SPEEx/HjESJ 
IN  TIiE
SECOND AND THIRD SESSIONS
OF TlHE
THIRTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS,
AND IN THE VACATION.
BY  BENJ. F. THOMAS.
B OSTO N:
PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON.
1863.








&7   mg  froftot
WILLIAM  THOMAS, ESQ.,
Tisz folFtne is E nsDcrietI,
AS A TOKEN OF ESTEEM, LOVE, AND GRATITUDE.




" I set out with a perfect distrust of my own abilities;
a total renunciation of every speculation of my own; a?-d
with a profound reverence.for the wisdom of our ancestors, who have left us the inheritance of so happy a constitution, and so flourishing an empire, and, what is a
thousand times more valuable, the treasury qof the maxims
and principles which formed the one, and obtained the
other."
BURKE on Conciliation with America.




N  O  T E.
THE speeches and addresses in this volume cover a period
of about fifteen months, including the second and third
sessions of the Thirty-seventh Congress and the vacation.
I have put them in this form to meet the wishes of a
few friends, in justice to myself, - that my position may
not be misunderstood - and in the hope, not very buoyant, that they may do good. I am painfully sensible
how fragmentary and defective they are. But the principles they seek to illustrate and defend are just and
true, and will weather the storm. They constitute. the
traditional policy of the country, a return to which is,
in my judgment, its only security. That they are unpopular at this moment, does not disturb me: the more
imperative is the duty of standing by and upholding
them. The citizen owes to the country, in the hour of
her peril, honest counsel, calmly given, but with the
"love that casteth out fear."  Never were freedom of
thought and of the lips and pen so necessary as now.
They have become, not only the most precious of rights,
but the most religious of duties.




Vi                      NOTE.
In preparing for the printer, I have corrected a few
of the errors of style. I have not felt at liberty to make
material changes in the thought.  In one or two instances (as in the remarks on the Conscription Bill),
I have added, from notes, suggestions omitted at the
time of delivery. The recurrence of the same idea, and
of even the same expression, in different speeches on
the same or kindred topics, could not well be avoided.
From the remarks on the Trent case, I have stricken
two or three sentences which were thought to breathe a
spirit of vengeance; a spirit the gospel does not permit
us to indulge, even against the enemies of our country.
Of the expressions of confidence in the conservative
views of the President, I can only say, I believed them
well grounded when they were made.
JAMAICA PLAIN, May 25, 1863.




CONTENTS.
Page.
THE RELATION OF THE "SECEDED STATES" (SO CALLED) TO
THE UNION, AND THE CONFISCATION OF PROPERTY, AND
EMANCIPATION OF SLAVES, IN SUCH STATES.              1
CONFISCATION.38
THE TREASURY-NOTE BILL.                               66
-RECOGNITION OF LIBERIA AND HAYTI                      79
DEATH OF HON. GOLDSMITH F. BAILEY.                    86,CASE OF THE "TRENT"..91
SPEECH AT THE MASS MEETING FOR RECRUITING, ON BOSTON
COMMON..100
THE ARMY OF THE RESERVE.                             104
SPEECH AT CHELSEA.... 128
REMARKS ON THE BORDER STATES.                        141
ON THE BILL "TO RAISE ADDITIONAL SOLDIERS FOR THE
SERVICE OF THE GOVERNMENT"...          145
TIHE LOUISIANA ELECTION CASES......             164
THE CONSCRIPTION BILL........... 184
NEW  ENGLAND AND THE UNION.........    193








SP EECH ES.
THE RELATION OF THE "SECEDED STATES" (SO CALLED) TO THE
UNION, AND THE CONFISCATION OF PROPERTY, AND EMANCIPATION OF SLAVES, IN SUCH STATES, APRIL 10, 1862.
The House being in Committee of the Whole on the State of
the Union, Mr. THOMAS said,Mr. CHAIRMAN, - I avail myself of the indulgence of
the Committee to make some suggestions upon subjects
now attracting the attention of Congress and of the
country, - the relations of the "seceded States" (so
called) to the Union, the confiscation of property, and
the emancipation of slaves, in such States. Sensible
how deeply the interests of the country are involved in
their right decision, I can only say, I have given to
them careful and patient consideration, with an earnest
hope and desire to learn what my duty is, and faithfully
and firmly to discharge it.
The questions are novel as they are momentous.
In the discussion of them, little aid can be derived from
our own precedents, from the history of other nations,
or from writers on constitutional and international law..
The solution of the difficult problems of right and duty
1




2             RELATION OF THE STATES
involved must be found in the careful study of the principles of the Constitution, and the just and logical application of them to this new condition of things.
The peculiar feature of our civil polity is, that we
live under written constitutions, defining and limiting
the powers of Government, and securing the rights of the
individual subject. Our political theory is, that the people retain the sovereignty, and that the Government
has such powers only as the people, by the organic law,
have conferred upon it.  Doubless these inflexible
rules sometimes operate as a restraint upon measures,
which, for the time being, seem to be desirable. The
compensation is, that our experience has shown, that,
as a general rule and in the long-run, the restraint is
necessary and wholesome.
It is, I readily admit, by no narrow and rigid construction of the words of the Constitution that the
powers and duties of Congress on these subjects are to
be ascertained.  Every provision must be fairly construed in view of the great objects the Constitution was
ordained to effect, and with the full recognition of the
powers resulting from clear implication as well as express grant. Designed as the bond of perpetual union
and as the framework of permanent government, we
should be very slow to conclude that it lacked any of
the necessary powers for self-defence and self-preservation.
But recognizing the profound wisdom and foresight
of the Constitution, and its adaptation to all the exigencies of war and peace, when a measure is proposed
in apparent conflict with its provisions, we may well




TO THE UNION.                 3
pause to inquire, whether, after all, the measure is necessary; and whether we may not bend to the Constitution, rather than that the Constitution should give way
to us. When we make necessity our lawgiver, we are
very ready to believe the necessity exists.
Nor are we to forget that the Constitution is a bill of
rights as well as a frame of government; that among
the most precious portions of the instrument are the
first ten amendments; that it is doubtful whether the
people of the United States could have been induced to
adopt the Constitution, except upon the assurance of
the adoption of these amendments, which are our Magna
Carta, embodying in the organic law the securities of
life, liberty, and estate, which, to the Anglo-Saxon
mind, are the seed and the fruit of free government.
Some portions of our history have led to the conclusion,
that the existence of these amendments may, in the
confusion of the times, have been overlooked.
In my humble judgment, Mr. Chairman, there has
been, and is now, but one issue before the country; and
that is, whether the Constitution of the United States
shall be the supreme law of the land. That Constitution was formed by the people of the United States. It
acts, not upon the States, nor, through the States, upon
us as citizens of the several States, but directly upon us
as citizens of the United States; claiming, on the one
hand, our allegiance, and giving to us, on the other, its
protection. It is not a compact between the States, or
the peoples of the several States: it is itself a frame
of government ordained and established by the people of
the United States.




-4            RELATION OF THE STATES
The sphere of the Government so established is indeed
limited; but within that sphere its power is supreme.
It is a Government of delegated powers; and the powers
not delegated are reserved either to the States or to the
people (Amendments, art. 10).
The powers and functions granted to the National
Government by the Constitution are embraced in three
general classes, -'those concerning the relations of the
United States to foreign nations; those concerning the
relations between the States and their citizens respectively; and certain powers, which, though belonging to
the home-department of Government, to be useful and
effective, must be general and uniform in their operation throughout the country. A very large proportion
of the ordinary and necessary powers and functions of
Government is left in the States. The powers of the
National Government do not extend to or include the
domestic institutions or internal police of the States.
The separation and distinction between the respective
spheres of the State and National Governments is an
essential characteristic of our system, and is as old as
the idea of Union itself. No Union was suggested,
no project of one for a moment entertained, on any
other basis. The Colonies, in authorizing their delegates to assent to a separation from Great Britain, and
to form  a Union for the general defence, expressly
restricted them from consenting to any articles of union
which should take from the Colonies the power over
their internal police and domestic institutions. The
resolutions of the Colonies of New Jersey, Maryland,
and Rhode Island, may be cited in illustration.




TO THE UNION.                        5
The resolution of the Provincial Congress of New
Jersey- passed June 21, 1776, and laid before the
Continental Congress on the 28th of June —empowered
the delegates of that Province to -
" Unite with the delegates of the other Colonies in declaring the
United Colonies independent of Great Britain; entering into a confederation for union and common defence; making treaties with foreign
nations for commerce and assistance; and to take such other measures as may appear to them and you necessary for these great
ends; promising to support them with the whole force of this Province; always observing, whatever plan of confederacy you enter
into, the regulating the internal police of this Province is to be reserved
to the Colony Legislature."
The Convention of the Colony of Maryland, by a
resolution (adopted June 28, 1776, and laid before Congress July 1), authorized and empowered the deputies
of the Colony to —
"' Concur with the other United Colonies, or a majority of them,
in declaring the United Colonies free and independent, in favoring
such further compact and confederation between them, in making
foreign alliances, and in adopting such other measures as shall be
judged necessary for securing the liberties of America; and that said
Colony will hold itself bound by the resolutions of the majority of the
United Colonies in the premises; provided the sole and exclusive right
of regulating the internal government and police of that Colony be reserved to the people thereof." - Journals of Congress, 1776, pp. 390,
391, 392.
The credentials of the Assembly of Rhode Island,
after giving to the delegates power to enter into union
and confederation, add, —
" Taking the greatest care to secure to this Colony, in the strongest
and most perfect manner, its present established form, and all the
powers of government, so far as relates to its internal police, and conduct of our affairs, civil and religious." - Ibid., p. 343.




6               RELATION OF THE STATES
In the Revolutionary Government, in the Articles of
Confederation, in the Constitution, in its judicial interpretation, in every administration under the Constitution, and in every department of the Government, the
limitation has thus far been carefully recognized and
faithfully kept. This familiar, well-settled doctrine, as
to' the independent respective spheres of the National
and State Government, has never, perhaps, been more
clearly and strongly stated than in one of the resolutions adopted by the Convention which ushered the
present administration into power: —
"Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the
States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its
own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively,
is essential to that balance of powers on which the perfection and
endurance of our political fabric depends."
It is expressed also, with clearness and strength, in
the resolution adopted by the House, near the close
of the last session of Congress, by a nearly unanimous
vote:
" Resolved, That neither the Federal Government, nor the people
or governments of the non-slaveholding States, have a purpose or a
constitutional right to legislate upon or interfere with slavery in any
of the States of the Union."
These doctrines, as to the supremacy of the National
Government within its sphere and of the reserved
rights of the States, are elementary. Between them
there is no necessary conflict..Each is the complement
of the other, -both vital parts of that political system
under whose admirable distribution and adjustment of
powers the people of the United States have had for




TO THE UNION.                 7
seventy years incomparably the best and most beneficent
Government the world has ever known,  a Government now imperilled, not by reason of any inherent
defect or any want of wisdom or foresight in its founders,
not because we have outgrown its provisions, not because it is behind the age; but because it has fallen
upon an age not worthy of it, —an age which has failed
to appreciate the spirit of wisdom, prudence, and moderation, in which it was founded.
Such being the relation of the Government of the
United States to its citizens and to the.States, the first
question that arises is, how far this relation is affected
by the fact that several of the States have assumed, by
ordinances of secession, to separate themselves from the
Union.
The people of the United States, in and by the Constitution of the United States, established a National
Government, without limitation of time, " for themselves
and their posterity." It had been provided under the
Articles of Confederation, that the Union should be
perpetual. The Constitution was established to form
"a more perfect union" than that of the Confederation;
more efficient in power, and not less durable in time.
There is not a clause or word in the Constitution, which
looks to separation. It has careful provisions for its
amendment, none for its destruction; capacity for expansion, none for contraction; a door for new States to
come in, none for old or new ones to go out. An ordinance of secession has no legal meaning or force; is
wholly inoperative and void.  The Constitution, and
the laws and treaties made under it, the people have




8             RELATION OF THE STATES
declared, " shall be the supreme law of the land; and
the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any
thing in the constitution or laws of any State to the
contrary notwithstanding." The act of secession, therefore, cannot change in the least degree the legal relation
of the State to the Union. No provision of the Constitution of the United States, no law or treaty of the
United States, can be abrogated or impaired thereby.
No citizen of the United States, residing in the seceded
States, is, by such ordinance of secession, deprived of
the just protection of, or exempted from any of his
duties to, the United States. In- contemplation of law,
the reciprocal duties of protection and allegiance remain
unaffected. After the act of secession, the province
and duty of the Government of the United States are
the same, according to the full measure of its ability, as
before, -to enforce in every part of the Union, and
over every inch of its territory, the Constitution and
laws of the United States.
It is the necessary result of these principles, that no
State can abrogate or forfeit the rights of its citizens to
the protection of the Constitution of the United States,
or the privileges and blessings of the Union which that
Constitution secures and makes perpetual. The primary, paramount allegiance of every citizen of the
United States is to the nation; and the State authorities
can no more impair that allegiance than a county court
or a village constable. Every proposition, however artfully disguised, which seeks to give any effect or vitality
to an ordinance of secession, for evil or for good, is
itself a confession of the right. To say that an act of




TO THE UNION.                  9
secession is inoperative and void against the Constitution,
and that this void act, s1stained by force, is a practical
abdication of the rights of the State under the Constitution, is to blow hot and blow cold, to deny and affirm,
in the same breath; to state a proposition which is felo
de se.
It is also the plain and necessary conclusion, from
the principles before stated, that a State cannot commit
treason. Under the Constitution of the United States,
persons only can commit treason. How treason may be
committed, and how tried and punished, the Constitution points out (Constitution, art. 3, sect. 3; Amendments, arts. 5 and 6). The persons who for the time
being hold the offices under a State Government may
individually commit treason; but the acts of the State
officers, transcending their authority and in conflict with
the Constitution of the United States, involve in their
guilt no man who has not himself levied war against the
United States, or adhered to their enemies, giving them
aid and comfort. It is only we, the subjects, that can
commit treason, or expiate its guilt. No man, or set of
men, can, without our consent, involve us in the awful
crime, or subject us to the awful penalties, of treason.
As a State cannot commit the crime of treason, it
cannot incur a forfeiture of its powers and functions as
the penalty of treason. The punishment provided for
traitors is the result of judicial trial, conviction, and
judgment. How to indict a State, the constitution of
the court, the mode of trial, the form of judgment, and
process of execution, yet exist in gremio legis. Nor is
it material that the acts of the State officers have the
2




10            RELATION OF THE STATES
sanction and support of the majority of the people of
the State.  Within the proper sphere df the State
Government, the rule of the majority will prevail, except so far as it is restrained by the organic law; but
the majority of the voters of the State cannot deprive
the minority of the rights secured to them by the Constitution of the United States.  Some of these rights
may be kept in abeyance. Their exercise may be overborne by superior physical force. They may sleep; but
it is not the sleep of death. They are integral parts of
the Constitution, and can only perish when the Constitution perishes.
The State of Tennessee, for example, has passed an
ordinance of " secession." She has allied herself with
the other seceding States.  Her vote of secession is
sustained by force. Upon this new and startling theory
of the Constitution, she has already incurred a forfeiture of all those functions and powers essential to the
continued existence of the State as a body politic. The
voice of her eloquent senator is heard in the Capitol;
her venerable judge sits in the highest judicial tribunal,
and exercises the highest functions of Government;
her representatives mingle in our councils; her loyal
citizens greet with tears of joy the banner of our advancing hosts, -their hope and our hope, their pride
and our pride. Yet, upon this theory, there is no Tennessee: "the Commonwealth itself is past and gone."
Its citizens can no longer be represented in this House
or the Senate. The courts of the United States are
closed against them (Corporation of New Orleans vs.
Winter, 1 Wheaton Rep., 91). The requisition upon




TO THE UNION.                 11
the State for troops was a mistake. The direct tax was
a mistake. Its citizens, under the shield of the Constitution, are outlaws, and in their own homes exiles. If
such be the effects of a void act of secession, we should
be grateful we are not called upon to witness the results
of a valid one.  There is nothing in the doctrines of
nullification or secession more disloyal to the Constitution, more fatal to the Union," than this doctrine of
State suicide. It is the gospel of anarchy, the philosophy of dissolution. Nor by carrying out this doctrine
of the destruction or forfeiture of the State organization
would any thing be gained for the cause of freedom.
Slavery exists by the local, municipal law; and would
not be abolished, unless you go one step further, and
hold, that, with the loss of the State organization, the
institutions, laws, and civil relations of the States
perish. Now, in case of conquest even, though the
people of the conquered territory change their allegiance, their relations to each other and their rights of
property remain undisturbed. The modern usage of nations, which has become law, would be violated if
private property should be generally confiscated and
private rights annulled (United States vs. Percheman,
7 Peters, 51; 3 Phillimore, p. 743). When, therefore,
States were reduced to Territories, the National Government could not abolish slavery therein, except under
the right of eminent domain and by giving just compensation.
If we are right as to the nullity of the acts of secession, we may proceed to inquire whether the fact, that
the seceding States have attempted to form a new alli



12              RELATION OF THE STATES
ance or confederation, will effect the result. Upon
the plainest letter of the Constitution, as well as by its
entire spirit, these acts of confederation are void. Continuing as States in spite of their ordinances, they were
expressly forbidden to enter into any treaty, alliance, or
confederation, or into any agreement or compact, with
another State or with a foreign power (Constitution, art.
1, sect. 10). Neither by secession nor confederation have
they changed their legal relation to the Union and the
Constitution of the United States. They are still members of the Union, foregoing for a time its privileges, but
subject to its duties, bound to it by a cord which the
sword of successful revolution can alone sever.
What, then, it may be asked, is the legal character of
this great insurrection? The answer is, It is a rebellion
of citizens of the United States against the Government
of the United States; an organized effort to subvert and
overthrow its authority, and to establish another Government in its stead.  Nothing can be more explicit
than the proclamation of April 15, 1861:" The laws of the United States have been for some time past and
now are opposed, and the execution thereof obstructed, in the States
of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the
ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in
the marshals by law.
"Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United
States, in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution and
the laws, have thought fit to call forth, and hereby do call forth, the
militia of the several States of the Union, to the aggregate number of
seventy-five thousand, in order to suppress said combinations, and to
cause the laws to be duly executed.
"I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid this




TO THE UNION.                     13
effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our
National Union and the perpetuity of popular Government, and to
redress wrongs already long enough endured."
The State organizations have been found convenient,
and have been used for the purposes of the Rebellion.
Those of counties and cities have been used for the
same ends. In either case, it was an entire perversion
of their functions; and the action is none the less illegal
and revolutionary on that account. A State, as such,
having no power to engage in war with any other State
or with the United States, cannot interpose its shield
between the Government of the United States and its
subjects committing treason by levying war against it;
nor is such levying war any the less treason because the
traitors held places of trust in the State Governments,
and perverted the functions of those Governments to
their base ends.  Morally, it is an aggravation of the
offence. It does not change its essential legal character.
In the Convention for forming the Constitution of the
United States, Luther Martin, of Maryland, was anxious
to insert a provision to save the citizens of the States
from being punishable as traitors to the United States
when acting expressly in obedience to the authority
of their own States. The provision offered by him
was,
" That no act or acts done by one or more of the States against
the United States, or by any citizen of any one of the United States,
under the authority of one or more of the said States, shall be deemed
treason, or punished as such; but, in case of war being levied by one
or more of the States against the United States, the conduct of each
party towards the other, and their adherents respectively, shall be
regulated by the laws of war and of nations."




-14           RELATION OF -THE STATES
This proposition was rejected, Mr. Martin says with
much feeling, because the leading members of the Convention meant to leave the States at the mercy of the
National Government.  The more obvious reason is,
that it was inconsistent with the whole theory of the
Constitution, which, springing from the people of the
United States, acted directly upon them as its subjects,
and with a force which no law or -ordinance of a State
could impair.
This, then, is not a conflict of States; nor is it a war
of countries or of geographical lines. It is a conflict
between Government and its disobedient subjects. He
only is the enemy of the United States who is committing treason by levying war against the United States,
or giving aid and comfort to those who do. The loyal,
faithful subject of the United States, wherever on the
soil of his country he may have his home, is not
the enemy of his country. No subtilty of logic, no
ingenuity of legal construction, no misapplication of
the laws of international war to this contest, can change
the nature of things; can convert loyalty into treason,
or devotion into hostility. If there be to-day in Tennessee or Georgia, or South Carolina even, a loyal
subject of the United States, " faithful among the faithless found," the Government is not at war with him.
I am aware, that, as to property taken on the high seas,
some of the district courts of the United States have
held otherwise; but I venture to hope, that the court
of last resort will affirm the doctrine, stated by Mr. Justice Nelson of that court, to be good sense and sound
law  -




TO THE UNION.                      15
"On the breaking-out of a war between two nations, the citizens
or subjects of the respective belligerents are deemed by the law of
nations to be the enemies of each other. The same is true, in a qualified sense, in the case of a civil war arising out of an insurrection or
rebellion against the mother-government. But, in the latter case, the
citizens or subjects residing within the insurrectionary district, not
implicated in the rebellion, but adhering to their allegiance, are not
enemies, nor to be regarded as such. This distinction was constantly
observed by the English Government in the disturbances in Scotland,
under the Pretender and his son, in the years 1715 and 1745. It
modifies the law as it respects the condition of the citizens or subjects, residing within the limits of the revolted district, who remain
loyal to the Government."
The difference between a war and a rebellion is clear
and vital.  War is the hostile relation of one nation' to
another, involving all the subjects of both: rebellion
is the relation which disloyal subjects hold to the nation, not involving or impairing the rights of loyal
subjects. The law may fail to protect obedient subjects;
but it never condemns them. As between the Government, and its subjects in arms against it, the legal relation
is not that of war, notwithstanding the war-power is
used to subdue and reduce them to obedience. Though
the Rebellion has assumed gigantic proportions, and the
civil power is impotent to repress it, the array of numbers, and extent of physical force, do not change its
essential legal character.  It is still treason, -the levying of war against the United States by those who owe
to it allegiance. For this exigency the Constitution has
provided. The war-power of the Government may be
evoked "to execute the laws of the Union, and to suppress insurrection." In levying war against the United
States, the rebels do not cease to be traitors, but are




16           RELATION OF THE STATES
doing the thing in which the Constitution declares treason to consist (art. 3, sect. 3).
While using the powers and appliances of war for
the purpose of subduing the Rebellion, we are by no
means acting without the pale of the Constitution. We
are using precisely the powers with which the Constitution has clothed us for this end. We are seeking
domestic tranquillity by the sword the Constitution has
placed in our hands. 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.
While using the powers of war for executing the
laws and subduing rebellion, we are, of course, bound
and restrained by the laws of war. It is our duty and
our privilege to respect the maxims of humanity and
moderation by which the law of nations and of Christian civilization has tempered the spirit of modern
hostilities. During the war, we may recognize in the
rebels the rights of belligerents; may send them flags
of truce; may make with them capitulations, cartels for
exchange of prisoners; and extend to them the courtesies which mitigate, to some extent, the iron rigor of
war. These things were done in the earliest stages
of our Revolution, not only before the separation of the
Colonies was declared, but before the idea of independence had fairly taken possession of the public
mind. But it was never supposed, that, by adopting
the usages of civilized warfare, Great Britain was relaxing her hold upon the Colonies, or elevating them into
independent powers. Nothing is, I think, plainer in
principle, than that the recognition of these rights and




TO THE UNION.                 17
the observance of these usages -flagrante bello - cannot affect the legal relation of the parties; does not
divest the sovereign of his power, or release the subject
from his duties, when the strife of arms ceases. It is
only when rebellion has ripened into successful revolution, that the permanent legal relations of the parties
are changed. The recognition of the " belligerent rights"
of the rebels by foreign powers, can, as between the
sovereign and his subjects, have no other or further
effect. Such recognition (if known to the law of nations) proceeds upon the ground, that the revolution is
not accomplished, and that the connection is not dissolved.
Had this been done, the recognition would have been
of their separate national existence.
In my humble judgment, Mr. Chairman, the "seceded
States" (so called), and the people of those States, are
to-day integral parts of the Union, over whom, when
the conflict of, arms ceases, the Constitution of the
United States, and the laws made under it, will resume
their peaceful sway. Traitors may perish; some institutions may perish: the nation will remain; and the
States will remain, essential parts of the body politic.
"The body is one, and hath many members; and all
the members of that body, being many, are one body."
With this brief and imperfect development of the
principles involved in this great controversy, I proceed
to a more direct consideration of the subjects of confiscation and emancipation.
In seeking to know what this Government ought to
do in relation to the confiscation of private property, or
the'emancipation of slaves, in the " seceding" States, the
3




18                  CONFISCATION.
obvious question presenting itself to every mind at
the threshold is, What is the end which the Government
and the people are seeking to attain? There can be
but one loyal answer to that question. It is to preserve
the Union and the Constitution in their integrity; to
vindicate in every part of this indivisible Republic its
supreme law. No purpose, however humane, beneficent, or attractive, can divert our steps from the plain,
straight path of sworn duty. What is writ is writ. In
seeking to change it by force of arms, we become the
rebels we are striving to subdue.
It is a plain proposition, that, in seeking to enforce
the law, we are, as far as possible, to obey the law.
We are not to destroy in seeking to preserve.  The
people do not desire a bitter and remorseless struggle
over the dead body of the Constitution. We may raise
armies and navies, and pour out as water the treasure
and life-blood of the people; but we can neither think
nor act wisely, live well, or die well, for the Republic,
unless we keep clearly and always in view the end of
all our labors and sacrifices, -- the Union of our fathers,
and the Constitution, which is its only bond.  No
thoughtful man can believe there is a possibility of
reconstructing the Union on any other basis; or that it
is within the province of Congress, in any other but the
peaceful way of amendment, to make the effort.
The bills and joint resolutions before the House, propose, with some differences of policy and method, two
measures,- the confiscation of the property of the
rebels, and the emancipation of their slaves. Some of
the resolutions propose the abolition of slavery itself,




CONFISCATION.                 19
with compensation for loyal masters. It is my duty to
examine, as briefly as I may, the wisdom, the justice,
and the constitutionality of the measures proposed.
And, first, of confiscation.
The propositions for confiscation include the entire
property of the rebels, real and personal, for life and in
fee. Within the class whose- estates are to be confiscated are included not only those personally engaged in
the Rebellion, in arms against the Government, but
also those who adhere to them, giving them aid or comfort: so that within the sweep of the bills would be
brought substantially the property of eleven States and
six millions of people.
The mind instinctively shrinks from a proposition
like this. It relucts to include in one " fell swoop" a
whole people. It asks anxiously, if no consideration is
to be had for different degrees of guilt; if the same
measure is to be meted to those who organized the
Rebellion and those who have been forced into it; if no
consideration is to be given to the fact; that allegiance
and protection are reciprocal duties; and that, for the
last ten months, the National Government has found
itself incapable of giving protection to its loyal subjects
in the "seceding States," — neither defending them,
nor giving them arms to defend themselves; and tllat,
deprived of our protection and incapable of resistance,
they have yielded only to superior force; if a wise
Government is to forget the nature of man and the
influences of birth, of soil, of home, of society, and of
State, by which his opinions are insensibly moulded; and
that this pestilent heresy of the right of secession, fatal




20                  CONFISCATION.
as it is now seen to be, not only to the existence of good
government, but of social order itself, has been a cardinal article in the faith of a large portion of the people in
the Southern States; and that they have been induced,
by the arts and sophistries and falsehoods of unprincipled leaders, to believe that their future safety and
well-being required the exercise of the right. Those
leaders should atone for their crime by the just penalty
of the law.  But you cannot, says Burke, indict "a
whole people;" you cannot apply to them the ordinary
rules of criminal jurisprudence.  To state the proposition to confiscate the property of eleven States is to
confute it; is to shock our common sense, and sense of
justice; is to forget not only the ties of history and
of kindred, but those of a common humanity; is to
excite the indignation of the civilized world, and to invoke the interposition of all Christian governments.
It is said that just retaliation requires the confiscation of the property of the rebels. Doubtless nations
may feel compelled to resort to measures of severe
retaliation; it may be their only security against future
outrage: but a firmly established government does not
resort to cruelty and injustice because its rebellious
subjects have done so. It must maintain a higher
standard of rectitude and justice. Its object is, not
vengeance, but to deter men from  crime.  It knows
that harsh and severe punishments but rouse pity
for the criminal, and indignation against the Government.
Nor will the difference between confiscation by the
rebels and by this Government be overlooked.  Our




CONFISCATION.                  21
acts of confiscation, if within the limits of the Constitution, are effective and permanent: theirs, void in law,
are temporary in their effect. The title to one square
inch of land will not be changed by any confiscation by
the rebel authorities. Every man who has occupied
the land of a loyal citizen under their pretended acts of
confiscation will be liable for the full rent and damages
to the estate.  Every man who is in possession of
personal property under them  will be compelled to
disgorge.  Every debt paid under them into rebel treasuries will still be due to the loyal creditor.  The restoration and indemnity will, I know, be imperfect.  Many
grievous wrongs will go unredressed; but every rebel,
whatsoever functions he may have usurped, —judicial
or executive, - who has invaded the rights of person or
of property of a loyal citizen, will be liable to his last
farthing for indemnity. So far, therefore, as our Government confiscates the property of rebels to its own
use, it takes from the loyal citizen the sources to which
he may justly look for redress.
The acts of general confiscation proposed would defeat the great end the Government has in view, - the
restoration of order, union, and obedience to law. They
would take from the rebels every motive for submission;
they would create the strongest possible motives to continued resistance. In the maintenance of the Confederate Government, they might possibly find protection;
in the restoration of ours, spoliation.  Spoliatis carmnce
supersunt. You leave them the great weapon of despair.  Sallust said of the old Romans,'" Majores nostri
religiosissimi mortales nihil victis efipiebant prater inju



22                  CONFISCATION.
rise licentiam," — " Our ancestors, the most religious of
men, took from the vanquished nothing but the license
of wrong-doing," -" words," says Grotius, " worthy of
having been said by a Christian."
It seems to be taken for granted, that our efforts to
suppress the Rebellion will be successful in proportion
to the severity of the measures we adopt. The assumption is at war with the lessons of history and with the
nature of man. The most vigorous prosecution of
the war possible is best for the Government and its subjects in arms against it. But the war is means to an
end. "Wise men labor in the hope of rest, and make
war for the sake of peace." It is only when justice is
tempered with mercy that it is justice.
Apart from the injustice and impolicy of these acts of
sweeping confiscation, I have not been able to find in
the Constitution the requisite authority to pass them.
There are two aspects in which the legal question may
be viewed, — first, the confiscation and forfeiture of property as the punishment for crime; secondly, under what
has popularly been called the "war-power" of the
Government.
Looking at confiscation as the penalty of crime, treason, or any lower grade of offence, some things seem to
be plain:
That such forfeiture can be created by statutes applicable only to offences committed after their passage.
Congress cannot pass an ex post facto law- (Constitution, art. 1, sect. 9).
The subject charged with treason may justly claim all
the muniments and safeguards of the Constitution.




