted. Mr. Colfax. In reply only to the personal remarks of the gentleman from Ohio, I say this to him : that when I appear upon this floor, I do not condescend from that chair. The position of a member upon this floor is as exalted and responsible as the position of him who sits in that chair to administer your rules'. The gentleman brings a reproach upon himself and upon his fellow-members upon this floor when he sneers at me and speaks of me, when I appear upon this floor as the representative of my constituents, performing my duty, as condescending. The highest position a man can hold in this House is that of a representative of one hundred and fifty thousand people, sent here by their willing votes, and not by a mere majority of votes elected here as the presiding officer of this body. Mr. Cox. Mr. Speaker, I did not make any personal remarks in re- gard to my distinguished friend. Far be it from me to throw any stain upon him for his condescension. I admire him too much for his fairness and justice in presiding over our dehberations to reproach him. Never has he heard a word of that kind from me. But when he comes down from his exaltation to this floor and undertakes to engineer a resolution through this House for the expulsion of a brother member, he must take the consequences of the debate which he inaugurates. Mr. Colfax. I am willing to do so, perfectly willing. Mr. Cox. My friend does not seem now to be willing to do it. He shall not be interrupted if he answers, whether he stands by Mr. Lincoln or not in the sentiments which I read from his speech. I am opposed to all such sentiments, opposed to secession, opposed to revolution, and op- posed to any change of our Government, except in pursuance of the Con- stitution, by the amendment thereof. That is the position of the mem- bers on this side. But Mr. Lincoln Avas elevated to the Presidency by that lawless party on the other side, knowing his sentiments to be in favor of secession and revolution, in favor of " any portion of the people that can, revolutionizing and making their own so much of the territory as they inhabit." I ask gentleman, if my colleague deserves expulsion, does not the President deserve impeachment ? But if gentlemen say these questions are gone by, then I come to the condition of things since the war, and press the question which was not answered, why did you net expel Mr. Conway last Congress ? I receive no reply. I now ask, v/hy not expel the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Ju- 100 EIGHT YEARS IN CONGEESS. lian], the colleague of the Speaker, for his speech on the homestead law, wherein he expressed sentiments which, if carried out, would bring about in the North the very convulsion and anarchy which we now unhappily have in the South. The gentleman from Indiana, on the 18th of March, 1864, held these sentiments : " Congress must repeal the joint resolution of last year which protects the fee of rebel landholders. The President, as I am well advised, now stands ready to join us in such action. Should we fail to do this, the courts must so interpret the joint resolution as to make its repeal needless. Should both Congress and the courts stand in the way of the nation's life, then ' the red lightning of the people's wrath ' must consume the recreant men who refuse to execute the popular will. Our country, united and free, must be saved, at whatever hazard or cost ; and nothing, not even me Co?istitutio7i, must he allowed to hold back the uplifted arm of the Government in blasting the power of the rebels forever,''^ Now, Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the House, in our simplicity, were taught last session of Congress by a patriotic and learned member of the opposite party from Massachusetts [^Judge Thomas], that there could be no Union without the Constitution ; that there could be no war carried on except in pursuance of the Constitution ; that in using the ap- pliances for subduing the rebellion we are acting within the pale of the Constitution ; that we seek domestic tranquillity alone by the sword the Constitution has placed in our hands ; that in the path of war, as of peace, the Constitution is our guide and our light, the cloud by day, the pillar of fire by night ; that in preserving the Union and the Constitution we vin- dicate in every part the indivisible Republic in its supreme law ; that in seeking to change the Constitution, to break or overleap it, we become the rebels we are striving to subdue ; that all our labors and sacrifices for the Union of our fathers are for the Constitution, which is its only bond ; that to make this a war, with a sword in the one hand to defend the Constitution, and a hammer in the other hand to break it to pieces, is no less treasona- ble than secession itself; and that outside of the pale of the Constitution the whole struggle is revolutionary. If these sentiments be true, sir, and no one will question them, why was not the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Julian] expelled for the treason- able sentiments I have quoted? Why was not a similar resolution to this moved in relation to him ? We on this side do not do it. We are in favor of the largest Uberty of debate by Representatives. We understand that the Constitution guarantees such debate. We did not disturb your Judge Conway last session for his resolutions. We did not vote for his resolu- tions ; but you are responsible for his continuance ia his position till the end of the last Congress. If it were a reproach to the country, as our distinguished Speaker has stated, that a man sliould express him.self here in favor of the recog- nition of the Southern Confederacy ; if it dishonors and weakens us abroad and impairs our energies and discourages our eftbrts at home ; if it were equivalent to allowing members of the Richmond congress to come here and take part in our deliberations (as the Speaker has al- leged), why was not the expulsion of the member from Kansas proposed by him? Ah ! his case was of a different hue then. It was of a darker shade then. Now you arc in favor of expelling a man from our midst who was sent here by the people, because he utters the same sentiments SEDITION m THE NOETH. 101 which this side repudiates, and which one of your own side uttered last session, and Avhich you never sought to repudiate by the grave process of expulsion. But the Speaker did not resume his seat until he had made a fling at the Democracy of my State for supporting Mr. Vallandigham. Mr. Speaker, I took some part in the last contest for the Governorship of Ohio. I did not fully agree with the gentleman who is now in exile, as members know, in his votes on this floor, nor in regard to his peculiar views of pohcy or peace. I upheld sadly but firmly the sword, after it had been unsheathed, lest a worse alternative should ensue — the disunion of our beloved country. Mr. Julian. WiU the gentleman yield to me for a moment ? Mr. Cox. Certainly. Mr. Julian. The gentleman from Ohio "read only a portion of a paragraph from the speech which I delivered in this House, and I wish he would allow me to have read at the desk the entire paragraph which I have marked. Mr. Cox. I will insert in my speech what the gentleman desires, but as the extension of my time is objected to, I cannot yield to him. The gentleman does not deny that I have quoted him fairly so far as I have gone. Did not the gentleman say that he was in favor of breaking down the Constitution to save the country? Mr. Julian. It is a perversion of what I did say. Mr. Cox. I would rather have it from your own lips than from any report. Are you in favor of breaking down the Constitution ? Mr. Julian. I will answer the gentleman from Ohio. I said ex- plicitly in the paragraph of my speech which I have asked the gentleman to allow to be read, that there Avas no necessity in the world for breaking down the Constitution in any of its parts to put down the present rebellion in the South. That is my position. I said the Constitution was made for the people, not the people for the Constitution ; and that our fathers were not fools but wise men, who armed the nation with the power to crush its foes as well as to protect its friends. Mr. Cox. If that necessity existed ? Mr. Julian. If it were necessary to save the life of the nation to depart from the letter of the Constitution, I would, as I said in my speech, blast the power of the rebellion forever by the strong hand of war. Mr. Cox. I, too, would blast the power of the rebels by the strong hand of war ; but I regard the life of the nation as bound up Avith the Constitution, and that to blast the Constitution you blast the Government. And by destroying the Constitution you do not put an end to this war nor suppress the rebellion. Mr. Julian, I ask the gentleman whether, if the salvation of the nation's life required the violation of the letter of the Constitution, the gentleman would be willing to save the life of the nation at that cost ? Mr. Cox. I regard it as utterly impossible, under God, ever to save the life of the nation by tearing out its vitals, its heart and brain. The Constitution is the frame in which the Government is enshrined. I know no other Government except that embodied in the Constitution. This is the Government which you are sworn to support ; not sworn to support. 102 EIGHT YEAES IN CONGKESS. sir, in a certain emergency ; not sworn to destroy, if necessary to save the life of the country, but unconditionally to support at all times and in all places, as if that life were bound up with it forever. You have taken upon your soul the oath to sustain that Constitution. Now you say on certain conditions you would break your oath ! What is moral treason? What is moral perjury ? I do not charge these upon the gentleman ; but I beg him to reconsider and call back his words. Mr. JuLiAJsr. Will the gentleman yield to me right here ? Mr. Cox. I will, if the gentleman thinks I have done him injustice. Mr. Julian. I have taken that oath, and I have asserted publicly that there is no necessity in the world for violating it. But the gentleman has not answered the interrogatory which I propounded to him. I wish him to state explicitly v/hether, if the life of the nation could only be saved by a violation of the Constitution, he would be willing to save it in that way. [Laughter on the Republican side of the House.] Mr. Cox. I will answer the question. I am used to laughter from that side of the House. It docs not distract me, for laughter is not logic. Wliat is the life of the nation, sir, of which we hear so much? I know no other life of the nation except that incarnate in the Avritten Constitu- tion, Avhich protects property, person, home, conscience, liberty, and life. Take away these, and there is no nation. Society is stagnant and dead. The gentleman regards liberty as the life of the nation, a sort of ill-defined liberty for black and white, I suppose. I regard the Constitution as the embodiment of constitutional freedom in this country, the very body, life, and soul of the Union. That is the Constitution of the United States. When you strike that down you strike down the life of the nation. There- fore we, on this side, have determined, in order to save the life of the Government, to save the Constitution from destruction. Mr. Julian. Will the gentleman allow me to ask him another question ? Mr. Cox. If the gentleman is not fully answered, I will say this, THAT UNd'eR no CIRCUMSTANCES CONCEIVABLE BY THE HUMAN MIND WOULD I EVER VIOLATE THAT CONSTITUTION FOR ANY PURPOSE. [CrieS of " That's it ! " " That's it ! " from the Democratic side of tlie House.] As Judge Thomas has said, " I would cling to it as the bond of unity in the past, as the only practical bond of union in the future ; the only land lifted above the watei'S, on which tlie ark of the Union can be moored. From that ark alone will go out the dove, blessed of the Spirit, which shall return bringing in its mouth the olive-branch of peace." To com- pass its destruction as a probable or possible necessity, is the very gospel of anarchy, the philosophy of dissolution. If there be any man in this chamber who holds or utters any other sentiment in reference to the Constitution and liis oath than this Avhich I have expressed, I say to him, that language has no term of reproach, and the mind no idea of detestation, adequate to express the moral leprosy and treason couched in his language and clinging to his soul. I will not designate such utterances l)y any harsher language iu a parliamentary body. When intiu-ruptcd by the member horn Indiana, I was about to go a little further in answer to what the Speaker said in reference to the J)e- SEDITION IN THE NOETH. 103 mocracy of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I took a part in the campaign of last year, as I said, not because I approved of the peculiar peace notions of my former colleague. It was Avell known in Ohio, that my votes here did not always coincide with his, and that ray sentiments did not agree with his altogether ; but when by an arbitrary arrest, without warrant, without a fair trial, in defiance of the Constitution, in defiance of a law passed by ourselves, in defiance of English and American traditions, petitions, and bills of right, he was arrested and exiled, the Democracy of Ohio raised an issue in favor of fair trial, free speech, the immunities of personal free- dom, and an honest and lawful administration of public affairs. That was our only issue. I took ground everywhere in favor of the liberty of the citizen and the integrity of the Constitution. Disagreeing always with the peculiar tenets held by him in relation to coercion, I held that he had the same right to speak for peace as the soldier to fight for it. But I will say this for him, that nowhere, here or at home, did he ever utter a sen- timent or do an act looking to the recognition of the southern confederacy. He said in his place in this House, again and again, and quoted Mr. Cal- houn's opinions on the Mexican war in his justification, that he would not oj^pose the voting of men and money to carry on this war, the responsi- bility for which he did not covet nor bear. But, sir, he never would con- sent to a peace based upon recognition. He so said in the North, and he said the same in his exile in the South. We were defeated in Ohio on account of the issue made on the peace sentiment. I bowed to that decision. But, sir, Avhile there are some in our party opposed to coercion and in favor of a peace indiscriminately, without regard to consequences, the great body of the Democratic people in our State and in the North have never gone beyond one conclusion ; and that is, they are forever opposed to curtailing the limits of our em- pire by the recognition of a new nation carved out of our territory and made up of our States and people. Come war, come peace, come any thing, v/e would bring about a restofation of the old Government, with the old order. Our determination is to superadd to force the* policy of conciliation ; not to withdraw our forces from the field and yield to the South independence, but to superadd one other element of union — kind- ness and Christianity. If gentlemen cannot understand how two such ideas are compatible in the same mind with each other and with patriotism, I cannot teach them. While we have been ever ready to sustain our gallant soldiers in the field by our money and our men, we have been also ready at every hour of our triumph and at every opportunity for compro- mise, to extend an honorable amnesty to the erring ; not the jugglery of the executive amnesty, based iipon a proclamation of abolition which is a lie, but an amnesty which shall bring back the great body of the people South, if it be yet possible, to their allegiance. We desire to make our victories consequential by the rehabilitation of the States as they were, and to make out of them, and not out of illegitimate States, the old Union, one and indivisible ! This is the policy of the northern Democracy. We accept as our platform the integrity of the Union. Upon that platform we will never, in any emergency of this Republic, yield up this country and its Constitu- tion to secession, and to its baleful counterpart, abolition. " Amid all the 104 EIGHT TEAES EST CONGKESS. darkness, tlie thick darkness around us, we will cling to the single, simple sublime issue — the Constitution, and the Union of which it is the bond ; the old Uoion, God bless the old Union, and the wrath of the Lamb of God shrivel to their very sockets the arms lifted to destroy it ; not in ven- geance, but in mercy to them and to all mankind." THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW ITS REPEAL RIGHT OF ASYLUM. On the 13th of June, 1864, this bill furnished the last opportunity of arraigning the Republicans for their violations of law ; but as the discus- sion has lost its interest, that portion of the speech is omitted. It Avas mostly an argument ad liominem against the members from Wisconsin and Ohio, who sustained the infraction of the fugitive slave law. Some- thing of a colloquy occurred between Messrs. Baldavix, of Massachusetts, and Blaine, of Maine, and the Speaker, as to the execution of the law in time of war and on black soldiers. The occasion was seized by JVIr. Cox to vindicate the right of asylum, outraged in the case of Arguelles. arguelles' case. Mr. Cox said : I cannot understand why these gentlemen would de- stroy the only method of carrying out this extradition system of our Con- Btitutiou ; and yet the other day, when a Spanish subject Avas arrested by our authorities, and taken from our shores which he sought as an asylum, these gentlemen sustained such extraordinary action. Against the Con- stitution, Avithout law, without treaty, Avithout evidence, AAdthout jury trial, without Avarrant, without information, by executive power, usurping the treaty poAA^er, usurping the laAV-making poAver, usurping the power of the judiciary, this Administration delivered to Spain a Avhite refugee ; and this Congress, Avith cringing obsequiousness, bowed before executiA'e dic- tation, and by their legislative action said, " All right, Mr. President, you can seize a Avhite man and take him from the country in defiance of the great right of asylum ; but when a black man, escaping from one State to anotlier, and Avhom Ave are commanded by the Constitution to deliver up, and under the sanction of our oath to make laAvs for such delivery, Ave break down the constitutional clause and the laAvs sanctioned by the ju- diciary in order to create in the North an asylum for the blacks of the South." When a Avhite man from another nation is torn away, and the practice and usage of all free and civilized nations is outraged, gentlemen on that side stifle proper resolutions of condemnation. ]\Ir. ]MoRRis, of New York. The gentleman Avill allow mc to ask him a question for information. In the case referred to by the gentleman from Oliio, was the man charged Avith crime or Avas he not? * ]\Ir. Cox. I say to my friend from NeAV York that that white mau was charged Avith a crime in newsjjapers, by clamor, but not legally. There was no charge, no Avarrant, no information, and no trial. I defy •gentlemen to give me a resolution of iniiuiry, to ascertain Avhether the Executive or the Secretary of Slate had any thing in writing but the request SEDITION m THE NORTH, 105 of the Spanisli minister upon whicli to base the arrest and extradition of this Spaniard, seeking an asyhim in this country. Upon the request of Serior Tassara, the Spanish minister, Mr. Seward issued his rescript, and the man was taken from the privacy of his own room, without the knowl- edge of his wife, who was in the next chamber. He was hurried on board a steamer, was hurried off to Havana, and is there held as a criminal to be tried. And yet gentlemen upon the other side dare not condemn that. Why? Because it was alleged that he was engaged in some way in the slave trade. Well, some one with less sense than sensibility may cry out, " Oh ! you are the defender of the slave trade and slave traders." There is only one answer to this : the monosyllabic answer, " Pshaw." I de- fend no crime when I defend the right of asylum ; nor do I defend sla- very, when I oppose the repeal of a constitutional law for the rendition of slaves. It has been said that this Spanish subject, Colonel Arguelles, was en-" gaged in the slave trade, and hence an enemy of the human race. The truth is that he was not engaged in that trade. Slaves had been landed in the district of Colon, in Cuba, imder his jurisdiction, and those slaves, as it was alleged, he had sold after they were landed and confiscated, and having made money out of the transaction in violation of his duty he had fled to this country. There was no proof of all this. It was the only allegation, however, and it may be true. Suppose it were. The charge is simply that of a breach of the municipal law of Spain. He is not, then, in the legal sense, as Mr. Sevvard asserted, an enemy of the human race. He was not a pirate in any legal or moral sense, but a criminal under the laws of Spain. He could only be delivered to Spain under a treaty or a statute, and neither existed between this country and Spain. Yet gentlemen who are becoming so careful about the personal liberty of black men as to refuse to render them up in pursuance of the Constitu- tion, sustain the extradition of a white man without evidence, law, treaty, or constitutional authority. If there were a treaty between Spain and the United States similar to this authority in our Constitution with regard to the rendition of black fugitives, no indignation would ever have been hurled by a hospitable people, proud of their system of asylum under our once free Government, against its present perfidious administrators. Upon the same principle, or want of principle, by which the Executive gave'^up this Spaniard, they would have surrendered Thomas Francis Meagher, a criminal convicted by the judicial tyranny of England, Professor Agas- siz, the savant, whom the world dehghts to honor, and every other man of gTeat or little note who comes here from abroad. We have had many humiliations since the present Administration came into power. We have bowed humbly before the throne of the French usurper, at the beck of an arrogant foreign minister, and allowed an Aus- trian prince and an imperial dupe to bear a crown i'rom Europe to our continen!, and sway a sceptre over a democratic republic with whicli we were in friendly alliance. We have had domestic humiliations by the forcible abduction, imprisonment, and exile of our citizens without law or trial. We have had our very thoughts pinioned, our presses manacled, and our writs of right and liberty annulled. For aU these we place our hands upon our mouths in shame ; but for this last humiliation, by which 106 EIGHT TEARS IN CONGRESS. America is no longer the home of the oppressed or the refuge of the for- eigner, by which we are made the hissing and byword of the nations, we cast our mouths in the dust in abjectcst degradation. We are put to cruel shame before all civilized nations, nay, before even half-civilized nations. Turkey once protected the Hungarian patriot, Kossuth ; Switzerland protects all political refugees in the midst of Europe, and stands there in her Republican simplicity and faith as firm as her everlasting mountains against the oppressions around her. AVe protected the half-made citizen Koszta in an Asiatic harbor, and rescued him from an Austrian ship ; but this Avas Avhen we had a Democrat to represent us in our foreign affairs like William L. Marcy. But while this national Congress stops in the midst of a gi-eat civil war to sow new dissensions in our midst by unwise legislation like this for black fugitives, it has shown its servile timidity before the usurpations of our Executive, and has allowed the Jettre de cachet of the French monarch to be reissued under the great seal of the United States, without a murmur of dissent or denunciation. We are disgraced before the world by the violation of the great feature of our system of polity. What new humiliation is in store for us? I hope, Mr. Speaker, that I am not travelling out of the range of proper discussion by referring to this matter of the extradition of a foreigner Avith- out treaty or law. I have considered it fully. I hope before Congress adjourns that the Committee on the Judiciary Avill report a bill for the purpose of punishing such officers as dare lay their hands upon refugees who are here from countries with Avhich we have no treaty, and in cases where there is no law for their delivery. Such refugees have the right to shoot down the officers who thus arrest them, and be entirely innocent of crime. Refugees under such cii'curastances would have the riglit to sue Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Seward, or the marshal of New York, for false impris- onment, because of the absence of all law and all treaty in relation to that subject. What inference do I draw from this? That in my opinion, as to all matters of rendition, whether of fugitives from service or justice, or of political refugees, there is always some law required to carry out in good faith the treaty or agreement upon those subjects. Hence, as between these United States, Ave had placed here in this second section of the fom'th article of the Constitution, that any person charged Avith treason, felony, or other crime, fleeing from one State to another, should be dclivci'cd up, and Congress passed a laAV to carry that out. For the purpose of deliver- ing up persons accused of crime in one State and fleeing to another, papers are prepared, a prima facie case is made out, and a quasi trial is had. These are indispensable to executive action among our States. So in re- gard to fugitives from labor, the same preliminaries are required. Proof, a hearing before the commissioner, and Avarrants for the delivery of the fugitive to the claimant — these prerequisites are a part of a system as to all renditions. It is laid down in every authority on international law, and by states- men Avho have had instances before them in tliis country in the various cases growing out of the treaties Avitli Great Britain, France, and other countries, that there can be no rendition of any one from one State to SEDITION IN THE NOKTH. 107 another, except in pursuance of some treaty or law specially made to effectuate the object. Indeed, in this very case of Arguelles, when our consul at Havana was informed of the flight of Arguelles to New York, with a view to his recla- mation, the consul at once said that, in the absence of a treaty, no recla- mation could be had ; that if it were had it would be an " exceptional measure/' In this view he is confirmed by Judge Story in his Conflict of Laws ; by the practice of this Government in a case as early as 1792, when Mr. Jefferson urged a treaty with Spain ; in another case under the Jay treaty in 1799 ; in another case under Washington's administra- tion in 1797, for the rendition to Spain of certain criminals from Florida, then a Spanish province ; in another case in 1821, when "William Wirt, as Attorney-General, held that the Executive had no power to arrest a refugee, except for the violation of our own laws ; in another case in 1831, of a Portuguese pii-ate, wherein Attorney-General Taney decided the same principle ; and in various other cases up to the time of our civil war, when, in a case of demand by Mr. Seward for rebels held by Spain, the Spanish Minister of State himself, INIiraflores, insisted on a treaty of extradition as a prerequisite to the delivery. It makes my Amer- ican blood tingle to read the eloquent vindication of this great right from the lips of the Minister of Spain. I insert it here as the better sentiment of what is left of the free white men of America : " The right to give asykim to political refugees is in such manner rooted in the habits, in such sort interwoven with the ideas of tolerance of the present century, and has such frequent, generous, and beneficent applications in the extraordinary and ensanguined po- litical contests of the times we live in, that there is no nation in the world which dares to deny this right, and, moreover, not any one that can renounce its exercise. And if the Government of Washington ivitshcs to acquire a perfect and jjositive right to the delivery of those guilty of ordinary crimes, it ivill be accomplished by means of a treaty of extra- dition, to the conclusion of which the Spanish Government vjould not oppose itself, as it has not refused to conclude such with other States.'" I need not call the roU of English judges or statesmen who have spoken to the same effect with legal learning and indignant eloquence. The Cre- ole case gave rise to these discussions in the English Parliament. The great names of Aberdeen, Denman, Campbell, Brougham, and others might be cited, to show that the sanctity of asylum can only be invaded in pursuance of treaty or of statute. Yet, in defiance of all precedent, practice, and authority, this House proposes not to repeal the constitutional clause requiring fugitives from labor to be delivered up, but, preserving that clause, to nullify it altoge- ther by repealing the law by which alone the clause can be executed. On the charitable assumption that gentlemen on the other side intend to execute the Constitution, I say that it is indispensable that some law should exist to carry it out. As in the case of a treaty, as in the Arguel- les case, so in thecase of a fugitive slave there must.be some law to carry out the treaty or clause of rendition. To repeal the law made for that purpose, is a cowardly blow at the Constitution itself. It is a breach of faith, a breach of treaty ; and between independent nations would be a casus helli. Between States banded like ours under a Constitution, it is a flagrant \'iolation of a sacred compact. 108 EIGHT YEAKS IN CONGEESS. JUDICIAL DECISIONS AS TO FUGITIVES. Mr. Cox then showed by ample quotations that the Republicans held, in the matter of rendition of fugitives from labor, that the Federal Gov- ernment was a usurper of State rights, and " denied that the decisions of a usurping party in favor of the validity of its own assumptions can settle any thing ;" or, as Attorney-General Wolcott argued (9 Ohio Reports, 114), that " as to these powers, the States stand to each other and to the Federal Government as absolutely foreign nations." He then concluded by addressing the Republican side of the House : You are against the rendition of the black man in pursuance of the Constitution ; and you give up a white man who has sought an asylum on our shores Avithout the form or substance of law or treaty, and in " positive defiance " of the law of nations and the Constitution. Your Executive is a usurper of the powers wisely distributed to the other depart- ments of the Government. Here you sit to-day striving to strike down the only mode whereby one peculiar clause of the Constitution can be carried out, and propose no mode as a substitute either by State or Fed- eral action. You will not allow an individaal to take his slave by the sanction of the Constitution alone ; you will pass no law to help him. You will not allow him to go into a free State and have his right there by jury trial, because you cannot try the claimant's right to a slave by a jury in a free State. You will not allow the law of 1793, which George Washington assisted in making ; yet you strike down all the great rights of personal freedom for the white man fixed by the fathers of the country in our fundamental law, because you are demoniacally bent upon riving this Union in twain, and separating its parts forever. Your ideas arc not those of the higher, but of the lower law. They do not come from the sources of law and light and love above. They sunder all the ties of allegiance and all the sanctions of faith. You are destructionists ; you would tear down all that is valuable and sacred in the past and build up nothing in their place. You are revolutionists. You were trying for years by -wi-ongful interference and force to nullify the very law which you now seek to expunge by repeal. You diligently sought to embroil the States in collision with the Federal Government, and have succeeded in bringing with your advent into power the consequences we predicted, a relentless and bloody Avar. I charge it upon every man of you on the other side of the House who took any part in these seditious infractions of the Constitution, who counselled individual and State resistance and fomented sectional strife, that you are in part responsible before God and the country for our present calamities. The enormous burdens of taxa- tion, the widow's teai'S, the orphan's curse, the wail of the bereaved, and the iuture destitution and consuming desolation of this land, all cry aloud against you as the authors of this Avorst evil Avhich ever befell a suflTcring people ! m. FOREIGN AFFAIRS. CONTINENTAL POLITICS EUROPEAN PROTECTORATE OVER AMERICAN STATES — TERRITORIAL EXPANSION. In anticipation of the events which have recently transpired in the Spanish American States, this speech, and the one following upon Mexico, was delivered. On the 18th of January, 1859, addressing the House, Mr. Cox said : There is a logic in history which is as inexorable as fate. A writer in the time of the first Stuart gave as the number of the kingdoms of Chris- tendom, five-and-twenty. But there was no mention of three of the prin- cipal nations, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, in their present divisions ; nor of twelve other nations out of the twenty now enumerated in Europe ; nor of the thirty petty sovereignties novv" extant in Germany. Within two centuries, the transatlantic cojitinent has changed its territory and rulers beyond aU the caprices of fancy : yet by a law as fixed as that which returns the seasons and rolls the stars. The disquieting aspect of cisatlantic politics signifies the consummation of territorial changes on this continent, long predicted, long delayed, but as certain as the logic of history ! Some of these changes in Europe have been through decay, dissolution, and disintegration. Spain was once the Peru and Mexico of the Old World. The ancestors of the hidalgo were enslaved in the mines of Spain by Rome and Carthage. But now, Leon, Aragon, Castile, Navarre, Toledo, Galicia, and Granada, once separate kingdoms, have lost their isolated glory, and are only known as the props of the " worm-eaten throne of Spain." The stronger races of Europe have consolidated their power by extending its sphere and absorbing the weaker neighboring nations. England, Ireland, and Scotland, by union, have been trans- planted into colonies and multiplied their strength ; and Russia has clasped the half of Europe and Asia in its strong embrace, until from the furthest West we perceive the conflict of civilization in the furthest East. These are but illustrations of a law from which America is not exempt. Not more surely will northern Africa, and indeed the countries whose boundaries are coincident with the Mediterranean, become French ; western 110 EIGHT TEAES EST CONGKESS. and northern Asia become Russian ; and southern and central Asia be- come English, than this continent become American ! The law which commands this is higher than Congressional enactment. If we do not ■work with it, it will work in spite of us. This law may be expressed thus : That the weaker and disorganized nations must he absorbed by the strong and organized nations. Nationalities of inferior grade must surren- der to those of superior civilization and polity ! "Whether the races of this continent be in a tribal condition, as are our Indians, or in a semi-civilized and anarchical condition, as are the Central and South American and Mexican races, they must obey this law of politi- cal gravitation. This law drives them to the greater and more illustrious State for protection, happiness, and advancement. Whether the United States go and take them, or they come and ask to be taken, no matter. They must whirl in, throw off their nebulous and uncertain form, and become crystallized into the higher forms of civilization. The largest expression of this law of annexation is : That no nation has the right to hold soil, virgin and rich, yet unproducing ; no nation has a right to hold great isthmian highways, or strong defences, on this conti- nent, without the desire, will, or power to use them. They ought, and must, inure to the advancement of our commerce. They must become confiscate to the decrees of Providence ! In carrying out these designs, we have, from time to time, added ter- ritory from France, Spain, and Mexico. We have endeavored to add other territory, which the jealousy of France, Spain, and especially of England, has pi'evented. It is not my purpose now to rehearse our history in this regard. We may have kept step with our interests and our desti- ny ; but at this juncture, standing on tlie threshold of this new year, we are only marking time, not moving forward ! It is well to inquire whether there is not now upon us, as the assembled representatives of this nation, a peculiar duty with respect to this element of our progress. My judg- ment is, that we are to-day derelict. We are not up to the enterprise of the nation. If we consider just now the elements of our people, martial, mechanical, intellectual, agricultural, and political, who Avill doubt but that there ai'e a dozen locomotive Republics akeady fired up and ready for movement? The Executive has done his duty. lie has boldly followed out his Ostend ideas. He has urged upon us a duty, which being undone, leaves him powerless, and leaves the national enthusiasm and expansion a prey to adventurous raids and seditious propagandists. Had the Thirty-Fourth Congress aided Prqsident Pierce in the Black AVarrior matter, Ave should now have representatives from Cuba on this floor ! The President has called our attention to the territory upon our south. Not New Granada — she will come in time. Not Venezuela — she is even yet more vital than New Granada. But the country north of these, and lying between them and us, must be absorbed. For this absorption we must contend, not so much Avitli the people, whose interests will be en- hanced by the al)sorption, but with Spain, France, and England, who have no interests comparable with our own. These interests and antagonisms I propose to consider in this order : First, Cuba ; second, Central Ameri- ca ; third, Mexico. FOREIGN AFFAIRS. Ill As to Cuba, the reasons for its acquisition are well understood by the country. The message has succinctly and ably presented them. Its geo- graphical position gives to the nation which holds it, unless that nation be very weak, a coigne of vantage as to which self-preservation forbids us to be indififerent. Our Mississippi, foreign, and coastwise trade, now $250,- 000,000, and in five years to be $500,000,000, are within its compass. TVTiile the island is of little use to Spain, save as a source of revenue, it is to us of incalculable advantage. The nature of the colonial office in Cuba, its power to harm us remedilessly, unless we go to Madrid for remedy,, and the final stopping of the slave trade, are reasons weU urged by the President. Our unsettled claims, and the many other difficulties growing out of our relations to Spain, demand settlement, but receive none. How long shall we continue in this condition ? During the pleasure of Spain ? Is there no redress ? Is our every attempt to be construed into a usurpation? What impediments have we to meet? There is one which has since Mr. Adams's time proved insurmountable — Spanish pride. It is weU said by an old poet, that " Spain gives us pride, which Spain of all the earth May freely give, nor fear herself a dearth." Since then, there has been no curtailment of that pride. True, Spain has now little to be proud of but her recollections. Poor, sensitive, cor- rupt, she holds to the punctilio of dignity without its substantial energy. If Spain will not sell Cuba to us, because she feels that she will thereby sell her honor, we must insist on her changing its policy. She should keep the island aloof from French intervention. She should pi*eserve its independence. Above all, Spain should abolish her present infamous tarijQT. Her ex- port tariff is an anomaly in commerce, and her tariff upon imports is still more barbaric. Her export duty, which is a direct tax on the producer of her sugars and tobacco, does not so much affect us, as the tax which she loads on our flour, pork, beef, and lard. We have tried in vain by diplomacy to unloosen these shackles. Nothing but the sword can cut them off. Up to 1809, Spain imposed restrictions on Cuba, by which no trade at all was allowed with any foreign nation. After this, and on the revival of the Spanish merchant-marine, the differential duty on goods imported in foreign bottoms was enacted. It was intended to crush out the trade with the United States. This continued till 1834, when this Congress passed retaliatory laws. No countervailing acts, however, could move the meanness of Spanish restriction. American flour, and other staples for which Cuba must look to a foreign market, are excluded. Thus a balance of trade, averaging $10,000,000 per year, is kept constantly against us. The duty in Cuba on flour imported from Spain is only $2.50 per barrel ; from the United States, in American or other foreign bottoms, it is $10.81. So that, if flour be worth five dollars in Cincinnati, the cost to the Cuban consumer is sixteen dollars per barrel ! This enormous tax on flour pre- vents its vise in the island, except by the wealthy few — the thirty-five thousand Spaniards. The body of the poor and oppressed Creoles are compelled to use the dry and insipid cassava root as a substitute for bread. 112 EIGHT TEAKS IN CONGKESS. This tariff on flour, added to an infamous tonnage-tax, operates as a pro- liibitiou on flour. With a moderate duty, or if Cuba were annexed, its consumption, as it is estimated by our economists, "would be a million of barrels ! It would be enjoyed by us exclusively — benefit the farmers of my State and yours. That is evident from the fact, that no other country could compete with us in that staple ; for no other country is so near to Cuba, or so prolific in breadstuffs. We exported to Cuba, in 1857, only 45,145 barrels of flour, worth $324,410 ; in 1858, 17,905 barrels, worth $105,069. Of other articles, beef, pork, lard, hams, and bacon, and including flour, we had, in 1857, but $1,868,783 ; in 1858, but $1,228,119. Whereas, had a liberal com- mercial economy, like that of Belgium, Holland, or Great Britain, ob- tained, we should have had, at least, $10,000,000 of produce exported. This would nearly have balanced our trade in sugar and coffee, and on these loe have fixed no prohibitive tariff! Thus our commerce is crippled under the blows of this Spanish oppression. Why, even the Spanish Crown would be better helped by a more liberal policy. Such a system, in this era of commercial freedom, is a shame to civilization, and if inter- national law were rightly written, it would, itself, be a cause of honorable war ! But I have no hope that Spain will sell Cuba, or that the Cubans understand the nature of the blessings which attend annexation. They will not perceive that they become, by annexation, coequal with New York and Ohio, in a common league for the common weal. They fear for their church and domestic institutions, as if they were any part of Federal concernment. I was surprised to meet an impediment raised by a distinguished- Sen- ator [Hammond] from South Carolina in his Barnwell speech. I trust it is not shared by many Southern men. Pie objects to taking Cuba ; first, because it may involve a war, whose consequences he states to be fearful. He leaves us in doubt as to these consequences. Docs he mean the re- duction of Cuba to the condition of Ilayti? A terrible consequence. That might follow ; but that is rather an English than a Spanish threat, and hardly capable of execution in a time when Spain and France are re- viving the slave trade to cheapen tropical produce. His second objection is more salient. I quote it entire : "If we had Cuba, we could not make more than two or three slave States there, which would not restore the equilibrium of the North and the South ; while, with the African slave trade closed, and licr only resort to this continent, slic would, l)osi(les crush- ing out our whole sugar culture by lier competition, ali'ord in a few years a market for all the slaves in Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland. She is, notwithstanding the exorbitant taxes nnposed on her, capable now of absorbing the annual increase of all the slaves on this continent, and consumes, it is said, twenty or thirty thousand a year by her system of labor. Slaves decrease there largely. In time, under the system practised, every slave in America n.i.;ht be exterminated in Cuba as were the Indians. However the idle African may piocrcate in the trupics, it yet remains to bo proven, and the facts are against llie co:iclu.-ion, that he can, in those regions, work and thrive. It is salt! Cuba is to be ' Africanized,' rather than that tlie United States should take her. That threat, which at one time was somewhat alarming, is no longer any cause of disquietude to the South, after our experience of the Africanizing of St. Domingo and Jamaica. What have we lost by that ? 1 think we reaped some benefit ; and if the slaves of Cuba are turned loose, a great sug.ir culture would grow up in Louisana and Texas, rivalling that of cot- ton, and diverting from it so much labor* that cotton would rarely be below its present prica" FOEEIGK AFFAIRS. 113 This objection is two-fold. The inter-state slave trade with Cuba, in case of annexation, he thinks, would make several free States, by the de- mand and consumption of negroes ; and even if it would not, Cuba would not give the South the preponderance in the Union ; and secondly^ sugar he thinks would be cheap to the whole Union ; while a few thousand sugar planters, who just thrive on the bounty they now get, would be ruined. As to the argument abotat Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland becoming free thi-ough Cuban annexation, I leave that to the members from those States. As to the sugar, I say, that an argument of that kind addressed to a free-trade people, by a free-trader, should go far to weaken the vio- rale of his great and frank speech, as it does the economy of his politics. To the people of my State, such an argument Avill quicken their ambition to acquire Cuba ; not alone because of the millions to be gained by an increase of our exports thither, which are taxed prohibitively ; but because we pay a tax on Cuban sugar, which is harsh, protective, and indefensible, in any epoch of a depressed exchequer. In 1857, there were, in all, of sugar and molasses, imported from Cuba into the United States, $40,093,- 466 worth. The tariff on these sugars was $12,028,039.80. Ohio paid one-tenth of this, or about twelve hundred thousand dollars, which is equal to her immense school tax, and nearly a half a million more than she pays for her State government, and nearly one-half the expenses of all her counties. By our tariff of 1857, we reduced the tax on sugar six per cent., and the panic reduced the importation enormously. During the year ending June 30, 1858, our sugars from Cuba amounted to only $18,- 620,022, giving a revenue of $4,468,805.28, at twenty-four per cent, ad valorem. Since 1847, when Mr. Polk proposed annexation, this nation must have paid over sixty millions of sugar tax ! Ohio has paid of that sum $6,000,000. My district has paid one-twentieth part of $6,000,000, or $300,000 ; an annual tax of $30,000, all for what ! That one of the prime necessaries of life should be fostered into premature gi-owth, to aid a few sugar planters in the South ! If Cuba cannot be annexed, to break this servihty, by which the many are made tributary to the few, then we must remodel our Democracy and economy. My State Legislature, in 1854, passed a resolution, at my solicitation, requesting Congress to abate this tax. There is no reason for its existence. " But," it is said, " we must protect Texas and Louisiana in their few- sugar plantations ! If Cuba comes in, away goes the tax !" Every man, woman, and child, in my State, will say : " Away with it ! Welcome Cuba and free sugar !" " But," says the Senator, " if Cuba be African- ized and kept out, it will keep up the price of sugar, and a great growth will spring up, rivalling cotton." What then? Ecstasy! "Negroes will be in demand. Cotton, too, will be kept high ! " What an argu- ment for a Senator of all the United States, every one of whose interests are his own ! The Union is a cotton-pod ! [Laughter.] Its growth dependent on the growth of the cane ! If, by this logic, Cuba is to be kept out, let us know it. Already the Republican mouth grows juicy at the prospect with Cuba in the Union ! [Laughter.] It matters not if sugar be made by slaves. That little delicacy of Exeter-Hall sentimental- 8 114: EIGHT YEARS IN CONGEESS. ity is becoming obsolete. Even our Quakers are willing to drink cheap damnation in their coffee-cups, and eat it on their buckwheats ! My most distinguished constituent, the Governor of my State, and a candidate for the Presidency, will soon outvie your southern Hotspurs in the race of annexation, if thus you dress your laggard logic. In a speech at a Yankee festival in my city, where the Pilgrims were praised for many a virtue which they had not, and their intolerable intolerance was glossed over by the fervor of the hour. Governor Chase is reported to have advocated the policy of " leaving to every one the absolute control of all matters of domestic concernment," and an " indefinite expansion of empire." If this does not include Cuba, I will ask his friends oppo- site to say what is excluded by his concluding remark, that as the last result of the enlarging empire both of American Government and Ameri- can principles, he summons " the parliament of man to sit on the desti- nies of the world"? I did not dream that I should ever have to welcome the Ohio aspirant for the White House into the support of its present occupant. I did not dream last fall that I should represent him so nearly. I warn gentlemen of the South to observe these signs, and prevent this grand larceny of De- mocratic thunder, by considering the proposition which some gentleman last session called national grand larceny ! Call it by what name you wiU, I am ready to answer the call of tjie President, if for nothing else, for the benefit of oiu- $250,000,000 of yearly trade, which must pass under the range of Cuban cannon. I am ready to vote for the bill of the gentle- man from North Carolina [Mr. Branch], looking to the purcliase of Cuba ; and I am not very particular as to the amoimt of money with which to fill the blank in his bill. In case of our failure to purchase by honorable negotiation, I would favor its seizure in case of foreign war, or of a Euro- pean intervention. As to Central America, I do not desire to enter so fully into our rela- tions with this region. That has been ably done by my friend from Vir- giuia [Mr. Jenkins]. We know avcU the impediment existing in the way of our acquisition there. The Clayton-Buhver treaty — tlie diploma- tic blunder of the century — stands as a huge gorgou in our path. The policy of its abrogation is conceded ; but " how not to do it " seems to have been the practice. The present Executive, in his message of December 8, 1857, bewailed this condition of things. He inherited, as did President Pierce, this treaty of peace, which has proved a treaty of otVence. Eng- land and the United States have been quarrelling over its construction, when its destruction Avas the most pacific course that could have been adopted. Collateral treaties may be made which will prevent the conse- quence of an abrupt abrogation of this treaty. Diplomacy is now, wc are told, working to this end. But there is in the American mind a chronic distrust of England. It is well grounded in her laxity of faith. When licr interests can be sub- served, she breaks any compact ; and only adheres to it when deuuiudcd by her interests. AVhether the treaties to be made with Honduras, Costa Kica, and Nicaragua, throttle tliis buntliug of Bulwcr, whether we arc to lose still more l»y British dihitory dipU)nuiev, ri'uuiiiis to be seen. One thing is remarkable, that wc have not advanced since 1841), when Nica- FOREIGN ATTAIBS. 115 ragua, in the Hiess-Selva treaty, proposed to " confer on us the exclusive right " of an interoceanic canal, or highway. Had that treaty been con- firmed, we might have had to-day forts and free cities along its route and at its termini, with full right to protect Nicaragua by all the strength of our navy and army. A year later, and that wily diplomatist, Bulwer — who, for his tact, is sent to the Bosphorus to teach Russia her role in the East — -comes forward with his projet. Our Government nibbles coyly at his bait ; but, hke a foolish fish, at last leaps for the fly, is barbed, and hauled in to flounder for the amusement of the world. Would that Mr. Clayton had weighed the meaning of Smelfungus's philosophy : " It is always time to cut your throat ; but if your throat is once cut, there are certain difficulties in the way of reconsidering your determination." Crampton and Webster tried in 1852 to unravel the web. Then Web- ster and Molina tried it, with the aid of Costa Rica. Then Wheeler and Escobar, acting for Nicaragua, made an effort, which our Government failed to accept. Then Clarendon and Herran, for Honduras, sought to untie the knot ; and this led the way to the Cass-Yrisari treaty in the fall of 1857, which began de novo. Then, a fair treaty was made, allowing us the protectorate of the transit ; but through foreign influence it was so modified by Nicaragua as to be unacceptable to our Government. Now, Sir Grore Ouseley, having ceased to be a diplomatic myth here, has gone to the South, where, we trust, something may be done to cancel that part of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty by which we agreed with England to cut our throats, by never " occupying, fortifying, or colonizing, or assuming or exei'cising any dominion over Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mosquito coast, or any part of Central America." We trust that such an agree- ment may be made to this end ; but my reading of history is vain, if we do not find thrown about this abrogotion some clog which the American people will not bear. The truth is, that we have slept so long, and dreamed so transport- ingly of our destiny over these regions, that meanwhile Japan and Cliina are opened ; Frazer's River becomes an Eldorado ; and English and French navies, quitting the attempt on Cronstadt, and tiring of the red storm of the Euxine, display their guns on this continent. Their entente cordiale, as Clarendon said it would be, is extended to this hemisphere ; and here we have them ! They are, by their presence, if not by their diplomacy, ignoring the far-famed doctrine of Mr. Mom*oe, which had, when first given, as general a meaning and as practical a use, as it ought now to have a specific application. His doctrine was, that the countries of the American continent, by the free and independent condition which they assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization or influence by any European Power. Let controversy contend as to the meaning of this doctrine. I know that when Yucatan was about to be taken by England, and when English arms were furnished her for an independency of Mexico, which would have been a dependency of England, Mr. Calhoun then tried, in an able speech, to limit the appHcation of that doctrine to the surroundings out of which it grew, namely, to the intervention of the holy alliance to recover the revolted American States for Spain, and the Russian occu- palion on our northwest. But the declaration has a larger meaning. 116 EIGHT YEAE3 IN CONGRESS. It has become settled policy. In 1823, IMr. JcfFersou laid it down thus : " Our first and fundamental maxim should be, never to entangle ourselves in the broils of Euroi^e ; our second, never to suffer Europe to intermeddle with cisatlantic affairs." Yet this doctrine is sneered at, as if Monroe's ghost were invoked to do a kind of constable's duty, to warn all foreign intruders from this con- tinent. So far as emigration is concerned, this continent is open as day ; but no flag, no policy, no institution, no colonies, no protectorates of Eu- rope, can exist here, Avithout endangering the peace, infringing the rights, or disturbing the order and prospective interests of this continent. What- ever may have been the occasion of the Monroe declaration, its cause is as eternal as liberty, and its consequences wiU be as progressive as our nation. I care not for its traditionary emphasis. Democrats, at least, can afford to let that go. Is it sound doctrine for the present? If so, it ought to be the enthusiastic sentiment and genius of this Government. If so, let it be no more the jeer of Europe, the swagger of America, but a fact as much a part of our historic life as the Declaration of In- dependence, which was its procreant source. It is the law of self- preservation. General Cass, in his recent letter, has given it proper du'ection. It was intended to guard this continent against the inctir- sion of any alliances, "■ holy " or unholy. It looked to that law which I have laid down, by which the interests and honor of this hemi- sphere were to be guarded by none but ourselves. "We do not want to be foreclosed against its occupation, fortification, and annexation. In the present feeling of this country, no treaty can be made and made to stand, if it does not break do\\Ti all protectorates of England and all interfer- ence of France. The Senate of the United States dare not confirm such a treaty. The present Executive wiU not present it. The present Secre- tary of State will not sanction it. Does England want Honduras, Yucatan, the Belize? What are they to lier? Kothing, except as she can use them to l)lock up tlie progress of this nation. Does she want free passage over the Central American States ? That she can have under our auspices and with safety ! What does she with the Valorous and the Leopard in the Caribbean Sea? Why do her ofiicers spy for arms in tlie American steamer Washington? Is it only fillibusters she is after? I do distrust her. If she seems to acqui- esce in our view for a time, may we not attribute it to that pojudar will which compels her aristocracy to more prudence inrel'erence to America? She pretended to settle all in the Chiyton-Bulwer treaty ; yet that treaty was a delusion and a snare. While that treaty was yet warm, England drove the Kicaraguau forces out of San Juan del Norte ; then she pirates that entreput from an independent State ; anoints a hybrid savage as a king ; gives to a iew Jamaica negroes, dressed like the Georgia major without liis spurs, the constabulary baton, and builds a congeries of negro huts which slie nieknames after the Earl Grey. She performs the same office for Honduras, l)y what Chuendun caHed the "spontaneous settle- ment" of tliu 15ay Islands ; and then chiiuis from us good faitli in keep- ing the compact which she breaks ! Then comes Sir Gore Ouscley to FOREIGN ATFAIES. 117 maintam the delusion, in spite of Lord Napier, who goes home. What more ? She approves of the Cass-Yrissari treaty by fomenting difRcuhies in the way of its ratification. She pretends to Mr. Dallas, through Malmesbury, that Belly is a French adventurer for whom she has no sym- pathy ; yet, in acts, gives to him French and English protection, through the alliance. It is not safe to trust her. Her treaties are ropes of sand. Her international law is too elastic for use by any but herself. Her de- signs are steeped in fraud ; and all complications with her are dangerous and entangUng. Thank God ! we have a Secretary of State whose life is marked with signal ability in anticipating, demonstrating, and frustrating her designs. This nation will sustain him in his declaration that " The establishment of a political protectorate by any one of the Powers of Europe over any of the independent States of this continent, or, in other words, the introduction of a scheme of policy which would carry with it a right to interfere in their concerns, is a measure to which the United States have long since avowed their opposition, and which, should the attempt be made, they will resist by all the means in their power." Behind this rock the present Administration are intrenched. There is no feeling in this country worth caUing patriotism, which does not stand squarely up to this high and strong position. Why should not this Con- gress, by some definite action, stand by the popular sense and the Govern- ment ? I am ready either to give the moral force of a resolution such as that now referred to the Committee of the Whole, to abrogate the Clayton- Bulwer treaty ; or I am ready to go further, and to clothe the President with extraordinary powers, and to give him means, or the authority to procure means, by which his recommendations may be acted on. But it may be said. Why so much risk of Vv^ar with the combined powers of Europe ; why so much anxiety for the Isthmus or Central American route ? Not because we are in danger of being cut off from its dominion. That wiU come, if these Central American States remain in- dependent of European constraint. Not because it is the only feasible mode of transit for the great oriental trade between the oceans ; for in time there will be rapid and safe transits on our ovra soil. Not so much be- cause we ought to have and hold the hundred and fifty millions of trade with these Spanish American tropical lands, instead of but ten millions which we now have. But natiu'e never made so narrow an obstacle, one so easily severed, and on which such great commercial and economical re- sults depended, as that at Darien or Nicaragua. She buried mountains and valleys beneath the wave, to narrow that neck, and thus expand the bounds of interchange, and encircle the earth with a white zone of ar- gosies. If New Granada shall be ours, as it should be within a twelvemonth, unless the Congress of Bogota show more honesty and wisdom in settling the claims of our Panama sufferers, than is likely ; if New Granada would follow the advice of Gonzales, her attorney-general, and enhance her in- terests by applying for admission to our Union ; and if Venezuela would follow the Avise mclinations of her patriot chief, General Paez, whose exile here has made him love the land of his home the more for the prospect of uniting its fortunes with ours ; then, indeed, these Central American States, now the football of European diplomacy, must either come to us, or be powdered into nothingness between the industrial movements of the sur- 118 EIGHT YEAES ESI^ C0NGEES8. # rounding States. Once let the agriculture of Venezuela be smiled upon by a protecting Government, and her magnificent ports would soon fiU with the keels of her elder commerce. Let northern energy blend with her undirected labor, and the gold mines of Upata Avould gleam with their olden treasures. Let Panama break from her vassalage to her iiTespon- sible rulers, and that mart of the golden age of Spain and her viceroys will teem with a wealth wliich no buccaneers in a thousand caravels can bear away. These accomplished, and the intermediate States of Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala will follow, as surely as the sheaf of the summer follows the seed of the spring. The trade of all tropical America would then fall to us naturally by our proximity, and by the variety of our productions with -which to barter. These tropical wastes ought to give us coffee, indigo, and cocoa, which are faihng in In- dia, as well as the cabinet woods, so much in demand. In return they will take our flom*, pork, machinery, fabrics, and a thousand other articles which they need, and which every State of this Union produces. Our trade, which now coimts its hundi'eds, will then count its millions. If this Congress has optic nerve enough to look a few years ahead, it will at least start a policy that will secure all the isthmus highways, which are so indispensable to om' development and power. Its fii'St duty is to repel every attempt of the remotest influence, come from Avhat quar- ter it may, which may impede this procession of events or arrest our in- evitable and legitimate aggi*andizement. No nation with one harbor, much less a nation with a coast bestrewn with harbors like ours, can be long prosperous within, that does not prosper and grow without. "When a State, which is commercial by situation, forgets tlie work of outbuilding its empire, it loses its inner vitality. The day that marks its failure to meet every rising opportunity of advancement abroad, marks its sure de- cline at home. As with the individual, so with the State ; if its ambition be dead and its hopes of expansion smoulder, its dissolution is speedy and sure. While its intellectual and physical energies ai'e tense and gi'asp a large range, its internal and foreign empire will become consummate, be- cause it has the everlasting law of growth ! We have illustrated that law with reference to our southern neighbor, Mexico. The effete and wasted portions of Mexico, being one-half of her area, lying next to us, became nutriment to our stalwart strength. The very dirt of the ground became assimilated with our energy, and lo ! from our Mexican purchases, $70,000,000 of gold per year are sucked into every conduit of American life, to enhance its happiness, and trive fresh comfort to its homes. It Avas once objected, that the soil of Culitbrnia, New INIexico, and Arizona was poor; a land of' sand and centipedes; that there was no homogeneity in the people. True, they have six millions of Indians, Avith Sj)aniards in plenty and pride, and of mixed poojile not a few. But are they Avorse than the Indians of our oAvn soil? On the con- trary, they are far better. They are tractable, stout, and laborious. Spain managed them Avith but a handful of soldiers for three hundi'cd years. She managed them, too, luider every provocation to revolt. Had an American protectorate l)een the sequence of Scott's occuj)ation, a fcAV months of j)rotection Avould liaA'e given their industry its rcAvard and peace its blessing. Then, too, avc should have no apprehension to disturb our present relations Avitli Mexico. FOKEIGN APFAIKS. 119 To these relations I propose to call the attention of the House. In the discussion, I need only remark, historically, that on the discovery of this continent there was but one nation in North, and one in South Amer- ica, which seemed to be possessed of any civilized advancement. Peru, under the Incas, whose white robes betokened the almost divine simplicity of the people ; and Mexico with a society that was Arcadian in its sim- plicity, and with a polity wonderful in its complications. The State, the priesthood, the cultivators of the soil, the rulers, and the ruled of Mexico, lived in peace under a lovelier sky than that of Naples, and on a richer soil than that of 'ancient Latium. Let it be remembered that this prosperity and contentment were not alone the result of good laws, but of good land ; of good manners, but of good mines. There was, in the Aztec tongue, no language of cupidity, though gold roofed the temple and jasper built the altar. I need not repeat that this isolated case of ci%-ilization on this northern continent was mostly the result of the unparalleled climate and soU. That climate and soil remain. Three hundred years of misrule have not im- paired the salubrity of the one, nor detracted from the wealth of the other. The Spanish rule at length was thrown off for a Republic like ours. The inborn strength to throw it off, after so long a trial, showed a spirit of freedom which received its plaudits from this nation at the time. In February, 1821, at Iguala, Mexico declared her independence. On the 4:th of October, 1824, she adopted her constitution. England was first to recognize this progress, and, as usual, for her profit. The lower clergy and the masses, consisting of Indians, were its creators and beneficiaries. The upper clergy never sympathized with this severance from Europe ; and until the revolution of Ayutla, consummated by Comonfort, they never became a power in politics. His policy touched their estates. They struck back. His law of desamortizacion confiscated $18,000,000 of their property, which passed to private individuals. They struck back, even at this compromise confiscation. Comonfort reeled under their blow ; reeled fropi the Puros to the Moderados, and from the Moderados to the Church and its conservative defenders, into whose arms he and his anti-Church policy fell. We need not wonder at these changes, when we remember that a magnificent and organized hierarchy held $300,000,000 of property, with a revenue of $20,000,000, being $5,000,000 more than the best annual Government revenue. Mr. Cushing said, at Richmond, that these party names of Liberal, Constitutional, Pure, Moderate, Central, and Federal, so often appearing in our Mexican news, " were but the watchwords of contending factions, efiicient ahke only to waste their common country." Hardly true ; for it must be remembered that in Mexico, as in all nations, there will be par- ties founded on interest or hope, conservative or radical, with intervening moderate shades. There is in Mexico, well-defined, a Central, Federal, or Conservative party, under whose rally men of wealth and of the Church, and of unprogressive temperament, naturally gather. This party would centralize power in the federal Government, and thereby become aggres- sive upon the States. It would lean toward a strong government ; and hence its eye is ever on tradition and Spain. It would to-day hail Spain or France as its master to attain its end. Santa Anna, Zuloaga, and 120 EIGHT TEAES IN CONGRESS. Robles have been its executive representatives. Miramon assumes the same position just now. The natural' antagonists of this party are the Puros, the Modcrados, Constitutionalists, Democrats, or call them what you will. Federal restraint to them is irksome ; Europe and kingcraft hateful ; and the Church despotic and avaricious. In the language of Mr. Gadsden to Alvarez, in June, 1855, " they would limit the central power to that alone which is exterior ; and thus they Avould seek, like the United States, to grow without anarchy into strength and prosperity." Their aspiration is for a republic like our own. They need and deserve our sympathy. Juarez is their Executive — a pure Indian, whose descent is from Montezuma. Degollado is their general, and Mata their minister, seeking recognition here. This party have a majority of the States and nine-tenths of the people of Mexico Avith them. They have the revenues. They hold the ports. Their President is de jure and de facto Executive. A little more patience, JMr. Forsyth, and you would have recognized it thus, and not (as you did) otherwise ! De jure; for, by the Constitution of Mexico, adopted by an extraordinary Congress, at the Capitol, February 5, 1857, it was provided, by section seventy-nine, that — " In temporary default of a President of the Republic, and in the vacancy before the installation of the newly-elected President, the president of the Supreme Court of Justice shall enter upon the exercise of the functions of President." And, article thirty-two : " If, from wliatever reason, the election of President shall not have been made and published by December 1st, upon which the change is to take place, or if the newly elect- ed is not able to enter promptly upon the exercise of his functions, the term of tl\e pre- ceding President shall nevertheless cease, and the supreme executive power shall be de- posited ad interim in the president of the Supreme Court of Justice." "When, therefore, on the 11th of January, 1858, General Comonfort vacated the Presidency, the Constitution devolved the office upon Benito Juarez, the president of the Supreme Com't of Justice. De facto ; for he holds the field, and has the money and the masses. The Federal army, it is true, was not at his command. Felix Zuloaga was illegally named Dic- tator by a clique at the capital, January 22, 1858 ; and he having the army, and holding the capital, Juarez transferred the administration to Vera Cruz. There was no such oilicer known as Dictator, and Zuloaga has paid the penalty of usurpation by deposition. There can be but one ex- ecutive, and Robles, who assumed Zuloaga's place, was not tliat oilicer. The Constitution under which Juarez acts is the only organic law, and that does not recognize the junta which elected INIiramon, to whom Kobles yielded his fasces. This Constitution is tlie rallying cry of llie Liberals ; to its defence the nation is committed ; by it alone is order possible. To sustain its upholders is clearly the duty, as it is the interest and desire, of the United States. Presiili'ut Buchanan has well considered these facts. In the success of the constitutional party he places all his liopes of redress for the innumerable outrages to our citizens. If tiiis party fail, and there " being altniidant cause for a resort to hostilities against the (iovt-rnment now holding pr^ssession of the capital," I am ready t(j vote for any sys- tem of reprisal, or to grant the Executive the jjower to take possession of any i)ortion of ]\Iexico, as a pledge for the settlement of our claims. I say that 1 am ready to vote for such reprisal or occupation. But I FOEEIGN AFFAIE8. 121 have considered these parties in Mexico with the view of qualifying this declaration. I believe that it would be best, at once, to recognize the Juarez Constitutional Government, by the most solemn assurances of sympathy and protection. The late news makes this step imminently ur- gent. This can be done, first, by the prompt recognition of Mata, Avho is here seeking such recognition ; second, by the sending of a naval force to the Gulf, where we are imrepresented. This force should be accom- panied by a commissioner to treat with the Juarez Government ; to coun- teract the influence of the allied fleets now aiding MLramon and Eobles, and threatening Juax*ez ; and with the latter to cement an alliance, and to obtain such a settlement of our claims and dilSculties as will comport with our interest and honor. I have the surest authority for saying, that such an arrangement would give us, not only a firm union with Mexico, not only postal and extradition and right-of-way treaties, not only a foot- hold in the northern Mexican States, which can be made permanent with- out war ; hut it ivould foil every attempt of the European alliance to con- trol the affairs of Ilexico. It would crush the Robles-Miramon Govern- ment, elevate and organize the Democratic American sentiment, and give us an alliance of peace, which is the precursor of a magnificent com- merce. If, however, we seize Sonora and Chihuahua, without an understand- ing with the Constitutional Government, what will be the result? Poor and miserable as is the condition of Mexico, she would likely declare war. Such a declaration would come from the Robles-Miramon faction. It would draw to that faction the strength of th'e nation. It would, per- haps, crush Juarez and his party, and leave us no better off than if we had pursued a moi'e politic and pacific course. Again, if we delay to recognize the Constitutional Government, it will soon be in power at the capital as it is in the provinces. It can then say to us, "■ Oh, yes ; you would not help us in our extremity, when your advantage should have prompted you, and yom' sympathy would have been of service. We can get along without your aid now. Touch not a foot of our soU, on the penalty of an endless difficulty." Wisdom, inter- est, the law of American progress, and the predominance of our Union on this continent, all urge the course I have indicated. Juarez waits our action. Shall we miss the golden opportunity? If we fail in our efforts with him, then I am Avilling at once to take Sonora and Chihuahua, whichever party succeeds. I believe that the list of American claims and cruelties, which has even provoked the English press to wonder at our forbearance, is warrant enough for such possession. There are even yet higher gi'ounds for such seizure. The French Minister, De Gabriac, rules in the Miramon coun- cils. A French fleet rides before Sacrificios. The French admiral was very ready to back Spain in her demands. To break this French power ts our imperative duty. If it he not hroJcen, our line of extension south- ward to Central America will he broken irrevocably. Such is the condition of parties in Mexico. I need not discuss it further. The contest now is between the democratic element and the conseiTative element. The latter has its eye ever on Europe, and averse to the United States. Its rule has proved the most distracting and dis- 122 EIGHT TEAES IN CONGEESS. astrous ever yet known in the annals of the South American Republics, where the earthquake and the revolution alike awake the same sad cry of anguish, and receive the same defiant, destructive answer. I need not have pictured this land of beauty and order as it was once, to heighten the contrast of its present condition. After thirty-eight years of debilitating spasms, we find, to-day, the spectacle of Mexico helijless, bleeding, Ajing ; the Turkey of the western world ; and capable of no effort even of resistance to the Spanish fleet, much less to the French or English. Rapacity, crime, chaos, craft, license, and brutality; indolence only active to wrong, and industry quickened only for vice ; laws made for their infraction, and order to be contemned. Mountain cries unto valley for relief ; and from hacienda to city goes up the agony of despair. This is unhappy Mexico, in whose fate no nation ever can have the interest we have till such a nation conquer us. Who shall intervene? Were it only the natives who suffered, we might stand aloof, and say, " They have made their bed ; let them lie in it." But even this would be culpable indifference. Good neighborhood does not thus do its office. The artisans of the city of Mexico are out of employment, and hungering for food. Let this one fact speak volumes. In the three pawnbroking establishments of the city, called Montes de Piedad, the last year, there were 68,000 borrowers out of a population of 185,000; $912,000 was loaned, and $869,000 paid for its use. AVith an army of 11,700 men, of whom 5,800 are officers, and a debt of $120,000,000, and an expenditure by two Governments ; with but one-eighth of her arable soil cultivated, and her mines uuAvorked, or if Avorked the treasures at the mercy of the red guerrilleros who infest every avenue of intercourse ; Avith every one of her twenty-two States and six Territories parading an array of contend- ing forces and ambitious guerilla chiefs ; Garza and Vidaurri conferring in the North to move down and check the Federalists of the interior ; Pesquicra about to move on Mazatlan ; Alatriste on the plains of Apam ; Camafion, from ]\Iatamoras de Izucar, waiting to besiege Puebla ; Blanco in Michoacan ; Iturbide in the Bahia ; Marquez repulsed from the Puente Caldcron, around which gather the combating forces under Miramon, Brocha, and Degollado ; Mejia defeated by the liberal forces imder Pueb- lita and Iluerta ; the environs of the capital swarming Avith the Liberal soldiery ; this Avas the picture of a few days ago ! The scene changes. The Federal chief Echeagaray betrays Zuloaga, and, in collusion Avitli Robles, makes the latter chief. Echeagaray in turn is imprisoned at Puebla ; is about to be shot ; Avhen, lo ! an insurrection in the city of Mexico saves him, and Zuloaga rushes to the English flag for protection. In this complication, a junta is called to settle the diffi- culty ; and avIio should be chosen but ]\Iiramou, a dashing young general, flushed with his successes over the Liberals, and Avho moves toward the city under the fluttering pennons of his cavalry. JMeanwhile young Aha- rcz ami Vilhiva lead their speckled Pintos down on the Avarm lowlands for pillage ; while Juarez, dignified and stati'smanlike, holds his rule in Vera Cruz, the commercial metropolis. Mexican conducta go down to the sea uniler I lie French flag, to get his revenues, to help one party by robbing the other; while the fleets of the three great nations of Europo gather on lier coasts, and ask, from their gaping gun-mouths, the results FOKEIGN AFFAIES. 123 of spent plunder ! It is as if Dives should besiege Lazarus "vvitli a bowie knife and revolver, and bid him disgorge the furtive crumb, as indemnity for the past and security for the future ! Fifty generals and a nation of seven millions, not knowing what may be their fate ! I'he Agiotistas hold the money and oppress with it. The generals murder and pillage in gross, and the bandits in detail. Indians never before in arms rush to them for self-preservation. Foreigners, ever at the mercy of these fickle factions, find no protection in their flags, and no hope but in passive sub- mission to forced loans and open robbery. This is the spectacle of muti- lated Mexico to-day. To-morrow it may be worse ! I repeat it, Who shall intervene ? Some one must. Our interest is paramount. Why this interest? Not only our proximity to Mexico; not alone the number of our citizens domiciliated in the country ; but a common interest in the development, in retouching, as it were, into its primeval color and grace, of that elder beauty Avhich Spain tarnished and anarchs have torn to shreds. Our interest lies first in Mexico's erect and orderly independency. If that be no longer possible, then that no Power but our own shall guard its weakness and administer its estate. This is the only programme which this nation can tolerate, and by which it dare abide and survive or grow ! As to our proximity : the reasons on this head for our intervention are well set forth in the President's message ; I cannot add to its force. A temporary protectorate will effectually, if not nominally, give us the States of Sonora and Chihuahua. They are very sparsely populated, ' there being about thi-ee hundred thousand persons to their two hundred and twenty-three thousand seven hundred and ten square miles. These lands are represented as delightful in climate and rich in resources, agri- cultural and mineral. They have been described as the land of the blessed in Oriental story. Summer and winter, table land and valley, are nearer akin here than in most places in the world. Silver is in their streams — in lodes with crests elevated above the ground. Spain demonstrated their riches ; but the nomadic Apaches swept over this Eldorado, and left but a memory of its treasures which American enterprise is already vitalizing into a reality. g , Is it objected by southern gentlemen that these States must become free, and not slave States ? You have been claiming your constitutional rights. Where is there a word about the equilibrium of the States in the Constitution? Under it you have equality of rights, but no right of equality in the number of States. This equality is not of arithmetic, but of political ethics. The moment you claim equilibrium of States, that moment your honor is compromised and your loyalty to the Consti- tution is questioned. Do you say, " We will favor this protectorate if Tamaulipas and New Leon are included " ? Very well ; try that. I will vote for it, or vote to include any other State where you think you can raise coffee and sugar, and can outvie the North in the race of colonization and power. I will gladly vote for a protectorate over an independent federa- tion of States north of the Sierra Madre. Mr. MiLLSON. I want to know under what authority the gentleman 124 EIGHT YEAKS IN CONGRESS. from Ohio represents southern gentlemen as desiring all these Mexican States? Mr. Cox. I have not so represented them. I say, southern gentle- man may not wish to take Sonora and Chihuahua, lest they might be- come free States, and not slave States. It was a suggestion made to me by a southern member, and I said to him, " Come along ; we will put in Tamaulipas and New Leon. "We will link them hand in hand." For myself, I am wilUng to give protection to northern Mexico ; if not for annexation, for a free trade which will be of mutual advantage, and will be practical absorption. It will at least prepare these States for admis- sion. Let Monterey be the nucleus of Zacatecas, San Luis, Queretaro, Tamaulipas, Coahuila, New Leon, Chihuahua, and Sonora — all the States between the Rio Bravo and the Gulf of Calilbrnia ; all natural allies in the interests of the United States. Let them cluster in upon our ensign, not star by star, but in a galaxy. By that, you do at once what will in time be done by the natural laws of development. Besides, you raise our present feeble trade of seven millions to twenty-eight which Great Britain enjoys. You can thus enhance every inch of soil, and every shining par- ticle of ore in these regions. As to the question of protecting our citizens already in Mexico, and demanding reparation for wrongs done them, this should be a capital cause of intervention in Mexican matters. Senator Mason's bill is rightly predicated on this cause. If Spain could make the Liberals pay for the murder and spoliation of Spanish subjects at San Vicente, Chiconcuaque, Durango, and elsewhere, in Comontbrt's time, why arc Ave asleep over the rights of our citizens? I have before me a list of these claims, but a very imperfect one. Each claim is a casus helli. Here are some dozen cases of illegal seizure of American property. I saw it noticed that some eleven millions were already calculated at our State Department. We have grievances beyond money. The sentences in relation to illegal mar- riages are a w^rong to those Avithout the established Church, and degrade to ci'ime the holy relations of parentage and Avedlock ; the infamous surveil- lance of the post office OA-er American letters, refusing to deliver even the United States ccjpsular correspondence, unless it Avere first inspected by Mexican authorities ; and Avorse still, the rude, cruel, and brutal arrest and imprisonment of Chaplin, Stocker, Ainsi, and Garcia, are enough to make the Ilaynaus of Austria pale beside the imbruted and unbridled scoundrelism of Mexican officers. The story of Ainsi, seized on Ameri- can soil, sixteen months in the prisons of Sonora, Avearing the harra de (jrillas ; and that sad, saddest of all stories, the massacre of his brother-in- law, Crabbe, and his conlederates, Avhose characters have been blackened to rob their murder of its heinousuess ; these should move the very stones to sympathy. In this matter the United States have but one duty. These sufterers were our cilizciis. AV^herever that character of citizenship is to be foiuid, the individual bearing it is clothed with the nationality of the Union. "Whoever the man may be, whether native-born, naturalized, or seiui-uatu- ralize(l, he can claim the protection of this Government. It may respond (o that chiim without being obliged to explain its conduct to any foreign Power ; " for it is its duty to make its nationality respected by other ua- FOREIGN AFFAIRS. 125 tions and respectable in every quarter of the globe." This doctrine was illus- trated in the Koszta case. What difference is there between a dungeon in Gruaymas, where Ainsi lay in chains, and the Austrian brig Huzzar, which held the body of the Hungarian ? The outrages upon our citizens are not confined to Mexico. In every Spanish American State they are common. In Peru, in Paraguay, in New Granada, in Cuba, in Costa Rica, in aU places where the slanders of the Madrid press against the " peddling traders of the North " enter, we have to meet persecution, imprisonment, illegal seizure of property and person, and an unwinking espionage ; and that, too, under taunts more galling, because we know how easy it would be to punish such outrages. We should examine the list of claims on Spanish-American States to appre- ciate the divine forbearance of our inactivity. A settlement with Mexico would be a general settlement with Spanish America. This duty of intervention becomes at once imperative and dignified, when we remember that, by such an act, we do not only protect our citi- zens, but we save Mexico. We not only save her from Spain, France, and England, but from herself. This is no conquest of Cortes. It is the salvation of a people whose interests will be betterefl by our aid. Without such aid, the fairest part of this continent will be a ruin — only the worse because, like the Parthenon, its fragments will remain to show the beauty and richness of its former condition. In conclusion, the policy I have indicated with respect to this conti- nent, and the application of which to Cuba, Central America, and Mexico, will be of such benefit to them, will enable us to conform to that law of growth by which alone we have become great, and by which alone we can become greater. This is the policy of other nations, and they have met obstacles to accomplish it. We shall accomplish it, but we shall have them as our obstacles. England has swept with her power from the Shannon to the Indus. She should be content, as we are, to see her great- ness repeated in the career of her offspring. Yet she daily calls our at- tempts to expand by the rudest terms, France has twice threatened Europe with continental conquest, and now organizes the Arabs of North- ern Africa, the granary of the Roman world, for her march upon Egypt and her domination of the Mediterranean. Russia, the great land animal, is piercing Asia at every vulnerable point, and is pressing for an empire of which there is no adequate prophecy in the Scriptures. Even Spain joins her arms and her priesthood with France, and is waging against Cochin China a war which her journals call the civilizing spirit of the age, impelling the force of Europe to break down the barriers which divide that race from humanity. Yet all of these nations, except Russia, which has ever been kind and tolerant toward us, are this day in league to prevent the stretch of our in- fluence over our continent. England, holding half of North America, is jealous of our gro^\i;h, and would choke us at the isthmian neck. France would crush out the sympathies of the white republic of St. Domingo for the United States, by her Chevalier Reybaud, charge at Hayti ; and she used that burlesque of emperors and that ape of manhood, Soulouque, to Africanize the island, to overthrow Santana, and to break down the Cazueau treaty for a free port and steam depot, and for advantages to our 126 EIGHT TEAES IN" CONGEESS. citizens in the mines, sugar lands, and mahogany forests of that island ! France again appears in the Sandwich Islands ; at the Isthmus, with M. BeUy ; and at last in Mexico, aiding the Spaniards, and in sympathy with the Spaniards of Cuba, to foil us in every attempt to adjust our national relations with that country. Every steamer brings us a lecture from Exeter Hall on our slave propagandist fillibusterism. And may we not go for its commentary to Copenhagen, to Ionia, to Gibraltar, to Malta, to the Cape of Good Plope, to the Red Sea, to Jamaica, to New Zealand, to China, and to the i-ajahs of aU India? Why, the British regime in India Avas a system of torture more exquisite than regal or spiritual tyi'anny ever be- fore devised. The Sepoys vainly tried to copy its atrocities. Were we left alone, we might be content to let France alone. No American would whisper a " nay " to her making the Mediterranean a French lake. Her genius and vivacity can make its waves glow with the light of other days. That sea on which navigation had its birth — the maritime world of Greece, Carthage, Rome, Tyre, Sidon, Turkey, Egyi^t, Persia, Venice, and Genoa — the sea of Homer and David, Jonah and St. Paul, Ulysses and Neptune ; washing the base of Ararat and Olympus ; with a Avorld's history on its bosom, and whole nations in its bed ; the American can well say, let its guard be the gallant sons of France ! He could say it without envy, and with heartiness, if France would keep her navies out of the Gulf of Mexico and the harbor of San Juan. "We have made no remonstrance against England on her ceaseless round of empire — bloody, cruel, and rapacious as it has been, subjecting the riches of Asia to her commerce and her greed. We know the law by which tliese powerful white races move. It will be irresistible. France, England, and Russia are tending to a common focus at the Isthmus of Suez, as France, England, and the United States are at Darien. Start- ing from opposite points, extra-European conquest converges here. Eng- land seeks passage across Egypt or Syria, for India and Australia, and pounces on Perini at the mouth of the Red Sea, as she did on Gibraltar and San Juan. France, marching her army of Algeria, presses toward the prize to realize the gi-eat Napoleon's dream of Egypt, and urges her canal at Suez as she is striving to do at Nicaragua. Russia, semi-orien- tal, marches through Avestern Asia and Persia down upon the confines of English power and French ambition, and finds her rivals in the field. What fine reproaches they can hurl at each other and at us for the lust of dominion, when they gather at this focus of former civilization ! What shocks of contending forces will there and then be encountered ! Let them come and strive. Let Russia push its caravans across the steppes of Tartary until the trade of Kiachta and Irkootsk rival that of Canton and Shanghai. Let France divorce Asia from Africa by marrying the Red Sea to the Mediterranean at Suez ; let England work its iron Avay to India from Beyrout to the Euphrates ; let (he steam engine labor for the millions of Asia under any engineer ; but let America alone in her armies of occupation to open the Isthmus, and control the steam and com- merce centre of our own hemisphere. No change of dynasty, or of form of government, can check this ulti- mate condition of Enroj)i'an expansion and collision. Siu-h a change may iillect the relations of these countries to ourselves. The illiberal policy of rOKEIGN APFAIKS. 12Y France to this country may return to plague its inv^entor, the usurper of France. I have never heard his hated name since the 2d of December, that I could repress the prayer, which now I pray with something of a Red Republican fervor, that France may have barricades on the Boule- vards ; the throne in flames, as that of Louis Philippe in the Place du Carrousel ; the dynasty which he seeks to perpetuate cut off, or flying from the rage of a Red Republic ; more citizens and fewer soldiers, and both fra- ternizing to the music of the Marseillaise ; exiles returrdng from theu* homes in pestilential swamps, amidst gay and festive welcome ; prisons break- ing ; the press free ; the Palais de Justice open, and the tri-color of a new Republic flashing from every part of France, and topmost on the Hotel de Ville, made sacred by the heroic eloquence of Lamartine. This would be a fit retribution from God for crimes and perjuries ; and not at all unfit as the reward of an intermeddling policy with the republican interests of the New World ! Let us be decided ! These European Powers cannot, and do not, have peace. The bugles of truce sounded at the conference of Paris. Heralds proclaimed peace in every capital. But the war harness is not off. It is burnished anew, and the weapons within reach ! England, trembling at the one hundred thousand soldiei's across the channel, and the naval won- ders at Cherbourg, commences to build coast defences. Russia acquires Villa Franca, and stirs insurrection in Ionia against England. Mazzini issues his rescript to the secret societies and Republicans of Italy to be ready and one as the thought of Italy and God. The coin of " Emanuel, the King of Italy," is circulated through the peninsula. An actress moves the people of Venice to insm-rection by a recitative which reminds them of their patriotism. Austria arms, and Piedmont proposes to repel. France sends more troops to Rome. Austria growls. France obtains from the Swiss a strong strategic post, and Austria growls again. Naples insults Napoleon to please Austria. England writes bitterly against Naples, and does not spare the prosecutor of Montalembert. England shakes with a new reform movement — John Bright striving to Americanize her by pop- ular sovereignty. Turkey is unsettled in Europe and in Asia. Russia moves on, immense and great — the envy of all. A lighted match may flash this magazine into a terrific blaze, whose thunder will make all Eu- rope quake. The alliances of to-day, in Europe, for her own balance of power, may be dissolved by a popular breath to-morrow. As a conse- quence, they cannot be relied on to pursue us to any fatal end. Already England has pushed this alliance with France to its snapping point. The English people will not permit their aristocracy to carry it so far as to make it an offence to the people of this commercial nation. Not but that the English Government would like to aid France in checking our career ; but trade is powerful for peace, and peace with us means cotton in England. Let England find cotton elsewhere, and our Southern friends may be assured that her intercourse with us will be no longer peaceful. Gentlemen need not flatter themselves either, that cotton is theii' peculiar staple. Why is England trying every appliance to reach central China ? To clothe in her fabrics the four hundred millions of Chinese ? No. They are thus clothed, and mark it, by nankeen, which is the stupendous growth of their own great central valley, estimated now to produce more than 128 EIGHT TEAES IN CONGEESS. double the cotton raised in all our southern States put together.* This valley being England's, Manchester and Stockport can snap their fingers at Charleston and Mobile, and English audacity will begin a new career of rapacity and insolence toward us. Her jealousy of us is intus et in cute. Our reliance must be on our own strength and growth. If we cannot enact the Monroe doctrine into international law, we can create and con- secrate it as a national sentiment. Let it be the national genius. Let it be the power of Aladdin's lamp. You remember the story. The old lamp from its friction evoked from the cave a mighty spii-it ; awed by its teri'ors, the poor youth only ventured at first to employ its powers in familiar af- fairs ; but gradually accustomed to its presence, he employed it to con- struct palaces, to amass treasures, to baflie armies, to triumph over foes, to wield the elements of air, light, and heat, until, at the close of the story, the poor youth becomes the sovereign of a peaceful empire assured to his remote posterity I Tliis story, Mr. Speaker, is the type of our political genius. By it we have fortified ourselves in our domestic interests. Our domestic and ter- ritorial policy is fixed under its guidance. It is the instrument of that progress which must keep pace Avith steam and telegraph, until we are assured of an empire with which kingcraft dare not meddle ; or meddling, find it a power to baffle its force of arms, and its fraud of diplomacy. We have become a Colossus on this continent, Avith a strength and stride that will and must be heeded. With our domestic policy as to local governments established, we can go on and Americanize this continent, and make it what Providence intended it should become, by a perpetual growth and an unsevered Union — the paragon in history for order, har- mony, happiness, and power ! MEXICO. LAWS OF NATIONAL GROWTH — MEXICAN RECOGNITION — MONROE DOCTRINE — PROPIIECIES AS TO FRENCH INTERVENTION MANIFEST DESTINY EUROPEAN AGGRANDIZEMENT. On the 19th of March, 18G0, Mr. Cox said: In speaking to the mo- tion to refer the bill and amendment under consideration, I premise that, before that vote can be intelligently taken, our relations with Mexico must be considered. If it be objected that this discussion is inappropri- ate on this motion, I say that the late news from Vera Cruz, before which Miramon is now hovering Avith his army, and the projected armis- * When tliis remark was made, Hon. HnMPnREY Marshall, who was a member at the time, anil who had Ijceii our Minister to Cliina, called it in question ; in fiict, saying that cotton was rather imported into China. He had tbr;,'otten that, allhoimh along the coast England had traded her cotton oil' to the Chiuese, the vast interior was not reached by trade at all. Since then, cotton has been struggling for his sceptre. His claims have been thoroughly investigated ; and by none more exhaustively than by the Hon. F. A. Conklinq, from whose pamphlet I learn that Ciiina last year exported to England ;i91l,o7 1 bales, be- Bides large (luantities which went into the United States and France. This was in addition lo the home consumption, as to which it is alleged that, "Every morning throughout the Chinese Empire, there are three hundred millions of blue cotton breeches drawn over buman legs. Men, women, nud children alike wear them." FOEEIGN AFFAmS. 129 tice tendered by England to the belligerents, make it important that at no other point of tlie Mexican boundary should these relations be compli- cated. Mexicans and Indians are devastating the Rio Grande country. The Governor of Texas asks Federal aid. If it be not granted, he threatens to conquer a peace on Mexican soil. A "war with Mexico, as its result, would not only embarrass the relations of this country with respect to the late treaty, but it concerns the honor and interests of our citizens commorant in Mexico. Europe has her continental politics ; America has hers. England sends ambassadors, and France armies, to Italy ; the one to foil Austria, the other to fight her ; and both to rescue Italy, as well from her invaders as from her own immoderation. We have our Italy. Not alone is Mex- ico our Italy by her natural beauty, production, soil, sky, romance, and history, but Mexico is our political Italy. She is torn to shreds by those who are fighting over the parting of her garments. Such is the present condition of Mexico, and such is our interest in it, that we cannot be either idle or inditferent to its fate. It is one of those cases of great public distress which lie at our very doors. We cannot avoid seeing it. It is in our path, as an obstruction to our progress and a menace to our peace. Self-interest, if not republican sympathy, demands from us for Mexico our quickest heart throb and om* most active intervention. Mr. BoYCE. Mexico is our " sick man." Mr. Cox. Yes ; she is to America what Turkey is to Europe. If she be not healed of her wounds and set upright on her progressive path, she will become not the "sick man" merely, but the dead man, whose very corpse A\dll arrest our steps, taint the air, and poison our OAvn politi- cal system. To save her, she must be inoculated with American energy. To save her ! — alas ! is she not already a wreck, Avhose disparted ribs and crashing timbers, tossed on the wild wave of anarchy, endanger the safety of her neighbors ? When the Spanish American provinces, forty years ago, revolted against their mother country, this nation inaugurated a continental policy. It bears the name of our most sagacious and calm statesman — the Mon- roe doctrine. It forbids European interference in the national affairs of this continent. That doctrine has, A^dth the nations of this continent, a sanction equal to international law. It has done good service. Silent as the tides, yet as potent, it has swayed millions by its influences and efflu- ences. That policy can be amended and enlarged. From its serene qui- etism, silent emphasis, folded arms, frowning face, and warning gesture, it shovdd be aroused to earnest protest and armed interference. So far as Mexico is concerned, this must be done ; if we do not do it, other nations wiU. As I have before said on this floor, if Mexico complete the suicide which she has begun, her estate will be left for administration. Shall it be administered by strangers ? Shall it inure to the benefit of those who are neither akin to her by political sympathy, nor neighbors in interest or destiny ? This is the problem which statesmanship is urged to solve. My solution, sir, is not new to this House. I submitted it, with great deference, in a speech on " territorial expansion" on the 18th of January, 1859. I urged that our interest lay, first, in Mexico's erect and orderly independence ; and secondly, if that were not possible, then that no Power 9 130 EIGHT TEAKS IN CONGKESS. but oui' own sliould guard its weakness and administer its estate. Since then, by the inexorable logic of events, my position has been strengthened and my conclusions confirmed. In seconding the views of the President last year, I urged that we had abundant cause i'or hostility against the Miramon government, then and yet holding the capital. I was ready to vote for any system of reprisal to bring about a settlement of our claims. I was ready to give the Executive power to punish the atrocities upon our citizens domiciliated in Mexico. I need not say how this programme has been carried out by our Exec- utive. It is now history. The President has pursued the wisest policy possible. lie is clear now, and for the future, of all blame for these com- plications. A year hence, and his policy no one will question. In three months afterwards he recognized the Juarez government. Tliis was the government de jure and de facto. This recognition was followed by the appearance of Mr. McLane and a naval force at Vera Cruz. This was succeeded by the advantageous treaty now before the Senate. If that treaty be confirmed, not alone will our commerce grow from its present languish- ing condition of some eight millions to some twenty millions per annum, which it was in 1835 ; but the highways of the continent will be over Mexico. These highways Avill draw^ to them a by-trade of increased inter- course. They will inaugurate an enterprise in agriculture, commerce, and mining, which will make Mexico as much a useful dependency upon us as ever India was upon England. What remains to be done to bring about a consummation so splendid on a theatre so magnificent? What remains to give us control from the Rio Grande to the gates of Panama? Already the Central American imbroglio is ended. Great Britain has restored the Bay Islands to Hon- duras. She has, informally at least, relinquished the Mosquito protec- torate. Honduras and ]Nicaragua will then be independent of foreign intervention. New Granada opened her Congress on the last of P"'cbruary, 18G0, and we may soon hear that the Wass-IIerran treaty is confirmed. All that remains for us is to give practical annexation to Mexico, as we have to Canada, by our reciprocal free trade. Cuba gravitates every year nearer to this continent. With the Gulf ours, from Florida all around to Yucatan, the key must be ours. A practical solution by us of Mexican politics will not be unheeded by the people of Cuba, and will comjjel a mutuality in commerce and comity between them and our own country. Then we make the northern part of this whole continent ours by every tic of interest in the present, and ours in the fulness of time by closer bonds of political federation ! I propose to show that it is absolutely necessary for us to interfere in Mexico ; demanded alike by national honor, by national interests, and self-protection. I will show that no interference can be effectual which does not look to the actual fcdis posscssio of the country by our troops. Either iVIexieo must roll back under the dark rule of brigandage, which creates anarchy for its own aggrandizement, or she must become Ameri- canized with a recognized foreign ruling eleiuent in the country. It is either annihilation or resurrection under our auspices. Take a glance at the condition of Mexico. If this glance docs noi suffice to arouse us from our apathy about INIcxican affairs, wc may as FOEEIGN AFFAIES. 