THE DISUNION POLICY OP THE ADMINISTRATION. E 458 .4H56 Copy 1 S JP E IE C H HON. ANSON HERRICK. 14 M AD B IN TIIE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 2^iARCH 26, 18&4. \ ■> y /Si^S^'^^ (-^ it>J(i^ ^c?^ '^Z WASHINGTON, D. C. : PRINTED AT CONSTITUTIONAL UNION OFFICE. 18Ci. SPEECH The House being in Committee of Uie Whole on the state of the Union — Mr. HERRICK said : Mr. Chairman, in the remarks I design to make upon the President's message, I_do not propose to dwell upon the manifold crimes of the present Administration against the people of this country. I do not intend to expatiate mien its audacious usurpations of undelega- ted power, nor to consider its subversion of the rights guarantied to these States and it:, unwarrantable interference with the freedom of the press, the freedom of speech, and the personal liberty of the citizen. Heinous as these offenses are, I charge upon the Admin- istration a crime of far greater magnitude, and one fruitful of more numerous and more grievous evils than all of these together.— The greatest crime that can be committed by men to whom the dearest interests of a nation have been confided, is to make the honor, prosperity, and peace of the country a secon- dary consideration in their administration of hs affairs to the temporary success of a party, to the political preferment and pecuniary ag- grandizement of the leaders of that_ party. Compared with this crime robbery is but a venial sin, and murder a trivial misdemean- or- for in itself, a financial and military crisis sucb as now exists in this country necessarily includes and comprehends both. The men DOW having control of the Government I do not hesitate, Mr. Chairman, to declare guilty of this high crime. They have no desire nor intention to bring this war to a close; nor are they endeavoring to accomplish such a result. They ars making no calculations in that di- rection, but are shaping everything for a long war Had they so desired, peace, with the Union restored and the Constitution preserv- ed might have been secured long ago, and an immense waste of blood and treasure saved. Every gallant soldier whose life has been of- fered up with humble patriotism, a willing 8acrifi:e upon the altar of his country, since the war could thus have been ended, has been literally murdered by the Administration; while every dollar that has been expended since that time to^^carry on the war, has been in reality stolen by it from the people. It is the first and most imperative duty of the Administration to bring this war to an end at the earliest possible moment consistent with the objects for which only it can be right- fully waged; and it is because it does not Beek to do so, but on the contrary contmues to introduce new issues, to multiply diftcul- ties and to barricade all the avenues to an honorable peace under the Constitution, that it is morally guilty of treason to the people. In reviewing the operations of the Admin- istration since the removal of Gen. McClellan from the command of the Army of the Poto- mac many events and circumstances are found to justify the assumption that the war has been purposely prolonged to accomplish other objects than the suppression of the re- bellion, the restoration of the Union, and the enforcement of the laws. Yes, Mr. Chair- man, and for even still other purposes than the enfranchisement of the negro race, which has now become the principal plank m the war platform of the President and his sup- porters. Party supremacy and the perpetua- tion of partisan power are matters of para- mount importance to the politicians who now rule the destinies of this nation, while mili- tary operations are made altogether subser- vient to party ends regardless of any result afTecting the great issues of the conflict which involves the life of the nation. The war has been, and still is, the strength of the political organization now in possession of the Government ; and the ruling minds of that organization fully comprehend the im- portance to their party of its continuance. Without the war, they know that they would be as powerless as a party as Samson when shorn of his locks. It may be that in the conduct of the war for the last three years the Administration has done its best to over- throw the rebellion, and that we owe our sad failure to achieve any great results, after an expenditure of lives and treasure unparalleled in the history of modern wars, entirely to its imbecility ; but to me, when I consider the military operations which have originated in Washington, and the efforts made by our iriends on the other side of this House to ex- asperate the rebels, obliterate the Union sen- timent in the South, and multiply the issues Bvolved, and when I contemplate the barren iruits of the sanguinary conflict thus far, it does not seem unfair to assume that the rul- ine minds of the dominant party have deter- mined at all hazards to keep the war alive as a "political necessity," and as the best means ,.f insuring them a continuance of political ower The immense volume of patronage in ilontraots, civil offices, and military commis- .ions which would be lost to them if the war should be concluded by a restoration of the anion, is eateemedlby them of far greater value as political capital than any popular I claimed that none of the rebpl States shall be ezlat they might obtain by a speedy extin p,uishment of the rebellion, even though emancipation should be secured at the same time. As a means of achieving political suc- cess in the approaching presidential election the Republican politicians hare a motive suf- ficient to impel the leaders of that party to continue this exhausting and bleody war, un- til they shall have secured at least another tour years' lease of the governmental machin- eiy of the countrj, with power to further opetate the much-worn printing presses of Treasury Department. I think, Mr. Chairman, I do that party no injustice in ascribing to it these unworthy motives for continuing the war. All their ujovements justify the presumption. Sir, the politicians who now despotically rule the ( ountry with a rod of iron, unscrupulous in their schemes to plunder the people, North and South, having found in the war and their ■war-cry of "freedom to the slave," a cement which binds to iheir car the negro fanatics of the land, as well as the innumerable horde of public plunderers, contractors, speculators, placemen, spoilsmen, and "soldiers of for- tune" generally, which the violent distur- ■bance of the social and political elements of the country has drawn to the surface of the troubled waters, have evidently determined that the war shall be resolved into a presiden- tial campaign. All the movements of our armies are naw dictated by partisan motives. The subjugation of the free people of the loyal States to the abolition party yoke, and the subversion of the "Constitution as it is," ]have become matters of vastly more impor- tance to the Administration than the crushing of the rebellion and the restoration of peace and fraternal relations between the two sec- tions of our country now at war. While they evidently regard the continuance of this unnatural oonflict as their only hope for pro- longed power, they will never consent to re- linquish the war and with it their political supremacy if they can avoid it on any plaus- ible pretext. We can hardly expect to find in them patriotism of so exalted a character. It would not at all tally with the past history of the party they represeut. Mr. Chairman, it is because the sagacious and unscrupulous politicians of the