CONFISCATION.                  23
He cannot be deprived of life, liberty, or property,
without due process of law (Amendments, art. 5); that
is, judicial process, as understood from the days of
Magna Carta.
He cannot be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, except in cases arising in the land
or naval forces, or in the militia when in actual service
in time of war or public danger, unless on presentment or indictment by a grand jury (ibid.).
After indictment, he must have a trial by an impartial
jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall
have been committed; which district shall have been
previously ascertained by law (art. 3, sect. 2; Amendments, art. 6).
No attainder of treason can work a forfeiture, except
during the life of the person attainted (Constitution,
art. 3, sect. 2).  By attainder is here clearly meant judicial attainder; as a bill of attainder (that is, an act of
the Legislature) is, by a prior provision of the Constitution, expressly forbidden (art. 1, sect. 9).
These sacred provisions of the Constitution, which, as
common-law muniments of life, liberty, and property,
have existed in substance for six centuries,-" the least
feeling their care, and the greatest not exempted from
their power," —lie directly in the path, and are fatal
obstructions to any legislation confiscating property as
the penalty of treason, except as the result of the judicial trial and sentence of the offender.
It has been assumed, — I think, without sufficient reflection, - that, under our laws against treason, the most
obnoxious traitors even will escape the righteous punish



24                 CONFISCATION.
ment of their crimes, because they must be tried by a
jury in the State and district wherein the offence shall
have been committed. Their only escape will be by
exile. Where war is actually levied against the United
States, where bodies of men have been actually assembled to effect by force of arms their treasonable purposes, all those who perform any part, however minute
or however remote from the scene of action, and who
are actually leagued in the general conspiracy, are to be
considered as traitors (Ex parte Bolman, &c., 4 Cranch,
75). We have not, indeed, adopted the law of constructive presence, which holds that a man who incites
or procures a treasonable act, is, by force of the incitement or procurement merely, legally present at the act.
But it may be sufficient to constitute presence, if he is
in a situation in which he can co-operate with any act of
hostility, or furnish counsel and assistance to the parties
-if attacked (United States vs. Burr, 4 Cranch, 470).
The modern facilities of communication greatly enlarge
the field of co-operation. A commander at the end of a
telegraph-wire, directing the assault upon a fort of the
United States, or at a railroad station with troops ready
to be moved to the assistance of the rebel army in
action, is, in law, present at the overt acts of treason.
The leaders of this Rebellion will be found, therefore, to
have committed treason, and to be liable to indictment
and trial in many States and districts in which a jury
will be ready, upon adequate proof, to convict.
In the proposed measures, the thing sought to be
done is the confiscation of the property of the rebel
as the penalty of his offence, and the attainment of this




CONFISCATION.                 25
end without the trial and conviction of the offender.
Though, under the Constitution, upon a trial and conviction of a traitor, you can only take the life estate, these
measures assume, that, without any trial or conviction,
you may take the fee-simple. Our legal instincts shrink
from such a proposition. Its intrinsic difficulties have
been seen and felt; and a resort has been had to analogies and precedents, judicial and legislative, to find for
it some sanction and support; I think, without success.
1. It is true, as has been said, that, under the Constitution, men may be deprived of life and property without
trial by jury. Cases arising in the land and naval forces,
and in the militia when in actual service in time of war
or public danger, are in terms excepted from the general rule (Amendments, art. 5); but the exception, instead of impairing, by the law of logic as of common
sense, confirms the rule.
2. Property is taken for taxes, and certainly without
trial by jury, where the tax, and mode of assessment, are
valid; but this is under an express grant of power to
Congress " to lay and collect taxes" (art. 1, sect. 8), the
principle and general method of which were perfectly
well understood when the Constitution was adopted.
Nor does the exercise of this power, as has been suggested, take private property for public use without just
compensation: on the contrary, the true and just theory
of taxation is, that the price paid is the reasonable compensation for the protection and security of life, liberty,
and property, which a wise and efficient government
affords.
4




26                 CONFISCATION.
3. The forfeiture of goods for breach of the revenuelaws has slight, if any, analogy to the confiscation of
property as a punishment for the crime of its owner.
To Congress is given the power to "regulate commerce," and "to levy and collect imports;" and, of
course, to prescribe the terms and conditions upon
which goods may be imported. It may well avail itself
of a familiar principle by which property used in violating, defeating, or defrauding the law is liable to forfeiture. Though the forfeiture of the common law did
not, strictly speaking, attach in rem, but was a part
or consequence of the judgment of conviction of the
offender, this doctrine was never applied to seizures and
forfeitures created by statute in rem, and cognizable on
the revenue side of the exchequer. The thing was then
primarily considered as the offender, and the offence was
attached to it. The same principle is applied to proceedings in remn, and seizures in the admiralty (2 Wheaton, The Palmyra). It is upon this distinction that the
statutes of July 19 and of Aug. 6, 1861, find their support. The principle is, that the thing used in violating
the law may be seized and condemned without a judgment upon the guilt of the owner.
I proceed to inquire how far, if at all, the powers of
Congress are enlarged by the existence of this Rebellion,
and the use of the appliances of war to subdue it.
It would seem to be plain, that the resistance of any
portion of the people to the Constitution and laws cannot operate to confer upon Congress any new substantive power, or to abrogate any limitations of the powers
of Congress which the people have imposed. When




CONFISCATION.                 27
the Constitution intends that the existence of war or
rebellion shall put an end to any restriction on the
power of the Government, it says so: when it does not
say so, the fair inference is that it does not mean so.
Examples of such removals of restraint are found in
article one, section eight, providing that the privilege of
the " writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public
safety may require it;" and in article three of the
Amendments, forbidding, in. time of peace, the quartering of soldiers in any house without the consent of- the
owner, but in time of war permitting it to be done " in
a manner to be prescribed by law."
Engaged in suppressing a great and formidable rebellion, the Government. may use the instrumentalities of
war, so far as they are adapted to the end: but it is
never freed from the restraints of the Constitution; can
never rise above it. The Constitution is never silent in
the midst of arms. In war, as in peace, it is the supreme law; itself salus populi et suprema lex.
When Government is compelled to use the power of
war, it observes its limitations. How far, in the use
of this power, it may confiscate, or subject to forfeiture,
private property, is the next question before us.
Some things are tolerably well settled. That property
used in promoting the rebellion, in levying war against
the United States, is lawful prize of war. This would
include the arms, munitions, and provisions of war, in
actual use.or procured for the purpose. The rule extends to goods used, not strictly as munitions or implements of war, but so as to defeat the military and naval




28                 CONFISCATION.
operations resorted to to subdue the rebellion: as goods
on their way to relieve besieged towns or forts; or ships
or cargo violating a blockade, or proceeding to or from
ports with which commercial intercourse has been interdicted. It may extend to ships and cargo upon the high
seas, the property of those levying war against the
United States; enemies, not because of their domicile or
residence upon one part rather than another of the territory of the Union, but because they are in arms
against it.
Perhaps we should add to these, requisitions or contributions, within military districts, levied upon those at
war with the Government, for the support of the invading army. Such requisitions Vwere, however, regarded
by Wellington, a great statesman as well as great commander, as iniquitous; as a system for which the
British soldier was unfit. I would refer also to the excellent remarks on this subject by President Woolsey,
in his admirable Introduction to " International Law,"
p. 304.
Beyond the points suggested, it is believed the usages
of international war do not extend. By the modern
usages of nations, private property on the land is exempt from confiscation. This exemption, Mr. Wheaton
says (and there is no higher authority), is now held to
extend "to cases of the absolute and unqualified conquest of the enemy's country" (Wheaton's " Elements
of International Law," p. 421). We refer also, as
tending to the same result, to Vattel, book 3, chap. 8,
sect. 147; to 1 Kent's'' Commentaries," pp. 102, 104;
3 Phillimore, p. 140; Woolsey, p. 304. To this miti



CONFISCATION,                     29
gated rule of war, there are doubtless exceptions.  Of
these, Mr. Wheaton says, -
"The exceptions to these general mitigations of the extreme rights
of war, considered as a contest of force, all grow out of the same
original principle of natural law, which authorizes us to use against
an enemy such a degree of violence, and such only, as may be necessary to secure the object of hostilities. The same general rule which
determines how far it is lawful to destroy the persons of enemies, will
serve as a guide in judging how far it is lawful to ravage or lay waste
their country. If this be necessary in order to accomplish the just
ends of war, it may be lawfully done; but not otherwise. Thus, if
the progress of an enemy cannot be stopped, nor our own frontier
secured, or if the approaches to a town intended to be attacked cannot be made, without laying waste the intermediate territory, the extreme case may justify a resort to measures not warranted by the
ordinary purposes of war." -Page 421.
The exceptions growing out of military exigencies,
and measured and governed by them, cannot be foreseen
and provided for by legislation, but must be left, where
the law of nations leaves them, with the military commander.
It has been said that these acts of, general confiscation find support under the provision of the Constitution
which authorizes Congress " to make rules concerning
captures by land and water." The Constitution does
not define the meaning of the word  "captures."  It
refers us in such cases to the law of nations, as in others
to the common law. Congress has power to declare
" war." What war is, the just causes of war, the rights
and duties of nations in conducting it, are to be found
in the law of nations.  The " captures" referred to are
very plainly not seizures of property under legal process, confiscation, or forfeiture, but the taking of enemy's




30                 CONFISCATION.
property by force or strategy, jure victorice. The title is
acquired by capture, and liable to be lost by recapture.
To make rules concerning " captures" is not to make
rules in conflict with or beyond the law of nations. The
extent to which the power conferred by the law of nations shall be exercised, and the disposition to be had of
captures when made, are the proper subjects of municipal law, and of the provision of the Constitution.
The case of Brown vs. the United States (8 Cranch,
110) has been cited as expressly deciding that Congress
has power to pass a confiscation bill. I submit, with
great respect, that it decides no such thing. The only
point decided in the case was, that British property
found in the United States, on land, at the commencement of international hostilities (war of 1812), could not
be condemned as enemy's property, without an act of
Congress for that purpose. The court, dealing with a
question arising under war with a foreign nation, had no
occasion to consider the powers or duties of Congress
in the case of rebellion. The discussions of the court
recognize a distinction between the right of the sovereign to take the persons and confiscate the property of
the enemy wherever found, and the mitigations of the
rule which the humane usages of modern times have
introduced. With all my reverence for the great magistrate who delivered the opinion of the court, I must be
permitted. to say, that usage is itself the principal source
of the law of nations, and that these humane usages
have become the rules of war in Christian States. The
law of nations, says Bynkershoek, is only a presumption
founded on usage (Deforo Legatorurn, chap. 18, sect. 6).




CONFISCATION.                31
It is suggested, that, if the confiscation of private
property violated the law of nations, the courts could
not overrule the interpretation of that law by the political department of the Government, and that no other
power Could intervene. Possibly this may be so; but
surely it is not intended that we shall violate the law of
nations in dealing with our subjects, because there is no
appeal or redress for the subject. It is in the exercise
of irresponsible power that the nicest sense of justice,
and the greatest caution and forbearance, are demanded.
In suppressing a rebellion so atrocious, marked by such
fury and hate against a Government felt only in its blessings, forbearance seems to us weakness, and vengeance
the noblest of virtues; but, in our calmer moments, we
hear the Divine Voice: "Vengeance is mine; I will
repay."
I conclude what I have to say.up6n this branch of the
subject with the remark, that, in substance and effect,
the bills before the House seek the permanent forfeiture
and confiscation of, property, real and personal, without
the trial of the offender. I ali unable to see how, under the Constitution, that result can be reached.
The temporary use of property in districts under military occupation, and of estates abandoned by their
owners, rests upon distinct principles, which it is not
now necessary to consider. We have only to remark,
in passing, that the use of such property and the rule
in such districts can be provisional only, waiting the
regular action of the State governments, and in no way
impairing their permanent powers.
I proceed to the question of the deepest interest in



32                EMANCIPATION.
volved in this discussion, —the emancipation of slaves in
the "seceding States." There is no subject on which
our feelings are so likely to warp our judgment; in
which calmness is so necessary and so difficult,, and
declamation so easy or so useless. The general principles stated in relation to the power and duty of Congress
as to confiscation are applicable to the subject of emancipation.
On the question of policy, the plausible and attractive
argument is, that the only effectual way to suppress
rebellion is to remove its cause. The position, when
thoroughly probed, is, not that the National Government
has not the power to put down the rebellion without
resort to emancipation, but that the continued existence
of slavery is incompatible with the future safety of the
Republic. This plainly is not a question of present
military necessity, but one affecting the permanent
structure of the Government, and involving material
changes in the Constitution. This can be done in one
of two ways: in the method the Constitution points out;
or by successful revolution on the part of the free
States, and the entire subjugation of the slave States.
No man can foresee to-day what policy a severe and
protracted struggle may render necessary. It is sufficient to say,- that into such a war of conquest and extermination the people of the United States have no present
disposition to enter. They have too thorough a.conviction of the capacity of the Government to subdue the
Rebellion by the means the Constitution sanctions, to be
desirous of looking beyond its pale.
Upon the legal aspect of the question, it may be




EMANCIPATION.                 33
stated, as a general proposition, that Congress, in time
of peace, has no power over slavery in the States. By
that is meant the institution itself; for the National
Government may, in my judgment, forfeit the right of
the master in the labor of the slave, as a penalty for
crime of which the master shall be convicted; and, when
so forfeited, it may dispose of the right as it sees fit.
Nor is there any intrinsic difficulty in the use of this species of property under the right of eminent domain. If
the Government were constructing a fort or digging an
intrenchment, it might hire this species of labor, or, if
necessary, take it, as it might other labor or property,
giving reasonable compensation therefor.
The provision as to the return of fugitives from service cannot be deemed an exception to the general rule
before stated; for the provision applies to escapes from
one State into another, and not to escapes within the
State. Of which we may remark, in passing, that, as to
the former class, the power of the Government is strictly
civil, to be executed by judicial process; and that, as to
the latter, the National Government, in time of war or
peace, has no concern.
Nor would an act of the National Government liberating the slaves within a State, having the consent of the
State and providing compensation for the masters, militate with the rule. Conventio vincet legern. The consent
of the State would relieve the difficulty.
But the question arises, how far the existence of the
Rebellion confers upon Congress any new power over
the relation of master and slave. Strictly speaking, no
new power is conferred upon any department of the
5




34                 EMANCIPATION.
Government by war or rebellion; but it may have
powers to be used in those exigencies which are dormant
in time of peace. Such, for example, are the power to
call out the militia (art. 1, sect. 8), to try by martial law
cases arising in the militia (Amendments, 5), to suspend the writ of habeas corpus (art. 1, sect. 9), to quarter
troops in private houses (Amendments, 3). But, when
the National Government is called to the stern duty of
repressing insurrection or repelling invasion, may not
new power over the relation of master and slave be
brought into action?  Such, I think, is the result.
A plain case is presented by slaves employed in the
military and naval service of the rebels. If captured,
they may be set free.
The Government may refuse to return a slave to a
master who has been engaged in the Rebellion, or suffered the slave to be employed in it.
It may require the services of all persons subject to
its jurisdiction by residing upon its territory, when the
exigency arises, to aid in executing the laws, in repressing insurrection, or repelling invasion. This right is, in
my judgment, paramount to any claim of the master to
his labor, under the local law. There might be a question of the duty of the slave to obey; but the will of the
master could not intervene. His claim, if any, would be
a reasonable compensation for the labor of his slave.
But, though the power may exist, there is, with prudent and humane men, no desire to use it. Nothing
but the direst extremity would excuse the use of a
power fraught with so great perils to both races; and
the recent triumphs of our arms, evincing our capacity




EMANCIPATION.                35
to subdue the Rebellion without departure from  the
usages of civilized warfare, have, I trust, indefinitely
postponed the question.
There is one other exigency in which the relation of
master and slave must give way to military necessity.
If the commander of a military district shall find that
the slaves within it, by the strength they give to their
rebellious masters,-by bearing arms, or doing other
military service, or acting as the servants of those who
do,-obstruct his efforts to subdue the Rebellion, he
may deprive the enemy of this force, and may remove
the obstruction, by giving freedom to the slaves. This,
it is apparent, is not a civil or legislative, but a strictly
military right and power, springing from the exigency,
and measured and limited by it, to be used for the subduing of the enemy, and for no ulterior purpose. If the
commander-in-chief and the generals under him shall
observe faithfully this distinction, the use of the power
ought to be no just ground of complaint. If, in consequence of the protraction of the war, the effect of the
use of this power should be to put an end to slavery in
any of the States, or to weaken and impair its force, we
may justly thank God for bringing good out of evil.
In my judgment, it would be impracticable for the
Legislature, even if it had the power, to anticipate by
any general statute the exigencies or prescribe the rules
for the exercise of this power. The Legislature and the
people will be content to leave the matter to the sound
discretion and patriotism of the magistrate selected to
execute the laws.
To avoid misconstruction; I desire to say that the




36                 EMANCIPATION.
power of Congress over slavery in this District is absolute; that no limitation exists in the letter or spirit of
the Constitution or the acts of cession. All that is requisite for abolishing slavery here is just compensation
to the master. Equally absolute, in my judgment, is the
power of Congress over slavery in the Territories.
Mr. Chairman, in a letter to a friend, published on the
first day of the last year, I ventured to say that secession
should be resisted to the last extremity, by force of arms;
that it cost us seven years of war to secure this Government, and that seven years, if need be, would be
wisely spent in the struggle to maintain it; that for
this country there was no reasonable hope of peace but
within the pale of the Constitution, and in obedience
to its mandates. The progress of events has served
only to deepen those convictions. They are as firmly
rooted as my trust in God and his providence. Whoever else may falter, I must stand by the Constitution I
have sworn to support. I am not wise enough to build
a better. I am not rash enough to experiment upon a
nation's life. There is, to me, no hope of " one country"
but in this system of many States and one nation, working in their respective spheres as if the Divine Hand
had moulded and set them in motion. To this system
the integrity of the States is as essential as that of the
central power. Their life is one life. A consolidated
government for this vast country would be essentially a
despotic government, democratic in name, but kept
buoyant by corruption, and efficient by the sword.
Desiring the extinction of slavery with my whole mind
and heart, I watch the working of events with devout




EMANCIPATION.                37
gratitude and with patience. The last year has done the
work of a generation. By no rash act of ours, much
less any radical change in the Constitution, shall we
hasten the desired result. If, in the pursuit of objects
however humane; if, beguiled by the flatteries of hope
or of shallow self-conceit; if, impelled by our hatred
of treason, and desire of vengeance or retribution; if,
seduced by the "' insidious wiles of foreign influence,"
we yield to such change, we shall destroy the best hope
of freeman and slave, and the best hope of humanity
this side the grave.




38
CONFIS CATION.
MAY 24, 1862.
The House. having under consideration the bills to confiscate the
property, and free from servitude the slaves, of rebels, Mr. THOMAS
said,Mr. SPEAKER, - Before proceeding to the discussion
of the measures before the House, I hope I may be
pardoned for making one or two preliminary suggestions. At an early day, I expressed my earnest conviction of the course to be pursued by the Government and
people of this country in relation to secession; that it
was but another and an unmanly form of rebellion, and
that it must be met at the threshold, and crushed by
arms; that after an ordinance of secession, as before, it
was the duty of the Government to execute in every
part of this indivisible Republic the Constitution and
the laws.
But I believed then, and believe now, that the life of
the States is just as essential a part of this Union as the
life of the central power; that their life is indeed one
life; and when the gentleman from New York [Mr.
Sedgwick] yesterday assured the House that the statement made by me in a former speech, "that, when the
conflict of arms ceases, the nation will remain, and the




CONFISCATION.               39
States will remain essential parts of the body politic,"
"was one of those bold and audacious propositions
which cannot fail to shock the common sense of mankind," I felt that either he or I had wholly misconceived the nature and structure of the Government
under which we live.  E pluribus unum; Of many
States, one nation. The Union is not a graveyard for
the burial of dead commonwealths. The body politic is
safer with a severed limb than with a dead one. But
the gentleman from New York has made progress in
this doctrine of State suicide, and assures the House
not only of the death of the States, but that the people,
"by permission of the military power, and not before,"
can form new governments, and seek again admission
here. Mark the words, " by permission of the military
power, and not before."  Where are we drifting, Mr.
Speaker? and what is the end? These are not hasty
words, but the deliberately uttered language of one, who,
no less by culture and capacity than by your appointment, is a leader of the House. "By permission of the
military power, and not before." I repeat the question,
Where are we drifting? What is the end?
I was guilty of another audacious act in the view of the
gentleman from New York. I awoke "St. Paul from
the dead" to give countenance to my doctrine. The
gentleman must pardon me, Mr. Speaker. I must be an
old fogy. It never occurred to me that the Epistles of
Paul were among the dead things of the past. I supposed they were the well-springs of immortal life, and,
like the Gospels, the same to-day, yesterday, and for
ever. I am bound to presume. this was a heedless




40                 CONFISCATION.
remark; for I am sure the gentleman can have no sympathy with the new school of philosophy which has
outgrown the gospel, and which, making equal war
with the Christian Church and with the Union, has
issued the new evangel, in which abstract love of the
race is substituted for practical love of our neighbor,
confusion for social order, freedom from restraint for
the liberty of obedience. But let this pass.
Mr. Speaker, no man can desire more earnestly than
I do the suppression of this Rebellion, and the restoration of order, unity, and peace. But there are two
things I cannot, I will not do. I will not trample beneath my feet the Constitution I have sworn before God
to support. I will not violate, even against these rebels,
the law of nations as recognized and upheld by all
civilized and Christian States. I believe I must do both
to vote for these bills, and at the same time do an act
unwise, and especially adapted to defeat the end in
view, if that end be the restoration of the Union and
the salvation of the Republic.
I propose, very briefly, to examine the bills before
the House (and especially that as to the confiscation of
property), under the law of nations and under the Constitution of the United States, and then to say a word
upon their policy.
The positions assumed by the friends of these measures are, that we may deal with those engaged in this
Rebellion as public enemies and as traitors; that, regarding them as enemies, we may use against them all
the powers granted by the law of nations, and, viewing
them as rebels or traitors, we may use against them all




CONFISCATION.               41
the powers granted by the Constitution; and that, in
either view, these bills can be sustained.
Dealing with them as public enemies, it is said, that,
under the existing law of nations, we have a clear right
to confiscate the entire private property, on the land as
well as the sea, real and personal, of those in arms, and
of non-combatants who may in any way give aid
and comfort to the Rebellion. This first bill sweeps over
the whole ground. I deny the proposition, Mr. Speaker.
In the name of that public law whose every humane
sentiment it violates; in the name of that civilization
whose amenities it forgets and whose progress it overlooks; in the name of human nature itself, whose better
instincts it outrages, I deny it. Such is not the law of
nations.
To give a plausible aspect to the proposition, the
advocates of this bill have gone back to Grotius and to
Bynkershoek for the rules of war; and even then have
omitted to give what Grotius calls the temperamenta, or
restraints upon the rules. You might as well attempt
to substitute the code of Moses for the beatitudes of the
gospel. Any thing, can be established by such resort
to the authorities. By the older writers, you can prove
not only all the property of the vanquished may be
taken, but that every prisoner may be put to death. By
Grotius, I can show that all persons taken in war are
slaves, and that this is the lot even of all found
within the enemy's boundaries when the war broke out;
that this iron rule applies, not to men only, but to their
wives and children; nay, further, that the master has
over the slaves the power of life and death. - De Jure
6




42                    CONFISCATION.
Belli et Pacis, book 3, chap. 7, sects. 1, 2, and 3. I
cite a short passage from the chapter referred to:" The effects of this right are unlimited; so that the master may do
any thing lawfully to the slave, as Seneca says. There is no suffering which may not be inflicted on such slaves with impunity; no act
which may not in any manner be commanded or extorted: so that
even cruelty in the masters towards persons of servile condition is
unpunished, except so far as the civil law imposes limits, and punishments for cruelty. In all nations alike, says Caius, we may see that
the masters have the power of life and death over slaves. He adds
afterwards, that, by the Roman law, limits were set to this power;
that is, on Roman ground. So Donatus in Terence:'What is not
lawful from a master to a slave?"'
By Bynkershoek, you may establish  that the conqueror has over the vanquished the power of life and
death, and the power of selling them into slavery; that
every thing is lawful in war,- the use of poison and the
destruction of the unarmed and defenceless. - Law of
War, Duponceau's translation, pp. 2, 18, 19, 20.
But what then, Mr. Speaker?  Does any man suppose that these writers give us the laws of war, as
upheld, sanctioned, and used by the Christian and civilized States of to-day?  Nothing would be further from
the fact. Commerce, civilization, Christian culture, have
tempered and softened the rigor of the ancient rules;
and the State which should to-day assume to put them
in practice would be an outcast from the society of nations. Nay, more: they would combine, and rightfully
combine, to stay its hand. For the modern law of war,
you must look to the usages of civilized States, and to
the publicists who have explained and enforced them.
Those usages constitute themselves the laws of war.




CONFISCATION.                     43
In relation to the capture and confiscation of private
property on the land, I venture to say with great confidence, and after careful examination, that the result of
the whole matter has never been better stated than by
our own great publicist, Mr. Wheaton: -
"But by the modern usage of nations, which has now acquired
the force of law, temples of religion, public edifices devoted to civil
purposes only, monuments of art, and repositories of science, are exempted from the general operations of war. Private property on land
is also exempt from confiscation, with the exception of such as may
become booty in special cases, when taken from enemies in the field
or in besieged towns, and of military contributions levied upon the
inhabitants of the hostile territory. This exemption extends even to
the case of an absolute and unqualified conquest of the enemy's
country." — Elements of International Law, p. 421.
It is not too much to say, that no careful student of
international law will deny that this passage from Mr.
Wheaton fairly expresses the modern usage and law
upon the subject; but you will permit me to refer for a
moment to the doctrine stated by my illustrious predecessor, whose name has been so often invoked in this
debate, John Quincy Adams.  c" Our object," he says in
a letter to the Secretary of State, " is the restoration of
all the property, including slaves, which, by the usages
of war among civilized nations, ought not to have been
taken."  "All private property on shore was of that
description.  It was entitled by the laws of war to exemption from capture." - Mr. Adams to the Secretary
of State, Aug. 22, 1815.
Again, he says, in a letter to Lord Castlereagh, Feb.
17, 1816,"But as, by the same usages of civilized nations, private property
is not the subject of lawful capture in war upon the land, it is perfectly




44                     CONFISCATION.
clear, that, in every stipulation, private property shall be respected;
or that, upon the restoration of places during the war, it shall not be
carried away." — 4 American State Papers, pp. 116, 117, 122, 123.
A volume might be filled with like citations from
modern writers. I will content myself with perhaps
the latest expression, and from a great statesman, a
native  of Massachusetts, and  of my own county  of
Worcester: --
" The prevalence of Christianity and the progress of civilization have greatly mitigated the severity of the ancient mode of
prosecuting hostilities....   It is a generally received rule of
modern warfare, - so far, at least, as operations upon land are
concerned, - that the persons and effects of non-combatants are to be
respected.  The wanton pillage or uncompensated appropriation of
individual property by an army, even in possession of an enemy's
country, is against the usage of modern times. Such a proceeding at
this day would be condemned by the enlightened judgment of the
world, unless warranted by particular circumstances. Every consideration which upholds this conduct in regard to a war on land favors
the application of the same rule to the persons and property of citizens of the belligerents found upon the ocean." -Mr. Marcy to the
Count de Sacrtiges, July 28, 1856.
Such I believe to be the settled law and usage of nations. A careful examination of the arguments made
on this subject has served but to strengthen and deepen
this conviction.
I do not forget, Mr. Speaker, that the case of Brown
vs. The United States (8 Cranch, 110) has been often
referred to in this debate as affirming the contrary rule.
The points decided in that case I have before stated to
the House.  The points, the only points, decided were,
that British property found in the United States on land
at the commencement of hostilities (war of 1812) could




CONFISCATION.                45
not be condemned as enemy's property, without an act
of Congress for that purpose; and that the declaration
of war was not sufficient. Gentlemen have referred to
the obiter dicta, the discussions of the judges, as the
decision of the court. The distinction is familiar and
vital, but has been lost sight of in this debate. Only
the points necessarily involved in the result constitute
the decision. Let me illustrate the matter by a familiar
case, - that of Dred Scott. It is the matter outside of
the decision, what a distinguished jurist has called the
" slopping-over" of the court, that was so fruitful in mischief. The point decided by the majority of the court
was, that I)Dred Scott was not a citizen of Missouri, so
as to be able to maintain an action in the courts of the
United States, upon the grounds of such citizenship.
Under the conflicting decisions in the courts of Missouri, I have always thought that case might have been
decided either way, without attracting public attention
or animadversion. All that was said outside of that
point has no more legal force than the paper on which
it was written. Use the sayings of the judges in that
case, as they have used those in Brown vs. The United
States, and you can establish the rightful existence of
slavery in the Territories, the invalidity of the Missouri
Compromise, and God only knows how many other
errors in history and law. Treat what is said by the
majority of the court outside of the point decided as
argument, — and it is nothing more,- and slavery in the
Territories is without any legal prop or support. And
I may say, in passing, Mr. Speaker, there never was, in
my judgment, a plausible argument even to establish the




46                 CONFISCATION.
power and right of the master to take his slave into
the Territories, and hold him in servitude.  Slavery
exists by local law and usage only. It has no extra territorial power. The moment the slave, with the consent
of the master, is taken beyond the line of the place
where the law tolerates its existence, the chains fall
from his limbs. Property in the slave there may be by
local municipal law, but not by the law of nature and
of nations; not by that universal, immutable law of
which Cicero speaks so divinely in the " Republic." May
I give the Latin, Mr. Speaker?  Nec erit alia lex Romce, alia Athenis, alia nutcn, alia posthac; sed et omnes
gentes et omni temnpore una lex et sempiternca et inmmutabills continebit. Nobler thought in nobler words never
fell from human lips or pen.
But I return from this digression to say, Mr. Speaker,
that the distinction sought to be established by the passages cited from the discussions in the case of Brown
vs. The United States, between the law of war and the
mitigations of that law which the usages of modern
nations have introduced, has no foundation in principle.
It is in the usages of civilized and Christian nations
that we are -to seek the law of nations. As the law
merchant has grown up from the usages of trade and
commerce, so has the modern law of nations grown up
from the usages of enlightened States. The ancient
barbarous rules of war have been tempered and softened
by commerce, by the arts, by diffused culture, and, more
than all, by the spirit of the gospel; and all Christian
States recognize with joy and with obedience the milder
law. In the jurisprudence of nations, as in our own,




CONFISCATION.                     47
there is one law felt above all others, - the law of progress.  Apparently at rest, it is ever silently moving
onward, quickened, purified, and illumined by the inspiration of that higher law, " whose seat is the bosom
of God, and its voice the harmony of the world." The
great, prophetic thought of Pascal may yet be realized:
Deux  lois  sgiosent pour regler -la repcublique chretienne, mieux que toutes les lois politiques, -'amour de
Dieu, et celui du prochain.
I do not know that I can more fitly conclude what I
can say, in the brief time allotted to me, on the capture
and confiscation of the private property of rebels,
viewed in the light of international law, than in the
words of John Marshall, near the close of his judicial
life:
" It may not be unworthy of remark, that it is very unusual, even
in cases of conquest, for the conqueror to do more than to displace
the sovereign, and assume dominion. over the country. The modern
usage of nations, which has become law,"mark the words, Mr. Speaker, -"  the modern usage of
nations, which has become law,"
- "would be violated; that sense of justice and of right, which is acknowledged and felt by the whole civilized world, would be outraged, -
if private property should be generally confiscated, and private rights
annulled. The people change their allegiance; their relation to their
ancient sovereign is dissolved: but their relations to each other, and
their rights of property, remain undisturbed. If this be the modern
rule, even in cases of conquest, who can doubt its application to the
case of an amicable cession of territory? "- United States vs. Percheman, 7 Peters, 51.
It is against the light of these considerations and
authorities, and against the prevailing law and judg



48                 CONFISCATION.
ment of the Christian world, that it has been so often
confidently, I will not say flippantly, asserted on this
floor, that there could be no doubt of our power, under
the law of nations, to seize and confiscate the entire
property of the rebels as public:enemies.
I pass to the second branch of the subject, our
power, under the Constitution, to pass these bills. It
has been often said in the course of this debate, and in
terms without qualification, that the rebels hold to us
the twofold relation of enemies and traitors, and that
we may use against them all the appliances of war and
all the penalties of municipal law. To a certain limited extent, the proposition is sound. Treason consists
ill levying war against the United States. The act
of treason is an act of war, and you use the powers of
war to meet and subdue traitors in arms against the
Government.
It is also true, that, in the relations between the Government and its subjects, the rightful power of punishment does not necessarily cease with the war; but is it
also true, that you can exercise both powers at the same
time 1 And is not here the utter fallacy of this whole
argument'  Take an example. You have been accustomed to exchange flags of truce; you have recognized,
to a certain extent, belligerent powers. An officer of
the rebel army comes to you under a flag of truce: can
you take him from under that flag, and hang him for
treason? le stands to you in the double relation of
enemy and traitor; but you cannot touch a hair of., his
head while he is under that white flag. Take another
case. You have stipulated for an exchange of prisoners




CONFISCATION.                49
of war. The cartel has been sent, and the prisoner of
war is on his way to make the exchange. Does any
man on this floor say that you can take him on his way,
and try and hang him?  And if not, why not? The
plain answer is, Because, having recognized him as under
the law of nations, while he is subject to its power, he
is entitled to its protection.
Pass what bills we may, Mr. Speaker, when the war
is ended, these questions will come up to be settled. I
hope I may be pardoned for saying, with great respect,
to my friends on all sides of the House, that they will
be as difficult questions as statesmen or jurists were ever
called upon to decide; and that it is wise to reserve, as
far as possible, our judgment. No thoughtful man will
content himself with the declaration, that belligerent
" rebels have no rights." Passion may say that; reason,
never. Passion, sooner or later, subsides, and reason
re-ascends the judgment-seat; and these questions must
be answered there, and to that august tribunal before
which the conduct of men and nations passes in view,the enlightened opinion of the Christian world. Such
questions are, how far, flagrante bello (while war was
raging), with respect to prisoners of war, the civil
power was restrained; how far the treating with rebels,
and exchanging them as prisoners of war, may affect
their punishment as traitors, either in person or property. I express no opinion, except to say they must be
calmly met and answered.
But assuming, for the sake of the argument, that
during the war even, and while recognizing their belligerent rights, you may visit upon the rebels the full force
7




50                 CONFISCATION.
and weight of the municipal law, I proceed to inquire
whether the mode proposed by these bills is in conformity to the organic and supreme law, the Constitution of
the United States. I am not to be deterred from the
discussion by any suggestions from weak or wicked
men — none other can make them- of leniency to
rebels, and compassion for traitors. There is but little
elevation in contempt; but such suggestions do not rise
high enough to meet it. They pass by me as the idle
wind. If a man has no other arrows in his quiver, let
him use these: I am content.
The favorite argument, Mr. Speaker, of those who
claim for Congress the power to confiscate the property
of traitors without trial by jury is, that the want of this
power would show a fatal weakness in the Constitution, and a lack of wisdom and foresight in its framers.
They will not believe the Constitution is so weak and
helpless, so incapable of self-defence. Nothing, in my
judgment, so shows its majesty and strength; pray God,
immortal strength. The powers of war are almost infinite.  The resources of this vast country spring to
your open hand. All that men have, even their lives,
are at the service of their country; and in this great
conflict how nobly and freely given! You can raise an
army of seven hundred thousand men; you can give
them all the best appliances of war; you can cover
your bays and rivers and seas with your navy; you can
blockade a coast of three thousand miles; you may cut
down the last rebel on the field of battle. Such is the
power of war. But, Mr. Speaker, when you shall have
used all these powers, when peace shall have been




CONFISCATION.               51
restored, or when the rebels shall come and lay themselves at your feet or be taken captive by your arms, then
also will the power of that Constitution be made manifest; then also will this Government be shown to be the
most powerful and the noblest on the earth, not because
the captured rebel is at your mercy, but because he is
not; because, under the shield of the Constitution, the
rebel at your feet is stronger than armies, stronger than
navies. You cannot touch a hair of his head, or take
from him a dollar of his property, until you shall have
tried and condemned him by the judgment of his peers
and by the law of the land. Does this show the
weakness of the Constitution, or does it show its transcendent strength?  Are these written constitutions
established to give to Government power without limit
over the property, liberty, and life of the citizen? or are
they made to define and limit the power of the Government, and to shield and protect the rights of the
subject?
I have always been taught that the people is the
sovereign; that these constitutions are carefully defined
grants from the sovereign power, so framed as to establish justice, and at the same time secure the blessings of
liberty and the protection of law even to the humblest
and meanest citizen. I know, Mr. Speaker, that these
are getting to be old-fashioned sentiments. Magna Carta
is soiled and worm-eaten.  The Bill of Rights, the
muniments of personal freedom, habeas corpus, trial
by jury, - what are they all worth in comparison with
this new safeguard of liberty, "the proceeding in rein"?
Were you ever, at Runnymede, Mr. Speaker? I




5 2                CONFISCATION.
remember going down, on a beautiful day in July, from
Windsor Castle to the plain, and crossing the narrow
channel of the Thames to that little island, on which,
more than six centuries ago, in the early gray of morning, those sturdy barons wrested from an unwilling king
the first great charter of English freedom, the germ of
life of the civil liberty we have to-day. I could hardly
have been more moved, had I stood in the village and by
the manger in which was cradled " the son of Mary and
the Son of God." From the gray of that morning
streamed the rays, which, uplifting with the hours, coursing with the years, and keeping place with the centuries, have encircled the whole earth with the glorious
light of English liberty, the liberty for which our
fathers planted these commonwealths in the wilderness;
for which they went through the baptism of fire and
blood in the Revolution; which they embedded and
hoped to make immortal in the Constitution; without
which the Constitution would not be worth the parchment on which it was written.
But I must not linger by the way, Mr. Speaker.
What do these bills propose?  The immediate object is
to confiscate the property of the rebels. For what end?
For punishment, is it not?  If you strip these men of
their property, it is not because they are innocent;
although this bill does, in fact, confiscate the property
of persons who may be guiltless of any offence: but
the theory of the bill is to punish men for the crime of
rebellion, or treason, or give it what name you will.
The bill, indeed, recites, as an ulterior purpose, the
payment of the expenses of the Rebellion. But there is