131 well yield our predominance at once on this continent, confess that Eu- rope is fitted to take care of this " New Atlantis," and that our schemes of commerce, progress, and empire are a failure and a delusion ! In ar- riving at the condition of Mexico, it will be necessary to epitomize her eventful history, I propose to do this briefly under three epochs. Mr. Sherman. I rise to a question of order. The only question before us, is the reference of the appropriation bill to one or the other committee. It is not in order to discuss the condition of Mexico in general. Mr. Cox. If the gentleman could know my speech from the begin- ning to the end, he would see that I intend to apply my remarks, in the end, to the question of reference. The peace of our frontier is essential to the treaty and our other relations with Mexico. I wish the matter re- ferred to that committee which will give it the fullest examination. Mr. BoTCE. I hope the gentleman will be allowed to go on with his most interesting and useful discussion. Mr. MoKKis, of Pennsylvania. The condition of our frontier opens up all our interests in Mexico. I trust that the gentleman from Ohio may be permitted to proceed. Mr. Cox. The first epoch is from the Spanish invasion to the revo- lution against Spain, in 1824. Much may be pardoned to Mexico, when we remember the heritage of misery which Spain left to her. Making every allowance for exaggeration, there is no doubt that the Spaniards found at the discovery a remarkable civilization. Whether it belonged to an ancient race or not, it was there, with its polity, its religion, its comforts, and its wealth. The highest avarice of Cortes, his followers, and viceroyal successors, was stimulated by its affluence. The same ex- traordinary efforts which were made to achieve its conquest, were em- ployed in draining the country of its resources. In this aU-absorbing avarice — an avarice which had no limit and knew no mercy, which was checked only by its glutted and bloated repletion — are to be found the seeds of that disease and disaster which now weaken, distract, and mutilate Mexico. The motto seems to have been : " Nada est mala que gana la plata" — nothing is evil which gives us the silver. Under its sway, the most unprincipled set of robbers, cutthroats, and intriguers were warmed into life. This heritage of avarice has been enjoyed, too, by strangers. The very ministers, as well as merchants, from abroad, were seized by it. Their aim has been to watch for the advent of each successive power, only the more readily to make profitable transactions with the gov- ernment of the day, and to provide for another chance with the govern- ment of to-mcrrow. As a consequence, the people, whose production furnished the means for this avarice, finally lost their patience. The Spanish grandees, the Gapuchins — less than one-fifth of the population — were the beneficiaries of these schemes. The Indian and mixed popula- tion was the source whence this barbarity, blood, sweat, and treasure were extracted. In 1810, the first revolt, under Hidalgo, took place. The cry was, " Death to the Gapuchins ! " A war of races began ; and out of it came the war of independence. This raged until 1821, when Iturbide assumed the imperial robes, only to impurple them more deeply in his own blood. The axe which cut ofi" the head of Augustin I. — as 132 EIGHT TEAES IN CONGEESS. he was called — carved out tlie Federal Republic, witli Vittoria as its first President, in 1825. Under the second epoch, I will include all those vicissitudes of Mexi- can history until the formation of the new Constitution on the fifth of Feb- ruary, 1857, of which Juarez is now the constitutional President. Dur- ing these thirty-two years, there can be ti'aced in perpetual array two parties. They were the natural offspring of the old and the new order of things. The Central, despotic, or monarchical party, Avhich has had the wealthier, foreign, talented, and non-producing classes in its midst, are on the one side. On the other, is the Federal, Consittutional, or dem- ocratic party, which has had the native, poorer, and producing population. The Centralists have favored a strong government at the capital, where most of them reside, and where most of the wealth and educated talent are located. The Constitutional party disfavored all central influence as Avell as foreign ; strove to distribute the central power among the States, and to clothe with franchises the local communities. This party looked less to the aggrandizement of the few, and more to the happiness of the many. But it has ever been under a cloud. The power of station, wealth, and education has been brought to bear upon the numbers ; and the numbers have succumbed. Tlie army, foreign diplomacy, and the revenue were at the call of the Centralists. They have aroused and used the prejudices of the people against the United States. They have agents now in Eu- rope, as I can show, trying to dispose of the sovereignty of Mexico. They have just made a treaty Avith the Queen of Spain. The Constitu- tional party have welcomed our sympathy and rejected foreign influence. Santa Anna, a miser, a soldier, and a scoundrel, Avas and is the i-epre- sentative man of the Centrahsts. Juarez, an Indian, a gentleman, and a civilian, is to-day the representative man of the Constitutionalists. I do not mean to say that these party lines are distinctly traceable throughout these years of Mexican independence. To an " outsider," these parties are but the hubbub, the " bullanga," of conflicting and quarrelling sol- diery. They arc like certain rivers, which enjoy the light for a distance, and then disappear under ground, and again reappear, only to confound and vex the adventurer. But they are the same streams. A close anal- ysis Avill educe their primary elements and detect their distinguishing characteristics. It is a mistake to call this contest a Avar of religion and races. It is a contest of principles. Indians and Avhites are upon both sides, and all are Catholics. The Church has as much to fear I'rom the exactions of its pretended defenders as from their opponents. The United States only has the system Avliich can guarantee to the Church its vested rights, if they arc endangered by either party. It is no Avar of races. The races are too much intermingled to Avar. Of pure Europeans in Mexico, there are onc-lifili 1,050,620 Of natives or imiif^enous races, four-fifteenths '2,'2()8,824: Of mixed native and European 4,117,044 8,283,088 Of this number, at least nine-tenths arc of the Constitutional party. The history of this era is but the placement and displacement of Presi- FOEEIGN AFFAIKS. 133 dents — the marcli and countermarch of generals. A President who is absent from the capital is compelled to fight his way back to the palace ; when once in the palace, he has no rest till he marches forth again against his enemies out of the city. The civilian has continually a sword in his hand and a foot in the stirrup. A junta meets in Puebla or Ayutla ; and lo ! a new Constitution and a new Executive ! One day it is " Muera el General ! " the next, if he is not kUled, it is " Viva el General ! " These xicissitudes have continued for more than a quarter of a century — nay, for half a century, from the first struggle in 1809 — with not five con- secutive years of repose. The fields of Mexico have been fertilized with the blood, bone, and muscle of her children. Intestine feuds, more in- furiate than foreign invasions, have disturbed her prosperity and broken her hopes. During this period, she was twice attacked by Spain, once by France, and once conquered by the United States. Yet, with her ma- rauding Indians, her thieving leperos, her internal feuds, and her foreign invasions, her energy has been wonderfidly recuperative, and her resoui'ces Beem inexhaustibly bountiful. What might she not become, under a lib- eral protection given to her industry, her commerce, and her property ! Our third epoch opens on the 5th of February, 1857, when, at an ex- traordinary Congress, called for that purpose — and nernine contradicente — ^the present Constitution was adopted. Comonfort became its Execu- tive. His policy, which was that of a trimmer between the two parties, led to his vacating the post on the 11th of January, 1858. By the seven- ty-ninth article of the Constitution, the President of the Supreme Court of Justice became the President of the Eepublic. Benito Juarez then held the Presidency of the Supreme Bench, and became de jure chief ex- ecutive of the nation. Before Juarez could assume his functions at the capital, Felix Zuloaga, under the "plan of Tacubaya," proclaimed by a body of soldiers, who had the venality Avithout the dignity of the Roman pr^torians, usurped the ofilce of President. Force drove Juarez from State to State, until he found himself compelled to fly for his life around the isthmus of Panama to Vera Cruz, where he now administers his ofiice with a cabinet of unsurpassed intelligence and patriotism. He demand- ed the allegiance of the various States, and he received it from all, except a few in the valley and neighborhood of Mexico. I shall show that he still retains that allegiance, and that, notwithstanding all the changes of the contest since the summer of 1858, he is President in fact as well as in form. In N'ovember, 1858, Zuloaga was deposed by the same power which had set him up — a usui'pation aided by mercenary troops, mer- chants, and ministers. One of the generals, Miguel Miramon, young, im- petuous, successful, and more pliant to the purposes of the masters of the capital, supersedes Robles, who had for two days usurped the usurping Zuloaga's power. For the past year these parties have not changed their relative streng-th a great deal, either with respect to the various States or their military occupation. We have bulletin after bulletin announcing the Liberals defeated here, the Centralists there. Miramon defeats De- gollado at Queretaro, but he loses, as he leaves this and that city behind him, in his forward march. When Miramon leaves Mexico to threaten Vera Cruz, half a dozen generals move toward Mexico to threaten it. I said, a year ago, that Juarez had a majority of the States and nine-tenths 134 EIGHT YEARS IN CONGRESS. of the people. He had more, and lie has retained all that he had. Let me try and give a clear picture of this Mexican " situation " by figures and facts, corrected by close observation. From it, will be seen that Mi- ramon is confined mainly to three central States — Queretaro, Puebla, and Mexico — with a temporary and violent occupation of a few places out- side. All the coast and frontier, with the custom-houses and ports, are held by Juarez. From these are the revenues. There are eight of these custom-houses on the Gulf, five on the Pacific, and eight on the frontier. No merchandise, silver, or bullion can enter or depart from the country, unless by smuggling, or by consent of the Juarez Government. Mira- mon is hemmed into a small area, and is supported, willingly, but by a very inconsiderable population. Let me present the condition of things, as they now are, in a tabular forni : Populatioa. Sqnare Leagues. Miramon. JuarciL Miramon Taarez. Aguascalientes. Coahuila Chiapas Chihuahua... .. Dnranitro Guanajuato ... 800,000 Guerrero . . . Jalisco 820.000 Mexico 1,520,000 Michoacan. . Nuevo Leon Oajaea Pii'ebla ! 6S0,O0n Queretaro | 170,000 San Luis Potosi 90,000, 70,000; 180.0001 160,000 140,600 270,600 600,000 150,000 550,000 400,000 1,545 8,324 8,271 8S1 7,947 2,598 11,611 6,744 4,451 8,453 4,216 3.288 8,914 Sinaloa Sonora Tabasco Tajnaulipas... Vera Cruz. . . . Yucatan Zacateoas L"r California. Coliina Isle of Carmen Sierra Gorda. . Tchuantepec. . T'axcala Population. Miramon. I 'Juarez. Square Leagses. Miramon. Juarez. 1 60.000 ; 140,000 1 70,000; 100,000 380.000 450,000 820,000 12,000 70,000 12,000 60,000 90,000 100,000 13,990,000 4,561,000 15,742 4,690 139 171,940 4,219 3,501 6,801 S,S62 276 607 8,487 1,742 864 435 99,200 It wiU be seen that I have given iftiramon five States of small area, but of comparatively dense population. I have given Miramon Guana- juato and Jalisco, because he holds their capitals, now threatened by his enemies. I have given Miramon Puebla and Queretaro, although .Juarez holds some of the towns in each. It Avould be fair (especially as even one town of Mexico, Toluca, is held by Juarez, and as some towns in Vera Cruz arc held by Miramon, and as he is beleaguering its capital by his forces) to divide these first four States between the parties. This would leave in the hands of Juarez, States having 5,235,000 population, and 101,435 square leagues ; against Miramon, 2,705,000 population, and 10,507 square leagues ; leaving 2,530,000 population and 93,928 square leagues in favor of Juarez, on a fair computation. But this geograpliical and popular element in his favor is utterly useless for government in a country wlicre rapine is the rule and order the exception, unless Juarez is aided by extraneous for(;e and means. I am assured of tlie fact that lie is able to hold his own, including Vera Cruz ; wliile IMiramon, since lie has led the capital, holds it, if at all now, by a precarious tenure. We are apt to draw our analogies from France, and argue that as Paris is held, so is France ; that the revolution of tlie capital is that of the empire. But the analogy does not hold. France is a centralized Power; Mexico is a federative Government. Our own nation will serve as a l)ett(r ilhisti-ation. It would liardly follow tliat a usurper holding FOREIGN AFFAIRS. 136 Washington City and parts of Maryland and Virginia and Delaware, with no seaports, no custom-houses, no revenues, nothing but the regular sol- diers of the District, could be called the Government de facto, while all the rest of the country preserved the form, spirit, and functions of the Federal Government at Cincinnati or New Orleans. Nor would the recognition of such a Government, by France or England, make it, de facto, the Government. In Mexico, France and England have hitherto held the Central junta to be the Government de facto. England, how- ever, is about to withdraw such recognition, inasmuch as she has found it utterly irresponsible, cruel, rapacious, tyrannical, and barbarous to- ward her own citizens, even as it had been toward American citizens. During this epoch, Mexico has had thirty-tive Governments, and seventy- two Executives. Only two of her Executives have ever served a fuU term — ^Vittoria, her first President, and Herrera, at the close of our war with Mexico. But these happy exceptions can hardly be called such, when we remember their perils and troubles, their antagonists with pro- nunciamientos, and their wars to put down insurgents. But it may be asked, " If the Juarez Government is so strong in the area of territory, population, sea-coast, and frontier, why does it not vindicate its superiority by taking the capital and stopping these depre- dations on foreign and domestic interests, lives, and liberty?" This question deserves a fair answer. One answer is, that the minority are richer than the majority. It can buy the praetorians. The spurious Government is enabled to raise money, because it has intrigued with the French Minister, Gabriac, and with the former English Minister, Otway, who Avere the tools of speculators and bankers. Consequently avarice and greed have beaten patriotism and honesty. The national securities of Juarez go unguaranteed into the market, and bring only a nominal per cent. ; while the Central securities, guaranteed by foreign conventions, enable that faction to borrow at a fair per cent. Thus have the Centralists kept up their army, corrupted leaders and gen- erals, and swept over the land, leaving behind them notliing but inse- curity, anarchy, and devastation. What towns or cities they hold is by force and fear, not fealty and respect. With all these advantages fo the central government, the nation is not with them. The Constitutional piarty have been defeated at several important points, it is true ; in April last, before the city of Mexico, and in November last, near Queretaro. But they now hold all of the northern half of Mexico, and more than half of the southern portion. They have made themselves masters of the entire Pacific coast, including San Bias, which Miramon held for a while. They have successfully resisted Miramon's attack on Vera Cruz ; and will resist successfully his present attack, if they do not also wrest the capital from him, while he is attempting to take Vera Cruz. This rightful Government AviU maintain itself in the field, as it can in the forum of the lex gentium, against the incivism and outrages of its opponents. Which Government is the one for our recognition and support? That is easily determined from what I have said. Mr. McLane, in April last, thus determined. He has given it a practical solution by the treaty now before the Senate. The present administration displays a wise, cautious, and just statesmanship, in urging the ratification of the treaty. It has been 136 EIGHT YEAES IN CONGRESS. made with great care and anxiety. The President is reported to have said that the salvation of Mexico depends upon its ratification. I believe it, with all the earnestness of studious conviction. That treaty concedes to us a safe transit and right of way across Mexico on three lines ; one across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and the other two from our boundary to Guaymas and Mazatlan. It authorizes us to lend the naval and military forces of this Government to the constitutional authorities, at their expense, in order to execute the treaty. Thus \ve are, in the lan- guage of international law, " souverains par indivis " with the Juarez Government, and with power to execute the right. This power, if exe- cuted, will end these convulsions of Mexico. By a territorial abnegation, Mexico has given us a foothold upon her soil which cannot be used but for her peace, development, and prosperity. If this House will but observe tlie articles placed upon the free list by the treaty, they will perceive the ample scope of intercourse which it offers to every part of our countiy. The Ohio farmer will feel it in the enhanced price of his provisions, as well as the planter of cotton on the Gulf, whose great staple will find a lai'ger market. The iron interest of the Middle States, and the manufacturing interest of New England, are alike the recipients of its results. "We may regain the trade with Mexico which we had from 1830 to 1840, when 840,000,000 were exported thither, against only $18,000,000 from 1840 to 1850 ! We will do more. Since then, we have carved out an empire on the Pacific ; and the far Orient of China and Japan has given us treaties of interchange. Our commerce from Mexico, being unburdened with transit duties, will go north to our possessions on the Pacific, south along the South American coast, and westward to this Orient — the golden Cathay of Columbus — where our enterprise can play upon every key of traffic and touch upon every spring of intercourse. Thus will be returned to jNIexico, through our agency, that affluent commerce which, in her early colonial day, made Acapulco the Venice of the New "World, and the stately galleons of Cadiz an armada which was the pride of an empire and the envy of the world ! That treaty to Avhich I refer will be the recpite, or rather the life Avarrant to Mexico. I trust it may be confirmed by the Senate, as it is by the good sense of the country. I am ready, as one of the Representatives of the people, to vote the $4,000,000 required to give us the footliold at the railroad oceanic termini. I look upon that foothold as not only preven- tive of all European interference, but, if you please, as the thai end of an entering wedge into Mexico. It is the herald to a circuit of empire all around the Gulf by a steam marine ; and to a coronation of new States to this Federation, whose wealth and brilliancy will far outshine the gold of California and the silver leads of Washoe ! ^ It was urged as an objection against the acquisition of Texas that the commercial em])orium of the New AVorld would be transferred from New York to New Orleans. How ill-founded were these fears ! Tlie freedom and expansion of our commerce and the acquisition of territory, have only magnified and glorified New York ; and a similar enlargement woidd have tlie same result to-day. New York is the nation's commercial cen- tre and heart ; and any thing that afieets her, allects the minutest nerve at the extremity of the iiepublie. If adversity visit the South or North, FOEEIGN AFFAIRS. 137 East or West, New York feels it. The present treaty would add another element to its wealth, power, and greatness. Two millions of the four are to be in trust for the satisfaction of the claims of our citizens against Mexico. These claims can never be ad- justed, much less paid, under either of the Mexican Governments, unless Mexico parts with some valuable interests, by which she can raise what ought to be paid to our citizens. It is a shame upon the American name among the Spanish repub- lics, that our citizens are utterly remediless for all their wrongs, suffered at the hands of these weak and irresponsible powers. Especially in Mex- ico have we causes of complaint for outrages the most atrocious and butcheries the most bloody and treacherous. In drawing the picture of this mutilated Republic before an American Congress, the part reserved for the American citizen in Mexico requires the largest place and the darkest shadows. These outrages are partly owing to the false and pre- judicial statements everywhere circulated against our name, since the Mexican war, by the Monarchical party. Since the McLane treaty, these stories have received the rarest touches of Mexican braggadocio. As a consequence, the wildest denunciations of American citizens are indulged in ; so that no respect is shown, or protection given by any class, even to the official representatives of our country, where the Miramon Govern- ment predominates. Not even Avhere the Juarez Government holds sway is there that safety and protection to our interests demanded by in- ternational law. One year ago 1 was compelled by the facts to picture Mexico as debilitated, helpless, bleeding, dying — as a land of rapacity, crime, chaos, craft, license, and brutality ; indolence only active to wrong and industry quickened only to vice ; laws made for their infraction, and order established to be contemned. Mountain then cried unto valley for relief, and from hacienda to city went up the Avail of despair. This was unhappy Mexico, in Avhose fate no nation can ever have the interest we have, till such nation conquer us. I Avas compelled then to ask the question. Who shall intervene ? And noAV, Avith more earnest emphasis, I ask again : If we do not, who will intervene ? Since then, this picture has received fresh tints of gloom and more bloody hues of horror. It should be painted by a Ilembrandt in chiaro- scuro. Let me hold it to the light, if it is not too appalling ! Vil- lages deserted ; citizens in terror and dismay ; farms in ruin ; the arriero no longer drives his loaded mule ; the vaquero finds no field safe enough for his lazy life, amid his herds and flocks ; families in mourn- ing, orphanage, and miseiy ; gibbets erected at each cross-road ; death- crosses lining the highways ; a torrent of blood flowing fropa coAvardly assassination ; prisons choked Avith their rotting victims ; the leperos prowling for human prey ; guerrillas scouring the country ; and the ruins thereof only hidden by the rank weeds and luxuriant parasites which the rich land has produced as a garment to cover the shame, confusion, neg- lect, spoliation, and decay. Another year, and the skeleton Famine Avill stalk through this land. Since last year, the semblance of respect to American and foreign residents has been throAvn off. The thin guise and specious pretext are no longer exhibited, as the apology for crime, rapa- city, and wrong. Do you want instances ? Read the cruel murder of 138 EIGHT YEARS EST CONGEESS. Chase, to which the President refers. "What enormity can equal it in diabolical craft and cruelty? Go to Tacubaya, Avith that blood-spotted Marque z — the Nena Sahib of Mexico — a^ its butcher ! From that scene of cowardice and carnage, if from no other, rises the cry of vengeance against the bloodhounds who tore from the sick couch of the hospital the humane American and English physicians, and, amid horrible execra- tions, which made hell laugh, took the lives which were dedicated to the sublime and Christ-like duties of healing and kindliness. A brilliant young surgeon from my own district — a son of my Democratic prede- cessor. Dr. Olds — was one of the victims of that Mexican butchery, from Avhich no employment, however benignant, could exempt the American citizen. "Were I a Mexican, as I am an American," I would, as the first act of returning justice and order, make inquisition for blood at the hands of these butchers of Tacubaya. DegoUado, by his orders of the 17th of April, recited these cold-blooded and merciless assassinations, and declared that all ofRcers of the enemy, taken in arms, should be exe- cuted immediately. This is a bloody index to the character of the war. The superintendent of that massacre, Daza y Arguelles, happily for even Mexican humanity, was taken prisoner by Carvajal, in December last, was sliot, and his disfigured body hung up for the hootings of even a Mexican rabble. Lately, in the palace of Miramon, Marquez, while there as a guest, had the brutality to strike down the old French lady, Madame Gourges, for enacting the part of Florence Nightingale at this massacre. This same Marquez has since been imprisoned, by the jealousy of Miramon, along with hundreds of others, but better men, Avho are now dying in the prisons of Mexico, or working iu its pi-esidio with ball and chain. It is to be hoped that Marquez will meet with his reward. Go to Zacatecas, where the central chief. Gen. Woll, has been imi- tating Coronada and Rojos at Topic, by filching all the money he could from foreign merchants, and inflicting all the horrors he coidd upon the English and American victims ! After imposing all sorts of new taxes and making the merchants, repay to him all the duties and taxes of the preceding thirteen months, he resorted to imprisonment and death as the means of enforcing his detestable avarice. lie even threatened the British consul, for not complying with his demands. This same General Woll sends the conduda to the Pacific coast from Zacatecas. It has in its care some four million dollars, the hard earnings of English and American resi- dents. It pays the duty on its departure ; it reaches Guadalajara ; there Marquez robs it of $000,000, and justifies this grand larceny by the ne- cessity of his situation and his services to the cause of good government Meanwhile the other brigand, Miramon, decrees another forced loan — one per cent, more upon capitals, "/)oy U7ia sola vcz " — only ibr this once, to liiU the foreigner and tax-payer into the belief, that this is the last one of six compulsory loans since the third epoch began ! Englishmen, Americans, and other foreigners are forced to ])ay the expenses of the very system of extortion by wliicli they are crucified between these thieves of Mexico. Take the Ijest view of this anomalous condition of the two governments, whieli even conlouiided Lord Jolm Russell. Juarez collects the customs duties at Vera Cruz, which Miramon pledges to foreign nations. The ex- FOEEIGN AFFAIRS, 189 port duty on the staple product, silver, is collected by Miraraon in the in- terior, and re-collected by Juarez on the coast. Neither government has the means to support itself Avithout either spoliation or extraordinary ex- actions, or by the barter of valuable rights and interests. Would that I could catalogue the crimes of this cursed cabal at the capital ! But where begin ? Where end ? Shall I begin with the mur- der of poor Crabbe and his companions? Or of Ormond Chase, by Marquez ? Or of the American officer taken prisoner Avith Alvarez, at Queretaro ? Or the imprisonment and assassination of political offenders, by Corona, at Zacatecas, Cordova, Jalapa, and Orizaba? How can I re- hearse the robberies so common all over this doomed land? The violation of flags of truce ; the destruction of haciendas ; the Indians flying before these rapacious soldiers like a herd of mustangs ? Or of Bombastes Cor- tinas, who derisively and defiantly steals the United States mails, and hangs them, Avith the riddled bodies of Americans, on the trees near his fort above Brownsville ; plays both judge and jury on American citizens, within eight miles of Fort BroAvn, where he lately made his ranch the nest of his robbers and their plunder ? These are but isolated acts, involving, it is true, loss of life, liberty, and property, by Americans. But there are more important transactions, shoAving an overruling necessity for our prompt interference. Let me give you one. Juarez holds Vera Cruz, and receives the revenues. His government is not recognized by France ; but the French minister, Ga- briac, by threatening Vera Cruz Avith French guns, compelled Juarez to pay off the French debt of $1,000,000. Recently Ave hear that an addition of $460,000 of this old paid-off French-convention debt is to be enforced against the reA'enues of the Vera Cruz government. This addition is the result of Gabriac's reclamation for French moneys, stolen from the con- ducta by this same robber government at the capital, Avhich Gabriac smiles upon. Gabriac and his bankers are to get tlieir per cent., if he can only use the French fleet at Vera Cruz, Avhile Miramon beleaguers it by land. If by French aid Miramon takes Vera Cruz, Avhat then becomes of our American interests and citizens there ? Is it Tacubaya over again ? Forced loans, pillage, rapine, and murder? Already since Miramon began his march tOAvard Vera Cruz, before he had reached the tierras calienfes, the Constitutional bands Avere prowling through the central States, making reprisals upon the property of Avcalthy Spaniards and upon the conducta under the protection of Miramon's gov- ernment. Already the same scenes of a year ago, Avhen Miramon threat- ened Vera Cruz, are again transpiring. Our Eio Grande frontier is deso- lated Avith fire and SAvord from Tamaulipas to Chihuahua. Texas, through Governor Houston, is asking the President for Federal aid to protect our citizens. He is eager to give peace to the frontier, and, by a practical protectorate, some repose and security to northern Mexico. Only last month. Chihuahua Avas overrun by one of Miramon's generals, Cosen, with a band of pardoned felons. The grossest outrages on Avomen and men were perpetrated. The Americans were driven out, and Avere compelled to leave a million dollars' Avorth of property at the mercy of the robbers. They sent in vain to Fort Smith for our troops. Their authorities joined in the request for our intervention, but in vain. Cosen, with a thousand 140 EIGHT TEAKS IN CONGEESS. cul throats, is marcliing toward its capital. You can picture the pillage which will result ! These are facts just brought to us by Mr. McManus, of my own State, who w^as compelled to leave his home and interests in Mexico. And now, if Vera Cruz too is to be endangered, who is there that Avill not hail the star-spangled banner flying from the battlements of San Juan de Ulloa, as a triumphant emblem of the \'ictory of commerce and civilization over craft and barbarism? Recently I have seen that the Miramon Government, in their stress, have put into the market a new batch of bonds. Mexico is to be saddled by this Government with $15,000,000 more of debt, which, added to the $80,000,000 created in July last by Miramon's scheme, will make $95,- 000,000 of paper debt foisted on beggared Mexico in five months. Be- sides this, there are millions of contracts and reclamations unsecured, arising out of spoliations of foreigners. To these is to be added the debt of Mexico, foreign and domestic, ascertained in April, 1857, to be $96,- 801,275, of which $03,382,105 is secured by a certain percentage on the revenues of Mexico, to the English and other bondholders. Then add the millions on millions of ruin heaped on this country by these ambitious and rapacious chiefs, not alone for arms and equipments, but in the losses to labor and in the idleness consequent upon insecurity and violence. Put these all together, and see the rent land struggling and Avrithing and w'ring- ing its hands in wailing and woe, and you have the poorest of national Samaritans, Avhom to go over and relieve is the highest duty of a Chris- tian nation. If our Government fail in its duty now, one thing Avill happen, and that is, the sudden apparition of Houston, Avith ten thousand Texans, in north- ern Mexico. Such movements are as irrepressible as fate. They may even be less responsible and more reckless than Houston's project. I know that such movements are now in process of organization. They may have a peaceful appearance. They are led by the " Knights of the Golden Circle," whose mystic "■ K. G. C." has the magic of King Ar- thur's horn, Avhich could not only call his thousand liegemen at the blast, but before whose blast the enemy foil down. Proposals have been made to Juarez by these adventurous spirits, and among the rest by General Reneau & Co., to place him in the capital and loan him $500,000, in con- sideration of the public lands to be granted in the States of Tamaulipas, New Leon, Zacatecas, Coahuila, Durango, Chihuahua, Sinaloa, ^liehoacau, Guerrero, and Oajaca. This tender includes a further consideration in the form of surveying and pilatting for certain other public lands. The gentlemen in the country connected with these movements are men of military tact and approved courage. They process to obey our neutrality laws ; they will not infract them ; but if they go into Mexico they will go as emigrants, on invitation, and carry the appliances of art, manufacture, and agriculture. [Laughter.] Of course, they cannot go unarmed to such a country I Ttiey may reverse the millennium, and beat their jdoiigh- sharcs into revolvers and their pruning-hooks into bowie knives. [Laugh- ter.] Unless we give to Juarez that aid which the treaty provides, he cannot be blamed if he accept the offer of three thousand emigrants for each of the ten States, in consideration of the j)ublie lands of those States. It will be the uUima ratio with his Goverumeul. lie will be driven, by FOKEIGN AFFAIES. 141 our non-action, into the arms of the unregulated enterprise of this country. Can we lie supine while these transactions are transpiring ? Can we see these martial elements, Avhich are never wanting where adventure leads the way, combining for this purpose, without some action? Better far, if they move under the stipulations of the pending treaty. But if this be re- jected, better that the Government should order the regular army to this post of delicate duty, than that men should go out, even under invitation, in irregular and adventurous bands, without responsibility. But if we fail to do our duty, we cannot reproach either Juarez or our own citizens. He Avill act on the old Spanish maxim applied to the native Mexican laborers : " Mai con ellos ; i^cjor sin ellos " — bad with, worse Avithout them. Can we see external disaster and internal oppression fall upon this ill- starred sister Republic, and have we no protest to make, no protection to give? France can throw her marine into the gulf of Venice, land her troops at Genoa, dash with her armies down the sides of Mont Cenis to aid Sardinia and rescue Lombardy. Half a million men are ready to cross bayonets at Solferino, in this cause of Italy ; but our nation — equally mar- tial if organized, equally sympathetic with the right, and having more interest in Mexico by far than France can ever have in Italy — must lie upon its back, and wait and wait for Providence to press between its lips the fruits of our advancing civilization. When we fail to move, that mo- ment om' destiny is closed. When we fail to meet the demands of our continental situation, and seize every rising opportunity of expansion, that moment of halt is the momeut of retrogi'ession ; reti'ogression is decay ; and decay is death. Show me the code in the law of nations which would estop such an outgoing of national sympathy and succor. Has the com- mon conscience ceased to be a source of international law ? Are the cus- toms of civilized nations no criterion for such enlightened action ? Consult your publicists ! They will tell you that Mexico, if a nation, is indepen- dent and equal to any other nation, and the judge of her own actions. Very true. If she make an ill use of her position, she may be guilty of a breach of duty, but other nations cannot dictate, and must acquiesce in her conduct. True, again. Vattel rightly condemns Spain for executing a Peruvian Inca under Spanish laws, because he had oppressed and killed his own subjects. But at the threshold of this discussion the inquirer might well ask, " Is Mexico a nation now, in the meaning of international law?" Is Mexico " a body-politic, or a society of men, united together for the purpose of promoting their mutual safety and advantage by their combined strength ? " If that constitute a State, her condition is a carica- ture on nationality. Has she the capacity to preserve herself from insult and oppression, either internal or external? If not, how can she perform her obligations to foreign residents and nations? Will the law of nations, founded on the enlightened sense of mankind, permit such a government, and d fortiori two governments contending for supremacy, to outrage that justice which is the basis of society and the bond of all intercourse ? \ attel, in his fifth chapter, section seventy, establishes the relation of such a State with foreign nations. Its appositeness to Mexico is plain and em- phatic. He says : 142 EIGHT YEARS IN C0NGEE8S. " If there were a people who despised and violated the rights of others whenever they found an opportunity, the interest of human society would authorize all the other nations to form a confederacy in order to humble and chastise the delinquents. We do not here forget the maxims established in our preliminaries, that it does not belong to nations to usurp the power of being judges of each other. In particular cases, where there is room for the smallest doubt, it ought to be supposed that each of the parlies may have some right, and the injustice of the party that has committed the injury may proceed from error, and not from a general contempt of justice. But when, by her constant maxims, and by the whole tenor of her conduct, a nation evidently proves herself to be actuated by a mischievous disposition, if she regards no right as sacred, the safety of the human rare requires that she should be repressed. To form and support an unjust pretension is only doing an injury to the pafty whose interests are affected by that pretension ; but to despise justice in general is doing an injury to all nations." If the Juarez government invite our cooperation, and Ave intervene, the right to accede to the request is perfectly clear. (Phillimore on In- ternational Law, vol. i., p. 443.) The treaty does invite us, in most unmistakable terms. But if the treaty fail, dare we promulge the doc- trine of intervention, irrespective of invitation? To the curious on this point I refer to the able treatise above cited, Avhere the whole doctrine of intervention is considered, in the first chapter of the fourth part of the first volume. Among the causes given, where intervention is justifiable, pertinent to Mexico, are the following : where the peace and safety of the intervening State are endangered ; where parties to a civil war invite ; where citizens of another State require protection ; where intervention will stay the effusion of blood caused by a protracted civil war. The able jurist is reluctant to establish the last instance, as a substantiative and solitary, but only as an accessory justification of intervention. The par- tition of Poland stands as a spectre in his way ; and he starts back in affright at the abuses whicfe so destructive a principle has fixed on man- kind. But he finds in the case of Greece, in 1827, a justifiable interven- tion. He displays the long-continued and horrible massacres and anarchy of Greece, as reasons " which alone, if ever such I'easons could, jus- tify the interference of Christendom." The case of Mexico, however, is not to be determined by that elastic law of nations, which has proved so convenient an instrument for the oppression of mankind. In America we have a chapter of our own, written by James Monroe, and fixed as the continental policy of this hemisphere. No international law which omits this chapter, can have application to us or to our own relations Avith Mexico. But even the maxims of the Old World are Avarrant enough, if applied Avitlx discrimination, for our prompt intervention by actual pos- session in Mexico. Some there arc ever ready to oppose every thing wliicli hioks even dis- tantly to the aggrandizement and extension of our Kepublic. I belong to that party which Choat(! described as having a " gay and festive defi- ance of foreign dictation ;" a party which does not go iibroad lor its rules of conduct. But if there are such avIio fear our advancement, to such the authority of foreign journals may be more impressive than our own rights and duties. To such, therefore, I quote the London Times, tlic thinking head of the English nation. It says : "The R:igli.i!i residents who have cist their lot with t!ie inhabitants, and the traders who have invested money in enterprises of the country, are in the same position as the Mexicans themselves. Ilow can we or any one interfere but by t.iUing possession of tlie FOEEIGN AFFAIRS. 143 country ? Of whom are we to demand an explanation ? The chief of the Republic to- day may be a fugitive in a week, while his rival steps into power and wreaks vengeance on all the late officials. Suppose we ask for satisfaction, who is to give it ? The outrage may have been committed by the other party, or by some independent ruffian hundreds of miles off, or there may be no police to prevent a repetition of the act, and no money to compensate it. In fact, where there is no settled government, the ordinary interna- tional remedies fail." The London Times, in another article, used the following significant language : "Mexico has now arrived at a point at which any convulsion may improve the pros- pect of her foreign creditors. In the present state of things they can have no hope, and their great dread, therefore, must be lest it should be perpetuated. If some new military dictator were to arise, or the country were to be absorbed, without more delay, by the United States, their treatment could not be worse, and it might, especially in the latter case, be much better." * * » " Let the United States, when they are finally pre- pared for it, enjoy all the advantages and responsibihty of ownership, and our merchants at Liverpool and elsewhere will be quite content with the trade that may spring out of it." Since then, Mr. Matthews, the English Minister, has been compelled to protest against the government at the capital of Mexico, and he now threatens to leave it to its fate. There is only one remedy, it seems, for Great Britain and her citizens ; possession of the country ! She is will- ing that we shall do that office. Mr. Whitehead, the agent of the English bondholders, in a letter of the 26th of September, 1859, could see "no pacification, except by the intervention of some powerful nation ; " and he said further, that " the opinion prevails very generally, among the more sensible part of the Mexicans themselves, who, without desiring annexa- tion, would be glad to see something of an armed intervention on the part of the United States." He more than hints that it is the policy of Eng- land to promote it. Lord John Russell, the head of the Foreign Office, in his letter of the 16th December, 1859, to the Rothschilds, seems to be hovering near that idea. He says : "A civil war rages in Mexico be- tweeu two parties, who, only intent on destroying their adversaries, have very little respect for the rules of justice or the safety of property." " Our Government has endeavored in vain to mediate, by the aid of other pow- ers, to bring about a termination of the present devastating and sangui- nary war." As Ave could permit no European nation to take possession of Mexico without dishonor, so we are bound to pursue this policy by a rule far more authoritative than any international law. Our code is the law of necessity. It is the same law by v/hich we ought to save our neighbor's house, when its burning would imperil our safety and destroy our peace. If we do not do it, what objection can we make if England or France attempt it? We must anticipate the else inevitable interference of these powers on this continent. If we do not interfere now, there will be noth- ing to save but a desolated land, a demoralized citizenry, an empty ex- chequer, a mortgaged revenue, a banditti of factious States, and a gov- ernment only federative in a league with death, murder, and spoliation. There is yet something to be saved in Mexico. If we act promptly, we become partners in her resources. What are these resources ? What are, and what should be, our relations toward them? Mexico has now $26 000,000 of foreign imports, and $28,000,000 of exports ; making an 144 EIGHT YEAES EST CONGEESS. interchange of $54,000,000. Of this, England has $33,400,000 ; the United States only $8,700,000. England thus monopolizes more than one-half of this commerce. She has had special permits to import at a reduction of twenty-five to fifty per cent, on duties. She is twenty days distant by steam ; whUe on the Pacific and on the Gulf Ave are at the very doors of Mexico. Of the $8,700,000 of our commerce with Mexico, our exports for the year ending September 30, 1858, were but $3,315,- 825, being $2,000,000 less than our imports from Mexico. The above fifty-odd millions does not include, of course, the immense contraband trade, which, if fairly estimated, Avould run Mexican commerce up to $100,000,000. Thirty millions of this is silver, which mostly goes to England. If the produce of our country — the provisions and flour of the great "West, the varied manufactures of the North in wood and iron, which are finding markets in the West Indies, the sliipping of the Gulf and the Pacific, with six thousand miles of Mexican sea-coast, and the mining enterprise of our citizens, had a full range under a good govern- ment, with this reciprocal free trade, under this well-conceived treaty, Avhat a tide of prosperity would flow between us and Mexico ! The princely city of London votes Lord Elgin its hospitalities, because he quadrupled the trade beween us and Canada by the reciprocity treaty. He boasted, in his response to the gratulations of the merchant kings, that his Chinese treaty, if carried out, would open to English enterprise a trade Avitli four hundred million people ! Yet, at our doors, Ave neglect the rarest chances of commei'cial enlargement. There is not a product between our Mexican boundary and Panama Avhich is not Avantcd by us. There is not a product of our skill and industry that Avill not find a mar- ket in that country. May I not be pardoned for illustrating this vicAv from my own State of Ohio? Its statistician, Mr. Mansfield, in his re- port of 1859, estimates our grain product at an average of one hundred and twelve million eight hundred and eighty-three thousand eight hundi'ed and seventy bushels. Where is the State in the Avorld which can equal this in these elements of life ? New York has but seventy-six million six hundred and thirty-nine thousand nine hundred and ten bushels , fewer acres in cultivation, and a less average to the acre. France, Avith her nicety of cultivation, has but an aA'erage of thirteen and a half bushels to the acre, while Ohio has twenty-tAvo and a half. Gallicia even falls be- hind this model State of the Mississippi valley, Avhere more people can live well than in any other land on the earth. The value of Ohio live-stock ranges over seventy million dollars, from which are made our smoked and salted meats. These Avould be duty-free under this treaty. Has Ohio no surplus for exportation? no interest in an extended market? If I summoned each Representative to lay before us the speciality of his State for Avhich free trade is ofi'ered in this treaty, Avhat a museum of national exchanges Avould Ave not show, to pour into t!ie great current of trade Avhich Avould follow its ratification ! What can ]\Iexico give us in return? Is it cofi'ee and sugar? Their consumption Avith ns is noAv al- most as general as that of bread. Colima and tlie otlier Pacific States ofier their rich coflTec and sugar lands, unequalled by Cuba, and surpassing Louisiana or Texas. The present supply is inadequate to our demand. We pay too much for both. So Avith cocoa, cochineal, and tlie finer quali- FOEEIGN AFFAIRS. 145 ties of tobacco. So, too, with the tropical fruits. Our iron, in all its shapes of usefulness, would have a fine chance in a country where, at times, it has been of equal value with the precious metals, and where, even yet, wooden ploughs perform the office in agriculture which we are beginning to perform with iron and steam. And yet you can buy to-day in New Orleans thirty thousand Ohio and Pennsylvania ploughs at thirty-six dollars per dozen ! If we could have settled relations with Mexico, and if Mexico herself could be tranquillized, I doubt not that $50,000,000 of silver per annum could be produced. Four-fifths of this would come to us. Our mining interests now give us $120,000,000, with only twenty thousand persons employed. Think of such an enterprise applied to the silver mines of Mexico ! We need the silver to purify our specie currency of its adulterated silver coin. "We have the quicksilver now in our midst to aid this production. We must change, by some new enterprise, the ratio between the production of gold and silver. The leads of the east- ern slope of the Rocky Mountains have already made that lonely land the seat of thriving towns and remunerative industry. That beautiful pla- teau, those affluent gulches, those seams of gold-bearing quartz, whose amazing extent and richness are described in memorials on our table, as lands which have never been equalled or even approached at any period, on the face of the earth, for their miraculous wealth — those rivers, whose sand is silver, and whose pebbles gold — are not merely stimuli to our enterprise, but they indicate, by their topogi'aphical and geological laws, and by their position as a part of the great range from Chili to Frazer's River, that they are the approach, the vestibule of that immense temple, whose sunless architecture has its endless colonnade and mystic cham- bers beneath our continental sierras ! From these sources Spain shone resplendent for centuries, and only and deservedly lost them because she lavished them on a corrupt royalty and to glut a base avarice. In Mexico alone, where these resources were only " scratched" by the rudtT science of the time, from the conquest (by official data furnished by the Ministerio de Fomento), we find a coinage of $2,636,745,951, figures under which the mind reels in its romance after the wonders of wealth ! Of this amount, $2,534,115,679 were of silver alone ! The gold amount- ed to $96,892,142. What a fruitage from these sterile mountains ! What apples of gold in pictures of silver ! No Yankee Aladdin ever had dreams to- I'ival this arithmetic of ready and coined cash ! Quite a lot of loose change to chink in the pantaloons of Young America ! [Laughter.] And yet this land of sterile sierras, with their untold coffers of wealth, has no parallel for the salubrity of its climate, the richness of its soil, and the balmy beauty and soft influences of its sky. Mexico has her Tierras Calientes, her Tierras Frias ; but above all, her Tierras Templadas, whicli combine the virtues of all soils and the beauties of all heavens. Homer had poetic glimpses of such a land, when he thus depicted it : " Stera winter smiles on that auspicious clime, The fields are florid with unfading prune ; From the bleak pole no winds inclement blow, Mould the round hail, or flake the fleecy snow ; But from the breezy deep the blest inhale The fragrant murmurs of the western gale." ^ 10 246 EIGHT YEARS IN CONGKESS. But alas ' civil discord is the serpent of this paradise. Anarchy, like the oran-e, is here in perpetual fruit and bloom. The murdered corpse is found beneath the pabn and the cocoa. Here every prospect pleases and only man is vile. If it be true that the weaker and disoi^amzed nations must be absorbed and controlled by the strong and organized na- tions, and that nationalities of inferior grade must succumb and surrender to those of a superior civiUzation and polity, then there is no power short of the Almighty which can in time prevent the absorption, agi^ndize- ment, and elevaUon of this rich and lovely land by its ;^!^^«^^^^tll/^l!;^^^^^ States of confederated and constitutional freedom. Give the Umted States, with its steam-engine, its unrest, its self-government, and its en- ergy, the protective control of these regions, and do you doubt that we would outstrip England in commerce ? The commodities for interchange are ready. What we want is settled relations with Mexico. We want a steam communication on the Gulf, which wiU be, as has been proved by En-land in her relations with Spanish America, and by iis m our relations with Cuba, the open sesame to the riches of this heaven-favored and man- cursed country. We expend our money in opening Japan and Lhma to the world; we send ships and embassies, and cultivate the humanities and amenities of the age, in persuading, astonishing, and interlocking m mutual interest the lands of the far Orient ; but at our very threshold ^^o miss our golden opportunities. In the absence of a well-defined mtercon- tinental policy, such as is proposed in the treaty and message, our interests have suffered not less than $30,000,000 per annum. For ten years we have been struggling for a safe and quick transit to the Pacific m vain. Capital has been loath to venture, for the reason that no adequate protec- tion has been given in its use. Emigration has been meagi;e and un- certain, because there was no stimulus to labor and no certainty ot its ""^^Vhave thus shown the condition of Mexico. I have given the reasons why some intervention should be had. There is no reason in the m erest of economy and commerce, as indemnity for past wrong and secmnty lor future immunity; in the interest of humanity and civihzation ; in the code international or the forum of conscience ; m the decrees ot Divine Providence, as He works with man in the order and happincs ot His creatures, which does not appeal to us for intervention in Mexico. . I proceed to notice some of the objections against the policy enun- '"'"'I'^'ls it objected that our intervention, under the fifth and sixth of the conventional articles of the treaty, by force, will involve us m war? I beUeve their simple ratification would bring England into concer with us, dr ve Miram.on from the country, and, by such a p.irtuil intervention novv sive war and constant intervention hercailer. We must else contend ;Tth France and England, as to who will do this duty. We have the op- portunity of assuringrto Mexico the best liberal government xvhu . has ye arisen. It is inclined toward us. Even Mnau.on, when protesting to us a-ainst the treaty, considers our recognition ot the estabhs Inuent, as he calls it (cs(ahlecimiento), at Vera Cruz, as a thing inexplicable to Inm- indccd, such a policy would have been Utterly impossil. e but u tcw years a-o when Mexico lived upon the rant of the soldiery about the Yankees, FOEEIGN AFFAIRS. 147 and before her statesmen had learned to understand our aims and institutions. 2. Is it objected that this treaty will prevent annexation ? Wlij, Fuente, the Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs, refused to sign it be- cause he feared to give away the sovereignty of Mexico ! How can these objections be reconciled? By a division of sovereignty. But what is sovereignty without the concomitant power? "What the empty crown without the head to plan or the arm to execute? Mexico has the ri"-ht, but not the power ; we furnish the last. If, then, it be objected to this treaty that it will prevent any annexation to this country, because it ele- vates Mexico into the dignity of an assured independence, I ask, if this followed, would annexation be less desirable or less probable ? 3. Is it objected that we have territory and people enough for our own happiness and contentment? If Mr. Jefferson had so believed, we never should have had our southwestern empire, with the Mississippi, holding by its mobile drops of water this Union in its steadfast poise. If John Quincy Adams had so reasoned, would not Florida still have been, as Cuba is now, a menace to our peace and a clog to our progress? Had Eobert J. Walker and John C. Calhoun so believed, we never sliould have had the lone star of Texas on our flag and her territory in our Union. Had James K. Polk so believed, California would still have remained a paralyzed limb of the diseased body of Mexico. Had Pierce so believed, the Mesilla would still be a terra incognita, and its mineral wealth would have had no chance for development. I have no fear of territorial expansion, sir, with the spirit of the Confederation preserved uncorrupted and pure. 4. Is it objected that Mexico has not a population suited to oiu- sys- tem of self-government? Had not Louisiana her French, Florida and Texas their Spanish, and California and New Mexico a population like that of Mexico ? Had not all our States their native Indian population ? These are becoming homogeneous with the lapse of time. There is no reason why, under our system of local self-government and Federal de- centralization, all Mexico should not live and progress under our Govern- ment, with the same success to herself and safety to us which these ac- quisitions have witnessed. 5. Is it objected that abeady we have distractions and threats of dis- solution ? Is it said that more territory would only add to our disquie- tude ? Is the slavery question to disturb us in the path of empire ? Are we to be hemmed in by fear of disunion ? If this country, with its pres- ent Constitution, reposing on the intelligence of oui- people and the his- tory of its formation, cannot grow without danger, it cannot live much longer without gangrene and decay. K there be vitality to hold us to- gether, there is vitality with which to expand. Nay, without this expan- sion, decay is more rapid and disruption more certain. This country has settled one thing beyond the power of politicians to disturb it ; and that is, that the Federal Government shall not intervene in the home affairs of the States ; and that when they are in preparation for admission, no power but themselves, guided by their own wants and interests, shall, or of right ought to, prohibit or establish, or in any way control, their do- mestic institutions. 148 EIGHT YEAKS IK CONGEESS. Mr. Stanton. Has the gentleman read the veto messages of Gov- ernors Black and Medary ? Perhaps if he had, he would not regard that doctrine as the fixed policy of the country. Mr. Cox. This decentralizing doctrine makes expansion safe. If this be accepted as the policy of the country, expansion has no terrors which do not now menace us. Nay, an active outgoing policy would di- vert attention from internal dissensions. It would pour a vigorous life- blood into the older States. It would give activity to young and vigorous States, which would hasten under our protecting ajgis. I have no argument to make in an American Congress for or against slavery. Its discussion, in an ethical light, was exhausted by Ai'istotle two thousand years ago. The polemics of New England do no more than echo the words of the Stagyritc. Tliey cannot add any thing to this discussion. As an economical question, if slavery could be made profit- able in Mexico, it would go there. It may, therefore, go to the tierras calientes. It never went there under Spanish rule, and cannot go there now for physical reasons. Mr. Greeley wonders Avhy Mi*. Buchanan should covet it, when its soil and production unfit it for slave labor ! He would wonder no more if he understood the Ostend manifesto in its comprehen- sive sense. It is no matter, in so far as it concerns our Federal unity — how much soever it may concern our ethics — how many slave or free States we have, so long as they are equal under a sacred organic law. Already the preponderance in favor of free States is declared. Southern statesmen like Hammond ancj Stephens acquiesce in it as a part of the law of emigration, locomotion, and population. Mexico would aggran- dize our slave States, if she would not furnish one from her area. Dis- similarity of States in production and institutions is a part of our system. Out of these brotherly dissimilitudes, as out of the vari-colorcd stones of the quarry, a fabric has arisen, Avhose harmony and majesty of propor- tion and strength are the wonder of art ! With this as our policy, our territorial expansion is as illimitable as the continent and as safe as the stars in their appointed orbits. As safe as the stars : for they, too, like nations, are the effluence of God, evolving and expanding through the universe by the everlasting law of growth ! They obey the same law by which the seed bursts into life, rises above the gi'ound, effloresces and decays with perpetual bloom and sere. Tlie same law of growth applies to our physical bodies as well as to the heavenly bodies. "Without growth both body and mind decay and die. Growth is the condition of health. It is so with nations. History writes it on the frontlet of time as its fore- most, grandest conception. God writes it in the flower, in tlio globular water drop, and the star, as well as in Egypt, Rome, and Greece. In the feudal ages of darkness, and in tlie later ages of ilhunination ; in the eras of despotism, as well as of liberty ; wlicrevcr His finger records His fiat upon the everlasting scroll, there is tliis law : " Whosoever, whatso- ever uoth not grow, is dead already ! " Is the Anglo-Saxon race an exception? Is this great self-government, whose next census will show under its flag thirty-six million jieople, and an advancement gi'catcr than ever before in material wealth, to become the laggard of tlie century? Will the next seventy years witness the retrogression of this continent into anarchy and ruin? Is Mexico's past rOKEIGN AFF^mS. I49 tWrty years the index to show how far toward the oceulation is the orb of our destiny? Or is Mexico to be invigorated and renewed by a new life from this race of ours ? May not the mines of Chihuahua and Guana- juato be made to ghsten again under our energy ? Will not the valley of the Aztecs again blossom as the rose, under a better dispensation of civil rights and social order ? May not those mysterious palaces, buried deep in the solitudes of Yutacan, whose sculptured facades Stephens desired to rescue from destruction, again resound with the voice of life and bless- ing? May not the fisheries of the California Gulf become the source of a new trade, and its pearls deck the diadem of a new empire? These may be dreams, but I have yet to see the American who wiU not say that at some time and m some emergency the United States will " have to take t7f f Mexico, and, if necessary, gather up her mutilated members, and, by the charm of our polity, fit them to each other-articulation, ten- don, muscle, bone, and sinew— and breathe into the form the soul of an active and benignant juvenescence ! P.J T ^^^^^,,^^te^;f«i;« ''^ Mexico, it must be either France, Spain, fenfr''-?^ f n"f ^ ^'f''- ^^' interference of Spain would ^onty renew, with tenfold force, the antagonisms which now beset Mexico. Do we want England to make another Canada on our south ; to hold us within her iron vice? But England has expressed the wish that n^e should in^ tertere. ihe late accomplished Colonial Minister, Sir Edward Bulwer l^ytton,^ gave voice to the best sentiment of the proud British mind, in the conclusion of his speech for the estabbshment of the British Columbia Government, on the 8th of July, 1858, when he said : may^ffrd 1S?safr;Ir?nf n^T,^^'-*™^ '''"* '^' ^'^""^ ^''P^''' «f ^'1 ^^^^^^ events n W^?^n f ^^feguard of His blessing to our attempt to add another community of Christian freeraen to those by which Great Britain confides the records of hS^mnirp Stl^nThriLTul;'^^^^^^^^ '"* '^ '''''' ^^' Commonwealths, wLt Mst^ Z'be r.nr?''"" w^ England's Statesmen have taunted us with having no foreioii po cy. We deserved the taunt. If rightly understood, England, sir, hS nothing but pride m these outgrowths of her own strength^ and she will have no protest to make against the honor and advancement of her 0^ oftsprmg Laying England and the United States aside, what would be the result of a French interference? Not very remotely a war of races rl'aSdT'T T S''""' '" ''^"■^^' ^"' «° ^^- --tiLt. The iatiu ^Z^Ti ^Qg^o-Saxon race cannot expand here without collision. The Anglo-baxon, or rather the Anglo-American race, which is the best de- velopment of the Teutonic and Cehic, for adventur^, enterprise, and mar- ^al success, has already combined the white races in America north of Mexico into liberal governments. History shows that that race has no returning footstep m its advancement. Is it desirable to array these ele- ments here, m the face of this indomitable race? Tn.tj' '"^^fTf^tion by us, supporting a liberal Government Hke that of Juarez, which ofiers us free and safe intercourse, emigration, and reliaious Inarcw'n T^ f stipulation by which our arms can1,e call'ed in to crush anarchy and enforce order, is the only mode by which jealousy can be Ztr.Zt "fZ ^^/'^b^^«^^^- ^ -ff-ge by wlich the felon an^d the in! ierior races of Mexico are restricted for a decade, would stay Mexico 150 EIGHT YEARS JN C0NGKES8. from an ine\'itable relapse into barbarism, and, at the same time, bj en- hancing property and promoting prosperity, reconcile every impatient ele- ment in Mexico to our salutary protectorate. A year ago, when I suggested to this Congress that the juncture was upon us when we should stop marking time, and begin moving forward, and that Congress was not up with the enterprise of the nation, the Madrid and Paris presses did me the honor to translate my speech, and to give it more importance than it merited, as the expression of what La Cronica newspaper was pleased to call the impetuosity of La Joven America. It expressed its amazement at the simple remark, " that, if Ave consider just now the elements of our people — martial, mechanical, intellectual, agri-, cultural, and political — who will doubt that there are a dozen locomotive republics already fired up and ready for movement ? " But, Mr. Speaker, I put it to the members of this House, whether there be one here who cannot say, that at least one regiment combining such elements can be mustered in each of the two hundred and thirty-seven districts of the Uni- ted States? If legal sanction were given, cither by the repeal of the neu- trality laws or by some other Governmental action, quadruple this number could be raised before the telegraph had finished clicking the inspiring in- telligence. That this is so, we cannot help. "We should not desire to re- press, only to restrain it. However much our caution may condemn and guard these elements, there is not an American who does not cherish a lurking, smiling approbation of this adventurous and elastic spirit which thrills the great nation of the New World ! Call it what you will — mani- fest destiny, territorial expansion, star of empire. La Joven America^ and even fillibusterism — it is here. We must make the best of it. If its current be not properly restrained within its banks, if we neglect, despise, or unduly repress it, it wiU only spend its force violently and disastrously, when once it takes its destined way ! Is there any American who wishes to consult European Powers as to the propriety or policy of such an expansion ? Is there any one who fears a fatal blow from these Powers? We do not exist by the sufferance of Europe, but by its insufferance. We did not grow to our present great- ness by its fostering care ; but by its neglect, and in spite of its malevo- lence. We do not ask its pardon for being born, nor need we apologize to it for growing. It has endeavored to prevent even the legitimate ex- tension of our commerce, and to confine us to our o\\ti continent. But if we can buy Cuba of Spain, it is our business with Spain. If we have to take it, it is our business with Providence. If we must save Mexico, and make its weakness our strength, we have no account to render unto Europe or its dynasties. A year ago, in glancing at European politics, I foresaw the portentous storm of the coming war. Scarcely had my lan- guage been publislicd, before the balance of power quivered over Europe, and snapped like brittle glass, at an imperial yet pinister New Year's greet- ing in the Tuileries to the Austrian Minister. Soon the sword of Napo- leon was thrown into the scales of Italian iiulcpondence ! The treaties of 1814 fell. The alliances of one year ago were blown into fragments from the rifled cannon of Solferino. As a consc(iuence of this condition, not yet settled, all such alliances cannot be relied on to pursue us to any fatal end on this continent. FOKEIGN ATFAIRS. 151 If European Powers choose to expand their empire and energize their people, we have no protests, no arms to prevent them. England may pnsh from India through the Himalayas to sell her calicoes to the number- less people of Asia, and divide with France the empires of India, Burmah, and China. Civilization does not lose by their expansion. Russia may pushher diplomacy upon Pekin, and her armies through the Caucasus, and upon Persia and Tartary ; she may even plant her Greek cross again on the mosque of St. Sophia, and take the Grecian Levant into her keeping as the head of its Church and civilization. France may plant her forts and arts upon the shores of the Red Sea ; complete the canalization of Suez ; erect another Carthage on the shores of the Mediterranean ; bind her natural limits from Mont Blanc, in Savoy, to Nice, upon the sea. Sardinia may become the nucleus of the Peninsula, and give to Italy a name and a nationality. Even Spain, proud and poor, may fight over again in Africa the romantic wars with the Morescoes, by which she edu- cated that chivalry and adventure, which three centuries ago made her the mistress of the New World. She may demand territory of Morocco, as idemnity for the war. America has no inquiry to make, no protocol to sign. These are the movements of an active age. They indicate health, not disease — growth, not decay. They are links in the endless chain of Providence. They prove the mutability of the most imperial of human institutions ; but, to the philosophic observer, they move by a law as fixed as that which makes the decay of autumn the herald of spring. They obey the same law by which the constellations change their places in the sky. Astronomers tell us that the " southern cross," Avhich guarded the adventurer upon the Spanish main four centuries ago, and which now can be seen, the most beautiful emblem of our salvation, shining down through a Cuban and Mexican night — just before the Christian era glittered in our northern heavens ! The same gkeat will, which knows no North and no vSouth, and which is sending again, by an irreversible law, the southern cross to our northern skies, on its everlasting cycle of emigi-ation — does it not control the revolutions of nations, and the vicissitudes of em- pires? The very stars in their courses are "Knights of the Golden Circle," and illustrate the record of human advancement. They are the type> of that territorial expansion from which this American continent cannot be exempted without annihilation. The finger of Providence points to our nation as the guiding star of this progress. Let him who would either dusk its radiancy, or make it the meteor of a moment, cast again with nicer heed our nation's horoscope. HAYTI AND LIBERIA. COMMERCIAL QUESTIONS MORE IMPORTANT THAN RECOGNITION — BLACK REPUBLICS — NEGRO EQUALITY — COLONIZATION. Delivered in the House of Bepresentatives June 2, 1862. Mr. Cox. I propose, in the few remarks Avhich I shall make, to give something in brief of the history, condition, and commerce of Hayti and Liberia. 152 EIGHT TEAKS EST COjSTGEESS. As far as relates to the history of Hayti, the very events by which it is marked, not only during the existence of slavery but since emancipation in 1793, show the inferior state of its civilization, and especially of its present negro rulers. From its discovery by Columbus in 1492, and the subsequent foundation of St. Domingo by the Spaniards, until its pillage in 1586 by the British Admiral Drake, devastation and the extermination of the aborigines by their former rulers appear to have been the only work. Hayti then fell partly under the power of French filHbusters, who, in 1630, took entire possession of and colonized the western portions of fhe island. The colony was recognized by France in 1677 ; and in 1697, at the congress of Ryswick, the French possession thereof was sanctioned by Spain, England, and Holland. From that period up to 1789, a period of ninety-two years, during which the French ruled, Hayti increased both in population and in commerce, and the statistics of the latter year bring the exports for the same at the high figure of 205,000,000f. (neai-ly $48,- 000,000). But the rude treatment of the slaves diiring this period ripened into revolution. Forgetting the unsuccessful attempt at rebellion of 1722, they rose en masse against their French masters in 1791, imder the leader- ship of one Bonkman. After committing all sorts of atrocities, they com- pleted their work by a massacre of all the white race, June 23, 1793, under Mayaca, another black chief. In 1794, France appointed Tous- saint L'Ouverture, a negro, general-in-chief of the Ha}'tien troops. This is the negro whom Wendell Phillips thought equal, if not superior, to George Washington. In 1795 Spain ceded to France the east part of the island. Soon after Toussaint declares the island independent. In 1802 the French General Leclerc, with twenty thousand French troops, lands at St. Domingo, surprises and makes Toussaint prisoner, and sends him to France. In the following year Dessalines, another negi'o chieftain, leads the blacks, beats the French, and drives off the island Rocliambeau, Leclerc's successor, who is thereby compelled to surrender to the British fleet. After this Dessalines assumes imperial powers over the island, under the name of " James I." In 1806 he is assassinated, and, after Petion's and Christophe's quarrels for the possession of the throne up to 1820, one Boyer assumes tlie power, and is proclaimed in 1822. France recognizes the independence of the island in 1825, and receives an indem- nity of 150,000, OOOf. therelbr. In 1843 Boyer is accused of tjTanny and deposed. Ilerard succeeds him ; then Gucrrier, in 1844 ; then Pierrot, in 1845; thenRicho, in 1846; and then Soulouque, in 1847. While the negro presidents were thus succeeding one another, St. Domingo secedes in 1844, and constitutes itself an independent republic, under President Pedro Santana. France recognized the new republic in 1818 ; England in 1850. In 1849, August 26, .Soulouque becomes Emperor, under the name of Faustin I. On December 22, 1858, a new revolution arises, led by Faljn; (JefFrard. On the 15th of January, 1859, Soulouque al)dicales, and (JcHrard is proclaimed President the same day. On March 18, 1861, St. Domingo asks to be annexed to Spain, and the request is granted by the (pieen on the 20th of the following May. The portion of the island tlius annexed to Spain is by far the largest, though less populated. The Gotha Ahnanac gives it an area of 12,960 square miles ; but from recent admeasurement by a French officer, it ajipears to have about 15,000 FOEEIGN AFFAIKS. 153 square miles, having a population of little over 200,000. The republic of Hayti has an area of 9,000, and by recent measurement 10,000 square miles, with a population of 560,000 inhabitants. Its revenue in 1859 was $1,762,500 ; expenditure, $972,572 ; debt to France, 60,000,000f. (about $11,250,000), the original debt of 150,000,000f. having been greatly reduced. In the Commercial Relations for 1860, page 701, our commerce with Hayti is set down for all the ports. I know my friend from Massachu- setts relies on a statement inserted in the speech of Senator Sumner ; and it is said to be made out in the Treasury. I greatly distrust any thing in the shape of figures about Hayti. There are money sharks about ready ' to trade in the business of shipping our negroes thither ; and their motives for making figures are not always the most unselfish. In his pamphlet speech, Mr. Sumner gives the sums of $2,673,682 for one year's exports, and $2,062,723 for imports during the same period, ending September, 1860. There is a large mistake certainly in the im- ports here. The last returns of the genei'al commerce of Hayti for 1859 give the following figures, viz. : Imports 9,000,000 Prussian thalers, little over $6,000,000 ; exports 12,000,000 thalers. The number of vessels employed in that trade was 310, measuring 61,420 tons, and of these 152 were American, 56 English, 54 French, and the other 48 of all na- tions. When we compare these figures with those shown in the returns of 1789, at which period the exports alone reach the sum of 205,000,000f. (about $48,000,000), we cannot help admitting the deteriorated state of the industrial capacities of the black Haytiens. In relation to Liberia,' the books of geography and statistics give the following information : Area about 25,000 square miles, population 200,- 000, colony founded in 1821 ; the territory purchased from the aborgines. Over twenty small sovereignties were thus extinguished. The declaration of independence and political existence as a Goverment dates in 1847, at which period they adopted a constitution somewhat similar to ours. They elect their president for two, their senators for four, and their representa- tives for two years. All men who own real estate to the amount of thirty dollars are electors. Their revenue is derived from duty on imports and the sale of public lands. These are sold at from fifty cents to one dollar and a quarter per acre. Their capital is Monrovia, besides which they have eight small towns and several minor settlements. The produce so far has been ivory, palm oil, common gold dust, coffee, sugar, cocoa, cotton, in- digo, ginger, and arrow root. Horses and other draught animals do not prosper, and goods are brought on men's backs from long distances. The climate so far has been unhealthy. Communications, except by water be- tween the sea-ports, are difficult from the absence of roads. In Commercial Relations for 1860, page 680, I find the navigation and commerce of the United States witli Monrovia during the four quar- ters ending September, 1860, to be as follow^ : exports $158,735.70, im- ports $126,276.59. If there is any commerce with other ports of Liberia, it is not shown. In the pamphlet speech made by Mr. Sumner on this bill, the exports to Monrovia are brought up to $200,000, and to the whole republic, to 1,000 ! Quite in contrast with the above statement. 164 EIGHT YEAES IN CONGKESS. England recognized the republic of Liberia in 1848, and France in 1854. From the late reports of the Colonization Society, it would seem that Spain and other Powers have siuce done the same, as I propose to do it commercially. According to the Gotha Almanac, the three PoAvers first named have each a consul at Monrovia. The United States have a vice commercial agent at Monrovia and one at Gaboon. Liberia has nine con- suls in England, and one or two in each of the other countries above, except the United States. Since 1821, the republic has extended its limits, and it must therefore have over 30,000 square miles. Its population are emi- grants from this country. They have been slaves here. They do not exceed 15,000. The savage population is over 200,000. From its social relations with the neighboring negro tribes, it exercises quite an influence over nearly two millions of souls. Its geographical position and its capacity of producing many articles make its prospects bright, and it can be looked upon as a centre from which improvement may diverge. As a sort of appanage of the United States, I would not discourage its progress. Nor do I believe the best friends of Liberia wish to see it made the abo- lition foot-ball in this House for party ends. Those who now seek to make Liberia the instrument for forcing their doctrines of equality, have not heretofore been friends to the colony and its objects. The question occurs with reference to both Ilayti and Liberia, whether we cannot with the aid of commercial agents and consuls, and without the aid of ministers resident, assist in the development of the prosperity and trade of these countries. This is the sincere desire which I had in oiFering my substitute ; therefore I will not controvert any statement as to the commerce of these countries. Be it gi-eat or small, I would foster it. But, Mr. Speaker, it matters not how much our commerce is with these countries, that commerce is not to be increased and fostered by the mode proposed by the gentleman from Massachusetts. The object sought by the gentleman ffom Massachusetts in this bill is not so much to in- crease the commercial relations of the United States with the countries named as to give a sort of dignity and equality to these republics, because they are black republics. It is, therefore, literally a Black Republican measure, and that is all there is in it. If the gentleman really wants to enlarge our commercial relations with them, my amendment will answer that purpose. It will be most effectual, because consuls general invested with tlie power to make treaties will answer every commercial purpose. The idea seems to prevail with the gentleman that no one can make a treaty or foster commerce between nations except a minister resident. Now, sir, the very origin and intention of the considar ofllce and his func- tion are to protect commerce. Tliat is his special business ; and while we may also authorize consuls general to make treaties, and exorcise other diplomatic functions, still commerce is his sole object and aim. It is not worth while to say that our consuls in foreign countries cannot make treaties ; that tliey are not clothed with diplomatic functions. If this be 80, my amciiilment proposes to give them whatever power they may re- quire i'or that purpose. It is very well known that our consul at Japan, TowuscikI Harris, and while consul, made a treaty between that empire and the United States, nor do I know that special powers had to be cou- FOEEIGN AFFAIES. 155 ferred upon him. In the Statutes at Large for the Thirty-sixth Congress, page 99, is to be found the treaty which was made between Japan and the United States. It was made in the city of Yedo, Japan, on the 29th of July, 1858, and was ratified by the President and the Senate in 1860. It is signed by Townsend Harris, " consular agent for Japan, on the par- of the United States of America," and by the proper officers on the part of his majesty the Tycoon, and the empire of Japan. The House will see from this instance that these consular agents can not only make treaties, but that they are much more likely than ministers to foster and increase commerce with foreign nations. It is their duty to watch over and protect commerce. They have connection with merchants. They are sometimes selected because they are merchants, while ministers resident too often are selected because they are noisy politicians. If we look abroad into the second-class missions of Europe, we see them lounging about the cafes in the continental cities or swelling in grandeur through the effete republics of South America, doing very little, if any thing at all, to promote foreign commerce with the United States. Therefore aU this argument in rela- tion to the amount of commerce betAveen this country and Liberia and Hayti goes for nothing, so far as this recognition is concerned. All this talk of commerce is a mere pretext ; consular agents may not only do the duties which are proposed in this instance, but they are especially made the guardians of such interests. I will refer to Vattel on this point. On pages 147 and 148 he uses the following language : "Among the modern instiutions for the advantage of commerce, one of the most use- ful is that of consuls, or persons residing in the large trading cities, and especially the sea-ports, of foreign countries, with a commission to watch over the rights and privileges of their nation, and to decide disputes between her merchants there. When a nation trades largely with a country, it is requisite to have there a person charged with such a commission ; and, as the State which allows of this commerce must naturally favor it, for the same reason, also, it must admit the consul." * * ^ * * * " The consul is no public minister (as will appear by what we shall say of the charac- ter of ministers in our fourth book), and cannot pretend to the privileges annexed to such character. Yet, bearing his sovereign's commission, and being in this quality received by the prince in whose dominions he resides, he is, in a certain degree, entitled to the pro- tection of the law of nations. The sovereign, by the very act of receiving him, tacitly engages to allow him all the liberty and safety necessary to the proper discharge of his functions, without which the admission of the consul would be nugatory and delusive." ********** " And, though the importance of the consular functions be not so great as to procure to the consul's person the inviolability and absolute independence enjoyed by public minis- ters, yet, being under the peculiar protection of the sovereign who employs him, and in- trusted with the care of his concerns, if he commits any crime, the respect due to his master requires that he should be sent home to be punished." For the privileges of consuls with reference to commerce, their police power over sailors and ships, their jurisdiction in certain cases over a whole country for the protection of trade, I refer to the full discussion in 2 Phill., 170, &c. I can plainly perceive, as was remarked in the Senate, that the rev- enue from our commerce with Turkey, Portugal, the Papal States, Den- mark, Sweden and Norway, Switzerland, Japan, and the Central Ameri- can republics, is so insignificant that the expense of maintaining missions at their respective Courts becomes an unnecessary burden on the Treasury. In times like these, when the strictest economy is necessary, when we are 15 G EIGHT TEAES IN CONGRESS. overtaxing ourselves to create eaougli revenue to meet our expenses, we had better suppress all sinecure missions than run into other sinecures, like these missions to Hayti and Liberia, because of the precedents quoted. I take it for granted, then, that consuls can attend to all our affairs in those countries ; and again I ask, why do we not suppress these sinecure missions instead of creating two new ones — one in Hayti, where Europe has none but consuls general, at the same time clothed with the title of charge or diplomatic agent, and another in Liberia, where Europe has none but consuls and vice-consuls ? According to the Gothas Almanac, Hayti has the following agents from the countries trading with it : England, consul general and charge d'af- faires ; France, same ; Spain, consul general ; Portugal, consul general ; and Holland, consul general. The United States, Belgium, Bremen, Denmark, Hamburg, Hanover, the Italian kingdom, Oldenburg, Meck- lenburg-Schwerin, Austria, Prussia, and Sweden and Norway have only consuls. Hayti returned to England one minister resident, one secretary of legation, and three consuls ; to France the same thing ; to Austria, Bel- gium, Denmark, and Hamburg, one consul each. Now we come back to the question, what is the need of a minister resident at Hayti ; and why do we want another in return ? Is commerce your object? You can get that by the mode proposed in my amendment. I ask the gentleman from Massachusetts whether he expects a minister in return? Of course he does. Mr. GoocH. My proposition is to put Hayti upon the same footing with other independent nations, and to receive ministers from her, as Eng- land and France and other continental Powers receive them. Mr. Cox. The gentleman from Massachusetts intends to let Hayti and Liberia send as ministers whomsoever they please to this country. If they send negro ministers to Washington City, the gentleman will say they shall be welcomed as ministers, and have all the rights of Lord Lyons and Count Mercier. They cannot send any one else than negroes as rep- resentatives of their nations. Indeed, a negro, by the Constitution of Hayti, is the only person who can hold such an office. That Constitution debars whites from office. Mr. Fessexden. AVhat objection can the gentleman have to such a representative ? Mr.. Cox. Objection? Gracious heavens! Avhat innocency ! Objec- tion to receiving a black man on an equality with the white men of this country? Every objection which instinct, race, prejudice, and institutions make. I have been taught in the history of this country that these Com- monwealths and this Union were made fur white men ; that this Govern- ment is a Government of wliite men ; that the men who made it never in- tended, by any thing they did, to place the black race on an equality with the wliitc. The reasons for these wise precautions I have not now the time to tjiscuss. They are climatic, ethnological, economical, and social. It may be, the gentlemen on the other side intend to carry out their schemes of emancipation to that extent they will raise the blacks to an equality in every respect with the white men of this country. I suppose FOEEIGN AFFAIRS. 157 thej want to approach that object by having a colored representative in the capitol at Washington. Is not that your object? I charge that it is. Do you not want to begin by givinc;iusc of the inability of its people to raise themselves above the corruption, laziness, FOREIGN AFFAIRS. 161 improvidence, ignorance, and vice wliicli seem to follow the undirected African wherever he goes. It is said that England and France receive chai'ges from Hayti and Liberia. The Exeter Hall abolitionists have perhaps made it possible in London to have the negro recognized at Court ; but I understand that ex- cept on Court days, when he is presented in that solemn scene of mockery, he is isolated and slighted, except it may be in the saloons of the Duchess of Sutherland or some other innamorata of the African. In Paris we know that any show from a puppet to a prince is a sensation ; and besides, there was some reason v/hy France should take Hayti under her pro- tective wing. But unless gentlemen here propose equahty, unless they intend abolition entire, there is nothing logical in their pressing this biU. So long as tliey suffer slaveholders and slave States to have or take any part in this Union, it is an insult to bring into the Federal metropolis this black minister proposed by the gentlemen. What is it for, unless it be to outrage the prejudices of the whites of this country, and to show how audaciously the abolitionists can behave ? How fine it will look, after emancipating the slaves in this District, to welcome here at the White House an African, full-blooded, all gilded and belaced, dressed in court style, with wig and sword and tights and shoe-buckles and ribbons and spangles and many other adornments which African vanity will suggest ! How suggestive of fun to our good-humored, joke-cracking Executive ! With what admiring awe will the contrabands approach this ebony demi- god ! while all decent and sensible white people will laugh the silly and ridiculous ceremony to scorn. TRENT AFFAIR. SEIZURE OF SOUTHERN AMBASSADORS RIGHT OF SEARCH IN TISrE OF WAR ENGLISH AND AMERICAN DOCTRINE. On the 17th of December, 1861, I took occasion, in reporting a bill for the relief of the owners of the British ship " Perthshire," to discuss the matters involved in the Trent affair. A few extracts from the debate will furnish the preface to the rtiore elaborate discussion of the rights of neutrals, which follows : I would not to-day bring in this bill, if I believed that any inference would be drawn from its passage that it was dictated by any concession to British arrogance. I would not ask this House even to do a matter of right under a threat from Great Britain, or under the dictation of her arrogance or passion ; but in order that we may demand our rights of Great Britain, we should always be ready to do right toward her. In the jealous defence of our maritime rights our officers may exceed their duty. The moment that is ascertained, as it is in this instance, the Government will take pride in according satisfaction. Our Government must do its duty in order to assert its rights. It is to be hoped that the action of this House, at least toward foreign powers, will show a wise and just con- 11 162 EIGHT YEAES m CONGEESS. ciliation without any timid or time-serving submission. Wliile we would not yield one inch to any servile fear or ungenerous compulsion, such as is threatened by the late news from England, it is becoming the dignity of the Republic promptly to remedy grievances. Thus wc are triply armed to demand prerogatives belonging to our nationality, both at home and abroad. Great Britain should, and I trust will, meet us in this spirit, v>'hcn we demand of her why it is that she has afforded an asylum in Southampton harbor to the Nashville. Without nationality, without even the pretence of a barbarous privateering commission ; and after bearing an envoy of the rebels (Colonel Peyton) to Great Britain ; after overhauling the Har- vey Birch upon the high seas, almost within sight of the shores of Eng- land ; after dragging down the stars and stripes from that ship, and raising instead that strange banner of triple-striped infamy ; after ironing her crew, and with the red hand of the bold buccaneer burning her to the water's edge ; after all this, the Nashville has found a hospitable asylum in the harbor of Southampton, to be refitted for another outrage Avith war- like armaments from English storehouses ! We liave a right to demand how it is that she is permitted thus to refit. We have a right to demand whether that is in accordance with her much-boasted but ill-disguised neutrality. We have a right to know, after Great Britain has assumed her position of neutrality, and assumed it voluntarily and in defiance of our protest, how it is that, consistently with that assumption, she can give aid and comfort and warlike stores to this ship Nashville, for the very purpose of enabling her again to make roving inroads upon our com- merce? I think, so far as I know anything of the case of the Nashville, that the English people, if not the English Government, have acted as accessories after the fact to the piracy committed upon our commerce. She cannot complain, then, that in the midst of the great national peril that overshadows us, and while the public nerve is so acutely sensitive to the very least indignity — she cannot complain that we, in our great trib- ulation, should ask of her to do right as a neutral, since she has assumed that position. In connection with the case that I have presented to the House, I will now, for a very few moments only, call tlie attention of the House to the position which our Government assumes with i-eforcnce to the case of the Trent. I say our Government assumes a position. True, the President has in his message preserved a discreet reticence with refer- ence to it ; but this House in the first hours of its session, and the Secre- tary of the Navy in his report, have justified Captain Wilkes for liis performance. Honors have been showered on liiui. His heroism has been lauded. I assume that our Government, by not disaii]ii-oving, p,t least has sanctioned his conduct on the highest principles of international justice. The other day, at the beginning of this session, (he gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Lovejoy] inli-oduccd his resolution approving the conduct of Captain Wilkes. I voted lor that resolution. I apj)rove of that action of Conunodore Wilkes, because it was founded on international right. This matter came again before the House yesterday ; and lo ! in the face of the morning news which echoed with the roar of the English lion, there seemed to be a dillcrent spirit on the other side of the House ! I hope FOKEIGN AFFAIES. 163 that the House did not intend on yesterday to express an opinion adverse to our rights in the case of the Trent, by referring the matter to the Com- mittee on Foreign Affairs. I beheve that, Avhen the matter is discussed by that committee and reported to the House, the committee and the House Avill stand together by our rights in the premises. But I was reluctant to vote for its reference ; not because the members of that com- mittee wlU not examine it fully and do their duty to the country, but because my own opinion was foregone and had been expressed en the resolution of the gentleman from Elinois. The more I examine it, the more I am satisfied that, in regard to this question, this Government stands in a position to defend herself in any forum before the world. Mr. Colfax. I desire to say to my friend from Ohio, that in common with many other members, I voted yesterday for the reference of the resolution to the Committee on Foreign Affairs because I thought that, standing as we may probably be on the brink of war, it was the duty of the American Congress to send out whatever it declared gravely, delib- erately, solemnly, as the emanation of a standing committee, and not as the mere impulse of a solitary member. Mr. Vallandigham. Will the gentleman from Indiana be kind enough to explain why those considerations which he urges Avith such force just nov/, did not occur to him on the first day of the session, when he proposed to imprison one of those men ? Mr. Colfax. I will do so with great pleasure. Mr. Vallandigham. He had not heard from England at the time, peradventure. Mr. Colfax. My resolution in reference to Mr. Mason was in refer- ence to a man who had taken an oath as a Senator of the United States to support the Constitution of the country, and had violated it. He was not only a traitor, but he had violated his oath. He was in our hands, and I proposed to irq,prison him and subject him to treatment correspond- ing with that shown to Colonel Coi*coran. When we come to deal as a nation with foreign nations, that is, of course, a different matter. Mr. Vallandigham. I ask the gentleman from Indiana whether there is to-day any less violation of their oaths on the part of Mason and SKdell than there was the first day of the session? Are they less traitors now than they were then ? If so, what makes the difference ? Mr. Cox. I must arrest this interlocutory debate. Mr. Colfax. I am stiil in favor of meting out the same treatment to them as Colonel Corcoran receives. Mr. Vallandigham. These men will be surrendered before three months in the face of a threat. I make that prediction here to-day. Mr. Colfax. I disbelieve it. Mr. Cox. I hope that the prediction of my colleague will never be fulfilled. I have some faith in the sagacity of our Secretary of State, too much faith in the honor of the people of the country, to believe that they will ever permit their Government, in a case of clear right, to so dishonor them. The honor of a nation is its credit ; its cr.edit is its commerce ; its commerce is its cash ; and its cash brings with it the comforts and refine- ments of civilization. Where you touch the cash, you have a powerful argument Avith any nation. The pecuniary argument is, with the majority. 164: EIGHT YEARS IN CONGEESS. generally stronger than the moral argument. Wlien moral influences combine Avith pecuniary, they are irresistible. The people of the country, however, will stand, as a point of honor, by the rights to Vt'hich they are entitled on land or sea. They will look with jealousy on anything that has a tendency toward impairing their nationality, either at home or abroad. When they fail in this, they deserve expatriation from this the cushioned part of God's footstool given in high trust to their keeping. I was about to state the proposition on which I believe the Govern- ment can plant itself in this matter. I do not propose now to argue it elaborately. I will cite but few authorities. The public newspapers have been teeming with authorities, some I'elevant and some irrelevant. Mr. LovEJOY. I rise to a question of order. My point is, that the remarks of the gentleman are irrelevant to the question before the House, which is a question as to the detention of the Perthshire. Mr. Cox. If I could only put the " African " into the question, no doubt it would be relevant. I propose to show a direct connection between our according the rights that arc due to Great Britain and our demanding our own rights in return. Therefore my argument is logical and per- tinent. The Speaker. The Chair decides that the gentleman from Ohio is in order. Mr. Cox. I will show the gentleman immediately that I am in order. I am going to make the connection [laughter], and will do it without the aid of the negro. The principle on which we will accord justice to England, and on which Ave shall demand justice from England, is to demand our rights and do our duty in return. Our justification in the case of the Trent is, that her act Avas one of hostility in bearing these ambassadors ; and hostility, whether it consist in caiTying despatches, envoys, or other and worse than contraband, in a neutral merchant ship. It Avill not do to ansAver that no case like this has ever been adjudged. Nearly all the Spanish-American ambassadors, during the revolutions of their States, that have been sent betAVCen this continent and Europe, have been sent cither in British or American ships, and liaA'e never been inter- fered Avith. European ambassadors passing from nation to nation have, by reason of the geographical relations of the countries, never been dis- turbed ; and hence specific cases of this nature have not arisen hitherto. The principle Avhich regulates tliese international questions is this : it has been decided that a neutral ship bearing despatches in time of Avar shall be confiscate, and if confiscate Avhen bearing despatches, a fortiori^ if such A'cssel bears ambassadors, Avho arc of far greater consequence than despatches. Tlie mission of ambassadors is of i'ar more iinportance than battalions of armed men and Avhole cargoes of shot, shell, guns, sabres, and other contraband. An ambassador may carry in himself alliances Avhich Avill giA'c credit, raise loans and armies, and even soh'c revolutions. The ambassadors of this GoA'crnment, in our RcA-olution, consummated alliances and made treaties and loans, Avhich enabled us to secure recognition and indcpcndonco. Tlien there is in this case a stronger reason Avhy the vessel should be confiscated when she bears that Avhicli is much more important to the enemy than despatches. Our ambassador in the Revolution, Mr. Laurens, Avas considered of so much importance FOKEIGN AFFAIRS. 