Republi- «an party fully realize that the war and its profits, as political capital, and as a pecuniary resource for conducting partisan operations, are of more value to tkem than a restored Union whose Government they would never be able to control, that the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania is "about sick" of hear- ing of " the Constitution as it is and the Union as it was." "This Union," remarked the dietinguished gentleman who is the recogniz- ed leader of the other side of the Uouse, "neuer shall be restored under the Constitution, with slavery protected." So, also, the gen- tleman from Michigan, [Mr. Beaman,] and others on that side of the Ilou^e, hare pro- recognized as States of the Union until they amend their constitutions and abolish slave- ry. Why not, Mr. Chairman ? What is there so objectionable in the Union and the Consti- tution which our fathers established that should render a saHgninary and devastating war preferable to their further coijtinuance ? Slavery was no impediment to the formation of the Union ; why should it be to its contin- uance ? What is there to make the gentle- man 'sick" of hearing the Democracy talk of restoring the glorious Union under which we have have lived and thrived, exulting in the greatness of our country as one of the most powerful nations of the earth? The people who have been taught to believe that our Government under the Constitution, which the abolition party are disposed to repudiate, is the best that was ever vouch- safed to man, may well wonder why the gen- tleman and his associates pi onounce so vehe- mently against its restoration as it was before this accursed rebellion broke out. The great secret of this antipathy to " the Union as it was" will be readily found in the fact that Such a restoration would put an end to their political power 1 From the foundation of this Government, slavery has hmu protected by the Constitution, as a local institution, in all such States as were pleased to tolerate it ; and yet our conn- try prospered and our people were continual- ly blessed as no other people under heaven ever were, until the fanatical philanthropists of the North commenced the abolition agita- tion which culminated in this rebellion, and sought to encroach upon the constitutional rights of their fellow-citizens of the slave States who were perfectly content with what the Constitution gave them. By the Consti- tution they were inhibited from any interfer- ence with this matter, and had no more right to meddle with the institution of slavery in Virginia than with the system of labor in Cuba. Slavery in the southern States was as much removed from their interference by the Constitution as slavery in Brazil ; and neither the President nor Congress had a right to in- terfere with it in any respect, otherwise than to provide laws for the return of fugitives to their masters. It is not my design, Mr. Chairman, on this occasion to discuss the al- mighty negro or to undertake to trace the origin of the rebellion to its true source, with the fanatical abolitionists of the North, who worship the memory of old John Brown of Ossawatomie, as that of a martyr 1 It is sufTuient to know that a gigantic war is upon us, no matter for the present how it camo about. The problem to solve is, how shall it be brought to an honorable close? How shall the further effusion of fraternal blood be stopped r How shall the devasta- tion of our country be stayed, and the mons- trous and needless expenditure of borrowed money be checked ? The honor of the Fed- eral Government must be maintained ; its integrity must be vin^iicated, and its suprem- acy re-e?tablished over every foot of soil within our national borders, while tte Cou stitution framed by the fathers of the Republic, which has fallen into such disrepute on the other side of this House, must be upheld in every point that originally formed the bond of our Union. We must have peace and the Union. This corsummaiion so "devoutly to be wished," Mr. Chairman, can never be achieved by the party now in power. That is plainly apparent. It is not the vocation of those who have done so much to destroy the Union to restore it ; and the people must open their eyes to that pregnant fact. The hopes of the country are now centering upon the efforts which the patriotic Democracy o) the North will make in the ensuing presi- dential campaign to unseat and consign to hopeless political perdition the crafty dema gogues, the short- sighted fanatics, and the remorseless plunderers now in power, who are wasting th>i precious lives of the people and mortgaging the labor of this and many succeeding generations without accomplish- ing any adequate results. They are con Stantly multiplying the objects of the war. with an evident design to its procrastination, while they totally ignore the legitimate and constitutional programme declaied by Con gress and the President in 1861, and boldly avow that they will not have "the Union as it was." or any other Union, until sfavery is abolished by force of arms. Mr. Chairman, the great Democratic party, whose policy for the most part has guided this^uation in its past glorious career, and achieved for it all the prosperity and power which^attached to it when this unholy rebel- lion broke out, will come united to our coun try's rescue in November next, and may God grant it success in the salvation of the Union. That great party, whose unlucky defeat in 1860 has prove! so disastrous to the country, aims now to bring this war to a close by means o1 an honorable peace and a perfect reconciliation at the earliest possible moment that the misguided men now in rebellion can be induced, by coercion or otherwise, to lay down their arms and return to their allegiance. When they shall be found ready to desist from their opposition to the Government, and shall unresistingly submit to its laws, the party to which I belong would kill the fatt«-d calf, and proclaim a general amnesty withoui any such conditions as the President ha^ imposed, welcoming back to the fold of thf Union all the States disposed to return, with a reservation, perhaps, that the principal leaders of the secession movement should jpay the penalty of treason. We would not (Impair in the least degree the rights guar antied to the States. We would have n(' {"reconstruction" of the State governments (save such as the people might inaugurate foi [themselves. We would teach them by oui jconduct toward them to acknowledge tha- there was no justification for their rebellitD, and would afford them no pretext for a de- fense of their treason, by denyiBg them any right or privilege they ever possessed. We would let their negroes alone, and respect all their rights to property, to free suffrage and equal representation in the Government. When they will accept such terms we would forget the animosities of this war and frater- nize with them as fellow-eitizens. The De- mocracy, Mr. Chairman, are seeking in the restoration of the Union to preserve our territorial integrity, while standing forth, as they always have, champions of the rights and dignity of the State governments. They would punish the individual traitors who set this wicked secession rebellion in operation, while they would not impair the constitu- tional prerogative of each and every State to regulate its own system of labor and control its own social institutions. The Democracy are for closing this war the moment it can be done with honor, irrespec- tive of the fate of the negro, and regardless of its effect upon the presidential election or partisan politics ; and herein we differ frona our abolition friends on the other side of the House, whose interests and political hopes are all found in a procrastination of the war. The tardy progress of military operations— the failure in three years to produce any prac- tical results bearing upon tho legitimate issues involved — the frequent diversion of our armies to make startling movements for po- litical effrict, and to perform such contemp- tible party manoeuvres as that which the President's late private secretary recently un- dertook in Florida at a cost of a thousand or two of lives and two or three millions of money — these things, as well as the absurd, unconstitutional, and impracticable fulmina- tions of the President touching the emancipa- tion of the negro and the reconstruction of States upon the principle that one-tenth of the people may govern the whole — I say, Mr. Chairman, these things, coupled with the ne- !