CONFISCATION.               53
no man on this floor so verdant as to suppose this means
much. If the courts enforce the statute (I believe they
will not), how much treasure can you wring from those
States, poor at the best, but whom the close of this war
will leave impoverished, seared, and swept as by fire? 
You might as well pasture your cattle on the Desert of
Sahara. The land will indeed be left; but who will be
your purchasers, when they know they must take at the
best a doubtful title, but a sure, bitter, and lasting feud?
The strife and hate growing out of the confiscations of
the Revolution are scarcely yet appeased; and it was
with these confiscations fresh in the memories of the
framers of the Constitution that the limitation of the
power of forfeiture was adopted. There never was a
wilder dream than that of paying the expenses of the
Rebellion with the fruits of confiscation.
The real object of the bill is punishment; the punishment of an offence clearly defined in the Constitution,
of the highest offence known to the laws. The punishment is the forfeiture of the property of the offender.
The forfeiture is to be established before judicial tribunals, and upon proof of the guilt of the owner. You
have, then, these three elements; punishment - upon
proof of the commission of crime - before a judicial
tribunal. One element is wanting; one has been diligently excluded, -trial by jury. Human ingenuity has
been exhausted to shut the door against it; and your
bill is like Hamlet with the Prince of Denmark omitted by particular request. -Here is the plain, imperative mandate of the Constitution, which he who runs
may read:



51                   CONFISCATION.' The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be
by jury." - Const., art. 3, sect. 2.
The property to which the bill applies is not, under
the laws of nations, prize; it is not booty; it is not
contraband of war; it is not enforced military contribution; it is not property used or employed in the
war or in resistance to the laws, and therefore clearly
to be distinguished from that covered by the statute of
Aug. 6, 1861.  It is private property outside of the'
conflict of arms; forfeited, not because it is the instrument of offence, but as a penalty for the crime of the
owner. The disguise of the proceeding in rem is too
thin and transparent. No lawyer, no man of common
sense, will be deceived by it. The proceeding, in spirit,
in substance, and in effect, is the punishment of treason
by the forfeiture of a man's entire estate, real and personal, without trial by jury, and in utter disregard
of the provision of the Constitution, which limits the
forfeiture for treason to the life of the person attainted
(art. 3, sect. 3).
Was there ever a balder contrivance to get around
the plainest and most sacred provisions of the Constitution than this attempt to get a man's farm, his cattle
and fodder,'his plough, spade, and hoe, into a maritime
court, and try them by the law of prize? With all
respect for my excellent friends upon the committee,
such a proposition " shocks our common sense" as well
as our sense of justice and right. You make the plea
of necessity, and necessity is the mother of invention;
but do you expect to satisfy sensible men, when reason
resumes its sway, that under a Constitution which de



CONFISCATION.                 55
fines treason to consist in levying war against the United
States, which will not suffer the traitor to be condemned
except by the judgment of his peers, and, when condemned, will not forfeit his estate except during his
life, you can, by this proceeding in rem, without indictment, without trial by jury, without the proof of two
witnesses (art. 3, sect. 3), for treason, for the act of
levying, war, deprive him of all his estate, real and personal, for life and in fee?  Nay, more; and that, after
he has thus been punished, without trial by jury, and
by the loss of his whole estate, you can, for the same
act of levying war, try him  and hang him?  To suggest a doubt, whether, after all, this is plain sailing
under the flag of the Constitution, is to have too nice
constitutional scruples!
I have touched but upon one or two legal objections to these bills. Their name is Legion; but I must
hasten to a more minute examination of the bills
themselves. I do not wish to say the bills are hastily
drawn. If right in principle, defects of form, or want
of detail, can be supplied.  In attempting, however,
legislation involving a new principle, or a new application of a principle, it is a pretty good test to let it be
run through the machinery of a carefully drawn statute,
and see how it works. I should have liked to have
seen that test applied here.
Looking now to the general features of the confiscation bill, I desire the House to observe that the bill,
though not in form, is, in substance and effect, retroactive.  It takes effect from its passage.  It applies to
all acts committed after its passage. As there are whole




56                 CONFISCATION.
districts, States even, where the law cannot be promulgated, and who will remain in ignorance of its passage, the law, as to them, will be ex post facto. They
will neither know, nor have the means of knowing, of
the existence of the penalty when the act is committed. Will you say it is their own fault?  I beg you
to consider, that since your protection has been lost,
and until it is restored, there has been and can be no
really free choice with the individual citizen whom he
shall obey. What measure of punishment would you
mete to a citizen of Jacksonville, who, after the withdrawal of your army, should yield to "'the powers that
be," though certainly not " ordained of God "?
I ask the attention of the House, and a just and
humane people, if these words shall ever reach them,
to the wide sweep of this bill. You would infer from
the arguments of its friends, that the bill was to reach
only the leaders and instigators of rebellion. How, if
that were so, the limitation and the payment of the
expenses of rebellion from confiscation would hang
together, has not been explained. But the fact is far
otherwise.
The first section includes several classes; and, first,
all officers of the rebel army or navy, non-commissioned as well as commissioned. Officers of high rank
should be included; but there is no sound reason whatever for going down to sergeants and corporals. The
second, third, and fourth classes embrace persons who
shall hold certain offices in the Confederate States, or
any of them, including judges of the State Courts, and
members of State Legislatures and conventions. In all




CONFISCATION.                57
these cases, the mere holding of the office is made the
ground of confiscation, without regard to the manner in
which the duties shall be discharged, or to whether
those duties involve any active service  against the
National Government; men, it may be, whom the Rebellion found in office, and who continue in the regular
exercise of their functions. Here, for example, is the
judge of probate or surrogate of a county. Rebellion
breaks out: men will die, and estates must be settled,
and care had of widows and orphans. To visit this man
with the confiscation of his estate, for continuing quietly
to discharge his duties, is equally harsh and absurd.
The same remark applies, possibly with increased
force, to persons embraced in the fifth class; those
holding any office or agency under any of the States of
the Confederacy, or any of the laws thereof, whether
such office or agency be State or municipal in its name
or character. Every justice of the peace, notary public,
or town-clerk, treasurer, assessor, constable, overseer of
the poor, undertaker even, must resign his functions,
or become a pauper.  The result, if successful, is a
suspension of civil order; or, on the other hand, the
severest punishment for a venial offence, if it be an
offence.
The second section includes all persons who, being
engaged in rebellion, or aiding and abetting it, shall
not, within sixty days after proclamation from the President, desist, and return to their allegiance. Sixty days
seems to be a reasonable notice; but, if the parties are
in such condition that the notice cannot reach them,
then it is not notice. What may be fairly and justly
8




58                  CONFISCATION.
required is, that men shall return to their allegiance
the moment they have reasonable assurance of permanent protection from the National Government. It is
idle to look for it before such protection is possible.
To ask a man in the interior of a cotton State to abjure
the rebel Government and return to his allegiance, in
the present condition of things, is to ask a moral impossibility. To confiscate his property for not doing so, is
itself a crime.
A  word upon another harsh feature of the bill.
With respect to every person within its scope, and without the least discrimination as to degrees of guilt, a
clean sweep of property is made. There is no exemption of necessary household furniture, or of provisions,
or of tools of trade. Nothing is spared; the bed on
which the wife sleeps, the cradle of the child, the pork,
or flour-barrel. Taken in connection with the fact, that
the bill declares that the President shall cause the
seizure to be made, and not merely that he may; that
provision is made for the sale of perishable property, and
that none is made for the remission, in whole or part,
of the forfeiture; and we cannot fail to understand
the spirit in which the bill is conceived, or the impression it will not fail to make on the friends of this
country abroad, who cannot fully appreciate the bitterness which civil conflict engenders; or, if they do, will
not pardon statesmen for yielding to its influence. It is
plain that the angel of mercy never found his way to
the committee-room; or, if he went in with my friend
from  Kentucky [Mr. Mallory] or my friend from  New
Jersey [Mr. Cobb], he was politely bowed out, with the




CONFISCATION.                59
assurance that neither rebels, nor those dependent upon
them, had any rights.
I ought, however, to add, Mr. Speaker, that, looking
upon seizure and confiscation as a penalty for crime,
treason, or rebellion, the President, under his general
power of pardon, might remit the punishment. But
then the other conclusion will follow, that, without trial
by jury, no valid forfeiture can be effected.
The second bill, for the emancipation of the slaves
of rebels, is much broader in its scope, including every
person who shall engage in rebellion, or aid and abet
it. The insertion of the word "wilfully," lawyers will
see, does not affect the legal construction. There are
considerations of humanity in favor of this bill, which
do not apply to the first; but it is not restricted to slaves
used in the Rebellion, and no form of judicial proceeding is provided. The constitutional objections apply to
it with at least equal force.
That the bills before the House are in violation of
the law of nations and of the Constitution, I cannot —
I say it with all deference to others - I cannot entertain a doubt. My path of duty is plain. The duty of
obedience to that Constitution was never more imperative than now. I am not disposed to deny, that I have
for it a superstitious reverence. I have " worshipped
it from my forefathers."  In the school of rigid discipline by which we were prepared for it; in the struggles out of which it was born; the seven years of bitter
conflict, and the seven darker years in which that conflict seemed to be fruitless of good; in the wisdom with
which it was constructed and first administered and set




60                 CONFISCATION.
in motion; in the beneficent Government it has secured
for more than two generations; in the blessed influences
it has exerted upon the cause of freedom and humanity
the world over, I cannot fail to recognize the hand of
a guiding and loving Providence. But not for the
blessed memories of the past only do I cling to it. He
must be blinded with excess of light, or with the want
of it, who does not see, that to this nation, trembling
on the verge of dissolution, it is the only possible bond
of unity. With this conviction wrought into the very
texture of my being, I believe I can appreciate this
conflict, - can understand the necessity of using all the
powers given by the Constitution for the suppression of
this Rebellion. They are, as I believe, and as the progress of our arms attests, ample for the purpose. I do
not, therefore, see the wisdom of violating or impairing
the Constitution in the effort to save it, or of passing
from the pestilent heresy of State secession to the
equally fatal one of State suicide.  The fruits of
the first are anarchy and perpetual border war; of the
second, the growth of military power, the loss of
the centrifugal force of- the States, the merging of the
States in the central Government: a Republic in name
and form; in substance and effect, a despotism.
Mr. Speaker, at a time like this, the individual is
nothing; the country, every thing.  He cannot truly
serve or love his country who is anxious about himself.
He cannot have a single eye to the welfare of the
Republic, if both eyes are turned homeward. He cannot keep step to the music of the Union who is grinding
fantasias for the village of Buncombe.  One may




CONFISCATION.                61
desire, however, not to be wholly misunderstood. It
has been said that I am opposed to any emancipation
of the slaves of rebels. Nothing can be further from
the truth. The first provision for emancipation, - that
in the statute of Aug. 6, 1861, liberating all slaves
employed in the Rebellion, —I drew with my own
hand; believing now, as then, that it is valid and just.
For the abolition of slavery in this District; for the
interdiction of slavery in the Territories, for the new
article of war forbidding the officers of the army to
surrender fugitives from service, my votes are on record. I voted for the resolution recommended by the
President for aid to the States in the work of gradual
emancipation; though I could not fail to see that it was
on the verge of authority, and must perhaps finally
rest, like the purchase of Louisiana, upon general consent. My views of the power of the Commander-inchief on the subject of emancipation are fully stated
in remarks submitted to the House on the 10th of April.
I will not repeat them. They are ample for any emergency. In the bill I introduced " for the more effectual
suppression of the Rebellion"'' but which, in the present temper of the House, I thought it useless to press,
I have indicated a practical method by which the slaves
of rebels may be emancipated, as the penalty for crime,
upon conviction or default of the offender. But, Mr.
Speaker, I have kept my eye steadily upon the end for
which this war is waged, - the only end for which it
can be justified,- the integrity of the Union. I have
firmly resisted, and shall continue firmly to resist, every
effort, open or disguised, to convert this war for the




62                 CONFISCATION.
Union into a war for emancipation, at the risk —no,
not at the risk, for the words do not express what I
mean or feel, with the moral certainty- of defeating
the purpose for which the war was begun. With these
convictions, it is scarcely necessary to say, I cordially
approve the course of President Lincoln in modifying
the proclamation of General Fremont, and declaring null
and void the order of General Hunter. For the wisdom
and patriotism which have thus far marked the course
of this magistrate, he has my respect and gratitude.
A word upon the policy and wisdom of these measures. A great work has been done by this nation. It
is easy to find fault. In operations upon so large a
scale, requiring so many agencies, mistakes and blunders
will be made. But a just criticism, looking upon the
work as a whole, cannot fail to commend the patriotism
of the people and the energy of the Government. I
know it has been prettily said, that we have prosecuted
this war upon " a rose-water policy." I do not know
that I fully comprehend what is meant; but probably
the rebels, in view of that long blockade, with the fresh
memories of Port Royal,'Newbern, Pulaski, D'onelson,
Pea Ridge, Shiloh, the Lower Mississippi, and Yorktown, and the ever-tightening folds of the constriction,
might say with Juliet, the
"Rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."
Our armies and navies are victorious. The war seems
to be drawing to a close. There is reasonable ground
to hope, that, before the next session of Congress, the
power of the Rebellion will be broken, and the sword




CONFISCATION.                63
have substantially done its work. But I cannot conceal from myself that our great difficulties lie beyond
the conflict of arms. It is the part of wise courage to
look them calmly in the face, to gauge them, and gird
up our loins to meet them. Action will be needed,
not words; judgment, not passion. Unless there be
calm and fearless statesmanship,- your victories will have
been won in vain; a statesmanship that honors and
respects the people, but is willing to abide its sober
second thought.
Civil wars, like family feuds, have been fierce, bitter,
and unrelenting. The bitterness and ferocity manifested towards us by the rebels cannot but arouse the
spirit of retaliation, and thirst for vengeance. If we
yield to the fierce temptation, the war will become one
of extermination.  Thus far, while prosecuting the
war with vigor, we have shown the moderation and
humanity becoming a great people. I pray we may
continue in this course. There is wisdom in the fable
of the sun and the north wind. There is power in forbearance, in magnanimity, in obedience to the law we
seek to enforce, in the spirit of forgiveness, in the
"mercy which seasons justice." Christ knew what is
in man: the gospel is not a lie. There never was a
juster war than that which we are waging. It is strictly
a war of self-defence, the defence of a free and beneficent Government against traitors in arms against her.
But we may not forget, that, to those in the Southern
States who believe in the right of secession, this war
cannot but wear the aspect of a war of invasion and
subjugation. This terrible mistake may account for




64                 CONFISCATION.
their bitterness, though it is no palliation for their
barbarities.
Mr. Speaker, upon no subject has there been more or
looser declamation than on the causes of this Rebellion.
At one moment, we are assured that slavery is the one
great criminal; at the next, that it was brought about
by the fraud, falsehood, and violence of a few unprincipled leaders.
Passing this subject now with the remark, that masses
of men are not easily moved, that civil convulsions are
fed by deeper fires, I ask your attention to two facts
which seem to be clearly established. The first is, that,
when the acts of secession were passed, the majority of
the people of the revolting States, with the exception
of South Carolina, were loyal to the Union; and the
second is, that to-day their feelings are changed, their
loyalty turned to treason, and love to hate. Passion is
eloquent; but do not content yourselves with bitter
denunciation. Pause, I beseech and adjure you, and
inquire what is the cause.
The war brought to their homes and firesides will
account for much; but do you not believe that a conviction has been settling down into the minds of men,
who at the beginning of our troubles -were loyal, that
these extreme measures point to some other end than
the restoration of the Union with the rights of the
States preserved; that they mean  subjugation  and
reconstruction "by permission of the military power,
and not before"? Once committed to this policy, once
afloat on this sea of revolution, neither you nor I may
live to reach the haven of Union and peace.




CONFISCATION.               65
If these measures shall be finally adopted, I pray God
I may prove a false prophet, and that " out of this nettle
danger we may pluck the flower safety;" that his
strength may be manifested in our weakness; and that
he may overrule all our errors and shortcomings for the
good of our beloved country.
9




66
THE TREASURY-NOTE BILL.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEB. 6, 1862.
The House being in Committee of the Whole on the State of
the Union, and having under consideration the Treasury-note Bill,
Mr. THOMAS said,Mr. CHAIRMAN,  I am  anxious to vote for some
measure for the speedy relief of the Government. I
have listened with care to the whole debate, with the
hope that the difficulties which had occurred to my own
mind might be relieved. Nay, more: I have diligently
sought to convince myself that it was in the power of
Congress to pass this bill, including the provision making the treasury notes legal tender for all public and
private debts. I have wished to see also that the bill
could be passed, and the good faith of this Government
maintained. I have failed upon both of these points;
and, with the indulgence of the Committee, will state
briefly some of the reasons which will lead me to vote
against the bill as it now stands.
The question at the threshold of the discussion is
that of legal power, the competency of Congress to pass
the bill. Congress has upon this subject the powers
given to it by the Constitution. This is a Government
of specific powers, supreme in their sphere, but the
sphere confessedly limited.




THE TREASURY-NOTE BILL.           67
We look to the Constitution to see if the power is
given. We do not say the power is not denied, and
therefore exists; but that it is not granted, and therefore does not exist. The powers granted are express or
implied, are given in terms, or are the reasonable inferences from the express grants. Now, it is conceded
that there is no express power- given to Congress to
make the notes or bills of the Government legal tender.
There is a power given to Congress upon the subjectmatter. It has the power " to coin money, regulate the
value thereof and of foreign coins."
These words, "to coin money," have a plain and
obvious meaning. The only coinage is that of the
metals, "hard money."  To coin money, and regulate
the value thereof, is to fix its legal value, the value for
which it is to be received as an equivalent in commerce
and in discharge of obligations and contracts.  This
constitutional power of coinage was first executed by
the statute of 1792, and that statute has a provision
making the coins legal tender; but there can be no
doubt, that, whenever money is coined by Government
under the Constitution, it becomes ipsofacto legal tender.
But, whether legislation be necessary to carry the provision into effect or not, it is too plain for argument, that
the power to coin money and regulate its value is the
power to say for what value it shall be received.
There being no express power in the Constitution
to make these treasury notes a legal tender, is such a
power to be reasonably inferred from any of the express
powers. Before answering this question, two things
are to be observed.




68            THE TREASURY-NOTE BILL.
The first is, that, there being an express grant of
power upon this subject of the coining of money and
fixing its legal value, we should not reasonably expect
to find an additional power on the same subject given
by implication. The expression of the one would ordinarily be the exclusion of the other. The second thing
to be noted is, that it appears by the debates of the
Constitutional Convention, and by the note of Mr.
Madison, that this subject was before the convention,
and that a grant of power to emit bills of credit, with
the apparent purpose of making them legal tender,
was refused. - Pages 1343-46.
It is said that the power to make these notes a legal
tender is a reasonable implication from the power " to
regulate commerce with foreign nations, among the
States, and with the Indian tribes." The argument is,
and it is entitled to consideration, that money is one
of the great instruments of commerce, as much so as
the ship; and that the power to regulate the principal
thing is the power to regulate its instrumentalities. I
confess, that, at first, this view of the question impressed
me. -But further reflection has satisfied me it is not
sound. If the Constitution were otherwise silent upon
the subject, the implication would doubtless be a strong
one.
But the Constitution has spoken; has indicated what
shall be money under its provisions, and the power of
Congress over it.
Again: the practical construction of the Constitution
has been, that no such power existed. Though the exigencies of the Government have heretofore been great,




THE TREASURY-NOTE BILL.                   69
the experiment has never been tried; nor, so far as I
know, ever before suggested.
Of the three great statesmen whose minds have been
given to this subject of the currency, and the power of
the National Government over it, no one has asserted
the existence  of this power.  Mr. Madison and Mr.
Webster have expressly denied its existence. Mr. Webster had, of all our statesmen, except perhaps Mr.
Hamilton, the strongest convictions - of the necessity of
a national currency, and of the duty of Congress to control it; but, on the want of power in Congress to make
any thing but coin legal tender, his language is clear,
firm, and unequivocal.  He says, —
" But if we understand by currency the legal money of the country,
and that which constitutes a legal tender for debts, and is the statute
measure of value, then, undoubtedly, nothing is included but gold and
silver. Most unquestionably, there is no legal tender, and there can be
no legal tender, in this country, under the authority of this Government
or any other, but gold and silver, either the coinage of our own mints, or
foreign coins at rates regulated by Congress. This is a constitutional
principle, perfectly plain, and of the very highest importance. The
States are expressly prohibited from making any thing but gold and
silver a tender in payment of debts; and although no such express
prohibition is applied to Congress, yet, as Congress has no power
granted to it in this respect but to coin money and to regulate the
value of foreign coins, it clearly has no power to substitute paper or
any thing else for coin as a tender in payment of debts and in discharge
of contracts. Congress has exercised this power fully in both its
branches. It has coined money, and still coins it; it has regulated the
value of foreign coins, and still regulates their value. The legal tender, therefore, the constitutional standard of value, is established, and
cannot be overthrown.  To overthrow it would shake the whole system.
" But, if the Constitution knows only gold and silver as a legal tender, does it follow that the Constitution cannot tolerate the voluntary
circulation of bank-notes, convertible into gold and silver at the will




70              THE TREASURY-NOTE BILL.
of the holder, as part of the actual money of the country? Is a man
not only to be entitled to demand gold and silver for every debt, but
is he, or should he be, obliged to demand it in all cases? Is it, or
should Government make it, unlawful to receive pay in any thing
else?  Such a notion is too absurd to be seriously treated. The
constitutional tender is the thing to be preserved; and it ought to be
preserved sacredly, under all circumstances. - Webster's Works, vol. iv.
p. 271.
Again he says, -
" I am certainly of opinion, then, that gold and silver, at rates
fixed by Congress, constitute the legal standard of value in this country; and that neither Congress nor any State has authority to establish
any other standard or to digsplace this." - Ibid., vol. iv. p. 280.
This is good law and solid sense.
There is, Mr. Chairman, another difficulty in inferring
from the power of Congress to regulate commerce the
power to make treasury notes legal tender, which has
not been adverted to. It is this: The power given to
Congress is to regulate commerce " among.the States."
Now, it is clear in principle, and well settled as authority,
that the provision does not extend to and include the
internal commerce of the States. This power is reserved
to the States themselves (Gibbons vs. Ogden, 12 Wheaton, 1). Looking at this power to make these notes a
legal tender as incident to the power of Congress to
regulate commerce, the power of the incident cannot
extend beyond the power of the principal. This bill
clearly includes a commerce over which we have no
control. It is scarcely necessary to say that this internal
commerce would include nine out of ten of all the bargains that are made.
It has been said, that, under the power to " borrow




THE TREASURY-NOTE BILL.          71
money on the credit of the United States," we have the
power to make the securities given for borrowed money
legal tender; that is to say, under the power to borrow,
we have the power to create.
It would seem to be a sufficient answer to this position to say, that, if the Government had the power to
make its notes money by its superscription only, there
would be no great need to borrow.
It has been argued, that because the power is denied
to the States to make " any thing but gold and silver a
tender in payment of debts," and is not denied in terms
to Congress, it therefore exists in Congress. To this
position the answer is twofold: First, that the express
power has been given to Congress of coining money,
and regulating its value; the value for which it is to
be received in the marts of commerce in the payment of
debts or the measure of damages. The money so
coined is the only money known to the Constitution.
The Constitution never confounds, as does this bill,
money with the promise to pay money, the shadow with
the substance, the sign with the thing signified. The
second and obvious answer is, that the power, not
being delegated to Congress, is reserved, under article
ten of the Amendments, to the people. The people,
acting in the light of their own terrible experience,
would neither give the power to Congress, nor permit its
exercise by the States. If the power to make money of
paper is an attribute of sovereignty, as the friends
of this bill aver, the attribute yet rests securely in the
bosom of the sovereign. The people have not parted
with this power of evil.




7f2          THE TREASURY-NOTE BILL.
Mr. Chairman, though the legal question has not
been judicially settled, I feel compelled to say that the
weight of reasoning and authority is strongly against
the validity of the clause making the treasury notes
legal tender. If the validity of the provision be doubtful even, and it becomes, as it inevitably would, the
subject of contest and litigation in the courts, the effect
upon the credit of the paper will, in my judgment,
be worse than if the tender clause had been wholly
omitted.
I have a word or two to say upon the justice of this
clause of the bill.
To make these notes legal tender for debts, private
and public, contracted before the passage of the bill,
seems to me a clear breach of good faith. Debts are
obligations or promises to pay money, the only money
known to the Constitution and laws; the universal equivalent having not merely intrinsic value, but being the
measure and standard of value. Paper is not money.
The draft, bill, or note, is the mere sign: money is the
thing signified. Said John Locke, "Men in their bargains contract, not for denominations or sounds, but for
the intrinsic value."
This bill, Mr. Chairman, changes the condition and
practically impairs the obligation of every existing contract to pay money.. When the contract to pay money
matures, this bill compels the creditor to take for his
debt, not money, not even paper convertible into money
on demand, but the promise of Government to pay at a
future day uncertain. It is a perfect answer of the
creditor to this proposition to say, " That is not my




THE TREASURY-NOTE BILL.              73
agreement: a matured debt is not paid by a promise
to pay."
But further: the faith of the contract is broken, because the creditor is not paid in gold or silver, nor in
that which is equivalent to gold and silver. He neither
gets the coin, nor its value in any form; the money, nor
the money's worth. Take, for example, one of the
treasury notes issued under the act of July 17, payable
in three years, with interest at the rate of seven and
three-tenths per cent semi-annually. When the interest
is due, the Government is asked to pay. It offers its
n6te convertible into stock worth now:eighty-eight cents
on the dollar. The holder of the note reads the ninth
section of the statute of July:
" And be it further enacted, That the faith of the United States is
hereby solemnly pledged for the payment of the interest, and redemption of the principal, of the loan authorized by this act."
If the lender had understood that by payment of
interest was meant the giving another note, payable at
the pleasure of the Government, would the loan have
been effected. When, by compulsion, he takes your
note, and converts it into stock, worth, it may be, eightyeight or seventy-five cents on a dollar, will he go away
with the conviction, that the faith of the United States,
so solemnly pledged, has been as solemnly redeemed?
Will he not feel that faith without works is dead? No
craft of logic or of rhetoric can disguise the real nature
of that transaction. If we feel stain like a wound, that
wound is immedicable.  Take from  us, Mr. Chairman,
our property, houses, and lands,- they cannot be de10




74            THE TREASURY-NOTE BILL.
voted to a nobler cause: but, in God's name, leave us
the consciousness of integrity; leave us our self-respect.
Delays may be inevitable; but we will pay the uttermost
farthing.
If the provision of the bill be not just, it is, of course,
impolitic. It will wound our credit vitally.  It will
defeat the very end it'was designed' to accomplish.
That credit can only be maintained as individuals or
as a nation by the utmost fidelity to our engagements;
by keeping our promises as we keep our oaths, - registered in heaven.
No matter what may be the resources of the country;
no matter what may be its actual wealth, or its capacity
to acquire it: your creditor has no lien upon your property. He can make no levy upon your lands or goods.
If you refuse or fail to pay, he is without remedy.
After all, his sole reliance must be upon your good
faith. In the keeping of that is his security and your
credit. And you cannot afford the experiment of giving
him paper when you promised him money. It will cost
you, in the long-run, even more than it will cost him.'This provision of the bill, in the nature of a forced
loan, is itself a confession of weakness. It seeks to
compel credit for the reason that it does not come spontaneously. It assumes that force is necessary to uphold
that which must stand on its own legs, or' cannot stand
at all. Credit is faith, is trust, is confidence. If you
faithfully keep your promises; if by taxation you avail
yourselves of all the resources of the country for the
salvation of the country; if you keep always in view
the end for which this conflict is waged; if, in seek



THE TREASURY-NOTE BILL.           75
ing to enforce the Constitution and the laws, you
show a readiness yourselves to obey the Constitution
and the laws, you will win credit: you cannot command or enforce it. It will follow in the footsteps
of rectitude: you cannot drive it before you. You
may by this bill say that paper is money; give the
same name to things vitally different.  The essential
difference will be none the less clearly perceived and
strongly felt. It is no want of respect to say to you,
You cannot change the nature of things.
The friends of this feature of the bill, Mr. Chairman, admit the reluctance with which they assent to it.
The only ground of defence is its necessity; that no
alternative is left to us. I respect their motives: I cannot see the necessity.
We have spent a great deal of money in this war,
and have wasted a great deal. But we are not impoverished. What we have spent is trivial in comparison
to what is left. The amount up to this time will not
exceed two years of surplus profits. It is not more than
one thirty-second part of our whole property. Not a
dollar of tax has been raised; and yet we are talking of
national bankruptcy, and launching upon a paper currency. I may be very dull; but I cannot see the necessity or the wisdom of such a course.
Gentlemen who appreciate the perils of this step
would relieve themselves and us by the assurance, that
the amount of paper to be issued is restricted within
safe bounds. These barriers are easily surmounted. It
is the first step which.costs. The descent has always
been easy. The difficulty is return. The experience




76              THE TREASURY-NOTE BILL.
of mankind shows the danger in entering upon this
path; that boundaries are fixed only to be overrun,
promises made only to be broken. Human nature remains essentially the same. ~We are neither wiser nor
better than our fathers. The theatre changes, but not
the actors or the drama. In speaking of emissions of
paper-money, Hamilton, the greatest of our statesmen,
and the most sagacious of our financiers, says," The wisdom of the Government will be shown in never trusting
itself with the use of so seducing and dangerous an expedient. In
times of tranquillity, it might have no ill consequence; it might even
perhaps be managed in a way to be productive of good: but, in
great and trying emergencies, there is almost a moral certainty of its
becoming mischievous. The stamping of paper is an operation so
much easier than the laying.of taxes, that a government in the practice
of paper emissions, would rarely fail, in any such emergency, to
indulge itself too far in the employment of that resource, to avoid,
as much as possible, one less auspicious to present popularity." —
-Hamilton's Works, vol. iii. p. 124.
The ordinary check, the only effectual check, in the
issue of paper for currency, the security of the public
against excess in its issue, is that the excess will be
returned upon the banks for gold and silver. A certain
amount is needed for the purposes of the currency.
When that point is reached, the paper begins to decline,
the gold and silver are demanded, and the issues of
paper are contracted. If there be an excess of gold
and silver, it will right itself by exportation, or find its
way into the arts.  To the issue of this paper there is
no natural check or restraint. When it begins to depreciate, the necessity is at once created for increasing the
issues  public distrust is increased; and this again leads




THE TREASURY-NOTE BILL.           77
to still further depreciation and to still larger issues.
The process of decline is easy, natural, inevitable.
The results are the familiar things of history: prices
expand; "new ways to pay old debts" are opened;
the hearts of men glow as with new wine. But all is
unreal: not a farthing is added to the substantial
wealth of the country. The seeming prosperity, "having no root in itself, abides but for a time." The contraction and depression are as rapid and as great as
were the rise and exaltation; and men come down from
the cloud-land to mourn over blighted hopes and broken
promises and wasted fortunes, and to feel soberly that
the laws of nature and of Providence are stronger than
the laws or the hopes of men.
One thing to be noted is, that the heaviest share of
the burden always falls upon labor. Never were wiser
words than those of Mr. Webster: "Of all contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind,
none has been more effectual than that which deluded
them with paper-money. Ordinary tyranny, oppression,
excessive taxation, - these bear lightly on the mass of
the community, compared with fraudulent currencies and
the robberies committed by depreciated paper."
A word, Mr. Chairman, and I will relieve the patience
of the Committee. It has been said that coming generations ought to bear a large part- of the expenses of
this war, and that we may therefore justly create a large
public debt. A debt will doubtless be created; but the
burdens of the war ought, as far as possible, to fall
upon the men of this generation. We are but keeping in repair the structure of our fathers, not building




78           THE TREASURY-NOTE BILL.
a new one. This expense should be borne mainly by
the tenants for life, and not by the heirs.  For the
discharge of this duty, we need four things: unity of
purpose, energy of action, the largest possible taxation,
and the severest possible retrenchment.




79
RECOGNITION OF LIBERIA AND HAYTI.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JUNE 3, 1862.
Mr. SPEAKER, - After the excellent speech of my
friend and colleague who introduced this bill [Mr.
Gooch], any thing like elaborate argument is unnecessary; but I desire to state very briefly the reasons which
will induce me to vote for it, and especially for that
portion of it which recognizes the independence and
establishes diplomatic relations with the Republic of
Liberia. My interest in this State of Liberia was an
early and strong one. Whether we look at its past history or at its probable future destiny, it is among the
most interesting of modern States. The Government
and people of this country sustain to it a near and intimate relation. It was planted by our care. It is the
fruit of the labors, the sacrifices, and the prayers of wise
and good men among us. Its existence is a slight
atonement for the cruelty, the perfidy, the injustice,
which by us, as by other Christian States, have been
lavished on the continent of Africa, the land of God's
sunshine and of man's hate. It is the outpost of her
civilization; the opened gateway through which the arts
of peace, social order and Christianity, may enter, and
gain a permanent foothold.




80       RECOGNITION OF LIBERIA AND HAYTI.
That Liberia is of sufficient commercial importance
to justify the institution of diplomatic relations with
her, has been clearly shown. Every year will develop,
quicken, and enlarge this commerce, if we choose to
watch over and protect it. Our interests lie in the path
of our duty.
I am not prepared, Mr. Speaker, to say that the
recognition of an independent State,.although it may
have sufficient power to maintain both commercial and
political relations with us, is a matter of absolute duty
under the law of nations. It is, perhaps, what moral
writers would call a duty of imperfect obligation. But
in respect to this colony, and to the men who have
gone out from this country to plant and train it up, there
has been from the beginning an assurance of the assistance, the counsel, and the protection of this Government; and the recognition on our part is required by
good faith as well as sound policy. Other nations have
preceded us in the recognition. It was our duty and
privilege to have been first.
If there were no elements entering into the discussion
of this question but the relations which the Republic of
Liberia holds to-day to the rest of the civilized world,
the importance of its commerce, of its capacity to maintain, as it has for years maintained, an independent
Government, with the fact that two of the most powerful nations of the earth have already recognized its
independence, there would have been no discussion of
this bill. The only ground of objection is, that that
State has been planted and built up by an inferior race
of men.