165 by the British Government that they exchanged him for Lord Comwallis, the commander-in-chief. And so in this case, these ambassadors, recog- nized as snch by the President of their so-called Confederate States in his message, are of fifty-fold more importance than merely articles con- traband of war. NoAV, the right, in time of war, of every belligerent ship to search all vessels, except national vessels, for contraband, has never been denied. The Queen's proclamation proceeded upon this principle. Plautefeuille propounds this doctrine. Chief Justice Marshall recognized it in the Santisima Trinidad case (7 Wheaton, 283). " Two publicists, Wbeaton and Ortolan, adopting the opinion of the English judges, look upon the transport of despatches by a neutral as an act quite as grave as the trans- port of troops, and as leading to the confiscation of the neutral vessel." Such is the language of Hautefeuille. Hostile despatches are in the same category with contraband. (Cbittv's Law of Nations, p. 147 ; PhiUimore, 368, 370 ; 1 Kent, 154 ; Wheaton, 529.) In the case of the Orozembo, which carried three soldiers and two civilians in the Dutch service from Macao to Batavia, Sir William Scott held: " This is the case of an admitted American vessel ; but the title to restitution is im- pugned on the ground of its having been employed, at the time of the capture, in the service of the enemy, in transporting military persons, first to Macao, and ultimately to Batavia. That a vessel hired by the enemy for the conveyance of military persons is to be considered as a transport subject to condemnation has been in a recent case held by this court, and on other occasions. AVhat is the number of mihtary persons that shaU constitute such n case it may be difficult to define. Whether the principle would apply to them alone, I do not feel it necessary to determine. I am not aware of any case in which that question has been agitated ; but it appears to me, on principle, to be but rea- sonable that whenever it is of sufiicient importance to that enemy that such persons should be sent out on the public service at the public expense, it should aflbrd equal ground of forfeiture against the vessel that may be let out for a purpose so intimately connected with the hostile operations." The same principle is held in Hazlett and Roache's Manual of Mari- time Warfare, page 293. It is strongly stated, in its reason and princi- ple, by Lord Stowell in the case of the Maria (1 Robinson, 340), as fol- lows : " The right of visiting and searching merchant ships upon the high seas, whatever be the ships, whatever be the cargoes, whatever be the destinations, is an incontestable right of the lawfully commissioned cruisers of a belhgerent nation." * * * " This right is so clear in principle that no man can deny it who admits the legality of marine capture." * * * " fhe right is equally clear in practice, for practice is uni- form and universal upon this subject. The many European treaties which refer to this right, refer to it as preexisting, and merely regulate the exercise of it. All writers upon the law of nations unanimously acknowledge it. In short, no man in the least degree con- versant with subjects of this kind has ever, that I know of, breathed a doubt upon it." In the case of the Atalanta, decided in 1808 (6 Robinson, 440), the learned judge said : " Nor let it be supposed that it is an act of light or casual importance. The conse- quence of such a service is indefinite — infinitely beyond the effect of any contraband that can be conveyed. The carrying even of two cargoes of stores is necessaiily an assistance of a limited nature ; but in the transmission of despatches may be conveyed the entire plan of a campaign that may defeat all the projects of the other belligerent in that quar- ter of the world." 166 EIGHT YEAES IX CONGRESS. In a subsequent case, •when the despatches were in course of convey- ance, not from the colonies of the enemy, but from a State in comity, and from the public ambassador of the enemy, residing in that State, to his own Government, Sir William Scott restored the vessel's cargo on pay- ment of the captor's expenses ; thus holding the search and capture justi- fiable. In distinguishing this case from the preceding, he said : " I have before said that persons discharging the functions of ambassadors are, in a peculiar manner, objects of the protection and favor of the law of nations. The limits that are assigned to the operations of war against them, by Vattel, and other writers upon these subjects, are, that you may exercise your right of war against them wherever the character of hostility exists ; you may stop the ambassador of your enemy on his pas- sage," kc.—The Caroline, 6 Rob., 461^68. Mr. Gushing, in his perspicuous and able discussion of this subject, maintains the principle by which this question can be determined. From his abundant learning in international law and his cogent logic, he de- duces the doctrine which I venture to say no English jurist will dispute. He says : " The belligerent seizures of enemy despatches and military persons, although not pre- cisely in point as cases, are yet the common corollaries of the same principle as the arrest of enemy ambassadors. To argue the contrary would be to make the law of nations a mere collection of detached facts, instead of a system of doctrines and principles. That is not so. New or doubtful cases may occur, innovations may be accomplished or at- tempted, in the law of nations, as in any branch of municipal law ; but principle remains, doctrines subsist, general rules are to be reasoned out for the guidance of nations and of men, as well in the juridical relations of nations as of men. And the doctrine here i3 that of contraband of war ; the principle, that of the duty of all neutral Governments to abstain from affording military aid to either recognized belligerent ; and, in like manner, to abstain from affording political aid to the insurgents of another Government, save when the time may have come, if it ever shall come, to treat such insurgents as a new, inde- pendent State, and to do that even at the risk and responsibility of war with the legiti- mate Government." I might add to this the authority of Mr. Everett ; and to his, the opinion which I received to-day in a letter from a statesman now in re- tirement [Mr. Buchanan], who has served his coimtry as a diplomatist at two of the leading courts of Europe, besides filling our office of Sec- retary of State Avith consummate ability. The case of tlie Trent in theu* judgment isiembraced within the reason of the rule laid down for des- patches and contraband. The more this question is examined, the more impregnable is our po- sition. Nor is there any thing in our previous diplomacy to weaken it. I had supposed, before examining tlie question, tliat we were precluded by our previous conduct from asserting this principle. But the question upon which this Government once went to war with (ircat Britain was in resistance of her claim to take from our shij)S British suhjcctx — not am- bassadors. Nor does our denial of the right of search, whicli was in- volved in tlic slave trade, preclude us from asserting the position I main- tain. That doctrine had reference exclusively to a time of peace. There is notliing, then, in our diplomatic record to weaken our position. It is enough now for us that on this ground we may safely say to England : " Fulfil your neutral obligations. Until yju do so, you cannot quarrel with us fur the exercise of our most indubitable right. If you insist on belligerent rights between North and South, do not, as a neutral, I FOEEIGN AFFAIRS. 167 help the one belligerent, to the detriment of the other ; for, as Vattel and all publicists hold, this is fraud." In this spirit alone can our relations toward Great Britain continue ami- cable. We Avill readily yield her rightful demands, as in this case of the Perthshu'e. We yield nothing — nothixg, to her arrogance, passion, or pride, when we are clearly in the right. The letter of Genei*al Jackson to Livingston, the original of which was read by the historian Bancroft at a New York meeting, and applied by him to disunionists here, may be as appropriately applied to their sympathizers abroad : " The Union must be preserved without blood, if this be possible ; but it must be preserved at all hazard, and at any price." This Jacksonian talk has ever been my rule of action here : •' The Union, loithoid bloodshed, if possible; but THE Union at all hazakd and at any price." So with our honor among the nations. For it is thus, and thus only, that in the conflict for our national existence, we will avoid entanglement and conflict with na- tions whose material interests, as they think, depend upon our discomfit- ure, and whose chronic jealousy of our republican success has led their rulers to hail our anticipated disruption and ruin Avith delight. We are, sir, in this country too sensitive of foreign opinion. Mr. Seward said weU when he told Mr. Dayton that it was no business of our ambassadors to overhear what the foreign press or foreign ministers said about us. Our duty Avas to maintain our Union in its integrity, and our position as a leading Power among mankind, regardless of the machina- tions of rebels at home, and the derision and hostility of kings and aristo- crats abroad. I know that we naturally dislike to have our institutions misrepresented, and our destruction predicted. There is much in the old Spanish motto, " De mi rey, solo yo " — no one shall speak of our king except ourselves ; no one shall speak of our sovereignty but ourselves. I would that we were more indifferent to the poisoned shafts of foreign malice, barbed as they are by aristocratic hate and pretension. We have been freely scorned by nations Avhose moral standard is measured by their commercial profit and loss, whose national honor depends upon a cotton pod, whose philanthropy has been an intermeddling Phariseeism, and whose complacent neutrality, so promptly assumed, seems to glory in the humil- iation of a kindred and Christian nation, without regi-et or sympathy, be- cause of its splendid illustration of commercial grandeur, and its defiant adherence to democratic government. Let us, sir, pursue our duty to the age and the nation Avith unruffled composure and determined aa^U. Heaven does not desert the undismayed. Even though there may be foreign troubles impending, for us to despair now is to die. I like the motto of the old Romans, Avhich I have, in this hour of our trial, often commended to my constituents, " never to despair of the Republic ! " They used to write it upon the lintel of their doors, and to emblazon it upon their temples. It was upon the lips of the peo- ple, it was in the mouths of their orators, " never to despair of the Repub- lic ; " and AA'hen a Roman general, even in the agony of his defeat, gave out the inspiring words, " never to despair of ,the Republic," a Roman Senate voted him a triumphal entry within her imperial gates. Let us fling aside the burden of our national woe, lament nothing of the irrevocable past, dare all that is just and constitutional ; make no cruel 168 EIGHT YEARS IN CONGRESS. and disastrous div'ersJons from the great object of rescuing our national- ity ; crush as we would a nest of adders those who Avould impair its pro- portions as well as those who would turn us from that object to other and ignoble objects, involving fresh divisions, broken armies, social revolu- tions, servile insurrections, perpetual penalties, and eternal hates ; and move, each and all, heart, soul, body, men, means, munitions, intelli- gence, and patriotism, to the grand and only object — the restoration of our dismantled Union. Thus feeling and thus acting, we may emerge from this strife of struggling States ; and, like the fabled demigod, re- ceive added strength from our very prostration. If, sir, we observe the rules of right and honor in regulating our conduct abroad, if we observe the object of the war that is now upon us, as the President proclaimed it to the people, as the soldiers of the Republic understand it, as the House resolved it in the Crittenden resolutions, and as the Constitution and the Union demand, we may be assured that our martial resources, the intelli- gence and valor of the masses, the very physical geogi'aphy of the coun- try, and God himself, will fight for us against this rebellion. I believe that Providence has marked upon the face of this continent — written in lines never to be erased — that this Union, as it vv^as, shall remain, one and indivisible. I believe in the idea suggested by Mr. Everett, that our physical geography binds us and bars us together. He said that before this Union could be permanently broken, the Alleghanies must bow their heads to the ocean, and the Mississippi and the Missouri roll back their currents to the Rocky Mountains. If we would assure to posterity the po- litical Union we have lived under so happily, we should forget all thoughts of vengeance, seize, with statesmanlike sagacity, upon the elements of unity we have even yet in our unhappy land, and mould them iu the spirit of conciliation and wisdom ; keeping out of these halls fatal and disas- trous discussions on inflammatory and sectional topics ; keeping the one holy object before us for wliich the lives of our brave soldiers are so freely offered, and the millions of our means are so freely expended. With this object nobly pursued, God will be with us, and our arms will prevail ! We have many elements of union. We have as yet a common blood, a common language, a common heritage, a common ancestry, a common history, a common glory, and a common faith in the same heavenly Father. Thanks to their courageous patriotism, avc have many of the noblest men from the South still with us, taking their part in our legisla- tion, and sharing the perils of the Republic. They sit around me, with eye unblenched and spirit unbroken. I am ready to heed now, as I have always heeded, their counsel, when they tell us how rightly to mould these elements of union for its restoration. Mr. Speaker, if we would thus act all may yet l)e well. We may come from this great struggle strength- ened and purified by sacrifice, more young, more exultant, more progres- sive, and inspired with a purer if not so ostentatious a consciousness of our great destiny, under Pi'ovidence. I move you, sir, llicrefbre, that this bill 1 have discussed preliminarily may be put on its passage. FOEEIGN" AFFAIES. 169 DEMOCRACY OF THE SEA. PARIS CONFERENCES SECRETAET MAUCY'S REPLY RIGHTS OF NEUTRALS — THE LIBERAL AMERICAN MARITIME POLICY, CONTRASTED WITH THAT OF ENGLAND. Ox the 3d of March, 1862, Mr. Cox introduced the following joint resolution in relation to maritime rights : Whej-eas international law cannot acquire any considerable extension except by the collective work of the nations either assembled in congress by delegates, or by the com- bined negotiation of the principal nations : and whereas the events connected with the Trent affair have given rise to the discussion of maritime rights by the principal powers of the world, all interested in their authoritative settlement ; and in that discussion the friendly offices of the Emperor of France were tendered to this Government for the pur- pose of adjusting the questions involved on a clear and liberal basis, looking to the ameUoration of the lights of neutrals upon the sea : Therefore — Be it resolved, &c. First. — That the national legislature acknowledges the friendly in- tentions and enlightened views of the Emperor of the French in said interposition. Second. — That it favors the most liberal propositions with respect to maritime rights and the aboUtion of such usages as restrict the liberty of neutrals and multiply the causes of dissension in the world, believing that humanity and justice demand that the calamities incident to war should be strictly limited to the belligerents themselves and to those who voluntarily take part with them ; but that neutrals abstaining in good faith from such complicity ought to be left to pursue their ordinary trade with either belligerent. Third. — That the present time is propitious for the resumption of negotiations to se- cure these objects, and especially for the concurrence of the nations in the benignant ar- ticles of the declaration of the Congress of Paris of the sixteenth of April, eighteen hun- dred and fifty-six, with the amendment proposed by Mr. Marcy, viz : — 1. Privateering is and remains abolished, provided that the private property of the subjects or citizens of a belligerent on the high seas shall be exempted from seizure by public armed vessels of the other belligerent, except it be contraband. 2. The neutral flag covers enemy's goods, with the exception of contraband of war. 3. Neutral goods, with the exception of con- traband of war, are not hable to capture under the eneiuy's flag. 4. Blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective. Fourth. — That the people of the United States entertain the hope that the great mari- time powers of France and England, relinquishing their present objections growing out of their ill-advised recognition of our insurgent States as belligerents, will consent to the propositions of the Paris conference, as the United States have so constantly invited, and as Mr. Marcy proposed to the Government of France on the twenty-eighth day of July, eighteen hundred and fifty-six ; with such a liberal expansion of them that the private property, not contraband, of citizens and subjects of nations in collision should be ex- empted from confiscation equally in warfare waged on the land and in warfare waged upon the seas, which are the common highways of the nations. Fifth. — That the efforts of the late Secretary Marcy and the present Secretary of State to have these maxims ingrafted as fixed principles of international law were eminently wise and just, sanctioned by our traditionary policy, and conducive to the welfare of the Republic, and to the highest interests of peace and civilization. Sixth. — That, for the accomplishment of this result, it would be both courteous and wise for our Government to consider the proposal of the eminent publicist of France, M. Hautefeuiile, for a congress of the maritime powers, which, by uniting in one body the scattered forces of all neutrals, may secure to each the respect and security which they cannot obtain while remaining isolated ; and that thus they may be enabled to maintain, as a lasting element of the law of nations, that maritime equilibrium so long sought by the United States of America, and so important to the freedom of commerce and the re- pose of the world. On the 11th of April, 18G2, I advocated these resolutions. Had our lYO EIGHT TEAKS IN CONGRESS. Government in its intestine conflict followed these doctrines upon the land, it would to-day stand upon a firmer gi-ound of vantage than it now eojoys. It would commend this nation with emphasis to the attention of mankind, as the advocate of liberal laws, applicable to another and less stable ele- ment. Mr. Cox said : These resolutions reassert the American doctrine in favor of neutral rights, and for the protection of private property on the sea. It has been the privilege of this Government, ever since its existence, to champion the equality of rights upon the sea. Against force and tra- dition, kingcraft and aristocracy, we have asserted by our institutions de- mocracy upon the earth. Against force, tradition, and pretension, we have asserted democracy upon the sea. Not more dear to the American honor is the equality of right among our citizens under the Constitution than is the equality of right of our ships and property under our flag upon the ocean. There is no time unseasonable for its assertion. In the midst of our Revolution it was a theme of interest to our statesmen, and in the present troubles of our countiy it deserves a prominent place in our thoughts. In a debate in the English House of Commons, on the 17th of March, Mr. Disraeli said that the question of maritime rights Avas the most important question that could engage the attention of an English legislature, as it atFected seriously the naval strength of that country. But for the overwhelming necessity created by the rebellion here, the same might be asserted with even more force with regard to our own Government. Not only is this true, because we are a commercial people — not only because our commerce and our sea-coast surpass those of any other nation — ^but because the relative strength of our commerce and our navy is such that all our interests lie in following the neutral line of pol- icy, and in the protection of private property from devastation by the large navies of the Old World. The organs of aristocratic pretension in England, like the " Times," speak- ing as well for the Government as tor the Tory party led by Lord Derby, oppose any further concession to neutrals upon the sea. These organs, while exulting over what they arc pleased to tei*m the disgraceful failure of democracy in America, evidenced by our rebellion, condemn with Eng- lish stubbornness, and in their isolated pride, the humane principles of their own liberalists like Bright, Cobden, Ilorsefall, and Baring. They affect to regard the anxiety of their commei'cial class for a better code of maritime law as the suicide of British naval supremacy. They look with jealousy and hate upon the efforts of French statesman like Chevalier, Ilautefeuille, Thouvenel, and, I may add. Napoleon, for the freedom of the seas. Indeed, the Englisli Government, judging l)y the recent debates, are ready to retrograde from their present position taken at the instance of France, at the Paris Conference, in favor of neutral rights. One thing was developed in those debates. England must eilher creep back to her old selfisli i)olicy, or advance to our liberal doctrine. To remain as she is, will, in case of war, give her commerce to neutrals and her cruisers to idleness. With tlie efforts of France, seconded as they are by all other Powers except England, and perhaps Spain, the United States are in FOREIGN APFAIES. lYl closest sympathy. My resolutions express that sympathy. They are the answer of our people to the tenders of France. I would especially commend these resolutions to the study of members who represent commercial cities, both upon the Atlantic and Pacific. They are not without vital interest to the agricultural and mechanical interests, however remote from the coast. My own district has no direct commerce. But, " Though inland far we be," our interest, which is agriculture, is imbound with commerce by golden bands. Commerce does not suiFer without all interests suffering. The ship that ploughs its furrows upon the sea is bringing the harvest reward to the husbandman who ploughs the soU in the far-oif valleys of the West. The importance of commerce in civilization cannot be overrated. The interdependence of States is the highest evidence of their true independ- ence. The most flourishing States have attained their highest elevation when closely connected with every part of the civilized world by success- ful commerce. When they lost their enterprise on the sea, they sank in the scale of nations. Heaven has ordered through the sea a mutual de- pendence. Soil, climate, and the variety of the earth's productions knit nations in mutual enterprise, while they bind society together in mutual dependence. All the illuminations of knowledge, the generosities of heart, and the multiplied means of human happiness, are the results of com- merce. The more free commerce is, the more light, humanity, and happi- ness the world enjoys. The less restricted that interdependence, the more opulent are the blessings of the civilization it bestows. Let the fetters which war imposes on commerce melt away, and "with the reforms already made in the maritime law, we can truly say that in no season or contingency shall civilization retrograde, and the " seas wdU but join the regions they divide." The liberation of commerce from its trammels has been the work of many ages. Especially has the task of liberating neu- tral commerce during war, and of defining articles contraband, been the object of many commercial treaties. The navigation laws, defining what are national ships, the mode of registry, their peculiar privileges, and the conditions under which foreign ships shall be allowed to engage in the trade of the country, either as importers or exporters, or as carriers from one part of the country to another, though greatly ameliorated, are still the subject of liberal legislation for further reform. That nation which wlU guard its commerce and meliorate its restrictions will surely reap the benefits, in the credit, importance, and independence of its citizens and its nationality. It is with this high purpose that the Committee on Foreign Affairs will present before Congress these resolutions. It is perfectly consistent for a fair mind to sustain these resolutions and still retain the belief that the persons seized on board the Trent were contraband, at least in the English sense of that term ; and however we may differ as to the propriety of restoring the persons seized, there can be no difference in asking for a better code in reference to contraband, and a code inspired with a different spirit from that which has dictated the English opinions. 172 EIGHT YEAES ES" CONGRESS. In the remarks Avlaicli I submitted on the Trent question, I argued that, from an English stand-point, England could not make reclamation, and until she reversed her own authorities she could not in justice complain of the action of Captain Wilkes as illegal. I now turn from the conduct of England, which has settled nothing of principle involved in the ques- tions, to the enlightened action of France and the other PoAvers of Europe v/hicli have shown au interest in the case, as a matter of principle involv- ing neutral rights. I find nothing to condemn, but every thing to com- mend, in the action of the French Government submitted to the Commit- tee. It was dictated by her traditional friendship for this country. There is no reason to believe that France was moved by any other motive than that expressed by her Minister of Foreign Affairs in his letter of the 3d of December, 1861, in which he says that the desire of France was to prevent a conflict, perhaps imminent, between the two friendly Powers — England and the United States — and to uphold " for the rights of her own flag certain principles essential to the security of neutrals." There is nothing in this letter incompatible with the sentiments of the French nation toward us, expressed in the despatches of M. Thouvenel to the French Minister at Washington on the 16tli of May last. In that letter the French Emperor is represented as anxious to do all in his power toward strength- ening and maintaining the American Union. He says : " The Emperor, indeed, has always held the great qualities of the American people in too high esteem, and has had it too much at heart to draw closer the bonds which unite them to France, to look with indifference upon the calamities which now threaten them. His Majesty desires that the United States should not lose, by any political disintegration, their standing as a great Power, and that they should not abdicate, to the injury of the general interests of civilization and humanity, the position which their rapid and brilliant development has assigned them. Should, therefore, such circumstances arise that the friendly intentions of the Emperor should seem likely to lead to a reconciliation between the States of the South and those of the North, his Majesty would, with the most cordial enthusiasm, contribute to the extent of his influence toward the strengthening or the maintenance of the Union." France has made no demonstration of a change of these sentiments from that day to the present. There is nothing in the French minister's despatch on the Trent affair inconsistent with these earnest avowals of friendship. Congress would be insensible to these tenders, did it not commend Ihem to the approbation of the American people. Not only was there no intermeddling by France in this matter, not only was her tender the index of a cordial amity, but the subject-matter of her despatch — the rights of neutrals upon the sea — was a subject in which she had a common interest with us and with all maritime Powers. It was a subject in which she had, at our suggestion some years since, taken a leading and lively interest. It was a subject the most important before the Paris conferences which closed the Crimean war. It was urged upon her attention during the past summer by our ovax Government. Her interest in it is only second to that of this Republic. It has been manifested iu the enlightened scntimculs of her publicists and the diplo- matic missives of her ministers. I purposely pretermit any discussion of (he question, whether the seizure of the Trent and the arrest of certain of her passengers was right or v/rong. It will serve no purpose now to inquire whether her passen- FOKEIGN APFAIES. 173 gers were contraband, and the act of carrying them hostile. I do not pur- pose to reopen the controversy Avhether, if the seizure was right, the de- livery of the persons seized was right or wrong. The world is aware that by British precedents, the British Government could not, without disavowing its old policy as to what is contraband of war, make reclama- tion for the persons seized. Mr. Seward well say;^, " that he was not tempted at all by suggestions that cases might be found in history where Great Britain refused to yield to other nations, and even to ourselves, claims like that now before us. " Perhaps it Avoidd have been wiser had the Trent dispute been arbitrated by a friendly Power like that of France. She would, as is now apparent, have settled it by the release of the prisoners seized. In that case, we would have had an authoritative prece- dent, binding Great Bi'itain for all time, and made in harmony with the liberal maritime policy which it has been the pride of this Republic to urge upon the nations since our existence, and which we have, in the first years of this Government, ingrafted upon treaties with foreign Powers. It would have been full compensation to us for the mortification which was felt, when we yielded these persons to the English demand, had we succeeded in crystallizing into international law that lenient and catholic policy with regard to neutrals, private property, and non-combatants on the seas which has obtained on land, and which, as Mr. Seward well says, is an " old, honored, and cherished American cause, not upon British authorities, but upon principles that constitute a large part of the distinc- tive policy by Avhich the United States have developed the resources of a continent, and thus becoming a considerable maritime Power, have won the respect and confidence of many nations. " It is doubtless true, that the United States have received from the men of other times and countries those suggestions as to the freedom of the seas and the rights of neutrals of which she has made herself the especial friend and champion. Such doctrines were the natural result of opposi- tion to the extravagant pretensions of great naval Powers. They were the result of natural reason, rebelling against arbitrary force. Nations have at different eras pretended to exclusive control of the sea, especially that part adjacent to their territories. Denmark claimed the Sound and other Baltic passes. Venice espoused the Adriatic. The Portuguese claimed the South Atlantic and the Indian Oceans. Spain once pretended to have exclusively the Gulf of Mexico. The gifted Selden, in his Mare Clausum, claimed for England the four seas adjacent to Great Britain. During the war with Napoleon, England claimed municipal rule over the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and the Baltic ; and by her orders in council and her acts of Parliament assumed to control the neutral commerce of those seas. Napoleon retaliated. America, through Jefferson, appropriately called these acts " a lawless system of piracy." America held that the sea was the common highway of all ; that the only control which one nation had over the sea was the curtUage of soil and jurisdiction seaward a cannon shot or marine league. This is the principle laid doAvn by the best writers, and it is the doc- trine which the United States has, ever since its existence, been endeavor- ing to ingraft on maritime law. The vessel is the floating territory of the nation under whose flag it sails, and no Power can rightfully question 174 EIGHT YEAES IN CONGKESS. or curtail its privilege upon the sea. John Quincy Adams, following the principle of Grotius, nay, of the Saviour himself, declared that all belli- gerent practices in violation of the freedom of the seas rested on force and not on natural right. In 1823, as Secretary of State, he declared to our Minister at Colombia the doctrines of these resolutions. But he was only an humble follower of Benjamin FrankHn and his compatriots of the Revolution. In the twehth article of our treaty with Prussia of 1785, these doctrines are most distinctly set forth. The reasons assigned by Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson for such improvements in public law are not selfish, not exclusive, not national, but coextensive with the inter- ests of humanity. These statesmen hoped to see the day when cultiva- tors of the earth, fishermen, merchants, traders in unarmed ships, artists, mechanics, and all who are not directly engaged in the work of war, should receive immunity from its ravages. They denounced the practice of robbing merchants, either by public or private armed ships, as a rem- nant of ancient piracy. They wished the calamities of war softened, and hostilities to be made rare by removing the cupidity which prompted them. Washington, in his letter to Count de Rochambeau of July 31, 178G, spoke of this treaty with Prussia as the most liberal which had ever been made, as original, as marking a new era in negotiation, and as tending more fully to produce a general pacification than any measure heretofore attempted by mankind. Henry Clay, as Secretary of State, in his instructions to our Panama commissioners, caught the very genius of these principles, and sought to have them impressed upon the public law of this continent ; while later, President Pierce and Secretary Marcy, filled vrith the generous thought, and with an argument which has no reply, sought to afiix them to the laws of the world as the tribute of Amei'ican statesmanship to the interests of mankind. Indeed, America has scarcely a great name whose fame is not inwoven Avith this doctrine of free seas. In the time of Madison — one of the most sagacious expounders — we went to war with England for its settlement. Time has done what arms did not and what diplomacy could not do. To-day there is no pretension to search our ships for seamen. The globe we live upon, three-fourths of which is covered with water, no longer tolerates the arbiti-ary usages of the powerful ; but the weakest State as well as the greatest may com- pass the ends of the world without fear or hindrance. For these im- provements in the interchanges of mankind, the world owes a debt of gratitude to the United States. In the development of this distinctive policy France has ever been a collaborutcur with our Republic. Her interests and her inclination have accorded with ours. That so much cannot be said of Groat Britain is owing, in part, to our peculiar relations with her, as her own revolution- ary child ; in part, to her being for so many years of our maritime progress a belligerent, while we were a neutral, and to her chronic fear lest the rising Republic of the West should dispute with her the trident, which she has so long and so powerfully wielded. Whatever may l)e our present untoward situation with respect to our domestic conflicts, it is not the policy of this country to change its former relations toward other Powers. Peace has been the history of this nation. However gloomy the war cloud may lower over us, peace will continue FOEEIGN ATFAIES. 1Y5 to increase the greatness we have achieved by its blessings. Hence our interest lies, not in clamoring for belligerent, but in the recognition of neutral rights. Tell me not that we may become a belligerent, and then that this yielding of belligerent rights in favor of neutrals will be to our prejudice. I care not if we do become a belligerent with Great Britain, the greatest naval power. So long as we have a larger commerce than hers and a less naval force, our interest even as belligerent with her still lies in the protection of our private property under neutral flags, or in our hostile flag covering the goods of friends. If we can obtain her assent to the Marcy doctrine, that her armed cruisers shall not harm our commerce, we may well agree that our privateers shall not harm hers. In case of the adoption of the Marcy amendment, the vforst result to be apprehended by England in case of vv^ar y^^ith us, is the comparative uselcssuess of her immense naval force. Her cruisers would be used only to fight our cruisers on the sea, or to blockade our ports. Our commerce would go on ; and under the improvements in mailing ships Avith iron, her blockades would be of little avail, under the guns of our Monitors. Therefore we would gain, even as belligerents yfiih England or any other Power, were the doctrines I contend for embodied in the code inter- national. But om* interests will seldom be those of belligerents ; our policy is ever that of peace. Neutrality has enriched us. Our peaceful attitude during the Napoleonic and Crimean wars not only filled the sails of our merchantmen with enterprise, but the coffers of our merchants with money. "We are not an aggressive people. Our interests lie alongside of our civilization, and we are to conquer the material wealth of the world by our interchanges and treaties. Whatever, therefore, aids us in this regard should be the aim of our statesmen and the ambition of our people. Hap- pily, France, Prussia, Russia, Austria, Italy, and all the other maritime Powers, unless it be England, have with us, and have expressed to us, an identity of interest and policy ; and these are in unison with the interests, honor, progress, and civilization of each and every' nation. It is not imbecoming now for the Representatives of the American people, while the discussion of these maritime questions is rife in both hemispheres, to give its emphatic declaration. Public opinion is one of the sources of international laAV. By its silent influences treaties are cele- brated, congresses of nations are convened, maxims of policy are declared, and usages are inaugurated. Such a declaration is the more becoming novr, because our action at the beginning of the present session in approv- ing the seizure of the persons from the Trent is liable to be interpreted against the policy which we have maintained with respect to neutrals. Our diplomacy has ever advocated the most liberal views, while our courts base their decisions on what the rest of Christendom has regarded as the exceptional rules of English admiralty law. We have tried ever since our existence as a nation to change these rules of English origin by nego- tiation ; but our Supreme Court, with the maxim, stare decisis, have kept on holding what the law of nations was at the time we were a part of Great Britain, and, as a consequence, our thoughts are far ahead of the law, and our treaties in advance of our jurisprudence. From France we have abundant evidence that her Government and people agree to the doctrines propounded to them by us in 1^56, and em- 176 EIGHT TEAE3 IN CONGEESS. bracing witli the amendment of Mr. Marcythe Paris declarations of 1856, which she inaugurated. If it were necessary to prove this to the Ameri- can Congress, I would refer to a letter of the distinguished editor of Wheaton, Hon. TV. Beach Lawrence, to whose learned pen I am indebted for many suggestions in this connection. While perusing the papers placed at his disposition by the last Administration, he found : — 1. An entire unanimity of sentiment among the minor maritime Powers in favor of the Marcy proposition, as necessary to give effect to the Paris declara- tions ; 2. The adhesion of Russia and Prussia with the most generous cordiality ; 3. The assent of Italy, through Count Cavour, to the Marcy amendment. That statesman told our minister at Turin that England was the only obstacle to the adoption of the principle. " She," he said, " did not wish to render private property free from the devastation of war, while she wished the United States to give up privateering, or, if unable to do that, to render the right valueless, by depriving the United States of the right which they had hitherto enjoyed in neutral ports. 4. The assurance by Count Walewski, in November, 1856, that the French Government would agree to the declaration as modified by us, though the formal assent was deferred, with a view to consultation Avith the other parties to the Paris declaration ; 5. A disposition on the part of English statesmen to consider the question, with a view to certain reservations to be submitted to the Powers called to examine and settle the questions. But whatever may be the formal alliance of England with France — in Turkey, Mexico, or China — France is our ally in these doctrines. She has ever been faithful to them. She has procured the accession of forty- six Powers to them. The correspondence of this Government Avith her last summer, shows that she Avould have been willing to have treated with us on their basis, as enlarged by the proposition of Secretary Marcy. Mr. Dayton was induced to urge the adoption of the Marcy amendment ex- empting private property from seizure and confiscation, not only, as he says, because it Avas the wish of the President, and l)ecause of the great importance of securing the adoption of the principle before the United States should give up the right of privateering; but also " because the facts patent in the correspondence of the American Legation at Paris in 1856, show that France and Russia Avere both favorably disposed at that time to the adoption of the principle of the amendment (sec Mr. Marcy's dispatch to Mr. Mason, No. 94, dated October 4, 1856, and Mr. Mason's confidential letter to Mr. Dallas of December 6, 1856), and from the ob- vious fact that it AA'Ould be the interest of all the other Powers having little naval force to concur in the amendment." (See papers ou Foreign AlFairs, 1862, p, 210.) So that France, as early as 1856, Avas ready to accept the Marcy amendment, and but for the clause in the Paris couvcutiou, binding cacli parly against further negotiation on the subject Avithout the consent of all the parties, she doubtless Avould have accomplished her Avish tlicn. (See papers on Foreign Aflixirs, 1862, p. 109.) Her Minister of Foreign Affairs, in his letter of the 3d of December, 1861, most respect- fully protests against our falling back upon vexatious i)raclices, against Avhich in other epochs no PoAvcr has more earnestly protested tlian the Unit('(l States. But, as still more significant, avc find tliat the most dis- tinguished Avrilcr on the hiAV of nations in France, or in the Avorld — M. FOEEIQN AFFAIRS. 17*1 Hautefeuille — in the Bevice Contemporaine of February last, enters his most learned and pointed protest against those evils of naval warfare which for " upwards of two hundred years, whenever the nation most powerful at sea has been engaged in hostilities, has inflicted quite as much damage upon neutrals as upon its adversary." He appeals to France, to us, to the world, to take part in a new coalition of neutrality ; which, like that of Russia in 1780, will form an aggregate sufficiently formidable to coun- terbalance the naval superiority of any belligerents. " The maritime equilibrium, so important for the repose and freedom of the universe, will thus be established. Formed in anticipation of war, it will subsist in time of peace, and become a lasting element in the international relations of civilized peoples." Cotemporaneous with this exposition from France, I observe without much surprise a retrogressive spirit from England. With- out surprise, for I have not been unobservant of the fact, that English claims to superiority on the ocean, and her continued status of belligeren- cy, hardly consist with such liberal sentiments as those proposed by France, or even those adopted by herself at the Paris conferences of 1856. It was therefore not surprising that Earl Malmesbury, an ex-Foreign Seo- /etary of England, in a debate brought us by a late steamer, referring to the declaration of the Paris conferences, in relation to the inviolability of an enemy's goods in neutral ships, said that her Majesty's Government in time of war would be induced to disregard its obligatory nature. He was asked by Earl Granville to modify this extraordinary language. He only added to its force by a sentiment, which has been too often acted on by England, that a warlike people like the English would not be restrained, in the extremity of war, by a paper declaration made at Paris in 1856 ! In the same debate, the present Foreign Secretary, Earl Russell, volun- teered to say, and I think with more meaning than meets the ear, that he did not quite approve the declaration made at Paris ! In a more recent debate, on the 11th ultimo, the member for Liverpool, Mr. HorsfaU, offered a resolution, expressing the truth, that the present state of inter- national law, as affecting belligerents and neutrals, is iU-defined and un- satisfactory. He contended that England must retreat from her Paris declaration or advance toward the Marcy amendment. As she stood now, the effect upon England would be to throw the carrying trade wholly into neutral hands, or to diminish her fighting power by diverting a large part of her naval force for convoys. But the Government opposed this move- ment of commerce. The Attorney-General and Secretary of War disap- proved the resolution. Lord Palmerston, concluding the debate, said " that the principle contended for, if carried into practice, would level a fatal blow at the naval power of tliis country, and would be an act of po- litical suicide." So that we may not be surprised if England recedes from the Paris declaration. It was not without reluctance that Lord Cowley agreed to the four propositions of that conference looking to the liberation of commerce from the shackles of tradition, barbarism, and the vicissi- tudes of Avar. Scarcely had the Paris treaty been celebrated and pub- lished before a resolution was offered by Lord Colchester in the House of Lords, declaring " the right of capturing an enemy's goods on board of neutral vessels to be inherent in all belligerent Powei-s ; the maintenance of this right to be of essential importance, and its abandonment of serious 12 178 ■ EIGHT YEAES IN CONGRESS, injury to a power wliose main reliance is on her naval superiority," etc. That resolution, though it did not pass, received the votes of over a hun- dred of her Majesty's most conservative peers. Since *then, the English Government has been ill content with the acquiescence its ambassador gave at the green table of Paris in 1856. When the present Administration of this Government proposed again to accede to the Paris propositions, as the correspondence between IVIr. Adams and Earl Russell shows, England utterly rejected the benignant and enlightened policy by which Mr. Marcy proposed to accompany the abolition of privateers, namely : " that the private property of the subjects or citizens of a belligerent on the high seas shall be exempted from seizure by public ai-med vessels of the other belligerent, except it be contraband." There is, as I have said, no doubt that France, but for her alliance Avith England, would have accepted this amendment. Mr. Adams, in his letter to INIr. Seward of July 2G, 18G1, says that he learned from a personal interview with Mr. Dayton " that there was no reason to presume that there was any disinclination in France to adopt the Marcy amendment. Neither did the reply of M. Thouvenel entirely preclude the hope of its tdtimate success so far as the disposition of France may be presumed. The obstacles, if any there are, must be inferred to exist elsewhere. There can be no doubt that the opposition to this modification centres here [in London]. Independently of the formal announcement of Lord John Russell to me, that the proposition was declined, I have, from other sources of information, some reason to believe that it springs from the tenacity of a class of influential persons, by their age and general affinities averse to all sudden variations from established ideas." During the progress of the negotiations at London, it Avas ascertained that the Marcy amendment was inadmissible. Then our negotiators with much reluctance, at least on the part of Mr. Dayton, consented to the Paris propositions of 1856, pure and simple, including the abolition of privateering, without its proper equivalent, the protection of private prop- erty from public armed vessels. I honor Mr. Dayton's reluctance. Such a treaty ought never to be made. It never Avould have been con- firmed by any Senate speaking for the American people — never. But it was tendered Avithout the above valuable equivalent, when lo ! the British Government refused even to adopt it unconditionally. It turned out, that her reservation was for the benefit of the insurrectionists in the United States. Slie was Avilling to accept the Paris propositions, provided it would not aftcct any thing " already done." The thing already done by her was the recognition of our insurgent States as belligei-ents. By her conduct since, in the case of the Nashville, and her di])lomacv then, she fulfilled the prophecy of Mr. ScAvard, in his letter of May 21, 1861, to Mr. Adams : " If sbc refuse, it can only be because she is willing to become the patron of iirivateer- ing, when aimed at our devastation." — See papers on Foreign Affairs, p. T3. One tiling is sure : this Government could not for a mouicnt alloAv the abolition of jirivateers, in general, Avith an exct'ption iu favor of a domestic enemy Avitli a belligerent status abroad, Aviliiout compromising the " legal character of this Government as the exclusive soverei":u in FOREIGN AFFAIKS. 179 peace and war over all the States and Territories of the Federal Union, and over all citizens, disloyal and loyal alike." So that our attempts to reform the usages of maritime law in the interests of commerce, were met in a spirit hostile to the liberal views of France, and hostile to the progressive character of the age. The unrelenting rigidity of British policy upon the sea, Avhich it was hoped had been tempered with a higher civilization by her contact with the continental Powers at Paris in 1856, was again triumphant, to our discomfiture. Negotiations on the subject were suspended by the action of Great Britain. The Paris plenipoten- tiaries, on the 16th of April, 1856, undertook to settle the deplorable dis- putes arising out of the uncertainty of the law of neutrals and belliger- ents. They had seen the conflicts arising from differences of opinion as to the duties of neutrals and belligerents. They desired uniformity.' To this end they adopted the declaration: 1. That privateering remains abolished. 2. The neutral flag covers enemy's goods, with the exception of contraband of war. 3. Neutral goods, with the exception of contra- band of war, are not liable to capture under the enemy's flag. 4. Block- ades, in order to be binding, must be effective. The plenipotentiaries anticipated for these maxims the gratitude of the world. Nearly fifty Powers have adopted them. The United States offered to accede to them with the most beneficial expansion ; and again to accede to them pure and simple, which, in my judgment, was a most questionable and ill-ad- vised policy. So much for the history of negotiations on this subject. What now of the future of these questions? All history shows that treaties exist no longer than there is a power to enforce them. It is only by an alliance for neutrality, such as M. Hautefeuille proposes, that we can constrain England to respect the general law of nations, to which she is already a party, when that law is counter to her interests, traditions, and naval glory and supremacy. If England shoidd make unjust pretensions with i-eference to the rights of belligerents, such a congress could settle the matter with authority. It is well agreed among the wisest of mankind now what the rules of international jurisprudence should be on these sub- jects. It is our duty to make them as they ought to be. There are other questions as to neutral rights yet to be acted upon. Not only ought it to be settled now, that private property shall be re- spected on sea as on land ; but if contraband is excepted from the invio- lability of the neutral flag and cargo, it ought to be fixed what is and what is not contraband ; whether dispatches or persons are included in contraband — if persons, what and who ? whether confined to mihtary, or extended to civil and diplomatic, or quasi diplomatic persons ? Here is the pivotal point in these questions. They are insoluble, unless we know what contraband means. I would call attention to the last resolution, with reference to the meaning of contraband. It was the suggestion of the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the gen- tleman from Kentucky [Mr. Ckittenden], who now honors me with his attention. It expresses the hope that the Powers of the. world will define with exactitude the meaning of contraband, with a view to the least re- striction on trade. Had this been done before, the Trent difficulty never would have occurred. That question, in a nutshell, was whether contra- 180 EIGHT YEARS IN COKGEESS. band embraced hostile ambassadors. According to the English defini- tion, contraband means whatever will aid the enemy. Hence the term is indefinite and elastic. To settle its meaning w^ould be of great utility. It means gimpowder, it may mean coal. It means shot and shell, it may mean provisions. It means saltpetre, it may mean despatches. It means military men, it may mean ambassadors. It may mean any thing a bel- ligerent who has the power may determine. McCulloch, in his Diction- ary, page 881, in referring to this subject wdth his English inclinations against liberal views, says : " In judging of the wisdom of this concession, every thing depends on the interpreta- tion of the phrase 'contraband of war.' If it were restricted, as has usually been the case, to warlike stores {munitions de guerre), or articles directly available for warlike pur- poses, it would be in many respects justly censurable. For it is plain, that mider the limitation now supposed, the trade of a belligerent Power with its colonies, or other countries beyond sea, might be prosecuted in neutral ships nearly to the same extent and with as much security during war as during peace. But it is not easy to imagine that a principle having such consequences should be acted upon by any Power having a prepon- derating naval force, in the event of her engaging in hostilities. Such Power must then do one of two things : she must cither consent to relinquish some of the most important advantages to be derived from her naval ascendency, or she must reject the principle in question. And there is little doubt that she would adopt the latter alternative ; and she might do this directly by resorting to her natural and indefeasible right to seize enemy's goods wherever they are to be met with ; or indirectly, by extending the list of contrar- band articles, so as to make it include all those of any importance carried by sea into or from the enemy's ports. Either way would answer the purpose ; and we may be pretty well assured that, under the supposed circumstances, one or other of them would be fol- lowed." Again, he says : " Considered in this, its tnie light, the term ' contraband of war ' becomes of the highest importance ; and there are but few products which may not be lairly brought, at one period or another, within the list of contraband articles. Thus, supposing that we had the misfortune to be engaged in a contest with a single Power, or a combination of Powers, which had means to intercept, cut off, or materially obstruct our supphes of corn, cotton, and tea, can any one doubt that our enemies would be justified, or that they would hesitate in availing themselves of so powerful a means of annoyance ? Neutrals might protest against such a proceeding, on the ground that the articles refeiTcd to had not hitherto been reckoned contraband of war, and they might also allege tliat their trade would be seriously prejudiced by so unusual and so illegal a proceeding. But these re- presentations, supposing them to be made, would not go lor much. Our enemies would Bay, that in defining contraband of war every thing depended on circumstances ; and that as the want of the articles referred to would lay us under very considerable difficulties, they were from that very circumstance properly included in the prohibited list." One of the chief objects of negotiation ought to be to give as much precision as possible to the meaning of the word " contraband," that trade may have as few fetters as possible. The settlement ought to he so sol- emn that it would be out of the power of any one of the parties to it, however strong in its navy, to pursue, when a belligerent, a practice op- posite to its professions in time of peace. Treaties have been made embodying the maxim of " free ships, free goods," as early as 1604, by France with the Sublime Porte. Some of the Christian powers of Europe adopted the same in 1716. (Whcaton's Law of Nations, p. 315.) But they were the mere cobwebs of peace, and the rougli hand of war brushed them away. Never till the United States began to obtain exemption from searches and seizures, practised FOREIGN AFFAIES. 181 upon the neutral flag and cargo — as in 1778 from France, and in 1780 from Russia — was there any considerable progress made against the arro- gant belligerency of that high constable of the seas, Great Britain. Now, we have the opportunity of securing the fruits of our long urgency. If we are now successful, commerce will be enfranchised, and our nation %vill, with its extensive and extending tonnage, take its place at the head of the commercial world. New York wUl inevitably become what Lon- don is, what Amsterdam and Venice were — universi orbis terrarum empo- rium. The present time is auspicious for such action by our nation. France invites ; Russia, Austria, Italy, and Prussia are anxious to meet us. AU the Powers are moving upward to the high level of our own Republic with regard to maritime rights. Even England may forego, under the pressure of a congress of nations, her barbaric code, laggard notions, iso- lated pride, and naval supremacy, to join in the exalted labors so eloquently suggested by the French publicist. "We must not forget to do England justice. She has progressed. Reluctant as are her public men to give up her old policy, even England, through her enterprising merchants, is making strides toward a better condition. We would fain hope that her protest in the Trent affair means something more than wounded pride at the affront to her flag. We hope it means an incUnation toward a re- gard for neutral rights, yet in embryo, in her policy, but to gain a fuU stature under the liberal influences of the age. We can hardly recognize in the England of to-day that Power which for one hundred and fifty years, wliile supreme on the ocean and while at war, made the position of a neutral more precarious than that of an enemy. The England of to- day, which does not pretend to revive her claim to search for English seamen on American vessels, but to revive which is considered by one of her authors as impolitic and unjust, so late as 1818, through Lord Castle- reagh to Mr. Rush, and in 1842, through Lord Ashburton to Mr. Web- ster, insisted on these barbarous and hateful rules of maritime law. This is progress- The England which, on the 30th of November last, through Earl RusseU, protested that certain individuals had been forcibly taken by an American ship of war from on board a British vessel, " the ship of a neutral Pov:er., while such vessel was pursuing a* lawful and innocent voyage ; an act of violence which was an aflront to the British flag and a violation of international law," is very unlike that England — as she is described by one of her economists — whose mode of carrying out the Brit- ish claim to search and seize the property of an enemy wherever found, was so vexatious, overbearing, and insolent, that the vessels of neutrals were driven fi'om their course, detained for hours, losing fair winds and fine opportunities, and their captains and crews often seized and always insulted ; the arbitrary officers of whose men-of-war, with unlimited and arbitrary power, did not treat their own crews or their own merchant ships with forbearance and humanity ; who despised all foreigners, partic- ularly the Americans, often treating them with rudeness and arrogance, utterly careless of causing them unnecessary delay. Here again is con- spicuous reform ! The England of to-day, with her Oxford professorship of international law and her increasing regard for the rights of otliers, is very unlike that England whose prize court decisions from 1793 to 1815 182 EIGHT TEARS IN CONGRESS. Strained every belligerent right to the uttermost and imposed prohibition on prohibition upon neutrals, until " neutrality itself was prohibited." Still another stride ! The England which now protests against stone blockades and the spoliation of harbors, hardly seems like the England in Napoleonic times, when she set us the example in a foreign harbor which we have chosen to follow in oiu* own. This is another step forward. The England which now demands an effective blockade, " maintained by a force sufficient really to prevent access to the coast of the enemy," and which inquires carefully in her Parliament as to the number and tonnage of the vessels Avhich are alleged to have run the blockade instituted by ourselves of our own harbors, is hardly the England which pretended that the whole of the seaboard of France was blockaded in consequence of her paper proclamation and of its geographical position with respect to the English coasts. Here is an immense stride ! The England of to-day, which disputes as to the efficiency of our blockade, with cotton at fivepencein New Orleans and twelvepence in Liverpool, is not the England of a half century ago, when by her pretences of " prevention and pursiiit," she made her cruisers on one side of the world the avengers of a broken paper blockade of the coasts on the other side ! England to-day tardily yields to the Paris propositions — still she yields — but how vmlike that England thebelligerent, when, as Ilautefeuille says, " she persecuted and destroyed neutral navies to preserve that naval power which, by the special favor of Providence, she derived from the valor of her people (Order in Coun- cil of 19th November, 1787), a power which she declared essential for the happiness and independence of mankind ! " How unlike that England of 1787, is this England of 1854, when the Crimean war began^ and whea she rcnunciated her right to seize hostile goods imder neutral flags, and allowed reasonable time for Russian vessels lying in English ports to clear out, and even refused letters of marque to her privateers I These late deviations from old English practice arc both politic and merciful. The material and mercantile advantages Avhich France and the United States percei\'e from such a policy Avould accrue to England in far greater meas- ure than by claiming technical rights, decided by her admiralty courts or codified in her own lex gentium. Her ancient practice was dictated by hel" desire to vindicate her maritime greatness, and crush the aspirations of naval competitors. It agreed with the formalized traditions of vener- able tribunals sanctioning the harsh customs of war, and inconsistent with fair play upon the seas. To sustain this practice, she reasoned thus : A hostile vessel, with neutral goods, rivalled her in the ciirrying trade. It was taking from nations, while neutral, pro taiito certain profits, a propor- tion of which would eventually swell the resources of the eiKMuy with whom she was at war. That must be stopped. Again : a neutral ship, carrying hostile goods, likewise encouraged flu; connnen'o, extended the relations, and indirectly augmented the wealth of the foe. That, too, must be stopped. So in either case the enemy was benefited by the im- punity and danmilied by the stop])age of such trallic. Her jjublic opinion sanclilicd any way, direct or indirect, to cripple an enemy to England. Thus millions of" confiscated commerce fell beneath her rai)acious greed. Opinion and i)ractice have changed, and England has changed with them in a largo measure. But there is room lor still greater reform on her FOREIGN APFAmS. 183 part, to say nothing of the danger of her relapse, before indicated. Pub- lic opinion and practice have changed, because the relative commerce of the world has changed during the long intervals of peace in Europe and America. France has now a navy nearly equal to that of England. She is no longer the timid Power upon the sea which Nelson shattered, and which Napoleon lamented. The commercial marine of this country has advanced more than fivefold since the Revolution, and from three-quar- ters of a million of tonnage at the close of the late war of 1812 to five and a half millions of tonnage at the present time ; and of that marine a large part has, by recent events, been inspired with the genius of steam, is being clad in armor of ii'on, and its total tonnage exceeds by five hundred thousand tons that of our great English rival. It is the very height of unwisdom for Enghsh laggards to rummage from old treatises on international law, from the proud-mouthed speeches uttered in Parlia- ment about Britannia and the waves, and from decisions of her admiralty courts, an obsolete claim to make herself the buccaneer or Algei'ine of the seas — the nuisance and terror of the ocean. England should rather consult the wisdom of her best statesmen, who, like Earl Grey in 1856, declared that, by the mere increase of sea-going ships, the right of search after the property of belligerents embarked on neutrals had become an utter impracticability, and all that was ever written by the publicists of every nation cannot make it practicable. He warned his nation then, tliat if she claimed for herself the right, she must allow the same right to be exercised against her ; and as if foreseeing the Trent case, he said : " How would British shipowners submit to the exercise of such a right if this country [England] should be placed in the position of a neutral ? How would they endure it, that vessels from New York or New Orleans, laden with cotton, which our manufacturers were anxiously expecting, should be stopped by French cruisers, in case France and the United States were at war, and conveyed to French ports, while the French courts inquired whether the cargoes were the property of Americans or of EngUshmen?" Whilcj therefore, we are becoming, by the pressure of domestic rebel- lion, more able to take care of our interests at sea, with the aid of gun- boats and steamers and a marine of armed cruisers and privateers, ever ready, so long as private property is not made inviolable to the public cruisers of an enemy, England has lowered her tone and altered her policy to conform to the changed relations which her navy bears to the rest of the world. Therefore no time was ever more auspicious for the assemblage of the maritime Powers, to create, in 1802, a neutral coalition like those of 1669 and 1780, " which, by uniting in one body all the scattered forces of all neutrals, will secure to each the respect and security which they cannot obtain while remaining isolated." Now is the favorable time from which to date a new epoch in international law, of which the dis- tinguishing feature shall be, a respect for property. I would carry it so far as to respect aU the property of an enemy not actually employed as contraband, and even to soften the rigor of those rules which make con- traband as elastic in definition as the strength which defines it is power- ful. Now is the time to fix the rules of blockade beyond cavil — I mean blockade international. I do not regard the blockade of our own ports as international. It is a municipal regulation to put down a rebellion, as to which other nations are not to be consulted, and over which, as it is a 184 EIGHT YEARS IN CONGKESS. domestic question, they have no control. The world may not now, but soon will be, ready to exempt all unfortified coasts and cities from block- ade, and all private property, by land and sea, from capture, except when used to aid the war. This would be a corollary from the proposition to give immunity to private property, by limiting the war to an armed duello of nations. Now is the time to stop powerful navies from irritat- ing searches of neutral vessels on the sea, and from conveying such ves- sels and the property therein belonging to the subjects of States belliger- ent to distant ports for confiscation. Now is the time to give vigor to the maxims of Mr. Webster, of August 8, 1842, that the entry into the vessel of a neutral by a belligerent is like the entry into its territory, is an act of force, and is, prima facie, a wrong, a trespass, which can only be justified where done for some purpose allowed to form a sufficient jus- tification by the law of nations, whose sphere is the ocean, and under the sanction of Avhich law any merchant vessel on the seas is under the pro- tection of her own nation. Now is the time to give practical develop- ment to the great American doctrine, not by adopting the Paris declara- tions, unless as a preliminary step toward a complete reform of the maritime law, whose effect will free the seas from the whirlwinds and maelstroms of war, and place in the hands of commerce the palm and the olive — victory and peace ! The surrender of the insurgent ambassadors to the demand of a neu- tral Power is of little moment, if it be the occasion for a settlement of the law in favor of neutral rights. This country would, in one sense, be repaid for the terrible trials of its present domestic conflict, if out of it arises such a policy as will free the millions which are every day embarked upon the main from the atrocities of war. If the extent to which it is legitimate to injure an enemy in time of war, by land and sea, shall be defined in the interest of humanity through our exertions, how magnifi- cent will be our reward ! Millions yet unborn shall bless America ! God will smile upon us with signal benignity ! One of the topics cognate to that of neutral rights — indeed, the prin- ciple lying at its root — is the amelioration of war by giving to it such laws as will smooth its wrinkled front. For this purpose a great and Christian nation, either in a congress of nations, or in its domestic coun- cils, might well inquire : First, whether, if war come, it is not desirable to make it as short as possible ; secondly, how to make it short ; thirdly, whether its injuries to non-combatants, of whatever trade, age, contlitiou, and sex, tend to its brevity? The result of such inquiries would show to the dispassionate nations that wars are not shortened, but i)rolonged, by rapine, cruelty, pillage, and revenge. Such is the history of the savage tribes, and of the middle ages. 1 heartily agree with the conclusions of the gentleman from Massaciuisetts [Mr. Thomas] who has just spoken, and who very happily reached the same conclusions to which my own thoughts tend, with reference to tlie rules of war upon the land with respect to private property. All the history of mankind shows that a war wherein towns are sacked, property confiscated, villages burned, fields laid waste, the inhabitants treated with contumely, penalties, insults, and barbarities, does not hurry, but procrastinates peace. By such means the object of the war, which is peace, is frustrated. Atrocities are FOREIGN AFFAIRS. 185 the seeds of future strife. They stimulate conflict and perpetuate hate. Every such contest is sure to be renewed when the two antagonists re- cover from their exhaustion. This reasoning seems to have been adopted with regard to warfare upon the land by all the moralists of our time. If true for the land, why not for the sea ? Again : war is now an aiFair of Government, not of individuals. No man can now go to war unless he becomes a part of the official organiza- tion of his Government. Hence, no spoliation of the effects of non-com- batants, and no appropriation of individual property without compensa- tion, should be allowed. Why not adopt this doctrine upon the sea, both with regard to public and private armed vessels? Reforms are being made in this connection by the silent progress of opinion and the adjudi- cations of the courts. Until recently the theory and practice were, that war dissolved contracts between individuals. JPrivate property of ene- mies found in the country at the commencement of hostilities was con- fiscated. But even an English judge. Lord Ellenborough, declared that the Danish act which confiscated private debts was illegal. (6 Maule & Selwyn, p. 92.) And the great Powers of Europe at the commencement of the Crimean war provided against the spoliation of enemies' property found in their ports at the breaking out of hostilities. The object of re- form in this matter is to separate private citizens, and especially the pro- ducing classes, from those whose business it is to carry on the war ; and to exempt the former as much as possible from the consequences of war. This was the declared object of the American statesmen, Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Quincy Adams, Clay, and Marcy, in the action taken by them on the occasions to which I have referred. What is now wanted is the formalization of these doctrines by a congress of the maritime Powers. This brings me to the question of privateers. The committee do not favor their abolition, except it be accompanied with such a reform, like that proposed by Mr. Marcy, as will obviate the necessity for their use by a nation like ours with a large commerce and a small navy. Privateering may be a denationalization of the contest for private gain, but public spoliation of private property is none the less detestable. Both inflict great injury upon one nation, without corresponding benefit to the other. In our time, steam has greatly alleviated the injuries caused by privateering. Even that smart craft, the Sumter, is but an accident and an exception. The United States has been willing to abolish privateering, on the p?'m ciple that private property of unoffending non-combatants, though enemies, should be exempt from the ravages of war. This principle must be adopted as a principle. Unless it be adopted as a principle, there is nothing gained, but much disadvantage, inequality, and loss. If you dis- allow privateers to prey on private property, and allow public vessels of war to do it, what principle is gained? The principle involved is the protection of property, not the mode of its destruction. If you are to except property from seizure by private armed vessels, and allow pub- lic cruisers to do the same thing, you might as well say that steam vessels should be allowed to prey on private property, but sailing vessels ought to be forbidden. Indeed, it is far more wrongful to allow public than private vessels to commit such devastation. The American prin- 186 EIGHT YEAES IX CONGRESS. ciple must be adopted, otherwise tlie siu'render of privateering is only a partial alleviation of the injuries to private property on the sea. So long as private property can be seized or molested by public armed cruisers, it enjoys no immunity ; it might as well be at the mercy of privateers. Says Mr. Marcy : " If such property is to remain exposed to seizure by ships belonging to the navy of the adverse party, it is extremely difficult to perceive why it should not, in like manner, be exposed to seizure by privateers, which are, in fact, but another branch of the public force of the nation commissioning them. If it be urged that a participation in the prizes is calculated to stimulate cupidity, that, as a peculiar objection, is removed by the fact that the same passion is addressed by the distribution of prize money among the officers and ships of a regular navy." Therefore, Mr. Marcy was in favor of relying upon our mercantile marine to protect our commerce, until private property received full immu- nity from public armed Aessels as well as privateers. He apprehended that, if privateers were abandoned, the dominion over the seas would be surrendered to those Powers which adopt the policy and which have the means of keeping up large navies. That Power which has a decided naval superiority would be potentially the mistress of the ocean. Hence Eng- land refused Mr. Marcy's proposition. Hence France, Austria, Prussia, Russia, Italy, and other maritime Powers would accept it. For, if priva- teers were abolished and private property were respected by botli public and private armed ships, the dominion of the ocean woitld be given up to the pursuits of peace, nations would find it for their interest to keep but a small navy, and the calamities of Avar would be confined to belligerents themselves, Avhile neutrals would pursue their ordinary trade prosperously and unmolested. In that event, it Avould be seen that it is neither desir- able, dignified, nor effective to inj-ure the unoffending merchant, and that liberal concessions to neutral flags and neutral cargoes Avould be an advan- tage to the State granting them as Avell as to the State Avitli AAdiich it Avas at war. Then it Avould be seen, too, that it is neither chivah-ic nor Chris- tian to involve individuals in the horrors of a Avar in AA-hich they took no part, cither in its origin or prosecution. I do not despair of bringing England into the alliance for neutral, rights, at least so far as privateering is concerned. She Avould a])olish it to-morrow, so far as the United States are concerned, but she is lotli to give up her immense navy, Avhich is our equivalent for tlie abolition. She has a lively recollection, recently refreslied by Mr. Bright, of Avhat our privateers did for her commerce in our lute Avar. In IHl-l, her tonnage AA'as three million five hundred thoui^aud tons, and lujr exports Averc £40,000,000, and her imports the same ; and during the two years of that war our privateers took twenty-five hundred of her ships, Avorth £21,000,- 000, or 6107,000,000. Now, Avith a tonnage four times as great, between tAA'elve and thirteen millions of tons, with imports and exports upwards of £120,000,000, and Avith the American marine increased even more, what might not England sufi'er from our militia of the sea? Do you not think that, in iear of the rencAval of such consequences, she Avill be anxious to make us her belligerent, or that, if thus anxious, she Avill not agree to relieve private property from capture by public as avcU as private cruisers ? If on land avc apply these jn-inciples to private properly, Avhy should FOREIGN AFFAIRS. 187 we not further limit the consequences of war by lessening the objects of its attack ; in other words, by narrowing the arena of strife upon the sea as well as upon the land ; by making Avar a duel between combatants and not a devastation of neutrals ? If we narrow the theatre of war on land to the camp and beleaguered fort or city, why on the water should it not be narrowed to the ocean armament and the blockaded port or assailed fort? If upon land we do not infest tlie tranquil home with violence, and if the graces of art and the librai'ies of knowledge are free from the spoiler, why destroy the peaceful occupations of commerce on the sea in the hot passions of war? Why place in jeopardy the immense trading interests of nations? Why expend immense sums in insuring cargoes from the "king's enemies"? Why place before the cupidity of men or nations the golden freightage of California and Australia, and the steamers and packets which connect Europe Avith America, and both Avith the Orient? Why oiFer up to a worse than heathen fury the peaceful craft Avhich, at gi'eat peril, supply our daily wants, and Avaft to us the teas and spices, sugars and silks, of the Avorld ? Why arouse the ardors of war in despoiling neutral commerce under suspicions of hostility? Why not forever banish from that common of the world — the free sea — the prying, avaricious, and revengeful belligerent, AA'hether he sail under a letter of marque or a legal commission as a public cruiser ? Why com- pel the neutral to arm, or Avhat is Avorse, to profit slyly by the restrictions of war and the chances of immunity? Why embroil the commerce of mankind Avith the difficulties and dangers of a quarrel betAveen two monarchs, or a punctilio between tAj'o ministers, resulting in Avar, and a war too Avhich would inflame other nations in a general conflagration ? Why not imitate the benign example of Providence, by ruling the raging of the seas ; or the more beautiful example of the Saviour, Avho said to the tempestuous waves, " Peace, he still ! " How eminently desirable, therefore, it is to prevent such calamities by fixed and authoritative rules of international conduct ! How desirable for belligerents ! How much more so for neutrals ! Such reforms as I have indicated must be the product of public opinion. In this age, the empire of opinion is only di- vided by the reign of that universal conscience Avhich is informed and in- spired by its teachings. When these influences rule in the cabinets and councils of nations, we may hail their supremacy as the " instaiiratio magna " of juridical reason in the Avorld of nations. For the purpose of contributing to that opinion and conscience, which is the source of the law of nations, and of expressing the judgment of the American Con- gress and people, the Committee will report back the resolutions last re- ferred to them, Avith an amendment, thanking the other Powers besides France, for their liberal sympathy in behalf of neutral rights. I trust that the American Congress Avill adopt them, and thus vindicate and elevate into its proper place the great American doctrine, Avhich would enfranchise commerce, guarantee peace, and give an impulse to civiliza- tion. lY. SECESSION. SECESSION KEFDTED AND DENOUNCED PLEA FOR COMPROMISE WARNINGS TO NORTH AND SOUTH AVAR AND ITS CONSEQUENCES PREDICTED THE MISSISSIPPI KIVER APPEAL FOR NATION^VLITY. This speech was delivered in the midst of the excitement of actual se- cession. It was a difficult duty for a Representative, who stood between the extremes and appealed to them for moderation, to reach a class of men Avhose characteristics were immoderation and violence. Anxious to keep the peace and avert Avar, and at the same time unyielding as to the Union, I was compelled to weigh carefully each word, lest what was intended for oil on the Avaters, might be oil on the flames. This speech was delivered January 6, 1861. Mr. Chairman : I speak from and for the capital of the greatest of the States of the great "West. That potential section is beginning to be appalled at the colossal strides of revolution. It has immense interests at stake in this Union, as avcU from its position as its power and patriot- ism. We have had infRlelity to the Union before, but never in such a fearful shape. We had it in tlie East during the late Avar Avith England. Eacu so late as the admission of Texas, Massachusetts resolved herself out of the Union. That resolution has ncA'cr been repealed ; and one Avould infer, from much of her conduct, that she did not regard herself as bound by our covenant. Since 185G, in the North, avc have had inlidelity to the Union, more by insidious infractions of the Constitution, than by open rebellion. Now, sir, as a consequence, in part, of these very infractions, we lia\e rebellion itself, open and daring, in terrific proportions, with dangers so formidable as to seem almost remediless. From the time I took my seat this session, 1 have acted and A'otcd in every Avay to remove the causes of discontent and to stop the progress of rev- olution. At the threshold, I voted to raise the committee from each State ; and I voted against excusing the members Avho sought to willulraAV from it, because I believed then that such a committee, patriotically constituted, Lad in it much of iiopc and safety ; and because, to excuse members from SECESSION. 189 serving on it, upon the ground of secession, was to recognize the heresy. I am ready to vote now for any salutary measure which will bring peace and preserve the Union. Herodotus relates that when Mardonius was encamped in Boeotia, before the battle of Plattea, he and fifty of his offi- cers were invited to meet the same number of Thebans at a banquet, at which they reclined in pairs, a Persian and a Theban upon each couch. During the entertainment one of the Persians, with many tears, predicted to his Theban companion the speedy and utter destruction of the invading army, and when asked why he used no influence Avith Mardonius to avert it, he answered : " When one would give faithful counsel, nobody is willing to believe him. Although many of us Persians are aware of the end we are coming to, we stiU go on, because we are bound to our destiny ; and this is the very bitterest of a man's griefs, to see clearly, but to have no power to do any thing at all." I believe, sir, that the events now transpiring are big with disaster to my country. I have done my humble part for years to prevent them ; but I do not see now that any efixirt on my pai't can avail ; and this is the bitterest of a man's grief. It is in such a peril as this that the heart spon- taneously pi'ays for a nearer communication with a divine prescience. We long for some direction from a superior power, in whose great mind the end is seen from the beginning. At least, one might wish for some magic mirror of Merlin, in which to see the foes of our country approach, so as rightly to guard against them. Four States have, in so far as they coidd by their own act, separated from om* Federal Union. This is one of the stern facts Avhich this Congress has to encounter. The Government is passing through one of those his- toric epochs incident to all nationalities. Our prosperity has made us proud, rich, intolerant, and self-sufficient ; and therefore prone to be re- bellious. We have waxed fat — are doing well, " tempestuously well." Ascending to the height of national glory, through national unity, we are in danger of falling by our own dizziness. We are called upon to break down and thrust aside the very means of our ascent — the Constitution itself. In such a time, the bitter crimination and vain threats of party and of sections are out of place. They should not turn the people of the North from doing their whole duty to the South ; nor the South from a more deliberate review of its past, and a more prudential view of its per- ilous future. No man has the right to say or do aught that will further exasperate the public sentiment of the South. No good man in the North can oppose any measure of honorable recession fi-om wrong. I cannot speak of South Carolina in the tone and temper of some. She has been a part of our national life. Her blood is in our veins ; her Marions, Sumters, and Pinckneys are ours. Eutaw, Cowpens, and Camden ; are they not a part of that glory, which can no more be separated from the Union than the dawn from the sun ! Whatever may be our indignation against her, or our duty to ourselves, let us remember that public senti- ment is not to be reached by threat or denunciation. Our Government depends for its execution on public sentiment. To that sentiment alone, in its calmer mood, are we to look for a restoration of a better feeling. When that feeling comes, it will be hailed like the sea-bird which visited 190 EIGHT TEAKS LN" CONGEESS. the sea-tossed caravel of Columbus — as the harbinger of a firm-set foot- ino" beyond. Other facts of a similar perilous character will soon trans- pire. Georgia, Texas, and Louisiana will assuredly follow the erratic course of South Carolina. This fact must soon be encountered. South Carolina has been singing her Marseillaise, and the waves of the Gulf make accordant music in the revolutionary anthem. It but echoes the abolitionism of the North and West ; for scarcely had the song died away on the shores of Lake Erie, before South Carolina took it up with a wilder chorus ! Extremes thus meet. Extremes north have aided, if not conspired with, extremes south, in the work of disintegration. That work will go on. I knoAv that we are very slow to believe in any sign of dissolution. We have faith in our luck. We have trust in a certain inventive faculty, which has never yet failed us, either in me- chanical or political expedients. Our politics are plastic to emergencies. StiU I must warn the people that it is the well-groimded fear, almost the foregone conclusion of the patriotic statesmen here, that the Avork of breaking up will go on, until the entire South shall be arrayed against the entire North. In view of these facts, I will discuss these propositions: 1. That se- cession is not a right in any possible relation in which it can be viewed ; to tolerate it in theory or practice is moral treason to patriotism and good government. 2. That while it may not involve such direful consequences as other revolutions, still it is revolution. 3. That every effort of concil- iation should be exhausted to check it, before force is applied. 4. That if the North does not do her part fully in recession from aggression, it will be impossible to imite the northern people, or any portion of the southern people, in repressing secession. 5. That if the South wiU make a patient endeavor, equal to the great occasion, to secure her rights in the Union, I believe that she AviU succeed ; and {f she is then repulsed, it will be impossible for her to receive any detriment from the North ; but she will depart in peace. G. If she go. inconsiderately, as some States are going, the country may incur the fearful hazard of war. 7. If the South press the one hard overmastering question upon the North, and follow it up with seiziu'e of forts and revenue, cannonading of our vessels, and other aggressive acts, without giving an opportunity for conciliation, there will be no power in the conservatism of the North to restrain the people. No sacrifice will be considered too gi'cat to make in the protection and defence of the Union. 8. That, in the present state of facts, so long as the revenues can be collected on land or sea, and the forts and harbors can be commanded by the Federal Government, that Government must be, as to these matters, the Government de facto, as Avell as dejure; and that so long as this status can be maintained by the Executive, it should be done by all the legal forces of the Government. I would not exaggerate the fearful consequences of dissolution. It is the breaking up of a Federative Union ; but it is not like the breaking up of society. It is not anarchy. A link may iall from the chain, and the link nuiy still be perfect, though the chain huve lost its length and its strength. In the uniformity of commercial regulations, in matters of war and peace, postal arrangements, foreign relations, coinage, copyrights, tarilf, and otlicr Federal and national atUiirs, this great Government may SECESSION. 191 be broken ; but in most of the essential liberties and rights which Government is the agent to establish and protect, the seceding State has no revolution, and the remaining States can have none. This arises from that refinement of our polity which makes the States the basis of our instituted order. Greece was broken by the Persian power ; but her mu- nicipal institutions remained. Hungary has lost her national crown ; but her home institutions remain. South Carolina may preserve her consti- tuted domestic authority ; but she must be content to glimmer obscurely remote, rather than shine and revolve in a constellated band. She even goes out by the ordinance of a so-called sovereign convention, content to lose, by her isolation, that youthful, vehement, exultant, progressive life, which is our nationality ! She foregoes the hopes, the boasts, the flags, the music, all the emotions, aU the traits, and all the energies, which, when combined in our United States, have won our victories in war and our miracles of national advancement. Her Governor, Colonel Pickens, in his inaugural, regretfully " looks back upon the inheritance South Car- olina had in the common glories and triumphant power of this wonderful Confederacy, and fails to find language to expi'ess the feelings of the human heart as he turns from the contemplation." The ties of brother- hood, interests, lineage, and history, are all to be severed. No longer are we to salute a South Carolinian with the " idem sententiam de repub- Uca" which makes unity and nationality. What a prestige and glory are here dimmed and lost in the contaminated reason of man ! Can we realize it? Is it a masquerade, to last for a night, or a real- ity to be managed with rough, passionate handling ? It is sad and bad enough ; but let us not overtax our anxieties about it as yet. It is not the sanguinary regimen of the French revolution ; not the rule of assig- nats and guillotine ; not the ciy of " Vivent les Rouges ! A mort les gen- darmes ! " but as yet, I hope I may say, the peaceful attempt to withdraw from the burdens and benefits of the Republic. Thus it is unlike every other revolution. Still it is revolution. It may, according as it is man- aged, involve consequences more terrific than any revolution since govern- ment began. If tiie Federal Government is to be maintained, its strength must not be frittered away by conceding the theory of secession. To concede se- cession as a right, is to make its pathway one of roses, and not of thorns. I would not make its pathway so easy. If the Government has any strength for its own preservation, the people demand it should be put forth in its civil and moral forces. Dealing, however, with a sensitive public sentiment, in which this strength reposes, it must not be rudely ex^cised. It should be the iron hand in a glove of velvet. Firmness should be allied with kindness. Power should assert its own prerogative, but in the name of law and love. If these elements are not thus blended in our poUcy, as the Executive purposes, our Government wiU prove either a garment of shreds or a coat of mail. We Avant neither. Our forts have been seized ; our property taken ; our flag torn down ; our laws defied ; our jurisdiction denied ; and, that worst phase of rev- olution, our ship sent under our flag to the relief of a soldier doing his duty, fii'ed upon and refused an entrance at one of our own harbors. Would that were all ! The President informs us, in his last message, that — 192 EIGHT TEAKS IN CONGRESS. " In States ^l}'h^ch have not seceded, the forts, arsenals, and magazines of the United States have been seized. This is far the most serious step whicli has been taken since the commencement of the troubles. This public property has long been left without garrisons and troops for its protection, because no person doubted its security under the flag of the country in all the States of the Union. Besides, our small army has scarcely been suffi- cient to guard our remote frontiers against the Indian incursions. The seizure of this property, from all appearances, has been purely ar/gressive, and not i>i resistance to any at- tempt to coerce a State or States to remain in the Union.'''' All that the President has done is defensive ; all that he has resisted has been aggression. He proposes no aggression ; nor would I favor it. He would maintain the laws and protect property ; what else can he do ? These facts have to be met — how? By the conquest of all the people of a State? By the declaration and wager of war? I answer, by the en- forcement of the laws and the protection of our property in a constitutional manner. This is the answer I have already voted in this House, in vot- ing for the resolution of the gentleman from New Jersey. But is it asked, how will you enforce the laws and keep forts and property, without war? I will answer : First, repeal here every law making ports of entry at the recusant cities or towns ; and thus avoid as much trouble as possible. That is in our power. Second, libel and confiscate in admiralty every vessel which leaves such ports \ythout the Federal clearance. Third, collect the revenue and preserve the property, and only use such force as will maintain the defensive. But again it is asked, is not this coercion against a Government defado^ established by the consent of all the peo- ple of a State under an assumed legal right? I answer. South Carolina is not de facto the Government as to these Federal matters, so long as the Federal Government can hold her harbors, shut in her ships, and collect the revenue. Who can deny that proposition? But still it is asked, Avill not the use of force in executing the laws, and preserving our property, result in civil war ? Is there any practical difference between the enforce- ment of law when resisted by so large an aggressive power, and the ac- tual state of war? Here is the Sphinx of our present anomalous situation. I do not choose now to say what I will do, in case a certain result fol- lows the performance of the present duty. It is enough for me now to do tliat duty of the present. But that judgment which makes no discrimina- tion between the enforcement of the laws and defence of property, and the actual state of war, must be palsied by undue fear of consequences. There is nothing more plainly distinguished by precedent and in experience, than the difference between the civil authority and the war-making power. True, the military arm may be invoked to aid the civil authority, but it must be subordinate to it in many most essential particulars. It is then the sword of the magistrate, and not of the soldier. Says Chief Justice Taney, in the Rhode Island case : " Unquestionably, a State may use its military power to put down an armed insurrec- tion too strong to be controlled by the civil authority. The power is essential to the ex- istence of every (iovcrnment ; essential to the preservation of order and IVee institutions; and is as necessary to the States of this Union, as to any other (iovernment." — 7 JIow- ard, 45. This Government has had insurrections, and has (luclled tiiem by the civil authority, with the aid of the militia, and Avitln)ut martial law. The Shays rebellion and the whiskey insurrection were put down by the SECESSioisr. 193 fosse comitatus. The writ of habeas corpus was not suspended by the United States. But, even in extreme cases, where the President called out the militia to suppress actual array and violence, without a law of Congress authorizing it, the force was only to be used with a view to cause the laws to be duly executed. All arrests were made under civil authority. Trials were had as in civil cases. In Pennsylvania, in 1793, the expedition was not in its nature belligerent ; but it was to assist the marshal. (7 Howard, 80 and 81.) Washington enjoined strictly the subordination of the military to the civil power, and went in person to see that his orders were obeyed. The very genius and structure of our Con- stitution would forbid the making of war, in its sense of aggression, against any State of the Confederacy. But, unless the power to enforce reside somewhere in the Government, it is virtually no government at all. It is a garment of shreds. If the force is of that irresponsible kind called war, the Government is then worse than a failure. It then wears a coat of mail. But if it have the force to maintain itself, and subordinate to itself the military which it may use in its defence, then it is a government. It then wears the robe of State ! The time does not yet call for threats of coercion by martial or other means. It only calls for defence from those who are aggressive. I would reserve this power of coercion, as King Arthur did his diamond shield. He ever kept it out of sight covered Avith a veil, and only uncovered it to fight monsters and alien enemies. I call this secession, revolution. I will not in an American Congress, with an oath on my conscience to support the Constitution, argue the right to secede. No such right can ever be had, except by amendment of the Constitution, legalizing such secession. It is a solecism to speak of the right of secession. It is revolution ; and the burden of proof is on him who begins it, to show why he seeks the change. The combined reason of the ages has tixed in its maxims of thought, rules to govern the actions of men and nations, which no one can overrule without great criminality. These rules require first that revolution must have no light and transient cause. To overthrow a despotism, the causes must be of grave weight. A fortiori^ what must be the grievance to justify a revolt against a Govern- ment so free as ours ! Besides, there must be a reasonable hope of a happy and successful termination. Otherwise history, with her judicial prescript, will ban those who begin it to an eternity of retribution. There must be in every State some power to which aU others yield, competent to meet every emergency. No nation can be consigned to anarchy by some absurd contrivance, either in the shape of personal lib- erty bills or secession ordinances. In America, we have a national Con- stitution. Under it, we have United States citizenship. To it we owe and swear allegiance. It may be a compact ; but it is a government also. It may be a league ; but it has authority, " operative," as Mr. Madison holds, " directly on the people." It may reach States as States ; but it does more ; it reaches the people of the States through its execu- tive, judicial, and legislative departments. If it cannot declare war against a State, it is because a State is a part of itself, and not quoad hoc a for- eign and independent State. Its Constitution is the supreme law of the land; and though, as Chief Justice Marshall says (1 Wheaton, 304), 13 194 EIGHT YEAES IN CONGEESS. " the sovereign powers vested in the State governments by their respective constituencies remain unaltered and unimpaired, yet they remain so, ex- cept so far as they Avere granted to the Government of the United States." I could cite Marshall, JeiFerson, Madison, Jackson, Story, Duer, and Webster, almost every student, expounder, and executor of the Constitu- tion, to show these conclusions to be irrefragable. It is an absurdity to contend that States, -which voluntarily surrendered such portions of their sovereignties as were requisite for a national government, can be the equal in power of that national government. In the name of the people, the Constitution a3serts its own supremacy and that of the laws made in pur- suance thereof. It is supreme, by the consent of South Carolina herself, " over the constitutions and laws of the several States." If, then, South Carolina attempt, as she has by her ordinance, to annul her connection with this national system, does she not usurp a power of the General Government ? Does she not infringe on the rights of Ohio ? Is it not a plain violation of the permanent obligation she is under as one of its members? Nay, she not only breaks her oath of fealty to the United States Constitution, but she breaks her oath to her own constitution, which requires that oath. Am I referred by members of my o^^^l party to our platform and principles indorsing the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions ? Am I told that the sacred principles of State rights declared by Jefferson and Mad- ison, as a check against the usurpations of a consolidated Federal Power, allow that each State may so judge of the infraction of the Constitution, and the means and measures of redress, that it may go out of the Union? These Virginia and Kentucky resolutions are misinterpreted. Judge Marshall, however federal his views, in a letter to Judge Story of July 31, 1833 (Story's Life and Letters, p. 135), is an honest witness to this misinterpretation. He says : "The word 'State rights,' as expounded by the resolutions of 1798 and the report of 1799, construed by our Legislature, has a charm against which all reasoning is vain. Those resolutions and that report constitute the creed of every politician who hopes to rise in Virginia ; and to question them, or even to adopt the construction tjivcn by their author, is deemed political sacrilege." This Government was intended to be perpetual. It was adopted in toto, and forever. Says Mr. Madison : " The idea of reserving the right to withdraw was started, considered, and abandoned ; worse than rejected." Judge Marshall says : " The instrument Avas not intended to provide merely for the exigencies of a few years, but was to endure througli a long lapse of ages, the events of which were locked up in the in- scrutable decrees of Providence." It was, therefore, provided with means for its own amendment. By the Legislatures of throe-fourths of the States, there is a means of amendment ; and in that way alone can a State withdraw. Nullification and secession, said Mr. IMadison, are twin heresies, and should be buried in the same grave. Cieneral Jackson held that secession does not break a league, but it destroys tlie unity of a nation ; hence, he argued that it is an olfence against the whole Union. To say that a Stale may constitutionally secede, is to say that the consti- tutional cdeinenl.s were jxjisoncd at the birlli of llie nation, and, of malice prepense, were intended to kill our national life ! Such reasoning over- SECESSION. 