^ro legislation of this Congress, have convinc- ed me that the designing politicians who now wield the power of the Federal Government would not have peace even if accompanied by the complete submission of the South, until ihey shall have tested their ability to capture the Federal Government for another term of four years. They want power and not peace. It is the war and its patronage that has con- solidated and invigorated the pan isms of the Administration and given them the prestige of power they now wield as a political organi- zation ; and it is only the belief of the con- tractors, speculators, office holders, and pub- lic plunderers, who in a great measure oon- -fitute that party, that the war will be indefi- nitely continued under Republican rule, that gives them the ghost of a chance to elect their candidate for the Presidency in the coming election. When this Republican party first camo into power, it a was a minority party in the coun- try and in Congress. The rebellion it was vnTn/j "- ^hlcti gave them a majority in Congres^ rhroueh the unwarrantable desertion of their Sf, the southern Ke - -^^^^^ fh^XontSo^i^i^ part f^om them forever, no matter what may Te the'fate of the blacks As they were b fact indebted to the rebellion ^^^.^^'^^''^^^l tion of their predominance, so they must de lend upon the war, and its patronage and Sunder! for a perpetuation ot their gove- iiental control. Eully realizing that the r polScal ascendency must pass away, never o ?eturn, so soon as the war is ended it would be idle to suppose that they woald be willing to sink their whole political capital by con sentTng to any peace at this stage of the game ATthe eloquent gentlemen from Indiana [Mr. VooFHEESl well observes, they refuse to ne Joulfe be^cl^se they know that negot^a ion .would bring peace upon terms that would satisfy a majority of the people of both sec tions and restore the Union ; but slavery would not be abolished, -^ their fe^ ^t^. creat central Power to supersede State gov ernments would have to be ^^-f^^^^'^^^f^ with it their political supremacy. Well do 7iey know that when their political sun goes down at the close of this war, the niem^ o^ their infamous rule for four years will be fol- lowed by the execrations of a plundered and ou^rac^ed people, while the anathemas of a ho t of widows, orphans, invalids and crip- S?es will haunt them in the obscurity to which they will be consigned. It requires no Tho Uo t?ll us that the Republican party mil be overwhelmed and pass into oblivion when •t%h:il be deprived of the patronage ^and Tjlunder of this war, even should the co hesive power" of this plunder prove equal to .?heTre'e7vationof that party from the mtes- ine war now in progress among ^ts leaders The maintenance of union in their party ranks I fancy is now a mattpr of more con- Tern to man'y gentlemen on ti^e other side o this House than the crushing out of the great secession rebellion m the feouth. They are 'r^ rrsolicitous to conciliate the antagonism of the partisans of the great abolition and fi- nancial oligarchy now ruling the country than they are to harmonize the conflict of arms whih has been draining the life-blood of the nation for the last three years ; fully appreciating the fact as they do that so soon S the sluice ways of corruption and robbery which the war has opened shall be closed by an honorable and conciliatory peace, and the people, having put away the insane worsh p li the negro, are once more clothed m the r right mind, their occupation as rulers of the land will be gone ! ,i„„ti,^ While the singular fanaticism which rules the present hour pervades the public mmd, bear- ing down all reason and argument and ridiuf^ rough shod over the Constitution, the laws, and [he rights of white men, our friends over the way are having full swing, and we ^^eyo^er- S to disturb their saturnalia of puohc plun- der in the midst of which the country is fa t approaching the abyss of ruin. The peopie, who are eager to sustain the Government in putting doln the reb-llion, have been taught ?y the misrepresentations of a subsidized press and the falsehoods of an army of ahohtion leo- turers and missionaries who have penetrated every hamlet in the country to rega^^ the Democratic party as the enemies of the Gov- frnment and^ympathizers with the secession aTorsof the South. Joo many have con- Lindeithe Administration with " the boy- ernment,' ' and the efforts of the abolitionists ?o Zna<^ate the idea that the opponents of he'^Presfdent and his policy of conducting the war are hostile to the Government and the r:'establishment of the U-on ha>-e r trot?SB=:^^itve^ver'frd ^ the North are the Republican abolitiomstg who ^rodaim, like the gentleman from Penn syivania, that they will have no Union under ^^^sSThfS:rc:'a:^'art; oppose the prin- ciples and policy of the men now in power betuse the'y see\hat those PJ^-J - ^^^^^ ! policy, if further pursued will i^^" ^^J.^J «trov the country by rendering it impossiDie raccompUsh a restoration of the Union upon ly%Zt that Will .recondle Jhe people o^ the two sections again to dwell together m fraternal bonds as one people- Mv belief is that the salvation of this coun try now depends more upon the ballot-box next November, than upon the armies we Save in the field. The decisive battle for the DnTon is to be fought at the election polls m which a Democratic victory wi U be s^vat on s;^^;:i^nS::^d;;:Xwnuu^« w th Se meaL'to wLk their party --hm- Prv effectivelv, and we may expect the whole enlrgv and strategy of the Administration o be tuimed from our rebel enemies in the .-outh to Iv "rt a triumph of the Democracy of the Nnrlh in November. . . ^ S imulated with the hope of a continuation of the rich pickings which the leading Repub- Ucan politicians and their friends have enjoy- ir^n the way of contracts, railroad transpor- ati r'tocll^hbing, and fat offices, gro.