Senator Wright, of Indiana, made the following remarks on the confiscation bill in the Senate, on the 30th ult.:
Mr. WRIGHT – I am strongly in favor of some bill of this character. Some such bill ought to have passed at the last session of Congress, but we seem to have gone on as though we had no war upon our hands. We must be alive to the exigencies of the hour. This monstrous rebellion must be destroyed, and destroyed speedily; and as a means for such an end I have looked earnestly for the passage of some proposition for the confiscation of the property of those engaged in rebellion against the Government. We have forborne until forbearance has become dishonor.
It is time lawlessness and treason should cease whether under the pretended guise of rebellion, or under the more insidious guise of a free speech, which gloats over every obstacle brought forward to prevent a restoration of the Union. It is time rapine and murder were called by their right names and punishes as they deserve. I can have no possible leniency for those men, educated at the expense of the Government, who turn against it in armed rebellion. We must make it understood that we do not educate men for service in Rebel armies. Yet I would deal leniently with the misguided masses, and I would prefer that the President should have some power to grant a general amnesty. I have no patience, Sir, to listen to long discussions about the power of Congress to pass such an act as this. Congress has the power to declare war and to suppress rebellion, and having those, I take it they have the power to provide for the vigorous prosecution of these objects. The greater power certainly includes the lesser. Neither shall I stop to argue the constitutionality of this measure. – But I may say that in times of great peril to free institutions, when disloyal citizens rise in rebellion to spurn the Constitution and defy the laws, there is a supreme and absorbing duty to which all others are subject – the duty of self-preservation, safety to the Government from disruption, and to the Constitution you talk about from annihilation. Every thing opposed to its existence must be made to yield or be swept away with an iron hand, that the nation may live. All minor considerations must be neglected and all inferior interest must perish. I wish to refer a moment to the character of the war in which we are engaged. Without referring to authorities, I will say in my own language that there are two kinds of war. I will designate one as a perfect war, and the other as a mixed or civil war. A perfect war is where one independent nation declares war against another nation, and its laws are well understood and must be as strictly observed as any other laws. A mixed war or rebellion, on the contrary, is in defiance of society, and meets with no encouragement from the laws of nations. In a perfect war, all the subjects and citizens of one country are considered enemies of the other country with which they are at war; they are so recognized and treated by the laws of nations. There is no exception. All those owning allegiance to one nation are foes of the other.
It is, however, entirely different in the case of a civil war. When we declare war against the rebellion of the South, we do not declare war against the States, but our hostilities are directed only against those who have taken up arms against the government, and the end we seek is the suppression of insurrection and the restoration of order. We do not declare that all the citizens of the seceded States shall be considered alien enemies. Therefore we must be careful how we do anything to destroy the existence of the States. War, strictly speaking, is between two independent Powers, and its code of laws are known as the laws of nations, and no single Power can amend them. Our present condition may be called a mixed war, one of the parties standing to the other in the double relation of enemies and citizens. This rebellion is a mere aggregation of all crime committed by individual citizens, which has grown to the dimensions of a war. All the crimes may be dealt with detail – as murder or arson, as the case may be – and are comprehended under the name of treason. The moment we come to recognize it in its aggregate character, we are in great danger of giving it an undue recognition. The conflict of our armies with these felons ought to be viewed as neither more nor less than an attempt to arrest them for their crimes. The Senator from Vermont (Mr. Collamer) seems to recognize the Rebels as a Power, and not as individual felons, and that they must be treated according the rules of war. If he means simply as the civilized and Christian usages, I agree with him; but if he means that foreign nations might call us to account upon international law, I entirely dissent from that opinion. We might just as well attempt to interfere with Austria or the Neapolitian Government in their treatment of criminals, and surely nothing could be worse. I deny that any Government has a right to call in question our treatment of criminals, or to interfere in this contest any way, unless it be in the matter of the blockade which concerns the commerce of other nations, and I ask the question here, Why should our armies restrict their seizures of rebel property to that found in the camps? If it is on the ground that there is want of proof that the property belongs to rebels, then it is right. If it is on the ground that according the rules of national warfare we cannot take it, then it is decidedly wrong. We seem to labor under the delusion that this is a perfect war, and not an attempt to arrest our own citizens for felony, every one of whom is responsible, and might be prosecuted to the extend of the law. This is in face a measure providing for the release of the great body of criminals, and reserving only a few leaders or punishment. We are contending only for the suppression of rebellion, but also for the respect of the great nations of the earth. I am tired, sir, of hearing the leaders of this rebellion called our brethren. They do no deserve any favors at our hands. They have shocked the civilization of all ages by committing barbarities almost unparalleled in history.
Shall we call those our brethren who have brought sorrow and suffering to almost every hearthstone in this country, who have armed savages against us? Will cooling and soft words change the hearts of those assassins who, in the midnight watches, stealthily creep upon our pickets and murder them in cold blood? Do brethren mutilate the bodies of our soldiers, bury them with faces downward, and do things which we might expect only from savages and cannibals? No, sir, they are not our brethren. They are our mortal foes, and we must treat them as such. The manner in which this people has risen to defend this Government has extorted the praise and admiration of even of those who are opposed to the republican government. – When the citizens of the country have done and are doing so well, shall we neglect the high trust they have confided to us? The people look to this Congress to pass some measure for the confiscation of the property of those in rebellion against the Government. I for one am not willing to disappoint them in their just expectation. They do not ask it from any sordid motive, but from motives which subserve the ends of true justice. I regard this as one of a series of acts essential to the putting down of this rebellion. There also should be another provision – that as our armies advance into the regions where treason is rampant, they must be subsisted upon the enemy, and it is incumbent upon us to make that provision. It is a fact not to be disguised, that many men have grown fat and waxed rich upon the supplies they have furnished to our troops. They would like to have the war protracted until the Treasury was at its last gasp. What care these men for the distresses which befall others so long as their coffers are filled? I would not have our soldiers go starving through the rich Rebel regions of the country. Those who have broken the public peace should be made to subsist those who come to restore it. Such a proceeding would have a magnetic effect in restoring peace at the South. It must not be supposed that I object to laws to prevent pillage and plunder by the soldiers. – Those are all right. But the army must be subsisted upon the traitors according to the proper laws and regulations. If it were left to me to provide a plan, I would have the President make a proclamation, offering an amnesty to all who would lay down their arms within sixty days, and those who still persisted in rebellion after that should be made to suffer all the consequences of such untimed treason. I am tired, sir, of all these quibbles about constitutional provision, and all this talk about the Secretary of State having usurped powers and violated the Constitution in his efforts to preserve the Government. I know no limit in these dark hours of my country to the duty of every man to suppress that rebellion. I would have the President and his officers do everything for the preservation of the Government, but I would hold them all to account for a strict discharge of their duty; but now when treason fills the air around us, I am sure we can trust this Administration to say what is compatible or not with the public interest.
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 10, 1862, p. 2