196 throws all government. It is to affirm that the tribunal appointed for the arbitrament of mooted questions under the Constitution, or that the means for its own amendment, shall be set aside at the pleasure of one of the parties to be affected. Monstrous sophistry ! Are gentlemen of the South aware that it is from this twin heresy that the Republicans have drawn their arguments for their personal liberty bills and for their re- pudiation of the fugitive slave law ? The very chief justice of Ohio, so recently reindorsed for his seditious decision in the Oberlin fugitive case, bases his adjudication on the usurpations of the Federal Government. He, like South Carolina, denies that "the decisions of the usurping party, in favor of the validity of its own assumptions, can settle anything." {Ex parte Bushnell, 9 Ohio State Reports, 227.) He warns against the " practical omnipotence of the Federal Government by making authorita- tive the judgment of its judicial tribunals." He sang the Marseillaise in his ermine from the supreme bench, as South Carolina sings it in her convention. I would, therefore, guard against the least recognition of this right of secession, or of nullification, which is the lesser type of the same disease. It would, I say, destroy all government. It would dissolve the united mass of powers now deposited in the Union into thirty-three separate and conflicting States ; each with a flag, a tariff, an army, a foreign policy, a diversity of interests, and an idiosyncrasy of ideas. Nay, that would be tolerable ; but it would do more and worse. It would disintegrate States, counties, towns ; tear cities from their places on the map ; disorder finan- ces, taxes, revenue, tariffs ; and convert this fabric, now so fair and firm that it seems built on the earth's base, and pillared with the firmament, into a play-house of cards, built on a base of stubble. It would thus de- stroy the established order. And is such order among men, with a view to permanency, nothing? The North has rights, property, interests, re- lations in the South, not to be sundered without loss ; and the South in the North, vice versa. Is this nothing? Is depreciation of property, de- pression of business, loss and lack of employment, withdrawal of capital, derangement of currency, increase of taxes, miscarriage of public works and enterprise, destruction of State credit, the loss of that national sym- metry, geography, strength, name, honor, vmity, and glory, which publi- cists teU us are themselves the creators and guardians of cash, credit, and commerce — are these consequences nothing? Surely such a mass of complicated interests — the growth of years, chnging, with root and fibre, to the eternal rocks of public stability — cannot be uptoru without great struggle and stupendous crime. I wish that I could contemplate secession as a peaceful remedy. But I cannot. It must be a forcible disruption. The Government is framed so compactly in all its parts, that to tear away one part, you tear the whole fabric asunder. It cannot be done by consent. There is no au- thority to give consent. The Constitution looks to no catastrophe of the kind. It is a voluntary, violent, and ex parte proceeding. A majority of the States, and a great majority of- the people, are hostile to it. In this angry and warUke disruption of the compact, where shall we find our more perfect Union, the establishment of justice, domestic tranquillity, provision for the common defence, the promotion of the general welfare, /'" 196 EIGHT YEAKS EST CONGRESS. and the security of tlie blessings of liberty to ourselves and posterity? In this light, the ordinance of South Carolina becomes an offence ; and in case a sufficient number of others followed, to the injury of any, it would be Avorse than an offence. In the cases of Texas and Florida, Louisiana and California, for which millions were paid, the inquiry would be made whether it would not be a fraud so colossal that neither language nor law can measure it. Mr. Reagan. I would ask the gentleman when a dollar has been paid for Texas ? Mr. Cox. I cannot give way. My time is limited. Besides, the same question was asked in the Senate ; and Judge Douglas answered it. The country knows both question and answer. I proceed. If, then, South Carolina can dispense with an amendment of the Constitution to which she solemnly acceeded on the 23d of May, 1788, cannot she dis- pense with other portions of that instrument ; ay, even with this American Congress? The whole framework of our Government, by the action of separate States, may thus be swept away. This Congress may be dis- solved, if not by the ruilitary usurpation which dissolved the Long Par- liament, or expelled the Council of Five Hundred from the Orangery of St. Cloud, yet by the vei*y impotence of its organism, as the Confedera- tion dissolved under its imperfect articles, to give place to this more per- fect Union ! What justification does South Carolina offer for this act? "Fifteen States," says her declaration, " have deliberately refused for years to fulfil their constitutional obligations." It refers to the fourth article of the Con- stitution for the specific cause of gi-ievance. But is there not now, since the vote in this House the other day on the personal liberty bills, when the demands of returning public justice made even the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Lovejoy] recede from his ultraism, a reasonable hope of curing these evils? Again : is there not the Supreme Court, as to whose fidelity no question is raised in the South? And ai'e these peculiar wrongs remediless in that forum? The Governor of Kentucky has already ar- raigned the recreant executive of Ohio for his delinquency under a kindred constitutional clause. Why may you not exhaust your remedies in the courts before you raise the ensign of revolt ? If you would have public opinion correct the errors of the North as to fugitives from justice and labor, already assurances come from aU quarters that such remedy will be given. Republican Governors and Legislatures are beginning to re- cede from their aggressive acts. Already Ohio has begun this work of redress. The fugitive slave law may be the ostensible reason for secession, or ancillary to the real grievance. Aside from certain economic reasons, which have ever impelled South Carolina, and Avhich I will not now con- sider, the real grievance consists in the apprehension of slave insurrections and abolition, under the auspices of an Executive who, tliough not yet inaugurated, was elected on a principle of hostility to the social system of tlie South. Or, to give it the strongest statement, wliich I find in n pamphlet signed by the member from Arkansas [Mr. Hindman], " The Republican (;andi(lates were elected upon a platform destructive of our rights, branding our institutions as infamous, decreeing the equality of the SECESSION". 197 negro with ourselves and our children, and dooming us, in the end, with murderous certainty, to all the horrors of insurrection and servile war." He holds : " that to imprison slavery for ever in the States where it now exists, will, in time, overburden the land with the predominating increase in the ratio of blacks to whites, until there will be a conflict for supremacy of races, and the blacks will be exterminated ; or else the white maa must abandon his country for ever to the negro." I will grant the full force of this fear, though not the sufficiency of this or any mere fear, as a cause to justify revolution. The Union men of the North began to warn against the dawning of this dangerous geographical movement in 1856. They repeated then, and then not in vain, the farewell words of Washington. From every press and husting which a Democrat could command, this evil day was prophesied. But Ave were Cassandras. Unbelieving men derided us as doughfaces, and sneered at us as Union-savers. The patri- otic Choate, in one of his weird and wondrous prophecies, in 1855, with the pain of anxiety upon his brow, put on record his deliberate and inex- tinguishable opposition to this geographical pax'ty. He regarded the con- test then as the stupendous trial and peril of our national life. Admitting faults South and faults North, yet tui'ning to the battle years of the Re- public and its baptism of fire, he shrank aghast at the moral treason of attempting to weave and plait the two northern wings of the old national parties into a single northern one, and cut the southern wing oil' altogether, as neither far-sighted nor safe, however new and bold. Let me give his statement of the complaint, for he stated it in advance as strongly as it can now be stated : " To combine these parties thus against each other geographically — to take the whole vast range of the free States, lying together, sixteen out of thirty-one, seventeen millions out of five or sis and twenty miUions — the most populous, the strongest, the most ad- vancing — and form them in battalion against the fewer numbers and slower growth and waning relative power on the other side ; to bring this sectional majority mider party drill and stimulus of pay and rations ; to oifer to it, as a party, the government of our coimtry, its most coveted honors, its largest salaries, all its sweets of patronage and place ; to penetrate and fire so mighty and so compact a mass with the still more delicious idea that they are moving for human rights and the equality of man ; to call out their clergy from the pulpit, the library, the bedside of the dying, the chair of the anxious in- quirer, the hearth of the bereaved, to bless such a crusade ; to put in requisition every species of rhetoric and sophistry to impress on the general mind the sublime and impres- sive dogma that all men are born free and equal ; and that such a geographical party is a well-adapted means to that end — does this strike you as altogether in the spirit of Wash- ington and Franklin, and the preamble to the Constitution, and the Farewell Address ? Does it strike you that if carried out it will prove to be a mere summer excursion to Mos- cow ? Will there be no bivouac in the snow, no avenging winter hanging on retreat ; no Leipsic, no Waterloo ? " Has the avenging winter indeed come ! God in his mercy forbid ! That crusade failed in 185G. What a risk we ran then ! It suc- ceeded in 1860. What a peril is now upon us ! What a crusade it was which has produced it ! I well remember that my own Republican com- petitor for this seat was quoted in Blackwood's Magazine, with Tory dehght, over the anti-slavery revolution which he preached in this House in 1856, and which he would have ushered in with Bunker Hills, and other battle-fields of freedom. But admitting the source of this great peril to lie in Republican as- 198 EIGHT YEAES IN CONGKESS. cendeucy, still, I ask, is it remediless in the Union? Admitting all you claim of danger to your States from this sectional triumph ; admitting that you are right in concerting for your own protection — yet is it right, fair, or just to rush forward, regardless alike of friends and foes, to a chasm where no guarantee can be asked or offered ? Give us one more chance to appeal to the returning reason of the North, now that it is startled by the fulfilment of these prophecies and warnings. If you do not, what then ? Tou will give to your enemies the advantage which belongs to you and to us. They are already eager to seize the legislative as well as the execu- tive departments. They talk of reforming the Supreme Court for their purposes. They who have taught and practised the breaches of civil dis- cipline, are becoming the conservators of public order. On your retiring, they will filch from its old guard the ensign of the Constitution. Why, to break up this Government before a full hearing of the gi-ievances, is to be worse even than Red Republicanism ! Shall it be said that our friends of the South are worse than the Red Communists of France ? So it would seem, and so I will proceed to prove. Apprehension of evil ! It was the argument of despotism in France in 1851. Louis Napoleon used it for his bad purposes ; but the French Re- publicans denounced it. Let me draw the analogy. In article forty-five of the French Constitution, it was enacted : " Le President de la Republique est elu pour quatre ans, et n'est reeligible qu'apr^s un intervale de quatre annecs." — Anjiuaire Hisiorique, 1848, Appcndice, p. 43. In article one hundred and ten it was further enacted : "Lorsque, dans la demi&reannoe d'une Legislature, I'Assemblee nationalc aura emis le voeu que la Constitution soit modifiee en tout ou en partie, il sera procedo k cette revisioa de la maniere suivante. "Le vceu exprime par I'Assemblee ne sera converti en resolution definitive qu'aprfes trois deliberations successives, prises chacune h un mois d'intervale et au trois quarts dcs Bufifrages exprimes. " Le nombre des votants ne pourra etre moindre de cinq cents." Thus, in 1848, Louis Napoleon was elected President for four years, the constitutional term. He was, by the one hundred and tenth article, ineligible to a reelection except after an interval of four years. His term would have expired in May, 1852. The summer of 1851, in France, was signalized by vague apprehensions of a revolt, when the President should constitutionally go out. Under this apprehension the National Legisla- ture were summoned to change the Constitution. It required three ex- press ballots of the Assembly, taken at a month's inter\al, with three- fourths of the Assembly, and at least five hundred votes to be given, be- fore that Constitution could be so changed as to continue Napoleon in power. Hereupon arose a parliamentary struggle, unequalled in any forum. It was before the giant intellects of France were exiled by the perlidy of its ruler. Here was a country like France, with sixty years of political vicissitude, wherein every tradition and compact had been violated ; and yet even there, the Constitution of the new Republic was invested with sucli a sanctity, that it defied the majority of the Assembly to change it. The Lalayettes, the Hugos, tiie Lamartines, the African Generals, Lamoricierc, Changarnicr, Cavaignac, Ik-dcau, and Le Flo, struggled against this change, with an eloquince radiant with French fer- SECESSION. 199 vor, and inspired with the genius of great deeds. Their President had sworn to be " faithful to the Democratic Republic, one and indivisible, and to fulfil the duties imposed by the Constitution." At length a vote was taken. There were 446 for the amendment ; only 278 against it ; a majority of 168 ; but not enough ; not the required three-fourths ! The crafty President, finding he could not change the Constitution in the con- stitutional manner, began to ply the popular will for his purposes. The ConseUs Generaux demanded, and two million people petitioned for the change. But the Republicans, moderate and red, stood their ground. Even Proudlion, blood-red Communist, from his prison of St. Pelagie, wrote to Girardin that universal suffrage would not be price enough for such a breach of the Constitution. The great question was referred to a committee, of which De Tocqueville was chairman. He, too, withstood the pressure of power. The will of tlie minority, for whose protection constitutions are made, became, through the constituted mode of amend- ment, the will of the majority ; nay, of the State. Just as nine States in this Union hold our Constitution in statu quo, against the will of the re- mainder. These loyal Frenchmen appealed to the nation, against the ad- herents of the Bourbon, Orleans, and Bonaparte. " No," they said, " we will not give up the repose of France, at the price of quieting apprehen- sion of future revolt." They thus confined the enemies of the Republic to the circle of the Constitution, from which they could not break without crime. They declared that the prolongation of the term of Napoleon was a crime, impious and parricidal. When it Avas said that Napoleon would override the Constitution with force in 1852, if not before, they answered ; " Such a crisis will be revolution, arising from a violation of the funda- mental compact. In that case we declare that, enveloped in the flag of France, we will do the duty which the salvation of the Republic imposes ! " On the other hand, it was urged, as it is here urged, that if the Constitu- tion was not broken, there would be dangers more fatal. By a fore- knowledge of disaster, it was urged that the end of Napoleon's term must be a convulsion, which the Assembly, acting on an apprehension, ought to bind in advance. To save him from perjury, a majority of the Assem- bly were willing to commit it themselves. So now, according to my theory. South Carolina would break the Constitution and her oath of feal- ty, in apprehension of an aggression which the President elect, even if he would, has no power to commit. The summer of 1851 passed in France. Again and again had the minority of the Assembly rescued the Constitution from civil dethrone- ment. They triumphed in the forum of reason. But stay ! In a night — in the midst of the debates of the Assembly — on that fatal December night, the usurper seized the reins of power, and like a thief, by a noctur- nal surprise, he silenced every voice but his own, muzzled the press, struck down the Assembly, transported its leaders without judgment, made his Senate of mock Dukes, and surrounded himself Avith the bastards of his race. He illustrated the glory of a reign based on nullification, force, perjury, and fraud ! And is this the banquet to which the American people is invited, by those among us who hate Red Republicans even worse than Black ? Let the American freeman from this example remem- ber this lesson : If political compacts like our Constitution be broken, 200 EIGHT TEAES EST CONGRESS. the limits of authority are effaced. Right succumbs to force. It signifies little whether such acts are done by Executive usurpation, military com- pression, Congressional action, or State secession ; the Government is gone ! States which wUl not keep inviolate the fixed principles of consti- tutional riglit, repudiate their own strength, assassinate their own life, tarnish their own glory, and will receive and deserve the iU-starred fate of France ! In whatever form these infractions may come, history has but one answer for their effect. When laAV is defied successfully, division will come armed with tenfold terror. Force will be arrayed against force. The brute rules and reason dies. If not resisted, there is but one alterna- tive : yokes of wood instead of cords of sUk, and yokes of iron instead of yokes of wood. The red spectre of revolution, or the gentler movements of acquiescent infraction of the organic law. There is but one step from the Capitol to the Tarpeian rock. After centuries of brave struggle, thus France lost the Republic. What shall we say of America, with her seven- ty years crowded Avith the trophies of her success and greatness ? Read the prophetic warning of Judge Story (vol. ii.,p. 138, of his Life and Let- ters) in his introduction to his Commentaries on the Constitution : "The influence of the disturbing causes which, more than once in the Convention, were on the point of breaking up the Union, have since immeasurably increased in concentra- tion and vigor. The very inequanties of a Government, confessedly founded on a com- promise, were then felt with a strong sensibility ; and every new source of discontent, whether accidental or permanent, has since added increased activity to the painful sense of these inequalities. The North cannot but perceive that it has yielded to the South a superiority of representatives, already amounting to twenty-five, beyond its duo proportion ; and the South imagines that, with all this preponderance in representation, the other parts of the Union enjoy a more perfect protection of their interests than her own. The West feels her growing power and weight in the Union, and the Atlantic States begin to learn that the sceptre must one day depart from them. If, under these circumstances, the Union should once be broken up, it is impossible that a new Constitution should ever be formed embracing the whole territory. We shall be divided into several nations or confederacies, rivals in power and interest, too proud to brook injury, and too close to make retaliation distant or ineffectual. Our very animosities will, like those of all other kindred nations, become more deadly, because our Uncage, laws,- and language are the same. Let the his- tory of the Greciiin and Italian republics warn us of our dangers. The national Consti- tution is our last and our only security. United we stand, divided we fall." Ah ! it is easier to commit than to justify such a parricide ! But to justify it on an apprehension, is neither courageous nor safe. Let South Carolina beware! Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, on the 17th January, 1788, in the South Carolina Convention, on the adoption of the Federal Constitution, said : " AYe arc so weak that, by ourselves, we could not form a union strong enough for the purpose of cffoctually protecting each other. Without union with the other States, South Car- olina must soon fall. Is there any one among us so much of a Quixote as to su])po.se that this State could long maintain her independence if she stood alone, or was only connected with the otlier southi-rn States ? " (£"/- lioil's Stale Convention Debates^ vol. iv., p. 27r),) The same statesman, on page 2'JO, in paying a conii)liment to the Dechiration of Independence, says: "The separate independence and indivichial sovereignty of the several States were never thought of by the enlightened band of patriots who franifd this declaration. The several Slates are not even meulioned by name in any part of it, as if it was intended to impress the maxim on SECESSION. 201 America, that our freedom and independence arose from our Union, and that, without it, we could neither be free nor independent. Let us then consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each State is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses." God is just and history inexorable. In leaving the ensign of the stars and stripes, South Carolina will find no repose beneath her little palm. It is from Augustus to Augustulus. Her only renown and strength are in the clustered States — the Bundestaat., as the Germans term it — not in selfish, unfraternal, and hostile loneliness. When she rends the bonds of the Constitution, she opens her peace to the chances of that dark fu- ture, so vividly anticipated by the gentleman from Arkansas. I do not now say that I would vote means and money to repress her revolution. But am I not bound by my oath to support the Constitution of the United and not of the dis-United States ? If I do not do my part to carry on this Government, and to enforce its laws, have I any business here? Neither can I Avithhold my respect from magistrates because they are not my choice. Private opinions must give place to public au- thority. The election of Abraham Lincoln, under the forms of the Con- stitution, however deplorable, cannot be questioned with argument or arms. Judge Douglas exhausted the argument in his reply to the Nor- folk questions ; and I have no such poor opinion of any portion of our people as to believe that they will question it with arms. South Carolina herself participated in this election, giving her voice for her favorite. When, therefore, she would ignore this election, and break the established order for this and other unjustifiable causes, she runs a fearful risk. Her destiny becomes a raffle. The insurrection of her slaves will then only become a question of opportunity. The slave trade will not help, only hasten and aggravate her ills. Perhaps, in the eye of Providence, it was her wisest act, when she yielded her assent to that Federal covenant which was -and is a restraint against herself and her slaves and for herself and her safety. That assent and that covenant were the highest expres- sion of the popular will ; for they were the voice of the majority, which Jefferson called the vital principle of Republics, and from which there is no appeal but to force — the vital principle and immediate parent of des- potism. Before risking such chances, cannot the South await the returning justice of the North? Unless disunion be determined upon in spite of every effort at harmony, I do not see why, after having so long acqui- esced in the breach of the fourth article of the Constitution, any State should go out upon that ground, even though, as Mr. Webster held, its breach be treason. And as for the North, so long as the Federal laws remain unbroken, and no serious detriment to the public property and peace is threatened, cannot she, too, tolerate these heated appeals, rebel- lious ordinances, and too careless handling of gunpowder at Point Morris, with equanimity, for the chance only of the rehabilitation of the seceding States? At least, until the North repeal their nullification laws, would not such equauimity be magnanimity? Let the South desist from fux'ther attempts to obstruct the collection of the Federal revenues and despoil the property of the Government ; let there be no attempt to exclude the people 202 EIGHT YEAES IN CONGKESS. North and "West from this Federal District and Capitol, and no attempt to shiic us who are inland from the Gulf or sea ; and then what occasion is there likely to arise in which the North will dare take up arms to shoot or bayonet southern citizens into the Union, which they only leave, we may hope, constructively? If, as Mr. Douglas arg^ued, war is disunion, cannot we, who love it so well, afford to be patient for the Union ? But wliat a danger is here ! Once let the fealty to this Government be broken, and who can restrain the excesses incident thereto ? If such excesses be committed, there woidd be aroused a martial spirit which, in rushing to the defence of Major An- derson and his men in Fort Sumter, or to avenge their deatli, would do and dare all in the name of our Great Republic. Touch not a hair of his head ! He is sacred to-day. He embodies the patriotism of millions. Accident has made him the defender of that flag which has floated from Bunker Hill to Mexico. His death would open a gulf into which the people would pour, in vengeance even if in vain, their treasures and their chil- dren. Or if a confederation South propose to control the moiiths of the Mis- sissippi and its banks, do you believe it could be done without a protest of arms? Do you know the history of that acquisition, and its vital neces- sity to the Northwest? I hope you have listened to the able recital of my friend from Illinois [Mr. McClernand] touching these points. It would seem, from the news we have to-day, that a system of espionage and detention by force has already been begun in Mississippi, upon steam- ers from the North. That mighty river, of two thousand miles extent, one of whose tributaries doubles the parent stream in its length, with its $60,000,000 worth of steamers, doing the business of twelve States, with an area of one million two hundred thousand square miles drained by its waters — from the snows and timbers of the North, to the sun and blooms of the South — will ever remain in the Union ! It was the necessity for its use and outlet which, in part, called for the Constitution seventy-five years ago. As the veteran General Cass told me, the sparse population in my own State, of which he was one, were even then ready to rise in arms, in consequence of a provisional treaty with Spain, which did not adequately jjrovide for the coveted riparian lu-ivileges. And now, after a usufruct of three quarters of a century, not only the commerce, the honor, and the riglits of the West, but the protesting voices of nature, calling from valley and hill, in summer rains, in gold-washing streams and smiling cultivation ; nay, progress itself, which is the life of the West — wliich has made it deserve the poet's phrase, applied to ancient Latiuui, potcns armis alque nhcre (jlehon — progress, which is the stride of a god across the continent — all tliese agencies would conspire to redden the IMississippi to float our unequalled produce between its banks to the sea ! It is in- dustry which would thus decree ; and it would execute its own edict. With us, not gold, nor cotton, but industry is king ! However homely its attire, it wears the purple, and on its brow the coronal of bearded grain, impearled with the priceless sweat of independence. It will stretch its sceptre from the rivkr unto the ends of the earth ! Neither imposts, nor tariffs, nor obstructions, nor foreign control, nor hazard of foreign ■war, shall hedge in its empu'c. These rights of transit and outlet arc ours SECESSION. 203 by use, by purchase, by possession ; and ours they will remain. Leaving these elements of strife unstirred, the secession movement may vanish into a foolish dream^^a spectre of the night, which will depart when the dawn shall again environ us in the cycle of its felicities ! But, as to these vague apprehensions of aggressions from the Presi- dent elect. Would it not be best to await his entrance into power? What overt act has he yet done, or his party, in a Federal way ? If you resist now, it should be against the States whose legislation is hostile ; not against the General Government, which has done you no wrong. When that overt act is done which you fear, you will find the northern Democ- racy ready to join you in the defence of your rights and the vindication of your equality of privilege. Will southern statesmen look a few facts in the face, not with that dumb gaze which deadens the will and paralyzes the intellect, but with that large roundabout common sense which distin- guished her early statesmen? Is not Mr. Lincoln powerless for harm? Elected by about two million out of five million votes, he is in a minority of a million. That minority diminishes with every hour of northern misery, want, and bankruptcy. In that million there are antagonizing elements, without power morally or politically. More than half of that million will show a feeling of fraternity, which no partisanship can over- whelm. They wUl unite with that gallant band of Democrats and Ameri- cans in the North, who have ever warned and worked against the im- pending catastrophe. They will stand in the next Senate and House as a bulwark against the further advances of sectionalism. In my own State there are two hundred thousand patriots already as a nucleus for this great party of Union and justice. These men, sir, will welcome any honoi'- able settlement. For myself, I have a preference. I would prefer Judge Douglas's propositions even to the border State projet. But I wiU vote for either, for they answer every reasonable demand with respect to the fugitive slave law, slavery in this District, and on other points. In refer- ence to the Territories, the border projet provides : " That the line of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes shall be run through all the existing territory of the United States ; that in all north of that line slavery shall be prohibited, and that, south of that line, neither Congress nor the Territorial Legislature shall hereafter pass any law abolishing, prohibitmg, or in any manner interfering with African slavery, and that, when any Territory containing a suiBcient population for one member of Congress in any area of sixty thousand square miles, shall apply for admission as a State, it shall be admitted, with or without slavery, as its Constitution may determine." But, if this will not answer, let the proposition of Mr. Douglas or Mr. Rice be adopted. Nay, further, if it be the only alternative to pre- serve this Union, I would vote for the proposition of Mr. Crittenden. Much as I dislike, in this age of progress, an irrevocable law, still I would write it in the Constitution, if thus only you can preserve that in- strument. It provides for an irrevocable division of the territory. The President says of it : "The proposition to compromise, by letting the North have exclusive control of the territory above a certain line, and giving southern institutions protection below that line, ought to receive universal approbation. In itself, indeed, it may not be entirely satisfac- tory ; but when the alternative is between a reasonable concession on both sides, and the destruction of the Union, it is an imputation on the patriotism of Congress to assert that its members will hesitate for a moment." 204: EIGHT TEAKS EST CONGEESS. Shall this appeal for compromise be ineffectual ? It may be a sacri- fice of Bortliern sentiment. But, sir, the conservative men will sacrifice much for the Union. Sacrifice and compromise are convertible terms. They are words of honorable import. The one gave us Calvary, the other the Constitution. Nothing worth having was ever gained without them. Even the father compromised with the prodigal son, despite the meanness of the elder brother. He saw him afar off, ran to him, and with the evidences of affection, restored him to his heirship and honor. Sacrifice for our political salvation ! Heaven will smile upon it. The dove of peace will rest upon it. If the Republicans will only bestow on us a few of their conservative votes in this House, we will do our part to make compromise honorable. If you dislike the Avord compromise, and are content with the offices and power it will insure you, very well. You may bear away the booty, we will carry the banner ! We will not quar- rel, nor need we taunt each other. You may enjoy the honors and pat- ronage of administration ; to us will belong the laurelled crown of the Revolution, and the civic wreath of the great Convention ! Our southern friends do not know the Kepublicans as we do. They will be content with the tricks, and I trust allow us the honors. They •will be as harmless in office as most men are. When Gen. Wilson talks of grinding the slave power to powder, he never intends to use the pow- der, only to enjoy the power. [Laughter.] When the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Lovejoy] would speak to the God of battles, he is only praying to an unknown God. [Renewed laughter.] AYhen Senator Wade, at Belfast, Maine, four years ago, proclaimed that there was no Union, that the pretended Union was meretricious ; and Avhen he proposed to drive " slavery back to her own dark dominions, and there to let her rot, and damn all who foster her," he was only illustrating that Christian sweetness of temper and fragrance of sentiment which is now offered up as incense on the only altar he knows — that of a meretricious Union, whose shew-bread he would eat and whose precious emblems he would plunder ! The Jolm Brown and Helper characteristics are convenient garments among them, to be put dn to proselyte the churches and the old women, and to be put off to please wide-awakes and old Whigs. They do this for office. They do not think of its effect upon the South. It is a trick to be ignored when in office. These defiant men at home will be- come sucking doves in power. It is not instinct to fight over provender. If the South could understand them, and not take them at their word too rashly. It is said that the reason why the South opposes the rule of Republi- canism is. that their tenets are misrepresented at tlic South. I will not now show you what the Republicans profess at home. I hope they will fully disavow, under the composing sweets of fat jobs and offices, their bad acts and worse avowals when out of ollice. And is there not reason for hope? Patience ! already they are willing to forego their Con- gressional provisos against slavery. They have already jiroposed to drop intervention by Congress. They are willing to accept New Mexico as a slave Slate. Courage, gentlemen ! I do not taunt, I applaud, this spirit of conciliation. The Republican party would enjoy its power. In this it is not peculiar, perhaps. It is a way men and parties have. It will SECESSION. 205 remembei* that to retain power — in the matter of personal liberty bills, non-delivery of criminals, judicial decisions, and other aggressions on the Constitution — these wrongs cannot stand. It is as revolutionary to try to keep such things as they are, as it is to upset the Government because of them. There is nothing so convulsive or unnatural as the strain to keep wrong in the ascendant. Mr. Lincoln in the White House may not be the rail-splitter out of it. Abraham, in faith, may offer vip his " irrepres- sible " offspring. [Laughter.] He wiU be conservative, with a total ob- livion of the radical. The one will "conflict" with the other; and the former will become aU one thing, without the other. He may disappoint the South as much as the abolition wing of his party. In their abolition platforms, it would seem as if the Republicans would hold this Union together by the running noose of John Brown gibbets ; but when they ap- proach the august presence of power, and undertake to rule thirty-one millions of people, as already demonstrated here, they hold up the fasces of the Republic and wonder why we ever misunderstood or misrepresented their innocency ! Their success is the result of passionate appeals. Passion soon sub- sides. This is the old and avowed means of the anti-slavery party. It began in England, as you will see by the London " Times " of November 3, 1832, when hired orators went over Britain, imder pay of an anti-slavery propagandism. It was then said that George Tliompson, who was sent to this country as its apostle, was " the very lecturer we want, because his lectures are addi'essed to the passions. We are so satisfied of the goodness of our cause, that we do not want to consult the reason or judg- ment of the people. If they vote for us, we do not care whether their votes come through their passions or not." This brute appeal to the pas- sions succeeded in England, as her ruined West Indies testify ; for phi- lanthropy there is great in proportion to its distance from its object. But here the sense of a brotherly people will reprehend such appeals. They see the African here in his relation of servitude. They know what he be- comes in the North when free. They know that it is impossible to man umit him speedily, without injury irreparable to white and black. They will not sacrifice this Government of twenty-seven and a half million -whites to do no good to three and a half million blacks. Even many of those who oppose slavery, find in it the relation which the eagle and the " lamb sustained in the air. It might have been wrong for the eagle to have seized the lamb. The eagle, while holding it, may return to a con- sciousness of the wrong he is doing ; but it does not foUow that he should let it drop from his talons to the earth. It seems impossible for any one to view the philosophy of Republican principles, and not revolt in sober reason from its inevitable and suicidal results. There is hope that it wiU be as timid in power as it is destructive in principle. Heaven will smile on such timidity. Nay, it will cease to be such, if prompted by an honest desire to establish justice by the retraction of wrong. It will become moral courage. When Mr, Giddings writes to Mr. Ewing, that none but cowards, none but unvirile minions of the slave power, like himself, are afraid of dissolution, he begins to show the impotence of rage at a fracture already begun in the party which he originated. The Republican party, it is to 206 EIGHT TEARS EST CONGEESS. be hoped, under the lead of Bates, Raymond, Corwin, Ewing, "Weed, ay, and Seward and Lincoln also, will drown the Giddings crew, even if they have to scuttle their own party ship, and go down with it. Time, patience, fidelity to your old and tried friends, gentlemen of the South, and all will be well ! Let us exhaust every cifbrt at an accommodation. There is wisdom in the letter of George Washington, of July 27, 1798, accepting the command in chief, in the threatened war against the French Directory. Said he : " Satisfied that you have sincerely endeavored to avert war, and exhausted to the last drop the cup of recoacihation, we can, with pure hearts, appeal to Heaven for the justice of our cause." When you have drained the cup of reconciliation dry and have not justice, you will find a majority of northern men ready to fight your battle on our ground. Never, never will the Democrats of Ohio, so long as their Republican governors, legislatures, and judges do not retrace their steps and do justice to the Constitution which they have annulled ; never "will these Democrats, the best, I will not say the only fighting element of Ohio, thrust Republican wrongs down the throats of the South . at the point of the bayonet ! Am I answered that no such wrongs exist ? If there be an Ohio Republican on this floor who so answers, I throw down the glove and will lift the veil from the spotted leprosy of our RepubUcan rule. I will not sit here in silent acquiescence of the disgraceful conduct of my own State. I have no State pride in the action of our legislative, judicial, and executive officers. Let the supporters of ^rinkerhofi', Sutlilf, i)enison, and their companions, take up the glove ! if they would call South Carolina to account, let them first remove the beam from their own eye. They never can, while spotted with moral treason and guilty of de- liberate nullification, make Ohio Democrats the tools of their vengeance — never, never ! When they denounce the mad precipitancy of the South, let them remove its cause ! I know and ponder what I say. You will have justice if you will have patience and permit reconciliation. Whatever the legal powers of the Federal Goverment may be, they derive all their eflicieucy from the popular will. The Constitution gives the Government force to execute the law ; but it is a force, after all, which resides in the people, and which they wiU withhold in an unjust cause. We have no Army to execute the edict of Republican injustice. Our bayonets think. We have in the West, bencatli a sheathcu rough- ness, a keen sabre ready to flash in defence of the Union to which our people owe so much, and which is the best beloved of their heart. And if no time be left for conciliation ; if you of the South desert your friends and the Union to their fate ; if you leave to be decided but tlio one great overmastering problem. Union or disunion ; if in the presence of this hard solitary question, they are left to decide it, and peril come from their de- cision, which conservative men cannot avert, there will ring out from the yearning patriotic heart of the mighty West, it may be in agony and de- spair : tlie Union, now and forever, one and indivisible — it must and shall be preserved ! I warn the Republican party that they will need the aid of the patriotic men of the North to sustain tlieir Executive. Tiiis revolution is reserv- ing its more ellcctual overt acts for Republican rule. AVhat then ? It SECESSION. 207 will have become strong by cooperation. No Republican Administration can enforce the law, unless the Kepublican State authorities first place themselves rio-ht before the people, and reconstruct the moral bases of their Governments. By the 4th of March, South Carolina wDl have the Gulf States united. It will appeal to that economic law which is stronger than sentiment. By its appeal to the interests of the cotton States it will succeed in securing cooperation. Before we enter upon a career of force, let us exhaust every effort at peace. Let us seek to excite love in others by the signs of love in ourselves. Let there be no needless provocation and strife'. Let every reasonable attempt at compromise be considered. Otherwise we have a terrible alternative. War, in this age and in this country, sir, should be the ultima ratio. Indeed, it may well be^ ques- tioned whether there is any reason in it or for it. What a war ! Endless in its hate, without truce and without mercy. If it ended ever, it would only be after a fearful struggle ; and then with a heritage of hate which would forever forbid harmony. Henry Clay forewarned us of such a war. His picture of its consequences I recall in his own language : "I will not attempt to describe scenes which now happily Ue concealed from our view. AboUtionists themselves would shrink back in dismay and horror at the contemplation ot desolated fields, conflagrated cities, murdered inhabitants, and the overthrow of the fairest fabric of human government that ever rose to animate the hopes of civilized man. Nor should the Abolitionists flatter themselves that, if they can succeed in their object of uniting the people of the free States, they will enter the contest with a numerical superiority that must insure victory. All history and experience proves the hazard and uncertainty ot war. And we are admonished by Holy Writ that the race is not to the swift, nor the bat- tle to the strong. , , , « i /• ■ <• „-u^ " But if they were to conquer, whom would they conquer ? A foreign foe— one who had insulted our flag, invaded our shores, and laid our country waste ? No, sir ; no. It would be a conquest without laurels, without glory— a self, a suicidal conquest— a con- quest of brothers over brothers, achieved by one over another portion of the descendants of common ancestors, who, nobly pledging their lives, their fortune, and their sacred honor, had fought and bled, side by side, in many a hard battle_ on land and ocean severed our coiSitry from the British crown, and established our national independence. Such a war is the almost unavoidable result of a dissolution of this Confederacy. Mr. Madison (No. 61," Federalist") urgedas a reason for the Union, that it destroyed every pretext for a mihtary estabhshment ; " but its dissolution," said he, " will be the date of a new order of thmgs. Fear and ambition would make America copy Europe, and present liberty everywhere crushed between standing armies and perpetual taxes. He augured for a disunited America a worse condition than that oi Europe. Would it not be so ? SmaU States and great States ; new States and old States ; slave States and free States ; Atlantic States and Pacific States ; gold and silver States ; iron and copper States ; grain States and lumber States; river States and lake States; aU having varied interests and advantages, would seek superiority in armed strength Pride, animosity, and glory would inspire every movement. God shield our country from such a fulfilment of the prophecy of the revered founders of the Union. Our struggle would be no short, sharp struggle. Law, and even Religion herself, would become false to then- divine purpose. Their voice would no longer be the voice of God, but of his enemy. Poverty, ignorance, oppression, and its handmaid, cowardice, breaking out into merciless cruelty ; slaves false ; freemen slaves, and society itself poisoned at the 208 EiaHT TEAES EST CONGRESS. cradle and dishonored at the grave — its life, now so full of blessings, would be gone with the life of a fraternal and united State-hood. What sacrifice is too great to prevent such a calamity? Is such a picture over- drawn? Already its outlines appear. What means the inaugural of Governor Pickens, when he says, " From the position we may occupy toward the northern States, as weU as from our own internal structure of society, the government ina.j,from necessity, become strongly military in its organization " ? What means the minute-men of Governor Wise ? What the southern boast that they have a rifle or shot-gun to each family ? What means the Pittsburg mob ? What this alacrity to save Forts Moul- trie and Pinekney ? What means the boast of the southern men of being the best-armed people in the world, not counting the two hundred thou- sand stand of United States arms stored in southern arsenals? Ab'eady Georgia has her arsenals, with eighty thousand muskets ! What mean these lavish grants of money by southern Legislatures to buy more arms ? What mean these rumors of arms and force on the Mississippi? These few facts have already verified the prophecy of Madison. Mr. Speaker, he alone is just to his country ; he alone has a mind unwarped by section, and a memory unparalj^zed by fear, who warns against precipitancy. lie who could hurry this nation to the rash wager of battle, is not fit to hold the seat of legislation. What can justify the breaking up of our institutions into belligerent fractions? Better this marble Capitol were levelled to the dust ; better Avere this Congress struck dead in its deliberations ; better au immolation of every ambition and passion which have here met to shake the foundations of society, than the hazard of these consequences ! As yet, I do not believe that the defensive conduct of the Executive in- volves these consequences. Nay, I hope that firmness in resisting aggres- sion, with the kindness which he has endeavored to show, may do much to avert them. Certainly weakness and indecision now will not avail to check the rising tide of public sentiment, and preserve the public peace. I agree Avith much that my friends from Illinois [Mr. McClernand] New York [Mr. Sickles], and Ohio [Mr. Vallandigham] have said as to the interests, dignity, and rights of their own sections. I will not now go into any calculation or contemplation about the results of a dissevei'jlnxA of this Union. Long may it be averted — that picture of Ohio, as the narroAV istlimus between a broken East and a divided West, with a hostile southern border ! Long may it be averted — that sad picture of Ncav York, a great free emporium, trading to all the Avorld, and closed fra'nst the interchange of her OAvn inland ! We have gloom enough Avithout these new schemes of division. I iuA'oke the better spirit of AYashiugt n, aa-Iio never spoke so truly prophetic as a statesman as Avhen he said : "In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as a mt '.er of serious concern, that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing piJr''39 by geognijihical discriminations, northern and southern, Atlantic and Western, wthnff^ de- signing men may endeavor to incite a belief that there is a real dilfercnce of local int^^rests and views. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heart-burn- ings which spring from these inisrepicsentations. They tend to render alien to eacu other those wlio ouglit to be bound together by fraternal affection." In these days of anticipated trouble, Avhcn financial disaster tracks the SECESSION. 2^^ ^tPn of political infidelity ; when the violation of compact is followed close t\e i£ perate zeakt^y of revolution ; when even the property of our jUon is seTzed and our flag is torn down under its impulses ; when, as ^f premonTtoiy ofson^ great sacrifice, the veil of our political temple seems^ent and the earth about us quakes, and the very graves give up heS deTc who come forth to warn, beseech, advise, and modera e, m Ws hourof our country's deepest gloom and pcnl-let us ^eed with an aU-embTacin<^ and all-compromising patriotism, the warning of Washing- ton f^o^: vdce, though L be dead, yet speaketh ^om yo^d- ^^^^ Mount Vernon, and whose august presence I woidd summon here as the PRESEKVEKof that couutry whose greatest pride it is, to had him as its ^^InlL sacred name, and on behalf of a people who have ever heeded his warn n<^, and neve^ wavered in the just defence of the South or of the NorA^i appeal to southern men who contemplate a s^ep so fraught wfth ha id and strife, to pause. Clouds are about us ! There is light- nin- in their frown ! Cannot we direct it harmlessly to the earth? The morn n^ and evening prayer of the people I speak for i- such weakness, rises in^Btrencrth to thit Supreme Ruler who, in noticmg the faU of a spar- row cannot^disregard the fall of a nation, that our States may continue to be-as they have been-one ; one in the unreserve of a mingled na- tional being ; one as the thought of God is One ! rHere Mr. Cox's hour expii-ed ; but, by unanimous consent of the House he was allowed to go on and conclude his remarks.] . The e emblems above us, in their canopy of beauty, each chsplaying the symbol of State interest. State pride, and State sovereignty let not one ofthem be dimmed by the rude breath of passion, or efi-aced by the ruder sroTe of enmity. They all shine, like stars, differing m glory, m their manyiued splendors, by the light of the same orb, even as our States receive theii^ lustre from the Union, which irradiates and glorifies each and all. Our aspirations and hopes centre in the proud title of American ci^- zen. Whether we had from the land of granite or the everglade of flow- ers • from the teeming bosom of the West, the sea-washed shore of the -a;, orThe gold-bear°ing sierras of the Pacific slope-aU are imbound by the same ri-ol of American patriotism. Abroad, at home, in palace or n cXn, n ship or on land, we rejoice in that proud distmction of American citizen. We look upon our nationality as the actual of that M described by Edmund Burke in a strain of finished e oquence and uuLXnlosopV- something better than a P-Jnershipm trade, to be t ken up for a temporary interest and dissolved at the fancy ot the partk . m look upon it with other reverence, because it is not a part- Sersh. in things subservient only to a gross animal existence of a perish- able ture. It is a partnership in aU science ; a partnership in all art ; a plAnersh p in every virtue and in aU perfection.^ As the ends of such a por nership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a part- ue^r;hip not only between those who are living, but between those .dio are living,^hose who are dead, and those who are to be born. Each cont^a^ of each State is but a clause in the great primeval contract of eternal soc^TY, linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the vi.ible 210 EIGHT YEAES IN CONGKESS. with the invisible world, according to a fixed compact, sanctioned hj the inviolable oath which holds all physical, all moral natures each in their appointed place. Thus regarding our nationality as more than a life, as the association of many lives in one, as an immortality rather than a life, the people of this country will cling to it with a tenacity of purpose and an energy of will as to the very cross of their temporal salvation, aad revere it as the impersonation of their sovereign upon earth, whose throne is this goodly land, and whose mighty minstrelsy, ever playing before it, is the voice of an intelligent, happy, and free people ! y. EULOGY OF STEPHEN ARNOLD DOUGLAS. Delivered in the Souse of Bepresentatives on the 9th of July, 1861. Mr. Speaker : Ohio is not separated from Kentucky, either in the estimate of Judge Douglas, which has been so eloquently pronounced by the distinguished statesman [Mr. Crittenden] who has just taken his seat, or in the grief which has been expressed for the premature closing of his illustrious career. That career closed with the opening of this eventful summer. It abounded in friendships, services, and ambitions. It ended while he was enjoying the tumidt of universal acclaim, and when all felt the need of its continuance. Labor paused in its toil, bankers shut their offices and merchants their stores, lawyers and judges adjourned their courts, ministers added new fervor to prayer, partisans united in hushed regret, and soldiers draped the flag in crape, to bear their part in the great grief of the nation. He died in the midst of the people who had honored him for a generation ; in the city whose growth had been fostered by his vigilance ; in the State whose prairies were famil- iar to his eye from earliest manhood ; and in that gi'eat Northwest, whose commercial, agricultural, physical, and imperial greatness was the pride of his heart and the type of his own character. There was in him a quick maturity of growth, a fertility of resource, and a sturdiness of energy, which made his life the microcosm of that great section with which he was so closely identified. That mind Avhich had few equals, and that will which had no conq'' .or, save in the grave, were at last wrung from hia iron frame. It is hard to believe that he lies pulseless in his sepulchre at Cottage Grove. It is sad to feel that the summer wind which waves the grass and flowers of his loved prairies has, in its low wail, an elegy to the departed statesman. "Well might the waters of the lake, just before his death, as if premonitory of some great sacrifice, swell in mysterious emo- tion. These poor panegyrics, from manuscript and memory, fail to express the loss which those feel who knew him best. One would wish for the eloquence of Bossuet, or the muse of Spenser or Tennyson, to tell in the poetry of sorrow the infinite woe which would -OTeak itself upon expression. For weeks the public have mourned him as a loss so grievous as to be irreparable in this trying time of the Republic. The lapse of time only 212 EIGHT YEAES JN CONGRESS. adds to the weight of the bereavement. The tears which fell around his bedside and on his bier stiU " Weep a loss forever new." With every passing day we turn, but turn in vain, to catch his hopeful tone, his discriminating judgment, his philosophic foresight, and his courageous jDatriotism. They only come to us in memory and in mourn- ing. His lips are sealed ; his eye is dim ; his brain is shrouded ; his heart is still ; and the nation stands with throbbing heart at his grave. " His virtue is treasured in our hearts ; his death is our despair." It is no mere ceremonial, therefore, that the national Legislature, in whose counsels he has taken so prominent a part, should pause, even in extraor- dinary session, to bestow that homage wliich friendship, intellect, and patriotism ever offer to the true man, the gifted soul, and the enlight- ened statesman. Judge Douglas struggled into greatness. He had no avenue to honor except that which was open to all. The power and patronage which aided him, he created ; and the wealth which he made and spent so freely, came from no ancestral hand. Part teacher and part cabinet maker, he left the East for the ruder collisions of border life. There he grew up under the adversities which strengthened him into a vigorous and early maturity. His own manhood soon made itself felt. He became the po- litical necessity of his State. He filled many of its most important offices before he became nationally known. The Democratic people of the Union were soon attracted to him. As early as 1848 they began to think of him as their candidate for President ; while, in 1852, the Democratic Review hailed him as the coming man ; a man Avho had no grandfather or other incident of biographical puffery ; as one whose genealogical tree had been sawed up ; as a graduate from the university of the lathe ; as one with the materials, the mind, and the energy to shape, fashion, and make enduring, a platform of his own. ^ No notice of Stephen A. Douglas is complete which does not remark upon the singular magnetism of his personal presence, the talismanic touch of his kindly hand, the gentle amenities of his domestic life, and the ineradicable clasp of his friendships. ,Tt may not be improper to refer to the fact that I was one among the many young men of the West who were bound to him by a tie of friendship and a spell of enthusiasm which death has no power to break. These are the pearls beneath the rough shell of his political life. There are many here Avho will understand me, when I recall the gentle tone and the cordial greeting with Avhich he used to woo and win and hold the young partisans of his faith, and the warm promot- ers of his success. Ever ready Avith his counsel, his means, and his ener- gies, he led them as much by the persuasiveness of his heart as the logic of his head. The same gentle demeanor wliich fondled liis children and taught them a beauty of manners beyond all praise, the same pure respect and tenderness with which he treated his noble wife and comjianion, silvered the cords of attachment which bound his friends to him, and made his home at Washington and his sojourns elsewhere recollections as sweet as m(>mory can embalm. While others bear testimony to his moral hei'oism, iutcUcctual prowess, EULOGY OF STEPHEN AENOLD DOUGLAS. 213 fixedness of principle, and unstained patriotism, it seems that his spirit, if it hovers over this scene of his obsequies, would receive with purest delight these tributes of friendly affection. I recall in my own experience, which runs Avith unbroken association of friendship Avith him from the first year of my political life, many of his acts of unselfish devotion ; many ' words outspoken to the public, which the mere designing pohtician would not have uttered ; many tenders of aid and counsel, which were the more grateful because unsought, and the more serviceable because they came from him. It is one of the felicities of my life that I have been the recip- ient of his kindness and confidence ; and that the people whom I represent were cherished by him, as he was by them, with the steadfastness of unal- loyed devotion. It was his pleasure very often to sojovu-n in the capital city of Ohio, where, regardless of party, the people paid him the respect due to his character and services. Among the last of the associations which he had with Ohio was his address, a few weeks befoi-e his death, to the people at its capital, on the invitation of the State Legislature. His stirring tones still thrill on the air, protesting for the right and might of the Great West to egress through our rivers and highways to the sea against all hostile obstruction, and for the maintenance of the Government, threatened by the great revolution which yet surrounds us. His last utterance was the fit climax of a life devoted to the study of this Government, and of a patriotism which never swerved from its love for the Union. It was worth whole battalions of armed men. A word from him made calm from tempest, and resolved doubt into duty. His thought swayed the tides of public opinion as vassals to his will. After his hot contests in the Senate, during the first session of the last Congress ; after his Harper essay in development of his political theories ; after his heroic campaign in the South, closing at Norfolk in his courageous reply to the questions of the disunionists ; after his struggles of last winter, when he strung his en- ergies to the utmost in pleading for peace and conciliation ; after all had failed, and secession stalked with haughty head through the land, and even jeoparded tliis metropolis of the nation, it was the consummate glory of his life to have given his most emphatic utterance for the maintenance of the Government, even though its administration was committed to his old political antagonist, and although he knew that such expressions imperil- led the lives of a hundred thousand of his friends. Scarcely with any of our public men can Douglas be compared. The people like to compare him to Jackson, for his energy and honesty. He was like the great triumvirate — Clay, Webster, and Calhoun — but " like in difference." Like them in his gift of political foresight, still he had a power over the masses possessed by neither. Like Clay, in his charm to make and hold friends and to lead his party ; like Webster, in the massive substance of his thought, clothed in apt political words ; like Calhoun, in the tenacity of his purpose and the subtlety of his dialectics ; he yet surpassed them all in the homely sense, the sturdy strength, and indomitable persistence with which he wielded the masses and electrified the Senate. In the onslaught of debate he was ever foremost ; his crest high and his falchion keen. Whether his antagonists numbered two or ten, whether 214 EIGHT TEARS m CONGEESS. the whole of the Senate were against him, he could " take a raking fire at the whole group." Like the shrouded Junius, he dared Commons, Lords, and King, to the encounter ; but unlike that terrible shadow, he sought no craven covert, but fought in the open lists, with a muscular and mental might which defied the unreasoning cries of the mob and rolled back the thunders of the Executive anathema ! Douglas was no scholar, in the pedantic sense of the term. His read- ing Avas neither classical nor varied. Neither was he a sciolist. His re- searches were ever in the line of his duty, but therein they were thorough. His library was never clear from dust. His favorite volume was the book of human nature, which he consulted without much regard to the binding. He Avas skilled in the contests of the bar ; but he was more than a lawyer — he easily separated the rubbish of the law from its essence. As a jurist, his decisions were not essays ; they had in them something decisive, after the manner of the best English judges. ' As a legislator, his practicalness cut away the entanglements of theoretic learning and ancient precedent, and brought his mind into the presence of the thing to be done or undone. Hence he never criticized a Avrong for Avhich he did not provide a remedy. He never discussed a question that he did not propose a measure/) His style was oT that plain and tough fibre which needed no ornament. He had a felicity in the use of political language never equalled by any public man. He had the right Avord for the right place. His interroga- tive method, and his ready and fit replies, gave dramatic vivacity to his debates. Hence the newspapers readily copied them, and the people re- tentiA'ely remembered them. Gleams of humor were not infrequent in his speeches, as in his conversation. His logic had the reach of the rifled can- non, which annihilated whUe it sUenced the batteries of his opponents. Douglas was a partisan ; but he never Avore his party uniform Avhen \>^ i' his country Avas in danger. His zeal, like all excess, may have had its defect ; but to him Avho observes the symmetry and magnanimity of his / life, it will appear that he ahvays strove to make his party conservative •^ of his country. The tenacity with Avhich he clung to his theory of terri- torial government, and the extension of sufii-age, on local questions, from State to Territory, and the absolute non-intervention by Congress for the sake of peace and union, Avhile it made him enemies, increased the admi- ration of his friends. His natui'e shines out Avith its loftiest grace and courage in his debates on these themes, so nearly connected as he thought them Avith the stability of the Republic. If it be that every true man is himself a cause, a country, or an age ; if the height of a nation is the altitude of its best men, then, indeed, are these eidarged liberalities, Avhich are now fixed as American institutions, but the lengthened shadow of Stephex A. Douglas. This is the cause — self- government in State and Territory — Avith which he avouUI love most to be identilied iu his country's history. He Avas ready to follow it to any logical conclusion, liaving iuith in it as a principle of repose, justice, and union. Placed at the head of the Territorial Committee, it Avas his hand which, on tliis Ijasis, fashioned Territory ai^er Territory, and led State after State into tlie Union. Tlie latest constellation, formed by California, Iowa, Oregon, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and I may add Kansas, received EULOGY OF STEPHEN ARNOLD DOUGLAS. 215 their charter to shine and revolve under his h^nd. These States, faithful ' to his fostering, will ever remain as monuments of his greatness ! Ilis comprehensive forecast was exhibited in his speech on the Clayton and Bulwer treaty, on the 4th of March, 1853 ; wherein he enforced a continental policy suitable and honorable to the New World and its des- tiny, now so unhappily obscured. That speech was regarded by Judge Douglas as among the most valuable, as I think it the most finished and cogent speech of his life. His philippic against England, which to-day has its vindication in her sehfish conduct towards us, will remind the scholar of Demosthenes, while his enlarged philosophy has the sweep and dignity of Edmund Burke. It was this speech which gave to Douglas the heart of Young America. He refused to prescribe limits to the area over which Democratic principles might safely spread. " I know not what our destiny may be. But," he continued, "I try to keep up with the spirit of the age ; to keep in view the history of the country ; see what we have done, whither we are going, and with what velocity we are mov- ing, in order to be prepared for those events which it is not in the power of man to thwart." He would not then see the limits of this giant Repub- lic fettered by treaty ; neither would he in 1861 see them curtailed by treachery. If he Avere alive to-day, he would repeat with new emphasis his warning against England and her unforgiving spite, wounded pride, and selfish policy. When, in 1847, he advocated the policy of terminating her joint occupation with us of Oregon, he was ready to back it by mili- tary force ; and if war should result, " we might drive Great Britain and the last vestiges of royal authority from the continent of North America, and make the United States an ocean-bound Republic ! " With ready tact and good sense he brought to the fiscal and com- mercial problems of the country views suitable to this age of free inter- change and scientific advancement. His position on the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Senate gave him/a scope of view abroad, which was enriched 1 y European travel and historic research, and which he ever used for the advancement of our flag and honor among the nations, ^i His knowledge of our domestic troubles, with their hidden rocks and horrid breakers, and the measures he proposed to remove them, show that he was a statesman of the highest rank, fit for calm or storm. Some have lamented his death now as untimely and unfortunate for his own fame, since it has happened just at the moment when the politician was lost in the patriot, and when he had a chance to atone for past error by new devotion. Mr. Speaker, men do not change their natures so easily. The Douglas of 1861 was the Douglas of 1850, 1854, and 1858. The patriot who denounced this great rebellion was the patriot in every fold and lineament of his character. There is not a page of his history that we can afford to blot, The words which escaped him in the delirium of his last days — when he heard the " battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting " — were the key-note to a harmonious life. Observant of the insidious processes North and South which have led us to this civil war, he ever strove, by adjustment, to avoid their dis- astrous effects. History will be false to her trust, if she does not -vvi'ite that Stephen A. Douglas was a patriot of matchless purity, and a states- man who, foreseeing and warning, tried his utmost to avert the dangers 216 EIGHT YEAKS IN CONGEESS. which are now so hard to repress. Nor will she permit those who now praise his last great effort for the Union to qualify it by sinister reflections upon his former conduct ; for thus they tarnish the lustre of a life devoted, in peace and in war, to the preservation of the Union. His fame never had eclipse. Its disk has been ever bright to the eye of history. It sank below the horizon, like the sun of the Morea, full-orbed, and in the full blaze of its splendor. How much we shall miss him here ! How can we, his associates, do Avithout his counsel? No longer does the murmur go round that Douglas is speaking in the Senate ; no longer does the House become quorumless to listen to his voice ! His death is like the dissolu- tion of a political organism. Indeed, we could better afford to lose a sphere of stars from our flag ; for these might wander to return. But Douglas cannot be brought back to us. He who had such a defiant power, with the " thews of Auakim and the pulses of a Titan's heart," has gone upon a returnless journey. How much shall we miss him now! "We have so long regarded the political, social, geographical, and com- mercial necessities to which our Government was adapted as rendering it eternal, that its present condition calls for new and rare elements of statesmanship. Are we equal to the time and the trust ? Oh ! for a Clay, a Webster, a Douglas, in this great ordeal of constitutional free- dom ! TVhile the country is entanglecl by these serpents of revolution, we shall miss the giant — the Hercules of the West — whose limbs had grown sinewy in strangling the poisonous brood ! Who is left to take his place ? Alas ! he has no successor. His eclipse is painfully palpable, since it makes more obscure the path by which our alienated brethren may return. Many Union men, friends of Douglas in the South, heard of his demise as the death knell of their loyal hope. Who, who can take his place? The great men of 1850, who were his mates in the Senate, are gone, we trust, to that better Union above, where there are no distracting counsels — all, all gone ! All? No ! thank Heaven ! Kentucky still spares to us one of kindred patriotism, fashioned in the better mould of an earher day — the distinguished states- man who has just spoken [Mr. Crittenden], whose praise of Douglas living I loved to quote, and Avhose praise of Douglas dead, to Avhich we have just listened, " landari a viro laudato " is praise indeed ; Ckitten- DEN still stands here, lifting on high his whitened head, like a Pharos in the sea, to guide our storm-tossed and storm-tattered vessel to its haven of rest. His feet tread closely upon the retreating steps of our states- man of the West. In the order of nature, we cannot have him long. Already his hand is outstretched into the other world to grasp the hand of Douglas ! While Ave have him, let us heed his Avarning, learn from his lips the lessons of moderation and loyalty of the elder days, and do all and do it nobly for our beloved Republic ! In conclusion, sir, avc can only Avorthily praise Stephen A. Douglas, by doing something to carry out the Avill which he left his children and his country : " Love and uphold the Constitution of the United States." I speak it all reverently Avhen I say that this Avas his religion. He had faith in that EULOGY OF STEPHEN AKNOLD DOUGLAS. 217 " creed of creeds, The loveliness of perfect deeds." I would not seek to disclose the future to wliicli God has consigned him in the mysterious order of his providence ; but such vii^ue as his can- not die. It begins to live most in death. Of it may be said, as the lau- reate of England sang, that transplanted human yorth wil ^ oom to profit, otherwhere. The distinguished gentleman from Kentucky LMr CrittendenI has aUuded to the fact that the mind of Douglas expanded with his public service. It has been my own humble observation that be was one among the few public men who gi'ew in moral height with men- tal breadth. Year after year inspired him with more of reverence and charity ; while his " psalm of life" found expression in dady duty done. He never shrank from the dust and heat of active life. He most desired to live when dangers were gathering thickest. He would not ask from us to-day tears and plaints, but words which bear the spirit of great deeds, "tremendous and stupendous" efforts to save the Government he loved so weU We may toll the slow bell for his noble spirit ; we may crape the arm in token of our woe ; we may, while we think of the meannesses of our politics and the distractions of our country, congratulate him that he is wrapped in his shroud, forever safe in the memory of the just : but if we would worthily honor him, let us moderate the heats of party strite ; / enlarge our view of national affairs ; emulate his clear-eyed patriotism, j which saw in no section his country, but loved all sections alike ;_ and hold| up his life, so fruitful in wisdom beyond his years, for the admiration ot s the old ; and picture him for the imitation of the young as that " Divinely gifted man Whose life in low estate began ; Who grasped the skirts of happy chance, Breasted the blows of circumstance, And made by force his merit known ; And Uved to clutch the golden keys, To mould a mighty State's decrees. And shape the whisper of the throne ; And moving up from high to higher, Becomes on fortune's crowmng slope The pillar of a people's hope, The centre of a world's desire ! " But, sir, no language, either in prose or verse, can portray the ^eat- ness of his loss. His fame is printed intlie hearts of the people, irom the Green Mountains of his native State to the white tops of the Pacific Sierras, while the heavens bend above our land to bless it the rivers roll and the mountains stand to unite it, or the ceaseless interchange of tratfic and thought goes on by sea and rail, by telegraph or post— the people ot America, from whose midst, as a poor boy, by his own selt-reliance, he sprung, wiU preserve in the Pantheon of their hearts, to an immortal memo'ry, the name of Stephen Arkold Douglas. VI. CIVIL WAR. REPLY TO HON. MR. GUKLET BULL EUN DEPICTED — CONGEESSMEN ON THE FIELD — EAGLES AND DOVES ^VAERIORS AND MINISTEES VINDICATION OF GEN. M^CLELLAN — CONGEESSIONAL "WAE CRITICS — ^PERVERSION AND PROLONGATION OF THE WAE. Delivered in the House of Representatives^ January 31, 1862. Mr. Chairman : I obtained the floor on yesterday to give a prompt answer to the elaboi-ate attack made by ray colleague [Mr. Gueley] on General McClellan. I was not aware that my colleague had thus pre- pared himself, although it was bruited about that Ave were to have a dis- sertation on the conduct of this war which woukl annihilate its present managers. I wish that my colleague could plead the impulse of the mo- ment for his speech ; but I give more significance to his labored effort be- cause it betokens a plan — one in which my colleague plays his role — to get rid of the gallant Major-General in whom repose the hopes and the confidence of the people. If his speech had been. made by a Democrat, it would have been said that it was an attempt to aid secession ; to cripple our credit at home and om- honor abroad ; to undermine the popular faith in the power of the Government to conquer peace and restore the Union. It would have deserved, according to the practice, a prison in a sea-bound castle. I do not understand, nor will I attempt to analyze, the motives of my colleague. If I were to judge of his intent by the effect of his speech, he Avould discourage the army in their efforts, and the people in their payment of taxes. Ilis speech will aid the rebellion, not so much because it was spoken by him, as because it seems to be a part of a plan, outside and in- side of this House, to beget distrust and sow discord. I do not know, sir, how much weight will be attributed to my colleague's military strictures. If his facts are no better than his cou<'lusions — and I will demonstrate that neitlier arc corret't — his speech will only go for what it is wortli — the scoMing of an mnnilitary Congressman. My colleague began with the cry that generals arc nothing ; that if any general was incompetent, to take him away. lie read from the Richmond " Dispatch" to show tlie errors which our generals had committed. The article read was so full of slan- CIVIL WAE. 219 der and falsehood that he himself corrected a part of it. He charged the Commander-in-Chief with causelessly holding back our eager soldiers lor months. He charged him with denying to them the victory which was in then- reach. He said that no man living was fit to command over tliree hundred thousand. Mr. GuKLET. I said six hundred thousand. Mr. Cox. I have read the gentleman's speech in the " Globe," and lam rio-ht He further said that it was not only anti-republican and unwise, but aiarmino- to the last degree. He found fault with the General's plan-- as he claimed to know it— to attack the enemy's whole line at once at all points. He said this was unwise because it was impossible. He did no^t approve of the General's " nice and precise adjustment of military affairs before the army moved. He wanted the army to overwhelm the enemy without waiting for orders from Washington City. He then undertook, by a statement of facts as to the affairs at Romney, in Missouri, and Kentucky, to depreciate the character of the Commander-in-Chief. He demanded that the army should move at all hazards, unrestrained by a single hand. He thought he saw in the accession of Mr. Stanton a streak of sunlight, for he (Mr. Stanton) was like brave Ben Wade, of Ohio. He thought, if we did not move soon, our reputation as a military people would about equal that of the Chinese ; and then my coUeague wound up his speech by the fi<^ure of the anaconda, in which he tried to be humorous at the expense of General Scott, who originated the trope ; and finaUy he was for stirring up the anaconda, even though, Uke the snakes from Tenedos in Virgil, it wound its coils around the most sacred of our hopes to crush them forever. This is the analysis of ray colleague's speech. On the very eve, sir, of the most important movements, and_ when, too, our army in one section has already given earnest in carrying out successfully one part of General McClellan's scheme, we have this most inopportune display of impatience.. I would rather have heard it from any other than an Ohio member. Ohio gave McCleUa,n his first com- mission. I remember to have seen him when he came with alacrity to her capital to accept this mark of our Governor's trust. _ How well he repaid the confidence, Western Virginia can answer ; and if all his plans there had been carried out by subordinates with a vigor equal to their wisdom, we would have had less trouble and more glory in that campaign. As to the advent of the new Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton, whom my colleague hails as a " streak of light" in the gloom, I do not believe that he wiU delight in any such hailing, coupled with such railing at his friend, the General. It is too much like the " AU haU ! " of the witches to Macbeth. [Laughter.] There lurks a sinister object m this congrat- ulation. It was intended as a depreciation of McCleUan ; as if the er- rors and incompetency of the late Secretary of War ought to be shared by the General. « I, sir, as much and more sincerely than my colleague, welcome the new Secretary. But my colleague would hurry the army into a movement now " at all hazards," because foreign nations may soon interfere. I do not understand this logic. He would have us risk every thing for fear of trouble from abroad. We may have foreign war ; but this nation should not hazard its own existence from a servile fear of Eng- land or France. If he had been a Democrat, he would not have been so 220 EIGHT TEAES IN CONGEESS. fearful of every movement abroad. Choate said he loved the old De- mocracy because they had " a gay and festive defiance of foreign dicta- tion." Mr. GuRLEY, That is the party of which I was a member. Mr. Cox. Then my colleague has been a renegade to his ancient fahh. I am sorry for it. We would be unworthy of our fathers and of our land did we fire our own house over our heads because we may fear that a neighbor will come some night to despoil it. My colleague objects to the organization of an army with one head. He w-ants a many-headed arrangement, with, I suppose, distracting coun- sels. Utterly unconscious of the absolute necessity of unity of move- ment by our armies, under one direction, my colleague, to strike at Gen- eral McClellan, would change the military system which has obtained from the time war began or armies were levied. My colleague has a mil- itary wisdom beyond all human comprehension. Because our army is large we must, on this logic, dispense with its proper organization. There is the more need of one executive head to so vast an array as this army of half a million. My colleague, ia this attack upon the general in command, meant to attack also the President, or he meant nothing. He knew that the Presi- dent was General McClellan's superior officer ; that all that McClellan had done or had not done was approved by the President. He was, how- ever, gracious enough to say that the President would not set up his opinion in military matters in antagonism to his general-in-chief ; and he would, no doubt, for tliis, commend the good sense of Mr. Lincoln, as I do. But if the President in thus acting was sensible, what sort of sense is it for a member of Congress, whose life has been passed, too, in thumping the pulpit desk [laughter], and Avhose thoughts have been less upon the eagle and more upon the dove, to set up his opinion against that of the general ia command? If it were not bad sense, it would be nonsense. Why did not my colleague, if his motive was good, go to the President, and with his array of maps, telegraphs, deeds of omission and commission, lay before the President his military conceptions ? Why does he have them delivered here, before the nation ? Was it to display his military erudition ? Or was it to gratify what he thinks Avas the popular prejudice and impa- tience, to which he Avould administer, i-egardless of consequences? Why did he not go to General McClellan aud verify his facts before he used them for the public disservice ? Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman had been a skilful commander, or had, like the gentleman from New York [Mr. RoscoE Conicltng], the Immane motive for investigating the confessed blunder at Ball's Bluff, ia which many brave men were lost, I could tolerate this mischievous line of debate. But, sir, my colleague compels me to examine into his merits as a military critic particularly, and the propriety of military "movements" here in Congress and elsewhere by civilians. My coUoague will admit that he is not a military man by education, nor a soldier, like FalstafT, on instinct. [Laughter.] His profession was that of a gospeller. [Laugh- tor.] His .studies do not fit him to discuss martial subjects. We do not go to a blacksmith to have our watch repaired, nor to a watchmaker to CIVIL WAE. 221 have our horse shod. We do not go to Carolina for cheese [laughter], nor to the Western Reserve for cotton. I can well imagine how a fine scholar, as is my colleague, might, like Beaumont's " Elder Brother," sit in his study, mount upon the wings of speculation, and " hourly converse With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels, Calling their victories, if unjustly got, Fnto a strict account, and in his fancy Deface their ill-placed statues." But, sir, criticism on the art of war, to be valuable now, must be backed by specific study and experience. What has been the study and experience of my colleague? The country was thoroughly disgusted with the part Congressmen played at Bull Run. [Laughter in the galleries.] It may be remem- bered with what jocund levity the House adjourned to go over to see our army march upon Richmond. Not one of us ever got there, except my friend from New York [Mr. Ely] [laughter], who made his exile so conspicuously honorable in the use he made of it in behalf of his fellow- prisoners. The House may remember that I opposed the adjournment then on the ground that, by going over the river, we would only get in the way of the soldiers. It turned out that the soldiers got in the way of the Congressmen. [Laughter.] I have a letter, written by a member of this House, and published in an Ohio paper, which details, with graphic accuracy, the part displayed by truculent Congressmen on that day. I wiU have it read at the Clerk's table. The Clerk read as foUows : " Just as the dragoons turned back, a cry was raised that the Black Horse, a fonnida- ble body of the rebel cavalry (and these were part of them), were charging upon us, and it seemed as if the very devil of panic and cowardice seized every mortal soldier, officer, citizen, and teamster. No officer tried to rally the soldiers, or do any thing, except to spring and run toward Centreville. There never was any thing like it for causeless, sheer, absolute, absurd cowardice, or rather panic, on this miserable earth before. " Off they went, one and all ; off down the highway, over across fields toward the woods, anywhere, everywhere, to escape. Whether it communicated back to the soldiers still in the woods, and so on back to the regiments who had just driven off the rebels, I do not know, but think it did to a part of them, for a share of our army seems to have been demoralized, if not broken up. " Well, the further they ran the more frightened they grew, and although we moved on as rapidly as we could, the fugitives passed us by scores. To enable thorn better to run, they threw away their blankets, knapsacks, canteens, and finally muskets, cartridge- boxes, and every thing else. " We called to them, tried to tell them there was no danger, called them to stop, im- plored them to stand. We called them cowards, denounced tjiem in the most offensive terms, put out our heavy revolvers, and threatened to shoot them, but all in vain ; a cruel, crazy, mad, hopeless panic possessed them, and communicated to everybody about in front and rear. " The heat was awful, although now about six ; the men were exhausted — their mouths gaped, their lips cracked and blackened with the powder of the cartridges they had bitten off in the battle, their eyes starting in frenzy ; no mortal ever saw such a mass of ghastly wretches. " As we came on, borne along with the mass, unable to go ahead or pause, or draw out of it, with the street blocked with flying baggage wagons, before and behind, thunder- ing and crashing on, we were every moment exposed to imminent danger of being upset, or crushed, or of breaking down ; and for the first time on this strange day I felt a Uttle 222 EIGHT TEAES IN CONGRESS. sinking of the lieart, and doubt whether we could avoid destruction in the immense throng about us ; and nothing but the remarkable skill of our driver, and the strength of our carriage and endurance of our horses, saved us. Another source of peril beset us. As we passed the poor demented, exhausted wretches who could not climb into the high, close baggage-wagons, they made frantic efforts to get on to and into our carriage. They grasped it everywhere, and got on to it, into it, over it, and implored us every way to take them on. We had to be rough witli them. At first they loaded us down to almost a stand-still, and we had to push them off and throw them out. Finally, Brown and I, with a pistol each, kept them out, although one poor devil got in in spite of us, and we lugged the infernal coward two miles. I finally opened the door and he was tumbled out." Mr. Cox. Now liear wliat these brave Congressmen actually did to stay the tide of retreat : " The other side of Centreville we had overtaken Senators Wade and Chandler, or saw them in the crowd, the Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate, and a Mr. Eaton, of Detroit, with whom we were in company much of the way afterwards. '• Wade planted himself with a cocked ' Maynard ' in the attitude of battle [laughter] ; Chandler with a revolver, near him ; and we planted ourselves — except Morris — by them ; and all with loud voices commanded one and all to halt, or have their brains blown out. Our action instantly checked them. Many on horseback undertook to dash by, and we seized the bridle-reins of their horses and compelled them to stop. " Seven men staying a crowd maddened and desperate with fear ; Wade, firm and bold as an old lion ; Cilaxdler frantically excited, and the rest of our band struggling, commanding, entreating, and threatening. As for me, I acted just as you know I would ■WHEN thoroughly ROUSED — [laughtcr] — caring for nothing and nobody, and determined, as we all were, that the men should stop there." Mr. GuKLET. I wish to ask my colleague — The Chaikmax. Does the gentleman yield the floor to his colleague ? Mr. Cox. I do not mean to convey the impression that my colleague wTote it. It is a scrap of history, written by a Republican Congressman. Mr. GuRLEY. I desire to say I am not the author of it. Mr. Cox. But to the account given in this letter. It is this Senator Wade, "llrm and bold," whom my colleague eulogized as so "brave," and who was heralded in the New York " Tribune " as likely to succeed the sick and dying McClellan a few weeks since — who was urged by certain parties for the post now held by Mr. Stanton, and whose reelection to the Senate is so much desired now by a faction at home, and who is lugged into this debate to be glorified here that he may shine at home. It is this Senator Wade, witli the aid of Ciiakdler, who " cocked his Maj-uard in the attitude of battle" [laughter], and helped, with the " calls of or- der" from the other Congressmen, to stay the maddened crowd of fugi- tives. The people who have been under the impression that the crowd never stopped till they got into Washington, will now be gratified to learn that the Congressmen won the Bull Rim battle against our own soldiers. [Laughter.] I refer to this precious bit of history only to show how Congressmen fit themselves for military criticism. My colleague, yesterday, said he was at Bull Run, and made as good a retreat as Sigel. He was asked then about tlie battle of Frodoricktown, in wliich he said he was present. Mr. Girui.EY. I did not say I was present at that battle. ]\Ir. Cux. Very well. lie showed in answer to the gentleman from Illinois [iNIr. Kellogg], whose brave brother-in-law fought tliat fight, that Jie kn(!\v notliing about it. ]\Iy colleague said he preferred not to go into *' details." I ^vanled the details, sir. I needed them to estimate the CIVIL WAB. 223 military experience of my colleague. If his part has been as inglorious there as it was at Bull Eun, I submit that I must be careful ho*y I take liis conclusions about McCleUan. There will be, Mr. Chairman, empjTics in medicine, pretenders in re- ligion, pettifoggers in law, mushrooms in vegetation, secessionists in Gov- ernment, and snobs in society ; and we must not be surprised at military wiseacres in Congress ! [Laughter.] Since my colleague has hurled the glove at McClellan, I have a right to examine his claims as a critic. He admits being at Bull Run. His masterly activity on the retreat he ad- mits. How that retreat Avas effected I only know from rumor. I have seen it reported — and perhaps it is as apocryphal as some of the facts upon which my colleague arraigns General McClellan — that my colleague, after his fatiguing race to Centreville, and having passed that point with the speed of Gilpin — and not having the benefit of a carriage like the Congress- man who kicked out of it the tired soldiers besmutched with theu' cart- ridges in battle — was careering along like the devil [laughter] in Milton, where he is described as flying " O'er bog, or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare. With head, hands, wings, or feet pursues his way. And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies " — untU luckily he met — what think you, noble Representatives ? — a herd of stampeded cattle, who were from my own beloved district — Texas cattle, sii", wintered in the Scioto valley, and selected by their drover for their stampeding propensity [laughter], when, seizing upon the extreme rear of a noble bull, he was borne from the field, holding on with vigorous pre- hension to the tail of the animal ! [Great laughter.] This was Bull Run indeed ! Mr. GuRLET. That is a poetical sketch of my colleague. It is a thing that never took place. Mr. Cox. I am glad to hear it. Mr. Edgertox. I rise to a question of order. It is out of order for members of the House to applaud, cheer, or laugh in the manner they have been doing (laughter), and I submit — Mr. Cox. Does the gentleman make that point on me ? I have not applauded, cheered, nor laughed. Mr. Edgerton. I submit that order should be preserved on the floor of the House. The Chairiman. The point of order is well taken. Mr. Edgerton. I hope the Chair will enforce the riiles. The Chairman. The Chair is satisfied that when gentlemen consider the impropriety of any disturbance, it will not occur again. Mr. Wycexiffe. I acknowledge a violation of order. I laughed ; but for my life's sake I could not help it. [Laughter.] Mr. Cox. I will do justice *to my colleague [Mr. Gurlet.] I put this as an apocryphal case, which I heard as a rumor. I am glad to do justice to him, and to that noble animal, my constituent, and to whom the gentleman should have apologized, if the story were true. I was about to commend this strategy of my colleague, for its quick sense of the commissary advantages. I deprecate his drawing on that or any ex- perience at Bull Run to read the gifted McClellan and this Congress a 224: EIGHT TEAES IN CONGKESS. homily on military affairs. The ancient warriors rode in their scythed chariotFj ; the warriors on the South American pampas dash off with their 'lasso on horseback ; the ancient Germans went into battle as our IriAlians do, with terrific yells and in painted horror ; the courtly knight dashed into the tourney Avith iron-clad armor and vizor down. Various as human ingenuity are the modes of human warfare, both on the advance and in retreat ; but never, sir, in the accounts of Xenophon or Marshal Saxe ; from the time of Joshua to General Taylor ; in the contests of Achilles or Garibaldi, have we so unique a performance as this supposi- titious race of my constituent and my colleague from the fields of Bull Run. [Laughter.] Does he claim that this, if true, would make him a military expert? But my colleague was undaunted. As soon as Bull Run was over, and Congress adjourned, the telegraph thrilled both in wire and pole to bear the tidings West, tliat " Colonel Gurley, of Ohio," was about to assume the post of aid to General Fremont. Fremont was then in the ascendant. Before him lay what seemed to be the enchanted chambers of power. He had the magic lamp, which made gold as common as the peb- bles, and my colleag-ue hastened to his side. Some men smiled. They thought it strange that a minister should forget the beatitudes of the Ser- mon on the Mount for the disquietudes of a Missouri camp. [Laughter.] They thought that the affluent experience of Bull Run was not of that kind to excite confidence that my colleague would shine in the new field of Mars to which his patriotism hurried him. But I, sir, knew my colleague bet- ter. I admired his patriotism. I thought of Peter the Hermit. [Laugh ter.] I saw in his hand the crozier and the SAvord, and Bull Run did not obscure the sign in the sky — hi hoc signo vinces ! I had read in Ivanhoe of the priestly Knight of Malta ; and I knew that this new " son of Malta " [laughter] would carve out such a reputation that the muse of history would proudly stoop from her Parnassian seat to say : " Let it he so recorded." [Laughter.] But, sir, disappointment folloAvcd close on expectation. A Aveek — perhaps tAvo, or three — and Fremont lost his magic lamp. He Avancd under the consuming lens of " Blair's rheto- ric." [Laughter.] His ill-starred fate Avas perceived by my colleague. At this critical juncture the only parallel I can find for my colleague is the description Avhich is given of Job's Avar horse : •■' Canst thou make him afraid as a grasshopper ? The glory of his nostrils is terrible. He paAveth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength. He swalloAveth the ground with fierceness and rage ; neither believcth he that it is the sound of the trumpet. He saith among the trumpets, ha ! ha ! and he smcUeth the battle afar off." [Great laughter.] The parallel fails only in one regard. While tlie Avar horse of Job Avas advancing, that of my colleague Avas retreating. Leaving his campaign in Missouri imfniished, he flcAV from Fremont to Ohio, Avith the " certainty, celerity, and security" of a star bid in the Post Office Department. [Lauglitor.] What he learned in his bloodless campaign in IMissouri ; how much he perceived of the fa?Me of the fortifications around St. Louis — in cash, I mean ; Avhat estimate he made of the strength of the Fremont horse ; Avhat martial achievements he Avitnessed in the antechamber of the short- lived Avestern General, he did not, and avc cannot, tell. One thing he CIVIL WAE. 225 corrects to-day, and we must deduct that from his military life, that he was not at the battle of Fredericktown, though I understood him yester- day to say he was there. But has my colleagiie any actual experience ? Has he ever killed any one ? Did he ever see a man killed in battle ? Did he ever speak to a man who saw a man kiUed in battle ? Did he ever hear the whiz of deadly lead? Was his heart brave and his face unblanched? My colleague quoted that Fredericktown fight to show that a battle could be fought and won without McClellan's orders, and in spite of orders. That was his point, if any. Now, I happen to know that there was nothing in General McClellan's orders to forbid that movement on Fredericktown. As I understood the case, it was fought by Colonel Ross, who was sent by General Grant to follow after Jeff Thompson. He overtook him unexpectedly, and fought well. General Grant ap- proved and complimented his action. I wish that my colleague would cultivate some faith in General McClellan. He is a minister of the Gospel, a Universalist minister, and is full of faith in the salvation of all men. I glory in according to him the fullest " soul liberty " in religion. His creed includes the salvation of all — embracing in its comprehensive faith Jeff Davis, Jeff Thompson, Wigfall, and all that crowd of conspicuous sinners. [Laughter.] He believes that ZoUicoffer is now in glory ; he can even see Humphrey Mar- shall entering, as my colleague from Cleveland once said of John Brown, " the pearly gates of Paradise " — and that too without the enlargement of the gates of Paradise or the lessening of the bulk of Marshall. He can, with his eye of faith, and in his universal benevolence, seethe Falstaffian Kentuckian, this mountain of secession mummy, squeeze through the celestial doors [laughter], and larding the golden pavements of the New Jerusalem [laughter] ; but he cannot exercise a little faith, just the size of a mustard seed, in the prescience, skill, and sagacity of our accom- plished young general. Oh ! if there is one thing more beautiful than another, it is that ti-ust which we repose in Another in the dark hours of trial and death. It is said that reason was the first born, but faith inherits the blessing. Reason is apt to be fallible, short-sighted, eager, impetuous, and impatient of contradic- tion ; while faith is gentle and docile, ever ready to listen to the voice by which alone truth and ■\%asdom can effectually reach her. God has created two lights — the greater light to rule the busy day — reason ; the lesser to rule the contemplative night — faith ; but faith shines only so long as she reflects something of the illumination of the brighter orb. Where a man has no faith he has no light of reason. There are some things in which a man must exercise his trust. The American people, unlike my colleague, have read the history of General McClellan. They know his military studies, his travel and observation, his practical railroad life, his mode of dealing with men and bodies of men, his prudential reserve, his unfailing patience, patriotism, and confidence in his own resoiu'ces. They know that the enemy would have been glad to have had him at the head of their forces. They know that he has never blundered ; that he is safe, if not brilliant ; that his power to surprise and combine are rare qualities of his military genius ; that his knowledge of topography, engineering, and field strategy, his method and industry, and his quick apprehension 15 226 EIGHT YEARS IN CONGRESS. of military strength and weakness, eminently fit him for this high com- mand. Knowing this and reasoning upon this, now that the night is upon us, they will keep their faith iu him, and no hostile criticism of the gen- tleman here can shake that faith. The attack of my coUeague is like that of a " pigmy with a straw against a giant cased in adamant." My colleague is not satisfied with any thing short of an advance at every hazard. He is not satisfied with the President, for the latter defers to McCleUan ; not satisfied with any commander-in-chief, for no one can command even three hundred thousand men ; not satisfied with what has been done ; not satisfied with what is to be done. He would discourage all our etforts, and make taxation weigh like a useless burden on an anxious and saddened people. His policy would disorganize the army, and realize his theology by making a liell on earth [laughter] without giving us the satisfaction of a future state, where secession may have its fit eternal doom. [Laughter.] So much for the critic. Now what is the criticism ? First, he carries us to Missouri, and says that General Curtis was sent with some ten thousand men against Price, when there was almost a certainty of Price's capture, wlien all at once an order came from a general officer, either there or here, which called a halt, and nothing was done. Now, my col- league meant that either General McCleUan or General Halleck, by his hesitation and delay, has allowed the campaign against Price to be sus- pended, if not abandoned. I do not care which general he meant ; it is simply not true that either of them has been thus derelict. The facts are these : Generals Curtis, Sigel, and Asboth had been ordered toward Springfield to attack Price, if it was thought best in their judgment. They sent forward a large cavalry reconnoissance, and found that inde- fatigable and able General Price in such force that they concluded to hold a council of war, and decided that six additional regiments were needed. On notifying General Halleck, he at once ordered them from General Pope's command near Sedalia, to move on to the scene of opera- tions. General Halleck's opinion, in a letter received by General McClel- lan only two days ago, was that they would either beat Price or drive him out of Missouri. Perhaps my colleague never got as far as Springfield, and he does not know the strategy of Price. Price has ventured to appear in force in southwestern Missouri ; but he takes care to be within con- venient reach of the Boston Mountains, where he can hide iu that almost inaccessible locality, and where it is easier for him to go than our generals to follow. But it is utterly unjust to General McCleUan to say that he has restrained the eager impetuosity of the Missouri soldiers. General llaUeck has received no orders inconsistent with the most prompt move- ment in Missouri. When General Halleck took command of the army in Missouri, he found mountains of dilficulty to overcome — as Buell did in Kentucky, as McCleUan did here — in the organization and equipment of the troops. General Halleck found, it is true, a fine paper organization. He has labored with a statesman's foresight, a publicist's learning, and a soldier's skill to bring order out of chaos. He found troops without con- centration, and required arms, transportation, and supplies, which Cicneral McCleUan had strained every nerve to afibrd. There has been no delay by any orders of Gencx-al McCleUan. His orders to Halleck, as to BueU, CIVIL WAE. 227 have been to hurry his movements as fast as it was safe and possible. I state these as the positive facts of the case ; and if gentlemen want the facts, let them go to the headquarters and they can have them. Again, my coUeague makes the specific charge that he is informed, on authority which he is not permitted to question — nor I suppose to quote — that some ten or fifteen thousand Confederate troops, near Romney, were in the power of our army of forty thousand, and that the capture so easy was not made, because an order came from headquarters here not to advance. This is a charge as sweeping as it is irresponsible and groundless. I do not care who is his authority, I question it here, and now. My colleague reads certain telegraphs which have strangely come into his possession, to show that Lander and Kelley despatched that they could take the rebels, and all that was wanted was an order ; and presto ! they are taken ! We have had a good many such successes in anticipa- tion. I believe we had one at Piketon. It is said that General Lander telegraphed and General KeUey sent a messenger to apprise each other of the absolute certainty of success. General Lander I admire for his caution and intrepidity ; but I will state the facts to which I suppose my colleague refers. I state them correctly. General Lander went to re- heve General Kelley at Romney, KeUey being sick. He reached Han- cock on the 5th of January. He found the enemy under General Jack- son, on the other side of the river, in considerable strength — say fifteen or sixteen thousand. The enemy had driven a few of our troops across the river. When General Lander reached his post, the enemy were shell- ing, or about to shell, Hancock. General Jackson summoned General Lander to surrender. .Lander decHned. Jackson shelled away at Han- cock without efiect. Lander sent for reenforcements. General McClellan sent one of Banks' brigades by forced marches at once. While there, General Lander sent two or three long despatches, suggesting various movements to cut off Jaekson. General Jackson had a shorter distance to return to Winchester than General Banks had to march to cut off Jack' son^s retreat, besides the river, which it would take forty-eight hours to cross, as they had no ready means of crossing. General McClellan re- fused to trust a command to cross the river under those circumstances, with no chances of retreat provided. General Lander then sent another despatch to General Banks, criticizing the President, General Banks, and others ; to which General McClellan replied that General Lander was " too suggestive and critical." I think here is the rub ; McClellan had seen enough of the Ball's Bluff business — that affair to which I refer only to say that no one attaches the responsibility to General McClel- lan for that teri'ible disaster. He knew what the gentleman from New York depicted so graphically, that to cross a river like the Potomac, in the face of an enemy, and with no means of retreat, was almost insanity. He did what a prudent general, having his own plans matured, ought to have done ; and here I distinctly say that General Banks wrote a letter, in which, from his standpoint, he entirely commended the action of Gen- eral McClellan. And now, and here, we have our general arraigned by my colleague on facts not authentic ; and when, so far as we can see, my colleague's military experience does not reach so far as to tell, by practice, the rear rank from the front, or the breach from the muzzle of a musket ! 