RECOGNITION OF LIBERIA AND. HAYTI.    81
I have -no desire to enter into the question of the
relative capacity of races; but, if the inferiority of the.
African race were established, the' inference as to our
duty would be very plain. If this colony has been built
up by an inferior race of men, it has a yet stronger
claim on our countenance, recognition, and, if need be,
protection. The instincts of the human mind and heart
concur with the policy of men and governments to help
and protect the weak. To a child or to a woman I am
to show a degree of forbearance, kindness, gentleness
even, which I am not necessarily to extend to my equal.
But, sir, this colony is founded by black men, and not
by white. If my friend from Ohio [Mr. Cox] had introduced a resolution that all commerce should be interdicted with the "Black Sea," I should not have been
more surprised. I am not aware that the law of nations
or the comity of nations recognizes the distinction between black and white men; and it is rather late to
attempt to ingraft it upon the code.
Upon the question of admission to the society of
nations, the law looks to the capacity of the State to
maintain self-government, its capacity for political and
commercial relations, and its general conformity to the
usages and manners of civilized States.
Mr. Cox. I ask my friend from Massachusetts,
whether the law of nations does not apply now, without
this recognition of Liberia and Hayti; and whether we
can make the law of nations apply by passing this act
of Congress.
Mr. THOMAS. I will answer the question with pleasure. If, within the rules of the law of nations, the
11




82      RECOGNITION OF LIBERIA AND IHAYTI.
States of Liberia and Hayti are now independent
powers, then it is plain, that, by this resolution, we recognize only an existing status or fact. I do understand,
Mr. Speaker, that the Republics of Liberia and Hayti
to-day belong to the society of States: but what we
have to pass upon now is, whether this nation will affirm
their admission, and hold with them commercial and
diplomatic relations; and, if so, to what extent? If the
position of my friend from Ohio be right, as I dare say
it is, that they are already independent States, then we
are doing no harm, surely, in recognizing and confirming what other nations have done.
But the precise question is, whether we can fairly
regard the fact of the color of the race by which the
State has been built up and maintained in deciding this
matter. My position is, that by no just application of
the principles of international law can that distinction
be made. Nor is the question before us a question of
taste, much less of narrow prejudice. The question,
whether a minister from a foreign State is to be received,
is to be determined on higher grounds. Personal objections are sometimes interposed.  Nations decline to
receive as ministers persons whose residence would, by
the laws or usages of the country, be inadmissible; but
I am not aware of rejection from the hue of the skin.
President Roberts, of the Republic of Liberia, was
here some years ago. Many gentlemen will recollect
him. No man who had seen him and conversed with
him, or who knew' any thing of his character, would for
a moment object to his appearing here as a minister of
that republic to this Government. -Such a man would




RECOGNITION OF LIBERIA AND HAYTI.      83
not infect even the pure air of the capital, nor would he
be much cowed by the presence of a superior race!
But, as I have before said, Mr. Speaker, this is not a
question of taste. It is a question of the fair application of the principles of international comity; it is a
question, whether this people have so built up a State
as to have a fair claim to the recognition of this Government.
It is said, Mr. Speaker, that if we are to make this
recognition, and to establish these relations, this is not
the proper time to do so. Why not the proper time?
This State has been in a condition to maintain these
relations with us for a number of years. But a portion
of the representation of this country is absent! Not
by our fault, Mr. Speaker. Congress is not to cease to
exercise the functions of legislation because men or
States are not here to attend to the public interests.
If they choose to forego their privileges, we must, nevertheless, discharge our duties. If a few of our friends
here should absent themselves from our discussions, we
should not consider ourselves under any obligation whatever, on that account, to give up the ordinary work of
legislation. I cannot be influenced by the consideration,
that States have neglected the duty imposed upon them
by the Constitution. We are to determine this question
upon the same considerations and from the same
motives as if this Rebellion had not occurred.
Mr. Speaker, so far from being deterred from this
recognition by this question of race, I would make this
recognition the sooner because it was some measure of
atonement to a grossly wronged and injured race. While




84       RECOGNITION OF LIBERIA AND HAYTI.
I am ready on every occasion, in this House and elsewhere, to recognize and affirm the rightful power of the
States over their domestic institutions, I am not to conceal from myself the fact, that, from the beginning of
the history of the country to this hour, our course as a
people towards that race has been one of cruelty and
injustice.
There are two things in this country which are often
confounded, but which are not very nearly akin,hatred of the slaveholder, and love of the slave; abstract love of the race, and practical love of the men
who compose it. I frankly confess, Mr. Speaker, that
I have never been more grieved on this floor, than
when I saw gentlemen, who during the whole winter
have been ventilating their rhetoric on the wrongs of
slavery and of the race subject to its iron rule, deliberately record their votes against extending to a man of
color, whatever his capacity or ability or fidelity, the
power or right to serve the Government, even in
the humble capacity of carrying the mail on his shoulders, or on horseback, if he could make a horse contract.
Rhetoric is beautiful; but it is not meat or bread or
raiment, or the right to work for meat or bread or raiment.
This by the way. It cannot escape, observation, Mr.
Speaker, that our relations with the States of Liberia
and Hayti may soon assume new importance. As the
result of the legislation of the last session, and as
the natural, inevitable result of this war, the number of,
free persons of color in this country will be greatly increased. The Free States are barring their doors against




RECOGNITION OF LIBERIA AND IHAYTI.    85
them. Abstract love is simpler and easier than practical. They may feel the necessity of going out from the
house of political and social bondage. The doors of
Liberia and Hayti are open to receive them. Our sympathy, our aid, our protection, ought to go with them;
and intimate political and commercial relations will be
essential for those ends.
A gentle hint, and I will trespass. no longer on the
time and courtesy of my colleague, who is to close
the debate. Much has been said, justly said, on this
floor, of men of one idea. One idea does not make a
statesman, more than one swallow makes a summer.
We do not admire the spring that can' fill but one
bucket, the mill that will grind but one grist, the quiver
with one arrow, the hen with one chicken. Again: one
idea or feeling may be so strong as to give color to all
the rest. That idea or feeling may be ardent aversion
to the negro race, as well as ardent love for it. In shunning Scylla, we may touch Charybdis.




86
DEATH OF HON. GOLDSMITH F. BAILEY.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MAY 15, 1862.
MY colleagues, Mr. Speaker, have assigned to me the
duty of announcing to the House the death of one of our
number- H~on. Goldsmith F. Bailey, at his home in
Fitchburg, Mass. - on the 8th instant.
The story of his life is a brief and manly one. He
was born on the 17th of July, 1823, in Westmoreland,
N.H.; a State that has given to her sisters so many
of her jewels, and yet always kept her casket full and
sparkling. An orphan at the age of two, he was thrown
wholly upon his own resources at the age of twelve.
What we ordinarily call education (schooling) was
finished substantially at the age of sixteen. But he
early discovered that the only true culture is self-culture;
the only true development, self-development; that in the
sweat of a man's own face he must eat the bread of
knowledge; and that in the school of narrow fortune
and of early struggle are often to be found the most
invigorating disciplines and the wisest teachers.
At the age of sixteen, he began to learn the art of
printing. We need but glance at our history, or look
around us at either end of the Capitol, to learn, that as




DEATH OF HON. GOLDSMITH F. BAILEY.       87
printing is the most encyclopedic of arts, so the printingoffice is among the best places of instruction. In diffusing knowledge, the pupil acquires it; and, in preparing
the instruments for educating others, educates himself.
I have revered the art from my forefathers, as Paul
would have said; and mine, therefore, may be a partial
judgment: but some of the best educated men it has
been my pleasure to know received their degrees at the
printer's college.
Mr. Bailey, having learned his art, was for some time
the associate printer, publisher, and editor of a country
newspaper; a business, I suspect, not very lucrative or
attractive. It did not fill the measure of his hopes;
and, in 1845, he left the printing-office for the study of
the law. He pursued his studies in the office of Messrs.
Torrey and Wood of Fitchburg, sound lawyers and most
estimable men. Their appreciation of their student was
such, that upon his admission to the bar in December,
1848, he was received into the firm as a partner.
Mr. Bailey had been in the practice of his profession
some thirteen years before his election to this House.
A leading position at the bar in New England is seldom
attained in thirteen years, and especially at a bar, which,
even from days before the Revolution, has been so eminent as that of the county of Worcester.  But Mr.
Bailey had acquired high rank among his brethren, and
by courteous manners, careful learning, sound judgment,
and sterling integrity, had secured the respect of the
people and of courts and juries.
His public life was very brief. In 1856, he was
elected a representative in the Legislature of Massa



88      DEATH OF HON. GOLDSMITH F. BAILEY.
chusetts; and, in 1858 and 1860, was a member of the
State Senate. In this new field of labor he was eminently successful; and, in his second year in the Senate,
it may be fairly said, there was no man in the body in
whom his colleagues or the public reposed more confidence.
The ability and fidelity with which he discharged
these high duties attracted the attention and won the
regard of the people of his district; and in November,
1860, in a canvass warmly contested by an able and
popular man, he was elected to this House.
He took his seat at the extra session in July. But
over his new and expanded horizon the night was
already shutting down. The hand of death was laid
visibly upon him. You could hear the very rustling of
his wings.
He came back in December apparently a little better.
It was but the glow of sunset, - the flickering of the
flame before it goes out. He lost strength from day to
day, and at last went home to die, —to realize the
Spanish benediction, "May you die among your kindred! " and, what is of infinitely greater moment, the
divine benediction, "Blessed are the dead who die in
the Lord."
To our narrow vision, Mr. Speaker, such a life
seems imperfect, such a death premature, - to wrestle
with adverse fortune, as Jacob with the angel, until
you wrest from it its blessing; to struggle through
youth and early manhood; to reach the threshold of
mature life, of usefulness, and of honor, and to sink
weary and exhausted before the open door.




DEATH OF HON. GOLbSMITH F. BAILEY.          89
It is a narrow view, Mr. Speaker, which a serene
trust in God and in his infinite wisdom and infinite goodness at once dispels. We wipe the mist from our eyes,
and see that all is well. In the presence and with the
consciousness of an immortal life, what matters it
whether much or little be spent this side the veil,
provided, as with our departed brother, it is well
spent?
Mr. Speaker, death is busy everywhere around us.
The accomplished jurist, the pure patriot, the statesman wise and good, passes away in the sabbath stillness.*
Amid the thunders of artillery rocking like a cradle
land and sea, amid fire and smoke, the shrieks of the
wounded, the groans of the dying, the wail of defeat,
and the shouts of triumph, the angel-reapers are garnering in fields seemingly not white for the harvest.
The flower of our youth, the beauty of our Israel, is
slain in our high places. The victories in this holy
struggle for national life and "liberty in law" are
sealed with our most precious blood. Yet in this hour
of chastened triumph, of mingled joy and sadness, that
tranquil death in a far-off New-England home comes
very nigh to us with its solemn, I trust not unheeded
warning, "Be ye also ready."
I offer the following resolutions: —
Resolved, That the House has heard with profound sorrow the
announcement of the death of Hon. Goldsmith F. Bailey, a member
of this House from the Ninth Congressional District of the State of
Massachusetts.
* Samuel F. Vinton.
12




90        DEATH OF HON. GOLDSMITH F. BAILEY.
Resolved, That this House tenders to the widow and relatives of
the deceased the expression of its deep sympathy in this afflicting
bereavement.
Resolved, That the Clerk of this House communicate to the widow
of the deceased a copy of these resolutions.
Resolved (as a further mark of respect), That a copy of these
resolutions be communicated to the Senate, and that the House do
now adjourn.




91
CASE OF THE "TRENT."
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JAN. 7, 1862.
I DESIRE to say a word upon the subject to which
the motion* refers.
Mr. Speaker, the surrender is made, the thing done.
In the presence of great duties, we have no time for
the luxury of grief. Complaint of the Government
would be useless, if not groundless. It was too much
to ask of it to take another war on its hands.  Possibly the elaborate and ingenious argument of the
Secretary might have been spared. The matter was
in a nutshell; the answer, in a word: "Take them.
There are duties lying nearer to us. We can wait."
But we are not called upon, Mr. Speaker, to say
that the'demand of England was manly or just. It was
unmanly and unjust. It was a demand, which, in view
of her history, of the rights she had always claimed
and used as a belligerent power, of the principles which
her greatest of jurists, Lord Stowell, had embedded
in the law of nations, England was fairly estopped
to make. But I rely on no estoppel: I pause not to
inquire as to the consistency of England, or how far
she is influenced by the consideration that she is now a
* The motion to refer the message of the President, transmitting the correspondence
on this case, to the Committee on Foreign Affairs.




92              CASE OF THE TRENT.
neutral power, and we are in a struggle for national
life; or to express surprise that her belligerent doctrines, so suddenly become obsolete, have been swept
as cobwebs from her path. This is a question of legal
right; and, as such, I will look it in the face. We
may feel compelled to make concessions: we will ask
none. The claim of England is that the " Trent" was
pursuing a lawful and innocent voyage, and that the
taking from her of Messrs. Mason and Slidell was an
affront to the British flag and a violation of international law.
The legal questions involved are simple, and may
be briefly and plainly stated.
Had we the right of visitation and search?  There
is no controversy on this point. Nothing is better
settled in the law of nations than the right of a belligerent to visit and search the vessel of a neutral for
contraband of war, or to ascertain if she is employed
in the transportation of military persons or despatches
of the enemy. MWas the " Trent " so employed? How is
that question to be settled?  The o ous answer is by
the existing law of nations. The question is, not what
rule ought now to be adopted, but what is the existing
rule? New rules are guides for future action, not
tests of the past. The common law of nations, like
that of England and of this country, is, to a large extent,
a law of precedents. These precedents are, however,
of weight and authority for the principles involved in
their determination, and not merely in cases where all
the facts are identical. The whole body of the common
law  is the result of this distinction.  It could not




CASE OF THE TRENT.               93
otherwise be a science or intelligent rule of action.
The province of courts, of jurists, and of statesmen, is
to apply settled principles to new combinations of facts.
From the mass of authorities let us extract the principles applicable to the case.
1. The fair result of the authorities, and especially
of the English authorities, is that the carrying of the
despatches of a belligerent is a violation of neutrality,
the penalty of which is not only the seizure of the despatches, but the seizure and confiscation of the vehicle
which carries them, if the carriage be with the knowledge or complicity of the owner or master.
2. The rule includes the official despatches of the
enemy, whether relating to civil or military affairs.
3. The form in which the despatches are borne is
immaterial. They may be oral as well as written, embodied as well as upon parchment. The mischief is the
same. The reason of the rule covers the substance,
which is the thing sent.
4. If the neutral is serving the belligerent, doing his
work, the fact that the despatches, living or written,
were taken at a neutral port, and that, at the time of
the seizure, the vessel was going from one neutral port
to another, is material only upon the question of the forfeiture of the vessel, and as tending to show that the
despatches were taken without the privity of master
or owner. The result to be effected -the aid to the
one belligerent, and the injury to the other — is the
same.  The sanction of the exception would be the
constant evasion, the practical suspension, of the rule
itself.




94             CASE OF THE TRENT.
The substance of the whole matter is this: By carrying the despatches of the enemy, in whatever form
embodied, the greatest possible service may be done
to one belligerent, and the greatest possible injury to
another.
If, then, the "Trent" had been brought in for adjudication, and had been condemned, England could not
have said, that, as matter of law, the condemnation was
wrong. She might and would have said, that, as. matter of courtesy, our officers should have foreborne the
exercise of their extreme right, and have suffered the
vessel, the other passengers and cargo, to proceed on
the voyage.
We might well have said, that, from the beginning, it
had been the policy of this Government to enlarge and
strengthen the rights of neutrals; to free neutral commerce from every unnecessary restraint; that especially
had this been the case with respect to the treating of
persons as within the rule of contraband of war. We
might have shown with what anxiety we had sought to
limit the rule on this point " to soldiers in the actual service of the enemy;" that in our treaties with France, in
our treaties with Mexico and the South-American States,
we had inserted this important exception to, and limitation of, the rule of international law; in all cases, however, providing that the limitation should not extend to
those nations with which we had no such treaty; of which
England was one. We might have well said, that the
propriety of this limitation is every day becoming more
apparent; that the introduction of steam into navigation had brought nations into closer proximity, and into




CASE OF THE TRENT.              95
more frequent and regular intercourse; that the wants
of modern commerce and modern culture had made
mail-routes as necessary on the sea as on the land; and
that we ought to remove all obstructions from the pathway of these messengers of civilization and of peace.
We might have said, We will gladly assent to such modifications of the law of nations as shall meet and satisfy
these wants; the modifications most clearly demanded
being, that no persons shall be deemed within the principle of contraband of war but soldiers in service; and
that, when hostile despatches are taken from neutral
mail-steamers, the claims of humanity and the interests
of the commercial world shall be respected, and the
vessel be permitted to proceed on its voyage without
unnecessary delay, - the legality of the seizure being
determined without the presence of the ship.
As to this case, we stand upon the existing law; we
feel ourselves to be justifed by the law as written.
If you think otherwise, we will, in deference to the
excellent suggestion made by the British Government to
the Paris Congress of 1856, have "recourse to the
offices of a friendly power." We will submit the whole
matter to arbitration, and abide the result.
But it is said, Mr. Speaker, that the omission to bring
in the vessel for adjudication rendered the whole proceeding void ab initio. A word upon this point. There
is no just ground for complaint of the proceedings, so
far as they went. The complaint is, not of what was
done, but what was left undone. Two questions arise
here: First, was there a sufficient legal reason for not
bringing in the vessel?  Secondly, what, in the ab



96              CASE OF THE TRENT.
sence of such legal reason, is the effect of the omission 
1. Was there a sufficient reason for not bringing in
the " Trent"?
Some things are plain. It is plain that Capt. Wilkes
understood that the "Trent" was lawful prize, and
that his course was -a proceeding in the capture of
prize of war. It is plain also that he determined to
waive his right to take in the vessel as prize, and to suffer
her to proceed on her voyage. These facts are of the
highest importance. The difference between the boarding of a"vessel by a boat's crew, and taking from her
men or goods, -the act constituting no part of a prize
proceeding, —and the release of a prize by a captor
in the exercise of his discretion, and for reasons of
necessity or of humanity, is plain and vital: neither
ingenuity nor dulness can confound them. The whole
proceedings of Capt. Wilkes were characterized by the
utmost good faith.  Had he a legal excuse for not
bringing in the vessel for adjudication?  We do not
expect from a sailor, however gallant and accomplished,
the precision of special pleading.  He gives as the
first reason the want of a sufficient prize-crew, in consequence of his being so reduced in officers and men.
Was that the fact 1 It will, I have no doubt, be found
to be so. We have now the statement of an officer and
a gentleman, and nothing to control it. If such was
the fact, and Capt. Wilkes acted upon it, he was justified in law for not bringing the " Trent" in. It is immaterial that motives of humanity concurred with and
fortified that conclusion.  The heart responded to the




CASE OF THE TRENT.              97
head. It neither assumed its prerogative nor questioned
it. It only said, "Amen." If the legal excuse existed
and was acted upon, it was enough; and the ground
upon which the Crown advisers are reported to have
proceeded falls from under them.
2. But suppose there was error in not bringing in
the vessel: what is the result? It is, that the questions
at issue must be settled by the sovereigns of the parties
without the aid of a prize-court.  The prize-court is
the inquest of the sovereign of the captor, and for his
protection. It settles the question of seizure, so far as
the rights of property are concerned. It does not settle the question of right as between the sovereigns. In
this case, the question would have been as to the forfeiture of the vessel: the persons or despatches would
not have been directly involved; the judgment would
not have operated upon them. If the vessel had been
brought in and condemned by a court of admiralty, and
England had believed that the judgment of the court
was against the law of nations, she would not have
acquiesced; she would not have been bound to acquiesce. The same controversy would have opened;
the same questions to be settled as now. — Pinkney's
Statement of the Law in the Case of the "Betsey,"
Wheaton's Memoirs of Pinkney, p. 199.
Those questions would have been, Had we the right
of search? was it fairly exercised? were the persons
taken within the prohibition? and to every one of these
questions the law of nations would have answered in
the affirmative; and, if England had consulted her
oracles, she would have heard the same response. It
13




98             CASE OF THE TRENT.
is not too much to say, that Lord Stowell would have
condemned the " Trent" on the double ground of carrying despatches of the enemy and of resistance to
search.
Mr. Speaker, when this whole matter shall have
been calmly and thoroughly considered and weighed,
the judgment of the civilized world will be, or should be,
with us. We have the first impression, and not the
sober second thought. The question which has been
considered is, rather what the law should be made to be,
than what it is.  When the matter is more carefully
weighed, it will be seen and felt that no wrong was done
to England; that there was no wrong in the forbearance to exercise an extreme right; no insult, for none
was intended; that our "failing," if any, "leaned to
virtue's side," was a relaxation of the iron rigor of law
from motives of humanity and Christian courtesy; that,
on the other hand, En'gland has done to us a great wrong
in availing herself of our moment of weakness to make
a demand, which, accompanied as it was by " the pomp
and circumstance of war," was insolent in spirit, unmanly and unjust. It was indeed courteous in language;
it was the courtesy of Joab to Amasa as he smote him
in the fifth rib: "Art thou in health, my brother? "
That message of Lord Russell to Lord Lyons which
could cross the Atlantic would not have had projectile
force enough to have passed from Dover to Calais.
Such is the penalty of weakness, even temporary
weakness.
Upon the grounds upon which this surrender has been
made, nothing is gained for the cause of neutral rights.




CASE OF THE TRENT.             99
The lesson taught us by this case is, that not only may
every mail steamer of a neutral be seized, and searched
for contraband of war or despatches of the enemy, but
that her voyage may and must be broken up, and the
vessel brought in for adjudication. Neutral commerce
may well pray relief from her friends.
But will England feel herself bound by the precedent
such as it is. So long as it is convenient, - not a moment longer. Her standard of right has been, is, and
will be, the maritime power and interests of England.
There is nothing in the " law of nature and of" nations
that will stand in the way of her imperious will.




100
SPEECH AT THE MASS MEETING FOR RECRUITING,
ON BOSTON COMMON.
AucGusT 27, 1862.
Mr. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW-CITIZENS, -If you could
analyze the feelings of a candle upon being lit up just
as the sun was going down, you would appreciate my
feelings in succeeding New England's most accomplished
orator.* But you neither expect, nor would you tolerate,
an elaborate speech. Indeed, if I consulted my own
heart, my lips would be sealed.
When the beauty of our Israel is slain on her high
places; when the sons of our love are perishing in loathsome dungeons; when armed treason is battering the
gates of the capital; when the nation itself is struggling,
gasping, for the breath of its life; rhetoric, logic, eloquence even, seem mean and paltry. Nothing, indeed,
is eloquent but the roar of the cannon and the crack
of the rifle, nothing logical but the sword and the
bayonet.
The issues before the country are of life or death,
glory or shame, order or anarchy, union or chaos, a
nation or a Mexico. And, in this hour of awful peril,
there is for us but one hope, one way of salvation; and
* Mr. Everett.




MASS MEETING FOR RECRUITING.       101
that is to subdue armed rebellion by arms,-to overwhelm it by superior force on the field of battle.
Processions and banners, touching allusions to Bunker
Hill and Faneuil Hall, sentimental resolutions, proclamations beginning and ending in words, bills of confiscation and emancipation, after much travail utterly still
born, won't do the work. If you mean to save the country, you have got to fight for it. The negro can't do it
for you; Providence won't do it for you, unless you put
your shoulders to the wheel. You have got to work
out your own salvation; in this case, without " fear or
trembling."
The only alternative is to sue for peace, and submit
to dissolution; to betray the sublime trust committed to
us by God and our fathers, and to rot into dishonored
graves at home.
If this be so, men of Boston, patriotic, self-sacrificing men, capable of living and dying for your
country, what wait you for    The path of duty lies
open before you. Interest, duty, honor, patriotism, the
sense of manhood, all point one way: that way leads
to struggle and to victory, and, through victory, to
union and peace. Controversy as to the causes of the
war is useless now. Grumbling, carping criticism of
the-past is mean and disloyal now. Side-issues, partisan or philanthropic, are moral treason now. They
weaken and divide us in a struggle that requires all
our wisdom, all our energy, all our strength, directed
and converged to the single work and duty of subduing
the foe in arms. Not a man, not a dollar, not a thought,
can be wasted on any other issue. Now or never is the




102        MASS MEETING FOR RECRUITING.
salvation of the country possible. Hard words won't
do it; threats and curses won't do it; violence won't do
it. Nothing will do it but superior physical force in the
field, wielded with an energy all the more terrible because it is calm, and knows how to obey as well as to
command.
Fellow-citizens, we have cause for anxiety, - none
for despair. We have under-estimated the strength and
resources of our opponents. We have greatly underestimated our own strength and resources. Rebellion
has, we may believe, made its crowning effort: its
bucket has touched bottom. The water in our well is
yet deep. We can maintain a million men, in the
field; and, on the sea, five hundred ships of war. With
these, twenty millions of intelligent, united, devoted:
people can vindicate the integrity of the nation, and defy
a world in arms.
If you would avoid intervention by foreign powers,
the only way is to be prepared for it. Put your million
of men into the field, and your five.hundred ships upon
your seas and rivers. Bear up the old flag, resolved to
live under it, to conquer with it, or die beneath its folds.
In an hour of your weakness, other nations may intervene; never, if you put forth your real strength,never.
Would you consent to separation, to give up this glorious Union of your fathers, where will you draw the
line?   Are the Gulf States only to' be severed?  Your
enemy will not consent to that division. Will you give
up the Border States? The Border States will not go.
Let me say in the face of the men of Boston, that a




MASS MEETING FOR RECRUITING.       103
nobler, truer, more patriotic set of men, the sun does
not shine upon, than the Union men of the Border
States. I feel that I know them; and I tell you, they
will not go. If finally driven from you, no man can
say how much of the great West would go with them,
or where the ultimate line of division would fall.
[Mr. Thomas here enlarged upon the geographical
and commercial ties which bind the West to the South,
and said there is no safety for us but in clinging to the
Union as it was and the Constitution as it is.]
Let us be manly, be just, be tolerant. It is the easiest thing in the world to find fault, but not the wisest
thing. In conducting war upon so vast a scale, and
requiring so many and varied agencies, mistakes and
blunders will be made. The race is not always to the
swift, nor the battle to the strong. We have a great
and powerful people, and at their head an upright, conscientious, conservative Chief Magistrate. Let us work,
and not grumble; let us labor, and not faint.




104
THE ARMY OF THE RESERVE.
ADDRESS BEFORE THE PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY OF BOWDOIN
COLLEGE, AUGUST 7, 1862.
Mr. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN, —Human culture in
some one of its aspects is the appropriate theme of the
occasion.  In selecting the speaker from the field of
active and busy life, you did not require nor look for an
elaborate discussion of its philosophy. The fair question
put to us, wrestlers on the dusty arena, is this: Looking
at the subject from your stand-point, have you any practical suggestions to make that may aid us in this noblest
of works, - the building-up not 6nly of the living battlements of the State, but of the beings that we are, and
are to be?
One of the most important matters in modern warfare is the composition of the army of the reserve.
It is relied upon to supply fresh forces at the instant
of need, to support points that are shaken, to be ready
to act at decisive moments. It should be composed of
select troops, well appointed, thoroughly trained, under
the eye of a cool, sagacious, and resolute commander.
The need of such reserved force has been painfully
illustrated in this war for national life. In the most important junctures, we have failed to win victory or secure
its fruits from the lack of an army in reserve.




THE ARMY OF THE RESERVE.            105
No better example of such a reserve can be found
than the Imperial Guard of Napoleon, nor of its use
than on the field of Austerlitz.
Our life is a campaign and a warfare. It has its decisive moments, whose issues for good or evil, for victory
or defeat, must depend on our reserved power. On the
field of letters, on the broader field of human life, he
only organizes victory, and commands success, behind
whose van and corps of battle is heard the steady tramp
of the army of the reserve.
To some illustrations of this thought I give the hour
your kindness has assigned to me.
It is a stern lesson, and hard to be learned, that though
the ordinary duties of life require large power, intellectual and moral, the supply must constantly exceed the
immediate demand. It is a hard lesson, but a necessary
one.
Life is not all routine. It has its great temptations,
its golden opportunities. To withstand the one, to seize
the other, we must organize and maintain our spiritual
army of the reserve.  There is no hope of large
achievement, or of safety even, in impressing forces or
foraging for supplies on the line of march, much less on
the eve of battle. In youth for manhood, in summer for
winter, in sunshine for storm, in peace for war, in the
actual for' the possible, the law of Providence and foresight is universal.
The rules for the composition of the spiritual reserve
are simple, whatever of difficulty there may be in their
just application. Faculties trained by patient, thorough,
protracted discipline; supplies carefully garnered, and
14




106         THE ARMY OF THE RESERVE.
then so thoroughly digested that they will enter into the
bone and muscle of the mind, and become power; this
was what Lord Bacon meant by saying knowledge was
power.
The nucleus is to be formed before the campaign of
active life opens; after that, growing rigor of discipline
and daily accessions of strength.
The magnitude and extent of the reserve are to be
measured, not by the wants of to-day or of the next campaign, but by the possible exigencies of human life, - a
life whose horizon is ever lifting up, whose possibilities
of to-day are the necessities of to-morrow.
And though there must be limitation, and exclusion
even, no more forces than can be well kept up and maintained, no half-grown conscripts, none maimed or blind,
diseased or leprous, yet the recruiting-office is never
closed; for the campaign is never ended.
We have thrift and providence; but they take a material direction. We save for the dark and rainy day; but
we save money and houses and lands. Intellectually, we
live from hand to mouth. We begin the life of action
before the life of study. The result is, that, with most
of us, the life of patient study and quiet thought never
begins. "Quid enim aut didicimus aut scire potuimus
qui ante ad agendum quam ad cognescendum venimus."
Getting knowledge for immediate use, cramming for
the occasion, we limit ourselves to the narrowest range
of the useful and practical: meaning, by useful, value in
the shambles of the market; and by practical, dexterity
in the use of tools, without any perception of the principles which underlie them. We find, often too late except




THE ARMY OF THE RESERVE.            107
as a warning to others, that there is nothing in this world
half so practical or half so economical as accurate
knowledge, patient labor, thorough discipline, the careful composition, the constant training, of the army of the
reserve.
And first we may remark, that this reserved power is
necessary to the thorough possession of ourselves. It
is true, abstractly, that a man owns himself, his powers
and faculties; but, in ninety-nine cases in an hundred,
he never comes into the quiet enjoyment of his estate.
WVith some opportunities for observing men in intellectual conflict, I venture to say there is no respect in
which the difference is *so marked as in the extent
to which they possess themselves, their own powers and
resources. We hear much of self-culture and self-development; and it is well. All true culture is self-culture;
all true development is self-development. We hear
far less than we ought of the thorough possession of a
man's self; of spiritual forces so orderly disposed, so
loyal, so trained to prompt obedience and action, that
they will rally, and form into line for service, at the first
tap of the drum.
There are men, with all the learning of the schools,
whose learning is but a clog and hinderance: their learning masters them, not they their learning; creating such
a pressure on the brain, that it has no free, natural play
and motion; ever coming in at the wrong time, or coming
in too late; like the baggage of an eastern army, the
great impediment to the march; or rather like the undisciplined hordes of nations that followed Xerxes from
Asia to the plains of Doriscus, and from Doriscus to




108          THE ARMY OF THE RESERVE.
Thermopylae. Better, infinitely better, one well-trained
Spartan band.
Necessary to this self-possession are calmness, - the
calmness which springs only from the consciousness of
strength in reserve, of measured strength, of power to
strike the needed blow at the decisive moment; the
orderly disposition of our forces, a place for every thing,
and every thing in its place; the military eye which
surveys the whole field of action, sees where the fight
will be thickest and hardest, and the forces needed; and,
rarest of powers, the power to refrain, to withhold your
fire; to sit still when there is no occasion to be on
your feet; the power and gift of silence, the power to say
nothing when you have nothing to say, or nothing that
had not better be unsaid; the power of masterly inactivity, the effective grace of repose.
Instead of schools to teach us how to talk, we want
schools to teach us how to be silent; sanitary clubs and
commissions, whose end and aim shall be to' prevent the
spread of this insanlabile cacoethes loquendi.
In this power of self-mastery is wrapped the faculty and
grace and liberty of obedience; the power to recognize the
presence of law, and to bend to it; to mark its bounds,
and keep within them. " Qui nescit ignorare ignorat
scire." The rebellious is never the truly wise spirit. It
is for ever breaking and bruising itself against the walls
of its fancied prison-house. Into the obedient, ever open,
and receptive spirit, wisdom loves to come and take up
her abode.
He only well commands who knows to serve well, to
obey promptly, gracefully, with thorough loyalty of mind




THE ARMY OF THE RESERVE.           109
and heart; the rarest of virtues, not the peculiar virtue of our countrymen, very apt to confound the absence
of wholesome restraint with liberty; whereas true freedom is for the loyal soul, — liberty in law. The loyal
spirit feels restraint as a woman wears the bracelet on
her white arm; the rebel spirit, as the culprit the handcuffs on his galled and swollen wrists.
Again: we remark, that the gathering and training of
this army of the reserve is the easiest and cheapest way
of conducting, not a great war only, but the campaign of
life.
If a man means to do any thing in this world to win
the battle of life, it is easier to be than to seem. In the
long-run, reality is easier than sham, wisdom than cunning, the king's highway than the by-path or cross-cut.
It is often a simpler thing to acquire strength than to
conceal the lack of it. Nothing indeed is more exhausting than the shifts to cover up ignorance; the craft
required to seem to know what a man knows not; the
constant caution, lest our hollow wares should come to
the light; the everlasting repetition " of wise saws and
modern instances;" the perpetual dread of being found
out, — that the blown bladder may be pierced by some
shaft of ridicule, and collapse for ever; to say nothing
of the sinking of the knees, the drooping of the head,
and the suffusion of blood upon the brain.
"The easiest way," said Sir Boyle Roche, " to avoid
danger, is to meet it plump. If there is work in a man's
way, the best possible thing that can be done is to go
through it, and on a man's own feet. If he ride round it,
nine chances out of ten he must come back, and walk




110         THE ARMY OF THE RESERVE.
straight through it." It often costs less labor to do work
than to avoid it. Looking at a specific work or duty, the
simplest and best thing is to do it, and do it well if you can.
Looking at life as a whole, the truth of the remark becomes yet clearer. The doing of a thing well not only
prevents the necessity of doing it again, but adds to
the mind's reserved force, and renders the doing of the
next thing easier and simpler. The resisting of one
temptation helps to disarm the power of the second. It
is not long before labor and self-denial become positive
enjoyments, fand this without including the gaudia certaminis, or the highest of all possible satisfactions, the
purest of all possible delights, — the consciousness of
duty discharged.
There can be no real comfort or satisfaction in a campaign in which you have to rely upon raw, undisciplined,
not to say mutinous forces, hastily conscripted, acting
without system or concert. You must feel there is a
reserved force, well appointed and trained, upon which
you can draw in a moment of need; whose strength you
have measured; and which, great or small, is reliable and
forthcoming.
For example: A young man is to study law. It is his
business to understand it, and expound it to others.
Fidelity to his clients and to his oath of office requires
this. He cannot, with decent self-respect or as an honest
man, assume to say what the law is, unless he has diligently sought to know what it is. The best, the cheapest
thing he can do for his campaign of life, is to bring to
the study of the law a mind well trained and enriched
by liberal culture, and then to set about the mastery of




THE ARMY OF THE RESERVE.           111
its principles. This training, this culture, this mastery
of principles, will make up a glorious army of the reserve,
the worth of which, his life long, can never be overrated;
the want of which, his life long, can never be supplied.
Men of genius and untiring industry have, indeed, a measure of success without them. But they, of all men, most
deeply regret their lack; for they, of all men, best understand what larger victories might have been gracefully
won with their aid.
How common, on the other hand, utter failure from
the want of this reserved power!
A young man of fair powers, but of little or no training, is anxious, restless, for active life. He would enter
upon the arena not only unarmed, but incapable of bearing the weight of armor. He will have only practical
knowledge. When the occasion comes, he will study for
it. He has what are called promising qualities; qualities
which seldom or never pay. He has a certain facility of
acquisition, but retains nothing save the confidence which
such facility is apt to beget. He talks fluently, never
hesitates for a word, and seldom gets the right one. He
writes with perfect ease, and therefore never writes well.
He never doubts, and therefore never understands.
His wished-for opportunity comes.  He gets up a
great array of cheap learning and cheaper eloquence;
enters upon the contest with drum beating and banner
flying. Difficulties spring up he had not foreseen, and
he has no reserved force to meet them. He shrivels, and
his client's cause with him. The way of life is strewn
with sprouts like this. "Having no root in themselves,
they endure but for a time."