^g i J ti,a war with the prospect ot a suu nation of the white race in the slave blates, the Spo icy is to nurse the war and procrasti- nate al eflective military operations that Sght lead to its speedy termination upon the ba^is of the Crittenden resolution. We all know that the rebellion can onlybej crushed and the war ended by the destrucaon, of the armed power of the contederates. The r great armies must be overthrown, dis- p r df or captured, before we can expect the rebels to yield ; and yet in all the flourish of trumpets we fail to discover indications of any such concentration of the Federal forces as will he likely to accomplish that end. The recent disastrous adventure of Colonel John Hey in Florida, where the lives »f nearly two thousand of our soldiers and a million or two ef dollars were sacrificed in an attempt to capture three electoral votes for the Presi- dency ; the late foolish, unproductive, and calamitous raid of Kilpatrick, the abortive expedition of General bherman, the practical withdrawal of our forces from before Charles- tOH, and the general " scatteration" of our armies, while bogus State governments are being tinkered up in Louisiana, Arkansas, and other rebel States, indicate that profitless movements to amuse the public mind rather than vigorous and concentrated efforts to destroy the large armies of the rebels are Btill to characterize the military operations of the Administration, unless, perchance. Gen- eral Grant, in the exercise of his newly- ac- quired power as lieutenant general, shall change the programme upon which the spring campaign has been opened by the Adminis- tration. The grand results of this campaign so far, are thus succinctly specified in the New York Times, a leading Lincoln organ : "Four expeditions, and what looks like four FAILURES. An expedition from Jacksonville marches into Florida, and is driven back with loss. General Sherman marches from Vicksburg, and having gone one hundred and twenty miles in his grand strategy, marches back again ! General Smith starts a cavalry expedition (from Mem- phis!) to join Sherman, and they march back again. The cavalry under Kilpatrick start off to Richmond, and after destroying some mills, and canal locks, find themselves comfortably at Fort Monroe." Suffering the loss of three hundred men, several valuable officers, and raining two thousand horses. "Thomas makes a tremendous movement on Dalton, captures Tunnel Hill and marches back again ! Now, we have the telegraphic reporters (those most enlightened of all living generals) announcing that these are onlj' a sarins oi' raids ! Well, what was their object ? What was to be got? They march back af/ain. Who commands the American Army? Why, obviously, General Scat- teration ; and these are his performances. He marched out five armies in five different directions — not one of them strong enough to accomplish any definite object." This is a Republican brief of the opening of the spring campaign. There is some hope that when General Grant shall get fairly in the harness of his new position as comman- der of all our armies, this sort of trifling, as well as the balls, dress parades, and other amusements in camp, will be done away with, and that effective movements upon the ene- my's works and forces will be inaugurated under his direction, which will be productive of more satisfactory results. But even tken we have good reason to apprehend that the summer campaign will be carried on more for the capture of electoral votes than for the destruction of rebel armies and strongholds. Political supremacy, and not the restoration of the Union or the emancipation of the ne- groes, is the present grand aim of those who possess the power to direct General Grant as well as to control the Government ; and while he may, by his genius and activity, be able to win splendid victories, and may even capture Richmond, and drive the rebels out of Vir- ginia, the politicians who have so much at stake on a continuance of the war will take good care that no peace shall follow until they secure a new lease of power. When they shall have triumphed — God forbid such a calamity — in the election, the motives (ft plunder and patronage connected with the war will still remain, and, judging from the past, we may safely calculate that the overthrow of Jeff. Davis and his humbug confederacy will still be a secondary consideration, and that the war will continue so long as the bright vis- ions oi( financial responsibility which dazzle the eyes of my colleague [Mr. Stebbins] can 'induce investments in Treasury securities. We have high Republican authority in the famous " Pomeroy circular" to justify our belief that should Jklr. Lincoln be re-elected to the Presidency not only will " the dignity and honor of the country sufi"er," but that in such an event ^^ the war may continue to lan- guish during his whole administration, till the public debt shall become a burden too great to be borne." This sentiment, so boldly proclaimed from one wing of the Republican party, is no doubt the general conviction of the country ; and if I read correctly " the signs of the times" a majority of the people will unite in the same declaration at the ballot-boxes in November next, and retire Mr. Lincoln to private life. Would the leaders on the other side of the House, Mr. Chairman, gauge all our legisla- tion for three years more of war, if they had any design to close it within the present year ? The country should know and understand that nobody here connected with the Govern- ment thinks or talks of winding up the war for years to come. The idea of peace is not tolerated here short of the extermination of the white race in the South, and a division of the rebel estates among the negroes and Yankee speculators. The Crittenden or con- gressional platform of the war, as laid down in 1861, has become obsolete in this latitude, and the rights of the States to the control of their own affairs and to regulate their domes- tic institutions must now be entirely obliter- ated before the party in power will listen to any proposition looking to peace and reunion. " The Union as it was" must give way to the abolitionists, "Union as it ought to be," be- fore the terrible slaughter, the wicked devas- tation, and the mountainous expenditures of this " cruel war" can be arrested, if the peo- ple fail to overthrow the ruling powers at the approaching election. All discussion of even 8 a basis of settlement is cat off, and all talk of an honorable adjustment of the issues in- volved in the war is stifled hy the insolent and overbearing majority in Congress, whose political supremacy depends entirely upon a oontinuance of the war in all its gigantic pro- portions. It is for this reason that no olive- branch, other than the President's absurd and unlawful amnesty proclamation, has ever been held out to induce repentant rebels to lay down their arms and return to the pro- tection of the old Union, while the repulsive features of the confiscation act impose upon them the necessity — ay, the necessity, of continuing to fight to escape sectional humili- ation, personal degradation, and absolute pecuniary ruin ! Think you, Mr. Chairman, that eight mil- lion white 4men of the "genuine breed and blood" will ever, even though they be over- come by our nailitary power, consent to reunite with us in a common Government upon any other than terms of equality ? Think you', sir, that they can by any privation be compelled to embrace the condition which the amnesty proclamation imposes, of swearing to support the unconstitutional negro edicts of Mr. Lin- coln, or to yield support to State consti- tutions framed under the direction of the Fed- eral Executive, as a condition precedent to the enjoyment of their rights to representa- tion in Congress and their relief Irom the rule of an arbitrary military Government ? I much mistake the Southern people, Mr. Chairman, if they would not prefer the ex- termination our friends on the other side of the House talk of, to such conditions ; and I fancy if we are to wait for peace and reunion until the rebels are brought to such terms, millions more of troops will have to be raised and new printing presses will have to be sup- plied for the manufacture of bonds and "le- gal tender" to meet the expenditure. It seems to me, sir, that if the President had