228 EIGHT YEARS EST CONGRESS. I have replied to these complaints in detail. Now for these general complaints of no movement, so glibly rehearsed by the gentleman. It is complained that General McClcllan has not moved, that nothing has been done, arid that nothing is about to be done ; that he does not let curious people know what he is about. If he is doing nothing, as they allege, he has nothing to divulge to these curious gentlemen. If he is doing some- thing, the very way to undo it is to let them know it, for they are as leaky as the present weather, or Oregon, where it is said to rain fifty-two weeks in the year. But has he done any thing ? I say that he has done all that he could safely. McClellan has not merely perfected the defences of Wash- ington and the Potomac ; but, considering the fact that the force and spirit of the South are concentrated here on the Potomac, and near our capital, and considering the untoward season, weather, and roads, is it nothing that he has, as a Richmond paper asserts, held Beauregard and his army as in a vice ; and that, too, when the enemy have all the advantage of an equal army, a railroad for concentration in the rear, and a power of com- bination, impossible for our general? But he has delayed too long here ; and he is taken to task now because he does not move his army to cer- tain destruction, by assaulting an enemy equal in number to his own, and that, too, in their intrenchments. My answer to this querulous question- ing is, first, that iny colleague himself gives a reason why no movement could have been made the past three weeks, because he says that the ar- tillery would go under the mud. Very well ; does he want that done ? Had the roads been on the 21st of July last as they are now, my colleague would not have been able to have escaped the companionship of my friend from NeAV York. Second, when General McClellan took command here — I say it without any desire to reflect on General Scott — he found things disorganized, and no combinations between different parts of this grand army. He had to construct intrenchments, and make the army effective in many details. This he has done. Indefatigable even unto sickness, he has accomplished what my coUeagaic's " brave AVade " could never have done, had he studied tactics and war for a century. And third, he never contemplated a movement on the enemy's intrenchments. It is not too much to say here that he intended first to have General Buell get the Tennessee Railroad ; that for this end he has given all his energies to aid him and hasten him in this purpose. All tliat Buell asked for — arms, transportation, troops — have been furnished. AVhen General Buell took command, he found his troops straggling and scattered. He had to gather them, and concentrate and form them in divisions. He has had bad roads and bad weatlier ; but I know the fact, when I declare to this Congress and the people, that no delay of General Buell's movements is attributable to any orders from McClellan. On the contrary, lie has or- dered him to hasten with all despatch ; not to lose a day or an hour in the accomi)lisliment of tlie design to seize tlie Tennessee Railroad, to the end that not only shall Eastern Tennessee be opened to the army of the Union ; not only to give relief to the Union men of Tennessee, about whom my colleague makes so injudicious a jeremiade ; but lo the grand aim, to cut off this rebel army of the Potomac, not alone from the lino of their .-jiipi)lies, l)ut from their line of retreat ! In Kentucky we have more than one hundi'ed thousand soldiers, ready, CIVIL WAE. 229 eager, active, and triumphaiat whenever they have had any chance in a battle. McClellan's orders are for the speediest movement there possible. My colleague praises the recent victory of our troops at Mill Spring. I share with him, as my constituents did with his, the pride of that hard- fouo-ht encounter ; but I Avill not shame my State, which called McClellan to her service, by plucking the laurels from his brow, when there is not a soldier in that battle who will not rejoice to see him wear them, as well for his conduct in Western Virginia, as for the strategy by which even the Mill Spring battle was directed, though at a distance. It was, as I said, a part of his design upon the Tennessee Railroad ; and there is no impediment, but every encouragement from him, for General Buell to forward the movement to that desired end. In Eastern Kentucky, Hum- phrey Marshall has proved that while his spirit was willing, his flesh was weak [laughter], before the Ohio soldiers under Garfield, ZoUicoffer has been killed and his forces routed ; and nothing but the impediments of nature prevents our soldiers from lifting our ensign upon the mountains of Tennessee, North Carolina, and Alabama. In fear for the fate of Memphis, Beauregard is hurried out to Columbus, Kentucky, to avert the northern avalanche which impends there ; while Buell, with consum- mate skill, is di-awing his fatal lines around the Confederates, as the lines have been drawn in Virginia. But it is said the Potomac is blockaded. So it is ; but it is of no practical disadvantage. For all the purposes of supply, we are in com- munication with every part of the north. There are compensations, per- haps unknown to my colleague, for this seeming disadvantage. Would that he would exercise his faith in some things inscrutable to him. But is there no credit to be given for the retention of Maryland ; the rescue of the Virginia eastern shore ; the constant preparation and discipline of an army of one hundred thousand men here ? And all this with the late Secretary of War dabbling in slavery questions and trafficking in contracts. Western Virginia we have held against the hostility of the disloyal. Floyd has been compelled to decamp ; and from the mountains to the Ohio our right there is none to dispute. But, sir, although General McClellan has had charge of all these mat- ters, and is entitled to share their merit, it was not my purpose to paint a pic- ture of our successes. We have gained as yet no great bloody battle com- mensurate with the armies in the field. Indeed, sir, I would prefer that the war should be carried on and ended by bloodless tactics rather than by bloody carnage, if it were possible. I would leave as little hate as possi- ble as the legacy of this conflict. If it were possible to close this war by the melting away or capitulation of the Confederate army, the country would prefer it ; General McClellan is not making this a war of ven- geance, but a war for the restoration of the Union. To this end he has, by his comprehensive energy, seized the coast from Ship Island to Fort- ress Monroe. There is no example in history of a sea coast so extensive, and a country of such area, suri'ounded and closed in by such a superior force, as is the rebellious part of our land. As the curtain lifts and this procession of facts transpire, we shall see the Union element of the South dilating and emerging from its despondency. We shall see the loyal men coming forth and gladly seizing the musket to rally to the old flag. 230 EIGHT YEAES ENT CONGRESS. The great mistake on the part of these military fledglings, who criticize the conduct of the war, is, that they habitually underrate the extent and strength of the rebellion, just as they underrated and contemned the al- leged or fancied grievances of the South and their hold on the southern mind. I venture to say that this is the capital dehnquency of the admin- istration, if they have been delinquent. Had they realized the fact " that a considerable body of insurgents had risen against the sovereign," which Vattel alleges is the test of a civil Avar, with all its appurtenances of a hu- mane code of warfare, the exchange of prisoners, &c., we might have had less difficulty and more honor in the conduct of this immense ordeal by battle. Those Avho do not recognize the ftict of the immensity of this re- bellion will find at every step difficulties about belligerent rights on sea and land, and inhumanities which would sicken the heart of a savage. We must learn by experience, if not a priori. Even my colleague, with his Bull Run retreat, is yet in liis nonage. He must resort to the Baco- nian system of induction, and by experience learn, and begin to learn by being a " child in arms." [Laughter.] In surveying this grand field of action, from this capital to Santa Fe, he makes the mistake which the savant made when he supposed the moon annihilated, because an animal- cule had crept over the disc of his telescope and obscured the view. Let him take another glass and clear his vision. This presumptuous dictation to our generals is only a small illustration of what we see here in a larger measure, when gentlemen undertake to interpret the inscrutable designs of Providence to sustain their finite views. These political " cuckoos, who breed in the nest of another trade," these civilians, wlio go on chirping about war as if they were trained to it, when, in truth, they are only trained in the political convention and the talk of Congi-essional Globes, cannot apprehend that this revolution, which is the work of years and the movement of millions, is any thing more than a little derangement of the political machine, which Avill regulate itself by some political compensation, or some act of revengeful confiscation ; when, in truth, it can hardly be corrected without breaking the machine, or at least retarding its motion. It is so stupendous, sir, that it can only be likened to the ocean, which lifts itself up under a darkened sky and amid rolling thunder, and resists the exercise of any thing short of Supreme power with an elemental force that defies all the little expedients of carp- ing man. These complaints about the war are getting as common in the press and the House as they were before they produced tlie Bull Kun disaster. A few of these impatient people then learned a lesson from their incautious impulsiveness ; but here we have it again. They belong to that class of skeptics who take every thing incomprehensible to their Iceble sight as unknown and non-existent. They cannot see McClellan doing any thing; therefore lie does nothing. They are not partners in his confidence; therefore he does wrong. He has not rushed about in wild tliealric style ; therefore he is unfit. He has no retinue, no laced and gilded supernume- raries, no blare of trumpet and boom of guns to announce himself herp and there. He has no 61an, no dash, no plumed nonsense ; therefore the pub- lic faitii in him must be sappeis inevitable. It has invariably followed this blending of people, however opposite the original stocks. In illustration, let me quote the remark of a distinguished divine, Dr. McGill : " Look at Mexico, where the proud Castilian, the subjugated Indian, and the barbar- ous Africaa slave, were all made free and equal just about one generation or thirty-two years ago, by a single decree, to meet what was considered ' a military necessity.' More than half of the whole populi^tion is already mixed-blooded ; and just as amalgamation advances, degradation deepens ; anarchy prevails ; laws, constitutions, and the ballot-box are a mockery ; wave after wave of military despotism has left that Republic, of more than eight millions of souls, one of the fairest regions under heaven for the acquisition of wealth and glory, without money, without credit, without commerce, without union, with- out religion, until at length the ambition of Spain herself seeks to remand the abject people to their old repudiated thraldom." Is this the fate to be commended to the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic population of the United States? Tell me not that this amalgamation will not go on in the North. What mean the mulattoes in the North, far exceeding, as the census of 1850 shows, the mulattoes of the South? There are more free mulattoes than there are free blacks in the free States. In Ohio there are seven mulatto children for one in Virginia, according to the neoTO population ; and in Indiana and Illinois there are five for one in Tennessee and Georgia ! As the white people of the North do not marry blacks, these mulattoes must have been born out of wedlock. While, then, there are more mulattoes in the free States than blacks ; in the South, on the contrary, there is only one mulatto to twelve blacks ! How does this occur ? I leave it to my colleague from the Portage district [Mr. Edger- ton], who gave us his opinions, in a pert way, about the Democratic ad- dress. It is recorded that in his county a white woman of Akron sued out a habeas corpus (for the writ runs there yet, at least where there is color of right) to take a mulatto baby from a Mrs. Jones, a negro woman, under whose care it had been placed by its white mother, and who had b*ecome attached to the pickaninny. In the course of the discussion Mrs. J. told the white woman that she thought " if the white folks were mean enough to have nigger babies, they ought to be willing to let colored peo- ple bring them up." [Laughter.] So the judge decided. These little straws account for the preponderance of mulattoes North. The mixture tends to deteriorate both races. Physiology has called our attention to the results of such connections. These results show dif- ferences in stature and strength, depending on the parentage, with a corresponding difierence in the moral character, mental capacity, and worth of labor. The mulatto is not long-lived. It is a fact that no in- surance company will insure theu- lives. In New England there is one blind negro for every 807, while at the South there is one for every 250 EIGHT TEAES IN CONGKESS. 2,635. In New England there is one insane negro for every 980, and in the South one for 3,080. If they were the only insane persons there, I would not complain. They catch it there from the whites. [Laughter.] It is neither philanthropic nor congenial to send the negro to the North, where he wilts, when in the congenial South he increases in numbers even in slavery! Our statistician (Mansfield, Ohio Statistics^ 1861) p. 41, boasts that Ohio has men of greater heiglit, by actual measurement, than England, Belgium, or Scotland, and in breadth of chest nearly equal to that of Scotland, and above all others. I do not offer myself as a speci- men. [Laughter.] But how long before the manly, warlike people of Ohio, of fair hair and blue eyes, in a large preponderance, would, in spite of Bibles and morals, degenerate under the wholesale emancipation and immigration favored by my colleague? The free negroes will become equal, or will continue xmequal to the whites. Equality is a condition which is self-protective, wanting nothing, asking nothing, able to take care of itself. It is an absurdity to say that two races so dissimilar as black and white, of different origin, of unequal capacity, can succeed in the same society when placed in competition. There is no such example in history of the success of two separate races under such circumstances. Less than sixty years ago Ohio had thousands of an Indian .population. She has now but thirty red men in her borders. Tlie negro, with a dif- ference of color indelible, has been freed under every variety of circum- stances ; but his freedom has too often been nominal. Prejudice stronger than all principles, though not always stronger than lust, has imperatively separated the whites from the blacks. In the school-house, the church, or the hospital, the black man must not seat himself beside the white ; even in death and at the cemetery the line of distinction is drawn. To abolish slavery the North must go still further, and forget that fatal prejudice of race wliich governs it, and which makes emancipation so illusory. To give men their liberty, to open to them the gates of the city, and then say, " Tliere, you shall live among yourselves, you shall marry among your- selves, you shall form a separate society in society," is to create a cursed caste and replace slaves by pariahs. Again, it is neither convenient nor advantageous to the State of Ohio to have this influx of blacks. It may be abstractly Avrong to debar them from our State ; but some one has wisely said, that " the abstract princii)les of riglit and wrong we know, but not the processes nor the duration of their working out in history. All the white handkerchiefs in Exeter Hall will not force the general Con- gress of Nations to decide questions otherwise than by the laws of con- venience and advantage." Were there no i)rejudices or instincts against the color or race in our midst, a true State policy would forbid such a horde of Africans as emancipation would send to Ohio. Ohio has a larger circuit of slave territory abutting on her border, than any otlier Northern State. Tlie Ohio River runs over 500 miler, along our bonier, dividing us from Kentucky and Virginia. Illinois and Indiana forbid all negroes from otlier States, Since 1850 Iowa and Wisconsin have had the same policy. Is Ohio to be the only asylum for the slaves of Virginia and Kentucky and the other States south? Sujjpose these schemes of eman- cipation succeed ; or suppose they do not, and the emancipation incident to the war goes on, what proportion of the slaves of the South will cross CIVIL WAE. 251 into Ohio ? They wiU not go to Canada, not now. They will move into lower Ohio, with the consuming power of the army worm, ^ytbe cen- sus, in Virginia and Kentucky alone, the colored people number 790,102 ! HoW many^of these blacks would come to Ohio ? In spite, however, of the laws of Illinois, Indiana, and other Western States, the slaves of the Mississippi valley will, if freed, seek the North- west They will slip through into Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, and Indiana. The 'gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Julian], the other day, said that m his part of the State the law was a dead letter. He is no doubt partially correct In the past ten years the ratio of increase of free colored people in the United States has been 10-97 per cent., that of the slaves 23-38 per cent., and that of the whites 38-12 per cent. In Califorma the ^legroes have increased 296-67 per cent, compared to the white increase ot 310-84 per cent There are no laws of prohibition in California ; while m Oregon, where such laws exist, the whole ratio of increase is 299-96 percent, com- pared with a loss of 41-54 per cent, of blacks ! In other States there is this ratio: lUinois, white increase of 101-49, black only 30-04 ; Iowa, white increase 251-22, black increase 207-21 ; Indiana, white i^icrease 37-14, black Zoss 3-49 ; Wisconsin, white increase 154-10, black 133-22. In these States the law forbids blacks ; but in spite of it they get in, but not to that extent which they do in Ohio and Michigan, where such laws do not exist. In the latter State the white increase is 87-89 per cent., the black is double, viz. : 164-15 ! It will be perceived by an exani- ination of the census, that it is in the Northwest that the black raceis increasing ; while in other States further East and North they do not in- crease in°the same ratio. It is the Northwest which will be Atricanized by the schemes here proposed. The slaves in the Mississippi valley alone, in the States of Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee, number 1,499,079. This does not include the free blaclss, who would be compelled to share the exodus. Then Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, would be their asylum ; but as the States west of the Ohio are m advance of us in preventing this vicious immigration, Ohio, under the welcome of my colleao-ue aad his friends, would have more than her fair quota. Tem- porizing politicians cannot blink this question. While they advocate emancipation, some of them present an alternative— colonization. If more negroes are to be freed, and my State is to be their asylum, I am ot Jefferson's opinion, that their freedom ought to be accompanied with emi- gration to some other land, compulsory if necessary. But Mr. Greeley and others do not advocate colonization to mitigate abolition. Ihe tact that many who honestly contemplate abolition are willing to lay a tax oi thousands of millions to colonize, is a confession that they believe that free negroes cannot exist in the country without its rum. It has been said that we ought to free the African, even though we build a brido-e of gold over the chasm from slavery to freedom ! It will prove a Bridge of Sighs to both black and white. Its piers and arches are to be built out of the moil and toil of American labor. But to its cost : I have some data on which to calculate. In 1858 I voted (ac- cording to an old law existing since the time of Mr. Monroe) money to send back slaves taken on board the slave ship '' Echo," on the 21st ot 252 EIGHT TEAKS IN CONGRESS. August, 1858. That law requires all such slaves to be taken back to Africa, and supported there for one year on the coast. This is a humane law, but an expensive one. By a contract made between the Colonization Society and Mr. Buchanan (see^x. Doc, 2d Sess. S5th Cong., vol. 2, pt. 1), the Government agreed to pay $45,000, or $150 apiece, for the transpor- tation and support of tlie 300 Africans one year. It did not include buy- ing lands for them. There was no expense for compensation to slave owners. Now, if the slaves-of all the South are to be paid for at the rate of $300 apiece — the amount paid here in the District — and laud is to be bought beside, you may approximate to the result of this enormous Uto- pian scheme. Mr. Goodhue, a gentleman who is connected with the Goveroment, and a statistician, makes this estimate : "By the census of last year, there were 3,952,801 slaves in the United States and ter- ritories. I have already shown that 454,441, which belonc^ed to the border States, would be worth, at $300 each, .$136,332,300. There remain to be disposed of, therefore, 3,498,360 slaves embraced in the country subject to the rebels, but including, of course, large num- bers belonging to friends of the Union, who have been constrained into obedience to the rebel authorities against their wills. At the rate of $300, the slaves in the rebel States -would be worth $1,049,508,000; and adding the cost of compensation to the border States, at the same rate, the aggregate expense of emancipation would be $1,185,840,300. Or, for the convenience of round numbers, the cost of emancipation would be, at $300 per head, twelve hundred million dollars ($1,200,000,000)." Add to this $1,200,000,000 the cost of transportation and mainten- ance for a year, at $150 per negro, and you have $1,800,000,000. Add further, for the price of the soil to be bought for them, say ten millions ; and the cost of starting them in a strange land, without roads, houses, teachers, and leaders, ten more ; and you may approach the stupendous result. This is no violence of mine upon arithmetic. This is the cool calculation of men eager to carry out, at small cost, their schemes. I give credit to the motive which prompts colonization. But Avhere are these enormous sums to come from ? " Oh, the Avar expenses are as much, and ought to pay it ;" or, as Sir Boyle Roche would say, " every man ought to give his last guinea to protect the remainder." Are not the war expenses already run up to such a sum that men flounder in their calcu- lation of them? But, it is said, the war expenses are not yet done, and by this scheme we may save the remainder. I would like to think so. Such schemes of emancipation will only prolong tlie war and add to its expenses. This enormous tax is to be paid, it is said, in thirty-seven years, at an annual tax of $150,000,000 ! We are to use our credit by bonds, and thus establish a natioiuil debt. Great as our resources are, this burden is too enormous. It leaves no hope. It creates despair. Ask the question of the people : " Can you meet these liabilities in addition to the war del)t, now estimated by Senator Simmons, at the end of July, 1802, at $555,000,000, and to be doubled before the Avar is OA'cr, suppos- ing tluit it will end in a year?" Such a scheme even destroys a large portion of tlje means to pay for itself. The labor of the negroes after they arc freed and colonized is nothing, worse tluin nothing. It is a loss to the country of just what it will take in time and trouble to replace it by other labor e(iually good. It is a loss to the country of the labor and the laborers themselves, estimated at $000,000,000. CIVIL WAB. 253 Then we have the following results : Cost of compensation to ovmers of slaves $1,200,000,000 Cost of deportation and maintenance one year 600,000,000 Cost of land to be purchased, bridges, houses, roads, &c 20,000,000 Loss of the labor and laborers to the country and to the masters before a new supply of labor can be had 600,000,000 Debt already, according to Secretary Chase's last report 491,445,984 War debt additional by 1863, according to Senator Simmons 500,000,000 $3,411,445,984 This sum almost equals the national deht of Great Britain, which, as the aecaimulation of centuries, amounts to £757,486,997, or about S3,- 787,000,000 ! Here is a bridge of gold for the African exodus ! Ohio builds one span of one-tenth, to cost $34,114,459 ; my district pays one- twentieth of that, or $1,705,722. But how much of the accumulations of our people will this sum take ? Secretary Chase tells us that, accord- ing to the census of 1860, the real and personal property of the people of the United States is $16,102,924,116 ! Hence one-fifth of all we have would scarcely meet this enormous liability ! In the name of economy, sense, and humanity, may not the people be tempted to repudiate this pro- digious expenditure ? The men who levy it, sir, are running a desperate hazard. Where, by the tax to put it down, secession has placed only yokes of wood on the people, which they will clieerfully bear, this scheme makes yokes of iron ! Think you the authors of so gi-and a scheme can escape the vengeance of the people by resignation or exile? Theirs will be a doom worse than that of the Gracchi or Robespierre ! But these dreamers do not intend to buy and colonize. Their ethics, like their speeches, are cribbed from the pharisaical spoutings of Exeter HaU. The House has voted down the project of colonization proposed by the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Blair]. They will not so outrage human nature — not they. What ! says Wendell Phillips, export the four millions which are the fulcrum of the lever by which the nation is to be restored ! Oh, no. Is not this the land of their birth? Even the colo- nization members do not propose coercion. What then ? It is proposed to free all, and leave chance to distribute them among the people. Chance, sir, is a poor economist, and a worse ruler. Let us consider the effect of this proposition. A senator from Vermont [Mr. Collamer] fixed the proportion of this distribution at one negro to every five or six whites. He was right. By the census of 1860, there are in the United States 27,008,081 whites and 3,999,535 slaves. If the slaves were distributed equally north and south, this would make one negro to every seven whites ; but if all are driven north by social convulsion, as shown by the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Mallory], it would make more than one black for every five white persons. But we know that the African will not go to New England, at least in such numbers as to other States. He does not thrive there. In Boston the city register shows that for the last five years there were 134 births to 376 deaths among the col- ored people. If Ohio were open, as my colleague advocates, we would have at least twice as many negroes flock into that State as to the rest of the North, and twice as many in central and southern Ohio as in northern Ohio ; or one negro for every three white persons in the State, and per- 254 EIGHT TEAES IN CONGRESS. * haps twice that ratio in southern and central Ohio. Take Massachusetts as the fair average of the North. There, every inducement is offered to his immigration. He is made a voter ; he is admitted to the bar ; he is even made better than a white man in suiFrage, provided the white man comes from Germany or Ireland. Yet, in a population of 1,231,065, the blacks number only 9,454, or one black to 130 of the population ; while in Ohio, with not double the population, there is one black to G3 of the population. The increase of blacks in Ohio is 43'30 per cent., wdiile in Massachusetts it is only 23-96 per cent. So that I am justified, not alone by the census, but most by the geograjjhical position and nearness of Ohio to the South and the extent of its slave State border, in inferring that she would receive more than double the number assigned to the States north by Mr. Collamer's apportionment. What, then, would be the result? Ohio has 2,303,374 white people. She would then have a ratio of one black to every three persons, an addition of 767,791 to her black popula- tion ! My district, composed of Franklin, Licking, and Pickaway Coun- ties, where negroes seem to congregate more than among their professed friends in northern Ohio, would have scattered among its 110,941 persons, blacks to the number of 36,980 ! This is nearly equal to the whole population of Licking County ! They would be distributed as follows : Licking, 12,370; Franklin, 16,787; and Pickaway, 7,823. But even this does not do justice to the inexorable figures, for my dis- trict is peculiarly blessed with negro population. Whether it is because the people are more generous in their treatment of the blacks ; whether Kentucky and Virginia families who settled in it are more numerous ; or whatever is the cause, stiU it is true, by the census of 1860, that with a population in ray district of about one-twentieth of the whole population of the State, it has one-fourteenth of its blacks, or 2,660 out of 36,673. One would suppose that in the Western Reserve, Avhere the profession of philanthropy is ever arising in prayer, in speech, and in print, where for years they cultivated no civil discipline which interfered with tlieir notions of slavery, there ■would be throngs of blacks. Is it so ? Thou iron-tougued census, speak ! In the ten counties of the Western Reserve there are but 1;854 blacks, a few more than in one county of my district! Why they especially avoid Ashtabula, where there are only twenty-five negroes, I cannot say. Is it the prodigal profession and scant practice of humanity? [Laughter.] Or has Mr. (biddings, with a view to protect property and keep up its price, coaxed them into Canada, where happily he is now domiciled? And there is Geauga, with not as many negroes as Fulton County has Indians ! What a commentary on representative fidelity is here ! The member from Ashtabula, Mahoning, and Trumbull [Mr. IIuTCiiiNs] speaks for 166 negroes; but from his piteous ado, one would suppose that he represented at least as many Airicaus as the King of Dahomey. [Laughter.] And tiiere is my smiling colleague from the nortliwest [Mr. Ashley], whose rotund form is ready to become like Niobe — all tears — by his grief for the poor negro [liiughterj ; whose gushes of elocjuence in their behalf remind one of the Arab lyrics in praise of the dark maidens of Abyssinia when they sung : CIVrL WAK. 255 " Oh ! the black amber, the black amber ! Its perfume by far Is sweeter than all else on earth or in star ; The lotus of Nile, the rose of Cashmere, My senses enthrall, only when thou art not here." [Great laughter.] Yet from tlie whole eleven counties of his district, he cannot count as many negroes by half as live in my own county. I am not particularly proud of representing a greater number of Africans than my colleagues. I think, so far as the chattering goes about their inalienable rights and everlasting wrongs, I am entirely unsuited to represent them ; yet I hope that in actual kindness to them I do Represent the white people of my district, whose practical benevolence ha*s attracted to that portion of the State an undue share. Wliat I fear is, and what I deduce is, that this disproportionate share will be continued when the bills voted for by my colleagues are law, and the black exodus has begun. I have the honor, as it is fondly believed by some, to be a prospective constituent of either my friend from the Clark district [Mr. Shellabar- ger], or the honored representative of the Madison district [Mr. Harri- son], with whose votes I so often concur. The Legislature of Ohio has made for my especial contemplation a new district, composed of the coun- ties of Clark, Madison, Franklin, and Greene. If my two friends, who do not agree well in their votes, will consent to make the race next fall, I will, perhaps, edge in a conservative word for the general welfare. ^ I commend to them this question I am discussing. This new district, sir, is rich in colored materials. It was the select asylum for the blacks in their northern movement. Greene County, to which I have referred for the character of its African damsels, is a second Paradise of free negroes. It has 1,475 blacks. The benevolence of Horace Mann at Antioch College led the blacks to believe that here they would repose in the green pastures as contentedlv as their brethren bask in the rays of a Congo sun. They were to be elevated without effort to an equality with the white race ; and here they gathered to witness the nuracle. You may wash them year after year, with your philanthropic soap and water, you will not turn them white, though they may become gray. In this new district there are 3,821 negroes to 111,052 whites. Here are twice as many negroes as in the whole Western Reserve ! One negro to every three white persons would give 37,017 ! A very pretty mosaic ! A sweet and fragrant nest ! And this is the Afric's coral strand, to which my missionary labors are to be directed ! Why, here are one-tenth of the negroes of Ohio in this dis- trict, with only one-twentieth of the population of the State ! So that in this district, if the ratio continued, we should have twice as many as our fair share (at one negro to three of the white population), or some eighty thousand negroes ! How will this immigration of the blacks affect labor in Ohio and in the North? First, directly, it effects our labor, as all unproducing classes detract from the prosperity of a community. Ohio is an agricultural State. Negroes will not farm. They prefer to laze or serve around towns and cities. This is evident from the census of Cincinnati, Cleve- land, Toledo, Dayton, Columbus, Zanesville, and Chillicothe, where more than three-fourths of the blacks of Ohio are to be found. But is it said that the plantation hands, when free, wiU work the lands ? Such is not 256 EIGHT YEAES IN C0NGEES8, the experience on the Carolina coast. A writer in the Boston " Journal," from Port Royal, on the 14th of May, 1862, estimates that there are 10,000 contrabands on the islands. They have planted some corn, pota- toes, and cotton, under the Government direction. This writer says : " It is difficult to make the negroes work, or induce them to (if that sounds better North), as they find something to eat from Massa Lincoln, and seem to feel they are not ' free niggers ' if they work. So they often take a day or several days to themselves, when their services are perhaps most needed, and go to Hilton Head or Beaufort. For instance, some ground had been prepared for ploughing and planting, but just as they were needed the few men who understood that part went off for two days without the least notice, thus delaying the planting, which was even then late. Until some method is adopted to make them ieel the necessity of work for their own good. Government will receive but little benefit comparatively." Will they do any better North ? We know what they have done. There are exceptions. I speak of the masses of blacks. Have they done any better at Fortress Monroe, or even here, under military surveillance? Let their condition answer. Food for the present is what they crave ; and when tliat is had, no more work till they crave again. But suppose they do work, or work a little, or a part of them work well ; what then is the effect upon our mechanics and laboring men? It is said that many of them make good blacksmiths, carpenters, &c., and especially good ser- vants. If that be so, there are white laborers North whose sweat is to be coined into taxes to ransom these negroes ; and the first effect of the ran- som is to take the bread and meat from the families of white laborers. If the wages of white labor are reduced, they will ask the cause. That cause will be found in the delusive devices of members of Congress. The helps of German and Irish descent, the workmen and mechanics in the shop and field, will find some, if not all, of these negroes, bought by their toil, competing with them at every turn. Labor Avill then go down to a song. It will be degraded by such association. Our soldiers, when they return, 100,000 strong, to their Ohio homes, will find these negroes, or the best of them, filling their places, felling timber, ploughing ground, gathering crops, &c. How their martial laurels wiU brighten when they discover the result of their services ! Labor that now ranges at from $1 to $2 per day, will fall to one-half. Already, in this District, the Govern- ment is hiring out the fugitives at from $2 to $8 per month, while Avhite men are begging for work. Nor is the labor of the most of these negroes desirable. No system of labor is so unless it be steady. They will get their week's wages, and then idle the next week away. [Many will be- come a charge and a nuisance tipon the public charity and the county ppor tax. One hundred of the fifteen hundred negroes of Greene County, as we have seen, were drones and scamps. So in Brown County. Ran- dolph's negroes, taken to Mercer County, were nuisances. If the blacks are distributed into the country, they may work for a little time and for small wages, and work well for a time ; but when work grows irksome, and tliL-y " become too lazy to play," they wiU steal. Corn and chickens dis- api)ear in their viciiuige, with the facility of shirts from the hedges where Fiilstaif marched his taltordemalions. And for this result directly to northern labor, what compensation is there to the southern half of our country by tiicir removal? Herein lies the indirect eilect of their immi- gration upon northern labor. By this emancipation, the labor system of CIVIL WAE. 257 the Soutli is destroyed. The cotton, which brought us $200,000,000 per annum, a good part of which came to Ohio to purchase pork, corn, flour, beef, and machinery, where i^ it? Gone. What of the cotton fobric, almost as common as bread among the Labormg classes? With 4,000,- 000 of indolent negroes, its production is destroyed, and the ten milhons ot artisans in the world who depend on it for employment, and the hundred millions who depend on it for clothing, will find the fabric advanced a hundred per cent. So with sugar, and other productions of slave labor. For all these resuhs, labor wiU curse the jostling elements which thus dis- turb the markets of the world. Another indirect effect upon the labor oi the North and especially of Ohio, is that the markets of the South will be closed, not by blockade, but forever. Our prices of corn, wheat, pork, beef, &c., will be reduced by a contracted market. The surplus in Ohio, the past year, was, of grain 25,000,000 bushels, of hogs 1,000,000, of cattle 300 000, exports from the State, or more than $50,000,000 worth ; while other articles of export were worth $50,000,000 niore. This pro- duction is above that which Ohio can use. If our market is restricted, who suffers? The farmer. If he suffers, who will pay the taxes m Ohio? Prices must be remunerative or agriculture suffers. It agricul- ture suffers in Ohio, every man, woman, and child feels it. If this scheme for Africanizing the State, by destroying southern labor, succeeds, no tos- terin- care or scientific skill can make up the loss to the farmer. Such schemes, by destroying the sources of labor, destroy themselves Yet these dreamers cling to their notions with the happy impudence of Mun- chausen, who went to the moon for the silver hatchet, by means of a Turkey bean which grew up to its horns. A^^hen his bean was dried by the heat, he twisted a rope of straw by which to descend, fastemng one end to the horns. Alas ! like many similar schemes, it was too short. But, holding fast by the left hand, with his right he cut the long and use- less upper part, which, when tied to the lower end, brought him safely to the earth ' Such will be the result of these lunatic experiments upon the labor systems of the country. The sooner they descend from the moon with their rope of straw, the better. Thus, with loss to the South and damage to the North, both irreparable, and no gam to either, the year of neo-ro jubilee is to be ushered into existence. In conclusion, then, if the negro cannot be colonized without burdens intolerable, and plans too delusive ; if he cannot be freed and lelt bouth without destroying its labor, and without his extermination ; it he cannot come North without becoming an outcast and without rum to Northern industry and society, what shall be done? Where shall he go? He an- swers for himself. The paterfamilias of a drove of negroes, the other day in the Valley of Virginia, was asked, " Where are you going ? Dun no, massa, dun' no ; gwine somewhere, I reckon." [Laughter ] His friends can answer very little better. But such answer is not statesman- ship. What shall be done ? I answer, Eepresentatives '.that our duty is written in our oath ! It is in the Constitution of the United States ! Leave to the States their own institutions where that instrument leaves them, keep your faith to the Crittenden resolutions, be rid of all ambigu- ous schemes, and trust under God for the revelation of His will concern- ing these black men in our land, and the overthrow by our power ot this 17 258 EIGHT YEAKS IN CONGEESS. rebellion. Have you no faith in God, avIio writes the history of nations? Great as is our power, wise as is our system of government, brave as are om- soldiers, unequalled as our fleets are of iron, it is only for Ilim to breathe upon us, and our power will fade. I know that His power can solve these dark problems of our fate. Let us do our duty to the order estab- lished by our fathers, under His wise inspiration, and all may be Avell. In this night of our gloom my faith has been in Him, even as my oath to the Constitution which He inspired is made, " so help me God ! " Cleaving to that, I can see the dawn of hope ! Leaving it, I see nothing but perjury, fraud, and a darker night of disaster. In our Constitution alone, under God, is our national salvation ! But I have no faith in, and no hope of this Congress, for they have no faith in God or the Constitution. Greece had a law called ypa(p7] jrapa- rojUWT', whereby any man was tried and punished in a common court like a criminal, for any law which had passed on his motion in the assembly of the people, if that law appeared unjust or prejudicial to the public. If there were such a law here, how few of the majority of this House would escape the dock of the criminal and the rope of the gibbet. The member from Illinois [Mr. Lovejot] Avonld then receive the beatitudes which follow suspended animation. [Laughter.] But what of the mem- ber from Pennsylvania [Mr. Kelley] ? He has been ever ready, in his de- fence of black men and black character, to assail personally those with whom he differed. He could not pass by my humble speech as to Hayti without some sarcastic flings and much misrepresentation, which he re- fused to allow me to answer. He did not like my style of description, and wondered v/hy there was no laugh at my humor about the negro in court dress. He is more successful. He never speaks but he is laughed at. His speeches have been well described as being every word a sepul- chre, every sentence a tomb, and every speech a graveyard. [Laughter.] In this graveyard he thought to bury me, as he liaM buried others. But even that voice of his, vox et prceterea oiihil^ which may be likened to the " cry of an itinerant bull, in pursuit of society, moaning upon the broad prairies of the West" [great laugliter], would, if that Grecian law existed, be choked forever. He would then find his melodramatic performances close before the fifth act, in a tragedy, which an admiring audience would applaud to the echo ! Faithless to their own resolves, faithless to the Presi- dent's message and proclamations, faithless to their pledges to the army and the people, faithless to the memories of the past and the hopes of the fu- ture, faithless to the Constitution and to the God of their oath, these mad- dened zealots pursue the Avork of destruction. A few short months, and even the blacks of America will curse them as their worst enemy. This Congress, which ought to be engaged in holding up the hands of the Execu- tive, and in giving aid and counsel in putting down this armed rebellion, has striven to circumvent the ])lans of the President, by its immature and vindictive bills of confiscation. It has been coopering away at the vessel, lioojjing it around Avith infinite pains, by emancipation, while its bottom, like the tub of the Danaides, is full of holes and can hold no water. Weary in watching its mad designs of revolution and its crazy crotchets of black l'iH-(!dom, and for the scli'-])reser\ation of my native State and the North from the black immigration with which it is threatened, I shall CIVIL, WAE, 259 go to my home and ask the ballot to speak its denunciation. A few- months, and that expression will be had. On it depends the fate of the Republic. My belief is, that the people will write the epitaph of this Congress, nearly as Gladstone wrote that of the Coalition ministry durjng the Crimean war : Here lies the ashes of the XXXVII. Congress ! It found the United States in a war of ' gigantic proportions, involving its very existence. It was content to wield the sceptre of Power and accept the emoluments of office ; and used them to overthrow the political and social system of the country, which it was sworn to protect. It saw the fate of thirty-four white commonwealths in peril ; but it babbled of the NEGRO! It saw its patriotic generals and soldiers in the field, under the old flag. It slandered the one, and in the absence of the other, it destroyed his means of labor. It talked of Liberty to the black, and piled burdens of taxation on white people for Utopian schemes. The people launched at it the thunderbolt of their wrath ; and its members sought to avoid punishment, by creeping into dishonored political graves Hequiescat ! MEANING OF THE ELECTIONS OF 1862. CONSERVATISM AND KADICALISM PERVERSION OF THE WAR ITS PROLONGATION DISMISSAL OF GENEP.ALS — IS COMPROMISE POSSIBLE ? IF SO, WHEN ? LAWS OF WAR MAXIMS OF VATTEL HOW PEACE MAT BE HAD ENGLISH PERFIDY FRENCH AND FOREIGN MEDIATION NATIONAL CONVENTION. Delivered in the Houm of Representatives December 15, 1862. Mr. Chairman : It has been a custom in all civilized countries and a part of the Constitution of all free countries, for the admini^,tra- tion to yield to the popular will whenever it is clearly ascertained. In England, when the Ministry are voted down, they surrender their port- folios to the Queen. Even in parliament, which is but an imperfect rep- resentative of the British people, no Minister, however popular, can withstand the sentiment of the Commons. He must resign or rule vmder the scorn of the nation. In 1832, even the Duke of Wellington was not " iron " enough to resist the popular cry of " Reform." In 1846, when Cobden and Bright on the hustings, Villiers, in the House, and Elliott in song, raised the cry of Repeal of the Corn Laws and cheap bread for the people, the landed aristocracy, wto had the power, crumbled before the 260 EIGHT YEARS Il'T CONGEESS. power of the popular voice. Sir Robert Peel, the greatest statesman since Chatham, bowed to the decree. The nation yet honors him for thirf magnanimous statesmanship. Later, during the Crimean war, its gross mismanagement, shown up by an untrammelled press, drove an incompe- tent Ministry from power, by a vote of the Commons. In Prussia, in France, and even in Austria, the sovereign and his advisers do not fail to conciliate the public mind by some graces of obedience. But here, sir, in this boasted free country, when our great States have pronounced against this Congress, and against its emancipation and other schemes, v.^e have mockery, defiance, and persistency in wrong doing. The people have raised their voice against irresponsible arrests ; this House, on its first day, votes down my resolutions, drawn in the language of every Bill of Eights in America, and refuses inquiry into these outrages upon the citizen. The people have condemned that worst relic of the Avorst times of French tyranny, the Icttres cle cachet ; yet this House, with indecorous hurry, lash through a bill of indemnity, which is to confiscate all the rights and remedies of the outraged citizen — a bill, sir, which, if pleaded by a minion of power, the Courts would laugh to scorn. The people have con- demned the edict of emancipation — an edict which Mr. Seward, on the 10th of March last, iu a letter to Mr. Adams, declared " would reinvig- orate the declining insurrection in every part of the South ; " yet we have the Presidential Message, which proposes to adhere to the condemned proclamation ; and in addition thereto proposes a compensated system of emancipation, running to the end of the century. The people desired the war to be continued on one line of policy, declared by us last July a year, for the Constitution and the Union ; but this contumacious assembly are determined to force it from that line, or abandon the Union. My colleague [Mr. Hutciiixs] spoke the other day for the majority here, and gloried in that radicalism which v/ould " reiuvigorate the rebel- lion." I think the Irish orator had my colleague in his eye, when he spoke of the " universal genius of emancipation." He glories in being a radical because he goes to the root. I propose to tap that root for a few moments. His speech is not upon a new tlicme, nor is it freshly handled. Its point is its audacious disregard of the sentiment of his own State and of the North. He is wiser than the " elders " of the Republic, wliom he stigmatizes : for they never found, whsrt he has learned from other and recent sources, that Slavery and freedom arc incompatible in our system. He pretends tliat the real cause of the rebellion lies in this irreconcilable antagonism. He forgets that scvenly-iive years of our liistory disprove his fallacies. He urges such antagonism for military reasons ; wlien the truth is, his party got power by propagating this very heresy of hate. The sclieme of exterminating slavery as a war measure is an afterthought. He claims moreover the right under the Constitution to I'rcc all the slaves, because slavery is incompatible witli that clause which guarantees to each State a repul)lican form of government. He grows wiser than the ''el- ders," who Irami'd the Constitution, and who lived in Slave States Avhen it was made. He thinks the Congress and the Executive can unmake tlic State governments and make new governments for the South wlien sub- jugated. He thus becomes as much of a Disunionist and traitor as Davis. My colleague reproves the President for his delusion, because the Prcsi- CIVIL WAE. 261 dent hopes for relief by compensated emancipation in 1900. In tliis, the darin"- radicalism of my colleague outstrips even that of the Administra- tion. °He favors a " Union as it will be, when slavery is eradicated," and that makes him a radical. He says radicalism goes to the root. So it does. So the savants whom Gulliver found employed the hog to do ploughing, to save the wear and tear of honest agriculture. He would have°us root out slavery or die. Indeed, in picturing our " armies pen- etrating the territory of the rebellion, carrying with them this military order of freedom inscribed upon their banner," he would have his halt- ing friends, like the President, " dare " more ; he quotes the language of Mfrabeau, the revolutionist, urging no revolt — no revolt — by halves, no timidity, no hesitation from a sense of duty, no sacrifice of passion, no half-way indecision in treason ; and he exhorts his confederates in aboli- tion that it is better to be resolutely bad than indecisively honest ! ^ This is the language of revolution, and the spirit of Satan as Mihon pictures him in hell, "^fhe quotation of my colleague is felicitous ; but it is a re- lief to know that his comrades in revoU have not the daring of Davis, the manliness of Mirabeau, or the intellect of Satan. He indulges in compar- isons between this radicahsm, which he espouses, and that conservatism which is now organized under the Democratic name. The Avord conser- vative is not the name of a party. It is an element now dominant among the people. It represents the principle of repose and strength ; the ideas of order and law. It defends the Constitution. It would restore the Union. When the gentleman likens it to the Israelites who hankered for the slavery of Egypt ; when he says that those who prefer the Union as it was, are like the Tories of the Revolution ; when he likens them to the Scribes and Pharisees, who preferred the doctrines of the elders, he per- petrates superficial nonsense. To stigmatize those who are in favor of the Union of Washington as like the Tories whom Washington fought, is worse than the silliest bathos of a mediocre poet, whom Horace says gods, men, and booksellers despise. To liken the conservative voice just ut- tered at our elections to the lust of the Israelites for the fleshpots of Egypt, has not the dignity of a schoolgirl's rhapsody. The simile which he drew between the Smbes and Pharisees, and those Avho reverence the Consti- tution because it is the work of tlie " elders," smacks of a supercilious esotism which it is idle to answer. There are no such analogies between the parties of the day. No comparisons are needed to show the differ- ences between the radicalism which uproots to destroy, and the conserva- tism which would guard to save. I would like to know the difference in spirit between the radicalism of secession, which contemned the constitu- tional majority and set up for itself on slavery principles, and the radical- ism which now defies the people's will to set up for itself on anti-slavery ideas. This radical party of the gentleman has been in power 651 days — since the 4th of March, 1861, to the present time. What is the result? I do not now ask who has caused this result ; but what is our condition under the agents selected at Chicago by a sectional organization, acting Avith those of similar radical views in the South? 1st. A confederation of thii-ty-three States, to which appurtenant were seven Territories, has been torn into two parts, under severed and belligerent governments. 2d. 262 EIGHT YEAKS IN CONGRESS. From a state of concord the people of these States have been made hostile ; and one-half of the people of these States, capable undei* the law of bear- ing arms, have become consumers instead of peaceable producers of wealth. 3d. That these men, numbering perhaps two millions, connected Vv'ith the armies of the North and South, are costing the people at least $1,000,000 per day, which is not being replaced ; for all that is spent in war is, by the laws of economy, a loss to those who spend it, as a mere pecuniary transaction, and not counting ultimate and moral results. 4th. That since this Administration came into power there has been lost to this country, merely as a matter of business, not counting debt and taxes of a national or State character, at least three hundred millions in the destruction of property, interference with established business, increase in wages, spoliation of railroads, depots, produce, corn, wheat, flour, col^ ton, hay, crops, &c. 5th. That the debt of this country at this time, if all the liabilities not liquidated are included, and not including the eighty millions left by the preceding Administration, amounts to the sum of one thousand millions; and by the 1st of July, 1864, will, in my judg- ment, amount to twenty-five hundred millions. The estimates for the army alone for the next year are $700,000,000. 6th. That we have now a system of taxation by tariil" which imposes a burden on the West, to benefit manufacturing in New England, and pays indirectly sixty millions into the Treasury and hundreds of millions into the pockets of capitalists, from the consumers, who are mostly farmers of the West. 7th. That we have now a system of internal taxation, costing for collection some four millions extra, which might have been saved, and levying in one year $150,000,000 as interest only on a great national debt, and Avith an army of newly made office-holders, with exorbitant salaries. Stli. That within these 651 days, a party has succeeded which proposes, by legislation and proclamation, to break down a labor system in eleven "States, of four millions of negroes whose industry has been productive hitherto, worth, on or before the 4th of March, 1861, an average of $500 apiece, being in all two thousand millions of dollars ; and Avhcn this capital is destroyed, the objects of this pseudo-philanthropy will remain on hand. North and South, as a mass of dependent and improvident black beings, for whose care the tax will be almost equal to the Avar tax, before their condition will again be fixed safely and prosperously. 9th. That Avithin tliese 651 days, tJie rights of personal liberty, freedom from arrest Avithout process, freedom for press and speech, and the right of habeas corpus have been suspended and limited, and, at times, destroyed ; and in the place of resur- rected and promised liberty to four million blacks, we have had the de- struction of that liberty Avhich the past 800 years have aAvarded to the Anglo-Saxon race. 10th. That for the specie currency of a few years ago, Ave have already in circulation millions of depreciated government promises to pay, ranging from $1,000 notes down to five cent shinplasters. 11th. That Ave have the promise of a bankrupt law at this session, as the Avholesale result of these commercial derangements. 12th. That Ave have had killed in these 651 days at least 150,000 of the best youth of the country on bloody fields of l)attle, and nearly the same number by sickness in camps and hospitals. i;3th. That by the decision of the courts, already "riven as to tlie laws of this Consrcss — the le;;al tender and the confisca- CIVIL WAR, 263 tion acts — we learn that there is a general encroachment by one depart- ment of the government upon the other. 14th. That the Christian religion has been defiled by its teachers, and civilization set back a half century by the demoralization incident to these unhappy events. This is the radicalism of my colleague. Conservatism has played the radical so far as to uproot this gigantic upas tree, whose shade poisons the nation's life. It would cover over and refresh the exposed roots of the o-oodly tree planted by the fathers, that it may grow again, and blos- som and bear fruit for the children. Is it necessary to illustrate the differences between the radicalism and conservatism now operating in our politics ? I will not go back to Egypt, or Palestine, or even to the Eevolution. We have in our midst subjects of comparison. The gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens], with an intellect like a demi-god, clamoring for a Dictator, and scoffing at the Constitution, infinite in his power of miscjiief, might well illustrate radi- calism ; while the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Crittenden], with a heart as large as his intellect, would illustrate the opposite. One defends 'contractors,°palliates peculation, and assauUs investigating committees. Given the leadership here in this time of peril, he uses it to preach a salus populi suprema lex, as of higher sanction than his oath to the Con- stitution. He deals in invective, and talks of being provoked by a con- stitutional opposition or a modest suggestion. He would tear down the fabric of his government to vent his spite on an institution about which he has no business. During this session he voted for the dismemberment of Virginia, and gave these radical reasons : " For I will not stultify myself by supposing that we have any warrant in the Consti- tution for this proceeding. This talk of restoring the Union as it was under the Consti- tution as it is, is one of the absurdities I have heard repeated until I have become sick about it. This Union can never be restored as it was. There are many things which render such an event impossible. This Union shall never with my consent be restored under the Constitution as it is, with slavery to be protected by it." Such language would befit the Richmond Congress. He who utters it, is indeed no Conservative. Turn to that other in our midst — a man of gray hairs — no counterfeit glory upon his head, but the glory of a long, useful, and patriotic career. He comes to us from his retkement in Ken- tucky to represent the people among whom Henry Clay lived and died, to counsel us in this our country's trial. He bids us manifest temperance in the very torrent and tempest of this anti-slavery frenzy. His course may arouse the sneers and ire of the radical. He may be likened to the sensual Israelite, the hypocritical Pharisee, or the obsequious Tory ; but the people know him as one who would have saved them from the war, and who would now lead them to an honorable peace. His conservatism would not pull down. It would build up. It abounds not in empty cries of hu- manity about the blacks. It would save this western world to constitu- tional freedom for the white. It looks forward to the day when the old time shall come again, under the old flag. It fears to let loose vengeance in the form of atrocious confiscations and cruel spoliation of non-combatants and deluded fellow-countrymen. It would give laws to war. It would conserve the home, the State, the institutions of the country — the Repub- lic ! It would never heal political grudges by mercenary contracts. It 264 EIGHT TEAKS Df CONGEESS. would try the traitor first and confiscate afterwards. It would not confis- cate without conviction. It would ohserve the law North to punish its breach South. It would guard the Constitution while putting down its assailants. It does not fi)r months assassinate the character of our generals because they do not favor radical notions. It would conserve character, even while it would protect freedom of speech and unlicensed printing. It loves and admires the Constitution, made at Independence Hall on the 17th of September, 1787, and would echo the close of Story's Commenta- ries : esto perpetua ! It makes sacrifice to defend it. It votes and speaks against the worthless men who, in the name of a higher law and in the name of a military necessity, would destroy it. The ditference between this- conservatism and that radicalism, is the difference between Hyperion and Satyr, Gabriel and Mephistopheles, Democracy and Abolition ! The people, thank God, though late, perceive the gidf which separates these elements of blessing and of woe. Yet my colleague would arraign this conservatism as pro-slavery and treasonable ; and with that irreverence which is not infrequent with his class, he pretends that God is on the side of this radicalism. Why, sir, I speak it all reverently, God himself has been called by an abolition divine, a Democrat. The appellation is true, if Democracy be the synonyme of conservatism. Providence organizes and conserves. It is a part of his established order. Besides, it has been said that the voice of the people is the voice of God. Surely these waiters on Providence should heed the voice of the people speaking from the political Sinai. Amidst the thun- ders and lightnings and thick cloud, and tlie quaking of the mountain, the trumpet has sounded ; and yet, ye, unlike Israel, " have not sanctified yourselves, lest the Lord break /orth upon ye." The trumpet voice has spoken : We are the people who have set you in high places. Thou shalt have no other source of power before you. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image of ebony, before which to bow thyself, nor to serve it. [Laughter.] Thou shalt not take the name of liberty in vain ; for thou shalt not be held guiltless for such sacrilege upon personal and constitutional freedom. Remember the election days of October and November, to keei") them holy. [Laughter.] Honor the Constitution and the Union, if you would have your days long in the land. Thou shalt not kill — in vengeance and in vain. Thou shalt not degrade the white race by such intermixtures as eman- cipation will bring. Thou shalt not steal, nor suffer the money of the people to be stolen by the army of jobbers and contractors. Thou shalt not bear false Avitness against thy neighbors, charging them falsely with disloyalty. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's servants, neither his man servant, nor his maid servant, nor any thing which is thy neighbor's ; nor tax the people Cor their deliverance." Will these couuuandments be heeded? I fear not. Too many of the other si(U^ iiave lost their sense of responsibility l)y losing their oifices. Among all my colleagues of the last Congress, upon the other side, but CIVIL WAE. 265 one remains-but one-the member from the Northwest [Mr Ashley] and he was elected by the divisions of the conservative force of the district. As with the children of Israel, the Red Sea divided and 1"S virtues en- abled him to go over dry-shod. [Laughter.] My colleague [Mr. IIutcii- iNsl, who was so kind as to write my epitaph at the last session, pict^urmg me as -oino- down in a colored " sunset," had not even the approbation of his own party by a nomination. He will allow me, with tender regret, to borrow the apostrophe of the poet to Wilberforce, as suitable to his case : " Oh, shade of the fallen ! Oh, Genius sublime ! Great friend of the Negro, from Africa's clime ; Alas ! how low he Hes ! [Laughter.] Night suddenly came, and his day was done, His sun was set, and another sun Illumes the dusky skies." [Laughter.] I doubt not his speech at the last session in favor of the blacks settling where they pleased, was the reason of his premature setting and settling. He should not complain. He was a bright light of Republicanism m the dark places of Ohio ; but he must remember " that aU that s bright must fade." His demise was a civil necessity. The people have said to hma and his friends— all defeated, I believe, but about a dozen—" Wayward sis- ters ! depart in peace." [Laughter.] Let them return to private life It is their destiny. Their political graves are dug. Their wmdmg sheets are prepared. Their gravestones are ready. Methinks I he^r the clods fall upon their coffins at noon on the coming 4th of March. They should not complain. The earth itself must at last pass away and be roUed up like a scroll. Nature, trembling and in flames, will one day give way. Let them not complain, but bow to the decree of dissolution. None knew them but to curse them ; none name them but to damn. Properly and phi- loloo-ically speaking, they are here as the representatives of perdition ; , for they are lo.^t to us. [Laughter.] Their loss will, however, be our gain. Their calling and election not having been made sure, they now seek, in the Httle span allotted them, to continue those political trans- gressions for which they are condemned already. My coUeague [Mr. HuTCHiNs] has, however, it seems, turned practical humanitarian since the elections. I commend him for it. He is no longer a pohtical Mrs. Jel- laby. manufacturing here moral pocket handkerchiefs, for the pickanin- nies of HiUon Hea'd ; but he has been there, observing how the young African learns to shoot in a-b-abs, and how the black brigade learns to shoot in platoons. He has, no doubt, observed what the President told the preachers : " That they eat, and that was all." Perhaps he might tell us how many thousands, under the humanitarian regime, we have ah-eady living at our national festive board, and singing the song : " Old Uncle Sam's the landlord— we cat and drink our fill, ^^ And the wisdom of the measure is— we pay nothing for the bill. The House refused us information last session as to these black pau- pers ; and since then they have increased and scattered over the land, untU they number hundreds of thousands ; we hear of four hundred wagon loads in Mississippi ; several thousand in the district of my friend from Illinois [Mr. Allen] ; thousands here in the District ; and for their sus- tenance and elevation, the overburdened people are to be taxed, while the 266 EIGHT YEARS IN" CONGKESS. families of white soldiers clamor for food in our cities. The House this afternoon voted down the resolution of inquiry of my friend from Mary- land [Mr. Calvert], as to the cost of the contraband business in Caro- lina. I assert here that the report of the quartermaster at Beaufort, South Carolina, will show that for the month of September four general superin- tendents received $150 per month, and sixty-four other superintendents received $50 per month, for taking care of ninety-three negroes ! This report shows $3,800 per month, being at the rate of $45,600 per annum, for the care of ninety-three, big and little, male and female, " free Ameri- cans of African descent." A thousand dollars per year would astonish a western farmer for such a service. Yet we are refused all information as to this and similar infamous abuses. But the time is near when all will be out. Why are these things hidden from the people? I think my colleague niight have given us some of his observations on this head while he was in the South. The consolation for this, the Executive gives us when he tells our people that white men can go down and take the places of slaves, if they do not like having the slaves coming North to jostle and oust them from their places. I, too, like the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Richardson], am anx- ious to support the Executive in crushing this armed sedition in the South, and will support him whenever he is upon the proper path. The elections never meant to withdraw from him the conservative support, if he had pursued the policy marked out at the extra session. But the people have condemned the chimerical scheme of compensated emancipation which he has again announced, and which my colleague defends — a scheme which the President thinks will save the enormous outlays for the Avar, by abol- ishing its cause — Slavery. How can we apply those simple Mother Goose Melodies of the message, that it is not so easy to pay something as noth- ing, or easier to pay a large sum than a larger one — when emancipation will add to the larger sum, something larger still, by " reiuvigorating the rebellion " ? One important question seems never to have been consid- ered at the White House — what if aboliticm does not end the war? If the fear of abolition was in part the cause of the war, Avill abolition stop it? If there were any thing true in tlie motto, " Like cures like," this might be logic ; but, imfortunately, like causes produce like effects. It is utterly wild to expect that the South will disband or be reconciled or be con- quered by abolition ; since abolition banded them in arms against us. If the President make real the fears wliich led them to arms against the Government, the war will be embittered, prolonged, and made more ex- pensive. Untold millions will be added as avcII I'or the idle purpose of turning over to the Treasury, or the Poor-house, the Africans I'rced irom their masters, as to pay for the slaves when freed. But we are told the integrity of tlie Union Avill be assured ; and the gentleman from Pennsyl- vania [Mr, Stevens] has introduced resolutions looking to this end. Tiic import of his resolutions is confined to the unity and indivisibility of the Union. The second and fourth propositions arc all included in the first. Tiu! second expresses the stigma wliich ought to be fixed on liim who would violate the national integi-ity, wliich is asserted in the first ; and the fourth expresses tlie resolve never to have that integrity broken " in two." But, sir, there is carefully omitted all expression against destroy- CIVIL WAE. 267 ino- or impairin'^ our Government as established by tbe Constitution, with its" present departments and its present local, State, and Federal relations. Members can vote for those resolutions, yet be in favor of thoroughly chang- ino- these relations. The gentleman can defend for ever the unity of the United States, its territory and government, yet insidiously favor a sys- tem of centralized power. A dictatorship has already been heralded by him here • and it is not inconsistent with these resolutions. Every mch of our domain might remain under our flag, yet that flag might be made the emblem of a new and odious political system. The framers of the Constitution admonished us that if we should crush out the States, though the territory might remain, yet our liberties would be lost. The unity of a parcel of provinces, held by a martial iron grip, or tethered by prison bounds, is not the unity of the American Constitution. In a unity Uke that with the States eclipsed, how could you make a Senate, an electoral colle'o-e, or a President? Strike out the planets, and you have no system. He i1 an idiot who thinks our geography ought to be preserved at the price of our freedom. Do vou want to reproduce the alhance of Ireland with Eno-land ; Venetia with Austria? How will you hold it? By large armies at enormous cost? How, in case of foreign war, could you pre- serve such a Union? Even our territories grow restive under Federal ride, and clamor to be States in their nonage. Such a scheme of mditary satrapies, menacing our northern liberty and leading to endless intrigue, it is idle and criminal to contemplate. The people wiU have none ot it. They have thus instructed us in thunder tones, at the recent elections. They desire no other form or fact of government than such as the Consti- tution !?ives ; no other flag than that which has aU the stars in equal lustre, and no black, interpolated between the red, white, and blue ! Doubtless this popular wiU has reached the gentleman from Pennsyl- vania. Last session he began with a bill, which proposed by unconstitu- tional lecrislation to change local interests from State to Federal control. Now he" preserves, as to that, a discreet silence; and only proposes a unity of territory and government. The people demand the territory as it was, the Government as it is, and no meddling with the area of the one, or the functions of the other, by any party, with any force, by any laws, or for any purpose, in the interest of any species of phdanthropy, or for the benefit of any race, red, white, or black ! _ But, SU-, I do not complain that the gentleman has omUted inhis_ reso- lutions any expression as to preserving the rights, equality, and dignity of the States under the Constitution. Who would believe that such expres- sions were sincere, after the vote of the gentleman on the 21st oi July last for a resolution of that kind, offered by the gentleman irom Kentucky [Mr. Crittenden] ? The gentleman from Pennsylvania is no hypocrite. The time for pretences has gone by. The masquerade is over. He will drag no unpleasant corpse of memory about with him. Great souls care not for consistency. The Crittenden resolutions are m the dead past with him. The State suicide doctrine is now openly avowed. The Constitu- tional guarantees to personal liberty and private property are set at naught. The purpose so long hinted at and indirectly attempted, to abolish slavery by Federal legislatfon or Executive proclamation, has become the shibbo- leth of a party and the avowed object of the war. It would not have done to 268 EIGHT TEAES DT CONGEESS. have avoAved this purpose at the beginniug of the war. As has been said by the " Atlantic Monthly, " the organ of the abolition dilettanti in Boston, " The opposition to the Southern secession took its first form as a rally by all parties to the defence of the Constitution, the maintenance of the Union. For any anti-slavery zeal to have attempted to divert the aroused patriotism of the land to a breach of one of its fundamental constitutional provisions would have been treacherous and futile. The majority of our enlisted patriotic soldiers would have laid down their arms. If the lead- ings of Providence shall direct the thickening strife into an exterminating crusade against slavery, doubtless our patriots will Avait on Providence. But we could not have started in our stern work, avowing that as an object of our own." The war began for the holy object of national salvation, by the defence of the Constitution, The etfort is now made to end it as a dis- graceful crusade against slavery, betraying the patriotism of the land and mocking the hopes of mankind. It began for the noblest purpose ; unless restored by the popular voice, now assuming its olden tone again, it will end in diabolical and merciless extermination of territory, property. States, Government, and Union. It is not my purpose now to condemn or discuss the acts of the last session. The nation has passed upon them ; and there is no need of reso- lutions or speeches to explain their action. If the gentleman thought by introducing his resolutions, that he could discover any lack of national feeling, any sympathy with this unnatural rebellion, or any desire here to have this nation changed in polity, symmetry, or geography, he was mis- taken. If the President, in his message, thought that his argument in favor of the physical union of these States was needed to teach the peo- ple true views or new views, he was mistaken. The meaning of the late elections is, that no separation of these States can ever be permitted. The people have registered their oaths at the ballot-boxes, that no infraction of the Constitution shall be suffered. They will ha\e unity without the aid of such counsels. They will have their ancient and written charter of liberties, in spite of all attempts to despoil them. There Avas no need of such resolutions ; there Avas need of other resolutions, voted down by the other side ; resolutions to stop irresponsible and arbitrary arrests ; reso- lutions against changing the form of our government ; resolutions against Avholesale and expensive philanthropic experiments, Avhich tend to destroy the moral, religious, political, and physical substance and unity of the nation. I knoAv the impi'cssion has been created among the Aveaker portion of the now Aveaker party, that the late elections arc somehow an expression in favor of secession. If this Avere true, Avhat a message of encourage- ment it Avould be to the rebellion ! Those avIio circulate libels upon the people of tlie North, either cannot have the sense to perceive their effect, or are regardless of the truth. If it Avere true, how pitiful Avould be the condition of this nation ! The rebels find no such encouragement in these elections. But the Richmond "Exiiminer" of November 21 docs find in the '• policy of tiie radical party North that Avhich alone could have eradi- cated the deep-rooted sentiment of Union from the Soutliern bosom." It does Ihid " that the radical party have pursued a policy Avhich has con- Bolidated Southern sentiments and united our [their] people as one man CIVIL WAE. 269 in support of the war." Such was the belief of the people as to tne effect of radicalism ; and hence the result in Ohio and the Northwest. At the East, let that noble champion, the governor elect of New York, speak as to the significance of the election in that State. In his speech, before the election,\t Brooklyn, Horatio Seymour said : " Now when the men of the South made the bayonet and the sword the arbiter (they elected and not we): whon they and not we determined to settle it by blood, the sword 'so far as the present is concerned, must be the arbiter ; and m our strong right arm it shall strike vigorous and true blows for the hfe of our country, for its institutions, and for its fla"- Now let me say this to the higher law men of the Noitn, and to the higher law men of the South, and to the whole world that looks ou as witnesses to the mignty events transpiring in this country, that this Union shall never be severed; no never. Whatever other men may say, as for the conservative people of this country, and as for myself as an individual— let other men say and think wliat they please— as lor the divis- ion of this Union, and the breaking up of that great natural alhance which is made by nature and by nature's God, I never will consent to it, no, never, as long as I have a voice to raise or a hand to fight for this our glorious land." The Executive message as to the indivisibility of the United States, and the resolutions of the gentleman, are but the feeble echo of this stal- wart cry of the people : '^ That this Union shall never be severed— no, never. The natural alliance made by nature and nature's God, shall never be broken— never." It was because the people feared this, that they have hurled so many of you from your seats here. The epitaph upon this Con-ress, which with a glad prophetic grace I had the honor to pencil for Vi>ur°political sepulchres at the last session, will be carved m that enduring marble which wiU be at once the grave of sedition and the monument of ^^\tVas been asserted that the people have condemned this administra- tion because there was not a vigorous prosecution of the war. The dis- missal of General McClellan was justified because, as it was alleged, lie had not dash or movement enough to satisfy the electors of the country. Facts, in letters and despatches which are yet to transpire, will show : 1st. That this is a mere pretext ; and, 2d. That there were other reasons for the dismissal. My distinguished and sagacious friend from Illinois [Mr. Richardson] inferred that the real reason for that dismissal was, that McClellan did not a^-ree with the emancipation and other radical schemes of the cabinet. I alsert here as a fact, which I do know, and which con- firms the inferences of my friend, that the President was, about the mid- dle of July, informed distinctly of the mode by which and the principles upon which General McClellan intended the war to be conducted and the Union saved.* He was advised that McClellan disapproved of any mfrac- tion of the laws of civilized and Christian warfare ; that he disapproved of arbitrary arrests in places where the insurrection did not prevail ; that he did not contemplate any seizure of private property for tne support of the army, or for punishing and desolating the region mvaded ; but that he earnestly desired that the war should be carried on as a duel between organized armies, and not against non-combatants ; that tlie mstitutions of the States should be protected ; that no proclamation of freedom, mcens- * This reference is to the famous Harrison Bar letter, which afterwards appeared, and which General McCleUan had before this speech read to Gov. Crittenden and myself. 270 EIGHT YEAKS IN CONGRESS. ing a servile race to iodiscriminate massacre of helpless whites, and in- viting the destruction of unoflending blacks, should be permitted ; in fine, that wherever it was possible, the military should be subordinate to the civil authority, and the Constitution alone should be the guide and glory of heroic sacrifice. This plan did not suit radicalism. It was not obnox- ious to the President in the summer, but, somehow, it became so in the fall ; and hence the General of the Potomac suddenly became unskilled in the art of war. His science in creating and inspiring an army after Bull Run was forgotten. His grand movement and splendid fighting be- fore Richmond were ignored. His attempt to take Richmond was belittled, although lie pleaded, as if the life of the nation hung on it, for reenforce- ments, without which he made no promise and had no hope of success. His superb battles in Maryland, his salvation of Washington from the blun- ders of Pope, or those over him, were conveniently slighted. It was pre- tended that he did not move fast enough after the battle of Antietam ; that he was abundantly supplied, but failed to pursue the defeated enemy. Time will show who are to blame for failing to supply the army at that critical time. Such pretexts will hardly stand before the official records which will be published. At the time when McClellan was dismissed, he was moving his immense army more than ten miles a day. His cavalry were driving the enemy before them, and his infantry and artillery were pushing' them back from the frowning gaps of the Blue Ridge. His movements v/ere as fast as prudence, in such a situation, Avarrantcd. No, sir, this removal of the general, whose genuine patriotism aijd skilful genius had inspired the army with enthusiasm, was a sacrifice to appease the Ebony Fetich. But he was displaced for Burnside. True ; and he told his army to stand by Burnside as they had by him. And Burn- side had told us fhat McCleUan was " an honest, Chi'istian-like, and con- scientious man, Avith the soundest head and clearest military perception of any man in the United States." Fatal words ! They have in them the ultimate fate of Burnside. Let us pray for his success fervently, as he, no doubt, has prayed for the presence of McClellan during the past eventful week. But let us watch as we pray ; for he too will be brought to the stone of jasper, another sacrifice to the Mumbo Jumbo of abolition. What have we gained by McClellan's removal? Celerity of movement? A better base of operations? Nearness to Richmond? Supplies by water, and a point d'appui for gunboats? Or, suppose we conquer at Fredericksburg, will not our army at last be compelled to return to James River, as the only base from which operations can succeed against Rich- mond — that point from which McClellan was dragged, despite his cry of despair, which seemed almost to forebode the destruction of the Republic? In the vicissitudes of this Avar the Administration Avill be compelled to resort to McClellan's plans and the conservative policy. Unless this be done the Avar will fail, and a disadvantageous peace \nmy result, for almost any peace Avill be hailed as better than the Avar as it is now conducted. The war must be carried on under, and not over the Constitution. AVlienthat course is resumed, the patriotic North Avill respond as it has before re- sponded. The conservative members of the next Congress will demand Buch a return. The President Avill liiid lliat there Avill l)e representatives here Avho mean to save their institutions and rebuild the Union. CrVEL WAR "♦•'• This parrot cry that these elections indicate a sympathy with the Southern rebeUion has been iterated for party purposes at home It was ^ot manufactured for foreign consumption. It did harm abroad. Well SSIiTm Seward'with more truth than is usual to diplomatic finesse, wl^e a chapter to counteract the bad effect of such falsehoods. On the 10th of November last he advised Mr. Adams at London : " Th^t .vhile there may be men of doubtful political wisdom and virtue in each party, 1 T f^hpr. n..v bnifferences of opinion between the two parties as to the measures In thib country espcu ^^ ^ ^ ^ Administration at any time existmg as dis- £tTnr»;SlXrSeS;em»>?nt Itsdf, aBd to c.n^ss .he proceedings of the one without the thought of disloyalty to the other. Who is there on the opposite side who dare echo the sincere tribute of Mr Seward to the loyal Democracy? Who of you has had the gener- osity to distinguish between sustaining the Government and criticizmg the Idministration? Who among you does the Secretary reckon of "doubtful political wisdom and virtue"? Certainly it is he who would comsel a war against slavery ; for he said to Mr. Adams, on the 17th of February, 1862, In speaking of the crusade against slavery : " To nroclaim the crusade is unnecessary, and it would even be inexpedient, because > ^Z^^ d^^nr ve us of the needful and legitimate support of the friends of the Union who It would deprive us ot t"^*^ "^^l"^' . ° • ^Yxih slavery to disunion without slavery. D^eX^te'o'rtT^^S'S aiSlrntT^^^^ ?ors Uke the slave revolution in St. Domingo ? Are these powers sure that he coun ry nr the world is ripe for such a revolution, so that it must certamly be successful ? What t itugSing such a revolution, slaver}, protesting against its ferocity and inhumamty. should prove the victor ? " Again, on the 5th of July, 1862, he says : "It seems as if the extreme advocates of African slavery and its most vehement op- nonentsweJ^actinc^ in concert together to precipitate a servile war-the former by mak- Eiftfe molt debate attempts to overthrow the Federal Union, the latter by demandmg ^n%dict of uSal emancipation as a lawful and necessary, if not, as they say, the only leStill, the best foresight may fail in sounding the designs of the •\vonderful man who now occupies St. Cloud. Our safety from all intervention lies, not merely in our iron-clad ua\y, not in our voluminous diplomacy, but in the determination of the people to throw off this load of rebellion. If the capacity of our rulers, in the conduct of our aifairs, was shown to be equal to the task of regaining- the Federal supremacy at home, we should not be menaced by European pat- ronage and meddling. If we are divided by radical counsels, and if we incite tlie servile race to atrocious insurrections, our revenues Avill be wasted, our Government broken, and England will laugh at our calami- ties, and Europe will intervene for our everlasting degradation. I do not believe tliat France means hostility to us in her tender of mediation. From my observation I believe that she is now, as she was in the days of Rochambeau and Lafayette, desirous of seeing our Union perfected. She loves England little. Waterloo is not a myth, nor has Time bleached out its red memories. Our growing naval power is not pleasing to England ; but it is not obnoxious to France, whicli has ever been jealous and fearful of English supremacy on the sea. England retuses to join in the tender of mediation for the very reason that she winked at the " Alabama " when she cleared the Mersey, and now" permits a thousand hammers to rivet the iron mail upon a score of Confederate steamers. England, whose philan- thropy is in a cotton pod, refused the tender of France because she does not care to see this Democratic Republic as a standing menace to aristoc- racy, and ever rivalling her upon the ocean. England does not wish to mediate, for she fears that if united we might be less tolerant of her bra- vado. She now smiles with satisfaction over the transfer of commerce from American to English bottoius, owing to the increase of marine insur- ance, created by her own breaches of neutrality. France may with Eng- land have some selfish reason for wishing us at peace. But France prefers that Ave should have peace and the Union ; England prefers peace and a separation. The one is a friend, the other an enemy. The friendly otliees of France may, alter our arms shall have liad more decisive success and our elections have permeated the Southern mind with a kindlier feeling, be of great use in forwarding the only true object of the war, Avhich is peace and Union. It is an insult to History to expect that Avar alone Avill unite us. Force may subdue the rebellion ; but other means must reconcile the people North and South. Interchange of commodities and mutual courtesies will not do it ; for separate nations, like France and England, have tliesc and yet Avould Ibrevcr remain distinct and hostile. Consanguinity alone Avill not do it. Many races, as the Gauls, Romans, Franks, and Burgun- dians, constitute France, and have become nationalized into one, without the ties of kindred. Language alone will not do it ; for Great Britain is one, though the people sing with Llewellyn in Welsh, and Burns in Scotch, and Sliakespeare in English. The iniity of a State by the princii)le of na- tionality, results ii-om the unforced and si>ontaneous union of inclinations among a people. " And llanior, and Shecheni his son, communed with the mcu of the city, saying : These men are peaceable with us, therefore CIVIL WAE. 281 let them dwell in the land and trade therein ; for the land, behold, it is large enough for them ; let us take their daughters to us for wives, and let us give them om* daughters ; only herein will the men consent unto us to dwell with us, to be one people." A movement looking to this consenting of the affections will restore the Union. The sword must be gai'landed with the olive. The bayonet alone, said Mirabeau, will only establish the peace of Terror — the silence of Despotism. In one way, and in one way only, could mediation be effective, by bring- ing together commissioners North and South, not to arrange a treaty of peace, not to agree upon a compromise, but to inaugurate in the States — in the States which are constituent elements of our Confedera- tion, the original fountain of power from which the Constitution derived its vitaHty — -a movement looking to a national convention where, in con- formity with the requirements of our Constitution, there could be found our common judge on earth, the sovereign people of the again United States 1 I do not now undertake to say in detail what such a Convention ought to do. It ought to compose all our troubles in the spirit of amity ; and, unless we have degenerated beyond all former generations, it ought to evoke the spirit of 1787, and weave and plait anew that bond of Uni(m, strong as the mighty interests of this nation, which are to be imbound by it forever. In such a convention of States, rigid justice might not be meted out to either party. Neither party Avould be condemned to humili- ating sacrifices, inconsistent Avith the future dignity and equality of the States. AU losses could not be reimbursed ; for who could call again to ' life the thousands slain in the unhappy strife ? But in the spirit of Chris- tian brotherhood aU might be arranged, the Union be started again upon a career of progress under the old flag and with a new hope, amidst the shouts of a free and peacefid people, and all the States side by side, like the majesties of Olympus, commune kindly through all the ages of his- tory— " Self-reverent each, and reverencing each, Distinct in individuality. But like each other, even as those who love." PURITANISM IN POLITICS. NEW ENGLAND ISMS INTOLERANCE AND PROSCRIPTION HER COLONIAL CUSTOMS AND LAWS VIRTUES OF NT:W ENGLAND EARLY PURITANISM AGAINST DEMOCRACY A POLITICAL CHURCH WITHOUT A RELIGIOUS STATE— TRANSCENDENTALISM AND BRAHMINISM POLITICAL HISTORY OF NEW ENGLAND INVOCATION TO UNION. The speech which follows was not delivered in Congress, but at New York city, on the 13th of January, 1863, before the Democratic Union Association. It was reported by many of the New York papers with gross garbling. Its sentiments were misi-epresented, and subjected to much acrimonious criticism in Congress. I insert it here that it may be judged properly. It touched the amour propre of New England. The " Atlantic 282 EIGHT TEAKS IN COKGKESS. Review " exercised its malignant spirit by vituperating its author. Rev. Mr. Beecher replied to portions of it, at Boston ; but in his speech he ad- mitted what is the gist of the speech, the meanness and intolerance of a portion of the New England people. The New York " Tribune," within the past few months, has said as much, if not more, than the writer, in stigmatizing a certain class in New England who have been foremost in obtaining the pecuniary results from the war, without contributing to its success. It should be understood that the facts presented in this speech are authentic. If the veil is withdrawn from the character and history of early New England, it is because that character and history are so frequently thrust into the faces of other people as the only type of what is liberal, humanitarian, and pious. I have endeavored to discriminate between the genuine devotee of Democratic and soul liberty in New England, and the mere pretender. In doing this I may give oifence to many. But there will be no oifence to those who have, since the Avar has ended, seen the crusade of agitation in relation to reconstruction and negro suffrage. That crusade has begun in Boston. Its threats of new revolution have been made to overawe President Johnson into the adoption of " Boston notions." Whether it shall succeed or fail, depends upon the firmness of the conservative men of other sections. The speech being addressed to a popidar audience is perhaps overloaded with such demonstrations as are incident to such occasions. I give the report, however, as it Avas published : Gentlemen of the Young Men's Democratic Association of New TorJc : — If this hearty enthusiasm were before an election I could more readily understand it. It seems, however, that you have begun the campaign of 18G4. Let us be patient and persevering ; and if the great central States will stand by the West till then, as they did last fall, we may rescue the Government from tlie hands of the spoilers, and reinvigorate the national life from that fountain of all power, the people. [Clieers.] Gentlemen, a New England orator, Tristam Burgcs, once said, that "• we were sur- rounded, protected, and secured by our Constitution, from the power and violence of the world, as some Avealthy regions are, by their own l)arriers, sheltered from the ravages of the ocean. But a small, insidious, perse- vering reptile may, unseen, bore through the loftie.st and broadest mound. The water follows its path, silently and ini])on'i'ptibly at first, until at length a breach is made; and the ocean rushing in, fiocks, and herds, and men are swept away by the deluge." Puritanism is the reptile Avhich has been boring into tlie mound, wiiich is the Constitution, and this civil war comes in like tlie devouring sea ! Its rushing tide of devastation will not be stayed until the reptile is crushed and the mound rebuilt. This will never be accomplished until an administration o])tains control, which, in the language of Governor .Seymour, can grasp the dimensions and con- CIVIL WAE. 283 trol the sweep of this sanguinary flood. [Cheers.] To obtain such an administration, the people will, unhappily, have to wait for some two years. Meanwhile, what new schemes of division may further distract us ! My apprehension is, that before the people can tlioronghly reform the conduct of their government, another civil strife may be raging ; not the South airaiust the North ; not slave against free States ; but the North against itself. I pray God in his mercy to avert such dangers. The hatred, not of New England, but of its arrogant, selfish, narrow, and Puri- tan policy, now dominant in the Federal Government, will, I fear, never be allayed until blood is shed in our northern States. There is but one policy which could have stopped it; the maintenance by the Administration of the policy marked out in the summer of 1861, w^hich declared no war for conquest— no anti-slavery crusade. This alone united the North. This might have preserved that unity. But I see no hopes of a return to such a policy. The bigots of New England have their copyists outside, and the anti-slavery pressure continues. Indeed, it is questioned whether anv policy can now restore