112         THE ARMY OF THE RESERVE.
It is obvious to remark, that, in life as in war, the force
which may suffice for ordinary service may be wholly
inadequate for its larger exigencies, for its decisive moments. In almost every life, those decisive moments
come, when the question of victory or defeat, of pressing onward or lingering behind, must depend upon our
reserved power; when the door of opportunity is swung
open, and, if ready, we may enter; if not, the door closes
upon us.
Great occasions do not make great men. (Of this the
country needs no proof.) They find them out, and give
them larger development and a broader theatre of action. Great men make great occasions. They impart to
them a strength, a beauty, a glory of their own. They
bathe and irradiate them with the light of their genius. They give to them of their own immortality.
Nay, more: great men are great occasions, the great
events of history; not merely the beacon-lights on the line
of human progress, but the efficient motive-powers, the
causce causantes: they make, they constitute history.
Their hands bend the arch of the new heaven, and mould
the new earth, if so be that they feel the Divine Arm
around them and upholding them, and do the work of
God with the armor of God. I have no great faith in
"village Hampdens " or the "mute, inglorious Miltons"
that rest in country churchyards. If a man has a lever to
move the world, the chances are that he will find a place
to put it. Genius is very apt to crop out: so men of
large reserved power are apt to find occasions to bring
it into action, to give it effective utterance.




THE ARMY OF THE RESERVE.          113
The introduction, into the Senate of the United
States, of a resolution in relation to the sale of the
public lands, was not a great occasion.  The debate
upon it for some days dragged heavily. The vast reserved power of one man made it the event of our
history for a generation.
The second speech of Mr. Hayne, to which Mr. Webster was called upon to reply, was able and brilliant, its
constitutional argument specious, its attack upon New
England and upon Mr. Webster sharp even to bitterness.
But Mr. Hayne did not understand this matter of reserved
power. He had seen Mr. Webster's van and corps of
battle, but had not heard the firm and measured tread
behind.
It was a decisive moment in Mr. Webster's career.
He -had no time to impress new forces; scarcely time to
burnish his armor. All eyes were turned to him. Some
of his best friends were depressed and anxious. He was
calm as a summer's morning; calm, his friends thought,
even to indifference.  But his calmness was the repose
of conscious power, the hush of nature before the storm.
He had measured his strength. He was in possession
of himself. He knew the composition of his "' army of
the reserve."  He had the eye of a great commander,
and he took in the whole field at a glance. HIe had the
prophetic eye of logic, and he saw the end from the beginning. The exordium itself was the prophecy, the
assurance, of victory. Men saw the sun of Austerlitz,
and felt that the Imperial Guard was moving on to the
conflict. HEe came out of the conflict with the immortal
name of the Defender of the Constitution.
15




114         THE ARMY OF THE RESERVE.
Of this speech, and the mode of its delivery, one of
the greatest of our orators has said, "It has been my
fortune to hear some of the ablest speeches of the greatest living orators on both sides of the water; but I must
confess, I never heard any thing which so completely
realized my conception of what Demosthenes was when
he delivered the Oration for the Crown." I venture to
add, that, taking into view the circumstances under which
the speech was delivered, especially the brief time for
preparation, the importance of the subject, the breadth of
its views, the strength and clearness of its reasoning, the
force and beauty of its style, its keen wit, its repressed
but subduing passion, its lofty strains of eloquence, the
audience to which it was addressed (a more than Roman
Senate), its effect upon that audience, and the larger
audience of a grateful and admiring country, history has
no nobler example of reserved power brought at once
and effectively into action. The wretched sophistries
of nullification and secession were swept before his
burning eloquence as the dry grass is swept by the
fire of the prairies.
The general impression in hearing Mr. Webster was, I
think, that, great as was the speech, the man was greater
than the speech; that there was vast reserved power behind the power in action. Sometimes it was brought to
the conflict at a moment's warning. I remember such
an occasion some fourteen years ago. It was at a small
assembly of about an hundred gentlemen. Mr. Webster
had spoken, in reply to a sentiment in his honor, well,
but without great life or vigor. A remark by a subsequent speaker looked like a reflection upon his public




THE ARMY OF THE RESERVE.             115
course. It were better to have roused the lion from his
lair. There was no sudden spring, no visible passion;
but you could see and feel that the very depths of his
being were stirred. Those dark eyes, in their deep, dark
caverns, glowed like stars.  The hall in which we sat
vibrated with the vibrations of-his thought.
The speech I will not assume to report.  One of the
topics, I remember, was his relations with the Common-=
wealth of Massachusetts, the open arms with which she
had received him, the kindness she had heaped upon
him, the trust and confidence she had reposed in him.
His great heart became liquid as he spoke, and he poured
it out in love, loyalty, and gratitude: then, drawing himself up to his full stature, till through our moist and
loving eyes his proportions seemed colossal, he said, with
quiet dignity but with trembling lips, " I have dared to
hope, Mr. President and. gentlemen, that I have not
proved myself wholly unworthy of her trust and confidence."  I never before understood the lines of Milton: -
"The angel ended, but in Adam's ear
So charming left his voice, that he awhile
Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear."
He sleeps well by the sea he loved so well.
His prayer was granted. When his eyes were turned
to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, he did not
see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments
of a once-glorious Union.
There is another reason for the composition and discipline of the army of the reserve, to which I attach much
importance. It is, that power in reserve is necessary to




116         THE ARMY OF THE RESERVE,
give full force and effect to power in action. Of the
impressions made upon us by the use of great power,
material or spiritual, one of the most striking, I think, is
the sense it creates of power not used; of power behind
the power in action, greater than itself. The power
which is wholly spent and exhausted in the effort loses
half its charm. For its highest effect, it must beget
the impression, that we see but in part, the arc of a
power full-orbed, the stream from a full, overflowing
fountain, the vanguard of a greater host. We do not
admire the well whose bottom is hit by every dip of the
bucket, the mill-pond that is drained for one grist (even
if it be our corn), the picture without a background, the
quiver with one arrow, the hen with one chicken, the
mind with one idea, the heavens with one star, even if
it be the north star.
A speech seems to us truly great, only when a man
-stands behind it who is greater than the speech, with
power in reserve; not if it plainly drains his memory,
exhausts his vocabulary, and stretches his brain to lesion.
It is not merely what is said, but who says it; not merely
what he says, but what he is.
When, in a crisis of our history, there was given, at a
festive celebration in Washington, the sentiment, " The
Federal Union, it must be preserved," the words and the
thought were familiar and commonplace; but the devoted
patriotism, the energetic brain, the commanding spirit,
the unflinching courage, the iron will, of Andrew Jackson were behind the words, and the country breathed
more freely for their utterance. Would to God our
heroes were not all in history!




THE ARMY OF THE RESERVE.             117
"Clan-Alpine's best are backward borne:
Where, where, was Roderick then?
One blast upon his bugle-horn
Were worth a thousand men."
Of material power, it is also true, that its effect is
deepened and strengthened by the sense of a greater
power behind the power we see or hear or feel.
Night, solemn, glorious night, with its hosts of stars,
has its army of the reserve, of suns and stars behind the
stars we see, in infinite procession; the countless legions
whose banners of light never yet waved to mortal eye.
Nature indeed, in her beauty or in her grandeur; in
the dewdrop sparkling in the chalice of a flower, or in
Mont Blanc touched with the first light of morning;
in the field-brook that sings with the singing corn, or in
Erie pouring out its world of waters; in summer's
breeze or winter's tempest; in glassy lake or surging
ocean; first deeply impresses us when we feel its reserved power, see on its face the smile, and read in its
living lines the thoughts, of God.
Art also touches and moves us by its reserved power.
This picture is true to the rules, the idea of the
painter fairly brought out, the work finished even with
the minutest detail of Dusseldorf.  It is not without
power, but power fully spent and exhausted. We look
and comprehend it, and do not care to look again. It
has no reserved power; nothing to pay for a second
coming.
Here is another, of which a critic has said, " It was a
crude painted medley, with a general foggy appearance."
Be not dismayed; look again, look into it. The fog




118         THE ARMY OF THE RESERVE.
gradually lifts up, and the picture comes out of seeming
chaos, and marshals itself into light and order and beauty.
Some mist may yet hang over it; but it glows and is alive
with the genius and the inspiration of the poet-painter.
In the great masters of English thought (of the world's
thought), you have striking examples of this reserved
power. You read an Essay of Bacon, or the "Advancement of Learning," twenty times. New forces of wisdom
and beauty come. out at every reading. You find the
most diligent study has not exhausted the depths of
meaning. With a telescopic vision, what seem to be
nebulae now would be resolved into burning stars. You
get some idea of the height and breadth of Bacon by
reading the edition of his Essays by Whately. The
archbishop is a sensible man, of large mental stature;
but how he looks trotting along by the side of Lord
Bacon, and occasionally throwing over his shoulders a
corner of the giant's mantle!
And.the great master of the drama; the priest who sat
at the confessional of the human passions; the philosopher who unravelled the mysteries of our being as the
cunning fingers of Miss Prissy would untangle a snarled
thread; the child of Nature, who laid his ear so close to
his mother's heart that he could hear its faintest beatings;
historian, statesman, sage, poet (IIOIHTEI, maker): such
is our sense of reserved power in him, that what we most
admire and love, as " Hamlet," " Macbeth," " Lear," the
"Tempest," seem really but the plays of Shakspeare, the
sport and pastime of his mighty spirit; waves born to
our feet from a deep sea our oar has never vexed or
plummet sounded.




THE ARMY OF THE RESERVE.           119
Burke, whom the late Mr. Buckle would put in
a strait-jacket, but who will be likely to outlive his
keepers; (quis custodiet custodes?) whose volume of
thought pours out very much as Niagara pours over the
Horseshoe, with the rapid's thunder, the mist, the spray,
the bow of everlasting beauty; never seems exhausted,
but as if there were an hundred inland seas of thought
behind, waiting to be poured out.
A little reflection will satisfy us how constantly, though
it may be unconsciously, we use this test of the fulness
or want of reserved power. You read a book, an essay,
or an article in a review, and you determine almost at a
glance whether the matter has just been pumped into the
author's skull, and then pumped out again, or whether
he draws from a full living spring. The modern multiplication of books is, for the most part, the pouring of
water from one pitcher into another. Very few of them
are mixed, as Mr. Opie mixed his colors, with brains. As
we grow older, we seek the fountains, the old wells of
English undefiled; for the great teachers of the race
and of the coming generations have spoken or written in
our mother-tongue. I shall go to my grave, I fear, in the
delusion that Bacon,
"In one rich soul,
Plato, the Stagyrite, and Tully, joined;"
that Shakspeare held the perfect mirror up to nature;
that the " Paradise Lost" is the greatest of epics, if not
the first; that, of written and forensic eloquence, the
great masters are Edmund Burke and Thomas Erskine;
that no man is fitted for the bar, the pulpit, or the chair
of instruction, who has not given himself to the diligent




120         THE ARMY OF THE RESERVE.
and thorough study of the English classics. A certain
grace, polish, refinement, may be got in other schools:
these constitute our pabulum vitoa.
Reserved power may not always prevent partial defeat
or temporary failure; but it will avert the dismay and
despondency which too often follow partial failure. The
man of reserved power may bend before the storm; but
he will bend only as, Landor says, "the oak bends before
the passing wind, to rise again in its majesty and in its
strength." Nay, it seems at times as if, Antaeus-like, he
got new strength from contact with the earth, new vigor
from the fall. Apparent defeat may be real victory; the
moving from  Moultrie to Sumter.  His army of the
reserve may not have been brought into action at
the needed moment. He will be ready for another
trial. He knows the power is in him, and will do its
work.
We all remember the case of Sheridan. After his
first speech in the House of Commons, he asked Mr.
Woodfall what he thought of it. "I am sorry to say, I
do not think it is in your line. You had much better
have stuck to your old pursuits." —" It is in me, and it
shall come out." It did indeed come out. He lived to
hear from Pitt (no longer sneering Pitt) the motion, that
the House of Commons should adjourn to recover from the
effects of Mr. Sheridan's eloquence.
The brilliant writer and statesman D'Israeli, late Chancellor of the Exchequer, and leader of the House of
Commons, was literally groaned and sneered down in his
first attempt to speak upon the floor. He knew his reserved strength. "The day will come when you will be




THE ARMY OF THE RESERVE.           121
glad to hear me." It came long ago. He is to-day, with
the exception of his successor, Mr. Gladstone, the most
effective debater in the Commons of England.
The material army of the reserve, though trained by
the discipline'of conflict and endurance, is worn and
wasted by the same cause. Its thinned and broken ranks
must be filled and replenished with new life, new brain,
bone, and muscle.
It is not wholly so with the spiritual army of the
reserve. This, too, is trained and strengthened by struggle and suffering: but, in this, every accretion of power
is permanent; every enlistment not only for the campaign of life, but for the life everlasting. It is a beautiful doctrine, which the study of the human mind tends
more and more to confirm, that knowledge, once gained,
is never lost; that we never really forget; that what we
call imperfection of memory is but a defect in the material instrument, some mist or dulness in the mirror which
reflects the beam of light. It is a beautiful doctrine, but
a fearful one; suggesting the questions, What knowledges
have we garnered in this everlasting storehouse? on what
spiritual breads have we fed, that have thus entered into
the very substance and framework of our being? what
unfading pictures have been frescoed on the ever-enduring walls of the soul?
It is, I trust, scarcely necessary to suggest, that though
our spiritual powers enlarge by use, and are nurtured
by effort and struggle, there are limits to the law; that
they do not grow by over-work; that the bow must not
always be bent, and never strained. I have no faith in
working with jaded powers, or in holding up, as exem16




122          THE ARMY OF THE RESERVE.
plars to the young, the men who give their nights as well
as days to study.
"And wherefore does the student trim his lamp,
And watch his lonely taper, when the stars
Are holding their high festival in heaven,
And worshipping around the midnight throne P "
The just and sensible answer to this glowing question
is, Because he don't know any better; because he don't
understand, or care to recognize and obey, the laws of his
spiritual as well as physical health and life. It were far
better for him to be infolded in the arms of " Nature's
sweet restorer, gentle sleep."
In a busy life, we cannot measure our daily work by
exact rules. The true rule is, to work much, not many
hours. More work must be done on one day than another: but eight hours of mental labor is enough for the
most vigorous constitution; more than most men can do
with safety. He who seeks to do more must often bring
to his work a flagging brain; or if he be of the class, who,
when they work, must work with intensity, break, not
indeed his spirit vital in every part, but the material
instruments by which it works.
No better illustration of these truths can be found
than in New England's most accomplished advocate.
Of brilliant powers, enriched by wide and varied culture; of rapid perceptions; of retentive and capacious
memory; of rich, glowing, Oriental imagination; of a
quiet and subtle wit, whose delicate aroma it is in vain to
hope to preserve; with that projectile force of mind
which is the peculiar trait of a great advocate; with a
logic keen and vigorous, though, like the dagger of Har



THE ARMY OF THE RESERVE.          123
modius, it was often hidden beneath the myrtles; with a
heart gentle as a woman's, yet capable of stiffening its
sinews; with little inclination to social life, yet the most
delightful of companions,-Mr. Choate was, at the bar
or in his own library, the most interesting man it has been
my privilege to know: yet, during the last six years of
his life (and it was during those years I saw him most
frequently), I never heard him, even in the most brilliant
of his efforts, without a feeling of sadness. He not only
worked too much, but' he had no just economy of labor.
He did a thousand things which men of narrower capacity might have done as well, or well enough. He expended upon his work a vast amount of superfluous
strength. He brought the whole army of the reserve
into action, when the victory might have been easily and
gracefully won by the van and corps of battle. If he had
tried half as many causes, worked half as many hours,
he would have been a yet greater man, and his life might
have been spared to the courts of which he was the pride
and ornament; nay, more, those large and generous
powers might have been used upon a broader theatre,
and for nobler and more enduring service. As it was, we
may write upon his monument the inscription upon the
bust of Erskine at Holland House: -
"Nostree eloquentie forensis facile princeps."
Pardon one or two practical suggestions.
We all need this reserved power; but it comes only
from the union of contemplation and action. Our life is
stir, bustle,  everlasting motion; the whistle of the engine,
the click of the telegraph.




124          THE ARMY OF THE RESERVE.
"We pry not into the interior; but, like the martlet,
Build in the weather, on the outward wall,
Even in the force and road of casualty."
The business of life should be so conducted as to give
us time for quiet study and meditation. The best processes of culture must be perfected in our own libraries,
with patient toil and-thought.
The mind requires not only diversity of discipline, but
generosity of diet. It will not grow to full, well-rounded
proportions and robust strength upon any one aliment.
There is no profession or pursuit in life, which, followed with exclusive devotion, will not narrow and contract the mind.
Philanthropy is a good thing; but, if a man lives upon
it, it sours the milk, and curdles the blood, till the love of
the race becomes the hatred of every man and woman
that compose it.
Theology is a good thing; but, if a man fed upon that
only, his bones would cleave to his skin. The teacher
of it must, by constant reading and study, replenish the
exhausted fountains of thought. It is the spider only
that weaves from his own entrails, and he weaves in
circles. The writer without such refreshment is the
constant repetition of himself; the turning of the wheel
upon its own axis; incessant motion, but no progress;
the travelling in the same, old ruts with the old " one-hoss
shay."
The law is a good thing; but no man can be a great
lawyer who knows nothing else. The study and practice
of the law tend to acumen rather than breadth, to subtlety rather than strength. The air is thin among the




THE ARMY OF THE RESERVE.           125
apices of the law, as on the granite needles of the Alps.
We must come down for refreshment and strength to the
quiet valleys at their feet.
Pope was wrong. The Ovid was not in Murray lost.
Lord Mansfield was the greater lawyer and judge, because the Ovid grew and was developed in him. For his
comprehensive grasp of great principles, for those large
constructive powers by which he built up the modern
commercial law of England, for the beauty and crystal
clearness of his style, we are indebted, in no small degree, to his wide and varied culture.
The law is not a "jealous mistress:" she is a very
sensible mistress. She does not object to an evening
with the Muses or the Graces, provided we do not remain
into the small hours of the morning. The farewell of
Blackstone to his Muse is unnecessarily pathetic. The
confused air and shuffling gait with which he takes his
leave of her ladyship indicate that the relations were not
very intimate or confidential. He was in no danger.
Commerce is a noble thing. The pioneer of civilization, the diplomatist of peace, "her line is gone out
through all the earth, and her words to the end of the
world." But a man cannot live upon the bread of traffic
only. He needs a yet higher commerce (to modify the
thought of Bacon); the unfreighting of those ships that
come down to us through the vast seas of time, laden
with the wisdom of ages.
The country must have its reserved power. It consists, not in wider dominion, in material progress, in
wealth, in luxury, in the subjection of nature to the mind
and will of man.  These but enlarge the theatre of




126         THE ARMY OF THE RESERVE.
human passions and interests: the actors and the drama
remain the same.
Have we no reason to fear, that, in subduing the earth,
the earth has, to some extent, subdued us; that, while
mind has mastered matter, it has also worshipped it; that
we have given our hearts to the idols which our cunning
fingers have moulded; that ours has become the condition of Faust, when he summoned to his presence the
spirit of the earth, and felt, at first, his energies exalted
and glowing as with new wine, but found he could not
mate himself with the spirit he had evoked, and, in his
despair, exclaimed, "If I had the power to draw thee to
me, I have no power to hold thee " 
Our strength, our reserved power, is in our fidelity to
the principles on which these States were founded, in
which their youth was nurtured, by which they were
ripened together into one national life; loyalty to freedom, obedience to law, then, now, and for ever, one and
inseparable.
The founders of the Republic did not believe that
government was merely moral suasion; that liberty was
the absence of wholesome restraint; that laws were to be
obeyed only when obedience was agreeable; the country
to be defended and saved only when the subject should
volunteer; that the Constitution was to be supreme only
when it was convenient; the Union a mere silken string,
from which States might be slipped by secession or
severed by treason. No enduring fabric can rest on such
dogmas. The roots of civil government strike deep, and
find nutriment and support in the depths of the Divine
Will. Law is a sword as well as a shield;< there is no




THE ARMY OF THE RESERVE.           127
liberty but within its pale: the defence of the country,
at the cost of treasure or of life, is the first of civil
duties; the Constitution, in war as in peace, is the
supreme law, the bond of equal States, inseparable,
without limit of time, immutable except in the mode
itself points out.
These plain principles, now somewhat old-fashioned,
not to say obsolete, make up for the country its moral
army of the reserve.
Brethren, this dear country of ours is in extreme peril.
For her succor and deliverance, she needs all your wisdom and all your strength, the counsels of age, the
vigor of manhood, the flower of youth. God of our
fathers, gird us for the work: by tribulation and suffering, by this baptism of fire and of blood, purify and gird
us for the work of her salvation. God of our fathers,
we can save her, and we will. Redeemed, purified,
plucked as a brand from the burning, we will give her
once more to thy service, in which alone is perfect
freedom.




128
SPEECH AT CHELSEA.
OCTOBER 31, 1862.
FELLOW-CITIZENS, - An important election is at hand.
No thoughtful man ever casts a vote without inquiry as
to his duty. At a time like this, he is painfully anxious.
He feels he cannot use it to gratify personal or party
predilections; that it belongs to the country, and must
be so given as best to serve her interests. For eighteen
months we had been engaged in a civil war, whose
extent, whose intense bitterness, whose consumption of
treasure and of most precious blood, have no parallel in
history. The struggle was tasking to the uttermost the
resources of the loyal States.  The people believed
the war was just and necessary. They saw no hope
for the country but in its vigorous prosecution. They
had been grievously disappointed by the want of progress in suppressing the Rebellion. They were mortified
and chagrined by disasters and defeats, followed by
lame and impotent apologies.  They were disgusted
by the frauds of contractors, the jealousies of commanders, the selfishness of politicians, the want of unity,
method, and persistent vigor in the public counsels, with
the presence everywhere of politicians and office-holders, unchastened by the public calamities, obtruding upon
the Executive councils, dictating to Congress, meddling




SPEECH AT CHELSEA.             129
with the command and direction of the armies, seeking
to control the elections, growing fat upon the public distresses. Many of them were grieved and alarmed at the
absence of respect, to use no harsh word, manifested
by some of their servants for the ancient and sacred
muniments of personal liberty; without which, free
government is a mockery, and life itself a burden. Hope
deferred was making the heart sick. In that day of distraction and anxiety and thick gloom, one thing seemed
to be as clear as the sun at mid-day; and that was, the
necessity of an united North; that all its wisdom, all its
energy, all its strength, should be combined, converged,
projected into one purpose, one issue, one aim, — the
suppression of armed rebellion by force of arms.
As this was a common cause, infinitely transcending
all party questions, with which Republican, Whig, and
Democrat were alike concerned; for which, justice compels us to say, they had made equal sacrifices, and must
share equal burdens; as the peculiar objects for which
the party in power had been organized were already
attained by the legislation of Congress; no sound, substantial reason existed for upholding the old party barriers, or drawing, with any rigor, the old party lines. On
the other hand, patriotism and sound policy seemed to
require that party organizations should, during the war
at least, be given up; for these organizations, though
often the result of differences of opinion, are as often
the cause. When men are working together for a common end, and with no visible line of separation, they
will converge, assimilate, and cleave together. Make a
breach between them which is palpable, and, however
17




130             SPEECH AT CHELSEA.
narrow at first, it will constantly widen.  Differences,
slight at the start, will enlarge by conflict and repulsion,
till unity of action and effort are no longer practicable.
The Republican party has had, and has now, the ascendency in this Commonwealth. It was inclined at first
to pursue a liberal policy. It would to-day, if its wise
and prudent men controlled its movements. It is made
up of two wings. The first consists of those who are
opposed to slavery; who desire to see its restriction within its present limits, and its removal from places where
the power of the National Government is supreme; but
who also hold, "that the maintenance inviolate of the
rights of the States, and especially the right of each
State to order and control its own domestic institutions
according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to
that balance of powers on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depends" (Chicago Platform); and that the war is prosecuted "for the purpose
of practically restoring the constitutional relations between the United States and each of the States and the
people thereof, in which States that relation is or may be
suspended or disturbed" (President's Proclamation of
Sept. 22); and that, when this object is attained, the war
ought to cease. This is the Conservative wing.
The other wing consists of those, who, for want of a
better word, may be called Abolitionists; men who, with
more or less indirection, circuitous navigation of thought
and word, come at last to the point, that Constitution or
no Constitution, Union or no Union, endure the war as
long as it may, be the cost and carnage and exhaustion
what they may, slavery shall be abolished. This wing




SPEECH AT CHELSEA.             131
of the party is now in the ascendant, and rules the party
with a rod of iron. They arranged and controlled the
Annual Convention. They saw to it that no man was
nominated who did not embrace their extreme views,
though they were kind enough to include some very
recent converts. They covered their leaders with adulation thicker than a man's loins, and snubbed the President of the United States because their platform was too
narrow for him to stand upon. They made the test of
loyalty, fidelity to men, instead of devotion to the country.
This wing of the party arranges and controls all the preliminary meetings, sets in motion all the party machinery,
and makes all the party nominations. So far as its power
extends, not a man, holding what are usually termed
conservative views, will be elected to any place, state or
national. Never was proscription so rigid, so bitter, so
universal. They go now one step further. Assuming
that the President has at last yielded to their pressure,
and has adopted their policy, they denounce as a traitor
every man who hesitates as to the wisdom of the proclamation, or who fails to give it their interpretation.
Without stopping to murmur or complain, one may be
permitted to say, that such charges come with little
grace from men, who, but a few weeks ago, felt the
defence of the country, under the then policy, to be a
heavy draft upon their patriotism; with still less grace
from those of them who have for years been laboring to
destroy the blessed Union of our fathers, and who even
now repudiate it with hissing and scorn.
In this condition of things, the severance of political
associations is natural, is perhaps inevitable. The differ



132             SPEECH AT CHELSEA.
ences of principle and of policy are too great to be
reconciled.  The Radicals, upon their own showing,
neither want nor need our aid. We, the Conservatives,
must be true to our convictions of duty, and stand to the
last by the Union and Constitution. But, while these differences of opinion and policy exist, we can unite in the
vigorous prosecution of this war till the rebels lay down
their arms, whoever shall constitute the National and
State administrations.  We can give them  a vigorous
and unhesitating support in the discharge of this great
and imperative duty. We can and should avoid all captious opposition or criticism; but we may not and will
not surrender our judgments or our consciences. WTe
will not forget who are the servants, and who the masters. We will elect, if we can, to places of power, men
who reflect our opinions. We will send men to Congress who will sustain the Administration in all constitutional and just measures, and hold them back, if possible,
from a radical and destructive policy. We don't propose
to rehabilitate the doctrine of passive obedience, or of an
infallible political church. In war, as in peace, freedom
of thought and utterance is to the body politic what
vital air is to the human system. It cannot live without it.
I am one of those who are content with the Constitution as it is, and the Union as it was; the Constitution
fairly interpreted in the spirit of its founders. I have
felt no misgivings, and had no mental reservations, in
swearing to support it. To me the oath was the pledge,
not of duty merely, but of love and devotion. I mean
to keep that oath; and, with such strength as may be




SPEECH AT CHELSEA.             133
given me, to uphold and defend that Constitution, because the life of the nation is bound up in it; because
the preservation of the Constitution, and the preservation
of the Union, are not two questions, but one question;
are not two issues, but one and the same issue. I have
lived half a century without discovering or suspecting
that the "Constitution was a failure."  On the other
hand, I have ever regarded it as the noblest product of
the human mind; the work of men chastened by adversity, disciplined by trial; in their conscious weakness,
seeking the Divine Strength; believing that God governs
in the affairs of men; assured that, " except the Lord
build the house, they labor in vain who build it." That
Constitution has. given us a Government felt only in its
blessings; under whose benign and quickening influences
the nation sprung up to greatness, her commerce whitening every sea, the stars on her banner kindled by the
light of a never-setting sun; a model Republic, which
won for itself the homage and admiration of mankind, -
the fear of kings, to struggling humanity, inspiration
and hope. It is very easy to say the Constitution is not
perfect. I am not wise enough to build a better, and do
not know the men who are. It is easy to express regret
at what are called its compromises. You may as well
regret it was ever made. All government is compromise,
save as it is rooted in the Divine Will. Social order is
mutual concession. The Constitution was the best compromise that could be made; and the experience of more
than seventy years has not taught us how to make a
wiser one.
That Constitution is the bond of national unity. Re



134             SPEECH AT CHELSEA.
bellion, under the guise of Secession, sought to sever
the bond, to cut the thread of the national life. We
grasped the sword to vindicate the Constitution, to save
the national unity. Never was the sword drawn in a
holier cause. Never was a war more just or more
strictly defensive. It was not only the sacred right and
duty of government to wage it, but the necessity of its
being. That right, in its length and its breadth, is the
right to enforce the laws.  Within the pale of the Constitution, States and people may be held to obedience.
Outside of that pale, the whole struggle is revolutionary.
I put the plain question to every honest conscience, How
can I, by force of arms, by fire, and the sword, compel
obedience to a law I do not respect myself t How can I
vindicate the law with the sword in my right hand, and
break it with the hammer in my left? No subtlety of
logic, no refinement of casuistry, can evade or conceal
the answer.  The right of revolution remains intact;
but this Government has never pretended that it was
waging a war of revolution. Its claim, thus far, has
been to wage a war under the Constitution for the Constitution. This plain view of the struggle I have taken
from the beginning. The progress of events has served
to deepen my conviction of its soundness.  I never
doubted that the Constitution clothed the Government
with all powers necessary to the efficient prosecution of
the war. ~I never doubted that fidelity to that Constitution was our safety and strength, and that every way that
diverged from it was the way to death.
The common mode of argument is to assume that a
certain policy is necessary, and then to infer that it is




SPEECH AT CHELSEA.             135
within the Constitution. Take, for example, the policy
of confiscating the property of non-combatants, outside of
the conflict of arms, and without conviction of the owner.
The measure is, in my judgment, in direct conflict with
the Constitution; but it is also in conflict with the law of
nations, and with every principle of justice and humanity. The judgment and conscience of every Christian
nation condemn it.  Such a law is not a source of
strength, but of weakness. With all deference to the
judgment of others, I feel it my duty to say, that the unconstitutional measures passed or proposed by the Radical
party in Congress have done as much to protract the war
as all the treasure that has been spent, and all the blood
that has been shed, have done to end it. They shook
the public faith and confidence. Men cannot be taught
to understand, that, in enforcing the law, it is necessary to
break it; or, in upholding the Constitution, it is necessary
to violate it. These measures weakened our cause in the
Border States, which every practical man has seen, from
the beginning, to be the battle-ground of this contest;
retaining which, our ultimate triumph was almost certain; losing which, there was no solid ground of hope
for the Union. The policy, moreover, cost us the few
friends we had in the rebel States.  It kindled into
greater intensity the hatred of the foe, and nerved him
to a yet more desperate and bitter struggle. It divided
the-public sentiment of the North, and wounded the
Government in the house of its friends. My policy in
this struggle is the vigorous prosecution of the war, with
careful adherence to the Constitution, and the maxims of
moderation and humanity with which civilization and




136'            SPEECH AT CHELSEA.
Christianity have tempered the ancient iron rules of war.
Whenever decisive victories are achieved, I would issue
a general proclamation of amnesty and pardon, excepting only a few of the leaders most deeply steeped in
guilt. Under all circumstances, I would cling to the
Constitution, as the bond of unity in the past, as the only
practical bond of Union in the future; the only land
lifted above the waters on which the ark of 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.
The policy of the Abolitionists is expressed in the
phrase, the Union as it should be, or the Union without slavery. No policy could be more attractive. But
let us probe the words, and get at the depth of their
meaning. An Union without slavery implies not merely
that the slaves in rebel States shall be emancipated,
and in the Border loyal States; but that the States shall
be deprived of the power of upholding slavery, now or
in the future. The emancipation of slaves now in the
rebel States would be but one step in the process. To
abolish slavery by the power of the National Government involves a fundamental change in the Constitution
of the United States, by force of which " the right of each
State to order and control its own domestic institutions,
according to its own, judgment," is taken away; a right
which the Republican party has declared " was essential
to that balance of powers on which the perfection and
endurance of our political fabric depends."  This power
of the State to regulate its internal police and domestic
institutions is a vital, essential feature of our civil polity.