desired to render peace and reunion im- possible he could not have accomplished his purpose more completely than he has by the terms of his amnesty proclamation ; for no- body will for a moment suppose that the white men of the rebel States, after the determined resistance they have made, will ever consent to yield up their property and make oath to sustain such usurpations of their constitu- tional rights as the price of the free suffrage which belongs to every citizen. The President's assumption of power to prescribe conditions for the exercise of the elective franchise, by designating who shall be voters in any State, is a feature in his re- construction policy which can never be toler- ated by American freemen. North or South. Suffrage is a matter that pertains exclusively to the State governments, and no "military necessity" can warrant the "war power" in encroaching upon it in any degree. Neither Congress, the President, nor any other na- tional power is authorized to interfere in any manner with the free suffrage of the people ; and the President's amnesty proclamation in this particular is simply the arbitrary assump- tion of a prerogative as foreign to his powers as the Chief Executive of the nation as it is to his attributes as Commander-in-Chief of the Army. Mr. Chairman, I am further justified in assuming that the Republican party intend to prolfing the war until the wretchedness, pov- erty, and humiliation of every man, woman, and child in the South is fully consummated, or the white race exterminated, by the cir- cumstance that the President and his advis- ers have entirely lost sight of the indisputable fact that no union, however formed, can be of any value to the people, or amount to anything as a national governmental organiza- tion, which is not made acceptable to the great body of the white people who compose the population of the now disaffected States— so far, at least, as those States are concerned. It is perfectly safe to say that no one-tenth of the voting population of any State will be permitted by the other nine-tenths to control its politics, if the spirit which the southern people have manifested in this rebellion is any index of their true character. Indeed, they would shame their lineage if they should submit to any such humiliation. A majority of the people living in the "reconstructed States" proposed by the President must par- ticipate, upon equal terms, in organizing any new Government to be set up, or such Gov- ernment cannot be expected to stand a moment longer than its authority is enforced by military power. Even when the Federal authorities shall have completely overpow- ered the physical resistance of the rebels, a majority must then be found willing to ac- quiesce aud co-operate in any effective Gov- ernment which may be set over them, or a new rebellion for its overthrow will be the consequence. All pretended civil govern- ment in the southern States will be a mere farce if external military power hs required to sustain it ("as in Louisiana and Alabama, for instance) against the will of a majority of the people. This war, Mr. Chairman, has not been car- ried on with a proper appreciation on the part of the Administration of the fact that it is a CIVIL WAR, and the belligerents fellow- countrymen, who are again to form one peo- ple. The truism uttered by the President in his inaugural, "that after much fighting peace must come," for the reason that "we cannot fight always," has not been kept so prominently in view by the managers of this war as it should have been. We seem not to have sufficiently regarded the fact that in case the rebellion is conquered, the masses of the people whom we now regard as traitors, and their descendants, are to live with us and our children in all after time, under a common Government. For this reason, if no other, the war should have been carried on with a view to prevent the growth of the rankling hatred toward us, which the policy of the Ad- 9 ministration has engendered. The eonthern soldiers whom our armies encounter in battle are our countrymen, with whom we hope to re-establish fraternal relations in Government, trade, and social intercourse, so soon as they come to a realizing sense of their wickedness and folly in attempting to destroy the Union and set up another national Government within the territory of the United States. Instead ot" permitting this consideration to soften the asperities of the conflict, the Ad- ministration policy has rather augmented its vindictiveness and multiplied the atrocities which have characterizid its progress, as though the two sections of our country now at variance are to remain implacable and un- reconcilable enemies forever 1 Instead of a policy of warfare tntended to secure the re- spect of the misguided men who have as- Bailed the Government and win back their af- fections, through a renewed love for our glo- rious old Union, the Administration has de- liberately adopted one calculated to intensify their hate and render indelible a harrowing remembrance of the wrongs they claim to have snlfered at our hands. Instead of ex tending to them the olive branch and labor- ing to convince them that their best interests would be found in the Union, and that their happiness and prosperity as a people would be best promoted by laying down their £.rms and resuming their allegiance to the Federal Government, we have rather sought to irri tate and exasperate by destioying private property in the progress of our armies through their territory, by emancipation proclama- tions, by propagating negro equality, and by confiscating enactments, entirely inconsistent with the idea of future association and inter- course as fellow-citizens of the same country. To me it would seem as if nothing calculated to generate sectional hatred, arouse bad blood, provoke a spirit of revenge, and stim- ulate the worst passions of an excitable and sensitive population, and give vigor to the rebellion by uniting all the people of the South in hostility to the Government, had been omitted on the part of the Administra tion during the progress of this war. A dif- ferent policy might have worked out a differ- ent result ; but since we have striven to pro- voke their hatred and embitter their animos- ity, we will necessarily have to deal wiih im- placable foes, when after much fighting we reach that period of negotiation referred to by the President in his inaugural. Those who have guided the Government in its work of devastation and confiscation, who have directed its violation of the Constitution in stripping the southern people of their rights, and its violation of God's law of hu- manity, who urge upon it the barbarity of exterminating the white race in the insurgent States, and of desolating one-third of this con- tinent, are nothing else than disumonists. They are as much enemies of the Government and the country as the rankest secessionists of the South ; and the policy of warfare they advocate will do more to prevent the restora- tion of the Union than all the military power the Confederates can combine. In fact, Presi- dent Lincoln's proclamations have already done more to recruit the rebel armies and sustain the rebellion than anything the reb>)l8 have themselves done ; and the negro legis- lation of Congress and its confiscation enact- ments can have no other effejt than to render an honorable peace and the restoration of the Union utterly impossible, until, through a revolution in the public sentiment of the loy- al States, the preeent occupant of the presi- dential chair can be constitutionally