the Union. Abolition has made the Union, for the present, impossible. An aroused people may strike blindly and madly, and the result may be the formation of new alliances among the States and fresh conflicts among the people. As a western man, repre- senting the capital of the leading State of the northwest during these past six years, I have not been unobservant of the signs in that quarter. I have persistently opposed all schemes of secession and division. I yet oppose them. But I am far behind the impulse and sentiment of the West. The erection of the States watered by the Mississippi and its tributaries into an independent Republic, standing on its own resources, mineral and agricultural, with a soil so fat that if you " tickleit with a hoe it will laugh with a harvest" [cheers] — a connection with which would be sought by the South and the East, yet choosing for itself its cheapest and best outlet to the sea ; banded together by river and homo- geneity of interest — is becoming something more than a dream. ^ It is the talk of every other western man. Men fall into it with a facility Avhich is shocking to the olden sense of nationality. I speak of these schemes only to disapprove and to warn. Just as in 1861, in my seat in Congi-ess, I warned of similar southern schemes, but in vain. All warning fell on sodden hearts. In vain the lamented Douglas urged ; in vain the noble Crittenden pleaded. [Cheers for Crittenden !] New England fanaticisni made compromise impossible. Let us now be warned in time ! As patriotic men, loving our whole country, we must understand the source of this new discontent. The West protest now, as New York and Penn- sylvania and New Jersey protested in the last elections, that tkey desire to stand in the Union, protected by all the muniments of the Constitution. Governor Seymour means much and well, Avhen he says that these central and western States will at last assure us of our old Union. [Cheers.] They are willing to perform the voyage— desert the ship who may. They will keep all the shipping articles— break them who may. They do not intend to be ruled, however, by the Constitution-breaking, law-defying, negro-loving Phariseeism of New England ! [A voice, " Let her slide" — cheers.] ''No. We will keep her in on her good behavior, and cast forth the seven devils of clerical meddling and monopolizing aggrandizement 284 EIGHT TEAES EST CONGRESS. from this political Magdalen. [Laughter.] From the social and political ban which will be issued against this pestilent section, will issue another and a better order of things, under the Constitution. I entreat the Democratic young men of New York not to countenance any of these schemes of dismemberment, which we of the West wiU repress ; but never cease day nor niglit to warn the people of the new rocks and fresh breakers which threaten. He who is most faithful in pointing them out in time, though he may be reviled, gives the best proof of single-hearted loyalty, and will be approved by his conscience and his God. Denying all sympathy with any scheme Avhich would in any way mutilate the Republic, I boldly declare to you these new and growing dangers. Jefferson Davis is aware of these things, and counts largely upon the weakness, incertitude, and division eagendered by the fatal errors of this Administration. Already the Democratic organ of Cincinnati and the Republican organ at Chicago are issuing their warnings in season. The latter advises its friends in Congress, that the farmer who is selling his corn for ten cents per bushel, if he does not use it for firewood, is not easily satisfied that there does not exist, somewhere, a way through which those who act for him at Washington may aflord him relief. At least, he will, if the relief cannot be instant, want to know why it should not be prospective. He is perfectly aware that while New England is getting the benefits, the West is suffering the burdens of this war. In New England, the merchants and manufacturers have accumulated fortunes with Aladdin-like rapidity. There, wages are high and contracts abun- dant ; while the West, with the Mississippi sealed, is charged extortionate rates in the transportation of its produce, and in the price of its purchases. Its people are robbed by tariff, and robbed on what they sell and what they buy. Mr. Beecher has boasted that God has given the Yankee that intelligence that knows how to turn to gold all it touches. [Laughter.] It is his insatiate cupidity, mingled with his Puritanism, which is now making men study the new Census ; which makes the New Yorker won- der why, witli a less population. New England has twelve Senators to her two ! Ohio, too, ponders the fact that her population is greater, by 435,294, than five New England States, yet they have ten Senators while she has two ! The West is beginning to ask whether this political equality among the States, made for a wise n^asou, is to be used for her oppression ; whether to tiiat source is attributable the partial legislation which fosters manufacture and burdens the consumer ; whieh hampers tlie free inter- change and enterprise of this great emporium ; which shuts off the compe- tition of the world, and gives to New England fabrics the monopoly among ten millions of western farmers. Why are we to i)ay titty per cent, more for goods, and lose fifty per cent, on wheat, and corn, and poriv ? Fifty jier cent. ! I should say ninety per cent., adding the cost of gold, in which the tariff is paid, to the custom duties, whicli the consumer at last pays. To gratify one favored class and section, tlie laws of economy are suspended with the Constitution I [Laughter and cheers.] Is free trade good, when it takes off the duty and stops the revenue on madder and coloring matter, but bad if it lets in free cotton and woollen fabrics ? Is it right to tax Illinois whis- key until the nianulaclure is stojjped, to gratil'y the members from Maine, and let the tariff remain on wood-screws, to enrich a Rhode Island com- CIVIL WAE. 285 pauy ? One is made in the "West and the other in New England ; biit is that a reason why the one should be burdened by an internal tax to destroy, while the other bears an external tax to foster ? Do you wonder that, at public meetings West, it is resolved that the Mississippi Valley shall no longer be tributary to cupidity and folly, and that men madly cry out : " xstew England fanaticism and speculation have made Disunion ! New England stands in the way of Re-Union ! Perish New England, that the Union may live ! " There is a legend related of St. Lawrence. As he lay on the gridiron, conscious that he was sufficiently done on one side, he requested the cooks, if not too inconvenient, to turn him over and do him on the other. [Laughter.] I fear the West will never be caiionized, if it requires such double sacrifices to reach the saintly calendar. [Laughter.] But these economic abuses can be righted by another Congress. The evils are temporary. They would be borne, but unhappily they seem to be accompanied by an element hai'der to master — the Puritanissi of New England. [Hisses.] This is bred in the bone. It is the same now that it was hundreds of years ago. Like begets like. Generation succeeds generation, with the same stamp of Pui'itan character ; taking success for justice, egotism for greatness, cunning for wisdom, cupidity for enterprise, sedition for libeity, and cant for piety. [Applause.] The West do not complain merely that their interests are sacrificed by New England capitalists, for their aggrandizement ; but they detest the idea of Puritan politics, that sins should be reformed by the State, and that the State should unite its functions practically with the church, for the propagation of moral and religious dogmas. For these objects the laws of economy and the dictates of public opinion, which ever look to the interest of sections and men, are disregarded. He v/ho fails to observe these laws understands little of the science of government. New England may be accounted smart in intellect, cunning in invention, and energetic in industry. She may boast of her libraries, schools, churclies, and press. She may understand the science which subsidizes the lever, the pulley, the cylinder, and the wheel. She may study, as the worm does, how to draw a thread fine, and like the spider, how to make the web. She may un- derstand the mechanism of matter, and may boast an Archimedes and a Jacquard in every factory. But such smartness may be unable to com- prehend the machinery of a State. It may bring — nay, it has already brought — crash and confusion where better minds evolved beauty and harmony ! [Applause.] It is not true that New England is smart in the sense of wisdom. It is not smart to be informed on one side of a question. One-sided information is the blankest ignorance. A man who reads the " Tribune " exclusively, has a crazy activity of mind. [Laughter.] It is no evidence of smartness that New England should array against her the ideas of the rest of the Union. She showed no smartness in allowing this war to begin, when she could have prevented it. She has shown none in her estimate of the formidable character of the rebellion. She has shown none in her Morri'll tariffs and her schemes of emancipa- tion. Is it smart to build factories and destroy the very sources of the cotton which runs them ? Is it smart to overtax, for her own benefit, a more powerful section, as she has the West? But it is neither wise nor just to impeach a whole people for the niis- 286 EIGHT TEAES IN" COXGEESS. • doings and errors of a part, even when that part is dominant. Wliile, therefore, I analyze the elements of New England society, and their relations to our politics, I shall not confound that which is good with that which is mischievous. In colonial times, the resentful bigotry of an Endicott was relieved by the amiable character of a Winthrop ; as in later times Daniel Webster [cheers] stands like a granite rock repelling the wave of New England isms. [Cheers.] I would not confound Rufiis Choate, Chief Justice Shaw, Benjamin F. Thomas, Judge Curtis, and such illustrious men [cheers], with Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, Gov. Andrew, Charles Sumner, and the lesser spawn of Transcendental- ism. [Hisses.] The one class have ever cultivated the graces of civil order ; the other have been and are the Marplots of the Republic. I speak of that ruling element, which even before it reached our shores, while it was in exile in Holland, while it ruled in early days at Plymouth and at Boston, and which has since been distributed all over our country, presents always the same selfish, pharisaical, egotistic, and intolerant type of character. We find it in our politics to-day, as the Tudors found it three hundred years ago, ever meddling for harm ; and yet seeking its own safety by concessions, but never conceding any thing for the welfare of others, unless, thereby, it could help itself in larger measure. [Laughter and cheers.] Even in the time of Elizabeth, it compromised with its perse- cutors, by agreeing to the passage of a bill by Parliament which shielded the Presbyterians, but provided a punishment for the Separatists. Hop- kins closes his history of the Puritans of that time, by saying, with dis- criminating justice, that " we do not claim for them that they had well- defined and correct ideas of civil liberty. For ^sample, the dispensing power of the sovereign — utteidy in mockery of all legislation and prac- tically a canker at the root of civil liberty — seems to have been generally admitted by them." Just as now, when it suits their interest and object, they clamor for the proclamations and confiscations, which dispense with the Constitution. If we arc to take their own account of themselves, as, for instance, when garnished with the rhetoric of Bancroft, one might infer that they deserve the eulogy of Macaulay, and that every petty presbyter was the vicegerent of the Most High, specially anointed to reproach mankind with its shortcomings. [Laughter.] The truth is, that their history, as writ- ten by themselves, has been glossed with falsehood. Investigation is fast rubbing off the lacquer, and the rotten framework of their ethics and politics is beginning to appear. If they are permitted to write the annals of this present war, the truth Avill never appear. [Laughter.] But so momentous a conflict as this has awakened better minds ; and in the his- tory which posterity will read, the Puritans will phiy the part of intermed- dling destructives, self-willed and intolerant, beyond any characters yet known to history. The grand key-note of the Puritan is, that " slavery " was the cause of this war, and tiiat as men and Cliristians we should extirpate it. I do not intend now to refute this fallacy. Our past seventy years re- fute it. Because slavery was meddled with, and returnecl in vio- lence what was given in wrath and malice, it does not i'ollow that it was the cause of the violence. The doctrine of the French Socialist CIVIL WAE. 287 Proudlion, that property is robbery and should be abolished, is a sam- ple of the same fallacy. Wliat is known as Abolition is, in the moral sense, the cause of the strife. [Cheers.] Abolition is the offspring of Puritanism. Uutil Abolition arose, the Union was never seriously men- aced ; the Constitution was never endangered. Puritanism introduced the moral elements involved in slavery into politics, and thereby threw the church into the arena. Our Christianity, therefore, became a wrangler about human institutions. Churches were divided and pulpits desecrated. A certain class in a certain section were sinners, and were damned forever. Specidative discussion about a higher law than the organic pohtical law, poisoned politics and begat asperities of sections. The first harangue of George Thompson, in this country, under the auspices of the Fessendens of Maine and Garrisons of Massachusetts, was predicated on the idea that slavery was a sin against God, and that no Christian people should tol- erate it. I hold in my hand the letters and addresses by George Thomp- son, during his mission here. In his first address, at Lowell, October 5, 1834, he laid down the dogmas which are now being worked out in dis- union and blood. He said : " The medium through which he contem- plated the various tribes that peopled earth was one Avhich blended all hues. Toward sin in every form, no mercy should be shown. A war of extermination should be waged with the works of the devil. . . Misguided patriotism spread the alarm, ' the Union is in danger.' But whom should they obey ? He boldly answered God, who required that men should cease to do evil." He demanded that the Constitution should be changed. " What though the Union was in danger ! " said this interloper ; " there is every disposition among British Abolitionists to extend to you their sympathy, their counsel, and their contributions." We are i^^ow getting in overmeasure the sympathy, counsel, and contributions of tliese lovely kins- folk — the English Abolitionists. [Cheers and laughter.] Following this, as the logical consequence of these higher-law notions, came another volume, which I hold in my hand : "The Constitution a Pro-Slavery Compact, or Extracts from the Madison Papers, etc., selected by," whom think you? Wendell Phillips ! [Hisses.] In this volume it was shown, as I quote : " That a compromise was made betAveen free- dom and slavery in 1787, granting to the slaveholder distinct privileges and protection for his slave property, in return for certain commercial con- cessions on his part toward the North." It proved also " that the nation at large were fully aware of this bargain at the time, and entered into it willingly and with open eyes." In the same volume are collected from the speeches of Webster and Quincy Adams certain passages, showing that slavery had its protection in the Constitution, and therefore the Con- stitution was a league with death and a covenant with hell. It winds up witlf ?he demand : " No Union with slaveholders." Perhaps Wendell Phil- lips may not be considered by some as a representative of the Republican party. But he does truly represent this Administration, with its procla- mation of Abolition. Look at the votes in Congress on my motion on yesterday, to lay on the table a resolution by Thaddeus Stevens, to raise 150,000 martial negroes. [Hisses.] Why, one Avould judge that the white race in this comitry were about to give up the conflict for their Government. I cannot see any special diflference between the republican- 288 EIGHT TEAES IN CONGRESS. ism that sustains emancipation proclamations and tlie real old genuine Congo Abolitionism. [Cheers]. They are two separate links of the same Bologna made out of the same canine original. [Great and continued applause and laughter,] I refer to these volumes to show that over thirty years ago the popu- lar instinct feared that the Union would be in danger from these insidious borings of these Puritanic reptiles. The riots then consequent upon such enunciations, Avere the instinctive outgushings of the Union-loving masses, fearing a speech too free and a cause too reckless for the stability of the Government. These extracts are the germ of the power now overshadow- ing the land. We may learn from them that the religious element was invoked as the ally of this crusade against slavery. What though slavery was a part of the practical structure of society South, no matter. What though it was a part of the Providential order, just as it was in the time of Moses and the Saviour, no matter. Moses sought not to abolish it ; Christ and his apostles meddled not with it, but taught those general rules by which it might be regulated, if not abolished, outside of civU govern- ment. But a new evangel Avas preached. Applying the old doctrines of Puritanism to our established order, it began, on moral grounds, to un- dermine the structure of our civil society. It might at first sight seem anomalous that New Englanders, wlio have prided themselves on their local self-government, beginning Avith the toAvn meeting, should play the meddler Avith the coucerns of other people far distant, even tliough, to do it, they took the name and doctrine of religion. But such is the contra- diction of this Puritan character, that Avhenever it enjoyed a blessing it did not want it extended. In illustration, alloAV me to recur to the colo- nial days. It is susceptible of proof, that the reason Avhy the Pilgrim Fathers could not live in peace in England, was their tendency to propagate their creed offensively. They came hither, as is popularly belicA'ed, to escape persecution. When they came, wliat did they do? The Emperor of France, in his Idees Napoleoniennes (page 40), answers the question when he says that it is " almost always seen that in times of trouble, the oppressed cry out for liberty themselves, and having obtained it, they refuse to grant it to others. There existed in England, in tlie seventeenth century, a re- ligious and republican sect, Avliich being persecuted, resolved to go be- yond the seas to an uninliabited Avorld, there to enjoy tliat sweet and holy liberty Avhich tlie Old AV^orld refused to grant. Victims of intolerance, certainly these independent men Avill, in the ncAv country, be more just than their oppressors ! But, inconsistency of the human heart ! the very first law passed by the Puritans founding a new society in the State of Massachusetts, Avas one declaring the penally of death to those who should dissent from these religious doctrines." This is the testimony of all his- tory, as I shall presently shoAV. Beibi^ they left England, King James said of them, avc doubt not with some truth, that they were pests in the church and commonwealth. When the Mayilower and the Speedwell Avere on the sea Avith their ireight of l^ilgrinis, the same perversity among themselves occurred. Their own historian, Elliott (p. 57), says that these vessels contained the Pilgrim Avheat eifled from the three kingdoms ; but he says that it needed CIVIL WAR. 289 sifting cnce or twice more. [Laughter."! One of their leaders said : " Our voyage hither (from Holland to Dartmouth) hath been as full of crosses as ourselves of crooJccdness." [Laughter.] Later, in 1621, he again said, " that they were yoked with some iU-conditioned people, who will never do good, but corrupt and abuse others." Oliver, in his history, proves that the captain of the Ma}ilower was bribed by the Dutch, who had settlements in this vicinity, not to land the Pilgrims in or near the Hudson, where they intended to settle. [Laughter, and a voice, " That's true."] If there are any praying Knickerbockers here — [cries of " Plenty," and laughter] — I hope that I may not be considered intrusive upon spiritual concerns, if I suggest that it is not too late, even yet, to give thanks for that pious fraud which led to this happy riddance ! [Great laughter.] There is no doubt that, when exiled, as soon as they learned the lan- guage in Holland, they began to wrangle with the Dutch about their creed. This will account for the anxiety about their presence in the island of Manhattan. It is a mistake to suppose that the Pilgrims left Holland on account of religious persecution. The reason which they gave for leaving Leyden was that the Dutch would not observe the Sab- bath, and the fear lest their childi'en should grow up dissipated Dutch- men. [Laughter.] But there were other reasons. They anticipated poverty, and were greatly influenced, as is sometimes the case yet Avith their descendants, by worldly considerations. [Laughter.] In the language of , the time, their hopes of v/ealth mingled largely and freely with their hopes of heaven. [Laughter.] Adventure toward New England, by the northern company, was not altogether inspired by the yield of gold and silver, - though visions of *•' mines which lay hid in the earth " were not wanting. ' V But their treasures lay in the sea, and their divining rod held its hook and line. [Laughter.] They came here to serve God and catch fish. ■ ,. [Laughter.] When the Pilgrims went to James for their charter, he ,• ^ asked : " What profits do you intend ? " On being told " Fishing," he re- plied, ironically, " So God have my soul, 'tis an honest trade, 'twas the apostles' own calling." [Laughter.] It is a pity to spoil the poetry of Mrs. Hemans about the Pilgrims, by painting them as fishermen, who expected j^ to find silver in the mouth of the fish they took ; but so it is. We can , ?* say of them, with truth, that they " sacrificed to their net, and burned in- j cense to their drag, because by them their portion is fat and their meat plenteous." Theii* descendants have not forgotten unto this day to urge \, that the government of the Union should give them their fishing bounty. ' It is one among the privileges enjoyed by New England for her godly and apostolic mode of life. [Laughter.] When they catch a cod, out / comes a tax from a western farmer ! But when we catch a catfish or a '' sucker, in the West, we do not get any bounty. [Laughter.] The Puritan historian, Elliott, remarks upon the second ship load of Pil- grims, called Weston's men, that they were utterly demorahzed ; so much so, that one of their number, /i-o?n a lack of principle, while gathering clams, stuck in the mud and died there ! [Laughter.] The early annalists do not forget to record the fact, that as early as 1626, Captain Wollaston's company arrived ; and that one Morton seduced them into quafiing and drinking, dancing and frisking ; and that therefore they were no better than atheists. One of the moral triumphs of the Puritans con- 19 290 EIGHT YEAES IN C0:N'GEESS. sists in tlicir having cut down the May pole of these revellers and captured their junketing captain. This tendency to make government a moral reform association appears all through their history. It is the especial curse of this nation at the present time. This anti-slavery propagandism springs from it. Read the barbarous and silly codes of laws in Massachusetts and Connecticut, pun- ishing Quakers with death and fining persons twelve pence for smoking tobacco within two miles of a meeting house [laughter] ; or the penal laws against Dissenters voting and against walking in the gardens on Sabbath ; or the horrid cruelties against witchcraft and the puerile enact- ments against making mince pies on a Sunday — [laughter] — which ob- tained in these colonies, where the foundations of Democratic liberty are said to have been established. Is not the same spirit yet rife which mingles morals and politics to the detriment of both? The Maine liquor law and the revenue tax law on liquors spring from the same source. Regardless of the rights of property in the one case, or the spirit of a revenue act in the other. New England bigotry ever strives to cure men's morals by legal penalties. From this same fountain the bitter waters of civil stril'e have flowed. In this moral sense, the Constitution is now sought to be construed, administered, or nullified. The counsel of the War Department, Mr. Whiting, a Boston attorney, in an elaborate dis- cussion of the war powers and legislative powers, follows the Puritan doctrine, by upholding the " right of the Government to interfere with slavery, Mormonism, or any other institution, condition, or social status, into Avhich the subjects of the United States can enter, whenever such interference becomes essential as a means of common defence or public welfare." It is always understood, of course, that wdiat is ibr the com- mon defence and public welfare, is to be decided by the Brahmins of Bos- ton ! It being also further understood that we Soodi'as of the West — being of another and inferior caste — are obliged to confess the infallibility of the Brahminical decision. It is imder just such doctrines that proclamations of anti-slavery issue. Other sections are not to be consulted. Had the central, western, and border States been consulted, the proclamation never would have been issued. Giving to the rebellion more vigor and unity, and to the Nortli discouragement and division, it will only be potent for mischief by procrastinating the war. This is the direful result of these intermeddling purists of New England. But tlie proclamation was to end the war. How? By the paper and ink used in its printing? By the language written, or the sound thereof? No ! But as a military measure ! How ? By stirring iip the blacks to mutiny, and thus stopping the supply of rebel labor ! Well — two weeks are gone. We see no sign yet. Over three months are gone since the threat of its issue ; but where are the results ? It has made every southern man and woman a police force to guard against an uprising of the blacks ; but the great rebellion lives. The war goes on. Governor Andrew and the negroes niay con- tinue to dance their jubilees with their head, and, as usual, to contemplate its results with their heels. What idle and criminal nonsense to expect a rebellion like this to be put down by words — legislative or prodamative — words drawn from the passionate and wild utterances of New England Puritanism, in press and pulpit. Rather than yield this ceusorsliip over 'k CIVIL WAE. 291 the morals of these States, New England was ready to welcome this bloody strife of brothers. Nor is this the first time she has convulsed the Republic, to propagate her dogmas. In 1798, the same overbearing self- ishness was exhibited. In a letter of June 1st, 1798, from Mr. Johnson to John Taylor of Eoanoke, it is said : " It is true, that we are completely under the saddle of Massachusetts and Connecti- cut ; and that they ride us very hard, cruelly insulting our feelings, as well as exhausting our strength and subsistence. Their natural friends, the three other Eastern States, join them from a sort of family pride, and they have the art to divide certain other parts of th« Union, so as to make use of them to govern the whole. This is not new ; it is the old practice of despots, to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order. Aud those who have once got an ascendency and possess themselves of all the resourc8S of the na- tion, their revenues and offices, have immense means for retaining their advantage." Could there be a truer description of our present condition, under the lash and spur of this fanaticism? Speaking of this condition and its causes, an eminent New England divine and scholar. Dr. Lord, well re- marks, that we were safe in the Union till the moral balance was de- ranged, and the Church and State fell out of their true relations to each other and to moral government. He says further : " We were tempted almost unconsciously into that snare by introducing a moral ele- ment — slavery — into the reckoning of politics, and thereby brought Church and State together down to that lower level. From that time our glory has departed. Our Chris- tianity has become secular, and our secular glory has been dimmed in having lost the reflection of a more spiritual light. We have substituted speculation for faith, and our speculative discussions have been degraded into angry wranglings. We have made God and man to exchange places. His institutes and His constitutions we have interpreted by the ' higher law ' of our own conceits. We have converted the Sovereign Law Giver into a pohtician. We have discussed by our own standards, and determined by vote how it is best for Him to carry on His government of the world. We have inquired not what He has willed and done, but what it is expedient for Him to will, and say, and do, according to a master, a party, or a school. We have popularized our creeds, measured principles by their utiUties, and God himself by His supposed subserviency to our ideas." I propose to give two illustrations of these truths. The first is in your midst. Every Sabbath you have a sermon from Dr. Cheever [hisses], demonstrating that our failures in battle are owing to the displeasure of God, because of the sin of slavery. [Ci'ies of " Oh ! "] He makes slavery the terrible crime of the world in his own fancy, and reduces Om- nipotence to the task of punishing us by war for its existence. He con- veniently forgets that there is another side to the battle, and that when we fail, God sides, by his foolish logic, with the slaveholders. [Laughter.] Parallel with this logic, turn back to 1676, when Randolph came to New England from the parent Government, to find out the cause of the Indian war. The answer of the Government of Massachusetts furnishes the cause. It ofiicially declared that " these are the great and provoking evils for which God hath given the barbarous heathen commission to rise against them : For men wearing long hair and periwigs made of women's hair. [Laughter.] For women wearing borders of hair, and for cutting, curling, and laying out their hair, and disguising them- selves by following strange fashions in their apparel. [Laughter.] For profaneness in the people in not frequenting the meetings, and others going away before the blessing is propounded. [Laughter.] For suffering the Quakers to dwell among them, and to set up their thresholds by God's 292 EIGHT TEARS IN CONGRESS. thresholds, contrary to their old laws and resolutions, with many such reasons." Thus it will be seen that the original defects in the Puritan pattern have heen copied to this day. Like the Chinese artist, when told to copy a fine and costly piece of porcelain to which some accident had happened,. he followed his instructions w ith such great skill and labor, that he copied the crack which extended the whole length of the model. [Laughter.] Another fact of history not generally accepted, is that the charter granted by King James to the Pilgrims, was for the express purpose of enlarging the gospel by the conversion of the Indians. The charter was intended to start a rival mission to that of the Jesuits among the red men. Of course, commerce, fishing, and the gospel were to go hand in hand. But the sequel showed that instead of evangelizing the Indians, they soon be- gan to regard them as red devils, whose extermination was a great duty, inasmuch as a military necessity demanded their rich lands. [Cheers and laughter.] The salvation of the red men was entirely forgotten in their disputations among themselves as to their own creeds. Their charter was violated. Turbulence and meddling between the various settlements began to prevail. The Church ruled with an iron sceptre. No one could be a voter, if he were not a church member. Although the agents of the Puri- tan Bay State, when they departed from England, prayed for the prosperity of their " dear mother," the Church of England, they were ready to per- secute in the wilderness as well those who adhered to that Church as those who dissented from themselves. Under the rule of this Puritan church, every form of surveillance was practised. The late spy system in New Eng- land churches, as illustrated in the case of the father and son, at Boston, last year, who were accused of disloyalty before a board of deacons, because they were Democrats, finds its antetype in the cruel persecutions of the Qua- kers and Baptists, and in the Salem witchcraft. There was then a general belief that Massachusetts had a devil. That belief prevails yet, outside of Massachusetts. [Laughter.] Tli* miserable fanatics of lG91-'2, who hunted out little girls and poor old women and tried them for witchcrafl in meeting houses before godly hypocrites, have their imitators in the zealots of to-day — those millions of power who spy abouf to accuse and arrest those who difter with them in politics. [Cheers.] Cotton Mather said then : " The Ty Dogs of the Pit are amongst us ; and the firebrands of Hell are used for scorching us, and that New England should be thus harassed ! not by swarthy Indians, but they are sooty devils." His say- ing would have more truth repeated now, for the present generation. The same egotistic intolerance is observable in their treatment of Roger Williams in 1635. His persecutors came to New England with no cor- rect ideas of religious toleration. Their system toloraled no contradic- tion and allowed of no dissent. The statutes of uniformity of England they I'cenacted here, by church and ])ublic sentiment. This was the source of those dissensions which rent their own youthful Republic, and whose intolerant spirit has i)roduccd in our time that sectional alienation whidi deluges the laud in blood. The New England I'ilgrim drove Roger AVilliams into the winter wilderness, as he drove Mrs. Hutch- inson and Coddingtou to the same exile, for difiercnces of opinion in religion. He enacted laws forbidding trade with these outlaws for con- CIVIL WAE. 293 science sake. Savages were more kind than these bigots ; for the Indians hospitably received the victims of persecution. Disdaining the Pope as Antichrist, and hating the prelate, these harsh Pilgrims set up every little vanity of a preacher as their pope infallible, every village Paul Pry as an inquisitor, and every sister communicant as a spy for the detection of heresy. It is an unpleasant task to recall the fierce disputes of these " gospel magistrates." The trial of Vane and Coddington, and the trial of Wain- wright and Mrs. Hutchinson, are fruitful in suggestions bearing on the present time. Eighty-two distinct heresies were passed upon at one time by the Synod at Boston. In these isms of that early day, you will find the typo of all the isms of the present ; including free-loveism, which has its counterpart in the Familists. The history of Puritanism is a catalogue of murders, maimings, extortions, and outrages, contrary to English com- mon law, and against every notion of human justice and libei*ty. Search history from the death of Abel to the present, and you will find no such cruelties as those practised by the prejudiced, dyspeptic Puritans, not only upon the white citizen and the Indian, but upon the simple Acadian peas- antry, whose distant homes they invaded and destroyed. That iron-visaged man, in his high-peaked hat and ruff, whether he played the part of mag- istrate and elder, or that of Dugald Dalgetty, like Captain Miles Standish, impelled either by his " conscience or his catarrh," rises from the dark background of colonial history, the most hateful image ever pictiared by Time, the more detestable because many of his victims, as in the far-off Acadia, were the most patient, gentle, and tolerant of men ! No wonder a New England poet, Halleck, writes : "Herod of Galilee's babe-butchering deed Lives not on history's blushing page alone. Our skies, it seems, have seen like victims bleed, And our own Ramahs echoed groan for groan : The fiends of France, whose cruelties decreed Those dextrous drownings in the Loire and Rhone, Were, at their worst, but copyists, second-hand, Of our shrined, sainted sires — the Plymouth Pilgrim band." Had these Pharisees remained in England, they might have become martyrs to their faith, and died glorying in religious persecution. But truth demands that we should call them by their own names ; they were in America the cruel zealots of bitter persecution, the more odious because they professed so differently ; the more odious still because they were reproved in their own generation by better and nobler men, like Williams, who were their victims. Were there not so much of suffering and malice attendant upon such intolerance, we might dismiss it all into that " Limbo broad and large, and calle'd The Paradise of fools." All that relieves Ncav England from the blackness of these reproaches, is her splendid zeal and sacrifice for independence in the subsequent cen- tury. Though it is by no means (;lear but that she would have rebelled against the best government on earth, or even a commonwealth of angels, not according to her own notions ; yet the mother country gave her cause, and she vindicated it with spirit. 294 EIGHT TEAES Hf CONGRESS. The boast that the Pilgi'ims were the fathers of Democratic liberty in this country, is absolutely untrue, unless their persecutions, Avhicli led to it, may be considered the cause of such liberty. Allow me to adduce certain facts to prove what I allege : — New Plymouth, which remained separate from Massachusetts Bay until 1688, is pointed to as the exem- plar in this great work of human progress. The truth is, that Plymouth received its privileges in a mercantile line from the London, Virginia, and afterwards from the Plymouth Company of adventurers. They left Eng- land because they had not the stamina to remain and contend, like the Hampdens, Sidneys, and Miltons, for their English privileges. Bradford, Brewster, and Carver may have been godly men ; but thei'c were men in the Mayflower who wished a larger liberty than theii' leaders were willing to accord. The famous " Compact," signed in the cabin of the ship, 11th November, 1620, was forced fi-om the superiors by their inferiors. So says the historian. (Elliott, 104.) I quote : " The men of birth and education among the Pilgrims, and they were few, did not intend a De- mocracy. They had no faith in it." The social distinction between " Mr." and " Goodman " still continued. Not until "Williams and Cod- dington, respectively at Providence and Newport, E. I., established the first Democracy in America, Avith the majority of the freemen to make laws, and upon the basis that no man should be made criminal for " doc- trines," was there any true political or soul liberty in New England. In Massachusetts, according to Judge Story, five-sixths of the people were disfranchised because they v.'ere not members of the church. The code of anti-democratic sumptuary laws is the most abominable ever enacted, not merely for its harshness of penalty, but for its caste discrimination. It seems copied from the Gentoo code. Indeed, we know, as Dr. Holmes has said, that there are yet in New England the Brahmin and Soodra castes. There is an old law that men might be whipped forty lashes, but gentle- men never, except in very flagrant cases. The excesses of apparel were provided against rigorously. Men of mean condition were not allowed to dress in gold and silver lace, or buttons, or points at their knees, or to walk in great boots [laughter], or women of the same rank to Avear silks, hoods, or scarfs. In Harvard College penalties Avere meted out upon the same Gentoo code of caste. This Avas Democracy in Massachusetts. In this Commonwealth the directors of a company usurped the power of rulers and magistrates. The elders of the church upheld them. John Cotton Avrote Avilh pious horror that " Democracy Avas not ordained as fit for the government cither of church or commonAvcalth ; as for monarchy and aristocracy, they are both of them clearly approved and directed by the Scriptures." The freemen rose against both Church and rulers, and after a long contest, the /'rccmen succeeded; but they, too, broke the charter. No one was alloAved to be a freeman but a church member, aud the State relapsed into a bigoted church oligarchy. Then began a ncAv contest for supremacy. The church, of course, took the side of the oligarchy, the Puritan leaders still struggling against the growth of civil liberty. The republican cast into Avhich the government was finally moulded, Avas forced upon it by the freemen, in spite of the elders and magistrates. The very genius of their religion disfranchised the peoj)le, and, strange as it may seem, the people disfranchised by the Church OAved then their I CIVIL WAE. 295 final emancipation into Democratic liberty to the compulsory interposition of Charles II. In the seventeenth century Puritanism muzzled the press and sealed the lips of its victims and enemies, just as in the nineteenth the same inveterate foe of Democracy has done the same thing. The wrong-headed fanaticism which refuses to consider the Democratic Gos- pel of Love, clung to tl^e Old Testament Avith its lex talionis for its codes. Familists and Baptists, Quakers and deluded people who gathered sticks for fire on a Sunday, were all punished by the harsh Jewish code. All other crimes not punished by the law already enacted, were to be attended to according to the old Bible, as the fanatic interpreted it, the " higher law " of their own private judgment being the canon of interpretation. This is the boasted Pilgrim Democracy ! Do we wonder that crimes of the most disgiisting and heinous charac- ter abounded here? In 1689, the elders in Synod bewailed the great and visible decay of godliness. Apostasies and degeneracies, profaneness, debauchery, cursing, swearing, lying, gaming, Sabbath-breaking, idleness, drunkenness, and uncleanness constitute the frightful picture of Puritanism before a half century of rule in Massachusetts. By striving to make the Church political they did not make the State religious. The smallest privilege of citizenship was only obtained through grace and saintship, and hence general hypocrisy and demoralization. It is not within the scope of this address to show how these men of God treated the Indians. Their doctrine, that lands unoccupied by agri- culture it was theirs to take. " vacuum domiciUum,, cedit occupanti^^^ was deduced from the Jewish code, just as they held and traded iu slaves by the same code. What a civilization is this to be commended to the ac- ceptance to-day of twenty millions of people ! The rules for our guid- ance in national trouble can never come from such a source. "What has New England done for the country ? Much every way, as Governor Andrew boasts ; but chiefly this, as I think. She has sent to us, as to New York, many liberal-minded, noble men. She has given us Douglas [cheers], Seymour [cheers], McClellan. [Great cheering.] Liberal, great, but liberal and great because they have repudiated Pu- ritan teaching. [Applause.] Moreover, she gave Samuel Adams for Revolutionary counsel, and in later days, Rufus Choate to admonish us of the dangers of sectionalism. In the old war she gave Greene and Stark, neither of them representing the Puritan element. Greene was a Quaker of Rhode Island, and moved South. Stark was a Democrat, and one of his descendants, who, last year, was the Democratic candidate for Gov- ernor of New Hampshire, is now battling against Puritanism in that State. In the late war she gave us General Hull, as in the Revolution General Arnold, and as now she gives us General Butler. [Groans and hisses for Butler.] New England voted against Jefierson at first, and her pulpit reviled him as it did Douglas. She voted against Jackson at first, and her press slandered him, as it now slanders McClellan. Her Josiah Quincys de- nounced the acquisition of Louisiana, as in later days her Sumners have denounced the South. Her Mathers, of the colonial days, thundered against the Quakers and Baptists because they diff'ered in doctrine, just as lately Butler closed the churches of New Orleans because the ministry 296 EIGHT YEAES m CONGRESS. would not pray as Butler — ^the Saint — dictated. She denounced, in early times, the Indians as devils, whose lands Avere forfeit, \s now she denoun- ces slavery, while her humanitarians covet the vacant soil and her specu- lators slip through our lines to dicker for slave-produced secession cotton. [" That's true."] She has been the foe to the Democracy from the days of the Eevolution to the present hour. Her Marseillaise is a hymn of apotheosis to John Brown — a horse-thief and a, miu'derer. But amidst all these conflicts she has had in her midst a minority of liberal, stead- fast, and patriotic Democrats. I desire to be understood as casting no reflection upon this heroic minority, soon, I trust, to become a triumphant majority. To sum up the general aspect of this Puritanism : It does not appear to have exemplified but rarely the duty of obedience to the civil magis- trate. It never consecrated a savage to God, in accordance with its early charter. Its usurped powers were never used to quell sedition and to strengthen peace. It has always had a squint-eyed intellect which re- minds me of — [A voice, " Butler ! " cheering] — looking with two optics to one selfish point ; and a eunuch morality ever exclusive and revengeful. Its solemn pretenses to peculiar godliness were the general rule, while Liberty of Conscience and Democracy in polity Avere the exception. In- stead of making the Church the tomb of dissensions, it made the Church the theatre of strife, and carried into the State the same pretensions and bigotry which it illustrated in the Church. Its literature was of that vain-glorious character, wliich yet distinguishes the descendants of the Puritans. What it lias gained in grace of style it has lost in sincerity. Mark its progress from the Mathers of one hundred and fifty years ago to the Cheevers, Beech- ers, and Parkers of to-day. Swollen with spiritual pride, it complacently asumed to read the designs of Providence as if it were a part of the God- head ! Its harshness made the Conformist into a Separatist, the Separatist into an Anabaptist, the Anabaptist into a Quaker, and the Quaker into an Infidel. From step to step in our day, it has run the round from ortho- doxy, beginning with Mucklewrath Cheever, brim full of vengeance against sins " he has no mind to," and Avinds up in that perfect infi- delity and scepticism Avhich Parker preached and Emerson sung. Exalt- ing this life aboA'e the next, it is not content Avith the order of Providence. It must assume control of the Chariot of the Sun, and direct all its shine and shadow. Alas ! how fatal has been its direction in national aflfairs, this red chaos in our system noAV tells ! The Puritanism of the "Wilder- ness of 1630 and 1G90 Avas restricted in its results and evils. Noav avc see its workings on a grander scale, involving a Continent in its conten- tions. It is a poAver. So is Satan. It is intellectual. So are his minis- ters. It has pride, stubborn and egotistical. So all scourges of the earth, have had from the Proconsul of Sicily to the Proconsul at Now Orleans. Can any one ask: " How is it possible for such a civilization to be the cause of so great a civil Avar?" Because it is the parent of Abolition, and because Abolition, such as Thompson and Phillips taught, found the right soil for their bad seed ; therefore it flourished to the overthroAV of civil liberty, by the intermeddling Avith State institutions and social and labor syHtonis, entirely alien to New England, under the Federal Constitution. Holding to the higher laAV, and at last obtaining ollice under its banner, CIVIL WAE 297 it spread distrust and apprehension of its excesses among one-half of the States, and rebellion, rash and unjustifiable, was the result. Men of no mark — mere pigmies compared to Webster and Choate — the Andrews and Sumners of the day, inflated with an airy sentimentalism, began their prop- agandism, to make saints by statute, and Paradises out of politics. They rallied all the isms to the one baneful and hated focus of Abolitionism, and drove the half of the nation to revolt by its contumely and aggressions. Visionaries, mistaking their fancies for the Gospel of Kindness and Peace, intent upon the restitution of the blacks to a liberty they only give them in fancy, destitute of all practical concern for Church and State, they have striven, like the classic sorceress, to give a new youth and beauty to the State by dismembering it. [Applause.] They substitute their Platou- ism for the Gospel of Christ, and thereby lose that docility and humility which are the very essence of Christianity. At the New England dinner, not long since, Mr. Beecher took pride in these very characteristics. He gloried in the Yankee because " he was the most prying and meddlesome creature in God's woidd, the born radical of modern civilization, the pickpocket of creation [laughter], that to leave New England out of the Union was to leave the head out of the body." [Hisses.] Thi's is the old egotism. It is the same supercilious- ness which has produced so much scorn South, and is now alienating the West. This claim of all the intelligence and conscience of the land, which comes from Boston and is echoed from Brooklyn, is the offshoot of the same pharisaical cant, Avhich has sung its own praises through its nasal organ for three hundred years. [Great cheering and laughter.] It has assumed peculiar offensiveness now and here amidst the bloody strife, of which it is a prominent contributor. I propose to examine the source of this egotistic and arrogant philoso- phy. It is not from the Gospel. It is not even a bad exaggeration of the old Puritanism, for that had many harsh and rigid virtues. It comes from that coterie known around Boston as Transcendentalists. Its first organ was the " Dial." Its most clever exponent was Emerson. It has its priests, high and low, including the great Channing, who ministered in holy things with many enlarged graces of heart, to the little Channing, who foists himself into the Senate room at Washing-ton of Sundays, to preach Abolition hate and retail such slander against the Democracy as the powers at Washington seem most to relish. But what is this transcendentalism ? Whence is it ? It is stolen from Hindostan by Mr. Beecher's pickpocket of creation. [Laughter.] It is the emanation of Oriental speculation. This I will prove. The smart Yankee has only plagiarized what the Vedas contain, what the Brahmins believe. All the poetic prose and prosaic poetry of Emerson ; all the vague generalities of Alcott ; all the infidelity of Parker ; all the senti- mentalism of Phillips, come from the Dialogues of Kreeshna and Arjoon, called Bhagavat-Geeta, originally written in the Sanscrit, translations of which, under the auspices of Warren Hastings, arc to be found in some of the libraries. This philosophy cannot be called Pantheism, for that absorbs nature and man in God ; it is not Materialism, for that ab- sorbs man and God in nature : but it is the absorption of God and nature in man, and that man the Brahmin or the Puritan ! It believes in nothing 298 EIGHT TEAKS IN CONGRESS. / but the soul. The soul of man is God and nature. No matter, no color, nothing bvit the soul in man ; he is all ; it is all. One of these disciples — Alcott — holds that the Avorld would be what it should be, if he were only as holy as he should be. This is the nearest approach of this sect to humility. He being all in all, he holds himself personally responsi- ble for the obliquity of the earth's axis. [Laughter.] Do you wonder, therefore, that he holds himself responsible for slavery in Carolina? Another, Emerson, holds that he (Emerson) is God ; that God is every thing ; therefore he (Emerson) is every thing. [Merriment.] Do you wonder, therefore, that since he makes the negro a part of himself, he holds him to be his equal ? [Increased laughter.] Or that he believes that every thing is — as he is ? Do you wonder at the imperturbable im- pudence and self-suificiency of the Puritan thus indoctrinated ? The Hin- doos said : " Rich is that Universal Self, whom thou worshippest as the Soul." The same sentiment is found in the vei'se of Emerson : " Noth- ing is if thou art not ; thou art under, over all ; thou dost hold and cover all. Thou art Atlas ; thou art Jove ! " Do you wonder that, under this philosojihy, the Southern men and mind were underrated? That the greatness and strength of Massachusetts and the North were overrated? It was under these moonshiny delusions that Governor Andi'cw foresaw the roads swarm Avith the myriads, who never trooped to the war [laugh- ter], and that Greeley beheld the nine hundred thousand rush to Father Abraham, who are yet to rush. [Laughter.] Turn again to the Plin- doo, and hear what the Puritan saith in the Sanscrit. I read from the Geeta ; but you will think it is the " universal Yankee," speaking of himself: " I am the sacrifice, the worship, the fire, the victim, the father and mother of this world, the gi'andsire [laughter], the preserver. I am the holy one, only worthy to be known. I am the hope of the good, the comforter, the creator, the witness, the asylum. 1 am generation and dis- solution. [Laughter.] I am sunshine. I am rain. I now draw in ; I now let out. I am death and immortality. I am entity and nonentity. [Laughter.] I am the beginning, the middle, and the end. [Merriment.] Among the faculties, I am the mind." Just what Mr. Bcccher holds. [Laughter.] " Among the animals, I am reason ; among the mountains, Himalaya ; amongst the floods, I am the ocean ; amongst elo2)hants, I am the everlasting big elephaut. [Great laughter.] Of all science, I am the knowledge of the ruling spirit ; and of all speaking, I am the oration." [A voice : " Sumner." Laughter.] " Amongst rulers, I am the rod." [A voice : " That is Butler." Laughter.] " Amongst tliosc who seek for conquests, I am the policy." [" Abolition." Laughter.] "All the qualities incident to beings, such as reason, truth, humility, meekness, equality, courage, fame, shame, renown, and infamy, come from me ! " A Brahmin, that is, one who lives in or near Boston, can attain unto those. " All these qualities," says tlie Hindoo, " hang on me, as jewels and gems on a string, lor there is not any thing greater than I." How is he to attain all these? The Hindoo again tells us: " He sliould sit, with his mind fixed on one object alone " — the negro, I suppose [laughter] — " in the exercise of his devotion for the purification of liis soul, keeping his head, his neck, his body, steady Avithout motion, his eyes fixed on the point of his nose" — cross-eyed, you sec [laughter] — " looking at no other CIVIL WAE. 299 place around." Thus, and not otherwise, he sees heaven at the tip of his own nose. [Laughter.] Were it not that these directions are written in Book VI. of the lectures of Kreeshna, one would imagine they were written by- Cotton Mather about himself, or a Boston philosopher in and about the Hub of the Universe. [Laughter.] It was by following these directions of the Vedas that John Fisher Murray, an Irish wit, was enabled to prove that black was white, and by a process of unification which will com- mend itself to Boston Transcendentalism. " Black," says he, " is one thing and white another thing. You don't conthravayne that ? But every thing is aither one thing or the other thing. I defy the Apostle Paul to get over that dilimma. Well, if any- thing be one thing, well and good ; but if it be another thing, then it's plain it isn't both things [laughter], and so can't be two things ; nobody can deny that. But what can't be two things, must be one thing ; ergo, whether it's one thing or another thing, it's all one. [Great laughter.] But black is one thing and white is another thing ; ergo, black and white is all one." [Laughter.] Quod erat demonstrandum^ that a negro is as good as a white man. [Laugh- ter.] The ordinary perception of mankind would be shocked at such a conclusion, but a Puritan Transcendentalist accepts it as a part of the soul unity, which he derives from looking with solemn introspection into his own nature. This is what imparts to Transcendentalism such a sub- lime egotism. All that is great in invention, in letters, in reason, in war, must .emanate from its " over soul," It peeps into all things, and some others ; " de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis." Mr. Beecher, in describ- ing the universal meddlesomeness of the Yankee, has but the voice of Brahma, which Emerson echoed, when he Avrote : " There is no great and no small To the soul that maketh all, And where it cometh, all things are, And it cometh — everywhere." [Laughter.] The " Evening Post" wonders Iiow a Union hereafter is possible, with New England out ! " Can there be," it asks, " a head without brains, or a body without heart ? Where there is a school, there is New England ; a free press. New England ; a lecture room. New England ! Can these be left out, and a soul remain ? " Some day, this dream of Puritan com- placency may break, and. the fact, hard and granite as her hills, remain, not that she is left out, but that, by the action of many of her own sons in the North-West, whose transplanting has improved the stock and enlarged the culture, her peculiar ideas are limited in their effect and scope to her o^vn borders. Her heathen philosophy cannot live. As Dr. Lord has recently said : " Its gaudy sophistry took its natural popular effect ; it assumed to be arrogant, insulting, and encroaching. It was envious of God's appoint- ments — the family, the State, the church ; and it scrupled not to assail their blood-cemented foundations." In the press, lecture, pulpit, and finally in Congress and the Executive Departments, it has pursued its way and enveloped this nation in garments of blood. It will only awake, I fear, from its gory dream, when it is left weeping over the victims of its own delusions. This philosophy has a deeper and worse aim than that of up- rooting the State. Already it has sown the seed of dissolution in the church, and scepticism in aU creeds. Parker, following the Hindoo and 300 EIGHT TEARS IN C0NGEE8S. Emerson, found wh.at he called the " out-ness of God to be the ia-ness of man, and so God works with us." Or in other phrase, since God is man and nature man, "many a savage," says Parker, "his hands smeared over with human sacrifice, shall come from the East and "West, and sit down in the kingdom of God, with Moses and Zoroaster, with Socrates and Jesus." Thus we are taught in shocking blasphemy that the worst method of life will answer as well as the best. And again, he enjoined his disciples " to obey God, as the spirituality of spirit, which is immanent in all things ; in the blush of the rose and in the bite of the dog ; in the breath of the breeze, and in the howl of the maniac. Believe that the Divine incarnation is in all mankind ; therefore, imitate it, and if we sin, ask no forgiveness." Nor need we wonder that, from the same source, the Intercessor for Mankind, the Saviour, is sneered at as " the Attorney by which we ai'e to approach the Infinite." ; or, that when such systems have their devotees ia religion, iVbolition has its devotees in political ethics ; or that a spirit of hostile encroachment should mark the career of this cabal of egotistic zealots, and that State lines are obliterated and constitutional faith dissolved as figments in their crazed im.'iginations. Alas ! this war is teaching the people, too late, that the Federal Union is not to be carried on by the dogmas of Brahma, or the sophisms of Emer- son, or the infidehty of Parker. We are taught, too late, that a system of public morality prevalent in one section, is not the guide of duty under the Constitution ; that the inexorable laws of economy, of climatQ, soil, production, supply, and demand, are not to be overruled by the poetry of Whittier about the oppressed black, or the vagaries of Sumner about the barbarism of slavery. I have thus traced the history and philosophy of Puritanic egotism and self-sufficiency, which has fomented trouble in distant domestic affairs. I have already detained you so long that [cries of " Go on ! go on ! " from all parts of the houpe] I ^vill conclude with some practical reflections on the consequences of such conduct. When the Constitution was made, there were two kinds of interpretation whicli follov/ed it : that of New England, which tended to centralize power, and that of Virginia, which decentral- ized power. The one encroached on State rights ; the other restrained the encroachment. Under the contention, New England, with her per- sonal liberty bills and higher law, alarmed the South ; and tlie South, in return, pushed her interpretation into actual and violent secession. New England got her advantages in the Constitution for yielding its protection to slavery. They were commercial and profitable. Slie hixs yet her tariff and bounties. She has ever made the most out of the Federal Union. When she was called on to make sacrifices, as in the wars of this country, she was loth to make them. There arc even now IG.OOO deserters from the Massachusetts regiments. She forgot her hatred of State rights in tlie late Avar with Great Britain. Her Hartford Convention was called to endorse the policy of Governor Strong, of Massachusetts, that no forcible draft, conscriptions or impressments should be made by the General Gov- ernment upon the States. That Governor refused to accede to the Presi- dent's recjuisition for troops, to be used by the President in a war against England, which he could not apj^rove. This smacks somewhat of th.e late conduct of (jovcruor Andrew, when he sought to impose conditions as to CrVTL WAU. 301 troops in the present conflict. The famous Hartford Convention was a secession body. Its address urged that '• some new form of Confederacy should be substituted among those States which shall intend to maintain a Federal relation to each other ; " and concluded with the usual Puritanic appeal to "a higher authority than any earthly government can claim." Later, in the Mexican "War, we know how prompt the Puritans were to seek a refuge from national duty in the doctrine of Peace and Disunion ; we know how Charles Sumner had found the " true grandeur of nations " to consist in arbitration and peace under every possible condition of things ; and how the press and the poets of New England laughed at the sergeant of the United States Avhen he beat for recruits. By pasquinade and from pulpit, the war was discouraged and enlistments checked. But now, when the present war is to be carried on against the South ; when Puritanism is to be gratified by the death of slavery ; when the nation is rocked by the throes of civil, and not foreign war, the same old vindictive intolerance is aroused which made the early Puritans so infamou^. There is aroused the same desire to confiscate, which changed the red men into sooty devUs, that the saints might enter in and possess the lands of the Pequods ; and the same arrogant assumption of intellect is quickened which will oever cease till it assassinates the Republic. New England may thrive for awhile on the war contracts, which keep her people busied and money plentiful. So long as this seeming prosperity is kept up, her cry for slavery extermination will be loud. But a day of reckoning is near at hand. Her insane propagandism is working out its fruity. The people in the last elections have expressed their detestation of her doctrines. Even the people of New England, from Maine to Connecticut, will begin to consider their position. The popular verdict is not yet fully heeded at "Washington. The infatuation of Congress continues. But the Govern- ment and its administrators have felt the shock, and a dead lock, political and military, is the result. Montesquieu has well described ourcondition : " There is in every nation a general public spii'it upon which power itself is founded. "When that povv'er shocks that public spirit, the shock is com- mimicated to itself, and it necessarily comes to a standstill." Confisca- tions and Proclamations have produced this terrible paralysis of the State. When the people arouse fi'om this terrible condition, and fully realize what it is and who are its authors, the anathema against the perfidious parricides of the North will hardly be less than that which followed the violence of the Southern traitors against the majority of the nation. [Cheers.] In conclusion, Democrats of New York, you have traced with me the footprints in history of this inveterate foe to our Democracy, the Puritan- ism of New England. You have seen its bitter waters gushing in the wilderness from Plymouth Rock, and running through history in the same old channel, until its latest movement now for negro emancipation. You have seen it poisoning the pulpit and the press with its dogmas. You have seen it silently boring like a reptile into the mounds of the Constitu- tion. You have seen the barriers give way and the flood rush in — a sea billowy with fraternal blood. It has obtained power, arms. "We know how it has used them, and at what cost. "VYar has been called a whole- sale gravedigger, who works for wages ! What wages ? Ask the Secre- tary of the Treasury, now in your city to raise fresh hundreds of millions. 302 EIGHT YEAK3 IN" CONGKESS. At what sacrifice ? Ask those who are bereaved and those Avho are wounded. Ask a quarter of a million of Northern, not to count Southern men, who have perished in the field or hospital. Alas ! they cannot answer. Their rude graves in the distant South answer. Fortunes totter ; industry is palsied ; bankruptcy threatens, for speculation riots around your moneyed centres. The tax gatherer, the embalming doctor, the nurse, and the ai-my scavenger play their part in this great drama, and behind it all stands the gibbering fiend of Abolition, determined to make the war, begun in honor and patriotism, end in hate and disunion ! It has already deter- mined not to allow the Democracy to save the Union. But by the God of our fathers ! though the Union be shattered ; though its bleeding frag- ments may seek temporary alliances East and West, the Democracy will, if it take a ■ lustrum to do it, fight under the old constellated banner, making its order of march an order of battle, for the restoration of the Union as it was, by the supremacy of the Constitution as it is ! [Tremendous cheei'ing, during which the audience rose to their feet. Three cheers were given for the speaker and three for Ohio.] Let the Middle, and Western, and border States firmly move on in the work. The dissonant din of these ideologists of New Eu'jland will be drowned in the popular voice ; the fratricidal hate they have engendered, will be assuaged, and into the lacerated 'bosom of this nation will be poured the hallowed and healing spirit of mutual confidence and conciliation. Thus Avill the nation reform itself! [Tremendous and continued applause.] Mr. Cox closed by saying, that such confidence and conciliation could never come from the spirit of Puritanism ; but thanks to New England — aye, to New England — a better and more Christian spirit had been en- shrined in the poetry of Oliver Wendell Holmes, a son of Massachusetts, whose beautiful lyric upon Carolina he had been requested to repeat to the audience by a New York Democrat now in Washington, Frederick S. Cozzens, himself an author known to the whole country. Mr. Cox then recited the following : " She has gone — she has left us in passion and pride — Our storiuy-browcd sister, so long at our side ! She has torn her own star from our firmament's glow, And turned on her brother the face of a foe ! " 0, Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun, We can never forget that our hearts have been one ; Our foreheads both sprinkled in Liberty's name, From the fountain of blood with the tingor of flame ! " You were always too ready to fire at a touch ; But wc said, ' Slie is hasty — she does not moan much.' We have scowled when you uttered some turbulent threat ; But Friendship still whispered, ' Forgive and forget.' " Has our love all died out ? Have its altars grown cold ? lias the curse come at last wliich the fathers foretold '? Tlicn Nature must teach us the strength of the chain Tiiat her petulant children would sever in vain. " They may fight till the buzzards arc gorged with their spoil, Till the harvest grows black as it rots in its soil. CIVIL WAE. 303 Till the wolves and the catamounts troop from their caves, And the shark tracks the pirate, the lord of the waves. " In vain is the strife ! When its fury is past, Their fortunes must flow in one channel at last ; As the torrents that rush from the mountains of snow Roll mingled in peace through the valley below. " Our Union is river, lake, ocean, and sky ; Man breaks not the medal when God cuts the die ! Though darkened with sulphur, though cloven with steel, The blue arch will brighten, the waters will heal. " 0, Caroline, Carohne, child of the sun, There are battles with fate that can never be won ! The star-flowering banner must never be furled. For its blossoms of light are the hope of the world ! " Go, then, our rash sister ! afar and aloof, Eun wild in the sunshine away from our roof; But when your heart aches and your feet have grown sore. Remember the pathway that leads to our door ! " [Applause.] THE CONSCRIPTION BILL. EXEMPTION OF THE CLERGY SLANDERS UPON THE DEMOCRACY REPELLED STATE RIGHTS AS DEFINED BY MADISON AND HAMILTON EFFECT OP THE CONSCRIPTION. On the 26th of February, 1863, the House having under consideration the bill to call out the national forces, Mr. Cox said : Mr. Speaker, I am obliged to the Chair for the prompt manner in which he has protected my right to the floor, and for the emphasis with which he brought down the gavel for that purpose. [Laughter.] I hope now that I shall not be further interrupted. Mr. Speaker, I was somewhat amused and in- structed by what fell from my reverend brother [Mr. Fessenden] from Maine, who has just taken his seat. It was proper that he should defend his clerical brethren. But after the high-wrought eulogy which he uttered in their behalf, I was surprised at the lame conclusion at which he arrived. How could he as a patriot argue that so valuable a class of citizens should be excluded from serving their country in the army ? K they are as worthy and as patriotic as he believes, will they seek exemp- tion? The very argument, combining with other reasons which I may give, but from which he will doubtless dissent, compel me to oppose the exemption of the clergy from this sweeping conscription. There are some clergymen for whom I have an unbounded reverence and respect — men who preach the gospel of " peace on earth and good will to men." They do not turn the living word into reproach by " vain disputations." They do not create jar on earth and ill will to men. From the first settle- ment of the region from which the gentleman comes, down to the present time, the largest part of the clergy seem to have been specially com- missioned, in their own opinion, to read lectures upon political matters to the people of this country, and to all mankind. They have descended from their spiritual elevation to grope amid the passions and cor- 304 EIGHT TEAES EN CONGKESS. ruptions of partisan strife. They have thus divided the churches, and degi-aded the mission left them by their loving Master. Mr. S. C. Fessenden. I challenge the gentleman to produce the proof of that assertion. Mr. Cox. I refer the gentleman, for the proof, to New England his- tory, from the days of Cotton IMather and the burning of witches, down to the present unhappy time. Why, sir, let the dominant clergy of New Eng- land continue to have their way now, as they had it once when Catholics, Episcopalians, Baptists, and Quakers were persecuted, punished, exiled, and murdered for conscience sake, and the gentleman will live to witness, perhaps with transport, Episcopalian and Catholic clergymen garroted and burned in the streets of Boston. [Laughter.] Mr. S. C. Fessexden. Will the gentleman allow me now? Mr. Cox. I have no objection, if the gentleman wants to ask a ques- tion. Objected to by a member from the Republican side of the House. Mr. Cox. That objection does not come from tliis side. Mr. Speaker, there is a certain class of preachers to whom gentlemen on this side of the House are under no special obligations. They have prayed us frequently into the nethermost abysses. [Laughter.] And why? Because Ave belonged to that old Democratic party which has been, coeval -vAath this Government — which has never, as an organization, bee^ unfaithful to the interests and honor of the whole country, and which has never lost its chivahic respect for the safeguards and immunities of the Union and Constitution. Simply to have aifiliations Avith that party has always been sufficient to bring down the anathemas, by '• bell, book, and candle," of those clergymen who now, through the ministerial member from Maine, seek exemption from the inconvenient consequences of the troubles Avhich they have themselves been mainly instrumental in bring- ing upon our beloved land. Long before the radical politicians. North and South, began to rend the nation in tlieir hate, these preachers had riven the churches in their crazed and demoniac fury. I ask you, men of the South yet remaining Avitli us, as I ask you Northern Representatives, is any one more responsible for the present unhappy condition of the country than these firebrands of the sanctuary — North and South ? Have not the fiercest zealots of secession and abolition been found among those Avho have kindled on God's altar the unhalloAved embers of sectional asperity? The gentleman from Maine Avants proof. AVhy, sir, it is easy enough to furnisli it. Go back to the three thousand clerg)-men of Ncav England, Avho, in the name of the Most High, felt themselves accredited to send to the Congress of the United States a special denunciation of Stephen A. Douglas for his championship of the riglits of the people of the Tcrritoi-ies. Their anti-slavery evangel Avas met by him Avith the same defiance which the Democracy displayed in the days of Jeflerson, Avlien the New England clergy reviled that apostle of our political faith. The impertinent and improper interference by a portion of the clergy in the politics of the country, is not peculiar to our day, tliough never before has it been so conspicuous as in fomenting the troubles Avhicli have culminated in this calamitous Avar. There are two kinds of clergymen in this country. I have before me I crvTii WAE. 305 a description of one class, with whicli I have no doubt gentlemen on the other side are more familiar than with those who' minister in the church in which I happen to worship. [Laughter.] I will recite the descrip- tion : " A minister, wlaom hell had sent, To spread its blast where'er he went, And fling, as o'er our earth he trod, His shadow betwixt man and God." Now, sir, all ministers who come within that definition I want to see enrolled in the army and marched to its front. There let them do their duty, and see whether they cannot help to put down this rebellion which they have been so long instigating. Let them suffer some of the conse- quences that our brothers undergo in the Southwest and along the Rappa- hannock. I would not have them go merely as clerks, letter-^vi-iters, or chaplains. Let them shoulder the twelve-pound musket, do picket duty, and trudge like our brave boys amid winter snows, spring mud, and sum- mer suns, under the packed knapsack, and my word for it, they will come back sanctified by grace. [Laughter.] After the eulogy pronounced upon the clergy by the gentleman from Maine, may we not presume that they would be in a better condition for the sacrifice, than many an unsanc- tified Democrat? Wovild they not ascend into the realms of glory with less inconvenience or delay? [Laughter.] Very many of them, from my observation, would not be as much of a loss to the country as my clerical friend over the way would suppose. But, Mr. Speaker, I v/ould not have addressed the gentleman from Maine in this style, had it not been that he rung into his speech over and over again, what has been rung into the speeches of other gentle- men on that side of the House since this debate began, as well as into newspapers and stump speeches, the usual quantity of malignant talk about " Copperheads," and the disloyal Democracy. A very beautiful mode of argumentation this ! It is calculated to produce a very pleasing impression on this side of the House ! The debate on this measure from its opening has been characterized by this tender affability of manner ! One would have supposed it would have been wise to have made the effort to conciliate this side of the House in favor of this measure ; but you sought to conciliate nobody. War Democrats — Peace Democrats — to use your inapposite language, are all alike. My eloquent friend from New York [Mr. Steele], who has spoken so well for the Governor of his State, and the rights of his State, and who expressed his willingness to sustain, through the States, your calls for aid — he is no exception. You sought not to conciliate my friend from Indiana [Mr. Holman], who has been laboring for the last two hours at my side to make this bill, if pos- sible, less objectionable by a substitute. He, too, has the fang and poison of the Copperhead. You sought not to conciliate any class of opinion, however loyal and conscientious. You were unwilling, when this bUl came in first, to allow it to be scrutinized. You sought to force it through without amendments, Avithout discussion ; and but for the deter- mined nerve of this side of the Chamber, you would have accomplished your purpose and passed the bill with all of its infernal enginery of oppres- sion. Gentlemen, you did not know^s. "We were determined in the first 20 • 306 ■ EIGHT TEAKS EST CONGRESS. place to have discussion ; and in the second place to get the bill back into a position -where it could be amended, and as many of its obnoxious fea- tures removed as it was possible to remove in this Congress. Yv''hat we resolved to do, that we have accomplished. Before I come to the discus- sion of the bill itself, I owe it to the people of my district to repel the charges made by you upon their representative. The three Republicans who have last spoken [Messrs. Dunn, Stevens, and Fessenden] have charged that we are disloyal to the country ; to the country whicli we love as well, I will not say better than you ; to that country which we love only less than we would love our Heavenly Father. From the beginning of the debate we have heard nothing but contemptu- ous scorn and contumely hurled against this side of the House. Do you believe that members of this House, though in a minority, who are your equals here, will silently permit such language to go unlashed? If Ave were dishonored at home, do you think we are craven enough to receive such epithets without giving scorn for scorn ? But being in fact the ma- jority, having received the approbation of our constituents at home, do you imagine that we will sit here in timid crouching, and receive your con- tumely without making some fit reply ? Do you expect that we will, imder the forms of courtesy, mouth honeyed words for your abuse ? Do you im- agine we cannot tell denunciation from debate ? You forget that we come fresh from the people, covered all over Avith their generous approba- tion. My eloquent friend from Indiana [Mr. Voorhees] told you last night that you Avere but corpses stalking against public decency, for a short time only, before the public gaze. [Laughter.] A nice party, in- deed, tliis company of corpses, to talk to us, the Representatives of the people ! [Laughter.] The gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Dunn], con- scious of his defunct condition, talked to us, as he confessed, from the confines of his sepulchre, " Hurk, from the tombs a doleful soimd ; Mine cars attend the cry." [Great laughter.] If you gentlemen avIio play the political phantom Avish to carry out the proper definition of a ghost, cease to squeak and gibber your abolitionism and go back into yom' cerements, for daylight, thank God ! has begun to dawn. [Laughter.] Do you suppose that Ave, Avho are fresh from the people, have any reason to distract our minds at Avhat you utter against us? Do you suppose, for instance, that Ave Avho represent Ohio, Avhere Ave had nineteen members of Congress to elect, and under an infamous gerrymander Avhich allowed us only two democrats, and who Avill come back to the next Congress fourteen to your five, are to be lectured by you for disloyalty? Do you take us to be as contemptible as yourselves? You ghosts of the dead past mistake the temper of our constituents as you have mistaken us. We knoAV our rights under the Constitution. We liaA'C a sound record, to Avhich Ave can forever point ; for Ave have stood by the country Avhen you failed it. We haA'c, under the ineradicable love of laAV and order, stood by your own Administrati(jn Avlieu you have stigmatized and denounced it. We did our best in tlie Congress before this, to settle these troubles, Avheu adjust mrut Avas easy. We hibored witli anxious care, that peace miglit continue in the lui^. Tlic people believe that you Averc CIVIL WAR. 307 recreant then ; that yOn are responsible for the failure to settle these difficul- ties by compromise. You know that the people so believe, for that was a part of their decision at the recent elections. If you still entertain any doubt about your recreancy and responsibility, read this letter, recently, produced in the Illinois Legislature by Hon. Mr. Hays, from Judge Doug- las, dated the 29tli of December, 1860. In it he says : " Tlic South would take my proposition if the Republicans would agree to it. But the extremes Xortli and South hold off, and are precipitating the country into revolution and civil war. " While I can do no act which recognizes or countenances the doctrine of secession, my policy is peace, and I will not consider the question of war until every effort has been made for peace, and all hope shall have vanished. When that time comes, if unfortu- nately it shall come, I will then do what it becomes an American Senator to do on the then state of facts. Many of the Republican leaders desire a dissolution of the Union, and urye war as a means of accomplishing disunion ; while others are union men in good faith. We have now reached the point where a compromise, on the basis of mutual con- cession, or disunion and war are inevitable. I prefer a fair and just compromise." If you still doubt, read again another letter from the same honest and noble man, with which the country is familiar, in which he attributed the defeat of ^11 amicable adjustments to the partisan desire of the Republican Senators to confirm certain appointments l\y the (then) incoming Admin- istration. The Republican Senators wished to have a majority in the Sen- ate for this purpose. But for this petty political object, Judge Douglas thought that they would have passed some compromise. They wanted the seceded States to go out — they wanted the Southern Senators to leave the Senate. Because, without their absence, the Senate would never have approved of such abolition appointments as Cassius M. Clay as Minister to Petersburg ; which I believe he yet holds in connection with Simon Cameron, and a major-generalship in the army [laughter], and which offices he is filling to the President's contentment, by philandering around Willard's Hotel in these several capacities [laughter], if indeed he has any capacity. [Laughter.] The Republican Senators knew that the President might send in* the nomination of such a man as Carl Schurz as Minister to Spain, a German abolition infidel, who brought to this coun- try the belief that license was liberty, and tliat Almighty God was a fig- ment of the brain — some strange abstract entity, with the concrete attribute of drinking lager beer in the regions above the sun. [Great laughter.] They wanted to confirm another class of abolitionists like the inveterate abolitionist who used to represent the Ashtabula district of Ohio in this House ; I mean the Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, now Consul- General to the Canadas. They wanted to confirm Helper, the author of the Helper book endorsed by the Republican members of Congress, and which urged robbery, murder, and insurrection, in order, by violence, to rid the country of slavery. I might enlarge the catalogue of abolitionists until the House were surfeited. Hence it was that Judge Douglas de- clared that the Republicans were responsible for not making an amicable adjustment of our troubles. In his opinion, they were willing to welcome civil war, and all its attendant horrors, from the mere gi-eed for office, and to reward the anarchs and destructionists of the land. Hence it is that, before God and the country, I hold you, on the testimony of Douglas, responsible for the failure to settle these difficulties. 308 EIGHT TEAES m CONGRESS. But after all had failed through Republican partisauship and greed for office, we came to the extra session of Congress. You will remember that, Avith Douglas, Ave doubted if cA^er war could reclaim the Southern States. We plead — ^you know how eA'en so humble a member as myself plead — against the arbitrament of the sword for the settlement of these feuds of the sections. But Ave plead in vain. Douglas told you Avar was disunion. But Avar came ! It is unnecessary for me to say who struck the first blow. It is idle noAV to argue Avho i:)rovohed the blow that was first struck. You know it all. We came to the extra session of 1861. We Avere still, as ever, loyal, law-abiding. We Avere AAdlling to do our all for the Government. Sadly Ave acted as the coadjutors of force. But the great drama of blood having been begun, not by our aid or consent, Ave acted on the side of the Government — loyally, firmly, sadly. We could not do otherwise, so help us God. The record of that session Avill sIioaa' how we supported the Adminis- tration, Avhich we had not contributed to place in power. I remember well Avhen, on the loth of July, 1861, General McCleruand, of Illinois, offered the following resolution {House Journal, 1st sessio7i, 37th Congress, p. 87) : . " Whereas, a portion of the people of the United States, in violation of their consti- tutional obligations, have taken up arms against the National Government, and are now striving, by aggressive and iniquitous war, to overthrow it and break up the union ol these States : therefore, " Resolved, That this House hereby pledges itself to vote for any amount of money and any number of men which may be necessary to insure the speedy and effectual sup- pression of said rebellion, and the permanent restoration of the Federal authority every- where within the limits and jurisdiction of the United States." I find nearly every member of this House, upon this side, voting for that resolution. There Avere but five votes against it ; and of those, three are noAV absent and openly disloyal to the Government. Did you want any thing more — any thing better than that? You sought harmony among all parties at that time. All the men and all the money that was wanted Avas granted by our votes. Your President asked for four hun- dred thousand men, and Ave gave him five hundred thousand ; he asked for four hundred millions of dollars, and Ave gave him five hundred millions. Whenever he came here asking men and money, avc gave them to him. Could Ave do more? Were Ave disloyal men for that? Wliat folloAA^ed? Shortly afterwards the venerable member from Kentucky [IMr. Critten- den] offered his resolution as to tlie purposes of the war. All of us joined in its adoption. We gave it our adhesion, as the diroelion which avc were to folloAV in the pursuit of this war against this rebellion. What more could we do and be faithful? Could Ave have done less? We were only pursuing Avhat Ave had declared before in our speeches here. I remember a scene which Avas recalled to my mind by some remarks from the gentle- man from Indiana [Mr. Dunn]. I Avas a member of this Congress Avhen State after State sent here Iheir ordinances of secession. I recall the first motion that was made by a member from Florida [Mr. Hawkins], who sat in that seat occupied by my friend from Maryland [Mr. Cresfield], to be excused from service upon a committee raised to compromise these troubles. He gave us as a reason that his State was already rcsoh-ed to secede. I CIVIL WAE. 309 then said that I would not vote to excuse him, when he gave such a sedi- tious reason. And when afterwards secession speeches were made, I had the honor, as the first member of this House, to struggle for the floor Avith my friend, General McClernand, to denounce the doctrine of secession as alien to the Constitution, bad in theory, and worse in practice. I picture now the scene which took place here, after General McClernand and my- self had concluded our speeches, and when the present Postmaster-Gen- eral of the Confederate States [Mr. Reagan] denounced us as the tail of the aboUtion kite. Great God ! that I should ever have lived to have had such a reproach even from a rebel. [Laughter.] We who have been striving to keep this war in its proper direction, so as thereby to make it short and successful ; we who have stood here from the first to sustain this Government and this Administration which we did not contribute to place in power, do not deserve the contemptuous reproaches cast upon us by ingrates upon the other side. Copperheads are we ? Cop- perheads ! I would not follow this pitiable example of discourtesy by speaking of other sorts of heads. [Laughter.] I would not hurl such epithets across this chamber. It would be unparliamentary, and I forego the luxury of being out of order here. I know the gentlemen are dead heads, and that is the reason why — on the principle of " nisi boiium, nil raortuis " — I speak of them Avith respect. [Laughter.] It has been laid down by the best ethical v/riters upon free government, that il is perfectly right and proper to encourage criticism upon the administration of public aflfairs. We were taught that in the best English literature. John Milton dedicated his grandest work, the " Areopogitica," to the defence of free speech and unlicensed printing. Even in the Corps Legislatif of France now, the fullest debate is allowed to the opponents of the reigning dynasty and its measures, even of war. The noblest use of free speech in this or any free country is to criticize closely the political conduct of our agents. Hence in England it became a part of the Consti- tution to have what is called a " constitutional opposition." There is al- ways a party out of power to watch the party in power. Why? Because, as was remarked the other day, power tends to slide from the many to the few. It tends to aggrandize itself. It grows by what it feeds on. A healthy state of the body politic requires a party at all times, standing upon the fundamental law as the basis of its existence, and fearlessly vigi- lant against the encroachments of power. This is the present mission of the Democracy. We assume now no further responsibility. We have never failed to appeal to the Constitution as the guide of our conduct. We who have opposed this and similar bills, have done so because we thought them infringements upon the Constitution. It is for this that gentlemen on the other side hurl at us epithets of " secession sympathizers," " dis- loyal men." I am yet to learn that any raember upon this side has yet gone outside of the proper constitutional opposition to this Administration. You cannot point to a single act, or to a single vote, or to a single speech uttered by us, looking to any opposition to this Government. Our oppo- sition is to the continued and persistent breaches of our Constitution. Every vote upon this side, and every speech, has been in favor of some mode, one mode by one, and another mode by another, of sustaining this Government to the end. No proposition for a separation of the Union 310 EIGHT TEAES ET CONGRESS. has ever come from this side of the chamber. None, none. The only proposition of that sort, as was remarked the other day by my friejad from Indiana [Mr. Holman], emanated from a gentleman who has always acted with the other side [Mr. Coxavat]. He tried the other day to ex- plain his position. I have since read his resolution in order to get the benefit of his explanation. But as I read his resolution, it says, as re- ported in his printed speech, " that the Executive be, and he is hereby re- quested to issue a general order to all commanders of forces in the several military departments of the United States to discontinue offensive opera- tions against the enemy, and to act for the future entirely on the de- fensive." And further : " Resolved, That the Executive be, and lie is further requested to enter into negotia- tions with the authorities of the Confederate States, with reference to a cessation of hos- tihties, based on the following proposition : Recognition of the independence of the Con- federate States." What does that mean ? It was not offered by a Democrat. No Cop- perhead offered it. AYliat does it mean? Gentlemen upon tliis side of the chamber denounced that resolution. No man upon that side has yet risen to denounce it. Mr. Blake. I want to say to the gentleman, that every gentleman upon this side of the House denounced it by his vote. Mr. Cox. I know they voted against it. I wish they would confine their denunciations of the Democracy to their silent votes. Mr. Blake. That we are doing. Mr. Cox. I do not mean to include my colleague among those who have so offensively denounced Democrats. But all Avho have spoken have denounced us, although they know that we have again and again asserted that Ave are for the Union at all hazards, and by every means Avhich Avill in our judgment secure its integrity. We were for this Union by Avar Avhcn war seemed a necessity. We are for this Union by peace Avhcn- ever peace is honorable and possible. We are opposed to any Avar like that for tlie abolition of slavery, that \\'\\\ make disunion possible. We are opposed to any peace that Avill mutilate tlie Republic. That is the " Cop- perhead" policy, and I ask my friend from Maine to pray over it to-night, and see if he cannot tliink better of us. [Laughter.] jNIark the Demo- cratic policy : No peace Avith the idea of dismemberment ; no Avar that is fatal to the Union ; eveiy thing for tlie Union under the Constitution ; avc Avill never break that instrument to bring back the Union ; for Avhen the Constitution is broken, there is no Union, but a unity of territory, a des- potism of power. Mr. Speaker, I desire noAV to discuss some of the features of the bill before us. I Avill be very brief; for they have been thoroughly dissected by members upon this side of the House. I Avant to refer to only one or two propositions in that connection. I proposed, tAvo days since, to amend tlic bill by inserting the Avord "white" in the first section. At that time the gentleman from New York [Mr. Olin] advised us that no amendnunls Avould be permitted at all, and no discussion either. One good thing Ave have gained by this. discussion at least, and that is, that if this biU is to pass at all, it Avill pass iu a less obnoxious shape. The CIVIL "WAE. 311 leader of this House, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Stevens, in the speech he made a while ago, proposed radical amendments. The Speaker pro tern. The gentleman will suspend his remarks while tlie Clerk reads a clause from the Manual. The Clerk read as follows : " No person in speaking is to mention a member then present by his name, but to describe him by his seat in the House, or who spoke last, or on the other side of the question." Mr. Vallandigham. It is always in order to name a member after having described him. Mr. Cox. No, I do not think it is perfectly in order. I differ with my colleague. It has become a bad habit here, and I have only followed the precedent set me by distinguished members. The Speaker pro tern. The gentleman wiU proceed in order. Mr. Cox. I am very glad the Speaker made that point on me, for I shall take it more goodnaturedly than some others might have done. The Speaker pro tern. [Mr. Dawes]. That is the reason why the point was made on the gentleman. Mr. Cox. I mean, then, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, who is Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means ; the gentleman who has such a chronic dislike to Democrats that he always lectures them at the end of his speeches [laughter] ; the gentleman who said he was sick of hearing this talk about the Constitution, who did not want the old Union restored. The Speaker will now recognize whom I mean. [Laughter.] K I am not explicit enough, I will describe him as the gentleman who stated a great many apocryphal things, and among them, that all the Democrats stayed at home to vote while the Republicans are the belli- gerent part of the people ; the gentleman who undertook, in his speech to- night, to destroy the well-earned fame of a general born in his own State — General McClellan — an undertaking that all Pennsylvania, with all her iron, and all her tariffs, and all her Camerons, and all her robberies, can never accomplish. [Laughter.] Perhaps I am not yet explicit enough. The Chair vnW know whom I mean when I refer to a speech made by a distinguished member from Massachusetts, now in the Chair, about com- posing political difficulties by the gentle amenities of horse contracts. Now, this gentleman whom I have just described, offered to amend this biU in several important particulars, and, among the rest, he proposed to strike out the words " authorizing provost marshals summarily to arrest for treasonable practices." Humph ! We have come to that ! You are getting along pretty well for dead men. [Laughter.] Go on a day or two longer with this discussion, and you will drop the bill altogether ; for when you shall have blotted that out of the bill, you will take the meanest sting out of it. If there be one thing that the people I represent fear and de- spise most, it is, that these miserable inquisitors, created by this bill, these sneaking spies, these pliant servitors of power, called provost marshals, spooned off the scum of the Abolition party of the North, should have power to pry in and around the homes of quiet and loyal citizens to play the in- former upon Democrats and Conservatives, drag them to the Bastiles of the Administration, not because they are disloyal, but because they happen to differ in opinion with their fellow-citi2;ens about this war and its con- 312 EIGHT TEARS IN COISTGEESS. duct, and this Administration and its conduct. I congratulate you that you have saved many provost marshals from the rope. The chairman of the Military Committee, when "we started this debate, said he would not allow any amendments, not even to effect this object. But you are not entitled to any credit for making this amendment. You have been forced by the cogent eloquence of the debate upon this side of the chamber, to withdraw your " treasonable practices " from the bill. So much for de- bate. We have made a little by it at least ; and now I hope that some one upon the other side, like the gentleman from Pennsylvania, will progress a little further, and agree first to insert the word " white " in the first section of the bill, so that, instead of reading " all able-bodied male citizens of the United States," it shall read, " all able-bodied white male citizens of the United States." It is only a verbal amendment. [Laugh- ter.] Suppose you consider it over night. We may all get together, after a little more debate, and agree to kill the bill entirely. There is another objection to this bill, which has been urged here, and which was most eloquently urged by my colleague [Mr. White]. It is this : This bill breaks down not only the rights of the States, but the executive, legislative, and judicial departments of tlie States. It infringes the letter and spirit of the Constitution. It seeks to take from the States certain rights over their own militia — a right never to be yielded by a free people without dishonor and danger. How is that objection met by gen- tlemen on that side ? Not as it was met in the other branch of Congress ; for there it was not pretended that this bill was not intended to call out the militia. Here, it is a bill for enrolling and calling out the national forces^ and for other purposes, as if you could, by a dash of the pen, change the nature and purpose of this measure. When this bill was first reported in the Scntfte, all admitted that it was a bill to call out the militia ; and its lan- guage, but not its scope or effect, is changed only for the purpose of avoid- ing tlie attacks that would be made upon it on account of its breaking down the rights of the States over the militia. Now there is an army of the United States, just as well known. as the militia of the States. The former is subject to the command of the Chief Magistrate, and completely controlled by the rules and regulations made here ; the latter is not subject to the Federal Government, until called into the service of the United States, in pursuance of the Federal Constitution and laws. But gentle- men say that this is a bill for creating or increasing the regular army, and that there is no limit to our power over that subject. AVcll, if tliis be true, and this bill is executed, there Avill be no militia lef\ in the States after this regular army is constituted. You SAvecp out of being the whole militia of the States into the Federal control. You leave the States un- protected, so fur as the militia protects tliem. This bill is, to all intents and purposes, a bill to call forth (he militia of the States ; but it does not make the call according to the Constitution and the law. The militia is to be callud out, under this bill, directly by the President or his subordinate federal agents acting upon the individual citizens. It never was the cus- tom of the Government so to call them. They should be called through the intervention of the States, and in that way alone. I need not refer gentlemen to the articles of the Constitution on this subject. They arc familiar. I will read, however, the second section of the second article : CIVIL -WAS,. 313 " The President shall be Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States when called into the actual service of the United States." Not while they are being enrolled, but " when called into the actual ser- vice of the United States," is the President the Commander of the militia of the States. In my judgment, then, the Federal Government has no authority over the militia until it is called into the service of the United States. By another section, the Constitution of the United States author- izes Congress " To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insui-rection, and repel invasions. " To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States." You may provide for their organization. You may provide for their enrolment, wliich is a part of the organization. You may provide for arming them. You may provide the mode and manner in which they shall be disciplined. But you cannot do that by your Federal Executive. That is to be done by the States themselves. They are authorized to do it, and the Federal Government is excluded from that office. That is the opinion of the best commentator on the Constitution, Judge Story. I re- fer to vol. iii. sec. 1208 : " The question, when the authority of Congress over the militia becomes exclusive, must essentially depend upon the fact when they are to be deemed in the actual service of the United States. There is a clear distinction between calling forth the militia and their being in actual service. They are not contemporaneous acts, nor necarsarily identi- cal in their constitutional bearings. The President is not Commarader-in-Clii>if of the mi- litia exc3pt when in actual service, and not when they are merely ordered into service. They are subjected to martial law only when in actual service, and not merely when called forth, before they have obeyed the call." One of the sections of this bill proposes to subject the men who may be drafted to martial law, to deprive them of the legal right of being tried for criminal offences by a jury of their peers, before they are mus- tered into the service of the United States. Such a power is not conferred by the Constitution. It will be resisted as a usurpation. In this connec- tion I refer to Elliott's Debates, pages 287, 288, and 294, to show that Judge Story is justified in his construction, by the language of those who were contemporaneous with the formation of the Constitution. It is unnecessary for me, Mr. Speaker, to comment on that commenta- tor. Judge Story lays down the constitutional interpretation explicitly. If you intend to take these men as the militia of the country — and you mean nothing else — ^you cannot do it except by the intervention of the States themselves. There is another clause of the Constitution (article 2d of the amendments) which reserves to the States, for a vital purpose, the control of their own militia : " A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free Stats, the right ot the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Let this Federal Government beware how it seeks a conflict about the clearly reserved rights of the States. The practice of arbitrary arrests, the past year and a half, is not calculated to make future arrests of citi- zens either pleasant or safe for the minions of Federal power. 