SPEECH AT CHELSEA.             137
If it may be taken from the States to abolish slavery, it
may be taken from them for any purpose. It is a question of power, and not merely of its use. The change
involved is a change in the whole structure of the Government. The States and the union of States are gone.
The result is, one State, one vast central power, a republic in name only. This fundamental change in our system of Government is to be wrought by the power of the
sword, without action of States or people. This is
the inauguration of a war of revolution wholly outside
of the Constitution; a war, practically, for the entire subjugation and permanent conquest of fifteen States: for
an attempt to destroy slavery by a revolution will unite
the entire South against it. These fifteen States must
be reduced to military colonies, and held in subjection by
vast standing armies and by vast navies. If the thing
were practicable, it would be at the cost of national exhaustion and the loss of our own freedom. You cannot
maintain your conquest over fifteen subject States, covering so vast a territory, except by a military despotism.
But the thing is impracticable. Every dollar spent for
such a conquest would be wasted; every drop of blood
shed for it would be spilt on the ground. The talk of a
war of utter extermination is mere passion, which reason
and conscience alike condemn. The only war the people desire is a war of restoration. If we go beyond this,
we embark on a sea of strife and blood, without chart or
compass; a war of vengeance and hate, of carnage and
desolation, physical and moral, compared with which, all
we have seen in the war thus far are ministrations of
mercy.
18




138             SPEECH AT CHELSEA.
Let me not be misunderstood. It is my firm conviction, that, in the prosecution of this war, the power of
slavery will be broken; if the war shall be prolonged,
utterly broken. Practically, the question of emancipation is one of possessio pedis.  The Union army will
not leave slavery behind it. Emancipation will not precede, but follow in its footsteps.
Ponder on these things, fellow-citizens. Stand by the
Constitution; stand by the Union; stand by their glorious
emblem, the banner of our love and pride. Give yourselves freely to the service of your country.  The
thought of her is in every heart, and bn every lip; breaks
into prayer, melts into tears, kindles into flame; the last
thought at night, the first thought of morning: our
country, perplexed, but not in despair; cast down, but
not destroyed;- wrestling with adversity, as Jacob with
the angel, to wring from it its blessing; veiled and
eclipsed as the sun, to come forth again with life
and light and healing in its beams. Fellow-citizens, at
an hour of such extreme peril as this, principles are
every thing; parties and individuals, nothing. I have not
taken, for many years, an active part in politics. My
judicial position forbade it. I have had no direction of
the " People's " movement; but I believe it had its origin
in dissatisfaction with the existing condition of public
affairs, in a natural and wise dread of any attempt to
change the objects and purposes of the war, and in distrust of political cliques who have used the party in
power for their own ends, and not for the country's. I
cordially approve of the spirit and general objects of this
movement. I know well, and respect and honor, gentle



SPEECH AT, CHELSEA.             139
men connected with it. I believe their apparent objects
are their real objects. Truer men, more loyal and patriotic, are not found in the Commonwealth.
They are conservative in their.views; but they are in
favor of the vigorous prosecution of the war, of maintaining the nation's unity at every cost, and of cordially
upholding the President in the discharge of his great and
difficult duties. They cling with tenacity and unfaltering devotion to the Union and the Constitution of their
fathers. Mistakes have doubtless been made; mistakes
especially which show an ignorance of political machinery and management.
" Where ignorance is bliss,'Tis folly to be wise."
It is my firm conviction, that the certain result of the
rigid, proscriptive, partisan policy adopted by the Republican Convention, especially if followed up by the
charge of treason against all who dissent from it, is a
divided North; divided not as to the duty of suppressing
the Rebellion, but so divided in feeling and policy as to
render efficient co-operation impracticable.  I pray you,
my Republican friends, to listen to the voices that come
to us from the Great West, and to be tolerant and just.
The men of Massachusetts cannot be driven. They will
practise forbearance for their country's sake, but not
for ever.
To what condition of things have we come, fellowcitizens, when such a man as Josiah G. Abbott can be
denounced as a traitor, and this, too, as he stands by the
fresh-made grave of a son, dearly beloved; one of three
given to the service of his country?  I know him well.




140             SPEECH AT CHELSEA.
A man better qualified to represent you cannot be found
in the district; and it is one of strong men. He is a
very able lawyer; and great questions of law will have
to be settled by the next Congress. He is a man of
thoroughly practical mind, of large common sense, of extensive knowledge of men and business. He is a patriot
through and through, from the crown of his head to the
sole of his foot.
Nor can any charity excuse or palliate the gross attacks
made upon the accomplished and gallant standard-bearer
of this movement.* A leader at one of the ablest bars of
the State, respected and beloved by his brethren, at the
first call of his country he gave himself to her service.
Beginning the war as major of a battalion, he has been
successively appointed colonel, brigadier-general, and has
now command of a division. His courage and gallantry
have been tested; his ability is unquestioned, his character without reproach. How Christian gentlemen can
denounce such men as traitors, it is difficult for a plain
man to comprehend.
* Gen. Charles Devens.




141
REMARKS ON THE BORDER STATES.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JAN. 8, 1863.
The House being in Committee of the Whole, and having under
consideration the Appropriation Bill, Mr. THOMAS said,Mr. CHAIRMAN, -I beg to call the attention of the
Committee back to the precise matter before us. It is
a provision for the appropriation of money for a definite
and specific purpose: that purpose is, to enforce the collection of a direct tax assessed by Congress in conformity
to a provision of the Constitution of the United States
(art. 1, sect. 2, clause 4); a tax which could only have
been assessed in exact conformity to that provision.
The object of this provision in the appropriation bill,
and of the law of the last session, is to enforce, in the
disaffected States, the collection of the tax. Upon what
ground, Mr. Chairman, are we seeking to enforce this
tax in the " seceded" States.? Upon the obvious ground,
that the authority of this Government at this time is as
valid over those States as it was before the acts of secession were passed; upon the ground, that every act of
secession passed by those States is utterly null and void;
upon the ground, that an act legally null and void cannot
acquire force, because armed rebellion is behind it, seeking to uphold it; upon the ground, that the Constitution
makes us, not a mere confederacy, but a nation; upon




142       REMARKS ON THE BORDER STATES.
the ground, that the provisions of that Constitution strike
through the State government, and reach directly, not
intermediately, the subjects of the United States.
Gentlemen say that there is a belligerent power exercising authority against us. That is, you say that rebellion is attempting revolution. Very well. Who ever
heard, as a matter of public law, that the authority of a
government over its rebellious subjects was lost until that
revolution was successful, was a fact accomplished 
That day, I pray God, I may not live to see.
My position, then, Mr. Chairman, is, that we may
enforce the collection of this tax, because to-day, as heretofore, the authority of the National Government binds
and covers every inch of the national domain; because
that law, which we call the Constitution, is, to-day, the
supreme law of the land. If the position taken by
the learned gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens]
be true, that we are every day passing unconstitutional
acts, we are every day violating our oaths to support the
Constitution of the United States. I beg leave to say,
that, however we may differ as to the extent of powers
which the Constitution gives us (and they are ample for
all good ends), when we deliberately pass from fidelity to
this Constitution, to enact laws in violation of its sacred
provisions, we are ourselves inaugurating revolution. It
is fire against fire, revolution against revolution; and God
have mercy on the country! In all events, at whatever
cost or peril of treasure or of life, we must cling to the
national unity; and, for this end, we must cling to
the only possible bond of unity, the Constitution.
I have but a word more to say, Mr. Chairman. I have




REMARKS ON THE BORDER STATES.        143
listened quietly, but with great sorrow, to the attacks
often made on the Republican side of the House against
the gentlemen from the Border States. I desire to say,
what I have often said, and repeat, with the fullest sense
of my responsibility, that in fidelity to the Union and
the Constitution, and every earnest effort to uphold them,
there have been no truer, nobler, more devoted men
than these representatives from the Border States.
[Applause.] And the great heart of this country to-day
goes out to meet them and to bless them. It is easy in
New England (where fortunes are rapidly built up, and
industry quickened, and material prosperity advanced, by
this war), or in New York, or in Pennsylvania, to be
patriotic and loyal and national. These men have stood
the touch of fire and the sword. They have been tried
by suffering. No ties of natural affection, no love of
kindred, no fear of desolation or death, has moved them;
not even your unkindness. I do not believe that it is
policy or wisdom to alienate such men from us: we
should rather grapple them with hooks of steel to our
hearts.
Say what you will, Mr. Chairman, as a practical question, this war must be fought out in the Border States.
They constitute the battle-ground of this contest to-day,
as they have been from the beginning of the war. Can
you hold the Border States to their allegiance? If you
can, the final victory is with us; if you cannot, separation is inevitable. I hope and trust and pray, Mr. Chairman, that we shall hear no more of party discussions and
wrangles; no more reproaches thrown from the one side
of the House to the other. We have no strength thus




144       REMARKS ON THE BORDER STATES.
to fritter away. God knows, we need a united people to
save the Union, trembling, even now, on the verge of
dissolution; and therefore, if we cannot agree upon all
questions of law, if we cannot agree upon all questions
of policy, let us consent to differ as we best may, but
with the firm resolve, that every thing of strength, of
power, of purpose, of motive, of will, that is in us, shall
combine, concentrate, converge, to save the national
integrity, the national life.
It has been said by the gentleman from Pennsylvania,
- and I will say a word on this, and relieve your
patience, — that there are those here who oppose the
policy of the Administration. I suppose there is no man
in this House who has more respect for the intellectual
vigor and manliness of the gentleman from Pennsylvania
[Mr. Stevens] than I have; but I beg leave to call his
attention to the fact, that he has not always been able
to concur in the policy of this Administration. I beg
leave to remind him of a difficulty which has occurred
to all members of the House, that it has sometimes been
very difficult for even a very careful and scrutinizing
observer to know or find out what the policy of the
Administration is; and we are obliged to grope our
way darkly therefore, and determine for ourselves what
will be for the peace and interest of the country, and
follow that.  If the Administration does not clearly
indicate its policy, we may be excused for not being
always found in its path; and, when indicated, we may
not follow it, if fidelity to the Constitution or the highest
interests of the country forbid.




145
ON THE BILL "TO RAISE ADDITIONAL SOLDIERS
FOR THE SERVICE OF THE GOVERNMENT."
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JAN. 31, 1863.
I HAVE no desire, Mr. Speaker, to launch my bark
upon the sea of this illimitable debate. My object in
obtaining the floor last evening, was to present, in
addition to a few remarks upon the bill before the
House, some considerations concerning the relations of
New England, and more especially what has been called
the Puritanism of New England, to the Union. But I
could not fail to see that this subject would be too remote
from that immediately before the House. I propose,
therefore, to confine myself to a few, I fear somewhat desultory, suggestions upon the measure before
us, and the policy which it involves.
It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that the discussion,
thus far, has scarcely touched, much less carefully considered, the special subject-matter before us. This bill
proposes, as I understand it, to raise a new and large
army from the men of African descent in this country.
The amendment offered by the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens] to the original bill (the measure
to be pressed) proposes to raise that army without limitation as to numbers; without limitation as to the States,
loyal or rebel, from which they are to be taken; without
19




146      BILL TO RAISE ADDITIONAL SOLDIERS
limitation as to the expense, because without limitation
as to number; without limitation as to the places where,
or purposes for which, the army is to be used; without
limitation as to the discipline to which that army is to
be subjected; each and all of these matters resting
solely in the discretion of the President of the United
States. I believe that I shall have the concurrence of
every member of this House, and of the gentleman
from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens] among the rest, when
I say, that this bill, in its new form, proposes to vest
in the President of the United States a larger power
and wider discretion than were ever reposed by Congress in the hands of one man, unless under our previous legislation on the same subject. I am not here,
Mr. Speaker, to raise the question, whether we may not
wisely repose a large discretion in the Executive at
a time like this. It is among the necessities of our
condition, that a large discretion should be reposed in
the Executive; but it is the duty of Congress to see that
no such extent of power is vested in the President, or
any one else, that that power may be readily used, as
all power is liable to be used, to defeat the ends for
which it is given, to subvert instead of upholding the
laws. And this question is not one of the individual
character of the officer, but of principle and policy. In
what condition of our affairs do we propose to raise this
new army?
If I understood rightly the chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, my friend from New York
[Mr. Olin], we have now in the field, or rather we have
upon the pay-rolls of the Government, a million of




FOR THE SERVICE OF THE GOVERNMENT.   147
white men of the Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, or German races.
This, no man can doubt, is a sufficient army for the purpose of suppressing this Rebellion, if this Rebellion can
be subdued by physical power alone. I do not say how
many of those men are engaged to-day in active service,
in face of the enemy. There are, we are told, very
large desertions from the army. There are vast numbers now on your pay-rolls, capable of service, who are
doing no service. But that must be, to a considerable extent the fault of the administration of the army. It is the
plain, obvious duty of the Government to see that these
men, who are on your pay-rolls and capable of service,
are rendering that service.  With a million efficient
men in the army and at work, and with our large and
gallant navy, if'it is practicable to conquer rebellion by
arms, you have force adequate for the purpose; as
large a force as we can hope to maintain and replenish
without bankruptcy.
We must look, Mr. Speaker, to the financial aspect
of this question, the question of ways and means. I do
not think the financial condition of this country has
been truly.presented; or rather, I should say, fully presented: for no gentleman, of course, could desire to
present it otherwise than truly.  If I understand the
facts spread by the gentlemen of the Committee of
Ways and Means before the country, in the speeches
made on this floor, our national debt at the end of the
next fiscal year will be at the least two thousand million
dollars. By that debt is meant the liquidated debt of
the country. I would call the attention of the House
to the fact, that the unliquidated debt of this coun



148      BILL TO RAISE ADD1TIONAL SOLDIERS
try, the debt for damages for the taking of property
and the destruction of property by the military power
in the prosecution of the war, upon any equitable or
reasonable rule which this Congress or any other Congress may adopt in its adjustment, may reach as high as
five hundred millions more. This may be possibly too
large an estimate; but gentlemen will see at once, that
how large it may be, and whether it reaches this limit,
must depend on the rule whi6h Congress shall apply to
the adjustment of those claims; how widely the door
is thrown open. If we admit not only all legal claims,
but all claims that are equitable, in the ordinary sense
of that word, and if the estimate also include pensions,
I think I do not state the case too strongly when I say
it would reach five hundred millions.
Do not fail to observe one other fact of our financial
condition; and that is, that when you get the national
debt of this country, liquidated and unliquidated, you do
not reach the whole marrow of the thing. Your state,
county, city, town, and parish debts all over this country,
taken together, will make an aggregate approaching at
least to half of the liquidated national debt at the end
of the present fiscal year; and when you combine these
debts, the liquidated debt, the unliquidated debt, the
liability for pensions, the State, county, city, and town
debts, and consider also how much higher interest we
are paying than that paid by any other people, the fact
will stare you in the face, that this nation, at the end of
the next fiscal year, will be more heavily laden with
debt than any nation in Europe.
Now, I make no complaint of this, Mr. Speaker. I




FOR THE SERVICE OF THE GOVERNMENT.    149
would not withhold nor give grudgingly even my last
dollar to the prosecution of this righteous war; righteous, if prosecuted for the ends for which it was
begun, - the noblest war this country could wage; compared with which, the Revolution itself was not only
on a small scale, but for ends less grand and momentous. I differ from some of my friends here as to the
nature and object of this war. It is a pleasant thing to
say this is a war for liberty. It sounds well; it soothes
the ear; it stirs the blood: but it is not true. That is
not the fundamental idea of this war. Liberty we have
had, sometimes to license. The fundamental idea, the
idea of highest moral dignity, in the prosecution of this
war, is the upholding of civil order and law and the
Constitution, which is the nation's supreme law, its
bond of unity, and its breath of life; the noblest product of human thought; the framework of an empire
capable of almost infinite expansion, in which central
power was reconciled with local independence, the
gentlest restraint with the highest security, the broadest
equality with the firmest order, the amplest protection
with the slightest burden. The thought of to-day is
not liberty, as commonly understood, the absence of
restraint; but the law in which true liberty is enthroned
and made possible.
I repeat, Mr. Speaker, I do not groan under the
burdens the country has been and will be called to bear
in the just prosecution of the war. It may be (though
that question is now one of history only), it may be,
that, by early mutual restraint and by moderate counsels,
the war might have been averted.  But it was not




150      BILL TO RAISE ADDITIONAL SOLDIERS
begun by this Government. After the first shot at
Sumter, it was an inevitable necessity, a war of selfdefence. I am yet in favor of vigorously prosecuting
the war until the ends for which it was instituted are
attained, or their attainment clearly seen to be impossible. I am for prosecuting it by the use of all just
means and instruments, all means and instruments
which have the sanction of public law as it has been
tempered by civilization and Christianity.
But to the money aspect of the question: the bill,
without disturbing the present army at all, without
diminution of its numbers, authorizes the President of
the United States to enlist one hundred thousand, or two
hundred thousand, or three hundred thousand men of
African descent; and every new man you put into your
army, according to the estimates of intelligent gentlemen on the floor of this House, costs you from seven
hundred to a thousand dollars; and if you raise one
hundred and fifty thousand men, as was proposed by
the gentleman from Pennsylvania originally, you increase your expenses one hundred to one hundred and
fifty millions a year.
Mr. STEVENS. The gentleman will allow me a word.
I understand him to say, that this bill proposes to raise
an additional army, without any diminution in the number of the present army. Now, the preamble to the
bill which I introduced stated expressly, that it was
upon the ground, that, within a few months, the terms
of enlistment of several hundred thousand of the troops
now in the field would expire; and this proposes to
supply their places.




FOR THE SERVICE OF THE GOVERNMENT.    151
Mr. THOMAS.  That was in the preamble of the
original bill introduced by the gentleman from Pennsylvania; but the bill reported as from the War Department, and now before the House, has no such provision.
The authority vested in the President, according to his
construction of our statutes, is to raise an army of a million men. I do not complain of that construction.
There is no provision in this bill for the diminution of
that number; and that number is not to be diminished,
at any rate, until June next. I may add, a bill has been
introduced in the other end of the Capitol for the
recruiting of this army, and supplying its losses.
Mr. Speaker, let me now turn to another feature of
this bill, the termn of enlistment. It provides for the
enlistment of men for a period of five years. Why five
years? I think there is more significance in that word
"five" in this bill than in all other words written in it.
Its possible objects are not written. Do you mean to
say to the country, that it is your expectation, your reasonable expectation, and the basis on which you propose
to make enlistments for your army, that this war is to
continue for a period of five years longer   Do you
mean to say to the country, that on the vast scale on
which the war is now prosecuted, and at the expense of
treasure and of life at which it is prosecuted, you expect
to carry it on for five years morel  If such be your
expectation, it is just and manly to say so.. If such be
not your expectation, pray add nothing to the anxiety
and alarm of the people.
Mr. Speaker, if the object of this war is restoration,
that involves a state of things, present or future, which




152      BILL TO RAISE ADDITIONAL SOLDIERS
will soon be developed and felt. A war for restoration
proceeds upon the ground, that you will find in the
rebel States, as your army advances and protection is
made possible, men who are ready to rally again under
the blessed flag of the Union, and to return to their
allegiance to the National Government. If that feeling
exists, and is developed, certainly it will be developed
before the lapse of five years; never, indeed, by this
instrumentality; never! But if- the object of this war
is not restoration; if the purpose and object of this
war are, as is sometimes declared in the heated and
brilliant rhetoric of gentlemen on your left, subjugation, extermination, the re-colonization of the whole
rebel territory, then your term of enlistment is altogether too short, altogether too short.
If, Mr. Speaker, the object be extermination, there
is not one of these pages, snatched prematurely from
his mother's arms or cradle, who will live to see the
end. You have been waging the war two years, and
yet the number of inhabitants in the rebel States to-day
is larger than it was when the war was begun. You
cannot, probably, if you would, and you would not if
you could, carry on a war with a fierceness and severity
that would destroy life as rapidly as it germinates.
Men, in war even, will marry, and women be given in
marriage; children will be born to them, and their
mothers will hold them to their flowing breasts as the
storm sweeps by. The angel of life will triumph over
the angel of death. Such is the blessed economy of
God. The extermination of eight millions of people,
with the use of all our power and all our resources, is




FOR THE SERVICE OF THE GOVERNMENT.    153
a moral and physical impossibility.  Of this war, if it
is carried on for extermination, neither you nor I, Mr.
Speaker, may hope to see its close but in one way, to
us the way of deepest humiliation, —the intervention
of other nations to stay its ravages. Who talks of a
war of extermination is simply mad.
I proceed, Mr. Speaker, to a consideration of the
material of which you propose to make up this army.
If I understand myself, I entertain very little prejudice
and no unkindness toward the colored race.  I may
believe, I do believe, as a matter of fact, that, in the
sterner stuff, they are an inferior race; in some of
the gentler qualities, our superiors; and, in my judgment, the moral condemnation of slavery is the sterner
for that fact. I have more respect, or rather less aversion, hate, for Roman or Grecian slavery, wlich subdued
equals to its service, not inferiors; not men to whom
Nature had not given equal power of self-reliance and
self-protection. But I also believe, that as society now
exists, where these races are brought together in numbers approaching equality, the relations that will exist
between them, will be, perhaps must be, to some extent,
relation of dependence and pupilage on the one part,
and government and protection on the other; but not
involving necessarily any feature of chattel slavery.
Now, I do not enter into the philosophy of races.
As a practical man, I take and deal with things as they
are. Looking at the existing relations in different parts
of the country between the two races, I believe, after
much reflection and careful consideration, that as matter of wisdom, for the good of both, and especially for
20




154      BILL TO RAISE ADDITIONAL SOLDIERS
the permanent good of the colored race, we should not
involve that race in this war if we can fairly avoid it.
To some extent, and for valuable services, they have
been and will be used; but, in the policy of creating
from them distinct and large armies, we shall lose more
than we gain. They will fight by the side of their
masters better than they will against them. This may
seem strange at first blush; but, the more you study the
African character, the firmer will be your conviction of
its soundness. The light which our history gives us is
mainly of slaves fighting with their masters; and the
fact will be found to be, though not, of course, without
its exceptions, that slaves are attached and devoted to
their masters and their families, and will stand by
them, and fight with and for them.
I do not question that there are men of color in this
country capable of bearing arms and making good
soldiers. There are men of talent and culture among
them. I have heard a man of color in this country
address a polished assembly with a beauty of style, and
force of argument, which any gentleman on the floor of
this House might be content to equal; which I should
be glad to imitate. But, Mr. Speaker, great questions
of public policy are not determined rightly on exceptional cases: they confirm rather than impair the rule.
And no valuable judgment can be formed as to the usefulness of a negro army of a hundred thousand men from
the fact that a hundred men here, or fifty men there,
had been used in the military service, and had been
used successfully. The practical question is, taking
one, two, or three hundred thousand of escaped slaves




FOR THE SERVICE OF THE GOVERNMENT.   155
from the rebel and border States, what sort of material
you have for an army, compared with the present
material?
My friend from New York [Mr. Roscoe Conkling] has
caused to be read some remarks of Alexander Hamilton
on this subject. There is no statesman in our history
for whom I have a profounder respect; but I have no
confidence in the views expressed as to the proper material of an army, as applied to the times in which we live,
or the purposes for which the war is waged. The argument proceeds on the ground, that the soldier is, to all
practical intents and purposes, a machine. Mr. Speaker,
the soldier of to-day is a thinking, or, if you will, " a
calculating machine." Your army in the field, as the
history of this war will signally illustrate, is valuable
for your service just in the degree that it is'intelligent;
just in the degree that your soldiers are capable of
understanding and appreciating the duty which they
have to perform, and the fealty which they owe to the
Government; just in the degree that the man within
inspires and animates and nerves and presses onward
the outer man; just in the degree that he feels that this
glorious country and beneficent Government are his
country and his Government, the life-estate in him,
the fee in his children. Suppose, for example (I hope
my friend from Maine, listening to me, will take no
offence), you get a regiment of backwoodsmen of, Maine,
men inured to life in boreal airs, whose stalwart arms
humble forests: you have an excellent regiment, because the backwoodsmen of Maine are thinking, intelligent men, owning the country, and loving it. Take an




156      BILL TO RAISE ADDITIONAL SOLDIERS
equal number of young men from one of our cities, of
culture and spirit and pride, and you would have at
least as good soldiers. Nay, more: if you were to take
these two bodies of men, and cross with them the Rocky
Mountains, you would find that the young men from
the city, of intelligence and spirit, would bear all the
fatigues, privations, and hardships, as well as the stoutest woodmen; "better," said to me one who had tried
the experiment, -Capt. Williams, of the Second Massachusetts Regiment, one of the many noble offerings
Massachusetts has freely laid on the altar of country.
Mr. Hamilton cites the authority of Frederick of
Prussia, a great soldier and loose talker: yet we may
concede, that, for many uses to which armies have been
put, it wexe well to have them as near to machines as
possible; the nearer the better. Stupidity might, to
some extent, be compensated by unthinking obedience
to the will of the commander.  Such an army this
country does not seek, and will not have. Create an
army of three hundred thousand men, so stupid as to
understand nothing of the purpose for which the war is
prosecuted; obedient, but obedient only to the will of
a commander; mere "machines" in his hands; and
they may be the readiest instruments to destroy what all
good men are struggling to preserve.
For one, Mr. Speaker, I do not object to the enlistment of intelligent free men of color, though I doubt
whether they seek it. I am a citizen of a State which
recognizes the substantial equality of all men before
the law. I love and honor her for her fidelity to the
cause of freedom, though I may sometimes fear " she




FOR THE SERVICE OF THE GOVERNMENT.    157
loves not wisely, but too well." I thank God, there is
not a man treading the soil of Massachusetts who is not
in all substantial legal rights my peer. The colored
man of Massachusetts is as much a citizen of. Massachusetts as I am. The question has been settled from
our first Constitution. Nothing is clearer as matter of
principle or of history; nor has there ever been any
decision of the courts of the United States that impairs
his right.
But, while I rejoice in the policy of Massachusetts
toward the colored race, I do not assume to direct or
control or curse the policy of other co-equal States. I
am not unmindful of the fortunate condition, as to the
colored race, in which the Revolution found us. I am.
not blind to the fact, that their numbers were so small
as not to constitute practically a disturbing element. I
am grateful for these things: but I am not sure, that if
a half or a third of our population had been of African
descent, and our soil and its products and their labor
congenial, we should have been so much wiser and
better than our neighbors; nor am I certain, that if we
bordered on the slave States, and were exposed to the
incoming of large numbers of black men, we should be
so tolerant in our policy, though. we should try to
be just.
I do not form my judgment from the relations that
exist between the white and colored races in Massachusetts, of those that must and should exist in States where
the colored men constitute a large component part
of the population; nor do I form a judgment, from my
knowledge of some respectable and intelligent colored




158      BILL TO RAISE ADDITIONAL SOLDIERS
people at home, what sort of an army could be made
up of the slave population of the South.  Congress
must recognize and act upon facts as they are, and not
as they would have them to be. It must make large
allowance for the feelings and prejudices even of the
present army; yes, for the blind, unreasoning prejudices and hostilities of color and of race. Other generations may be wiser, better, more tolerant, than our
own; but we have to deal with our own.
The friends of this measure are very confident,
they are rather used to being confident, that these
black men, slaves or freed, will make good soldiers. I
cannot aver with certainty, they will not; but I can say,
we have no satisfactory evidence that they will. I can
say, that they lack the intelligence, the energy, and the
self-reliance which characterize so largely our present
army, and which all men have conceded to be the
strength and effective power of that army.
But suppose that the experiment you are to try is
not successful. Suppose you raise an army of two or
three hundred thousand men of African descent, and
you find that the capacity is not in them which free
institutions have given to your white soldiers, the spirit
and habit of self-reliance and self-possession; and I
may remark in passing, Mr. Speaker (I suppose there
is no man in this House who has not lived long enough
to have learned it), that the great difference between
men in this world is the degree in which they possess
themselves, -their own powers and resources. Suppose, I repeat, that your experiment should fail, and you
have this army of two or three hundred thousand black




FOR THE SERVICE OF THE GOVERNMENT.    159
men on your hands: what will you do with them? If
you have an army composed of the white citizens of
the country, and the period of their service expires,
they will return to the ordinary relations and avocations
of life and business; they will resume their former
position in society. They are soldiers to-day: they are
citizens to-morrow. But an army of two or three hundred thousand black men, freed slaves, to be disbanded,
where -shall they go?  To what place and condition
are they to be returned? Of course, not to slavery.
No man who has ever served under our flag, whether
for a day or for an hour, can be made again a slave.
Where, then, shall they go! You may be willing to
colonize them; but they may prefer not to be colonized.
I wish some practical man, who is disposed to discuss
these questions upon practical grounds, would tell me
what disposition you would make of these men, if the
experiment fails, as fail I believe it will; or when their
term of service has expired.
Mr. Speaker, I have listened attentively to this debate.
I think I may claim the merit, if I have no other, of
being a very patient listener; and it sometimes requires
a patience which Job himself would envy. But every
thing affecting, ever so remotely, the destiny of the country, is of painful interest now. I have, with pleasure
for the most part, listened to this discussion. It has
concerned great principles of policy and of conduct in
the administration of our affairs. But I deeply regret
to have seen the spirit of party so often invoked in this
debate. It has no place in the presence of these great
perils and great duties. The utmost freedom of discus



160      BILLT TO RAISE ADDITIONAL SOLDIERS
sion and of counsel, here and elsewhere, must be maintained. Principles are vital; party organizations or
triumphs, individual hopes and aspirations, nothing.
That party will wear the crown which shall do most to
save the life of this nation, its unity, its liberty in law.
No party can hope to triumph which is not faithful to
these great aims; unless the triumph of its policy and
the ruin of the country shall be cotemporaneous.
I heard with great -sorrow the thoughtful and eloquent speech of the gentleman from Kansas; but I
heard it with no surprise.  It was but carrying out the
principles laid down in his speech a year ago to their
plainest and most logical conclusion. The principles
were received with cordial sympathy and warmest welcome by men who shrink from the conclusion as from
the abyss of despair. He and they rejected with scorn
the old Union, any Union, with slave States. The only
alternatives were revolution and permanent conquest of
the entire South, or separation. The first is felt to be
impossible; and the gentleman from Kansas logically,
and I have no doubt honestly, accepts the alternative.
But the gentleman cannot fail to see that the question
before the country to-day is, not separation or no, but
disintegration or no; that, the moment you sever the
bond as to one State, you sever it as to the whole. No
man can say, if separation begins, where it will end, or
where the division-line will ultimately fall. Our only
safety has been and is in clinging to the Union as it
was in fact, and still is de jure; the old Union, the
blessed Union of our fathers.
It has been clear to me as the sun in heaven and at




FOR THE SERVICE OF THE GOVERNMENT.    161
mid-day, that this was our only possible way of salvation.  This old Constitution, spurned now by foot even
of sciolist and charlatan, this stone the builders of
"baseless fabrics" have rejected, must again become
the head of the corner. I beseech and adjure statesmen
at either end of the Capitol, at either end of the Avenue, to continue no policy, to enter upon none, which
shall preclude the restoration of the Union, with the
rights and powers of the States unimpaired; the only
Union now within the reach, even of hope.
I regret deeply some of the measures of the Administration. I have earnestly, and with a depth of
conviction which could find no adequate utterance,
protested against them. The confiscation bill, the proclamations of Sept. 22d and 24th and Jan. 1st, powerless for good, have been, and will be, I fear, fruitful
only of evil.
The proclamation of Sept. 24th is in conflict with
the august and sacred muniments of personal security, to which, for six centuries, the Anglo-Saxon
mind and heart have clung as the gospel of civil freedom. Every'arrest made under it in the loyal and
peaceful States serves only to strengthen the enemies of
the Government, and to wound and grieve its friends.
If they tried to say "Amen" to it, the amen would stick
in their throats.  Pray, let it sleep "the sleep that
knows no waking."
The proclamation of Jan. 1st will do less good or
harm than its friends hoped or opponents feared. It is
not thus that great wars are prosecuted or great ends
accomplished. However kind may have been the mo21




162      BILL TO RAISE ADDITIONAL SOLDIERS
tives of those who begat and conceived it, it was stillborn; and no political galvanism can give to it the
semblance of life.  But though the Administration
may adopt, measures my judgment condemns, having
attempted to stay them, and protested against them, I
stand in the path of duty. This is my country to serve,
my Government to obey, my'Constitution to rescue and
save, my Union,
"Where I have garnered up my heart;
Where I must live, or bear no life."
Amid all the darkness, the thick darkness, around us, I
cling to the single, simple, sublime issue, the Constitution, and the Union of which it is the bond; the old
Union. 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 vengeance, but in mercy
to them and to all mankind!
This country of ours, this nation of ours, is the grandest, sublimest trust that was ever committed into human
hands. Pray the Father of lights, we be faithful. My
way of duty, in one regard, has been plain: having
sworn to support the Constitution of the United States,
I have striven to keep the oath. The way of obvious
duty was, in my judgment, the way, the only way, of
wisdom and safety for the country.
It was the prayer of New England's greatest statesman, that, when his eyes were turned for the last time
to behold the sun of heaven, he might not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once
glorious Union. Have we ever repeated to ourselves
these words, "once glorious," "once glorious Union"?




FOR THE SERVICE OF THE GOVERNMENT.    163
Then with tears let us wash out, or with fire burn out,
the word, and write "for ever glorious," born out of
tribulation into a nobler life. When our eyes shall
turn to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may
we see his rays kindling every star and every stripe of
that banner, which, like the robe of our divine Master,
was woven without seam!
If we save this Union, generation after generation
will rise up to bless us. If we lose it through divisions,
through party strifes, through supineness, in seeking
other ends, our memories will rot evermore.