unseated, and a majority in Congress secured who will not hesitate to set aside the paper proclama- tions of the President, and expunge from the statute book the whole series of unconstitu- tional laws, which have leei feeding the fires of the rebellion and fanning the flames of se- cession, making reconciliation, peace, and union still more difficult when the fighting shall be finished by exhaustion and we pro- ceed to the inevitable negotiation spoken of by the President in his inaugural. There is no use, Mr. Chairman, in attempting to es* cape the fact that the great body of the peo- ple in the rebel States must be reconciled to the condition of living under the Federal Gov- ernment with us. This reconciliation would not have been difiioult if the war had been pros- ecuted in strict accordance with the pledges of the Piesideut at its commencement, and upon the theory of the Crittenden resolution. The masses of the people whom we now just- ly regard as rebels were duped into rebellion and treason by the misrepresentations of their leaders. They really have no ambition and no interests hostile to the Federal Union, and if their constitutional rights can be guarantied to them, it will not, even now, I apprehend, be difficalt for them to become our friends, and to learn once more to respect the old na- tional flag, and to rejoice as of old in the pros- perity and glory of our common country. Either through the severe discipline of the war, the magnanimity of the Government, or a rational conviction of duty on their part, the rebels now in arms against the Union must be converted into true and loyal citi- zens of the United States. When that shall have been accomplished, and not till then, peace will spread her wings over our now dis- tracted country, and our Union will start anew to work out for the benefit of universal humanity the great problems presented by a free Government in which the people hold the sovereign power. At the outset of this rebellion, Mr. Chair- man, it is conceded that the President was correct when he stated his belief that in no State save South Carolina were a majority of the people ia favor of the secession move- ment. There can be no question of the fact that the South was carried out of the Union against the wishes of a majority of its people. Now, after three years of bloody and devasta- ting war, the end of which no man can fore- 10 see, the people of the seceded States are nn- questionably very near a unit in hostility to the Government. What has produced this change in the popular sentiment of the South ? Nothing bnt the proclamations of PresidHnt Lincoln and the threats of the Government to Bweep away all the constitutional rights of the southern people, and to confiscate their property. Oiiginally, secession was set on foot by a few political demagogues, ambitious for power, with whom a majority of the peo- ple in whose behalf they professed to act did not sympathize. But the unconstitutional policy of the Administration with regard to the negro, who should havs been studiously kept out of the fight, and the threats of con- fiscation, soon changed the current of popu- lar feeling in the South, so that the people who at first abhorred secession and loved the Union, when they discovered that the war was to be carried on for the enfranchisement of the negro and the sequestration of their property, and not for the Union, were driven for self protection into the ranks of the re- bellion en masse. Thus it was that the South became united in support of the schemes of their designing politicians, and secession was able to present a front so formidable that with aJ.l our power and resources we have not yet been able to penetrate it. In the outset the President himself pro- fessed the Democratic doctrine of non inter- vention with the negro, but the fanatics finally succeeded in getting him off the track ; and when he consented to make the war a crusade for the liberation of enslaved negroes he became answerable for all the calamities that have since fallen upon our unhappy country. Had he adhered to his first position, had he followed the spirit of the Crittenden resolution, we should have held the South divided, while the North would have been resolutely united in any movement to crush the revolt. In such a case who can doubt that the rebellion, which still rears its head in proud defiance and still threatens to ingulf all that remains of our free Govern- meBt, would have been nipped in the bud ? But now, after a desperate struggle of three years, which has no parallel in history, in- volving an unexampled sacrifice of life and treasure — after depleting our country in its youth and manhood and pecuniary resources to a frightful extent — after suffering deep national humiliation and imposing upon future generations a load of debt, the interest of which will swallow up an immense proportion of the annual products of the enterprise, in- dustry, and capital of the nation, we find our- selves apparently further from a termination of the struggle than when it first commenced — always supposing that the war is to be con- tinued to consummate the emancipation and reconstruction policy of the President and his abolition advisers, as proclaimed frbm the other side of this Hall. Does history preseut any record of so sad a failure on tlie part of any established Government to quell a rebel- lion within its own borders ? If we could even now turn the attention of the Adminis- tration from its efforts to carry the presiden- tial election, and its pestilent idea of negro philantrhopy, to the great business of abolish- ing the rebel armies and destroying the military power of the secessionists, we might possibly see the war closed and the Union saved before the end of the present year. But we shall see no such thing. The con- tinuance of the war is a part of the Rt^publican programme of the election, and a restoration of tke Union would be a fatal blow to the hopes of the horde of public plunderers whose vocation will cease when Mr. Lincoln retires from the presidential mansion. Just here, Mr. Chairman, permit me to ask what has the freedom or slavery of the black race, their comfort or misery, their rights or wrongs, their elevation or depression, to do with a war for the restoration of the Union under the Constitution, the purposes of which were so clearly defined in the Crit- tenden resolutions of 1S61? What we want, Mr. Chairman, is to establish the supremacy of the Federal laws in all the States, of the Union. When that is done, what will there be to fight for ? Shall we then continue the war to emancipate the negroes constitution- ally held to service? Gentlemen upon the other side say yes ! Why not as well war with Spain, Brazil, Turkey, and other slave nations to enforce the liberation of the black slaves in their dominions ? Why not as well commence a war with the remaining slave- holders in the loyal States, in Kuntucky, Maryland and Delaware, where the President did not presume to molest their "property in man" by his proclamation ? As the fate of the negro, under any circumstances, must depend upon the local laws of the State in which he dwells, why not leave him to take care of himself while we look alter the in- terests of the white race and endeavor to to stay the tide of blood and carnage which has already spread so much desolation and mourning throtighout the land ? Considering our immense preponde-rance of population, our superior facilities for bringing large armies into the HAd, our advantages of a powerful and effective naval force, our al- most