314 EIGHT YEAES EST CONGRESS. Now, if the Constitution means any thing, it means that in no emer- gency sliall the States of this Union lose the power to control their own militia, for their own State purposes, except when it is merged in the actual service of the United States. By this bill you leave no power in the States to officer or direct their militia. The troops of Ohio may he mingled miscellaneously with those from Maine. There is a wise reason why the militia should be considered and kept as an institution of the States. You will find that reason in the very genius and structure of the federal system. We cannot, in these times, too often recur to the early expounders of the Constitution. I hold to the Jefifersonian and Madiso- nian construction of that instrument, with respect to the rights of States. Nowhere do I find the tenets of this school so correctly yet so familiarly expounded as in the Private Correspondence of Mr. Madison, published for private distribution by my friend J. C. McGuire, of this city, and to whom I am indebted for the volume before me. Mr. Madison (page 119) defines the relations implied by the terms Union, Federal, National, and State, in a letter written in September, 1829, wherein he says : " That the Constitution of the United States was created by the people composing the respective States, who alone had the right ; that they organized the Government into legis- lative, executive, and judiciary departments, delegating thereto certain portions of power, to be exercised over the whole, and reserving tlie other portions to themselves respec- tively. As these distinct portions of power were to be exercised by the General Govern- ment and by the State Governments, by each within limited spheres ; and as, of course, controversies concerning the boundaries of their power would happen, it was provided that they should be decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, so constituted as to be as impartial as it could be made by the mode of appointment and responsibility for the judges. Is there, then, no remedy for usurpations in which the Supreme Court of the United States concur ? Yes, constitutional remedies ; remonstrances and instructions ; recurring elections and impeachments ; amenilment of Constitution, as provided by itself, and exemplified in the 11th article limiting the suability of the States. These are re- sources of the States against the General Government, resulting from the reldtious of the States to that Government, while no corresponding control exists in the general over the individual governments, all of whose functionaries are independent of the United States in their appointment and responsibility. In all the views that may be taken of questions between the State Governments and tiie General Government, the awful consequences of a final rupture and dissolution of the Union should never for a moment be lost sight of. Such a [jrospect must be deprecated, must be shuddered at by every friend to his country, to liberty, to the happiness of roan. For, in the event of a dissolution oi' the Union, an impossibility of ever renewing it is brought home to every mind by the difTicultics encoun- tered in establishing it. The propensity of all communities to divide, when not pressed into a unity by external danger, is a truth well understood. Tlicre is no instance of a people, inhabiting even a small island, if remote from foreign danger, and sometimes in spite of that pressure, who are not divided into alien, rival, hostile tribes. The happy union of these States is a wonder ; their Constitution a miracle ; their example tlie hope of Liberty throughout the world. Woe to the ambition that would meditate the destruc- tion of either." I trust and pray that this House will not, by passing this bill, hazard the fearful consequences of a further disruption of the Federal tics, by in- trencliing upon the rights of the States ; that at least tliey Avill seek first, as INIr. Madison suggests, the judiciary, as the arbiter of these mooted questions of power, before embarking tliis troubled people upon new seas of blood, amidst other and worse storms of conflicting i)assion. Not alone to Jetrerson and Madison, or the Supreme Court, will I go for the rule of construction as to the Constitution. Even that great apos- CIVIL WAE. 315 tie of consolidation, Hamilton, in order to secure the adoption of the Con- stitution by his own State of New York, presented this exposition of our Government : " If the State Governments were to be abolished, the question would wear a different face ; but this idea is inadmissible. They are absolutely necessary to the system. Their existence must form a leading principle in the most peifect constitution we could form, I insist that it can never be tlie interest or desire of the national legislature (much less the President) to destroy the State Governments. It can derive no advantage from such a result ; but, on the contrary, would lose an indispensable support, a necessary aid, in executing the laws and conveying the influences of government to the doors of the peo- ple. The Union is dependent on the will of the State Governments for its Chief Magis- trate and its Senate. The blow aimed at the members must give a fatal wound to the head, and the destruction of the States must be atonce political suicide. Can the Na- tional Government be guilty of this madness ? « * And again I have stated to the committee abmidant reasons to prove the entire safety of the State Governments and of the people. I wish the committee to remember that the Constitution, under examination, is framed upon truly republican principles, and that, as it is expressly designed to provide for the common protection and general welfare of the United States, it must be utterly repugnant to this Constitution to subvert the State Governments or oppress the people." This doctrine of State rights, Mr, Speaker, does not carry us into secession, for, accordingto the doctrine laid down by Jefferson, Madison, and others, there is a line drawn, beyond which State rights cannot go, but within which there is perfect immvinity to the exercise of powers by the States in their separate and sovereign capacity. If the State is aggrieved, it can neither nullify nor secede. Mr. Jefferson, in his letter to Cartright, referred to in the "■ Private Correspondence," denied the right of any number of single States to arrest the execution of a law of Congress, or secede from 'the Federal system. A Convention of the States, under the Constitution, he hailed " as the peaceable remedy for all the conflicting claims of power in our compound Government." In the future complica- tions to which this and similar biUs wiU give rise, I can see no other than the Madisonian remedy for our safety and regeneration — A convention OF THE States under the Constitution. I believe that this bill not only subverts the State Governments, but that it will suppress the people. It breaks down the barrier which the people erected against consolidated power ; for never in the history of this or any other Government has such a stupendous power been reposed in one man, as the power reposed by this bill in the President of the United States. It makes this Government, so guarded in its delegation of power, so full of reservations to the source of aU power, the people, an irrespon- sible despotism, worse than that of France, and more tyrannical than that of Russia. You have already given to this Administration the purse ; you now throw the sword into the scale, and nothing is left to the people but abject submission or resistance. It becomes Congress to see to it before it intrusts such a power to any one man : first, whether it is constitutional ; and, if constitutional, whether it is expedient to intrust it to the present Chief Magistrate of the country. For my part, sir, I do not trust the present Chief Magistrate. I have my reasons for it. These reasons spring out of his conduct with regard to the slavery question. Again and again, beginning with his inaugural message, down to the last conference which he had with the border State members of Congress, who now sit around me, he asseverated that he would not interfere in any way with the 316 EIGHT TEAES IN CONGRESS. constitutional rights of the States with regard to negro slavery. He said that he had no right and no inclination thus to interfere ; and he kept his word for a brief time. But abolition pressure was brought to bear upon him. Abolitionists improved every opportunity to poison his mind, and to salute his ear with their flatteries. They made him believe that he was the saviour of the black race. In the very face of his own declarations to the contrary, and after he had promised solemnly to the border State Con- gressmen, in a public conference with them, that he would do nothing to injure either the sensibilities or the interests of their States with regard to slavery, he issued that proclamation which has been so fatal to the army, fatal to " a united North," fatal to the Government, and will be, I fear, fatal to this Union, unless gentlemen on the other side come up boldly and manfully and demand of him to repudiate it forever. Let them prepare him for tlie i-etraction by the repeal of their confiscation measures as use- less, impotent, and unconstitutional. Let the President then follow them and withdraw his proclamation. Let us start anew. Go back to the Crittenden resolutions, or if you cannot, by war, restore the Federal au- thority, try some other mode. Withdraw the negro entirely from your counsels and conduct, and make one grand effort to preserve this Gov- ernment of white men. Will you do it? If j'ou Avould resolve thus to act, you would need no conscription to increase and inspirit your army. You would then invigorate the public heart. You would restore again the public confidence. There is your path. Will you follow it? I believe that you will get no men under this bill. You will get no men through your despicable and irresponsible provost marshals. This bill will only make trouble. I fear more than I dare say. I fear you do not expect to get men under this bill. If the bill means any thing in reason, it is a bill to enslave the people of the North, and not a bill to put down the rebellion. It gives you the power to annihilate the ballot box, destroy personal liberty, and scatter your spies and informers all over the country as thick as the locusts of Egypt. I protest against it as a needless torture to the citizen, and as a cruel insult to the patriotism of a proud and free people. I wish I could see in this bill any thing good. It Avill simply irritate the people of the North. It Avill not bring about that harmony among them which is indispensable to the success of an army against this rebellion. You have tried many expedients against our warning, and failed. At first you had the whole North, twenty millions of people, forgetting their divisions and sustaining the Government on the plain question for the restoration of the Constitution. You had victories on that policy. Your organs, like the " Tribune," boasted, after the fall of Sumter, that " All party prejudices and passions were fori^ottcn, and the new Administration, Btrenf:;tlioncd by an assurance of popular confidence, stood before tlie world the unques- tioned representative of tlie whole loyal people of the Union." Who and what has changed all that? Your President and his aboli- tion advisers and policy. The proclamation sounded ; and lo ! the re- bellion was to fall. " The war would not last till Christmas," said the zealots of the hour. " By a single blow the President has palsied the rebellion," they said again. Fatal delusions I But will you learn CIVIL WAE. 317 nothing? This bill will prove more impotent against the South p,ncl more mischievous in the North than your proclamations and confisca- tions. ' A good deal has been said about the Democratic party not being loyal. Why, sir, we went from this Hall at the close of the last session of Con- gress and found the President's call for volunteers among the people. We went before our constituents and asked for soldiers to fill the new regi- ments called for by the Governors in pursuance of that call. My colleague over the way [Mr. Harrison] will bear me witness with what zeal we endeavored to fill our quotas in order to save our respective counties from a draft. lu my own county, at the capital of the State, we succeeded in raising the requisite number, and there was no draft. My colleagues [Mr. White, Mr. Morris, Mr. Noble, and others] found it not hard by their appeals to fill the call in their localities. This, however, was before the proclamation. When that masterpiece of folly and treachery was issued, further enlistments became almost impossible. We could then make no more speeches for recruits. Why ? We had told the people that this was a war for the Union and for the Constitution. When it was thus perverted by base treachery and falsehood from this, its proper pur- pose, we took our appeal directly to the people, and denounced the treachery and unveiled the falsehood of this Administration. The people under- stood and indorsed us. I might refer you to resolutions passed by the Democratic Convention of Ohio, wherein we said to the people that the Democracy were willing to join hand in hand with any citizen of the State to strengthen and invigorate the Government and suppress the rebellion. They deprecated the divisions and distractions which the abolitionists were forcing upon the country as hostUe to its best interests. NEGRO SOLDIERS. NEGROES IN THE REVOLUTIONAEY WAR — OBJECT OF THE BILL EITECT ON EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS DEMOCRATIC SUPPORT TO THE WAR. Delivered on January 30, 1863. Mr. Cox said : I want to call the attention of the House, and espe- cially of the present occupant of the chair [Mr. McPherson], to the remarks made by him in reference to the employment of negroes in the Revolutionary war. I regret, sir, that you have been elevated to the chau* at this inopportune time ; but I have no doubt that you can retire with grace, to repel any thing that I might say that is either untrue in history, or that involves a false inference. If I understand you, sir, you argue that there was a settled policy in revolutionary times for the reception of negroes into our service. That is not correct. A careful reading of his- tory will show it. [Mr. McPherson here left the chair, calling Mr. Shef- field thereto.] I am perfectly AvilUng, Mr. Speaker, to agree v/ith the gentleman, that negroes were here and there used in the Revolution, There were a number of instances where some were employed — not 318 EIGHT TEAES IK CONGRESS. in regiments or brigades, as it is claimed here ; but many blacks, and perhaps several companies, were used in various States during the Revo- lution. The most conspicuous instance was that of Rhode Island*. She called over three hundred at one time, when there was an overpowering necessity for every man in that little colony to be raised ; but, sir, these Avere sporadic cases, here and there a negro ; here and there, and but rarely, a company. There was no system of colonial policy by which black men were organized. There were some black men in the army in despite of law and orders against it ; some who were enlisted when there was no law on the subject ; and in a few cases, there were black men enlisted under the law of certain of the colonies ; but I believe all this was done under the protest of the Continental Congi-ess. Mr. McPherson. I do not wish to interrupt the gentleman ; but I shall be very glad to have a few minutes, after he has finished his speech, to give my version of the facts of the case. Mr. Cox. The only authentic return, which research can discover, of negroes employed in the Revolution, is one made on the 24th of August, 1778, on the call of the Continental Congress, and the whole number of negroes present in the army then, of all conditions and grades of service, was seven hundred and fifty-five, of which five hundred and eighty-six were reported as present. I know not how they were used particularly ; but doubtless they were used as servants, or bootblacks, or teamsters, or private soldiers. If the gentleman has any thing more authentic, 1 would like to see it. But, as I see my friend from Massachusetts [Mr. Dawes] listening Avith some interest, I will call attention to the revolutionary pol- icy of Massachusetts. The Governor of that State has gone home with a carte llanche in his pocket to raise negro soldiers — if I may use that white term with reference to this black business. Mr. Aldrich (in his seat). Carte hlack. Mr. Cox. Yes, very black. I know it is the supposition among per- sons who do not understand the meaning of this matter, that the object of Governor Andrew is to raise all the negroes he can, and shij) them out of his State. I know that he refused to have other negroes come into his State from the South. Now, sir, Massachusetts has a very peculiar rec- ord in reference to this matter in the Revolution. As early as 1774 this subject was so talked about as to be brought to the notice of the Conti- nental Congress. It was talked about by some of the humanitarians of that day. They wanted to use the negroes, not so much for the purpose of defending colonial independence as for the purpose of fighting for ne- gi-o liberty. There were men then not unlike the gentleman from Illi- nois [Mr. Lovejoy]. Yesterday, when trying to disguise the fact that he was for waging this war for negro liberty, before he got through the paragraph he confessed the whole truth by saying : " ' But,' say gentlemen, ' you want to do away with slavory.' ' Certaiuly.' ' WIi^v ? ' ' Because in .■;ui)[>rcssing the rebellion and preserving the Union, it is necessary as a moans, and not as an eud ; although God knows the means are just such means as I desire to be used. We gain a double obje<^.' ' That I never deny.' " " A double, object," is it? I think, sir, that the dominant portion of the party on tlie other side have had a double object from the beginning. A double object in this matter means duplicity. At the extra session of CIVIL WAE, 319 this. Congress, on the 22d of July, 1861, they voted for one particular line of policy upon which this war Avas to be conducted. They then seemed to have a single object ; but since that time they have perverted, or, if you please, doubled that object. This bill is of a piece with their whole poli- cy. I believe, Mr. Speaker, what I think is now the general sentiment of the people, that that policy has a hidden object ; and this bill, as a part of it, is intended to make this Union utteidy impossible. This is our justification for the extraordinary proceedings the other night, when we were determined to use all the means which the laws of this House gave, to prevent the passage of a law like this, which is aimed at the national life. The gentlemen from the border States here, gentle- men from Kentucky and Ohio — for tliere are two sides to the border — ; understand very well the hidden meaning and certain effect of this bill. Every man along the border will tell you that the Union is placed in new peril if you pursue this policy of taking the slaves from then* masters to arm them in this civil strife. It will only keep alive and aggravate the alienation of sections, Avhich had its beginning in hate, and will have its end in vengeance. I stated as my reason for the part I took in the pro- ceedings of our eighteen hom's' session, that this bill was a part of the plot to drive the border slave States out of the Union, or to place them in such hostility to the Government as to hurl our armies at theu' throats and strangle their political life. I have been confirmed in my belief by the statements of the eloquent members from Kentucky, as well as by the course of discussion on the other side. There is no analogy, as I was proceeding to show, between the use of negi'O soldiers in the Revolution and their use at the present time. Why? Because in the Revolution negroes were used — when used at all, and that very rarely — on the side of their loyal masters, and with their full consent. They stood by their side to defend colonial independence, not to strike for their own freedom. They were not then sought to be reduced to fiends, to bring about San Domingo insurrections. They were used to defend our own policy, our own Government. No social system Avas then sought to be uptorn. No labor system was then to be destroyed. When such objects were hinted, prompt protest was entered against them. This matter was brought before the Continental Congress in October, 1774, in a formal suggestion of " the propriety that, while we are attempting to free ourselves from our present embarrassments and preserve ourselves from slavery, we also ought to take into consideration the state of cir- cumstances of the negro slaves in this Province." A motion was made in the Congress for a committee to take the subject into consideration. This produced some debate. When the question was put, "Whether the matter should now subside ? " it passed. The matter subsided. In May, 1775, there was a committee of safety, upon which were Hancock, War- ren, and others, who considered this matter, and with the purest patriot- ism embodied their judgment in the following resolution : " That it is the opinion of the committee, as the contest now between Great Britain and the Colonies respects the liberties and privileges of the latter, which the Colonies are determined to maintain, that the admission of any persons as soldiers into the army, only such as are freemen, is inconsistent with the principles to be supported, and icould reflect disho7ior on this Colony ; and that no slaves be admitted into the army on any considera- tion whatever.''^ 320 EIGHT YEAES m CONGKESS. Has Massachusetts progressed or degenerated since that significant resolve ? This resolution was communicated to the Provincial Congress on the 6th of June, 1775. It was read and tabled, because the Provincial Congress would not even consider the proposition for organizing and arm- ing a servile race in the war of Independence. But the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. McPherson] quotes the great name of Washington to svistain this bill of abomination. Let us consult the truth of history. Washington took command of the army on the 3d of January, 1775 ; and in regular instructions to the recruiting officers in Massachusetts, issued from his headquarters at Cambridge, on the 10th of July, he prohibited the enrolment of any "negro" in the army. The same action was taken in subsequent periods of the Revolu- tionary history. At a council of war, held at Washington's headquarters on the 8th of October, 1775, where Washington was present, with Gen erals Lee, Putnam, Heath, Gates, Greene, and others, the question was proposed, " whether it was advisable to enlist any negroes in the new army ; and if so, whether there should be any distinction between such as are slaves and those who are free." It Avas agreed unanimously to reject aU slaves, and, by a great majority, to reject negroes altogether. Will the gentleman from Pennsylvania bring any authority to show that Wash- ington ever reconsidered that determination? I know that afterwards on one occasion, in the case of certain negroes, who had been in the army, and had served in some situations, and served faithfully by the side of their friends and masters, and whose reenlistmcnt was urgently desired, he did make an exception ; but his general and fixed policy, as well as that of the Congress, was against the use of negroes in the military ser- vice. Gentlemen have been led into their historical mistakes on this sub- ject by finding such exceptional cases, and exaggerating them in the fog of their own fancies. So, in the present war, black soldiers have been used in Louisiana, it is said, by Governor Moore, on the rebel side ; and there may have been a few employed on the Chickahominy, who may have shot some of our soldiers there. . And gentlemen have rashly inferred from this that there is a general system of organizing negroes for soldiers in the Confederate army. Mr. McPheuson. I ask the gentleman from Ohio whether he can speak as to the correctness or falsity of the statement Avhieh I see in the newspapers, that it has been decided by the war department at Richmond, that any person in the rebel States having any white blood in his veins is looked upon as liable to conscription, thus revoking the rule of law and practice, with tlie evident purpose of drawing mulattoes of every hue into the military service? Mr. Cox. If tliat is the case, they have, since this war began, re- versed entirely the status of the African descendants. I have no knowl- edge of any such decision as that referred to by the gentleman. Certainly [ Avould not predicate legislation here on any such decision, even if it was more than rumor. Mr. WiCKLiFi'E. Will the gentleman from Ohio allow me to state a fact? When the army under General Bragg left the town where I live, at the ajjproach of Buell, hist September, some sick ofiicors wore loft be- hind. 1 conversed with them, because I had heard it stated that the rebels CIVIL WAE. 321 were employing the slaves in the army, aud I was assured by them — and they were gentlemen although they were rebels — that the statement was untrue, that there was not a single negro employed as a soldier in their array, though there were negi'oes in it employed as servants and waiters. I state this on their authority, and I believe they told the truth. Mr. Cox. The gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. McPhekson] does not give any authority for his statement, except that he has seen it in the newspapers. Mr. McPnEKSON". I do not assert that fact, but there are other facts which I may assert in the discussion. I do not know what the authority is for that statement. Mr. Cox. I do not generally act myself on these unofRcial assertions. "When an order to that effect is issued from the Confederate Government, it will be time enough to consider what our action shall be, by way of re- taKation. But, Mr. Speaker, there is this difficulty in beginning this system of negro enlistment. It has, no doubt, occurred to many gentle- men on the other side of the Chamber. It is this : if we employ negroes as soldiers, and they are not employed on the rebel side, our negro sol- diers, if captured by the enemy, will be turned over to the States South for punishment, not according to the military code, but according to the laws of those States. Thus we would place the negroes in great peril per- haps of life, without having any means on our part adequately to redress their wrongs. Moreover, the Confederate States, if they have not begun this business of enlisting colored men, will not treat om- black soldiers as the equals of their white soldiers or of our white soldiers ; and the result will be, as many negroes at the North are shrewd enough to foresee, that they will, if captured, receive none of the advantages of the laws of war, but all the terrible consequences of being outlawed from the international code, slavery, imprisonment, and perhaps death. And how, sir, can we retaliate for any such injuries or outrages? As the gentleman from Kansas argued the other day, and as Vattel argued before him, a rebel- lion, when formidable, demands, in the name of humanity, the observance of the laws of civilized warfare, the laws of moderation and honor. There is a distinct society, organized de facto, in the South ; and the laws of war obtain the same as between two nations with regard to prisoners of war. These men in the South have great power, and although it may have been obtained wrongfully and outrageously, we must legislate on the facta as they exist. We must not shut our eyes to the fact that they are a power so formidable that we cannot, as an act of humanity to our soldiers, refuse to observe the laws of war, not as we would interpret them, but as they also may interpret them. No genuine friend of the negi'o would try to persuade him to take the position of a soldier in our army, knowing how the Confederate Government has determined to treat negro soldiers. The men who would try to dragoon him into that position are not liis friends. The poor negro, if he survive this conflict, will bitterly curse the very men who seem most to champion him, but whose championship has in it more of political consideration than of generous feeling. Mr. Edwards. I understand the gentleman that if these black sol- diers in our army should be captured by the enemy and be handed over to the civil authorities to be treated as felons, and their lives taken, or any 21 322 EIGHT YEAES EST CONGEESS. Other consequence visited upon them not known to the rules of civilized warfare, that the United States Government would have no remedy. Mr. Cox. What is your remedy ? Mr. Edavards. Retaliation. Mr. Cox. Retaliation — that is a rule which will soon turn this into a barbarous war. It has no limit — no law. It has but one end — bloody extermination. Mr. Edavakds. I would hang or shoot one of their soldiers every time they hung or shot one of ours. Mr. Cox. But suppose that they took the black soldiers they cap- tured and made slaves of them ; what would the gentleman do then ? Do you not remember what President Lincoln said to those Chicago preachers who called upon him to issue his proclamation ? Do you remember what he said in reference to the free negroes captured by the rebels at Harper's Ferry? He said, " What can I do? Mr. Greeley complains that I do not do something to reclaim them, or revenge them. But tchat can I do?" I ask the gentleman what could he have done? What has the President done to bring back those free negroes captured at Harper's Ferry by the rebels? Would you have him retaliate upon white rebels because they abuse the captured negroes? You will ansAver, Yes. Then what? Re- taliation again from them upon our white soldiers, and so on, until the Avar becomes unbearable to the Christian world, and an outrage upon all civilized codes. Mr. Edavards. I ansAver the gentleman that, under the laAvs of Avar, this Government is authorized to treat those Avhom Ave capture in battle as those captured from us are treated by the enemy. I ask the gentle- man from Ohio, now, whether if Jefferson Davis should carry out his threats against those he has captured from us, and subject to ignominy our Avhite officers, it Avould not be the duty of this Government to visit the same penalties upon the rebel officers Avhom Ave have captured from them? Mr. Cox. I know of no other way noAv by which properly to defend our officers Avho are captured. Such outrages Avill correct themselves. But would the gentleman pursue a policy Avhich Avould aggravate the Avar, by causing our Avhite men to be punished in return for the punishment of rebel Avhite soldiers, Avho might be punished in retaliation for the punish- ment of our negro soldiers Avho may be captured? I Avill remind the gentleman that there are a great many dilFiculties in the Avay of carrying out his theory. This is a formidable rebellion, so formidable as to be able to interpret practically the laAV of nations. AVhcthcr riglit or not, the rebel rulers hold that the use of slaves by us is an outrage upon the laAvs of civilized Avarfare. If they act on that doctrine, again I ask, Avith the Executive, Avhat arc Ave to do about it? This Government once un- dertook to punish certain men as pirates. They Avcrc put in prison, tried, convicted, and, I believe, sentenced to death. But Ave Avere advised that the South Avould retaliate ; and they did. They placed some of our best officers in prisons, and held them as felons. What did our Government do? Did it hang the pirates? Why not? It backed squarely out of its position. CIVIL WAK. 323 Mr. Kelley. If the gentleman will permit me, I want to say tliat not one of these men was sentenced. Mr. Cox. Why were they not sentenced ? Mr. Kelley. There was no final judgment against any of them ; there Avere motions for new trials pending in all the cases at the time this arrangement was made. Mr. Cox, Ah ! What arrangement was made by which these men were not hung? Mr. Kelley. That I cannot tell. Mr. Cox. They were exchanged as prisoners of war. The Govern- ment could not help it. I do not complain of the Government for that. It was an inexorable necessity. A President that cannot go fifty miles Eouth of his capital is limited de facto as to his power, though de jure his authority may run to the Gulf. This is, I repeat, a formidable rebellion. It intei'poses formidable obstacles in the way of your plans for making black soldiers, which it will be well to heed. You must cease underrating this rebellion. You must take into consideration the fact that this South- ern Confederacy has a power of checking and retaliating ; otherwise you will so imperil our white soldiers, to say nothing of the blacks, that the army will lack in recruits and lose its efficiency. I did not intend to refer to any thing except the historical question connected with the use of negroes in the revolutionary Avar, I could bring proof after proof that, as a system of policy, the negroes were ruled out of our revolutionary struggle. On the 18th of October, 1775, a com- mittee of conference, consisting of Dr. Franklin, Benjamin Harrison, and Thomas Lynch, with the deputy Governors of Connecticut and Rhode Island, and the committee of the Coimcil of Massachusetts Bay, met at Cambridge to confer with General Washington. Their object Avas to re- invigorate the army. On the 23d of October, says the historian (Histor- ical Notes, &c., by George H. Moore, librarian of the New York Histor- ical Society, p. 7), the negro question was presented and disposed of as follows : " Ought not negroes to be excludeil from the now enlistment, especially such as are slaves ? All were thought improper by the council ofBcers. " Agreed that they be rejected altogether." Again, in general orders, November 12, 1775, Washington says : "Neither negroes, boys unable to bear arms, nor old men unfit to endure the fatigues of the campaign, are to be enlisted." One of my colleagues [Mr. Hutchins] yesterday quoted Colonel Lau- rens, of South Carolina, as an authority to shoAv that negroes Avere used in the Revolution. Colonel Laurens Avas a zealous and enthusiastic friend of independence, and favored the use of the negro as the aid of his mas- ter in that struggle. His motive Avas good, noble, and patriotic. The English Generals Dunmore and Clinton had attempted to do what is now sought to be done, hurl the negroes into the Avar as an element of diabolic insurrection. Proffers were made to slaves to run aAvay and eidist in the English army. Thousands of slaves were lost. The Southern States Avere threatened by an army Avhich would overrun and desolate it ; and in the emergency Congress consented that the project of enlisting the negroes 324: EIGHT YEARS m CONGEESS. should bo submitted to Soutb Carolina and Georgia, or the governing powers of those States. Was this the adoption of the system of negro service ? Not at all. Laurens vpent to South Carolina and urged his scheme. He had some strong men to indorse it, not for lighting the flames of ser- vile war or inflaming anew the raging elements of a civil Avar growing out of the agitation of the servile relation, but to prevent these very re- sults, by organizing the slaves under and with their masters for the pro- tection of both from a foreign foe. What became of this project? The historian tells us that it encountered at once that strong, deep-seated feel- ing nurtured from earliest infancy among that people, which was ready to decide, with instinctive promptness, against " a measure of so threat- ening an aspect, and so offensive to that republican pride which disdains to commit the defence of the country to servile hands, or share with a color to which the idea of inferiority is inseparably connected, the profes- sion of arms, and that approximation of condition which must exist be- tween the regular soldier and the militia man." This reasoning of the elder day is applicable now. Men are black yet and white yet, and time has not changed them. We cannot help the fact that the negro is black. We cannot reverse the established order of Providence and make him white. And if we cannot do that, we can never eradicate from the great body of the white people of America that prejudice against the Idack race which has been carried from private life into the public ser- vice, and which, if you run counter to it, will destroy the vigor and esjmt of the army. Why, Mr. Speaker, perhaps one-third of our present army is made up of Irishmen. We know that a great part of the spirit of our army comes from the Celtic stock. Look at your Massachusetts regiments. I think that you will find in those regiments a majority of Irishmen. I tell you, sir, these Irishmen will not fight side by side Avith the negro. You might as well be warned of these things in time. You Avould listen to such warnings, if indeed you wished the army to succeed, and the Union restored. 1 know that in the revolutionary, times some States did allow negroes to enlist. New Hampshire allowed them. New Jersey disallowed the practice, true as ever to the most sensible views of public duty. New York did allow it at one time, but I think discouraged it as demoralizing and degi-ading. Wc have a report of a regiment raised in Massachusetts and quartered in New York, in which there were a few negroes. Of the eflfect of their military companionship upon the whites, it is said : " Even in this regiment there were a number of negroes, wliich, to persons unaccus- tomed to such associations, h.xd a disagreeable, degrading cll'ect." * I do not understand the arguments made on the other side of the House in favor of this measure. Some gentlemen propose not to mix black and white in the same company or regiment. Why? Give me a reason for it, and I will give you the reason why they should not be mixed in the same army. Gentlemen sliould not be so sensitive, who are willing that negi'oes should go into the same army. Mr. Speaker, tlie reason why this side of the House luis ibuglit this question so pertinaciously is the one which I gave when I asked to be ex- cused from voting, that it was a part of a plot to drive the border States I CIVIL WAK. 325 out of the Union. Gentlemen know very well, if they know any thing of the people of the border States north and south of the Ohio as represented in or out of the army, that they will never consent to the formation of this force of black janizaries for any purpose. They will but incite the people to mobs and mutiny. The people are not yet so degraded as to desire to save their Government by the aid of black brigades ; nor do I believe the projectors of this measure expect to save the Government by 8uch means. But if they had racked their brains for a contrivance of mischief to prevent a hearty cooperation by the border States with our cause, they could not find a more mischievously diabolical plan than this bill. There are momentous consequences dependent on this sort of legis- lation. I beg the House to pause before they adopt it. This bill pro- posed at first to raise a negro army of one hundred and fifty thousand. I believe that the substitute of the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens] is not limited to any number. The law as now existing gives the President the fullest discretion to " employ" negroes in the service. He may use these black brigades wherever and however he pleases. Do you believe that such a scheme wUl ever be started or pursued with suc- cess ? Will the people, sir, allow it to go on ? Gentlemen forget that the people exist, and have spoken. This legislation is in total disregard and contempt of their voice. They have spoken for the Democracy. They have a right thus to speak ; a right which the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Lovejoy] undertook to exercise on behalf of the honest masses and against the dishonest leaders of the Democracy ! He to speak for the Democratic people ! In his speech of yesterday he more than intimated that the Democracy Avere sympathizers with secession. He was called to an account by the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Dmm], who said that such remarks would have a bad effect in the country. Mr. Wickliffe. And in the array. Mr. Cox. I quote the reprimand of the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Dunn], for this slander upon the Democracy : " I have no especial regard for that institution, but I am afraid that such general, sweeping denunciations of the Democratic party as the gentleman has indulged in may have a bad effect. I, at least, have full faith in the loyalty of the great masses of the people of the loyal States, no matter to what party they may belong.!' What did he mean by that? Why Avould the slander of the Jacobin from Illinois produce a bad eflfect in the country ? Was it because it was untrue ? Was it because it was unwise ? What was the object of that particular reprimand? I Avill teU you. The gentleman from Indiana knows that the great body of this army that answered the call of the President, and entered into a war to be carried on in pursuance of the resolution of the extra session of Congress, offered by the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Crittenden], went out to fight the battle of the Union and the Constitution, and when that object was accomplished, they be- lieved the war should stop. They never went into a crusade of abolition ; and when denounced as secessionists, because not abolitionists, the " bad effect of such sweeping denunciations " might appear in both army and people. After this overhauling of the Illinois member by the member from Indiana, the former changed his denunciations from the Democracy 326 EIGHT YEAES KT CONGEESS. to its leaders, here and elsewhere. The denunciation gained nothing in truth or decency by the change. Here is what he said : " I did not refer to the honest masses of the Democratic party. If they had seen the cloven foot manifested by the Democratic leaders in this House, and in different portions of the country, they would never have given them a seat here. Governor Seymour would not have been elected Governor of New York. The people know them now. AVe knew that the leaders were in s^inpathy with the secessionists, but it did not manifest itself. The emancipation policy of the President brought it out. Last year the gentleman from Kentucky eulogized the President. He almost put him on a niche by the side of Wash- ington. We have not heard one word of eulogy of the President from that gentleman at this session." The member from Illinois tliought that the President's emancipation proclamation was like Ithiiriel's spear, that it had developed the seces- sion sympathies of the Democratic party, or of its representatives here. I wanted to remind the gentleman at the time, that the " diamond-pointed proclamation " was issued thirty days before the election ; and that as soon as it appeared, the people took the alarm, and they gave an unrivalled ma- jority to the Democrats over their opponents. The other side of the Chamber was defeated by that unwise, ill-timed, and seditious proclama- tion. The gentleman from Illinois said the other day, that he thought there would be a reversal of the late elections, and that he looked forward with pleasure to that result. Some time ago he said that we could not beat them again. Perhaps not, and for a good reason ; for his remark reminds me of the dog which had his tail cut off, and then turned around to the man and said, " You cannot do that again." [Great laughter.] Why, sir, the late elections took from that side of the House from twenty to thirty members, and added them to the Democratic side. Tlie gentleman said something about the secession sympathy of the Governor of New York ; that he did not represent the loyal element of that State. If the Governor elected by the people does not represent tho loyal element, who does ? If the gentlemen reelected to this House do not represent the loyal sentiment, who does ? I would like to know whether my colleagues from Ohio on the other side represent the loyal sentiment of Ohio ? If they do, that loyal sentiment is in a minority ; and that is not an unpleasant message to send out to Jefferson Davis. This vituperation is a slander upon the majority of the people of the North. We on this side are the representatives of the people. We have no sym- pathy with secession ; neither have the people of the North ; none. Wo have in our own way sustained this Government. I have voted all tho men and money last session and this session to carry on this war. But, notwithstanding all this, we arc, forsooth, to be stigmatized by the gentle- man from Illinois as secession sympathizers ! A few days ago, in tho same strain of vituperation, he took me to task, too, for a speech on Puri- tanism, which I made in New York city. For lack of something better, he referred to my small size. My only response to this coarse and irrele- vant mode of debate, is this epitaph for the gentleman, Avhich I once mot with, and which, slightly changed, would answer all that he can say of the Democracy during his life, and suit his case very appropriately afler death : CIVIL WAE. 327 " Beneath this stone Owen Lotejoy lies, Little in every thing — except in size ; [Laughter.] What though his burly body fills this hole, Yet through hell's keyhole crept his little soul." [Great laughter.] PERSONAL LIBERTY. MILITAET ORDEKS AGAINST FREE SPEECH QUESTION IN MK. VALLANDIGHAll'S CASE. A FEW days after the arrest of Mr. Vallandigliam, at the annual May- Convention of the Democracy of Licking County, Ohio, Mr. Cox spoke as follows : — Citizens of Licking : In the last Congress you were my constituents. It is proper that I should answer your call to address you ; for you should know every reason for every vote I gave as your Repre- sentative. I shall not be cleterred from this duty to you by any fear from any quarter ; nor shaU recent events and daily threats provoke me to utter sentiments less patriotic or more immoderate than I have been wont to utter. Come threats, come imprisonment, come torture, or come death itself, my lips shall not be locked. I shall do this to-day, not in the spirit of bravado, not for any sickly desire for martyrdom ; but because I re- spect the law, as the supreme authority and rule of my conduct. If I speak in this spirit, I may bring the policy of the Administration into disrepute, but I shall magnify the Government thereby. General HascaU, in his order No. 38, has interdicted all such speaking as will make the Administration disreputable ; and he has said that Gen- eral Burnside has approved of that order. I hope this is not true. Gen- eral Burnside could not have approved of that order, and then have told Judge Leavitt in his return to the habeas corpus in Vallandigham's case, that " if the people do not approve the policy of the Administration, they can change the constitutional authorities of the Government at the proper time and in the proper method." What time and method ? At and by the elections provided by law. To this we all agree. No going to jail for say- ing that. Nor is General Burnside so absurd as to accord to us the priv- ilege of election, without the means to make up om* minds as to the policy of men to be voted for ; for he goes on to say : " Let them freely discuss the policy in a proper tone." Very good, I agree to that. No bonds for me yet. If therefore by a " proper tone " I should bring the Administra- tion into disrepute, General Burnside wiU not send me to prison. Indeed, I do not think an improper tone can ever bring any one into disrepute ex- cept him who uses it. But General Burnside would stop what he calls " license and intemperate discussion." Had such discussion been prohib- ited years ago, this war would not be on us now. As to the propriety of stopping that sort of disctission by military arrests, even if they were legal, I dissent ; but as to the bad taste and policy of such discussion I should agree. No " offence " in saying that, I trust. The same thing has been said in various ways since men wrote with the stylus, or Cadmtis made the alphabet. Indeed, he weakens his cause, who uses an intemperate or licentious tone. Is he therefore to be suppressed? His statements may be falsehoods, hiS logic fallacies, his principles abhorrent, and his 328 EIGHT YEAES EST CONGRESS. motives base ; all these do not furnisli a reason "wliy he should be pro- hibited from utterinnj his views. Why, even the New York "Tribune" has said that "our Federal and State Constitutions do not reco^rnize per- verse opinions, nor unpatriotic speeches, as gi'ounds of infliction." We must, to be faithful citizens, take the dross with the gold, in the current discussions of the day. Better let the little speck of license remain upon the eye, than put out the orbs of public intelligence, and live in sightless and despotic gloom. The people of this land cannot change their nature nor their education. Much as they may deprecate bad sentiments, they prefer to see them flash like powder innocuously above ground, than, pent up, explode with fearful ruin and combustion. How can the laggard authorities be urged to duty and tyrannical oflicials be lashed into dis- cretion, especially in time of war, wiien power tends to play fantastic tricks and aggrandize its importance and function, except by bold discus- sion? In the Cabinet, in the public Assemblage, in the Court, in the Legislature, among all parties, everywhere. Reason should be allowed a free combat with Error. If Error strikes foul, the public Avill know how to award the prize. It is in the spirit I have indicated, of decorous and discreet moderation, that I propose to discuss the question, uppermost in your mind, connected with the arrest of Mr. Vallandigham. It is unne- cessary for me to denounce his arrest as illegal. I come not to stimulate passion. I ask you to practise the courage of endurance, to the end that we may more speedily have a remedy. No amount of temporary restraint will prevent popular action. As a matter of philosophy, and not as a de- fiance, I state what you know, that Democratic thought is irrepressibly outspoken ; and that for every Democrat restrained, a hundred will leap to his place and court the honors of persecution. The question involved in Mr. Vallandigham's arrest does not concern him alone. If it is a breach of law, it involves the fate of each and all. His arrest is a breach of the Constitution, State and Federal, which provides for tlie security of the people " in their parsons, houses, papers, and eflects ; " ■which forbids that any one should be held to answer for any crime except by indictment ; which ])rotects life, liberty, and property by the processes of law ; and which declares for free speech without abridg- ment. This view is conclusive, but the state of civil war enlarges the discussion. The question in that view is : Can a citizen, not connected with the army of the United States, remote from the scene of its operations, and in Ohio, where all the laws of the land are yet enforced by constitutional means, be subjected to military arrest, imprisonment, and trial before a military commission and punishment at its discretion, cither for offences unknown to the law, or, if known, for which the law has provided a mode of trial and penalty? In other Avords : In this time of great i)eril, has the Federal legislature, after two years of war, failed to provide for all its emergencies? and, if it has failed, can the Executive act instantly and beyond the limits of the law, at his discretion? Iq pursuing these ques- tions, I hold : 1. That Congress has provided for llie offence alleged against Mr. Vallandigham. In the specifications he is charged with various expres- sions, " all of which opinions and sentiments he well knew did aid, com- CIVIL WAK. 329 fort, and encourage those in arms against the Government, and could but induce in his hearers a distrust of their own Governmeot, sympathy for those in arms against it, and a disposition to resist the laws of the land." In the laws passed by the last Congress, such an ofieace is made pun- ishable. By an act approved July 17, 1862, to '•' suppress insurrection," etc. {U. B. Statutes, p. 589), known as the confiscatiou act, it is pro- vided (sec. 2) that if any person " shall give aid or comfort to the re- bellion or insurrection and be convicted thereof, such person shall be pun- ished " by fine and imprisonment and disqualification for office. In the 14th section, the Courts of the United States are given " full power" to institute all proceedings under the law. This would be sufficient as to the crime as alleged and the tribunal to try it ; but Congress did not stop there. By an act approved March 3, 1863, known as the act relating to the habeas corpus ( U. S. Statutes, p. 755, etc.), from which I now read, the President is authorized to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, " in any case throughout the United States, or any part of it." Whenever and wherever the writ is suspended, no mil- itary or other officer is bound to answer the writ by the production of the body ; but the judge shall, on notice that the prisoner is held under the President's order, suspend all proceedings under the habeas corpus. By the same law the Departments of State and of War are to furnish to the judges of the districts the names of political prisoners who were arrested therein, for civil trial. If the accused are not indicted, the judge is to order a discharge, and the custodian is to execute the order. In case the Departments fail to send such a list, to the judges, any citizen may do it and obtain the discharge of the prisoner. These laws are in force. They were made by a Republican Congress. They were made for this very exigency. This civil war was in contem- plation when they were passed. It was intended by these laws to prevent arbitrary arrests and inquisitorial tribunals of mih'tary men. It was in- tended by them to guarantee an accusatorial trial, openly, with indict- ment, by a jury selected impartially, and v/ho should return an absolute verdict. It will be remembered that two days after the Emancipation proclamation, to wit, September 24, 1863, the President issued another proclamation subjecting all persons " to trial by courts-martial and mil- itary commissions " who were found " affording aid and corfifort to the rebels." The same proclamation suspended the habeas corpus for all such persons. If, then, you would understand the \?l\v% of March 3, 1863, re- member it was intended expressly to ignore the right of the President to issue that proclamation, without authority from Congress. The first sec- tion substantially disallows the right of the President to suspend the writ, without the assent of Congress thereto. The other section quoted provides civil trial for those arrested. Would you know the moti\ e whicli prompted the law of March? Read the debates of the last session. The arbitrary arrests of the last summer were condemned at the last fall elections. In Vermont, in Massachusetts, in New York, in New Jersey, in Iowa, in Ohio — everywhere, far and aloof from military precincts, such arrests were made. The names of the victims are familiar. The election oper- ated, as the miracle of old did, to open the prison doors. When, on the first day of the last session, I offered a resolution denouncing these arrests, 830 EIGHT YEAES IN CONGEESS. and calling on the President to stop tliem, it was voted down by the Re- publicans ; yet many of their best men refused to sanction such proceed- ings. Cowan, Browning, Kellogg, and others, felt the necessity of pro- viding for the relief of all civilians from military arrest and trial. They digested this plan of turning them over to the civil authorities for indict- ment, trial, and punishment, or discharge. Thus was secured, by the last Republican Congress, that penal trial upon which Montesquieu thought " that chiefly the liberty of the citizen depended." Thus was secured that " key-stone of a nation's public law " — a fair penal trial, without which liberty is but a sounding name. In Ohio there had been no suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. It was, therefore, the duty of Judge Leavitt to see to it that Mr. Vallan- dinghara had the benefit of the Avrit. The implication of the law I have quoted, required the Judge to issue it. I say nothing of the constitutional right of every one imprisoned, as of course, to have the writ. What busi- ness was it of his whether General Burnside would or would not execute it? He must have known the history of this writ of freedom — of this glorious result of the long sti;uggle between law and power. He must have learned that the law had triumphed in the struggle, and that however it might be in France, where an iron rod was the staff of justice, in America and England, at common law, individual liberty and public justice were not empty words to make " earth sick and heaven weary," but practical realities, made so by the independence of the judiciary and the majesty of law. So long as the writ had not been suspended in Ohio, nor martial law declared, the Judge had no right to refuse it, even to the meanest criminal. Had he allowed it, how do we know but that Gen. Burnside woidd have taken counsel of the Attorney-General, Mr. Bates, who. as an honest ofS- cer, would have advised that Gen. Burnside should either have returned the body, or have complied with the law of March 3, 1863, and have at once notified the Judge that he could not return the body, by reason of the suspension of habeas corpus in Ohio ; or, perhaps, the Secretary of War might have handed in the name of Mr. Vallandigham to the Judge for " due process of law," by indictment and trial in obedience to the law of March 3, 1863. By the failure or neglect of Mr. Stanton to com- ply with his part of the law of March 3. 1863, it is now impossible to comply with its provisions, since Mr. Vallandigham is removed, by the act of our military, outside of its lines. If Mr. Vallaudigham's name were placed upon the list sent to Judge Leavitt, it is now too late to afford him the civil trial provided by the Republican Congress. As your repre- sentative during the Congress Avhich enacted the laws referred to, I de- clare to you that the avowed object of that legislation was to save the nation from any more of the disgraceful scenes of the last summer, when citizens were seized without warrant, imprisoned witliout law, and dis- missed without hearing. In uttering your protest against this infraction of law, fellow citizens, you give the best assurances of your fidelity to the Government. If the present Administration desire to provoke no hostility to the jaws ; if they would cultivate the respect of the opposition ; if they would that the peo- ple, North and South, should look to them as the honored ministers of CIVIL WAR. 331 justice, let them heed the appeals of their own wiser men and journals, and stop instantly this system of unexampled terrorism, which is slowly but surely producing disintegration, distrust, and anarchy in society. 2. But if Vallandigham's case is not included in those provided against by the laws I have quoted, then it is no oiFence at all, unless it be treason. We know that treason cannot be tried except in pursuance of certain fixed constitutional rules, and that these rules have not been pursued in this case. Where, then, does the chief Executive or his agents get this power of arrest ? It is said by its advocates to be an implied power, belonging to the Commander-in-Chief of the army. In this capacity, it is said that he can, in subduing the enemy, use any power in his opinion necessary to that end. If so, then he has no limit but his own will. Such power is purely despotic. True, he has all the power, and no other, of the Gene- ral-in-Chief of the army, but it is confined to the sphere of actual opera- tions, and all such power is derived from and must be subordinate to the law which creates it. To command the army as its first chief, is not to have supreme control over all citizens, for that belongs to legislation, and the Executive cannot legislate. He cannot erect tribunals. Pie cannot create offences. He cannot arrest arbitrarily citizens Avho are not sol- diers. Is martial law pleaded ? Why, this has not yet been declared over the whole country. Nor does it apply where there is no army or rebellion. It was not applied to Ohio at all, nor to Dayton till after the arrest. Judge Curtis thus refers to this extraordinary power, asserted for the Com- mander-in-Chief: " But when the military commander controls the person or property of citizens, who are beyond the sphere of his actual operations in the field, wlien he makes laws to gov- ern their conduct, he becomes a legislator. Those laws may be made actually operative ; obedience to them may be enforced by military power ; their purposes may be solely to support and recruit his annies, or to weaken the power of the enemy with whom he is contending. But he is legislator still ; and whether his edicts are clothed in the form of proclamations, of military orders, by whatever name they may be called, they are laws. If he have the legislative power conferred on him by the people, it is well. If not, he usurps it. " He has no more lawful authority to hold all the citizens of the entire country, out- side of the sphere of his actual operations in the field, amenable to his military edicts, than he has to hold all the propcrti/ of the country subject to his military requisitions. He is not the mihtary commander of the citizens of the United States, but of its soldiers." If what Judge Curtis says be true, the power which has thus arrested one of our citizens, and created an ofTence, or a strange tribunal to try a real or alleged offence, is usurpation. If Judge Curtis be not mistaken, and if the Republican Supreme Court of Wisconsin are not also mistaken in a similar judgment ; if the commentators and jurists of the land are not in error, then Governor Seymour has not overstated the case, when he says such conduct " will not only lead to military despotism, it estab- lishes military despotism." In Ohio the civil machinery of the State has not stopped. Every part of it was running without jar under the Constitution. The Courts were open, the process of the State unimpeded, not a single pulley, lever, joint, wheel, or cog out of place — all evolving out of harmony, order, peace, and security. Discussion was free ; printing unrestricted ; meet- ings public ; the ballot-box and all other elements of freedom were un- impaired ; Avhen, lo ! a citizen is seized in his own house, in the night 332 EIGHT TEAES IN CONGEESS. time, and by military force taken befoj-e a military tribunal, and by a mode of seizure and duress unknown to the ins<^itutions of the State, to answer for an oifence, for the trial of which a law had already been passed, and a different tribunal already designated ! He is tried, and justice laughs at the mockery. He is sentenced to be thrust within the borders of a formidable rebellion, who.«e success he had everywhere dep- recated. AVhat can come of it ? What does it forebode ? What does it mean ? Horace Greeley told the truth when he said that this banish- ment was the Avorst joke which Mr. Lincoln had yet perpetrated. Pre- cisely what Mr. Greeley means I cannot say ; but if Mr. Vallandigham declares boldly in the South, as he has in the North, against the inde- pendence of their section, and the infernal atrocity of their war against our Government, this exile will be a comedy of errors. If Mr. Vallan- digham should, through what he may conceive to be the injustice of the North, or the blandishments of the South, show the least sympathy with the rebellion and its objects, I shall be mistaken in his character. His Democratic friends will be the first to anathematize such recreancy. Time, to which he has appealed, will solve the wisdom or the unwisdom, tbe seriousness or jocoseness of this peculiar punishment. 3. What crime was sought to be thus punished? Mr. Vallandigham's speech at Mount Vernon was the ostensible, but his sentiments as to the war, expressed for two years, was the real offence. But would theso come within the law of July 17, 1862? If so, let him be tried legally for las peace principles under that law. In his Mount Vernon speech he did not indulge in any urgent appeals for peace. He confined himself to denouncing the Administration for the infractions of the Constitution. He urged compliance with law and obedience to legitimate authority. His speech there allayed excitement, and estopped all tendency to violence. It is on record, that on some most material questions, my votes and speeches were not in accordance with Mr. Vallandigham's. I differed with him then, and yet differ, as you know, as to his peace policy ; but upon that occasion, I said very little that would not be obnoxious to the same punishment, if, indeed, his speech there were obnoxious. Yet my speech was reported as " harmless ; " his as " dangerous." I think I am right in assuming that Mr. Vallandigham's peace policy was the real reason of his arrest. This again enlarges the discussion. Had he a right to indulge in unwise and unpatriotic speeches? Supposing that he is wrong and others right, still there remains an important question, sometliing more momentous than the arrest of one man. It is the right of free speech. It is the right always exercised in time of war by some one in favor of peace ; a right indispensable to the attainment of the very object of war, which is peace. Tiiis right has been always used in time of war, as well in England as in America. To vindicate that right before you would be superfluous. As well reargue the principle of gravitation, (he circulation of the blood, or the existence of light. The time was when John Milton wrote his s'^holarly defence of unlicensed printing, and proved the thesis of Euripides, fixed in immortal Greek at the head of his chapter, that " This is true liborly, when fi-ccborn men, llaviug to advise the public, mxy speak free." CIVIL WAE. 333 Time was when his Puritan thunder echoed through the English land, and made the Parliaments listen to his plea for the liberty of discourse on all subjects, without the imprimatur of censor or the supervision of the provost. With what sterling sense he pleaded for that free speech, which allowed the wise man to gather the gold from the drossiest volume, and which did not fear to add any more folly to the fool. " The State," said he, " shall be my governor, but not my critic ! " What he thought then, at the dawn of English popular freedom, the courts of England afterwards applied to both religion and politics. On the 24th of July, 1797, Thomas Williams was tried before Lord Kenyon for printing Tom Paine's attack on Christianity. The great Lord Erskine defended him. While he rep- robated the object of the Infidel in his "Age of Reason," he viudicated, with an angelic eloquence which has made his speech the verdict of mil- lions, the most unbounded freedom of discussion, even to the challenging of error in the Constitution itself, and especially in its administration. Hear his noble sentimeuts : " Although every community must establish supreme authorities, founded upon fixed principles, and must give high powers to magistrates to administer laws for the preserva- tion of the Government itself, and for the security of those who are to be protected by it; yet, as infallibility and perfection belong neither to human establishments nor to human individuals, it ought to be the pohcy of all free establishments, as it is most peculiarly the principle of our own Constitution, to permit the most unbounded freedom of discus- sion, even by detecting errors in the Constitution or administration of the very Govern- ment itself, so as that decorum is observed, which every State must exact from its sub- jects, and which imposes no restraint upon any intellectual composition, f lirly, honestly, and decently addressed to the consciences and understandings of men. Upon this prin- ciple I have an unquestionable right — a right which the best subjects have exercised — to examine the principles and structure of the Constitution, and by fair, manly reasoning, to question the practice of its administrators. I have a right to consider and to point out errors in the one or in the other ; and not merely to reason upon thtir existence, but to consider the means of their reformation. By such free, well-intentioned, modest, and dignified communication of sentiments and opinions, all nations have been gradually im- proved, and milder laws and purer religions have been established." Under such a large-minded philosophy, we could tolerate a Wendell Phillips, so long as there is left reason to combat his heresies of hate. But if ^ve are only to have freedom of speech from the Phillipses and other ranters against our system of government, while those are throttled who to preserve that system would correct its administration, then indeed is Liberty manacled and Reason in irons. These old discussions I had thought would never have been revived, except to honor the heroism of the early martyrs who like Algernon Sid- ney died for freedom of thought, or to admire their graceful style of ex- pression through which the soul of heroism shone. We had already gemmed upon the forehead of our time the resplendent coronal of free thought and free printing and free speech. They were the crown jewels of popular sovereignty. They have not been shut up in caskets, like the jewels of princes, but set in our fundamental law — not for a life only, but for a nation's life, to shine with their " silent capabilities of light" for an immortaUty ! With what a glorious fervor Daniel Webster vindicated this right ! His sentiment you have recognized by adopting it as one of your resolu- tions to-day. His comprehensive mind saw in free debate the scholar's 334 EIGHT YEAES IN CONGEESS. Stimulus, the philosopher's stone, the statesman's policy, the citizen's pro- tection, and the religionist's faith ! lie saw in it the rod for error, the plummet of truth, and the car of advancement. Especially did he find in its guarantee a nation's capacity and repose, a people's liberty and happi- ness. He saw that reason would lose her great office, the pen its pun- gency and power, and eloquence its fervor and force, if freedom of thought and speech Avas circumscribed. What Webster saw and expressed with the glow of. a great heart, Thomas Jefferson has handed down in his inaugural message, wherein he has impearled forever the principles of Democratic liberty : a jealous care of the right of election ; the supremacy of the civil over the military authority ; the diffusion of information, and the arraignment of all abuses at the bar of public reason ; freedom of the press and freedom of person, under the protection of the habeas corpus and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages, the blood of our heroes, have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civil instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust ; and should we wander from them in moments of error find alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which leads to peace, liberty, and safety. I would to God that I could read to Mr. Lincoln, with such commen- tary as history furnishes, these principles of his philosophic and Demo- cratic predecessor, that he might retrace his steps with regard to these extraordinary arrests. I woidd implore him, with that respect due to his high office, and forgetting all considerations but the honor and safety of the people of Ohio whose representative in part I have been so long, to pause before he precipitates any part of our people into the despair which is fast gathering upon their hearts. I would beseech him, in the language of his proclamation for national humih'ation, in the name of that God who overrules the designs of Presidents and the orders of Generals, not to add to the '' awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land," other and worse " punishments for our presumptuous sins." I would beseech him not to turn away from the earnest question which Horatio Seymour has propound.nl : '• Whether this war is waged to put down rebellion at the South or destroy free institutuons at the North ; " but to answer it magnanimously by retracing his steps, releasing and stopping at once and forever this system of arrest and inquisitorial trial. He would thus as- sure you whose sons and brothers are in the field, that our Government shall not Ije subverted in the North, while our gallant soldiers arc main- taining it with their lives in the South. CIVIL WAK. 335 MAGNA CHARTA— ITS SANCTITY. Extract from a speech delivered in Cooper Institute, in November, 1863. The traveller who visits that island meadow in the river Thames, near Windsor, now used as a race course, and still known as Runnymedc, does not go there to see the racing, but because that meadow marks an era in the progress of human freedom. There, six hundred and forty-four years ago, on the morning of the 12th of August, the iron-clad barons met King John, and wrested from him the same rights which have been violated by Abraham Lincoln, and ostracized by the indemnity bill of the last Con- gress. [Cheers.] These rights were written in the Latin of that day, " Nullns liher homo capiatiir." Dead language, but vital with liberty — which Chatham said was worth all the classics. " No free man shall be arrested or imprisoned or deprived of his own free household, or of his liberties, or of his own free customs, or out- lawed, or banished, or injured in any manner, nor will we pass sentence upon him, nor send trial upon him, unless by the legal judgment of his peers or by the law of the land" [Cheers.] This waS the germ of our civil freedom, which the pigmies of to-day are endeavoring to uproot, now that it has grown from the acoi'n to the oak ! As another (Judge Thomas of Massachusetts) has so finely ex- pressed it : " From the gray of that morning streamed the rays, which, uplifting with the hours, coursing with the years, and keeping pace with the centuries, have encircled the whole earth -with the glorious light of English liberty — the liberty for which our fathers planted these common- wealths in the wilderness ; for which they went through the baptism of blood and fire in the Revolution ; which they imbedded and hoped to make immortal in the Constitution ; without which the Constitution would not be worth the parchment on which it was written." [Cheers.] As if to make this great charter sacred forever in the Anglo-Saxon memory, to connect it with the holiest emotions of religion, and to sanction it by the hopes and the terrors of the unseen world, the Catholic hie- rarchy of that day — long before Protestantism arose, before the Refor- mation, before we had the transcendental light of our Puritan preach- ers [laughter] — this Catholic hierarchy, then the friend of the oppressed and the people, Avere convoked a few days after the unwilling king signed the charter. Picture to your eye that great convocation. It met in Westminster Abbey, the mausoleum of the dead royalty and genius of Britain. Here was the king upon his throne, sceptred and crowned, impurpled in his robes of office ; near him were the lords temporal in their scarlet gowns ; on his right were the gentlemen of England representing the Commons, the people of the realm ; and within the altar were the lords spiritual, clad in all the pomp of their pontifical apparel ! In the midst stood Stephen Langton, the primate of England, Archbishop of Canterbury. The great organ rolls its music amidst the Gothic arches ; the air, sutfused with a dim religious light from the stained windows, trembles with the thrill of " symphony divine," and the choir sing Te Deum 336 EIGHT YEAES EST CONGEESS. laudamus — praise to God for the groat charter of human freedora ! Cen- sers SAving and the incense rises, an offering to the God of justice ! And in that impressive presence the Archbishop arises, and gathering upon his brow and in Iiis voice the terrors of the invisible and eternal world, he se- questers and excludes, and from the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, from the company of the saints in heaven and the good on earth, he forever excommunicates and accurses eveiy one who should dare violate that great charter of Anglo-Saxon freedom ! [Cheers.] Think you, men of New York, these curses are not living yet ? A Massachusetts Senator has said that your honored Governor is now being dragged at the chariot of & Federal Executive, usurping the rights of the people and violating the gi'eat charter, as eternized in our traditions, our history, and our Consfci- tution. But the people of this country arc meeting as of old, not in any Gothic minster, not in the presence of the great hierarchs, not v/ith cere- mony of Church and State, not to the music of organ and choir or the rising incense of praise, not amidst the fulminations of primates ; but under the great sky of heaven, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi ; and they, too, are sequestering and excluding, excommunicating and accurs- ing — and from the body of the just God in heaven and from the company of the good and patriotic everywhere — all the minions of power who have dared iu this age and land to violate these sacred rights of personal and constitutional liberty. [Great cheers. J CONFISCATION. ITS niSTORT ESPEniENCE OF IRELAND CAN BELLIGERENCY AND TREASON EXIST TOGETIIER ? PHILOLOGY TROGRESSITE — CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS EFFECTS OF CONFISCATION. "It is advisable to exceed in lenity rather than in severity ; to banish but few rather than many ; and to leave them their estates, instead of making a vast number of conliscations. Under pretence of avenging the republic's cause, the avengers would establish tyranny. The business is not to destroy the rebel, but the rebellion. Tiicy ought to return as quickly as possible into the usual track of government, in which every one is protected by the laws, and no one hijured." — Montesquieu. The joint resolution explanatory of the Confiscation Act being before the House, on January 14, 18G4, Mr. Cox said : — I do not desire to detain the House at any length. The general subject of confiscation, its legality and policy, was exhaustively discussed in the last Congress. I may be allowed to add a few considerations to those which liave heretofore been offered here : first, as to the general policy of the confiscation system, with a view to putting down this rebcUion ; and secondly, as to tlie specific mode pointed out by this bill and its proposed amendments. My impres- sion is, that the confiscation system has been an utter failure. Because it has failed, we are to have it newly tinkered session after session, and from day to day, 'with a view to encourage rapacity and aggravate griev- ances. Such h^gislation, sir, only stimulate? rebellion. It destroys what remnant of Union feeling may be still remaining in the South. It ignores CIVIL WAE. 337 the first lesson of history, what has been truly called " the principal obser- vation of the best historians, that a whole nation, how contemptible soever, should not be so incensed by any prince or State, how powerful soever, as to be driven to take desperate courses." Instead of disarming the rebel, it arms him, when nearly exhausted, with the weapons of revenge and despair. Mr. Burke once said, speaking of America : " You cannot frame an indictment against a whole people." History is, alas ! too full of ex- amples of the ruthless savagery of confiscation. In proportion to the atrocities have been the resistance of the people and the desolation of the lands to which such savagery has been applied. If I should wish to pre- sent a case where all the horrors of subjugation, penury, devastation, and confiscation have been felt, I would go to Ireland. Crushed by the cruelty of a system similar to that now and here sought to be inaugurated, Ire- land points with skeleton finger continually in all her sad history a warning to our rulers. I do not think these cruelties of England toward Ireland are attributable solely to the Puritan spirit of the time of Crom- well, although I find in her history an appeal from New England, in the person of one of her pastors, to Old England, to make the " English sword drunk with Irish blood, to make them heaps upon heaps, their country a dwelling-place for dragons, an astonishment to nations." These excesses were not the result of religious bigotry alone. They date from the ear- liest connection of Ireland with England. AU her rebellions were the reaction of sutFering against rapine. AYith permission, I extract from Smythe's Ireland, Historical and Statistical, volume eleven, page 117, the terrible lesson I have pondered on the general subject of confiscation. After the expulsion of James 11. from the throne of England, the slender rel- ics of Irish possessions became the subject of fresh confiscations. From a report made in 1698, it appears that nearly 4,000 Irish subjects were out- lawed, and their possessions, amounting to 1,060,792 acres, were confis- cated. The area of Ireland is estimated at 11,042,682 acres. The his- torian says, that the forfeitures in the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth were 2,838,972 acres ; in the reign of James I., at the Restoration, and in 1688, the forfeitures were 11,697,629 acres ; so that the whole island has been confiscated, and some parts twice. In one century no inconsiderable por- tion of the island was confiscated twice, or perhaps thrice ; so that at the Union, the situation of Ireland was unparalleled in the history of the world. Such universal ruin only served then, as it will serve in this devoted land, to inspire hatred and scorn between the conquered people and the victors who trampled upon them. Retaliation and murder ever follow closely upon the heels of confiscation. There is not a wise writer who has pic- tured this history but has condemned the impolicy, not to say illegality, of the forfeitures. They operated always against the conclusion of the war. Had the Irish been regarded as alien enemies instead of domestic rebels, they would have had one relief — they would have retained their posses- sions under the established law of civilized nations. If I were to assume the premises sometimes assumed by gentlemen upon the other side of the House, that this war is a territorial war, and that every man, woman, and child, loyal or disloyal, within the limits of the belligerent territory are alien enemies, and should suffer all the conse- quences of belligerency, according to the law of nations, then there would 22 338 EIGHT YEARS m CONGRESS. be no foundation at all for acts of this kind.* If the rebel becomes an alien enemy, you c£yinot confiscate the private projierty as these bills pro- pose. If there be a line of force, protected by bayonets, which, accord- ing to the Supreme Court in the Hiawatha case, makes the confederacy a defado government ; if this be true, as argued by the Solicitor of the War Department, and as has been argued by a gentleman in tlie other end of the Capitol, then there can be no confiscation of rebel property at all in the manner prescribed by the confiscation act. But I do not propose to inquire too curiously into this matter, though it may well engage the atten- tion of jurists to inquire how treason can be alleged or confiscation follow where the accused were under the dominion of a power capable of coercing allegiance to it and holding the sword of the magistrate de facto, though not de jure. Protection and allegiance are correlative. T^Tiile govern- ment gives the one, it may command the other. If it fail to give protec- tion, would it be just or rational to punish for treason? This subject is treated in the books, and, indeed, was the subject of English statutes. It is thus stated by a writer in the New American Cyclopcedia, under the title Treason : " But, from the obvious absurdity of exacting from every individual a sound, or rather a fortunate, judgment as to the obscure and comphcated grounds on which the claim to sovereignty often rested, it became and still remains a well-settled rule, that no one incurs the guilt of treason by adherence to a king or government de facto, although that king or government has but the right of a successful rebel, and loses it all by a subsequent defeat." * A succinct statement of this heresy is to be found in a letter of William Whiting, Esq., the Solicitor of the War Department, addressed to the " Union League of Philadel- phia," in exposition of the political situation created by the progress of the war. In this publication Mr. Whiting contends that the war between the Government and the insur- gents has at present reached such a stage tliat, alike in law and in fact, it has become a " territorial civil war," that is, as he adds, " a war by all persons situated in the belliger ent tciritory against the United States." He says : " Whenever two nations arc at war, every subject of one belligerent nation is a public pnemy of the other. An individual may be a personal friend and at the same time a pub- lic enemy to the United States. The law of war defines international relations. When the civil war in America became a territorial war, every citizen residing in the belligerent districts became a public enemy, irrespective of his private sentiments, whether loyal or disloyal, friendly or hostile, Unionist or Secessionist, guilty or innocent." According to this logic, therefore, every citizen and subject of the Southern Govern- ment, whetlier loyal or disloyal, friendly or hostile, Unionist or Secessionist, guilty or in- nocent, black or white, bond or free, is to be held and treated as a public enemy of the United States. The rights of persons inhabiting the seceded States are thus comprehensively defined : ^'' Each person inhabiting those sections of the country declared by the President's proclamation to be in rebellion hcu^ the rir/hl to what belongs to a jnihltc aicini/, and no more. lie can have no right to take any part in our Govenmient. That right does not belong to an enemy of tlie country while lie is waging war or after he has been subdued. A public enemy has a right to partici|)ate in or to as.sume the (iovcnmient of the United States only when he has conquered the Ignited States. We find in this well-settled doc- trine of belligerent law the solution of all (luestions in relation to State rights. After the inhahifants of a district hare become pnhlic enemies, thci/ hare no rights, cither State or pcrxoiinl against the United Stales. They arc belligerents only, and have left to them only belligerent rights." If this he true— which, however, I deny — then those who urge it at least are estopped from urging trials for treason, and confiscations as the penalty. There can be no treason ia case of a belligereut who is in the position of a public cucmv. civrL WAR. 339 It seems to Lave been adopted by the dominant party in this House that this conjfiscation system shall, if possible, be carried out in the South. They cannot do it and make it effective under the Constitution. They must do it over that instrument and in spite of its limitations. All the forfeiture which they can obtain under the Constitution is simply the life estate of those who are convicted of treason ; and as that life estate is no longer than the halter with which the man is hung, the results would not be worth the paias. Avarice would not be sated by a life estate. Its maw must be gorged. It must have all. Hence, from some motive or other not creditable to our human nature, whether it be from unchristian malice or corrupt greed, or some other diabolic desire, there seems to be an urgency upon gentlemen upon the other side of the House to break the Constitution to get at the absolute title to the estates of the rebels. I know it may be said by the gentleman from Iowa that the bill which he has presented does not involve the constitutional question. He tells us that he simply desires to submit the question to the Courts, and let them determine whether or not the forfeiture shall be in fee or for lifel But, sir, the gentleman from Pennsylvania. [Mr. Stevens] and others have io- dicated a desire to move amendments here, repealing the joint resolution of the last Congress, which, on the suggestion of the President, embodied the language of the Constitution. The effect of such repeal will be to leave the original law in full force. Its execution will then be attempted without regard to the Constitution, and the officers of the Government will at once seize upon and sell the property in fee. The vendee will hold it absolutely, and the burden of contesting its validity will be thrown upon children and heirs whose rights the Constitution intended should be guard- ed. Therefore, the question comes up properly on this bill, whether we shall allow any such unconstitutional measure to pass ; for even by the bill of the gentleman from Iowa, without any of the amendments pro- posed, we would be holding out to the judges and to the instruments of this administration, a lure to lead them on to follow up this confiscation system for some bad purpose or other. I honor the judiciary, sir, as much as any member ; but, in these days of loose construction and irre- sponsible tyranny, I am growing distrustful of all powers, wherever de- posited. Now, we know that the judge of the United States Court for the eastern district of Virginia, a Judge Underwood, has lately been pass- ing upon this question. I do not know anything about his character, judicial or otherwise, but he has decided, as I understand, in conformity with the argument of the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. OrthJ. Indeed, the argument of the gentleman is drawn from this precious reservoir of learning. After quoting the constitutional clause, that " Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason ; but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted y " he has held that — " If we use the word ' except' in the above sense in the constitutional provision, or make it read, ' unless during the life of the person attainted,' we shall at once come to the trxie intent and meaning of the provision, to wit, that the forfeiture was to be per- fected during^ and not after, the lifetime of the party attainted." 34:0 EIGHT YEAES IN CONGRESS. Wonderful jurist ! Profound logician ! Sage philologist ! He actu- ally holds that the word '■'•except^' in the Constitution means something else than its own common and technical meaning ; that it means " unless." By all the processes of his court, as I am informed, he is striving to give effect to his absurd decision, by conveying the absolute title to those es- tates which have been confiscated before him. Well, sir, if this judge, under the confiscation law and the joint resolution interpreting it, had a right to do any thing of that kind, what is the need of this legislation? Why is this additional legislation proposed ? Tlie very fact that the gen- tleman from Iowa has brought in this bill is evidence to my mind that this judge is a corrupt man, and deserves impeachment for breaking down the existing law, which the gentleman from Iowa is now trying to amend ' so as to make such proceedings valid hereafter. The introduction of this ' bill is a stigma upon his name, which will grow blacker Avith time. I would need no other evidence of the corruption, the bad heart, and the perverse judgment of that judge, than the simple argument which can be drawn From the words of the Constitution against liis mode of confiscating property. The gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Orth], whose speech I had the pleasure of reading a few minutes since, for I could not altogether hear it while he was delivering it, concluded his argument with an invocation to the House to be virtuous, to stand firm to their duty in this time Avhen the nation is reeling and staggering under the sturdy blows of organized treason. He appeals to us in this time to gather around the Administra- tion and to pvit down traitors and punish the guilty. Very well. I am with the gentleman in all that, but I should have liked his appeal better had he called on us to stand by the Constitution as all-sufficient for these purposes. In almost the same breath the gentleman says he would op- pose the enactment of lavv's which inflict cruel, harsh, or unjust punish- ment upon offenders. Indeed ! The question here is not how, by penal statutes, to reach the guilty. The guilty are already reached by the pres- ent law. This bill reaches beyond the guilty traitor, and involves, by a posthumous punishment, the innocent and good — ay, even the unborn children. It inflicts on tlie children of the guilty the inmishmcnt due to the parents ; and the gentleman from Indiana, who seems from his speech and countenance to be benevolent, shows that in fact he partakes of the ferocious humanity of the hour, by arguing in favor of a bill to punish the inoffensive offspring of the traitor. How kind his logic is may be seen from this extract : " You cannot take from one that which he hath not. You cannot rob one who is not possessed of any thing. I propose to take from the traitor his property before his deatli, and before it can descend to and vest in liis heirs. The child has no natural right to tlie property of the father. Even in society the child cannot demand, as a social right, the possession of his father's estate. The father, during his lifctinu', can alienate his prop- erty by deed of conveyance or by will to take cll'ect at his death ; and he can by cither process totally disinherit his children, and grant his estate to strangers. It is only in a certain contingency that the child obtains possession of the father's property, as where he dies intestate, and this right of inheritance is purely a social right, depending upon ex- press legislation or immemorial usage rij)cned into the validity and sanctity of express law." The child has no natural right to the property of the father ! What CIVIL WAR. 34:1 an unnatural proposition ! It is only " express legislation or immemorial usage " that gives to the child, in the absence of an unnatural Avill, the , estate of the father ! Truly, sir, we have fallen on evil times, when to bolster up a bill of penalty like this, upon the children of the guilty, the beautiful and sacred relations of the family are to be disrupted. I am shocked, that in this age, and in this country, and in this House — and after England, following our example, has reformed her old and bar- barous law, forfeiting estates in fee — I am required to stand up before the American people, and, as a matter of pure philanthi'opy and common de- cency, protest against the cruel and remorseless character of bills of this kind, and to defend the rights of those who have committed no crime, but upon whoni it is proposed to visit, after the death of the parent, the crimes of the ancestor. I protest against such bills as contrary to the gentle and loving spirit of the Saviour, who, while upon his transcendent mission to this attainted and corrupted world, shielded, in his arms, the little ones of Judea. His words have a tender and sweet significance which it would not be unbecoming us as Christian legislators to heed : " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto Me." Would that these words were graven upon our memories and hearts when we come to vote upon this harsh and vengeful measure against the little children of the South ! Such words interpret the Con- stitution by a liberal canon of kindness — more potent than ever Grotius, Vattel, or Story conceived or expressed, or than ever modern philanthropy practised ! Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Indiana, in his elaborate and learned speech, drew from the old feudal system, from the black-letter laws, from the whole history of our common law with reference to forfeiture, to show tliat there should be another and a different interpretation given to the Constitution from that which was given by the men who made the Con- stitution, by the men who passed the law of 1790 to carry out that clause of the Constitution to which I have referred, and by all the interpreters of the Constitution to whom he himself has referred. He says that the science of philology is progressive, and that a word which meant one thing at one time, and in one age, may mean another thing at another time, and in a different age ; and upon that principle he says that the word "except" in the Constitution means "unless," and then he draws, like the Virginia judge, the conclusion that the only meaning of the Constitu- tion is that the proceedings shall be commenced in the life of the person attainted. It will be borne in mind that the phraseology of our Constitu- tion was most carefully guarded. It was as pure and simple as the spirit of the Constitution was kind and liberal. The word " except" in 1787, had as plain a meaning then as it has now. The word " unless " was not its syQouyme then, nor is it now, except in very rare and remote instances. But even if it were synonymous now, we are to find, not its meaning now but its meaning then : the philology of 1787 is to govern, and not its ad- vanced meaning now. But, suppose the gentleman should, by some technical logomachy, find out that the word "except" meant sometimes " unless ;" he does not find the word " unless" in the Constitution, and if he had, it would make no difference in the argument. The word " ex- cept," according to my philology, which has not progressed very rapidly, 342 EIGHT YEAES IN CONGKESS. is derived fi-om the Latin words ex and caplo, to take from, to exclude from, to leave out. This is the primary, and not the secondary meaning into which tlie gentleman would distort it. This is the meaning always attributed to it by all the public writers who have commented on this part of the Constitution. This, too, is the ordinary and simple meaning of the Constitution. It reads in this way, and cannot be made to read in any other : " But no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted." There are some clauses which interpret themselves. Discussion only obscures, and does not elucidate their meaning. This clause is one of them. Now, suppose the gentleman inserts his favorite word " unless ; " how does that help him? It is still a limitation on the power Avhich works corruption of blood or forfeiture, and that limit is during the life of the person attainted of treason. That word " vmless " does not change the meaning of it at all. You may use it with all emphasis, and still the limitation would be on foi'feiture during life. But, Mr. Speaker, there can be no such construction given to it. The word " except," according to "Worcester, Webster, and all other dictionaries, in its first and best meaning, simply means " to exclude from ; " so that when the Constitu- tion said that the attainder of treason should not work forfeiture of prop- erty except during the life of the person attainted, it meant that the foi-- feiture should exclude the fee. It was taken out of and from the effect of the forfeiture. The forfeiture never went beyond the life. And there are good reasons for such a construction which the gentleman from Indiana seemed to overlook. He might have found them laid down by Judge Story. He might have found them in the United States Court decisions. He might have found them in tliQ history of the English Parliament. He might have found them in the history of English and Irish confiscations. It was intended by our Constitution to prevent forever this crime of Gov- ernment taking from those not in legal existence, from minors, from the weak and helpless, from those not guilty, from those incapable of crime, that pi-operty which always in cases of intestacy, and generally in cases of will, the law gives to the children, and which, by natural right, and according to every code of inheritance known among men, always goes to the children in the absence of a will. The only authority which can be ofiered by the gentleman for his construction is this Virginia judge. The gentleman has brought no authority here for the purpose of sustaining his view — none whatever. He lias evidently been diligent, and has examined all the authorities, and found them against him. Can the gentleman name one authority which sustains his views of the case except this trashy decision of Judge Underwood? Not one. He relies solely on his pro- gressive philology. So it is progressive. This war is teaching ns many new meanings to old words and terms. A patriot used (o mean one who loved his whole country ; who was devoted, by a i)rinciplc of sympathy and union, to every part ; who had a common feeling and a common in- terest with those who lived under the same Government, who are contained within the same natural or historical l)()undaries ; who cherished the tie' that jiolils the country together, and who held that evil to any part of their felluw-countrynien was evil to themselves. Now it means other- wise. Philology id progressive. Now a patriot is one who can break tho CIVIL WAE. 343 supreme law, who can hate half his nation, who can rejoice in the bayonet at the election, and the greenback in corruption ; who is anxious to see a war of extermination, and who, as the climax of his devotion, is Avilling to see the last one of his wife's blood-relations oiFered upon the altar, and the innocent offspring of the South turned homeless and penniless upon the cold and unfeeling world for crimes in which they could not be par- ticipants ! Philology is progressive. A traitor now is a man who ' loves the old order, who dislikes to see the old Constitution dismantled, who is willing to make any sacrifice that will restore the Union, and whose very love of those who used to be under the same old family roof-tree amounts to such a sympathy that he would love to have them all restored. A philanthropist used to mean a friend of man. Now it means a friend of the black ; or, rather, such friendship as drags the negro from home, hap- piness, and content, to pauperism, crime, and starvation ! Philology is progressive. But Judge Story did not progress like the gentleman from Indiana in his philology. He kept the old meaning of the fathers, which was for all time. My friend from Indiana said that he could find but little written by oiu: commentators upon this mooted clause of the Consti- tution. When he tui-ned to Judge Curtis he found but one single sen- tence : " The punishment is not prescribed by the Constitution. It is left to be prescribed by Congress ; with the limitation, however, that no con- viction for treason shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture of property except during the life of the offender." The matter was so plain to Judge Curtis that he could make but little commentary upon it. So it was with Judge Story. After quoting the clause in question, he says : " Two motives probably concurred in introducing it as an express power. One was, not to leave it open to implication whether it was to be exclusively punishable with death, according to the known rule of the common law, and with the barbarous accompaniments pointed out by it, but to confide the punishment to the discretion of CongTess. The other was, to impose some limitation upon the nature and extent of the punishment, 60 that it should not work corruption of blood or forfeiture beyond tJie life of the offender. * * * * * * ' " It surely is enough for society to take the life of the offender, as a just punishment of Ms crime, without taking from his oft'spiing and relatives that property which may be the only means of saving them from poverty and ruin. It is bad policy, too ; for it cuts off all the attachments which these unfortunate victims might otherwise feel for their own Government, and prepares them to engage in any other service by which their supposed injuries may be redressed or their hereditary hatred gratified. Upon these and similar grounds it may be presumed that the clause was first introduced into the original draft of the Constitution ; and, after some amendments, it was adopted without any apparent re- sistance. By the laws since passed by Congress it is declared that no conviction or judg- ment for any capital or other offences shall work corruption of blood or any forfeiture of estate. The history of other countries abundantly proves that one of the strong incen- tives to prosecute offences as treason has been the chance of sharing in the plunder of the victims. Rapacity has been thus stimulated to exert itself in the service of the most cor- rupt tyranny ; and tyranny has been thus furnished with new opportunities of indulging its malignity and revenge ; of gratifying its envy of the rich and good ; and of increas- ing its means to reward favorites and secure retainers for the worst deeds." — 3 Sto7-fs Commentaries, p. 170. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Indiana could find no reason for the construction which Judge Story gives, but that eminent jurist does find a good and satisfactory reason for the limitation of the punishment, and he 344 EIGHT TEARS IX CONGRESS. gives it in the extract whicli has just been read. Can there be a greater reason against extending a penal law tlian the fact that such extension will work harm to the innocent, and encourage tyranny, rapacity, cruelty, and murder? To say nothing of the impolicy of breaking down allegiance to the Government by such a system of injustice, the reasons I have quoted are sufhcient to answer all that the gentleman from Indiana has said in favor of his construction. Mr. Orth. Will the gentleman allow me to ask him a single ques- tion : whether he takes the position that this bill now before us, or any pending amendments to it, will work corruption of blood ? Mr. Cox. This bill, with the pending amendments ? Mr. Orth. Yes, sir. Will it work corruption of blood? Mr, Cox. It cannot work corruption of blood under our Constitution. There can be no such thing as corruption of blood. IMr. Orth. I ask the gentleman furthermore whether the authority read from Judge Story does not apply, and do not his remarks apply, to the fact of corruption of blood ? Mr. Cox. It applies to this very clause of the Constitution : " Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture except during the life of the per- son attainted." It is on that Judge Story is commenting. The gentleman argued that there had been in England abuses with regard to corruption of blood and forfeiture of estates. Persons had been found guilty of treason after death, and estates had been forfeited after the person attainted had died. Mon- strous abuses liad grown in consequence of declaring the blood to be attaint- ed after deatii ; men were so blackened by the attaint that they could not transmit an inheritance to their descendants. Premising these facts of history, the gentleman argued that the object of this mooted clause of our Constitution was to prevent such abuses. That was the main point of the gentleman's argument. That it is a gross fallacy I shall demonstrate. He said, and said very truly : " In further pupport of my position, lot me advert to the fAct that in England, long prior to and at tlie adoption of our Constitution, attainder of treason alter the death of the supposed traitor ( I mean his natural death before trial or even accusation) was of fre- quent occurrcnue. This was a monstrous doctrine, shocking to every princi[)le of justice upon which the criminal code is founded, to accuse a man of crime after death, when none is to speak for his innocence, to proceed to trial and judgment, to wrest from inno- cent hands that property which by law upon his deatli descended to and vested in his heirs, and forfeit their property, and not /ik property, to the GovernnuMit for his supposed criminal conduct. Is it not more just and r«\sonable to suppose that the Constitution intended to endtrace and provide against tliis monstrous pciTersiou of natural justice, than that it intended so absurd a proposition as that tlie forfeiture of estate shoulil only be for that brief period of time between sentence of death and its execution? " 1 answer the question the gentleman puts by saying that it is mon- strous, that it is a great and grievous wrong, thus to attaint a man and for- feit his estate after his death. The history of England in that regard is red with ])luod and black witli cruelty. But irom it our futhers learned a lesson. To stain the memory after death, to corrupt the blood after it had ceased to pulsate, and to " rob the imiocent posterity of the inheritance which, by the laws of the realm, had descended to and vested in them, as CIVIL WAK. 345 the lawful descendants of their ancestor," was so revolting to every sense of right and justice, that I join with the gentleman in execrating such baselaess. The creative minds which gave form, life, beauty, and sym- metry to our Federal system did not tolerate such barbarous codes. They saw these monstrosities. Ay, sir, and in our matchless Constitution they provided against their occurrence here in this free and better country ; hut not by the clause to which the gentleman ivould refer. If the gentleman had read the Constitution and the authoritative commentary more care- fully, he would have found in a previous clause of the Constitution, which says that " no bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed," the solution of the problem which he discussed. He would then have seen how amjily our fathers guarded against tliose monstrous abuses of power which reached into the tomb and dishonored and disinherited those who surviving mourned. The argument of the gentleman is answered by re- ferring him to that sweeping clause of the Constitution against all attain- ders. Judge Story says, in speaking of that very clause :"" " Such acts have often been resorted to in foreign Governments as a common engine of State ; and even in England they have been pushed to the most extravagant extent in bad times, reaching as well to the absent and the dead as to the living. Sir Edward Coke has mentioned it to be among the transcendent powers of Parliament, t/iat an act may be passed to attaint a man after he is dead. And the reigning monarch who was slain at Bosworth, is said to have been attainted by an act of Parliament afcio months after his death, notwithstanding the absurdity of deeming him at once in possession of the throne and a traitor. The punishment has often been inflicted without calling upon the party accused to answer, or without even the formality of proof, and sometimes because the law in its ordinary course of proceedings would acquit the offender. The injustice and iniquity of such acts in general constitute an irresistible argument against the existence of the power. In a free Government it would be intolerable, and in the hands of a reign- ing faction it might be, and probably would be, abused to the ruin and death of the most virtuous citizens. Bills of this sort have been most usually passed in England in times of rebellion, or of gross subserviency to the Crown, or of violent political excitements — periods in which all nations are most liable (as well the free as the enslaved) to forget their duties and to trample upon the rights and liberties of others." — 3 Story, p. 210. The wrong complained of by the gentleman is one for which he finds a remedy in another clause which he supposes was intended to limit the pro- ceedings and not the forfeiture of estate to the life of the person attainted. Being thus simply provided against in the clause of the Constitution against bills of attainder, what other intention or use can there be fot the clause in controversy except to limit the forfeiture of the estate during the life of the person attainted? I have agreed with the gentleman from Indiana in condemning, with all the severity of language, the attaint after death and the robbing of the inno- cent children who would legally take the estate. But, as a matter of enlight- ened law, public decency, and Christian morality, I cannot perceive how such a case differs from the bill before us, which he sustains, and which proposes to despoil the children of their inheritance for the crime of the parent. Does it make the one a more heinous Avrong that the attaint is after death and the property had already descended by statute ? No, sir ; the outrage m both cases consists in robbing the helpless and weak, in pun- ishing the innocent for the guilty. To prevent this, in the interest of society and in the sacred name of the family, and to save the innocent from shame as well as from want, our Constitution declares, that the for- 34:6 EIGHT TEARS m CONGRESS. feiture should not go beyond the life of the person attainted. The grave shall hide his shame. The child shall begin its life clear from stain, un- sullied from the attaint of its parent's life, and the inheritance it had ex- pected from the physical source of its being, shall not be snatched away by unlineal hands or tyrannic rapacity. Too abuDdantly does history cumulate the proof of the unwisdom of such legislation as that proposed by this bill. Such legislation is the pre- mium which has ever been offered by power to the cormorants who cling to it, in order to perpetuate itself by sharing in the plunder. It is the re- ward which the dominant dynasty always gives to the gilded flies which buzz about the corpse of its victim to fatten on its corruption. Perhaps the saddest illustrations which this evil time will furnish of its lustful de- generacy, will be the clamoring of tlie partisan spies, informers, and mer- cenaries, who, too cowardly to meet the enemy in fight, Avill follow iu the wake of our armies to speculate upon the plantations and estates which the rebellion has forfeited, but which the Constitution, iu its beautiful be- nignity, would have saved to the innocent inheritor. Is it necessary to add further authority as to the impolicy or unconsti- tutionahty of this bill? I might appeal to the Avritings of the gentleman who has been employed by the Secretary of War to codify the laws of w-ar. I mean the Dr. Francis Lieber who wrote so well of public law and libex'ty before he had official emplbymcnt. I could read from his vol- ume on " Civil Liberty" to show the scope and spirit of that part of the Constitution under debate. He says " that the true protection of individ- ual property demands likewise the exclusion of confiscation" — Mr. Stevens. As the gentleman from Ohio is discussing a grave matter, let me ask him a question. Mr. Cox. Certainly, sir. Mr. Stevens. The Constitution provides that Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason ; but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture. Now, has not Congress power to punish other than by attainder, and if that other punishment is the forfeiture of estate, does it violate the first clause of tlie Constitution? Mr. Cox. I answer the gentleman by referring him to the President's message. [Laughter.] The President, in his message to the last Con- gress, held that to divest the title forever — "for treason and ingredients of treason" — was unconstitutional. You passed the joint resolution to obviate his scruples. The gentleman must stand by the Administration. I charge him witli being a traitor or a secessionist if he now desert Mr. Lincoln. [Great laughter.] I hope my friend from Pennsylvania, after so long hurling his envenomed shafts of satire against this side of the House because we did not always sustain the President, will not himself fail of liis loyalty. There may be other punisliments beside the forfeiture ; but the punislunent you now propose, and which I am now discussing, is unconstitutional. So says the Administration. I proudly stand by the Administration on tiiis point. [Laughter.] ^Mr. Stevens. I understand the gentleman as not giving his own opinions, but those of Mr. Lincoln. Mr. i\}\. When interrupted, I was giving the views of others — Judge Story, Judge Curtis, and Dr. Lieber. 1 am not prepared to say that all CIVIL WAii. 34:7 of Mr. Lincoln's views on that subject are the best. I only say that they should be binding upon that side ot* the House who have so often urged that failing to sustain the Administration you fail to sustain the Govern- ment. Where, then, do gentlemen stand? Opposing the constitutional views of their chief! How handsomely you look before the country in that capacity, after your philippics against our disloyalty ! Here is a bill which involves the very exercise of the highest sovereign power — confis- cation of the estates of persons absolutely — a scheme of forfeiture involv- ing hundreds, nay, thousands of millions of dollars, or of landed estates,* involving in its consequences the prolongation of war and the procrastina- tion of peace, involving the very fate of this Union and all the immense interests imbound with it to the latest generations, and about which the President was so anxious that he took the extraordinary trouble to send an admonitory message to prevent his friends committing a flagrant breach of the Constitution, advising them that he Avould veto the measure for its gross unconstitutionality ; yet gentlemen stand here, after the lapse of a year or more, and by some "' progi'essive philology " undertake to convict and censure their own Executive, overrule his matured judgment and sacred oath, and by failing to give him the required support on so momen- tous a measure, become, by their own cogent logic, traitors to the Govern- ment ! Mr. Broomall. The Constitution, punishing treason, allows the alternative of fine and imprisonment to be imposed. If, then, the fine be levied upon the offender's land, and that land is sold, I want to know whether the purchaser would only take a life estate ? Mr. Cox. Certainly, sir. Under an honest and fearless judiciary, up- holding the Constitution as the supreme law, he would only get a life estate. This may be an absurd conclusion ; but I know that Judge Story does not think it absurd, nor does the history of these confiscations show * The debate having been hurriedly forced on the House, I had not the time to pre- pare any statements as to the property proposed to be reached by the Bill. The following table, from the Census of 1860, will approximate to it ; Statement of the JVo. of Acres of Land, Improved and Unimproved, Cash Value of Farms, and the JVb. of White Children under Fifteen Years of Age. States. Lands Impeoved. Lands Uni.mpeoved. Cash Value of Paems. White Children under 15 ACEES. ACEES. DOLLAES. 6,517,284 4,572,060 8,062,758 6,462,987 5,150,008 2,734,901 676,464 6,897,974 1,933,036 17,245,685 11,623,860 18,587,732 12,687,913 11,703,556 6,765,879 2,273,008 13,457,960 7,609,938 143,301,065 139,652,508 157,072,803 172,176,168 186,866,914 215,565,421 16,371,684 272,555,054 91,673,403 265,496 South Carolina 121,386 264,800 238,704 157,588 Louisiana 141,741 Florida 34,621 Tennessee 364,518 Arkansas 154,296 Total 43,007,472 101,955,531 1,395,235,020 1,743,150 348 EIGHT TEAES DT CONGEESS. it to be absurd. By no scheme or device can you directly or indirectly forfeit the estate for treason, except in pursuance of the Constitution. Mr. Broomall. If the same individual should be indicted before some court for stealing chickens, and fined ten dollars, and his lands sold for the fine, could the estate be sold in fee ? Mr. Cox. If the gentleman would get a civil judgment, take out a fieri facias^ and make a levy, then I suppose he could sell the fee. But tliat question of stealing chickens does not interest my constituents [laugh- ter], at least those who are white. Besides, there are reasons growing out of the difference between the political crime of treason and the malum in se involved in stealing, "whicli led our ancestors to frame tlie clause in question. "When interrupted by the gentleman from Pennsylvania, I was about to call the attention of the House to Dr. Lieber's volume. He may not be good authority for my friend from Pennsylvania [Mr. Kelley], who has informed the House that he is in communication w'ith him, though he told us that he preferred his own instincts to Dr. Lieber's reason. He argued the other day that he w^ould rather trust his OAvn instincts of liberty than the authority of the w^ar codifier. We have had too much legislation " upon instinct." I think at the time Dr. Lieber wrote the volume from which I was about to quote, that he was looking at the spirit of the law with that large roundabout common-sense view which a student of Mon- tesquieu might well take ; and with that enlarged observation he tells us : " The true protection of individual property demands likewise the exclusion of con- fiscation. For although confiscation, as a punishment, is to be rejected on account of the undefined character of the punishment, depending not upon itself, but upon the fact whether the punished person has any property and how much, it is likewise inadmissible on the ground that individual property implies individual transmission, which confiscation totally destroys. It would perhaps not be wholly unjust to deprive an individual of his property, as a punishment for certain crimes, if ice would allow it to pass to his heii-s. We do it in fact when we imprison a man for life, and submit him to the regular prison discipline, disallowing him any benefit of the property he may possess ; but it is unjust to deprive his children or other heirs of the individual proj^crty, not to speak of the appe- tizing effect which confiscation of propjcrty has often produced zipon governments. " The English attainder and corruption of blood, so far as it affects property, is hos- tile to this great principle of the utmost protection of individual property, and lias come down to the present times from a period of senii-communi.-m, when the king was con- sidered the jirimary owner of all land. Corruption of blood is distinctly abolished by our Constitution." — Dr. Lieber on Civil Liberty, vol. i., p. 123. What does the learned publicist mean by the " appetizing effect of con- fiscation upon Governments"? Did his prescient mind take in the adju- dications of Judge Underwood? Did he look forward to the auction at Alexandria? Did he see town lots and Arlington heights under the ham- mer? And did he see how little enthusiasm life-estates produced, and what an appetizing eficct the fee simple would liavc produced? Has the learned doctor struck, in his comprehensive reasoning, the motive for this bill? I charge that the object of this bill is to make a case in the courts, if possible, wlicreby some Judge like Underwood, by a corrupt, mijust, an(l dislionest decision, may overtiu-n the organic law to give a quasi-abso- lute title, and thus place the burden on the heirs hereafter of contesting for their rights, and by harassing and oppressing tlie innocent and help- less, gain that possession which proverbially is nine points of the law in CIVIL -WAR. 349 favor of its continuance. It may well be asked by a considerate legisla- tor, how long will the innocent heirs remain out of their property if they must sue and await the decision of the question in the courts ? Shall it be until they attain their majority, or when ? After the property has been once taken, there will, I fear, be but little remedy in the courts, for the judiciary itself may be the next department to cower before the behests of power and the "military necessity*' of the hour. Mr. Speaker, I am opposed to this bill, because I have gleaned from history a profound distrust of all such measures as a means of restoring allegiance and order. It is the system of revenge. It is hate enacted into law. It will not and it cannot come to good. It' is unchi'istian. Indeed, any system which does not restore good will and kindness between the two sections, and especially if it robs the coming generation, will only tend to perpetuate with the children the hate which we might hope would evanish with time. Such a system is the very wantonness and excess of tyranny. It always has in it a self-punishing and corrective power. It carries a Nemesis with it as inexorable as fate. The history of Poland, Venetia, and Ireland should make us pause. Do we indeed desire to restore our Union ? Do we desire to keep our plight to the Constitution ? Do we crave in our hearts the return of that happier time when our public order reposed securely in the hearts of the people and in reverence for the Constitution? If Ave do, let us rather repeal our former harsh and vindictive legislation, and not enact other and harsher penalties ; and if war must needs go on, if blood, blood, blood must stiU flow, and force must still be used against those Avho were once our breth- ren in the same nationality, then let us add to that force at every moment of decided success to our arms, at every pause in the dread conflict, the benignant policy of conciliation. , Mr. Kelley. AVill the gentleman from Ohio permit me to ask him the reference of his quotation from Dr. Lieber ? Mr. Cox. I will give it to the gentleman. Mr. Kellet. I do not know whether his quotation is a correct one, for the doctor has protested that the gentleman has always misquoted him, and charged him with entertaining opinions the reverse of Avhat his opinions really are. Mr. Cox. The gentleman from Pennsylvania, when he says I have misquoted Dr. Lieber, cannot be correct, for I have not pretended to quote him until to-day. I said the other day that he was opposed to the unre- publican scheme of conscription. I have the authority, and I Avill pro- duce it at the proper time. Mr. Kelley. If the gentleman Avill permit me, I would like to have the doctor himself speak upon this subject. I hold in my hand a note from the doctor, of the date of December 6, 1863. Mr. Cox, The gentleman from Pennsylvania is not quite as logical as I could wish. I do not propose now to discuss the conscription bill. I will pay my respects hereafter to the gentleman on that subject. Mr. Kelley. I Avould rather the question be between the gentleman from Ohio and the gentleman he quoted as authority than between the gentleman and myself. Mr. Cox. I should feel it a much greater honor if it were so. 350 EIGHT TEAKS m COXGKESS. [Laughter.] I was about to conclude by oue general observation. The members upon this side of the House have not made, and do not intend to make, any factious opposition to this Administration. We intend to sustain it to the fullest extent of our ability in every legal way which it may mark out — in every way possible by which we can restore the old order of things in this country. Our views do not always agree with your views as to the best mode of restormg the Union and preserving the Constitution. If we could but agree upon one object — the rehabilitation of the States, with all their rights, dignity, and equality unimpaired — though our views may be diverse as to the means to attain that object, this Congress might carve out a historic fame as the restorer of that con- stitutional freedom which the last Congi-ess did so much to destroy. Upon this side we will sustain any measure to put down rebellion which is warranted by the Constitution. But we will never lay sacrilegious hands upon the ark of our covenant. "We constitute the constitutional op- position to this Administration. We have no opposition except it be in- spired by that instrument. Its written grants of power, its limitations, and, especially in these times, its reserved powers, furnish the enginery of our antagonism. Drawing from this source, we fear no criticism. AVe defy all aspersions. Come evil or good report, we will labor — it may be in vain — to protect that instrument against any sucli breaches as that proposed by this bill and legislation of like character. Since I have been a member of this House I have labored, without rest, to make up in vigilance and ^study what I lacked in years and experience, that I might perform my whole duty to my constituents ; and Avith one object ever up- permost in my mind — tlie object which Daniel Webster held to be first with a free people — the preservation of their liberty by maintaining con- stitutional restraints and just divisions of power. Mr. Orth. Before the gentleman from Ohio takes his seat, I would like to ask him one or two questions, and I have no doubt he will answer them without hesitation. My first question is, wliether he is in favor of punishing the traitors who have been guilty of bringing on this rebellion ? Mr. Cox. Yes, sir. I am in favor of punishing traitors according to the Constitution, by trial, by conviction, and by all the modes pointed out for the punishment of treason. Mr. Orth. I have no doubt of that. My next question is, whether he is in favor of punishing traitors by the death penalty ? Mr. Cox. Yes, sir ; and almost every day I have been voting money and men to inflict that penalty. IMr. Orth. I would ask him whether taking from innocent children the life of the father who sustains them, is not visiting the sins of the parent on the chiklrcn? Mr. Cox. Yes, sir ; that is one of the incidents which, perhaps, might have once been avoided, but wliich we cannot now avoid, but for Avhich, praise God ! I am not responsible. Now, I wish to ask the gentleman whether lie is in favor. of punishing innocent persons for the guilt of their parents? Mr. Orth. No, sir. Mr. Cox. Well, sir, then you must be against this bill. CIVIL WAR. 351 Mr. Orth. I contend that we punish those who are guilty during their lifetimes. Mr. Cox. I would be very glad to welcome the gentleman within the pale of humanity. Mr. Garfield. I wish to ask my colleague a question, not with any factious purpose, nor with any design to prevent a calm discussion of so important a question as this. I am sorry that this discussion has assumed a somewhat partisan character. It ought not to have that character at aU, and so far as I am concerned it shall not. I wish to ask ray colleague a practical rather than a legal question. I wish to know whether the ob- jection he raises to this bill is not itself obnoxious to this objection : we punish men for civil and for criminal offences, great and small, in all the higher and lower courts of the country, by taking their property from them, so that then* children can never have the benefit of it after the parent's death. Now, while we do this constantly in our courts, by civil and crim- inal process, does not my colleague propose to make an exception in favor of the crime of treason ? Why should not the children of traitors suffer the same kind of loss and inconvenience as the children of thieves and of other felons do? I ask the gentleman whether his position does not in- volve this great absurdity and injustice ? Mr. Cox. I will say to my colleague tliat, as he knows very Avell, in criminal procedures we do not at once by execution reach the real estate. But my colleague cannot withdraw me from my constitutional position as to this bill. All I propose to do in opposing this bill is to stand by the Constitution, and to stand by it all the time, regardless of consequences ; and I will ask my distinguished colleague how he reads that clause of the Constitution under debate. Does he believe in the construction Avhich has been given to it by the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Orth] ? Does he believe that he can constitutionally take a traitoi''s property forever, or only duriug his life ? Does he read the Constitution in opposition to Judge Story and to Judge Curtis ? Would he set aside the construction given to it by the law of 1790? Or would he, dare he, with his oath upon him, now break the Constitution by voting for this measure, in order to get absolute title to the lands of those in revolt? Would he, to aggravate the punishment of the traitor, or to punish the innocent children of the rebels, break the Constitution? Mr. Garfield. I would not break the Constitution for any such pui'pose. Mr. Cox. I am very glad to hear that. Mr. Gakfield. I would not break the Constitution at all, unless it should become necessary to overleap its barriers to save the Government and the Union. But I do not see that in this bill we do break the Constitution. If the gentleman can show me that it violates the Consti- tution, I will vote against it with him, even though every member of my party votes for it ; that makes no difference to me. I will say, however, that I had supposed that the intention of that clause of the Constitution was to prevent the punishment of treason when an individual was declared guilty of it after his death. I had supposed that that was the purpose of it, and if so, it seems that this biU is not obnoxious to the objection which the gentleman raises to it. 352 EIGHT TEARS IN CONGRESS. Mr. Cox. If the gentleman will examine that other clause of the Constitution Avliich I pointed out, he will find, as Judge Story found, that it provided for the outrage of trial and punishment of treason after the death of the person, by prohibiting all bills of attainder. The other clause of the Constitution is so exceedingly plain that the wayfaring man — even Mr. Lincoln himself — did not err in construin"; it. MISCEGEXATION. FATE OP THE FREEDMAN IMPROTIDEXT EMANCIPATION CONSTITUTIONAL PROTISIONS CON- SIDERED LAWS OF PHYSIOLOGY BLENDING OF RACES PROGRESSIVE ABOLITION — DEMOC- RACY NOT PRO-SLAVERY NON-INTERVENTION ABOUT THE NEGRO. Ox the 17th of February, 1864, the House were considering the bill to establish a Bureau of Freedman's Affairs, when, by a diversion from the regular debate, the subject of "Miscegenation" came up. The pam- phlet upon which Mr. Cox based his remarks, afterwards turned out to be apocryphal. It was written by two young men connected with the New York press. So congenial were its sentiments with those of the leading Abolitionists, and so ingeniously was its irony disguised, that it was not only indorsed by the fanatical leaders all over the land, but no one in Congress thought of questioning the genuineness and seriousness of the document. This species of logical irony has been used by writers of greater fame than the authors of the pamphlet. Burke used it, and Archbishop Whately used it ; the former to vindicate civilization, and the latter Christianity. The " Historic Doubts concerning Napoleon," by AVhately, found its believers ; and many a sceptic embraced its most absurd conclusions in his eagerness to repudiate the truth. The speech given below had a very extensive circulation in the press of the country. The Republicans were much puzzled by the frankness of their secret champion. Mr. Beecher's paper indulged a suspicion that the author was not altogether in earnest ; but in the same article it uttered the same sentiments contained in the pamphlet. On the 25th of February, 1864 , in an article on the union of races, he " agreed with a large portion of these pages," referring to the pamphlet. He contended that every great nation had been married into its greatness by a union of many stocks. To quote : " Like a coat of many colors, every great nation is a patclnvork out of tlic shreds and remnants of former natiuns. The American people i.-J, in like manner, a slock of many grafts. An amalgamation of races is going on here to an extent almost witlioiit a parallel in history. Every nation nntler the sun is making some gilt of its blood to our American veins. Immigration from Ibreign lands was never so multitudinous as now. Leaving out of view our native-horn Americans of English descent, there are enough of other stocks on tliis soil to make three other nations — namely, the Irish, the Germans, and the No- CIVIL WAE. 353 groes. Even the negroes number one million more than the whole population of the United States at the adoption of the Constitution. But these three stocks have not come hither to establish themselves as distinct peoples ; but each to join itself to each, till all together shall be built up into the monumental nation of the earth ! We believe the whole human race are one family — born, every individual, with a common prerogative to do the best he can for his own welfare ; that in political societies, all men, of whatever various race or color, should stand on an absolute equality before the law ; that whites and blacks should intermarry if they wish, and should not unless they wish ; that the negro is not to be allowed to remain in this country, but is to remain here without being allowed — asking nobody's permission but his own ; that we shall have no permanent set- tlement of the negro question till our haughtier white blood, looking at the face of a ne- gro, shall forget that he is black, and remember only that he is a citizen. Whether or not the universal complexion of the human family at the millennium " will not be white or black, but brown or colored," we certainly believe that the African-tinted members of our community will in the future gradually bleach out their blackness. The facts of to- day prove this beyond denial. Ali-eady three-fourths of the colored people of the United States have white blood in their veins. The two bloods have been gradually intermin- gling ever since there were whites and blacks among our population. This intermin tiling will contuiue. Under slavery, it has been forced and frequent. Under freedom it will be voluntary and infrequent. But by-and-by — counting the years not by Presidential cam- paigns, but by centuries — the negi'O of the South, growing paler with every generation, will at last completely hide his face under the snow." Dr. Cheever's paper, " The Principia," accepting the theory of the pamphlet, and commending its earnest thought, said that it needed not a tithe of it to prove that God has made of one blood all nations of men, endowed them with equal rights, and that they are entitled to all the civil and political prerogatives and privileges of other citizens. The " Tribune " of the 16th of March, 1864, urged the intelligent dis- cussion of the subject, and accepting the " one blood" theory, drew the conclusion, " That, under the Constitution in its most liberal interpretation, and admitting our cherished American doctrine of equal human rights, if a white man pleases to marry a black woman, the mere fact that she is black gives no one a right to interfere to prevent or set aside such marriage. We do not say that such union would be wise, but we do distinctly assert that society has nothing to do with the wisdom of matches, and that we shall have to the end of the chapter a great many foolish ones which laws are powerless to prevent. We do not say that such matches would be moral ; but we do declare that they would be infinitely more so than the promiscuous concubinage which has so long shamelessly prevailed upon the Southern plantations. If a man can so far conquer his re- pugnance to a black woman as to make her the mother of his children, we ask, in the name-of the divine law and of decency, why he should not marry her ? " Another remarkable phase of this discussion was the queries pro- pounded by Robert Dale Owen, Dr. S. Gr. Howe, and Col. McKaye, Com- missioners on the Freedman, as to the capacity and condition of the mulatto, his offspring, and their tendency to bodily and mental decay. "The Anglo- African" of the 20th February, 1864, retorted very pungently upon these querists, and informed them that as the two publishers and one editor of "The Anglo- African" had had born to them in lawful wedlock no less than twenty-nine children, of whom twenty are now living — some married and budding — they could not help regarding the queries as in a measure personal and impertinent. 23 354 EIGHT YEARS m CONGEESS. In its issue of the next week, these publishers and editor — so blessed in their sweet domestic fecundity — took up the speech which follows, and the reference in it made to themselves. They explained what was other- wise obscure ; and added a very clever though illogical jeu d' esprit, which is quoted below as an encouraging sample of African wit. It is agreeable to find such exhibitions. They do much to reconcile us to the belief that if negi'o suffrage shall ever be accomplished, we shall have, tiow and then, a very sprightly suffragan of the miscegen stamp. The article is as fol- lows : "'What we mean by complementary is this: a perfect man, or race, is made of a va- riety of characteristics or races ; wanting any of these characterietics he falls short in so far of perfection. These characteristics, or several of theih, are therefore complementary to the perfection of the individual or the race. Hence, two races, holding nearly the same characteristics, can make little if any improvement on either. The Indian and Spani.sh races, especially in Mexico, have strong physical and intellectual resemblances ; hence, they are not complementary of each other. The Negro and the Arian (generally called ■ Caucasian) races have opposite and complementary characteristics, physically and men- tally, or more properly, psychically ; hence they are likely, by their admixture, to produce a more perfect race than either are separately. We may add, it is a dim perception of this great truth, which has instituted the ' Curious Inciuiry ' mentioned in another column of this paper, and which frightens such pure white men as Hon. S. S. Cox, of Ohio. To take an illustration nearer home. Our country, to-day, needs patriots. It will be generally ad- mitted that any ' cross ' between Hon. S. S. Cox and Vallandigham would fail to pro- duce a patriot, for the simple and obvious reason that in both the blood runs the other way. But, per contra, if we should get up a ' cross ' between Hon. S. S. Cox and Capt. Robert Small, the i-esult would be an average miscegen and a superior patriot." It is, however, a little humiliating to think that so many shining lights like the editor of " The Anglo- African," should never have suspected the peculiar character of the pamphlet. To the speech : Mr. Cox said : Mr. Speaker, I did not rise for the purpose of discuss- ing this measure, only to have it referred for discussion. I shall only call attention to its general featm'cs. The member who introduced it [Mr. Eliot] recalled to our minds the fact that Ave opposed the confiscation bill for its inhumanity. He hoped that humane considerations would prevail as to this bill. I wish that he had set a better example, by his voice and vote upon the other measure. This bill is founded in part on the confis- cation system. If that were inhuman, then this is its aggravation. The former takes the lands which are abandoned by loyal or disloyal whites, under the pressure of war ; while the present bill turns these abandoned lands over to the blacks. But motives of humanity, however pure, arc not the motives which should prompt legi.slation altogether. I only refer to tlie confiscation part of the measure to show how comprehensive and all-reaching is this scheme. The industrious gentleman from Massachti- sotts [Mr. Eliot] states tliat he i.s the author of the confiscation bill, of which this bill is the sequel. Mr. Eliot. I did not say that I was the author of the confiscation bill. I said that I reported it from the Select Committee tliat had that matter in charge. Mr. Cox. The gentleman's modesty wUl not permit him to claim the CIVIL WAE. 355 credit of it. I rather think that all of these measures spring from the fer- tile brain of the Solicitor of the War Office [Mr. Whiting]. He is the reservoir of aU the Republican heresy and legislation proposed in this House ; though he is often confounded, I think, with Divine Providence, to whom gentlemen are erroneously in the habit of attributing these aboli- tion measures. But to return to the member from Massachusetts. The effect of former legislation has been, in his opinion, to bring under the control of the Gov- ernment large multitudes of freedmen who " had ceased to be slaves, but had not learned how to be free." To care for these multitudes he presents this bill, which, if not crude and undigested, yet is sweeping and revolu- tionary. It begins a policy for this Federal Government of limited and express powers, so latitudinarian that the whole system is changed. If the acts of confiscation and the proclamations, on which this measure is founded, be usurpations, how can we who have denounced them favor a measure like this? According to Mr. Whiting, this system, to be com- plete, must include in its provisions all the abandoned lands, all lands for- feited for taxes, all confiscated lauds, all derelict personalty, all colored men free before the war in rebellious districts, and aU fugitives thereto from loyal States, all legal proceedings of confiscation, all migrations of blacks to and from rebel States, aU laws compensating masters for slaves, and all other matters relating to the colored people, whether bond or free. This is a new system. It opens a vast opportunity for corruption and abuse. It may be inaugurated in the name of humanity ; but I doubt, sir, if any Government, much less our Government of delegated powers, will ever succeed in the philanthropic line of business such as is contem- plated by this bill. The gentleman from Massachusetts appeals to us to forget the past, not to inquire how these poor people have become free, whether by law or by usurpation, but to look the great fact in the face " that three million slaves have become and are becoming free." Before I come to that great fact, let me first look to the Constitution. My oath to that is the highest humanity. By preserving the Constitution amidst the rack of war, in any vital part, we are saving for a better tune something of those Liberties, State and personal, which have given so much happiness for over seventy years to so many millions ; and which, under a favorable Administration, might again restore contentment to our afflicted people. Hence the high- est humanity is in building strong the ramparts of constitutional restraint against such radical usurpations as is proposed to be inaugurated by measures kindred to this before the House. If the gentleman can show us warrant in the Constitution to establish this eleemosynary system for the blacks, and for making the Government a plantation speculator and overseer, and the Treasury a fund for the negro, I will then consider the charitable light in which he has commended his biU to our sympathies. It does not follow that because (as General Butler once said) there were as many poor in proportion to the people in the poorhouses of Massachusetts who were killed outright by bad treatment as were killed at the battle of Solferino in proportion lo those engaged, that we are to interfere by Fed- eral legislation for the victims of Massachusetts inhumanity. I would love to do something for the poor blacks who have been thrown houseless, 356 EIGHT TEAES EST CONGRESS. clothesless, foodless, medicineless, and friendless on the cold world by the improvident and barbarous philanthropy now in vogue ; but when my constituents ask me for my warrant thus to tax them, I wish to be able to point it out. If you can so frame your bill as to draw no money from the Treasury, and make your scheme self-supporting ; or if you can so perfect the system as to connect it legally with the military without degrading the army, and still discipline and care for the unfortunate blacks, male and fe- male, old and young, strong and weak, then Ave may consider its propriety and legality ANith a view to aid its passage. "We cannot and do not desire to ignore the fact that incalculable mis- ery has been and will be the fate of the freed negroes ; but it is another and a difficult problem to reconcile the aid they require from the benevolent with our oaths and Avell-matured judgments as to the province of the Federal GoA-emment over matters like this. The gentleman refers us for the constitutionality of this measure to the war power, the same power by which he justifies the emancipation proclamation and similar measures. We upon this side are thoroughly convinced of the utter sophistry of such reasoning. If the proclamation be imconstitutional, how can this or any measure based on it be valid? The gentleman says, "If the President had the power to fi'ee the slave, does it not imply the power to take care of him when freed?" Yes, no doubt. If he had any power under the war power, he has all power. He is so utterly irresponsible that even Congress cannot share his monarchical despotism. Under the war power he is a tyi'ant without a clinch on his revolutions. He can spin in any orbit he likes, as far and as long as he pleases. He refers us also to that clause of the Constitution which authorizes Congress " to declare war and make rules concerning captures on land." This latter argument squares with the theory of this war announced by the gentleman from Pennsylva- nia [Mr. Stevexs], for the authority of Congress to declare war is of course only meant as against foreign nations, and Congress can make all rules concerning captures in such a war. But unless the gentlemen on the other side are ready to acknowledge the independence of the South, and recognize them as a separate nation of belligerents, then his argument proves nothing in behalf of this bill, except that he is a theoretical seces- sionist. The constitutional argument in favor of this bill is one that this side cannot recognize, unless we are prepared to unsay and imdo all that we have said and done to protect the Constitution since the abolition measures began to take the form of law. " But," it is urged, " something must be done for the poor blacks. They are perishing by thousands. We must look the great fact of anti- slavery and its millions of enfranchised victims in the face, and legislate for their relief." Such is the appeal to our kindlier natures. Something should be done. The humanity which so loug pitied the ])hnnagc should not forget the dying Ijird. But what can be done without violating the Con- stitution of the United States, or without intrenching upon a domain never granted by the States or the people in their written charter of powers? What can be done? Oh ! ye honey-tonjTjued humanitarians of New Eng- land, with your coffers filled from the rough hand of Western toil, the bea- per-colorcd have a colored membrane which is ])laeed under the scarf skin and immediately above the true skin. Just as it is in the negro. 2' he infant negroes arcborn iihitr, or rather reddish, like those of other people " [laughter], '' but in two or three da)/s the eohir ber/ins to ehanr/e ; they spicdiUj beroiue voppir-colond " [laughter], " and t>i/ the seventh or d(/hth day, tUoufjh naT-anny against the States South, how is it possible to preserve the liberties of the people North? Can such an image, part brass and part clay, stand? WiU not a Government despotic as an Oriental empire to- ward one half of the nation, become intolerable and oppressive to the other half? Let the experience of the people under the war power an- swer. Let the stifling of free speech and free thought, the censorship ot the telegraph and surveillance of the mails, the arbitrary seizure and im- prisonment of opposing partisans, and the mihtary control over ballot- boxes, courts, and people answer ! Shall the attempt to restore the States therefore be given up ? Shall our armies be disbanded m the presence ot rebellious armies ? Not at all. . t -j i vi To restore aUegiance and inspire nationality, let the individual rebel in arms against us be reached by the arm of our soldier, and when a non- combatant by the moderation and paternal care of the Government. Let the military power of the Confederates be broken. Use those and only those severities of war which civilization warrants, and which will make the miUtarv power of the South feel the power of the nation ; but do not place any longer in their hands the armament of despair. They have had that weapon for over two years. Let our rulers forego their ostracism ot the mis-^uided citizen. Let an amnesty be tendered which has hope mits voice. "Give forgiveness to the erring, hope to the desponding, protection to the halting, and allay even fancied apprehensions of evil by the measures of moderation. Thus, by confiscating confiscation, abohshing abolition, and cancelling proclamations, by respecting private property and btate ri-hts, prepare that friendUness which will beget confidence m the mdivid- ual citizen.. Thus will minorities be transferred into majorities South, and the States discarding the rebel authorities betake themselves to their nor- mal and proper sphere under the old order. If this cannot be done by the present rulers, let other rulers be selected. History teaches m vain, it it does not contain lessons of moderation in civil wars. How were the lends of the Grecian federation accommodated? How were the civil wars ot Rome ended? How were the intestine troubles of England assuaged r" How was La Vendee pacified by the generous Hoche? How is it ever that unity of empire and consentaneity of thought are induced .-' How, ex- 392 EIGHT TEARS IN CONGRESS. cept by the practice of tliat mildness -which cares for and does not curse the people ? When Athens undertook to succor Mitylene from the Persian grasp, a confederacy was formed between them. Athens used her power despotically. Mitylene revolted. Athens regrasped her. Perfidy began. Destructive malignants — the Jacobins of that day, led by Cleon — insti- gated Athens to doom the citizens of Mitylene to death, their women to servitude, and their lands to desolation. But another and a better party arose, who strove to assuage grievances, prevent rebellion, and save the honor and unity of the Republic. "When all hopes of success have van- ished," said one of the wiser orators, "your rebellious subjects will never be persuaded to return to their duty ; they will seek death in the field rather than await it from the hand of the executioner. Gathering cour- age from despair, they will either repel your assaults or fall a useless prey." Wisdom prevailed, and the glory of the Grecian States remained untarnished. But a more conspicuous analogy to our o^vn revolution is to be found in the Marsian war of Rome. The Marsians claimed the privileges of Rome, whose empire they had enlarged and supported by their arms. They were the bravest soldiers of the empire, but they were denied equal rights in the State, which had been raised to eminence by their prowess. This war consumed above 300,000 of the youth of Italy. Finally, Rome con- quered by recruiting her strength from the " Border States," to A\}iom she communicated her privileges. The only thing, says the historian, which saved Rome, was the fact that the Latin colonies remained faithful ; for immediately after the commencement of the war, the Romans made up their minds to reward them with all the rights of Roman citizens. This decree is called the lex Julia. These allies were won by something more than amnesty of hate. The grandest empire of the past was rescued from intei'nal feuds by the wise moderation of its statesmen. When again Rome was racked by civil war, the wisest statesman of that turbulent and ambitious era, Cicero, summed up tlie duty of the pa- triot in this sentiment, which Ave might ponder with profit : " I shall willingly adopt your advice and show every lenity, and use my endeavors to conciliate I'onipey. Let us try it ; by these means, we can regain the affections of all peo- ple, and render our victory lasting. Let this be a new method of conquering, to fortify ourselves with kindness and liberality." The closest analogy to our condition is to be found in the English civil war beginning in 1G40. The English people are our ancestors. They had what we have, a similar code of personal freedom, great municipal independence, and a popular Parliament. The causes of the war were complicated by religious coutrovcrsy ; but the questions involved concern- ing tlie royal prerogative and the popular privilege arc closely allied to our struggle. We know how the first Charles lost his head ; how Cromwell's iron hand rescued, for a time, England from anarchy. At his death, eleven military governments, under ISlajor Generals, like Monk, held almost abso- lute sway. The tiiree uatious were represented in one i'arhament, which, on Cromweir.s death, had been dissolved for iudocility. Conspirators had been puuL'^iud with deatli. Condscations were common. Yet a counter revolution began. Terror began it. Cromwell's grasp was relaxed. His son, wiser than most men in power, convoked a Parliament. The army CIVIL WAE. 393 still reigned. It had been cori'upted by power. The result of intrigues for the general safety was a union of the Royalist and Presbyterian. But be- fore the old authority of the Stuarts could be restored, one element was wanting. It was supplied. Party vengeance was rampant then as now, but the people's representatives considered that they had to decide between a new civil war and a restoration. The latter was represented as clement, unexacting, prudent, and determined to adapt itself to tlie manners and wants of the time. Then came the famous declaration of Charles II. from Breda. It removed all hesitation, and the restoration began. The King in that paper declared that he desired to compose the distraction and confusion of his kingdom, to assume his ancient rights, and to accord to them their ancient liberties, without further " blood-letting." He there- fore granted an amnesty to all who would return to their obedience. He gave his kingly word that "no crime whatsoever committed against us or our royal father shall ever rise in judgment to the least endamagement of them, either in their lives, liberties, or estates ; we desiring and ordaining that henceforward all notes of discord, separation, and difference of par- ties be abolished." He conjured them to a perfect union for the reset- tlement of all rights, under a free parliament. When this declaration was read in parliament, though it was the false word of a designing tyrant, yet the restoration of the second Charles was voted by acclamation ! It was alleged that the declaration not only comprehended the motives but the conditions of the recall. Perhaps the people's representatives were pre- cipitate in not first settling conditions by a " free parliament." But the amnesty and declaration were none the less powerful. Nor would the same sort of declaration from Abraham Lincoln be less powerful to re- store the sovereign States to their old allegiance, especially if followed by a National Convention and the restoration of a party not imfriendly to the entire union of all the States, with their "just rights." No distrust fol- lowed this declaration of the English king. He came to England. His journey to London was one perpetual fete — one continued shout of rejoic- ingl Faction ceased. History records that Cavaliers were reconciled •with Roundheads. Exiles showed no resentment in the joy of their re- turn. A violent reaction against revolution began ; war ceased ; and the foundation was then laid for the permanent stability which 1G88 gave to England. On the contrary, what a lesson may we learn from the connection of Ireland and England, and the policy of the latter in striving to subjugate the former ! From the time of the first and second Charles — under all rules — discontent and warfare has prevailed. The union purchased through perfidy and fraud, by appeals to the mercenary motives of men, has been a mockery. When Strafford ruled Ireland, he placed his cap- tains and oflacers as burgesses in Parliament, who " swayed between the two parties," and thus began the corruption which ended in Irish subjuga- tion. In spite of the eloquence of Grattan and Plunkett, Ireland at length became a dependency of the British cro^vn. True, she had been despoiled before the union. From the time Avhen the Puritans overran Ireland to exterminate and destroy, sending thousands into tropical slav- ery, and many thousands into that other country where crime breeds no more of its offspring, down to the first of January, sixty-two years ago, 394 EIGHT YEAES IN CONGRESS. when the imperial standard, floating from Dublin Castle, announced to Ireland the depth of her degradation, and from that period to the present, there has been no union, no peace, no justice, no content for Ireland. That union, thus misbegotten of force and fraud, was weakness to Eng- land and ruin to Ireland. In one rebellion alone, that of 1798, there were 20,000 loyal lives lost, and 50,000 insurgents, and property worth $15,000,000. A conspiracy here, a plot there, a rebellion at the capital, a rising at the extremities, public waste, private impoverishment, general corruption, periodical starvation, political turpitude, and national bank- ruptcy — these are the features of national thraldom which Ireland presents for our warning, when we talk of subjugation and confiscation. How much better would it have been for both countries, had the sagacious ad- vice of Sydney Smith been followed, when he said : " How easy it is to shed human blood ; how easy it is to persuade ourselves that it is our duty to do so, and that the decision has cost us a severe struggle ; how much, in all ages, have wounds, and shrieks, and tears been the cheap and vulgar resources of the rulers of mankind. The vigor I love consists in finding out wherein subjects are ag- grieved, in relieving them, in studying the temper and genius of a people, in consulting their prejudice?, in selecting proper persons to lead and manage them in the laborious, watchful, and difficult task of increasing public happiness by allajiug each particular dis- content." The wiser statesmen of England once learned this lesson. They strove to apply it to America in the revolution of 1776. Every argument in favor of an unrelenting and exterminating policy by tlie British ministry was used and acted upon. In vain Chatham, Barre, and Burke appealed. Chatham, though provoked at our contumacy, as we are provoked at the conduct of the South, still felt that provocation could no longer be treated as such when it came from one united province, and when it was sup- ported by eleven provinces more. Accordingly, in February, 1775, he introduced a biU, Avhose conclusion was : " So shall true reconcilement avert impending calamity." "We know the sequel ; but do we heed the teaching? When in 1860 our wiser men strove to avert calamities by true reconciliation, who prevented? Who yet stand in the path of recon- ciliation, with flaming two-edged sword, barring all ingress to the bless- ings of peace? Who clamor yet for a dictatorial regime? Who shout for death penalties, outlawries, forfeitures, and all the barbarous schemes of vulgar despotism? Or who, on the other hand, still hope for victory without reprisals ; success Avithout the tarnish or breach of the Constitu- tion ; equality of rights, without irresponsible tyranny ; free opinions freely expressed — the only reward which a Union restored can grant, worthy of the great sacrifices which the noble soldiers of the Republic have made ! Let us have done with juggling amnesties and ambitious schemes, with philanthropic ferocity and enforced elections. Under no such policy, l)itched in the key-note of the President's proclamation, or chanted in the mellifluous tones of the gentlemau from Maryland [i\Ir. Davis], can the South ever be held in honorable alliance and harmony. A Government inspired thus would be out of all relations to the States of this Union. It would have neither " the nerves of sensation which conve'y intelligence to the intellect of the body politic, nor the ligaments and nuiscles which hold CIVIL WAE. 395 its parts together and move them in harmony." It would be as Eussia is to Pohmd, as England to Ireland, the government of one people by an- other. It would never succeed with our race. It would never succeed with a territory whose configurations are so peculiar and whose interests are so varied as ours. No citizenship is worth granting to those who dishonor themselves to receive it. No common bond of allegiance or nationality is possible on such terms. Mean and degrading conditions which unfit the citizen for manly equality are more despicable than rebellion. You cannot expel the poison of sedition by adding to its virulence. You cannot draw men from crime by stimulating the motive which led to it. Not thus — not thus were the early insurrections in our country assuaged. True, these rebellions were pigmies to this gigantic outbreak, but the principle of their settlement is eternal. It is the very gospel of God ; the very love which saves mankind. Inspired thus, what might be done if a wise and saga- cious Executive should extend the same beneficent policy to the factions which are bleeding our beloved land ! "Will our rulers heed these lessons in time? While they return to the purpose of the war, as declared by General McClellan, for the sole great object of the restoration of the unity of the nation, the preservation of the Constitution, and the supremacy of the laws ; and while they conduct it, as he declared it should be carried on, in consonance with the principles of humanity and civilization, abjuring all desire of conquest, all projects of revenge, and all schemes of mock philanthropy, let them remember, also, that all our labors to rebuild the old fabric will fail, unless out of the " brotherly dissimilitudes " of section and interest, we evoke the spirit of fraternity, which has its true similitude in the perfect spirit of Christian fellowship ! Pursuing such a course, we may, like the fugitive prophet upon Mount Horeb, approach and interrogate Deity itself in our despondency and for our deliverance. And though, like him, we may hear the roar of the wave and the whirlwind of war, though we may tremble amidst the earth- quake of its wrath, and though God may not be in the storm, the wind, or the earthquake ; yet we may find Him in the still, small voice — sweet, clear, electric, " Speaking of peace, speaking of love, Speaking as angels speak above," whose depth and sweetness are not those of tempestuous force or elemental strife, but soft as an angel's lute, or a seraph's song, promising redress for wrong and deliverance from calamity. Horeb stands as a monumental lesson to our rulers forever, for it stands amidst *the shadows of Sinai — speaking the still, small voice of diviue conciliation, amidst the thunders of the law and the forces of physical nature ! I wait for that voice to be spoken. My soul waiteth for it " more than they that watch for the morning ; I say, more than they that watch for the morning ! " YII. CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT ABOLISHING SLAVERY. NATIONAL, CONVENTION — AMENDMENTS BY VIRTUE OF STATE RIGHTS — MADISON, HAMILTON, AND CALHOUN CITED — HISTORY OF THE CLAUSE IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION JUDGE STORY'S OPINION IR- REVOCABLE LAWS USE OF THE POWER TO AMEND AS COMPROMISES IN 1860 CHECKS AGAINST THE ABUSE OF THE POWER DANGERS IN TIME OF WAR OF RADICAL CHANGES INEXPEDIENCY OF THE AMEND3IENT. The debate on the question of the power to amend the Constitution, so as to abolish slavery, was unusually interesting. It was so, because there was a direct issue, which gave no room for discursive discussion. It illustrated, moreover, what is seldom shown by Congressional debate, a progress, during the debate, toward correct opinions. Before the debate concluded very few upon either side denied the unlimited power to amend ; unlimited, save by the exceptions mentioned, and save by the mode pre- scribed in the Constitution. This mode is the only safeguard against un- wise amendments. It is ample, however, inasmuch as no amendment can be made except by the concurrence of two-thirds of Congress and three-fourths of the Legislatures of the States. If these be not sufficient guards against unreasonable amendment, what other or better prevention have we against violent revolution ? The part taken by me in tlie discussion was in some sort compelled : 1st, by a desire to be consistent with my previous votes given in 1860-61, Avlien amendments concerning slavery were common ; and 2d, by a col- loqny in which I engaged, where I committed myself to the doctrine above stated. On the 10th of January, 1865, while Mr. Kasson was speaking, Mr. Mallory asked whether, by an amendment of the Constitution, we could 80 change tlie government as to convert it into a monarchy, an aristocracy, or a despotism. Mr. Kasson avoided the question ; but with his permission, I answered it by saying : " I carry the Democratic doc- coNSTmrnoNAL amendment abolishing slavery. 397 trine to such an extent, that I maintain that the people, speaking through three-fourths of the States, in pursuance of the mode prescribed by the Constitution, have the right to amend it in every particular, except the two particulars specified in that instrument ; that this includes the right to erect a monarchy ; to make, if you please, the King of Dahoraey our king." This expression excited surprise upon both sides of the House. It was animadverted upon by Mr. Pendleton and by others, who had given much study to the question. But as the debate progressed, this power to amend became the fixed opinion of a majority, even of those who thought it then inexpedient to use the power. Mr. Boutwell held the power to be limited only by the preamble of the Constitution. Mr. Thayer, thereupon, argued that that was equivalent to saying there are no limitations, which was his own position. Mr. Dawes, grasping the question comprehensively at once, argued that since the preamble was submitted to three-fourths of the States, they were the law-makers and law-expounders, who could as well alter the preamble as any other part of the instrument ; that it was competent for them, as a tribunal from which there was no appeal, to say that any thing, save the limitations pre- scribed by the instrument itself, does or does not contribute to the ends set forth in the preamble, even to the extent of permitting a man of foreign birth to be chosen President — even the King of Dahomey himseU^ — with which Mr. Thayer and others agreed. This occurred subsequent to my speech, which was delivered on the 12th of January, 1865. It was incomprehensible to some, that, admitting the power to amend, I did not vote to submit the amendment. I had, as will be per- ceived, left myself free to vote for the amendment, in case its passage would not interfere with any attempts at negotiation. I had several interviews with party friends, at my room, with that view. I was anxious, as a Democrat, and with a view to the upbuilding of the party I cherished, to drive this question, which had become abstract by the death of slavery through powder and ball, from the political arena. Many agreed with me, whose votes were recorded with mine against the amendment. I fuUy intended, when I came to the House, at noon of the last day of Jan- uary, when the vote was taken, to cast my vote for the amendment ; for I had said publicly and privately, that if all hope of negotiation had failed, and the South stood upon its independence, and the people were freeing their negroes for soldiers, I would not stop to consider further. The amendment would no longer be a block in the path of reconciUation and union. I had been advised by high oflicials, that no further negotiations were possible ; that so Mr. Blaik, sen., had reported from Richmond, whence he had just come. But on arriving at the hall of the House at 398 EIGHT YEAES IN CONGKESS. half-past twelve, I learned that commissioners were actually As-aiting to be conducted over the lines. These were Messrs. Campbell, Hunter, and Stephens. I sent to Mr. Ashley to know if this were true. He in- quired of Mr. NicoLAY, the President's private secretary, who was pres- ent in the hall, who declared that he knew of no such commission. I begged Mr. Ashley, as my vote depended on that fact, to inquire of the President. He wi'ote him a note, to which the President, about half-past one o'clock, responded, that he '■ knew of no such commission or nego- tiation." This was signed " A. L." It was shown to me. I however made further inquiries, and satisfied myself that either the President was mistaken or was ignorant of what was transpiring at General Grant's headquarters. It was upon this information, which I obtained from other than official sources, that I voted. It proved to be correct informa- tion. Whether my vote was correct or not, it was given upon the belief that in the negotiations then about to be begun at once, this amendment would prove an insurmountable obstacle to peace and union. Weighing in one scale the dead body of slavery, which Avas to be abolished by this amendment ; and in the other, peace and union, and these latter, too, without slavery — could I do any thing else than doubt the wisdom of an amendment which Avould postpone peace and imperil the Union? But the speech, which I matured in advance of these hurrying events,, is the test by which my motive and judgment are to be tried. I submit it to tha reader : INIr. vSpeaker : When we left these halls last year, there was a prospect that the administration of the Government Avould have been changed by tlie election. The political conventions of the two parties met. The party of the Administration made this amendment of the Constitution a part of their creed. Tliey Avent before the people claiming the poAver to abolish slavery by constitutional amendment. Nowhere did the oppo- site party take ground against the poAver ; everywhere tlicy took ground against its exercise. Tlie convention wliich mot at Chicago adopted their creed. It called for a cessation of hostilities, but Avilh one Anew, a na- tional convention, in order to reestablish union. Not giving up the prin- ciples laid down in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798 and 1799, when moved by my colleague [Mr. Long] in the convention, Avhich, rightly considered, constituted a main foundation of its political creed, it laid them on the table on my own motion, as abstractions unsuited to the demands of the agonized country. Regarding peace as the great practical need of the hour, the convention waived all other questions to reach that. How? By the Constitution, in its filth article, which provides that a national convention shall be called for proposing amendments to the Con- stitution. This proposition of the convention Avas at once our Aveakness and our strength : our weakness when misiuiderstood by the people, our strength when rightly iutei-preted. My colleague [IMr. Pendleton] ac- CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT ABOLISHING SLAVERY. 399 cepted that platform. In casting my vote for liim, I knew that he in- dorsed it. He indorses it jet. If he had been elected to that office, which he would have graced so well, we might to-day have been appeal- ing to Legislatures, North and South, and not in vain to two-tliirds of them, to call the convention at the will of the people. The North would have yielded and the South would not have held back. That my colleague and myself well know. In that august assemblj^ the distinguished men from both sections would have been present. What would have been the scope of their action ? What the subject of their debates ? Need I ask ? It would have been the settlement of all grievances, North and South ; questions of debt, doubtless ; questions of guarantee to State and muni- cipal rights, doubtless ; but beyond doubt, this vexata questio of slavery, this teterrima causa belli, and the agitations and legislation growing there- from. Mr. Speaker, I read this morning, with what truth I know not, that a commissioner is now in Richmond with the confidence and assent of the Administration, meeting, perhaps, a commissioner on the part of the Con- federate authorities ; and the rumor is that they have agreed to call a national convention. [Sensation.] I know not whether there is any thing in it. My friend from New York who sits behind me [Mr. Fer- nando Wood] says that there is not, and he is presumed to know more on that subject than I do. [Laughter.] If, in the providence of God, such a convention were called or were now in session, and this question came up in a full representation of all the States, who would think of dis- puting its power to modify, change, alter, and abolish, either at once or gradually, by constitutional amendment, the institution of slavery? Not a man. While, therefore, in a state of war, and with nearly half the States in default and absent, I may deny the wisdom of acting either by the one mode or the other, pointed out for the amendment of the Consti- tution in this particular — I will not deny a power so essential to peace, safety, and sovereignty. No ingenious refinement or dazzling eloquence shall lead me to deny a power which may yet prove our salvation, when wisely used. Who upon this side asks me to shut the door in the face of such a saving power? Let him remember that while the power may now threaten to destroy, the power to save is forever bound up with it. The power that can create, the same can destroy. Under the ribs of death at the last moment, this power may be invoked to create the heart and soul of union, and that, too, by the array of States in their sovereign capacity, as modified by then- granted powers. Do you teU me that such sovereignty can only guarantee, but cannot destroy property, either in man or beast, in land or house? If a conven- tion of States can take jurisdiction to protect property it can to destroy. It is admitted that the States individually can do this. If by the Constitu- tion they as States, all consenting to it, have provided a mode of doing it, what matters it whether it is done by them in their individual capacity or in their conventional capacity? Whenever two-thirds here agree to pro- pose amendments and three-fourths shall ratify, either by convention or Legislature, the proposition is " a part of this Constitution." It is the States that do this in the first instance, all according in making the amend- ment clause ; again by their convention in proposing ; and again by rati- 400 EIGHT YEAES IN CONGRESS. fying. Therefore I join my colleague in singing hosanna to that principle of our government just denounced by the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Smith] as so nefarious — the sovereignty of the States. I see here not one monster iron crown, like that of Lombardy, compelling, as from an omnipotent sceptre, the subject States, but each of the States making for itself a fundamental law or organic compact. Even by this amendatory clause the States pluck from theu* "round of sovereginty " each a crown jewel to form and decorate the Federal diadem. All the States, sover- eign in their reserved spheres, drop tlieir sceptres before the Federal em- blem, in all cases where, as in amendments, the Constitution is declared the " supreme law of the land." Tell me not that this power is dangerous when left unlimited in the Federal head. All power is dangerous. It tends to abuse. This is no argument against its existence, only against its exercise. My colleague [Mr. C. A. White] holds that the States can make him — now a free white man — a slave by local law. Is there a more dangerous power w^hen exercised ? It is worse than the power to create or destroy property. But he admits the power, if its place of lodgment is only local. If, then, the States can do this by local law, can they not do it in any other way they choose ? They can by the same power make him again a freeman. Xay, more ; there may be possibly a gi'eater guarantee in an enlightened land against his being made a slave by the votes of the States, all con- voked in the mode prescribed by the Constitution, than in the separate action of the States unassisted in their organic Avork by the prudence of their brother States. My colleague [Mr. C. A. White] says the States are unlimited and absolute in their sovereignty, and therefore the Federal Government is not sovereign. I bid him beware. Where does this doctrine lead? May not the States in their unlimited and sovereign convention, deriving their powers from the original consent of all, give up portions of their sov- ereignty, modify it, as Mr. Calhoun holds, by the amendatory clause? May thoy not tints speak the most potential voice of the people of the States in all affairs? It is the people of all the States who consent to amending the Constitution, and by a mode which allows two-thirds of both Houses to propose the amendment, which is to be sent to tlie Legis- latures for the ratification of three-fourths. First and last and all the time, the States are the constituents of the Federal Government, and as such, and by their State action, they can create and they can destroy. I am of the State-rights school so far as this question is concerned, and of the strictest sect. Mr. Fernando Wood. I desire to call the attention of the gen- tleman from Ohio to the language of James Madison in tlie " Federalist " : " That u.vful aUvrations will )3e suggested by experience, coulil not but be foreseen. It was R'fiuisite, tlicrut'ore, tliat a mode tor introducing them should be lu-ovided. The mode preferred by the Convention seems to be stamped with every mark of propriety. It guards equally against that extreme facility which would render tlie Constitution too muta- ble, and that extreme diffieidty which might perpetuate its diseovcrrd fuilts. It more- over cfiually enables the (ieneral and the State Governments to originate the amendment of errors as they may be pointed out by the experience on one side or on the other." Again, sir, Hamilton says : CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT ABOLISHING SLAVERY. 401 " For my own part, I acknowledge a thorough conviction that any amendments which may, upon mature consideration, be thought useful, will be applicable to the organization of tlie Government, not to the mass of its powers ; and on this account alone I think there is no weight in the observations just stated." Mr. Cox. The only comment I make upon the quotations of the gentleman from New York is this : Madison in the Convention opposed and voted against the proposition of Roger Sherman to except all internal police of the States from the amendments of the Constitution. The quo- tation is in harmony with his vote. For he only holds, as Judge Story holds, that the mode of amendment sufficiently guards the Constitution against mutability; and that the "amendment of errors" cannot be made without the concurrence of Federal and State Governments, in Con- gress and in State Legislatures. He did not expect that fundamental changes would.be made — only " alterations ; " but he does not deny that there is any limit to the power. This is no authority against the power, but an argument for it. Mr. Madison holds to the power because he be- lieves it cannot be abused, owing to the restraints placed by the Conven- tion upon its exercise. Further, I know, from having read the private correspondence of Mr. Madison, published in this city by Mr. McGuire, for private distribution, that he always held to the idea that the only mode by which a dissolution of the Union, or a secession of the States, could ever be legally accomplished was by this organic and all-powerful clause of amendment. He laid it down so broadly that it would even cover the re- mark I made the other day, considered so extravagant, that we might by the fiat of the States even build a monarchy upon the ruins of republican- ism. As to the quotation from Mr. Hamilton, I do not see its application. I am not prepared, without reading it carefully, to make a fitting comment. It strikes me that it does not limit the power of amendment. It is rather the expression of a strong conviction that all amendments will be and ought to be applied to " the organization of the Government, not to the mass of its powers," and that none others would be useful. I quite agree with the opinion. Now, with aU respect, I appeal to my friend from New York, who belongs to the strict State-rights school of politics, and even stands so perpendicularly that many people believe that he leans back- ward, to consider the view of Mr. Calhoun upon this subject. I am sorry my friend from Connecticut [Mr. Deming], who has the volume, has not brought it here this morning. The quotation will be found in his sixth volume, page 36. In 1828 the South Carolina Legislature asked the opinion of Mr. Calhoun upon this and kindred subjects. In that declara- tion of political power, drawn up for his State, he teaches that the people of that State by adopting the Federal Constitution had modified its origi- nal right of sovereignty, and that by its consent in becoming a member of the Union, that power had been placed in the hands of three-fourths of the States, in whom, he said, the highest power kno^vn to the Constitu- tion exists. I do not give the quotation with that length and that empha- sis which belong to it, but I will insert it in my remarks for the edification of my friend, who is a most earnest disciple of John C,, Calhoun : " Iq order to have a full and clear conception of our institutions it will be proper to remark that there is, in our system, a striking contrast between government and sov« 26 402 EIGHT TEAES EST CONGRESS. ereignty. The separate governments of the several States are vested in their legislative, executive, and judicial departments, while the sovereignty resides in the people of the several States who created it ; but by an express provision of the Constitution it may be amended or changed be three-fourths of the States, and thus each State, by assenting to the Constitution with this provision, has modified its original right as a sovereign, of making its individual consent necessary to any change in its political condition ; and by becoming a member of this Union has placed this important power in the hands of three- fourths of the States, in whom the highest power known to the Constitution resides." Tliis extract is only strengthened by the context. I call on my friends of the State-rights school not to outdo their masters, but if they would save the most valuable and most abused principle of our Government, not to strain its intent, and thus destroy it altogether. I am sustained in my view by the history of the convention which framed the Constitution. Was this question considered by the conven- tion? It was. In Elliot's Debates, volume five, page 357, it appears that General Pinckney "reminded the convention that if the committee should fail to insert some security to the Southern States against an eman- cipation of slaves and taxes on imports, he should be bound by his duty to his State to vote against their report." Again, wdien the report was made, this clause of amendment came in on the 15th of September. It Avas dis- cussed by Sherman, Morris, Gerry, Mason, and Madison. Mr. Sherman did not lilve the mode proposed, for fear it would, by three-fourths of the States, do things fatal to particular States, as abolishing them altogether, or depriving them of their equality. Colonel Mason thought it dangerous and exceptionable. Mr. Madison defended the present clause. Mr. Sher- man moved to annex to the end of the article a further proviso, " that no State shall, without its consent, be affected in its internal police, or de- prived of its equal suffrage in the Senate." Mr. Madison opposed it. It Avas lost — three to eiglit. Then Mr. Sherman moved to strike out the fifth article altogether. That too failed. The article Avas then further' amended by the existing clause, that " no State shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate." (Elliot, volume five, page 352.) Thus it passed. The argument from contemporary history is therefore conclu- sive. The intention of the creator is the best criterion as to the charac- ter of the creature. Here Ave have it, not only implied by the absence of an exception, but by the positive disallowance of it by the convention. Tli»it intention Avas to limit the amending clause only in tAvo particulars. Tliis one before the House is neither of tlie tAvo. My opinion on this matter of construction is draAAii from unexception- able teaching ; not alone from Judge Story ; not alone from Calhoun. No man can teach me a different lesson until I forget the history of the Constitution. Tlie platform of my party, and the philosophy of its found- ers, teach me the same thing. In the language of that platform of many years, adopted last at Cincinnati and Baltimoi-c, I " maintain before the Avorld tliis great moral element in a form of government, springing from and upheld by the popular Avill, Avliich seeks not to palsy tlie Avill of the constituent;" and tliat is, that the Federal Government is one of limited power, derived solely from llie Constitution and (he grants of power made therein ; that its powers ought to be strictly construed ; and if upon such construction louud therein, to be strictly pursued willi all the vigor of their coublitutioual sanctions. Eiudiuu this clause of amendment iu the \ CONSTTTUTIOlirAL AMEKDMENT ABOLISHING SLAVERY. 403 Constitution, with no doubt upon its features, I must bow to its supremacy. Even though I may regard it as clear and unquestionable, and admit the power in its fullest expression, I may yet claim that its exercise is dan- gerous and inexpedient. If it were a doubtful power, I would not think of exercising it ; but since it is clearly granted, I shall consult my own judg- ment upon tbe merits of the proposed amendment. If, then, it be an exer^ else of an admitted power, wby not confine the discussion to proving the unwisdom of its exercise ? For two reasons : I. I believe that the argument from lack of power to amend, is we'aker than the argument against its expediency. It is a settled rule of loo-ie that a fallacy, used in a good cause, gives your opponent the advantage of apparent success in the conclusion of the argument. I do not propose to give this advantage to the advocates of this measure. Believing that the power exists, I am bound to follow the example of my colleague [Mr. Pendleton], and place my vote upon the reasons which weigh most in my judgment. I find that the learned commentator, Judge Story, re- gai'ds this power of amendment as both useful and important. His rea- sons are radical. He says, page 678 : " It is obvious that no human government can ever be perfect ; and that it is impossi- ble to foresee or guard against all the exigencies which may, in different ages, require dif- ferent adaptations and modifications of powers to suit the various necessities of the peo- ple. A Government forever changing and changeable, is indeed in a state bordering upon anarchy and confusion. A Government which, in its own organization, provides no means of change, but assumes to be fixed and unalterable, must after a while laecome wholly un- suited to the circumstances of the nation ; and it will either degenerate into a despotism, or, by the pressure of its inequalities, bring on a revolution. It is wise, therefore, in every Government, and especially in a republic, to provide means for altering and improving the fabric of Government as time and experience or the new phases of human affairs may render proper, in order to promote the happiness and safety of the people. The great principle to be sought is to make the changes practicable, but not too easy ; to secure due deliberation and caution ; and to follow experience rather than to open a way for experi- ments suggested by mere speculation or theory." Upon this philosophy he considers this power of amendment ;^ finds in its mode of exercise sufficient checks against its abuse ; but even if abused, he finds that it is better as a measure of safety than if the powers were limited. In his judgment there are no limitations upon its exercise ex- cept those specified ; and the claim to abolish the internal policy of a State is not an exception. These reasons for the clause of amendment are the reasons why the power is so extensive. Tbe mode of amendment was thought to be so guarded as to prevent any unrepublican or monarch- ical amendments which would substantially change the genius and scope of the federal system of delegated powers. It is, nevertheless, unlimited, except in the two particulars specified. This power of unlimited amendment is an element of democracy. It has been the characteristic of our democratic institutions that our ancestry, however prudent and wise, did not tie the hands of the children nor shackle their liberties by laws so irrevocable that no mode of change was allowed. In our State constitutions this power of amendment has been and is be- ing exercised almost every decade. Why ? On the principle of Jeremy , Bentham (Benthamiana, page 220), that at each point of time the sover- eign for the time possesses such means as the nature of the case affords. 404 EIGHT YEAES IN" CONGRESS. for making "himself acquainted with the exigencies of his own time. With reference to the future he has no such means. Bentham thus argues against the transfer of the Government from those who possess the best means to those who possess the least means of information. Shall the past century rule the present? No, not unless they are better informed or feel more interest in the future generation than their ov/n. Why should we of the nineteenth century tie up the hands of the twentieth? Why should the dead forever rule the living ? Is a tyranny inexorable because it is established in the past? Is a law immutable because made by the fathers ? If the law be despotic, who then shall reverse it ? From these gen- eral principles I deduce the reason why I choose to argue this amendment rather upon its unwisdom than upon the lack of power to make it. " It is only," Mr. Bentham says, " when the law is mischievous that an argu- ment of this stamp will be employed to svipport it. Suppose a law a good one, it will be supported, not by absurdity and deception, but from its own excellency. A declaration that this or that law is immutable, so far from being a proper argument to enforce its permanency, is rather a presump- tion that such a law has some mischievous tendency." Now, Mr. Speaker, if our polity, which leaves all domestic questions to the State, be wise, as I think it is — eminently wise — not because it was made in 1787, but be- cause it is suited to 1865, and our condition now as well as then, why weaken the argument for its continuance by discussing its irrevocable na- ture ? Why not build its defence on its intrinsic excellency ? Why not then, from this fortification, thunder your rifled artillery? Why, if it be so wise, exhaust your fulminations in trying to prove that we have no power to change it in the mode prescribed? It is in the light of these democratic truths that I read the fifth article of the Constitution. I con- struct my argument upon the perennial beauty, exquisite symmetry, and enduring perfection of that system which reserves to the local communities their local interests, the very genius of all permanency, the very element which secures us against that homogeneity so dreaded by the gentleman from New York [Mr. Brooks] ; the happy accord of diverse interests, E 'plurihxs unum, many as the vvaves in variety, but one as the sea in unity ; stars upon one constellated ensign, each differing in glory, but upon the field of blue all emblematic of the harmony of the Federal system, springing out of the "brotherly dissimilitudes" of the mingled States! It is upon this foundation that I would seek, by reason and not by author- ity, to erect the argument for its preservation against radical change. Does it follow, as my friend from Iowa suggested, that I weaken my argument against the amendment because I argue its demorits while ac- knowledging the power to amend? I may object to an alteration in my house, especially if it disturbs the foundation and general plan ; but must I change it fundamentally because I am the proprietor and have the power? If it be true that a denial of the power is apt to be regarded as an apology for a mischief, do I not strengthen the argument by discussing the naischief ? Tlie mischief to be apprehended in this instance is not the abolition of slavery. It is the abolition by this amendment of our pecu- liar form and structure of Government. The argument which I desired to hear and meet should be directed to this point. Who cares, sir, whether slavery die or live, when the question is, " Shall the ibrm and CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT ABOLISHING SLAVERY. 405 substance of our Government perish?" Show me that the Government will perish or be imperilled if this amendment is not carried, and I will vote it though all the devils in the South and North should confront me Avith their wrath ! Show me that by voting against it, I facilitate the recstablishment of the Government in all its integrity, and my vote shall be against it. Mr. Kassox. I rise in order to ask the gentleman if at this point, as well as anywhere in his argument, he will permit me to call his attention to a suggestion he made before, and which seems to have been touched upon by his last point more clearly than elsewhere ; and that is the charge that the tendency of this amendment is tlie destruction of the form and sub- stance of our Government. The form of Government we all under- stand ; and even he will not contend that this amendment changes the form. Touching its change of substance, I pi*esume he alludes to the charge he made the other day of its effect being a centralization of power. Am I right? Then I wish to ask him upon this point — that we may not be misled by a misapplication of terms — to explain what he means by such centralization. I Avill say what I understand by it. When I read, the other day, an extract from a letter of the original Convention which formed the Constitution, and unanimously adopted by them, this plu-ase occurred in it, " Consolidation of the Union," as the great object of the framers of that system of government. Objection was taken to it by the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Voorhees], but I take it in its length and breadth ; and I call the attention of the gentleman from Ohio to the dis- tinction between " consolidation" of the Union and tbe " centralization" of the Government. Centralization means when you take the power from the State and give it to the United States. But when you take it both from the States and from the Unhed States there is not a particle of cen- tralization of power. That is what this amendment does. Mr, Cox. Before I get through I will meet the statement of the gentleman. I would prefer to leave to the States individually and of their own separate motion, the question of abolishing slavery, and the inaugura- tion of measures to that end. I believe this amendment, if carried out, Avill have a tendency toward consolidating power in the Federal head. Whatever it may be termed, I am opposed to compounding powers in the Federal Government. Whether the powers of the Federal Govei'nment be united in one department, or consolidated in the Union, I would decen- tralize such powers, take them from the Federal centre, and distribute them among the States and the people. If you consolidate or centralize powers here, you endanger by the excess of power the substance and form itself of our Government. The form will soon change to conform to the substance. But I will make that clear as I progress. II. Another reason for discussing the question of power is, that it is the most valuable gift from the States to the Federal Government, if it be not an express reservation of the power in the States. Perhaps, as both Federal and State Governments take part in the amendment of the Con- stitution, the power to amend is both a reserved and a delegated power. Whatever it is, it is so valuable that I cannot surrender it. Not now. If ever peace comes, it will be through its exercise, upon this very ques- tion of slavery. I regard that Governinent with a constitution which has 406 EIGHT YEARS IN CONGRESS. DOt the liberty of amendment, as lacking the means of its own conserva- tion. Such an amendment is a safety-valve, or governor, upon the en- gine of State. A State without it, is in perpetual danger of violent rev- olution. Such an amendment is a peaceful, legal, and salutary revolution. It is the beauty of our system of written constitutions that, like machines with a principle of compensation belonging to them, any irregularity may be corrected without breaking the macliine or impairing the movement. Such powers of change save the State from such terrible red-handed rev- olution as that now upon us. Rufus Choate once described, as if he fore- saw it, the present revolution " as a great sea lifting itself, with darkened sky, and not very imitable thunder ; a tempest which overturns and suc- cessfully resists the existing public authority, arrests the exercise of supreme power, introduces by force, or by resort to a primary right of nature, a new, paramount authority into the rule of the State." Had this bloodless and legal revolution by amendment of our Constitution been wisely exercised upon tliis very subject of slavery, as Crittenden, Douglas, ay, even Toombs and Davis, insisted in 1860, we would not be fulfilling so sadly the magnificent picture which Choate painted of tempestuous and fratricidal strife ! Sir, when the statesmen of 1860 sought to exercise this power upon this subject of slavery, I gave my voice and vote for it. I know nothing now, but the fear of being misjudged by partial friends about me, that should deter me from again asserting the power which, with my colleague [Mr. Pendleton], I then assumed. He bravely resists the popular cur- rent to defy its exercise now ; I humbly do the same. But this I will not do, discard my own words and throw aside a once cherished principle of government because its present exercise may be an outrage upon the sense and patriotism of the country. When I fii-st came to this Congress Avith my colleague, we came under the odium of " pro-slavery ; " we came defending the position of Douglas, that Congress had no right to interfere with slavery, tinder the Constitu^ tion, in States and Territories. We claimed non-intervention as both wise and constitutional. Again and again, when anti-slavery and pro- slavery zealots demanded congressional action, we said, " No, no ; there is no power under the Constitution to abolisli it or protect it. It is local, not Federal ; State, not national. If you would touch it, either to extend or limit, abrogate or institute it, first chaiifjc the Constitution." Again, when discussing questions connected with the power of a State over the subject of black immigration, I have denied all power to Coni^.'res"-, to the President, to the army, to interfere with tliis subject, because it was not so written in the Constitution. I said, " Amend that instrument first, if you Avould thus break down the incontestable rights of the State under the Constitution in such matters." Denying ever the propriety of its exercise, I have never heard tlie power denied. Am I to ignore the power because foolish fanatics may rule in its exercise? Mr. Buchanan, in his message of December 4, 1860, pro))os('d to save us from war by slavery amend- ments, which he called peacclul and constitutional remedies. Wlio ob- jected to the exercise of such remedies for want of power? No one ex- cept gentlemen opposite, who declared it to be monstrous and illegal, against the laws of God and man, fundamental and irreversible. CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT ABOLISHING SLAVERY. 407 Mr. Johnson, of Pennsylvania. I desire to ask the gentleman from Ohio a single question at this point. He refers to the message of Presi- dent Buchanan. I desire to ask him whether the recommendation of Mr. Buchanan did not apply to the question of slavery in the Territories, and not at all to the question of slavery in the States? Mr. Cox. The recommendation of Mr. Buchanan, which I hold in my hand, applies to both. But even if it is only applied to slavery in the Territories, the question of slavery was the subject-matter of the amend- ment. Mr. Johnson, of Pennsylvania. If I recollect aright, at the time, the question of the disturbance of slavery in the States was not agitated at all. It was denied by the Republican party that they intended in any way whatever to interfere with the question of slavery in the States ; and it was only the question of slavery in the Territories and beyond the limits of the States which was agitated in Congress at that time. It is since the inauguration of this Administration that the question of the abolition of slavery within the States has grown up in the country. Mr. Cox. That will do for the gentleman ; because I have the recom- mendation of ]\Er. Buchanan upon that subject here. It is more authentic than even his good memory. It is as foUows : " Aa express recognition of the rights of property in slaves «?i the States where it now exists or may hereafter exist." As my valued friend will perceive, this was not a question of the abolishment of slavery. It was, however, a question which touched, through a constitutional amendment, the institution of slavery in the States. The gentleman says the recommendation was coniined to slavery in the Territories, and did not reach that in the States. He wiU perceive his mistake. I am not anxious to raise a discussion -nnth my friends upon this side of the chamber, but I am entitled to be consistent with the rec- ord I have made for eight years here. I have always claimed the right to pass upon the slavery question by an amendment in pursuance of the fifth article of the Constitution. I have sought only to make its exercise judicious. The abolitionists only declared, in 1860, agaiast " any express recognition of the right of property in man in the States where it now ex- ists, or may hereafter exist." , Then the abolitionists made the argument of my colleagues [Messrs. Ashley and Pendleton]. They denied the power. It was and is so easy to argue against the power to do a thing which we do not like. When Mr. Buchanan, referring to the amend- ment clause, proposed to extead its operation to protect this right in the Territories until admitted as States, and a like recognition of the right of the master to his escaped slave, who objected? Who? Not my colleague [Mr. Pendleton] and myself. For though we might have agreed with the decision of the Supreme Court in Dred Scott's case, we desired such principles established in the fundamental law. Why? Because it was recommended, to use the language of that day, " as an explanatory amend- ment which would forever terminate the existing dissensions and restore peace and harmony among the States." Those who desired not to ter- minate our troubles, or to keep peace and avert war, denied the power to enslave or to recognize slavery. This side of the House labored, O how 408 EIGHT TEAKS IN CONGRESS. nobly, but bow vainly, to bave tbe compromises of tbat dark bour written with a pencil of light on the organic law, by tbe unimpeacbed power of amendment, tbat jNorth and South might dwell in accord forever. Again, on tbe 28tb of February, 18G1, in the hope of allaying the fears of Southern men, a joint resolution was passed with my colleague's [Mr. Pendleton's] sanction and vote — yeas 133 to 65 nays — providing for an amendment in the mode prescribed by tbe present joint resolution, as follows : "Art. 12. No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which shall authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere within any State with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State." This was voted for by South and North — Douglas. Crittenden, Pugh, Bococke, and Hunter. What did it mean ? I do not ask what Avas its in- tention as a remedial measure ; as a bill to quiet title ; as a peace meas- ure. It did two things : first, it assumed to speak by amendment on a domestic question ; secondly, in tbe very substance and body of it, it re- cognized, without dissent from a single voice, tbe jjowei- to amend by abolishing slavery in States, and it sought to checkmate tbat power by adding it to the exceptions of the fifth article. It was as if it said, " Con- gress, by the mode prescribed, may propose amendments which shall be valid as a part of tliis Constitution, provided no amendment shall be made as to the aholition of and interference with slavery." Truly my col- league was right in requiring, as a peace measure, such an expression as an exception to tbe general power of amendment. He knew the old maxim of construction, " The expression of one thing is the exclusion of another." As the Constitution bad excluded two subjects from amendment, and had failed to exclude the abolition of slavery as sacredly unamendable, it fol- lows tbat tbe power to abolish was given in the general grant. But the argument drawn from my colleague's former vote or opinion is not con- clusive, except upon him, and only upon him on the fi'ailest of all argu- ments, tliat, once in favor of a thing, he sliould always be in favor of it. I shall be the last to press tbe ad Itominem upon him. I need not recall to tbe House the pi'opositions of Mr. Crittenden or tbeii- tenor. In the preamble their object is stated. They were intended to allay " dissensions concerning the rights and security of the rights of the slaveholding States." 'They proposed to do this by constitutional provisions. Above the latitude of 36"^ 30' slavery was prohibited ; South it was recognized and protected. They denied to Congress the right to abolish in the District and in the States where the United States bad jurisdiction. They proposed to pro- tect members of Congi'ess and other Federal officers in bringing (heir slaves here, to protect tbe inter-State slave trade, and to pay ibr i'ugitivo slaves in certain cases. As if this were not enough to show the power over this subject by amendment, and because these statesmen of 1860 knew tbe power existed to abolish slavery in the States, they provided : " No future amendment of the Constitution shall affect the five preceding articles; nor the third paragraph of the second stclion of tlio first article of tlic Constitution ; nor the third piinigraph of the second sectii)n of the fourth article of said Constitution ; and no nincnihiicnl sliidl l)c ni.idc to the Conslitulion which shall authorize or give to Con