164
THE LOUISIANA ELECTION CASES.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEB. 16, 1863,
Mr. SPEAKER, - Whatever other differences of opinion
there may be between members of this House, we all
recognize the great importance of the principles and
policy involved in the resolutions before us. There are
certain facts that are not contested. It is not contested
in the report of the Committee, or in the arguments of
the members of the Committee of Elections who did not
sign the report, that the persons who are elected to this
House are loyal men. It is not contested, that they
were elected by loyal citizens of Louisiana. It is not
contested, that they were elected without military dictation or control. There is nothing developed in the report
or in the arguments presented to the House to show that
there was any military dictation or control or influence in
the election.
What are the relations which these electors, and the
persons who claim these seats, hold, at this moment, to
the Government of the United States?  They are citizens of the United States, subject to all the duties imposed
by the Constitution and laws of the United States. They
are subject to taxation. Since the ordinance of secession
was passed, they have been taxed, in conformity to the
provision of the Constitution (art. 1, sect. 2) which appor



THE LOUISIANA ELECTION CASES.       165
tions direct taxation. They are subject to your revenuelaws.  Your collector is there to-day collecting duties
imposed by the Government. They are subject to your
excise-duties. Your law passed at the last session applies
to and includes them. They are subject to military service. Some four thousand of loyal residents of New
Orleans are already engaged in the military service of
the Government.
Now, Mr. Speaker, before the act of secession, these
men had all the political rights that are correlative to
these political duties. They had the right of representation, which, from the earliest history of this Government,
has been indissolubly connected with the right of taxation. Subject, in war or peace, to all the duties and
burdens of the Government, they are entitled to the
corresponding rights and privileges that Government had
conferred upon them, unless in some legal way deprived
of them. These propositions are too plain for argument.
I proceed, then, Mr. Speaker, to consider whether
these rights have been in any way modified or impaired
by the act of secession. Were they impaired by the
ordinance passed by the convention of Louisiana. It is
conceded on all hands, that that act was null and void,
and that it did not change the relations which the State
of Louisiana sustained to this Union.  Is that act of
secession, in itself null and void, rendered operative and
effective by the use of physical power or armed force?
Or, to state the proposition in another form, is the
ordinance of secession rendered effective because armed
treason is behind it? Very clearly, no. An act, void in
itself under the supreme law of the land, cannot be




166         THE LOUISIANA ELECTION CASES.
made to affect or impair the legal rights of any, the
humblest citizen, because armed treason seeks to enforce it.
Mr. Speaker, this doctrine is, I know, contested; but
I venture to say, that there is no form in which the proposition, that the seceded States have committed either
suicide or treason, can be put, in which its absurdity is
not transparent. That I may do no injustice to the advocates of this doctrine, I will read the statement of it made
by my distinguished colleague [Mr. Eliot]; and I beg
the Hou~e to mark the force and effect of his words. He
is speaking of the ordinance of secession; and he says,
" But being of no effect by law, yet operative and vitalized by false
form of law, and by effective and controlling force in fact, it followed
inevitably, that, while the rebel State had renounced its allegiance
and cast off the protection of the Government, its territory remained
within the Union; and its loyal men thereupon residing were entitled
to protection in their persons and in their property, and in all their
rights, as soon as the military power of the Government could be
exerted there, and a new civil government within the State could
be created."
That is to say, the proposition of my colleague is, that,
although the act -of secession is void by law, " it is vitalized by a false form of law," and by the force behind
that false form  of law.  I may be very obtuse; but I
prefer the plainer and simpler proposition, that an act
which is utterly void by the supreme law of the land
cannot be vitalized or made effective by armed treason,
but is void still.  And I beg leave, with all due deference
to my distinguished colleague, to say, that, if that is the
proposition which he told us the other day a majority of
the sensible men of Massachusetts believe in, they have




THE LOUISIANA ELECTION CASES.       167
done great injustice to the foolish men of Massachusetts
[laughter]; for they have robbed them of their appropriate food, and of the most absurd proposition they
could find to believe in [laughter].
Mr. ELIOT. Will my colleague yield to me?
Mr. THOMAS. With pleasure.
Mr. ELIOT. Mr. Speaker, I was somewhat surprised
the other day to observe how very sensitive my distinguished colleague was at the use which I then made of
the word " sensible."  But, when a gentleman states that
a majority of sensible men are of a certain opinion, it
does not by any means follow, that those who hold the
adverse opinion may not also be sensible. My learned
colleague must not suppose that I intended at all to place
him in the category of those who were not sensible,
certainly not; but only among the minority of sensible
men [laughter]. My learned colleague is as sensible
as any of those who differ from him. I should be the
last man to take from him any claim which he, certainly
with some sensitiveness, seems to assert, that he belongs
to a sensible party.  In Massachusetts, I am glad to
believe, it is a party in the minority, although there are
in it very sensible gentlemen.
Mr. THOMAS. I cannot yield the floor to a speech.
If my colleague desires to ask a question or to make an
explanation, I have no objection.
Mr. ELIOT. I am endeavoring to make an explanation; and I began on that point because my colleague
has been so very sensitive.  Two or three times he
referred to it as though I intended to intimate that he
and the. People's party in Massachusetts were not sensi



168        THE LOUISIANA ELECTION CASES.
ble. Far be it from me to say that they are not sensible
men. In that particular, however, I think they are
decidedly in the minority; and, so far as the questions
are concerned that divided the People's party from the
great body of men in Massachusetts last fall, I cannot,
from my stand-point, believe that they were as sensible
as I hope my learned -friend will be when he comes next
to the polls.
Mr. THoMIAS. I cannot yield the floor to my colleague
to make a political speech.
Mr. ELIOT. My colleague must keep good-natured.
Mr. THOMAS.  It is not surely a question of good
nature. Mine is not easily exhausted; but I desire to
proceed with my remarks. I do not desire to hear a
talk about the People's party or any other party. Graver
matters are before us.
Mr. ELIOT.  Does my friend decline to yield the
floor?
Mr. THOMAS. For a political speech, I must.  If my
colleague has any explanation he desires to make, I will
yield for explanation; but I cannot yield for a speech.
Mr. ELIOT. I desire to make an explanation. Mr.
Speaker, I do not know whether that phrase, "State
suicide," originated in this House or in the other branch
of Congress. It is not a phrase that to my mind conveys
a clear and distinct state of facts. I have never used it.
My learned colleague has attributed it to me. I repeat,
I have never used it. I have entertained the idea, and
now entertain a distinct idea, of what I have called
State treason. I had the honor to speak upon that
subject last summer; and it was in the course of that




THE LOUISIANA ELECTION CASES.       169
speech that I stated, more at large than I can now
do, what seem to me to be the true doctrines on that
subject.
Mr. THOMAS. I cannot yield the floor and my time
for this discussion.
Mr. ELIOT.  It takes some little time to explain my
point.
Mr. THOMAS. I do not desire to give up my time for
discussion upon this question, and I must decline further
to yield the floor.
Mr. ELIOT. Very well: then I will just say —The Speaker pro tempore.  The gentleman from
Massachusetts is not in order. His colleague declines
to yield the floor.
Mr. ELIOT. My colleague yields to me, as I understand, to finish this statement.
The Speaker pro tempore.  Does the gentleman from
Massachusetts yield the floor?
Mr. THOMAS. For my colleague to finish what he
was saying at the moment.
Mr. ELIOT. When a State has done what, under the
language of the Constitution, amounts to treason; when
it has given aid and comfort to the enemy; when it has
levied war against the Government; when its Governor
has abdicated, its Legislature gone over to the enemy;
when it has, by all the forms of law, arrayed itself
against the Government; I say, that State has committed
treason, and that, as such, it has forfeited all its rights as
a State, leaving the loyal men of the State to be cared
for and protected by the Government. But I repeat,
that, as a corporation, it has committed treason, and has
22




170        THE LOUISIANA ELECTION CASES.
forfeited all its rights under the Government as a traitor
State.
Mr. THOMAS. Is this all my colleague has to say?
Mr. ELIOT.  Just to finish the sentence.  And may
be declared by the Government as having forfeited all
its rights and privileges as a State.
Mr. THOMAS. The doctrine, then, is, that a State
cannot hang itself, but may put itself in a state of preparation to be hanged.
Mr. ELIOT. It deserves to be hanged.
Mr. THOMAS.  It can, of course, be arraigned for
treason; it can be indicted for treason, brought to trial
before a jury of its peers for treason, and hung for treason [iaughter].  The statement well illustrates what
I have before stated, that there is no form of words into
which you can put this doctrine that its absurdity will
not be transparent. The proposition commits suicide,
not the State.  It is felo de se. A State cannot commit
treason; nor can the void act of a State change the relation which loyal citizens sustain to the United States;
nor are the relations which loyal and obedient citizens
sustain to the Government of the United States broken
or severed because the ordinances of secession are
backed up by traitors in arms. These citizens of Louisiana, therefore, hold the same legal relation to the United
States that they did before the acts of secession and
treason, by men wearing the garb of State authority,
were committed.
The State of Louisiana exists; its functions may be
in abeyance. All the powers of the State exist; and all
that is necessary is simply that the machinery of the




THE LOUISIANA ELECTION CASES.        171
State shall be put in motion. The State itself is like
Milton's angels, which,
" Vital in every part,
Cannot but by annihilating die."
This, then, Mr. Speaker, is the state of things before
us: The loyal men of these two districts of Louisiana,
holding unbroken their legal relations to the Government of the United States, have elected representatives
to this Congress of the United States; and the question
is, Shall they be admitted?  If not, why not? An objection has been made, though not much pressed, that there
were no vacancies to fill. Vacancies existed by reason
of the failure to elect at the general election, and those
vacancies have never been filled. There is no one occupying a seat in this House from either of these two
districts, because there have been no persons entitled by
law to fill either of them. A case arose in which vacancies should be filled in pursuance of writs issued by
executive authority of the State of Louisiana. Were
they- so issued?
I do not mean to say that this question is free from
difficulty: it certainly is not. But it has been, I think,
quite too summarily disposed of by gentlemen, opposed
to the resolutions of the Committee. It seems to me,
Mr. Speaker, that much, very much, of the difficulty we
have in the discussion of this and similar questions,
results from the attempt to apply to the condition of
things in which we are placed, principles and rules from
writers upon international law that really throw no light
upon, and have no just application to, that condition, in
many respects sui generis; and for our guide in which,




172       THE LOUISIANA ELECTION CASES.
history and public law furnish no precedents or even
strong analogies. No just or reasonable conclusion can
be drawn from the powers of a military governor, in a
territory conquered from  a foreign enemy, as to the
nature and extent of the powers to be exercised in
States, or parts of States, rescued from the possession of
rebels in arms against us. This is a military occupation
of our own territory; an-occupation which has become
necessary by reason of the fact, that the Constitution and
laws of the United States cannot otherwise be enforced;
and that it is our duty to enforce them, and the right of
the loyal citizens of Louisiana to have them enforced,
not merely for our benefit, but for their protection.
Now, Mr. Speaker, what is the object of this vast
movement of ours? For what are we carrying on this
war? For the purpose of enforcing the laws of the
United States. Your war has no other just or legitimate object but the enforcement of your laws. If these
laws are obstructed by armed force in the State of
Louisiana, you have the right to take and to maintain
military occupation of that State to'remove such obstruction. You have the right to see that the laws of the
United States are executed in the State of Louisiana.
Do gentlemen say, that, because of the existence of
armed rebellion in the State of Louisiana, we have no
right to enforce the laws of the United States there?
Have not we the right to collect taxes? Have we not
the right to enforce the revenue-laws, and the right to
conscript soldiers from the citizens of that State? Have
you not the'right, by military power, to protect the
courts of the' United States in the district of Louisiana




THE LOUISIANA ELECTION CASES.       173
in the exercise of their jurisdiction?  I take this position, and I fail to see how it can be controverted,
that if you are in the military occupation of this, your
own territory, you hold it for the purpose for which the
war is waged; for the purpose of upholding the jurisdiction, and enforcing obedience to the laws, of the United
States.
The analogies sought to be drawn from Vattel, or
other writers on public law, as to the military occupation
of a conquered territory from a foreign State, have very
imperfect application to the case before us. The Constitution and the laws of the United States are the supreme
law of Louisiana, and you are -to enforce the execution
of those laws; and I see no valid distinction between
enforcing those laws which impose duties and burdens
upon the people, and the enforcement of those laws
which guarantee and protect the rights of the loyal people
of the State; rights springing from us, and to be protected by us.
Mr. CONWAY. Was the law under which these men
were elected a law of the United States?
Mr. THoMIAs. The law from which the right to elect
was derived, and to be elected, was a law of the United
States, and the supreme law of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker,
I wish to make matters clear as I go. I want gentlemen,
who believe that we should enforce the laws of the
United States for the collection of taxes and the collection of the revenue in Louisiana, to point out the distinction between enforcing the laws of the United States
which impose these burdens and duties upon the people,
and the enforcing of the laws which secure to them the




174        THE LOUISIANA ELECTION CASES.
enjoyment of their rights and privileges under the Constitution, and especially this great and invaluable right
of representation, of helping to make the laws which
they are bound to obey. Our duty to protect is as clear
as their duty to obey. They are reciprocal and interdependent.
We may meet this question of the issue of writs of
election in another manner. The question, whether
these writs were properly issued or not, is a technical
question, and we can meet it by a technical answer.
We may meet the objection, that the writs were not
issued by the executive authority of the State, by saying
that they were issued by the only executive authority of
that State which the Government of the United States
or the people in these districts in any way recognize,
and which, in matters of highest concern, they have
recognized and obeyed. The writs of election were, in
fact, issued upon the earnest request of the loyal citizens
of these districts, and were responded to and confirmed
by them.
But I do not consider the strict legality of these writs
vital to the issue before us. I go one step further. I
contend, whether these writs were issued by the executive authority of the State or not, this may be a valid
election. I contend, that this provision of the Constitution, as other provisions of statute in relation to this
subject, is within the well-settled distinction between
provisions which are directory and those which are
essential. I say, under the law of elections, practised
upon from the beginning of the Government to this
hour, you have gone behind the mere form to get at the




THE LOUISIANA ELECTION CASES.      175
substance and truth of the thing; and that these safeguards, provided by the laws to secure to the citizens
the orderly exercise of the right of election, were never
intended to be used as barriers to exclude them from
their enjoyment. Let me call the attention of the House
to elections whose validity this House has recognized,
and which proceed upon this distinction.
Mr. PORTER.  If I understand the gentleman from
Massachusetts, he asserts, that, there being no Governor
of Louisiana elected in pursuance of the provisions of
her constitution and laws, the military commandant
appointed by the President, who has assumed the title
of Military Governor, is to be regarded as the Governor
or executive authority of the State within the meaning
of that clause of the Federal Constitution which provides, that, in case of vacancies in the representation of
a State, the "executive authority thereof" shall issue
writs of election.
Mr. THOMAS.  I do not state the proposition  so
broadly as that. What I have said is, that we are in
the military occupation of. our own territory, a portion
of it where the laws of the United States have been
impeded by armed force; that we are there to enforce
the laws of the United States; and that it is difficult to
draw a sound distinction between the powers effective
for the enforcement of the laws imposing burdens and
duties upon the subject, and those which may be used
for his protection. The gentleman is mistaken in his
facts. Mr. Shepley did not assume the title of Military
Governor. He was appointed Military Governor by the
President.




176         THE LOUISIANA ELECTION CASES.
Mr. PORTER. It seems to me that the gentleman is
at fault in saying there is any law of the United States,
so far as relates to the election of representatives in
Congress, to be enforced. The Constitution says,
" The times, places, and manner of holding elections for senators
and representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time, by law, make or
alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing senators."
When Congress shall have passed a law prescribing
the time, place, and manner of electing representatives,
then the military power may be invoked to remove
obstructions in the way of carrying it into practical
effect.
Mr. THOMAS.  The provision of the Constitution cited
by my friend from  Indiana is the one referring to the
general elections of representatives, and not to the
elections to fill vacancies. It is by no means clear that
any legislation of Congress could remove the difficulty.
In case of vacancies in the delegation of any State, the
Constitution says "the executive authority thereof shall
issue writs of election to fill such vacancies."   The
legislation of Congress cannot supersede or modify this
provision; and after legislation, as before, the same
questions would arise as now. Is there an executive
authority of the State, within the meaning of this provision?   Is it sufficient that the writ is issued by one
claiming to exercise the executive authority, with the
recognition of this Government and with the assent of
the people. Or is it our. duty to go behind his certificate and action, and inquire, in a case where there is no
conflicting claim or contest, as to the regularity of his




THE LOUISIANA ELECTION CASES.        177
appointment.?  And lastly, supposing that. we were
satisfied the authority was not regular; yet if a day
was fixed, was known to all the voters, and the case
shows they complied with the notice, and exercised the
right of election fully and freely, must we or ought we
to declare the election void because the authority issuing
the writ was not regular?
V Mr. PORTER.  The learned gentleman will see to
what a dangerous conclusion his argument must necessarily lead him. The Constitution provides, that, " when
vacancies happen in the representation from any State,
the executive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies."  There is also, however,
another provision. as to senators, that, "if vacancies
happen by resignation or otherwise during the recess
of the Legislature of any State, the executive thereof
may make temporary appointments until the next
meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such
vacancy."  The same words, "executive thereof," are
employed in both cases; so that, from the argument
of the gentleman, it must necessarily follow, that the
military governor appointed by the President may fill
vacancies in the Senate of the United States.  Surely.
no one would be willing to allow such an exercise of
power.
Mr. THOMAS. I do not think  such a conclusion
necessarily or legitimately follows.  There is a broad
distinction between the exercise of an official and judicial
judgment in selecting a senator, and the exercise of a
power in appointing a day for the people to select their
own representatives. It has not been the uniform prac23




178       THE LOUISIANA ELECTION CASES.
tice of the House to hold that these writs shall be issued
by the executive authority of the State. I call attention
to the fact, that gentlemen have been allowed to take,
and now hold, seats upon this floor, under the acts of the
Provisional Convention and Governor of Virginia. I call
attention also to the fact, that uniformly elections have
been held in the Territories before their admission as
States into the Union, and where, therefore, the elections
were held without the action of State authorities.
Mr. PORTER.  I would suggest to the gentleman from
Massachusetts, that that power has been exerted solely
under the third section of the fourth article of the Constitution, providing that "new States may be admitted by
the Congress into this Union."  That clause has been
interpreted to include the right to have all the officers
at the time of admission necessary to represent the State
in the Federal Congress.
Mr. THOMAS. Be it so; but that provision does not
abrogate the other provision of the Constitution, which
provides that the times and places for elections shall be
fixed by the Legislature of the State. The practice
bends the form to the substance. The House, by a
large majority, during the present term, determined that
an election held at a time not fixed by the Legislature
of the State, but in the constitution of the State, was a
valid election, though clearly a departure from the letter
of the law.
The. point to which I was endeavoring to lead the
House is the distinction between those provisions formal
and directory and those that I deem essential; and that
the House, in the exercise of its power to judge of the




THE LOUISIANA ELECTION CASES.         179
elections and the returns of its members, has always felt
itself enabled to go behind the " letter which killeth to
the spirit which maketh alive," and to ascertain whether,
in point of fact, there has been a fair election by the
people of the district, having full opportunity to vote,
and without violence or fraud. And, therefore, if gentlemen differ as to the authority of a military governor,
or, as I would call him, the provisional governor, of a
State, they may still be satisfied that there was a full and
fair notice to the people of the election; and that the
loyal people of those districts, having had such full and
fair notice, did meet and freely exercise their elective
franchise.
I beg leave to make this further obvious suggestion to
the House: that you cannot expect, in districts like
those in Louisiana, or in any other of the States whose
citizens have been in arms against us, that regularity, or
that adherence to the forms of law, which you may justly
demand in a State where the operation of the laws has
not been obstructed by force of arms. Irregularities are
inevitable; and this House, under its power to determine
the election of members, will see, not whether all the
customary provisions of law have been complied with,
but whether, in point of fact, there has been a fair and
just election. Do sticking-in-the-bark gentlemen tell us
the registry law was not complied with, and that, therefore, this election is void?  It is a fact, that this provision for a registry law for New Orleans was embodied in
the constitution of Louisiana adopted in 1852. It is also
a fact, that there were two elections of representatives
from New Orleans, of members admitted to seats in this




180        THE LOUISIANA ELECTION CASES.
House, before any registry law had been passed. And
upon what ground? Upon the plain ground, that you are
not to deprive the electors of the exercise of this most
important light of representation because there is a
failure to comply with formal provisions of law. Suppose; for instance, the law required a check-list, and a
check-list was not used in the election, and yet, upon
a full investigation of the facts, the House is satisfied a
man was elected by a clear majority, and without fraud
or violence: there can be no question, that, under the
power vested in the House, it would look directly to the
meritsof the election, and confirm it.
The distinguished gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Voorhees], who first spoke upon this subject, averred that
there was great danger from the admission of these
claimants, and, in like cases, that the executive authority
of this Government would finally prevail over the rights
and powers of the House. The answer to all such suggestions is to be found in the fidelity of this House to its
rights, to its powers, and to its duties; and, without such
fidelity, there can be no safety. It is, in all cases, the
first and final and only judge of the qualifications,
elections, and returns of its members; and so long as it
holds that power in its right hand, and exercises it disereetly, firmly, fearlessly, we need have no fear of the
Executive.
The same gentleman suggests, that this was not a free
election, because the persons who voted at the election
voted for the purpose of avoiding the effects of the proclamation of the President of the United States; or, as
the proclamation of the military governor somewhat




THE LOUISIANA ELECTION CASES.       181
curiously terms it, to avail themselves of the "benefits"
secured by the proclamation; to wit, the benefits of holding men in bondage. I beg leave to call the attention
of gentlemen to the fact, that the proclamation of Sept.
22 nowhere holds out the- hope of exemption from its
operation to any district because it should have a member
of Congress; that, on the other hand, the proclamation of
Sept. 22 is put upon the distinct ground, that it is not
a district, but the State, which is to be represented, and
by an election at which a majority of the voters of a
State voted. The suggestion in the proclamation of the
governor was, therefore, without authority, unless derived
from other source than the proclamation of Sept. 22.
But, if that proclamation had contained this promise in
exact terms, I do not see why loyal and faithful people
might not desire to avoid the practical effects upon them,
whether legal or illegal, constitutional or in conflict with
the Constitution, wise or unwise. That argument proves
too much. It goes to this extent, that elections are not
to be influenced by the consideration, that those engaged
in them may thus secure more effectually the protection
of the Government. One very excellent reason why they
should exercise the elective franchise, and send members
to this House, is to effect that object.
I put this case, then, upon two or three plain grounds.
I put it upon the ground, that these men, who are asking
seats in this House, are loyal citizens of the United States;
that they have been elected by loyal citizens of the United
States; that they have been elected at an election which
was free; that they were elected by numbers, which,
compared with other elections, indicate that the people in




182       THE LOUISIANA ELECTION CASES.
the districts were in the movement, and that it was had
in entire good faith. I put it upon the plain ground,
that while you demand of the loyal people of Louisiana
faithful allegiance and obedience to your laws, and to
bear the burdens of your, Government, you should give
to them the inestimable rights which that Government
was formed to secure to them; without which they would
be subjects, and not citizens; slaves, and not freemen.
I put it upon the still higher ground, that the loyal men
in the State of Louisiana, who have not engaged in this
rebellion, or have returned at the earliest moment to
their allegiance, have a right to come before you, and ask
that you shall not permit the mere letter'of the law,
which to-day throws upon them all the weight and burdens of the Government, to stand in the way of the
exercise of their dearest and most sacred rights, the
rights which bind them to you, and make them of you.
Mr. Speaker, permit me to make one other practical
suggestion to the House; and that is, that the only way
in which you can reconstruct this Government is by the
co-operation of the loyal men in the seceded States. If
you mean to go a step further, and try to bring these
States under absolute subjection, wipe them out of existence, and reconstruct them according to your will and
pleasure and not their rights, you have taken upon yourself a task which you have not the power to execute,
and which, if you had, would result in the overthrow of
your liberties as well as theirs. No government would
be a fit instrument for such a work but a military despotism. History gives us no hope in such a war. But if,
on the other hand, you expect, as it seems to me every




THE LOUISIANA ELECTION CASES.     183
rational man must expect, to reconstruct the Government with the sympathy, co-operation, and aid of the
loyal men of these States, then I ask you, in the name of
prudence and of justice, not to shut the doors of this
House against them. Do not, I beseech you, teach them
the terrible lesson, that your powers are effective to
destroy, but not to redeem; to crush, but not to save.
Meet them at the threshold; welcome and bless them as
they seek once more the shelter of the old homestead.




184
CONSCRIPTION  BILL.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEB. 25, 1863.
The House resumed, as the regular order of business, the consideration of the bill of the Senate (No. 511) for enrolling and calling out
the national forces, and for other purposes.
Mr. THOMAS obtained the floor.
The SPEAKER.  The gentleman from New York having already spoken, and not being the mover or introducer of the proposition, cannot speak again without the
leave of the House. The gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Thomas] is entitled to the floor.
Mr. BAKER. Will the gentleman from Massachusetts
yield to me for a moment?
Mr. THOMAS, NO, sir: I cannot yield for any purpose. I have but twenty minutes.
Mr. HOLMAN. I rise to a point of order. I sought
the floor at the time the gentleman from New York
[Mr. Olin] did, and raised upon him the point of order
which has been disposed of by the Chair; and I think,
therefore, I am entitled to the floor.
The SPEAKER.  The Chair did not understand the
gentleman from Indiana as claiming the floor, but only
as raising the question of order. If the gentleman
raised it desiring to speak himself, he is entitled to the
floor.




CONSCRIPTION BILL.            185
Mr. HOLMAN. I understand that the gentleman from
Kentucky [Mr. Crittenden] and the gentleman from
Massachusetts [Mr. Thomas] desire to be heard on this
bill, and I am unwilling to occupy the time of the House
while those gentlemen desire to speak. I will, therefore, yield to those gentlemen; and I now resign the
floor to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from
Indiana [Mr. Holman] for his great courtesy in yielding to me the floor. I rejoice, with exceeding joy, that
I have no party interests to represent, no party topics
to discuss. I have heard with sorrow, not to say disgust, the voices of discord' and bitter strife from both
sides of the House. If the spirit of party cannot be
subdued or chastened in the presence of our imminent
peril, God save the country; for he only can.
In the few remarks I shall have time to submit to the
House, I would look directly to the merits of the measure before us. Mr. Speaker, this is a terrible bill;
terrible in the powers it confers upon the Executive,
terrible in the duty and burden it imposes upon the citizen. I meet the suggestion by one as obvious and as
cogent; and that is, that the exigency is a terrible one,
and calls for the use of all the powers with which the
Government is invested.
Some of the features of the bill my judgment condemns, unhesitatingly condemns.
The period for which the service is required is unreasonably long. I think the enrolment should not include
judges of the State courts, or ministers of the gospel,
or members of Congress of either branch; though the
24




186             CONSCRIPTION BILL.
inclusion of members of Congress would be, I think,
simply void. I earnestly object also to the provision of
the bill for the arrest of civilians by the military power;
but I understand that gentlemen upon my right will
cons6nt to an amendment which shall strike out that
feature. But, saving these objections, I think the
bill is within the scope of the Constitution, and necessary and just.
First, the question of power. Congress has power to
"declare war."  A necessary incident to this power
would be that of raising and supporting armies. But
the power to "raise and support armies" is given in
terms. No limitation is imposed as to the numbers to
be raised, or the mode of raising. In the nature of
things, such limitation could not be imposed. The
power must be broad enough to meet all possible exigencies; and the possible exigencies of the country no
man or prophet could foresee. The powers of Congress within their scope are supreme, and strike directly
to the subject, and hold him in their firm and iron
grasp. I stand by the opinion, early expressed upon
this floor, that there is not a human being, domiciled
within the territory of the United States, black or white,
bond or free, whom the Government may not use for its
military service, whenever the defence of the country
requires; and of this exigency Congress alone must
judge.
Is the exercise of the power to raise armies made
dependent upon the consent of the individual citizen?
I say, clearly not. "Government is not influence," said
Washington; it is not moral suasion. That only is gov



CONSCRIPTION BILL.           187
ernment which can command obedience and enforce it.
The duty of the citizen to defend the State is admitted.
Does the discharge of that duty depend upon his will
and discretion, or the will and discretion of the Government. If upon the former, the objection is fatal
even to any militia law: if upon the latter, the'extent,
and mode of use,- are questions for Congress only.
The question was asked half a century ago, whether,
under the power to support armies, Government could
take property without consent; and, if not, how it was,
that, under the power to raise armies, you can take
men without consent. I answer, that very clearly, for
the support of the war, you may take the property of
the subject without his consent, but not without compensation; for the fifth article of the Amendments has
put this limitation upon your power.
Under the " Articles of Confederation," Congress had
not power to raise armies, though it had to build and
equip a navy. Its duty was to agree upon the number
of land forces, and to make requisitions upon each State
for its quota (Art. 9). But the men who framed the
Constitution, knew, by the experience of the Revolution, how defective and inadequate was such power, and
that, whatever possible danger there might be in the
grant of the power without limitation, any limitation
might prove fatal to the national defence. The power
was therefore given to raise armies without qualification;
and, though the subject of much bitter complaint and
criticism in the State Conventions, to-day at least its
necessity is plain to all men.
Having the power to raise and support armies, and




188             CONSCRIPTION'BILL.
the exigency existing in which the use of that power is
necessary, the question arises, whether the powers given
to Congress and the States, with respect to the militia,
qualify and restrain the power to raise and support
armies. Very clearly not, Mr. Speaker. They are distinct, independent powers. The militia is a branch of
service well understood in the mother-country and our
own, to be called forth " to execute the laws, suppress
insurrections, and repel invasions."  It was not designed
for permanent service, but to meet special exigencies,
and'for brief periods of time.
Much has been said, though without much reflection,
about the very " unpatriotic" course of the Government
of Massachusetts with respect to the use of the militia
in the war of 1812. The opinion of the Supreme
Court of Massachusetts of that day proceeded, as I recollect it, upon the ground, that, the purposes of the militia
being to suppress insurrection and repel invasion, the
militia of the State could not be required by the Federal
Executive to go beyond the limits of the State. To that
view I do not assent; but it is, I think, quite plain, they
are not, in the light of the Constitution, a part of the
army of the United States: they are to be enrolled and
organized for the purposes stated in the Constitution,
and for no other.
This unqualified power to raise and support armies is
given us to meet an hour and an exigency like this.
The gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Wickliffe] says
that the army is made up, and has been made up, by
volunteer enlistments, and that you never have " conscripted" men into the army. Doubtless, such has




CONSCRIPTION BILL.            189
heretofore been the practice; but the exigency never
before arose when it was necessary to conscript men
into an army.  The exigency does not confer new
powers, but evokes them into service. At this moment,
the question, whether we shall use this power, is not one
of expediency merely; not what is best. It is, in effect,
a question, to this nation, of life or death. We literally
have no choice.
Gentlemen upon my right (the Republican side of
the House) know that it is my conviction, that all the
vaunted panaceas for our troubles have failed, utterly
failed. I expected them to fail. I attempted in vain
to satisfy the House, that it was leaning upon reeds
shaken by the wind. My earnest, repeated suggestions
were, of course, unheeded; but the results are too
palpable to be overlooked or mistaken, and reason is
slowly re-ascending the steps of its throne. Pray God
it may not be too late.
The policy inaugurated on the 1st of December, 1861,
has been fruitless- of good: it has changed the ostensible, if not real, issue of the war. That policy, and the
want of persistent vigor in our military counsels, render
any further reliance upon voluntary enlistments futile.
The nostrums have all failed. Confiscation, emancipation by Congress, emancipation by the proclamation of
the President, compensated emancipation, arbitrary arrests, paper made legal tender, negro armies, will not
do the mighty work. Nothing will save us now but vicrories in the field and on the sea; and then the proffer
of the olive branch, with the most liberal terms of
reconciliation and re-union.' We can get armies in no




190             CONSCRIPTION BILL.
other way but by measures substantially those in the bill
before us, unless the Administration will retrace its
steps, and return to the way of the Constitution, for us
the strait and narrow way which leads unto life. The
war on paper is at an end. The people have, for a
time, been deluded by it. That delusion exists no
longer. If you are to suppress this Rebellion, all instrumentalities will fail you but the power of your own
right arm.
Mr. Speaker,othe measures and policy heretofore pursued have not been merely fruitless of good; they have
been fruitful of evil: they have made, or largely contributed to make, a united South; they have made a
divided North; they have alienated from the Administration the confidence and affection of large portions of
the people; they have paralyzed your arm, and divided
your counsels. Gentlemen flatter themselves this alienation and disaffection are the work of the Democrats;
that the people have been misled and deceived by their
wiles. Sir, the people of this country read, and keep
their eyes open, and comprehend; and the plain fact is,
you cannot unite them upon the policy you now pursue.
They do not believe in destroying the Union and Constitution in the hope of building up better by force of
arms. You may unite them on the issue of maintaining
the Union and the Government at every price and cost,
but upon no other.
Having distracted the public mind, having alienated to
a great degree the affection and confidence of the country, what is left to you? To resort to those constitutional
powers vested in you for the preservation of the Gov



CONSCRIPTION BILL.            191
ernment which you have in trust, and which you must
use, or be false to that trust. Gentlemen say the people will not bear this measure. I will not believe it. I
believe the people of this country are ready to do and
to endure every thing for the preservation of their unity,
their national life, and, through that unity and that
national life, all that makes life precious to men: they
will submit to it. In view of the infinite interests at
stake in this great controversy; in the solemn conviction
that there is to-day no hope of peace except in disintegration; that, as a nation, we must conquer in arms, or
perish; they will meet and respond to this imperative
call of duty. Such is my hope and trust.
But, Mr. Speaker, suppose they hesitate; suppose
they do not submit: you can but- try; you have no
other hope.  The negro will not save you; paper
money will not save you; your infractions of personal
liberty will not save you. - If the illegal and unnecessary
arrests are persisted in, in the peaceful and loyal States,
they will ruin you. Go firmly to the people, and present to them the real issue: they will understand the
terrible exigency in which the country is placed:; and
they will be true to that country, if you show clearly to
their comprehension the length and breadth and height
and depth of that exigency. Mr. Speaker, the issue
must be met at all hazards. If the people will not
support you, if they will not do this highest act of duty,
the days of this Republic are numbered, the end is
nigh. Satisfy them that you mean to be true to the
Constitution and the Union, and they will be true to
you, and will uphold and save you.




