Some days ago I called the attention of the Senate to abuses
in Missouri with reference to fugitive slaves. Since then I have received a
great many communications from that State showing very great interest in the
question, some of them in the nature of protest against the system which has
been adopted there. One of these purports to come from a slave owner, himself
educated in a slave State, and he speaks with great bitterness of the indignity
that has been put upon the Army there, and of the injury that it has done to
the cause of the Union. Another letter from another person contains a passage
which I shall read:
“I wish to say in addition that I have
lived twenty-four years in Missouri, that I know the people well, have served
them in various offices, and let me assure you it is nonsense to try to save
Missouri to the Union and the institution of slavery also. We must give up one
or the other. Slavery ought to fall and Missouri be saved. Frémont's army
struck terror into the secessionists. He made them feel it by taking their
goods and chattels. Let our armies proclaim freedom to the slaves of the
secessionists, and the rebellion will soon close. We can take care of the free
negroes at a future day. Give General Lane ten thousand men, and he would
establish peace in Missouri in thirty days.”
But, sir, my especial object now is not to call attention to
this abuse in Missouri, but to call attention to this abuse here near at home.
Brigadier General Stone, the well-known commander at Ball's Bluff, is now
adding to his achievements there by engaging ably and actively in the work of
surrendering fugitive slaves. He does this, sir, most successfully. He is
victorious when the simple question is whether a fugitive slave shall be
surrendered to a rebel.
Sir, besides my general interest in this question, besides my
interest in the honor of the national Army, I have a special interest at this
moment because Brigadier General Stone has seen fit to impose this vile and
unconstitutional duty upon Massachusetts troops. The Governor of my State has
charged me with a communication to the Secretary of War on this subject,
complaining of this outrage, treating it as an indignity to the men, and as an
act unworthy of our national flag. I agree with the Governor of Massachusetts;
and when I call attention to this abuse now, I make myself his representative,
as also the representative of my own opinions.
But there are others besides the Governor of Massachusetts
who complain. There are two German companies in one of the Massachusetts
regiments who, when they enlisted, entered into the public service with the
positive understanding that they should not be put to any such discreditable
and unconstitutional service. Sir, they complain, and with them their own
immediate fellow-citizens at home, the German population generally throughout
the country.
Nor is this all. The complaint extends to other quarters. I
have here a letter from a citizen of Philadelphia, from which I shall read a short
extract. The writer says:
“I have but one son, and he fought at
Ball's Bluff, in the California regiment, where his bravery brought him into
notice. He escaped, wounded, after dark. He protests against being made to
return fugitive slaves, and if ordered to that duty will refuse obedience and take
the consequences. I ask, sir, shall our sons, who are offering their lives for
the preservation of our institutions, be degraded to slave-catchers for any
persons, loyal or disloyal? If such is the policy of the Government, I shall
urge my son to shed no more blood for its preservation.”
With these communications which I have received, some of an
official character and others of a private character, I have felt that I should
not do my duty if I did not call the attention of the Senate to this outrage.
It must be arrested. I am glad to know that my friend and colleague, the
chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, promises us at once a bill to
meet this grievance. It ought to be introduced promptly, and to be passed at
once. Our troops ought to be saved from this shame.
SOURCE: John C. Rives, The
Congressional Globe: Containing the Debates and Proceedings of the Second
Session of the Thirty-Seventh Congress, p. 130
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