unlimited means to arm, feed, clothe, and pay our troops, while in all these respects the rebels have been cramped aud embarrass- ed, having comparatively no manufactories of their own, with their seaports so closely block- aded as to almost exclude thom from obtain- ing arms and other supplies from abroad, have we not made an exceeding poor show to the world of our ability to conquer this rebellioo by force of arms ? With all these ad vantages — with the expenditure of more than twice if not four times the amount of money disbursed for the support of the rebellion, and the sac- rifice of tens of thousands more lives in battle and by disease than h ive been U»i l)y the re- bel armies — what a :tual resulis have been achieved in the way of restoring the Union t 11 Aside from the anticipated ezhanstion of the rebel resoarces, what assurances can we give the people to- day that this war will not be continued for years and years to come, and that Government will not require draft aftpr draft of men to continue this harvest of death? Dj our Republican friends fail to remember that a defensive war was never yet stopped by financial destitution on the part of those who were defending their homes and fighting for what they conceived to be their rights ? History makes no such record. Whatever their present will or purpose, Mr. Chairman, the sad experience of the last three years proves to my mind that the men now in pewer are incapable of putting down this rebellion and restoring the Union upon any programme they may adopt. And, Mr. Chairman, in view of the unpleasant facts, and cheerless circumstances to which I have referred, I am impelled to the conclusion that the vast army of public plunderers, contractors, placemen, and " venal patriots," who have been " run- ning" this Administration from its commence- ment, have resolved that the war shall not end while they can retain the power to keep it in operation. Our constituents, Mr. Chairman, were lately consoling themselves with the thought that they had escaped a draft to fill up the new army of half a million men then being organized for three years' service. Not long, however, were they permitted to " lay the flattering unction to their souls" before another draft was ordered, which is still pend- ing, for two hundred thousand more ; and when that shall be supplied, if the present Administration is continued for another term, other armies of like or greater magnitude will be demanded over and over again before ne- gro freedom and equality becomes the "fixed fact" so prematurely recognized by my col- league, [Mr. Brooks.] The cupidity of the leaders of the Republi- can party has overslaughed their patriotism, and they have evidently become more anxious how to protract the war without exciting the suspicions of the people as to the mercenary and personally ambitious motives which gov- ern them, than to restore peace, tranquility, and union to our suffering country. The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Garfield] proclaims that this is an abolition Congress ; that ours is an abolition array ; that the coun- try is abolition in sentiment, and that no con- ditions of peace are to be entertained which do not concede the complete abolition of ne- gro slavery, in every State, forever ! Other gentlemen upon that side have boldly ad- vcnced the same theory. If such a result wtre possible without violating the Constitu- ticn and without the sacrifice of the white Kce, without beggaring whatever of loyal people there may be in the South, the inno- cent dupes of the arch-traitors who set the rebellion in motion, whom we hope to see once more in the fraternal embraces of the Union, and who will then be expected to help pay the debt which has been incurred ia compelling them to submit to the laws, I would rejoice in its consummation, and so would, I doubt not, the entire Democracy of the North. Sir, I am no advocate or defen- der of slavery, nor was I ever. Nor was the Democratic party ever a pro-slavery party, as gentlemen on the other side delight to aver. Simple non-intervention has been the uniform policy of the Democracy upon the negro question, and that policy they would ha?e applied to the conduct of this war ; and that policy they would adhere to in adjust- ing the terms of a return of the seceded States to their allegiance. We would let the peo- ple of those States, as the Constitution pro- vides, fix the status of the negro in their sev- eral localities. - If slavery is now abolished, as my colleague from the city of New York says it is, whether that result has been accomplished as an inci- dent of our military operations or by virtue of the President's proclamations of emancipa- tion and amnesty, it is not the mission of the Democratic party to re-establish it, as it was not our right to destroy or molest it when the powers of the Government rested in our hands. As a party, we owe nothing to slavery or slaveholders ; but we do owe something to the Constitution. We are as much bound to regard the provision in respect to "persons held to service' ' as any other ; and so far as that instrument protects slavery, the north.- ern Democracy has assented to its existence in such States as have been pleased to toler- ate it as a system of labor. We had no right to move for its abolition, as the party now in power have no right to make its extinction a condition precedent to a restoration of peace, union, and friendly intercourse with the re- bellious States. The pro-slavery stigma which the abolitionists have sought to fasten upon the Democratic party was always a ca- lumny, and as such has beeu repelled in all the controversies that have arisen in regard to negro slavery since the annexation of Texas, when the negro question which now convulses the nation first entered prominently into the party politics of the rountry. The right of States to control their domes- tic afi'airs and to have? slavery or leave it alone — to abolish or continue it — is a consti- tutional prerogative which the Democracy never questioned ; and when that right has been assailed by fanatics and negro worship- ers, it has been the province of the Demo- cratic party, as the champion and special guardian of the Constitution, to defend that provision as a portion of the fundamental law of the land. Our efforts have ever been to keep the negro question out of the arena of politics and out of the halls of Congress. If the people of any State desired slavery, we were willing they should have it. If any de- sired to abolish or prohibit it, we said, "Amen I" But our inability to exclude the irritating controversy which the agitation of the slavery question engendered, from the is- 12 snes in party politics, and the determination of our opponents to make the negro and his wrongs, real or fancied, a prominent feature in all tbeir political operations, bas brouaht upon th« country, as we always predicted it would, disunion and war, followed by dire ca- lamities too numerous and too mournful to recapitulate upon this occasion. From a mul- tiplication of these calamities and a long con- tinuance of this cruel, bloody, and exhaust- ing war, I can see no deliv^erance short of ejecting from power, in a constitutional way, the radical abolitionists who are incited V)y interest as well as policy to prosecute this fraternal strife to secure political results. The Democratic theory of this rebellion was well stated the other day by my col leagup, [Mr. Kernan,] whose position was that the States, as such, are not in rebellion, but individuals and combinations of Individ nals have