192             CONSCRIPTION BILL.
The issue, I repeat, must be met. You die without
this measure: you can no more with it, except you die,
as cowards die, many times. I go, therefore, for appealing from panaceas and make-shifts to this highest, most
solemn, and imperative duty of the citizen to protect
the life of the State.




193
NEW ENGLAND AND THE UNION.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEB. 28, 1863.
Mr. SPEAKER, — The most careless observer of the
signs of the times will not have failed to notice
the attacks, frequent, persistent, ubiquitous, upon the
history, character, and policy of New England. The
evidence of union and concert in these attacks is plain;
and, what is very significant, the concert includes the
politicians and presses of the States in arms against us.
The aim and purpose of these attacks are palpable.
They are not for counsel, rebuke, chastening: to these
we might give heed for possible good. The obvious purpose of this war of words is to create a feeling of bitter
hostility to New England in the Western and Middle
States (the traitors in arms against the Union hate her
now with sufficient intensity); to force the conviction
upon those States, that the character and policy of New
England are such, that the good-will and harmony of
the country cannot be maintained while she forms part
of the Union; and to bring about a reconstruction on
the.basis of the Confederate Government, slavery for
its corner-stone, and "New England left out in the
cold."
The element of the New-England character and
policy, which, it is averred, makes union with her intole25




194        NEW ENGLAND AND THE UNION.
rable and impracticable, is her Puritanism. In an age
of discoveries, that discovery is the most remarkable.
After Puritanism has been upon the continent two centuries and a half, building up free institutions; after
union with it for three generations, its light following
the light of the sun, and kindling the western horizon
with new glory; after having suffered and toiled with it,
and been inspired by it through the Revolution; after
having enjoyed with it, or in spite of it, for seventy-four
years, the freest and most beneficent Government the
Divine Ruler ever permitted to man; the country learns,
with surprise, it has all the while been under the saddest of delusions; that what it had fondly believed a
" spirit of health," is, in truth, a " goblin damned; " that
New England is a diseased limb of our bbdy politic,
that must be severed, or the whole body perish.
With scarcely less surprise, if at a time like this we
have a right to be surprised at any thing, do we observe
by whom these assaults upon New England are made.
By those who claim to be the especial friends of the
democratic institutions which Puritan hands planted and
Puritan tears watered in the wilderness of the New
World. By the especial friends of personal liberty, of
which, under the Tudors and Stuarts, the Puritans were
the depositaries; and of which, from that day to this,
they have been the vigilant and zealous defenders. By
the especial friends of the Union, which germinated
on the New-England soil, and of which the humble confederation of the New-England Colonies was the forerunner and the prophecy. By the especial friends of
the Constitution, which, in the hour of its past perils,




NEW ENGLAND AND THE UNION.         195
has found in New-England statesmen some of its firmest
bulwarks, and, in the greatest of them all, its great de'
fender. With Virginia, who, by her resolutions of 1798,
inserted the wedge, which, from that day, she has driven
deeper and nearer to the heart of the Union; with
South Carolina, which, more than thirty years ago, set
up the standard of revolt, and has been laboring for a
generation, with persistent malignity and folly, to destroy
the Government she had felt only in its blessings; with
the Gulf States, who are seeking, by a rebellion remorseless and bloody,. to plunge themselves and the
country into the gulf of woe and perdition; with these,
Union is possible and desirable, but not with the Puritans of New England!
Leave them to perish on their granite, ice-bound
peaks! Theirs is a restless spirit, the very genius of
discontent. They disturbed the repose of the Tudors;
they reformed the Reformation; they took from one
Stuart his head, and from' another his throne; they
secured Magna Carta; they gave to civil liberty the
Petition of Right; they left merry England in the heyday of its material prosperity, where, could they have
appreciated the tranquillity of despotism, they might
have laughed and grown fat; they left the homes of
childhood, the graves of fathers, and faced ocean, wilderness, want, the savage foe, merely to pray as the
spirit taught them to pray. Simple men, they might
have worshipped God in solemn temples, in cathedral
aisles, the eye ravished with beauty, and the ear with
music. They sought rather the rude log-house in the
forest, or the temple not made with hands; preferring




196        NEW ENGLAND AND THE UNION.
to royal favor the favor of the King of kings. They
planted their humble commonwealths upon a sterile soil
and in an inhospitable climate. Their institutions were
laid on the rough granite of English liberty. Instead of
seeking to bask in royal sunshine, they stood out in the
cold, and contrived to bar their doors, not only against
intruders, but against the king. Loyal to the crown
when the crown let them alone, they maintained, from
the beginning, a substantial, sturdy independence.
When separation came, it is among the most striking
things in history to observe how slight changes in the
framework of government were necessary. For ninety
years, Mr. Speaker, their destinies have been blended
with those of the other colonies. From many States
sprung up one nation. To-day, New England finds
upon her soil more than three millions of free, intelligent, happy people. A million of living men born
upon that soil have their homes in the other States.
One-third of the population of the United States is of
New-England descent; its ancestral graves and memories
with us.
The Puritans have borne with them toward the setting
sun the institutions, the manners, the culture of New
England; the meeting-house, the town-house, the common school, the college, the village library. They were
not without the weaknesses and follies of their time,
and follies their own; but in spite of these, nd over and
above these, they had the elements of character which
fit men to be the founders of empire, - conditores imperiorumn, - firmness, courage, prophetic sagacity, serene,
unfaltering trust in God. And they were the founders




NEW ENGLAND AND THE UNION.         197
of an empire; a beneficent, a glorious, let us pray the
infinite Lawgiver, an enduring empire.
But' I forget, Mr. Speaker: wise men have discovered
not only that the sun has spots, but that it is the spots
that make up the sun; and that, after all, there is no
light or life or healing in his beams; that the clothes
are more than the man, the outward more than the
inward, the accidental and temporary more than the vital
and permanent. The history of three centuries is to
be rewritten; the judgment of the civilized world to be
reversed; the House of Stuart to be recanonized; the
locks of the Cavalier to be recurled, and the Roundhead again set upon the stocks for the rabble to pelt.
The task is formidable; but as wit has a keen edge, and
error and calumny are swift of foot, it may be well to
notice briefly some items of the great debt we owe to the
Puritans and their descendants, and some of the grounds
of attack.
The debt which personal liberty owes to the Puritans
can scarcely be overstated. By liberty I mean no philosophical abstractions, no platitudes of French philosophy, but practical, personal freedom, intrenched in,
and defined and upheld by, sovereign law; the sense and
right of security which makes a man's house his castle,
and his person sacred; a man's right to life, property,
the use of his brain and of his lips, within the pale of
the law, and unless deprived of them by due process
of law; the right without which all the forms and
machinery of free government are mockery, delusion,
and fraud. It is to the Puritans of the time of Charles
I. we owe the great Petition of Right, to whose lofty




198           NEW  ENGLAND AND THE UNION.
yet eminently practical ideas of liberty our times have
not climbed.
Let me ask the Clerk to read the passages I have
marked. Observe, Mr. Speaker, how history repeats
itself.  "I praised the dead who are already dead more
than the living who are yet alive."
"Whereas also, by the statute called the Great Charter of the
liberties of England, it is declared and enacted, that no freeman may
be taken or imprisoned, or be disseized of his freehold or liberties or
his free customs, or be outlawed or exiled, or in any manner destroyed, but by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the
land;
" And, in the eight and twentieth year of the reign of King
Edwird III., it was declared and enacted, by authority of Parliament,
that no man, of what estate or condition that he be, should be put out
of his land or tenement, nor taken nor imprisoned nor disinherited,
nor put to death, without being brought to answer by due process of
law;
" Nevertheless, against the tenor of the said statutes, and other the
good laws and statutes of your realm to that end provided, divers of
your subjects have of late been imprisoned without any cause showed;
and when, for their deliverance, they were brought before justice by
your majesty's writs of habeas corpus, there to undergo and receive as
the court should order, and their keepers commanded to certify the
causes of their detainer, no cause was certified but that they were
detained by your majesty's special command, signified by the lords of
your Privy Council, and yet were returned back to several prisons,
without being charged with any thing to which they might make
answer according to the law;
" And whereas also, by the said Great Charter, and other of the
laws and statutes of this your realm, no man ought to be adjudged to
death but by the laws established in this your realm, either by the
customs of the same realm or by acts of Parliament; and whereas
no offender, of what kind soever, is exempted from the proceedings to
be used, and punishments to be inflicted, by the laws and statutes of
this your realm; nevertheless, of late time, divers commissions, under
your majesty's great seal, have issued forth, by which certain persons
have been assigned and appointed commissioners, with power and




NEW  ENGLAND AND THE UNION.                199
authority to proceed within the land, according to the justice of martial law, against such soldiers or marines, or other dissolute persons
joining with them, as should commit any murder, robbery, felony,
mutiny, or other outrage or misdemeanor whatever, and by such summary course and order as is agreeable to martial law, and as is used
in armies in time of war, to proceed to the trial and condemnation of
such offenders, and them to cause to be executed and put to death
according to the law-martial:
" By pretext whereof, some of your majesty's subjects have been,
by some of the said commissioners, put to death, when and where, if
by the laws and statutes of the land they had deserved death, by the same
laws and statutes also they might, and by no other ought to, have been
judged and executed."
You will not fail to observe, Mr. Speaker, that there
is no complaint that the writs of habeas corpus were not
issued. They were issued, and the subjects brought
before justice, and the keepers commanded to certify the
cause of their detainer. The ground of complaint is,
that no cause was certified, but that the subjects were
detained by his majesty's special command, and were
returned to prison without being charged with any thing
to which they might make answer according to the law.
The " privilege of the writ" was suspended.  This is all
that can be done, under the Constitution, by Congress
or the Executive, or both combined.
Again: observe the lofty moral ground a Puritan
Parliament assumes.   It concedes that the  persons
against whom the "justice of martial law" has been
used might be "dissolute, and such as should commit
murder, robbery, felony, mutiny, and other outrages and
misdemeanors;" but it never occurred to the great authors of this Petition that men charged with crimes " had
no rights." They knew, as we know, that when men




200         NEW ENGLAND AND THE UNION.
were the objects of hatred or suspicion, it was then, and
chiefly then, they needed the shield and protection of
standing laws.
The Puritan Parliament goes on to pray (demand)
that the commission for proceeding " by martial law" may
be revoked, and that thereafter no commissions of a like
nature may issue.  To which, in full Parliament, the
king answered, "Soit droit comme il est desiree."
I regret my time will not permit us to hear every word
of this gospel of personal liberty. If the Puritans had
given us nothing more, our debt of gratitude could never
be paid.  The writ of habeas corpus of Charles II. did
not enlarge these liberties. It was remedial only. As
such, it was highly beneficial; but it conferred no new
right.  "Its office," says Hallam, "was to cut off the
abuses by which the Government's lust of power, and
the servile subtilty of crown lawyers, had impaired so
fundamental a privilege."
If we cross the ocean with the Pilgrims, we shall find
them not only affirming, but strengthening, the muniments of personal liberty. Proof of this may be found
in the " Body of Liberties" enacted by the Colony of
Massachusetts in 1641. (I hope I shall be pardoned
for taking Massachusetts, the mother-colony, as an illustration.)  Let me, Mr. Speaker, have two or three of
these " Liberties " read, to show their general temper and
spirit, and how grossly the colonists have been misunderstood:
" The free fruition of such liberties, immunities, and privileges as
humanity, civility, and Christianity call for as due to every man in his
place and proportion, without impeachment and infringement, hath




NEW  ENGLAND AND THE UNION.                 201
ever been, and ever will be, the tranquillity and stability of churches
and commonwealths; and the denial or deprival thereof, the disturbance, if not the ruin, of both."
In God's name, amen!  Heart and head say, amen!
"No man's life shall be taken away; no man's honor or good
name shall be stained; no man's person shall be arrested, restrained,
banished, dismembered, nor any ways punished; no man shall be
deprived of his wife or children; no man's goods or estate shall
be taken away from him, nor any way endangered, under color of law,
or countenance of authority, unless it be by virtue or equity of some
express law of the country warranting the same, established by a
General Court, and sufficiently published; or, in case of the defect of
a law in any particular case, by the word of God; and in capital
cases, or in cases concerning dismembering or banishment, according
to that word to be judged by the General Court."
Magna Carta planted on the soil of the New World.
"Every man, whether inhabitant or foreigner, free or not free,
shall have liberty to come to any public court, council, or town-meeting; and, either by speech or writing, to move any lawful, seasonable, and material question, or to present any necessary motion,
complaint, petition, bill, or information, whereof that meeting hath
proper cognizance, so it be done in convenient time, due order, and
respective [respectful] manner."
Was ever the sacred right of petition made so practical and effective 
"No man's person shall be restrained or imprisoned by any authority whatsoever before the law hath sentenced him thereto, if he can
put in sufficient security, bail, or mainprise for his appearance, and
good behavior in the mean time, unless it be in crimes capital, and contempts in open court, and in such cases where some express act of
court doth allow it.
"Every man that is to answer for any criminal cause, whether he
be in prison or under bail, his cause shall be heard and determined at
the next court that hath proper cognizance thereof, and may be done
without prejudice of justice.
" No church censure shall degrade or depose any man from any
civil dignity, office, or authority he shall have in the Commonwealth.
26




202          NEW  ENGLAND AND THE UNION.
"We likewise give full power and liberty, to any person that shall
at any time be denied or deprived of any of these liberties, to commence and prosecute their suit, complaint, or action, against every
man that shall so do, in any court that hath proper cognizance or
judicature thereof."
These humble colonists comprehended that there
could be no justice which was not remedial; or where
the way to redress was blocked at every step.
Now, I do not contend, Mr. Speaker, that the founders of New England were always true to their own professions, always realized their own ideal. Far from it:
they had not only the infirmities of the race, but the
superstitions and weaknesses of their time; when the
powers of light were in struggle with those of darkness, and held divided empire. This I claim for them,
that they apprehended the dawning light, and wove its
golden threads into the texture of their political fabric.
Theirs was the toil of the distaff: ours, the robe of
light.
"Be to their faults a little blind;
Be to their virtues very kind."
The founders, and four generations of their descendants, have passed  away.  Massachusetts, having renounced her allegiance to the British Crown, and in the
midst of a terrible struggle to make good the declaration, repairs the framework of her government. The
people will have a broad, comprehensive declaration of
rights precede the first grant of power. Opening with
the averment, that all men are born free and equal;
with the recognition of their duty to worship God, and
of the right to worship him according to the dictates of
conscience; that government is instituted for the people,




NEW  ENGLAND AND THE UNION.                  203
and all its just powers derived from them; this declaration proceeds to define and secure the rights of personal
liberty.  The  Constitution  of Massachusetts makes it
the duty of her public servants frequently to recur to
and faithfully to observe these principles. At the risk
of tasking your patience, I will recur to and read a
few of the more vital.   They are the beacon-lights of
our history. Let us pray the time may not come when
they shall serve only as monuments and memorials of a
better age.
" Every subject of the Commonwealth ought to find a certain remedy, by having recourse to the laws, for all injuries or wrongs which he
nmay receive in his person, property, or character.
" "No person shall be arrested, imprisoned, or despoiled, or deprived
of his property, immunities, or privileges, put out of the protection of
the law, exiled, or deprived of his life, liberty, or estate, but by the
judgment of his peers or the law of the land.
" Every person has a right to be secure from all unreasonable
searches and seizures of his person, his houses, his papers, and all his
possessions. All warrants, therefore, are contrary to this right, if the
cause or foundation of them be not previously supported by oath or
qairmation.
" The liberty of the press is essential to security of freedom in a
State: it ought not, therefore, to be restrained in this Commonwealth.
" The military power shall always be held in exact subordination to
the civil authority, and be governed by it.
" The power of suspending the laws, or the execution of the laws,
ought not to be exercised but by the Legislature, or by authority derived
from it; to be exercised in such particular cases only as the Legislature shall expressly provide for.
"' No person can, in any case, be subject to law-martial, or to any
penalties or pains by virtue of that law, except those engaged in the
army or navy, and except the militia in actual service, but by authority of the Legislature."




204       NEW ENGLAND AND THE UNION.
Mr. Speaker, these principles have been instilled into
me from childhood. I drank them in with my mother's
milk. They come to me crowned with precious ancestral memories. They are bone of my bone, flesh of my
flesh, of the very warp and woof of my being. They
define for me the word "liberty," the bright particular
jewel of which the forms of free government are but the
setting. I can understand the change in the setting: I
cannot understand the crushing of the jewel. These
principles have been my counsellors here: I have walked
in their path; I have been guided by their light. My
sense of what fidelity to them required has compelled
me to dissent from some of the measures of the Administration; nay, more, earnestly to oppose them. I have
regretted the occasion, but have had no question as to
my duty; and, without a shadow of fear or distrust, I
abide, the hour of excitement and passion past, the sober
judgment of the Commonwealth of my love and pride.
God bless her, whether she condemn or uphold!
To return. When, eight years later, the question as
to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States
was presented to the people of Massachusetts, they
objected that no Bill of Rights was made part of the
nation's supreme law. They led the way in the adoption of the amendments which make up our national
Magna Carta. Articles two, three, six, seven, and ten,
are from the Massachusetts Bill of Rights. Articles
one, four,- five, and eight, are found in our Bill of
Rights, but were substantially taken from the Declaration of Rights of Virginia in 1776.
These facts show the traditional, settled policy of




NEW ENGLAND AND THE UNION.         205
Massachusetts.  Her personal-liberty bills had their
origin in this her lifelong devotion to this policy; in the
desire of her people to give to the humblest man on her
soil, to the fugitive from bondage, the presumptions of
the common law, and habeas corpus, and trial by jury.
I do not say, her legislation did not overstep the just
boundary between the powers of the State and National
Governments: I think it did. But, having had occasion
to examine carefully that legislation, I do say, that its
character has been grossly misrepresented. I do aver,
that in no respect in which that legislation passed a
hair's-breadth the line of State powers has it been sustained by the judiciary of the State. I do say, that there
never has been a day or hour, when the arrest of any
fugitive from service has been defeated by any statute
of Massachusetts recognized and enforced by its judicial tribunals. I do aver, that by no law or judicial
decree in that Commonwealth have the rights of any
one master, in any one case, been destroyed or impaired.
I always opposed that legislation, because I felt it was
incapable of doing any legal, substantial good, and was
not, in spirit, loyal to the Union; because it wounded
and grieved the friends of the Union. The traitors who
brooded over and gave life and form to this Rebellion
knew full well that their rights had never been impaired
by these laws; and were driven to the shallow pretence,
that the void act of a State Legislature, not upheld by
its courts or executive, had the effect to nullify acts of
Congress, and prevent their execution. See the ordinance of secession of South Carolina; false premises
leading to false conclusions.




206        NEW ENGLAND AND THE UNION.
A people willing to risk so much to guard the rights
of the fugitive from service cannot fail to view with
deep sensibility the arrests made in the peaceful and
loyal States, where no plea of necessity now obtains,
whose usual channels of justice are unobstructed, in
violation of the muniments of liberty, to illustrate and
secure which has been their glory and pride. They
cannot but regard with distrust, if not with indignation,
the subtile lawyer and the time-serving politician, who
not only defend, but stimulate and encourage them.
They cannot but deprecate the recurrence of acts which
serve only to weaken the love of Union, and to encourage and give comfort to its foes.
Let us turn now, for a moment, to the debt which The
Union owes to New England. As I have before suggested, the germ of the Union is to be found in the confederation of the New-England Colonies in 1643, with
its Union army of two hundred and thirty-five men.
In the articles of this confederation may be found the
great idea and thought, embodied and made effective in
the Constitution, the reconciliation of central power
with local independence; for security against dangers
without, and conflicts within, mutual protection and
reciprocal dependence; for domestic institutions and local interests, independence and entire self-control. The
distribution of powers between the central Government
and the States, and the States and the municipalities, is
the great political thought which we have organized and
illustrated; unity without centralization, unity with diversities of policy and operation. The result of unity
with centralization would be despotism, whatever the




NEW ENGLAND AND THE UNION.          207
outward form: the fruit of unity with diversity has
been the most beautiful illustration the world has seen
of the largest liberty blended with the firmest order.
This humble confederation formed the first American
Union, and contained the first fugitive-slave law.
If we come down to the Revolution, the labors and
sacrifices of the New-England Colonies are matters of
the most familiar history. Their present is trembling
in the balance; their future is with God; their past has
stood before the judgment-seat, and has put on the
white robe. Rich as the country may be with glorious
memories, she cannot part with these. The heavens
may burn with other celestial lights; the mariner will
not spare the north star. The New-England Colonies
inaugurated the Revolution. The first blood was spilt
upon their soil. The four New-England Colonies, with
a population not exceeding nine hundred thousand, furnished to the war (in continental troops and militia)
over one hundred and forty-seven thousand men. With
one-third of the population of the United Colonies, they
furnished two-thirds of all the troops; Massachusetts
raising some twelve thousand more than the six Southern
States.  This is said in no spirit of boasting, Mr.
Speaker; but, when our lot and right in the homestead
are questioned, it is not ungraceful to allude to our
labors in securing it.
To the administration and policy of Washington, New
England was a firm and unwavering friend. For sixty
years, her politics, with slight departures, were of his
school. Need I say, that, if the policy and counsels of
the Father of his Country had been followed by the




208        NEW ENGLAND AND THE UNION.
whole country, this terrible civil war would have been
averted; that, since the resolutions of 1798, we have
increased the centrifugal forces of the Government, instead of the centripetal; have thought too much of the
States, and too little of " that unity of government which
constitutes us one people' "?
There was a brief time, indeed, when New England,
her commerce paralyzed, her industry prostrated, by the
policy of the National Government, seemed to be starting from her sphere; but she soon easily and naturally
resumed her wonted orbit of order, law, and obedience.
From the peace of 1815 to 1850, faithful to the Constitution and the Union, she advocated broad and national
views of the Constitution, and a liberal use of the powers
of the General Government for the development of the
industry and material resources of the country.
New England is often reproached on this floor for
the Tariff policy of the Government. She did not inaugurate the policy. It was not her choice. When the
country embarked in it, and the industry and capital of
New England had been diverted to manufactures, she
felt, and justly, that they had a claim to the continued
care and protection of the Government. At no time
since, the inauguration of this policy has she controlled
the counsels of the Administration; and, for the greater
part of the time, she has had a limited influence in those
counsels. She has, indeed, believed that such an adjustment of duties on imports as would protect our
industry was just and wise and beneficent for all parts
of the country; but, for the inaugurating and establishing the tariff policy, she may not claim the credit, and
is not responsible.




NEW  ENGLAND AND THE UNION.                209
The charge against New England, of a narrow and
illiberal policy towards the West, is also without the least
foundation in fact. In his great speech in reply to Mr.
Hayne, in 1830, Mr. Webster indignantly repelled the
charge, then first conjured up, for narrow party purposes:
"I deny that the East has at any time shown an illiberal policy
towards the West. I pronounce the whole accusation to be without
the least foundation in any facts existing either now or at any previous time. I deny it in the general, and I deny each and all its
particulars. I deny the sum total, and I deny the detail. I deny
that the East has ever manifested hostility to the West, and I deny that
she has adopted any policy that would naturally have led her to such
a course."
With respect to the distribution of the public lands,
the Governor of Massachusetts, and one of her wisest
sons (John Davis), in 1841, in a special message to the
Legislature, declared " that the new States were entitled
to a more liberal share of the public lands than the old
States, as we owe to their enterprise much of the value
the property has acquired." And a resolution was passed
by the Legislature, declaring,
" That, in the disposition of the public lands, this Commonwealth
approves of making liberal provisions for the new States; and that
she ever has been, and still is, ready to co-operate with other portions
of the Union in securing to these States such provisions."
Equally just and liberal has been the course of New
England in relation to the system of internal improvements in the new  States.   Said Mr. Webster, in the
speech before referred to,
"I assert, boldly, that in all measures conducive to the welfare of
the West, since my acquaintance here, no part of the country has
manifested a more liberal policy. I beg to say, sir, that I do not
27




i210         NEW  ENGLAND AND THE UNION.
state this with a view of claiming for her any special regard on that
account. Not at all. She does not place her support of measures
on the ground of favor conferred. Far otherwise. What she has
done has been consonant to her view of the general good, and therefore she has done it. She has sought to make no gain of it: on the
contrary, individuals may have felt, undoubtedly, some natural regret
at finding the relative importance of their own States diminished by
the growth of the West. New England has regarded that as the
natural course of things, and has never complained of it. Let me see
any one measure favorable to the West which has been opposed by
New England, since the Government bestowed its attention on these
western improvements. Select what you will, if it be a measure of
acknowledged utility, I answer for it, it will be found that not only
were New-England votes cast for it, but New-England votes secured
its passage."
That her course since 1830 has been equally just and
liberal, the records of both Houses of Congress attest.
For the great system of internal improvements, the result of private enterprise, by which the Valley of the
Mississippi has been brought so near to us, and its vast
material resources so marvellously and rapidly developed, the West is to a very large extent indebted to the
capital and enterprise of New England. Capital was
doubtless seeking a profitable investment; but the investments would not have been made but for the large
reciprocal trust and confidence between New England
and- the West.
Five hundred million dollars, a liberal share of the
amount from New England, have been expended in
the canals and railroads constructed to give to the great
lakes a new outlet to the sea.  The great consumers of
the products of the free States in this valley are northeast of it. Forty-nine fiftieths of the cereals of the
North-west, seeking a foreign market, find their way; by




NEW ENGLAND AND THE UNION.         211
these new channels of communication, to the tide-waters
at New York. The real mouths of the Mississippi open
to the North-east. Art, labor, and the iron will of man,
are stronger than Nature, and mould and bend her to
their purposes. Ties of birth, kindred, marriage, early
associations, memories of fatherland, common institutions, common culture, thought, faith, reciprocal and
interdependent interests, bind the North and West together. Crafty and selfish politicians cannot sever them.
They can sever from themselves the affection and confidence of the people of both sections.  They can leave
themselves out in the cold.
Such, Mr. Speaker, briefly, hastily stated, were the
principles and traditional policy of New England to
the close of the first half of the present century.
I do not shrink from- the consideration of her position
and relations to the Union for the last twelve years, or
her position to-day. I must speak freely, and with the
love that casteth out fear.  I am not insensible of
the power which radical, not to say disorganizing, revolutionary views have acquired among us; the setting-up
of private speculations and feeling under the guise of
"higher law," and party formulas and dogmas above
the obligations of duty and the mandates of the supreme
law of the land.
There are, I know, men in New England who are
opposed to the existing Union, to " any union with slave
States."  They control, to some extent, the political
machinery of the States. They are the channels through
which the honors and patronage of the National Government are chiefly distributed.  They are men of




212        NEW ENGLAND AND THE UNION.
talent, culture, ubiquity, and intense activity; an activity
and ubiquity that supply the place of numbers. Some
of our pulpits and presses catch and reflect the glow of
their fiery zeal. These, Mr. Speaker, are not Puritans,
nor the children of the Puritans. They have wandered
from the fold and faith of their fathers. Government,
to them, has no root in the divine will or counsels.
They know not, they cannot understand, the liberty of
obedience. They do not recognize the truth, that the
powers that be are ordained of God. Some of them
have substituted a diluted Platonism, or German pantheism, for the gospel of Jesus Christ, and mutual admiration for the worship of Almighty God. But these do
not represent the mind or heart of New England, its
material or moral forces. This condition of things with
us is not more the fruit of the activity of the radical,
than of the supineness and neglect of duty of the conservative men of New England.  They' have been
warned of the coming perils, and have either failed to
foresee and gauge them, or have shrunk from the conflicts necessary to avert them. We cannot now escape
without much tribulation and suffering; nor is it just
that we should. - We hold our institutions at a price we
would not pay; sleepless vigilance.  We were not
faithful to our sacred trusts: we permitted visionary
theorists, sectional partisans, fire-eaters, and radicals,
North and South, to administer a government founded
in concession, conciliation and compromise; and which
we knew, or ought to have known, could never be upheld and maintained in any other spirit than that in
which it was founded. These men had power to raise




NEW ENGLAND AND THE UNION.         213
the storm: they have no pilot to weather it. The ship
is drifting, no firm hand at the helm, between anarchy
and despotism. Oh for the master-spirit to say to the
waves, "Peace, be still!"
Mr. Speaker, the people of New England are, for the
most part, a law-loving, a law-abiding people. They
love liberty; but they know it can be had only in obedience to law, obedience of those who make and those
who execute the laws. They have the largest possible
stake in the present Union of the States. They do not,
cannot fail to see, that, under any reconstruction of the
Government, they have nothing to gain, every thing to
lose. They will hear, reflect, give heed to the voice of
reason and duty. They cannot be moved by scoffs and
sneers; they cannot be driven. They make part of the
Union. The largest sacrifices to win and secure it were
those of their fathers. Its priceless blessings are theirs,
in trust for their children. They will be faithful to that
trust. The attempt from other States to exclude them
from their inheritance would inaugurate a war, compared with which all we have seen of this would be but
as ministrations of mercy. If those holding power in
New England shall use it, or try to use it, to sever us
from the Union, or to consent even to separation, they
will hear in every city, town, and village, on every plain
and hill-top, the cry which was rung out on the 19th of
April, 1775, "To arms!"  The men of New England
have sworn, by the God of their fathers, that neither
secession nor abolition shall rob them of their birthright.
Mr. Speaker, I have trespassed too long upon the




214        NEW ENGLAND AND THE UNION.
indulgence of the House, without having touched the
grounds of attack upon the social and personal character of the Puritans and their descendants. It is scarcely
necessary. "By their fruits ye shall know them. Do
men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?"  I
will, however, glance at one or two points, which, my
observation here has convinced me, have had their effect
upon those who have not been with us, and are not
familiar with our history.
Upon no point is attack more frequent, or error more
prevalent, than upon the socialposition, the culture and
manners, of the Puritans. The association of Puritanism with rudeness, and coarseness of taste and manners,
has really no higher source than the doggerel of Butler,
and the sneers of Hume and other apologists for the
House of Stuart.  In birth, culture, manners and
wealth, the Puritans were among the best gentlemen of
England. Need I recall to your recollection Hampden
and SWaller, the Earl of Essex, Manchester, Fairfax,
Harry Vane, and John Milton, not less the world's
greatest epic poet than the gentleman trained to all
the graceful arts of his time? Need I remind you of the
fact, that the aggregate wealth of the third House of
Commons of Charles I., a Puritan House, was estimated
to be three times that of the House of Lords? Need
I refer you to the beautiful picture of a Puritan household in the Life of the young regicide, Colonel Hutchinson, by his accomplished and devoted wife?  I may
even suggest, that the sober garb of the Puritans has
descended to the gentlemen of England, and the lace
and embroidery to his servant. If you desire further to




NEW ENGLAND AND THE UNION.         215
examine the subject (of little moment, I confess, in a
country so democratic as ours), I invite you to read an
admirable paper on this point in Sanford's ",Studies of
the Great Rebellion;" or the ninth chapter of the first
volume of Palfrey's "History of New England;" a
work worthy of its great theme.
Puritanism, like other movements political or religious, suffered from counterfeits. When its principles
had triumphed, coarse, vulgar, greedy men assumed its
garb, and debased and dishonored it; as men assume
now devotion to the freedom of the slave, whose real
devotion is to contracts for spavined horses and rotten
vessels. Canters, self-seekers, wolves in sheep's clothing, men with long prayers and longer visages, followed
in the path of Puritan victory to clutch its spoils. The
true Puritan was sober, godly, self-denying; feeling he
had a divine work to do, and doing it with his might.
To say that he did not attain to his own ideal of duty,
is to say that he was very like sensible and good men of
later times of larger light and larger pretension.
Another alleged obnoxious trait of character of the
Puritan (and his descendant) is his love of money, and
craft in getting it. I meet the allegation at the threshold; I take issue on the fact; I utterly deny it.  I
have had opportunity to know something of the people
of New England in the different callings and paths of
life, and something of men on both sides of the water.
I have studied men, with some diligence, in history.
The New-Englander (" Yankee," if you please) loves to
get money. He wants success in every thing to which
he puts his hand; and he is very apt to succeed. He




216        NEW ENGLAND AND THE UNION.
has thrift and providence. He lays by for the rainy day
and shady slope of life. He abhors a vacant pocket,
and the dependence which attends it; but, as a race, no
men are more honest in getting money, or more liberal
in the use of it, than the men of New England. Liberal in their own households, and in every work of kindness and Christian charity, no people live better, or give
more freely; or understand better, that, to do either, a
wise economy is necessary. Of course I am speaking of
the general rule, which, like every rule, has its exceptions. Every soil has its crop of hucksters and petty
craftsmen.  Ours are peripatetic, and are very apt
to emigrate South or West. Some find their way to
Government agencies; and a few half way back, - to
Washington.
The New-Englander is said also to be an intermeddler. How far, politically, he has concerned himself
with the rights and interests of other portions of the
country, I have had occasion briefly to suggest. Upon
the matter of slavery, I cannot deny that a portion of
our people have trespassed beyond the just bounds
of State comity. But I cannot forget, that the bearing
of the slaveholders toward the people of the North has
naturally provoked hostility; and that from the sparks
emitted in the collisions of extreme men, on either side,
the fires of civil strife have been kindled. As an individual, the New-Englander has curiosity largely developed. He loves to know what is going on in the world.
He is inquisitive; but these qualities are not peculiar to
him. They were found in the first man and woman,
and will be in the last. " But out of the rind of one




NEW ENGLAND AND THE UNION.           217
apple tasted," said John Milton, "the knowledge of
good and the knowledge of evil leaped forth into the
world, as twins cleaving together."  With all his interest
to know what is going on in his neighborhood, he worships the god of boundaries, and will not remove the
ancient landmarks. No man respects more constantly
the division-line between his own and another's rights.
I conclude, Mr. Speaker, with a single suggestion.
It is, that, under our system  of Government (many
States and one nation), differences of culture, manners,
domestic institutions, of climate and its productions, and
of forms of industry, may be reconciled, if there be the
spirit of conciliation. Nay, more: experience is rapidly
developing the truth, that in that diversity has been our
security.
" All nature's difference makes all nature's peace."
Those differences all removed, the probable result would
be the absorption of the powers of the States in the
central Government, toward which our steps are tending. The States gone, or stripped of their most important functions, the central power, call it republic or by
any other name you please, would be, in substance, a
despotism.
THE END.
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