set up a resistance to the national Grovernmeot, and the Government is striving to subdue them. The States, as States, are not to be punished or disfranchised for the acts of these individual rebels, even though they constitute a majority of the people in the State and have usurped the power of the State. The business of the general Govern- ment is to overthrow the usurpers and rescue the State government from their hands ; and when it shall have overcome the insurrection, it can punish the individual traitors accord- ing to their crimes and in accordance with law. What we want is power to enforce the law against individuals. We have nothing to do with States, or with their constitutions or laws, otherwise than to know that they have a republican form of government and that their laws are in accordance with the Constitution of the United States. The rebel States are still a part of the nation. They have never be^n out of the Union. Their or- dinances of secession are null and void. They had no power to take themselves out of the Union, and the rebels are therefore still citi- zens of the United States, amenable to Fed- eral law. Sir, I repudiate the theory of the chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means that they are a foreign people, alien enemies, and that upon their return to the Union the south- ern States are to be treated as conquered pro- vinces. I adhere to the war platform. of Con- gress in 18G1, and contend that so soon as the Government finds itself able to enforce the Federal laws within and throughout the ter- ritory of any State in rebellion, by civil pro- cess, that moment military operations against the people of that State should cease, and re- course should at onoe be had to civil authority for the punishment of crimes and the enforce- ment of the laws. In this view, I cannot resist the conclusion that if this nation is ever saved from the ruin which now threatens it, the States must first come again together under " the Constitution aflitis," however " sick" it may make the gentleman from Pennsylvania, before a per- manent adjastm^nt of the pending difficulties can be made. When all the States are onca again in fraternal communion, chastened by the calamities of the war, and confronting the huge national debt which has Ven heaped up for future generations to pay, any defects that may have been discovered in the fundamental law under which we live and under which we must thereafter live in peacefal relations, and in the amendment of which all have a right to participate, may then be remedied in the manner therein prescribed so as to meet the present views of a majority of the States. If ueed be that African slavery shall ba prohib- ited, let the Constitution be so am^^nded, le- gally, as to prohibit it in all the States. In my view, this is the only proper and tfTactive way to get rid of slavery legitimately and peacefully. It would, no doubt, accomplish the emancipation our friends on the other side profess to be contending for, without the fur- ther shedding of blood or destruction of pro- perty. But as legal emancipation in that way would be of no benefit to them in this election it is idle to hope that they will embrace it. Mr. Chairman, I am one of thosH who believe that if the Administration had ad- hered to the spirit of the President's inaug- ural, and confiuel itself to the ehjects of the war as set forth in the Crittenden resolution, the rebellion would now have been at an end, with the old Union restored and the vacant seats in this House and the Senate filled with loyal representatives from all the States now in antagonism with the Government. I also believe, that hid the amnesty proclamation which accompanies the President's message now under consideration, contained no other requirement than unconditional submission to the laws anituated upon the same just principles, is now sought to be Bustainei, not by the willing support and free consent of a majority of the people, but by an unyielding proscription of one sec- tion, by despotic edicts, and by a total disre- gard of the rights, interests, and, I will say, prejudices, which our fathers thought it ex- pedient to recognize, cousult, reijard, and conciliate, when constructing the Constitution which secured to us the best Government the world ever saw. To be entitled to the pro- tection of that Constitution, the wo»-k alike of the North and the South, and to sbarrt iu the blessings which it showers upon all who re- pose beneath the shadow of our flag, the peo- ple of OHO section of our territory, loyal mea as well as rebels, are required by the Admin- istration not only to yield up their property, but to swear that they will support the unau- thorized, oppressive, and unconstitutional edicts ef the President, which they abhor. The fiat of abolition has, however, gone forth, and the people are notified by the organs of the Administration upon this floor that so long as a negro remains in bondage the war must progress, and the red harvest of death be continued. Civil liberty is now dethroned. State constitutioLS and State laws are overridden, while the Federal Con- stitution is nullified and the laws of Congress set aside under the plea of "military necessi- ty" whenever they are found to stand in the way of the plans and policy of the Adminis- tration. No man's rights are safe from en- croachment, and personal liberty, in loyal aS well as rebel States, depends upon the will of the despots who have set aside the Consti- tution, ignored the laws, and usurped arbi- trary power. There is no habeas corpus, and there is no citizen in any State who is not liable to arrest at any hour of the day or night without legal process, without being charged with any offense or crime, without being ap- prised of the cause of his arrest or being al- lowed to inform his friends of the fact of his being in custody. He is audaciously kidnap- ped and incarcerated in some remote fortifi- cation or prison. He suddenly disappears from among his friends, is mysteriously ab- sent from his business, nobody knowing what has become of him. His family are in dis- tress, and days pass before it is ascertained that he has been stealthily spirited away by the minions of power and imprisoned in Fort La Fayette, the Old Capitol, or some other bastile where the victims of the reigning des- potism are kept in close confinemr-nt uuiil it pleases the powers that be to discharge them, with or without trial as they may pit- ase. — Cases of this kind, Mr. Chairman, are too numerous and too well known to particular- ize, and very many more than have been made public have transpired. Sir, the remedy for these evils and the only escape from the despotism that now holds sway is first to bn sought at the ballot box in the great political contest now before the country. The peaceful strife at the polls in November will be pregnant with more impor- tant results to this country and the cuiie of civil liberty throughout the world than all the bloody battles that have been or may be 14 fought in onr efforts to subjugate the South and give freedom to the negro race. If the try to suffer four jears more of the policy that now prevails, I, for one, shall cease to hope for a^nything «hort of the utter rum of the American Republic. tJISTRIBUTE THE DOCUMENTS: B@„Vv^ILL BE READY ON THURSDAY, MARCH 10, lSG4,-^a THE ONLY CORRECTED CHEAP EDITION. THE EEPORT OF MAJOR GEi^ERAIi GEORGE B. McCEELtiAM CORRECTED AND REVISED, WITH A POHTRAIT OP THE DISTINGUISHED AUTHOR. TO EE PRINTED BY SUBSCRIPTION. 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