Showing posts with label Simon Cameron. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Simon Cameron. Show all posts

Thursday, April 11, 2024

Diary of Adam Gurowski, April 1861

COMMISSIONERS from the rebels; Seward parleying with them through some Judge Campbell. Curious way of treating and dealing with rebellion, with rebels and traitors; why not arrest them?

Corcoran, a rich partisan of secession, invited to a dinner the rebel commissioners and the foreign diplomats. If such a thing were done anywhere else, such a pimp would be arrested. The serious diplomats, Lord Lyons, Mercier, and Stoeckl refused the invitation; some smaller accepted, at least so I hear.

The infamous traitors fire on the Union flag. They treat the garrison of Sumpter as enemies on sufferance, and here their commissioners go about free, and glory in treason. What is this administration about? Have they no blood; are they fishes?

The crime in full blast; consummatum est. Sumpter bombarded; Virginia, under the nose of the administration, secedes, and the leaders did not see or foresee anything: flirted with Virginia.

Now, they, the leaders or the administration, are terribly startled; so is the brave noble North; the people are taken unawares; but no wonder; the people saw the Cabinet, the President, and the military in complacent security. These watchmen did nothing to give an early sign of alarm, so the people, confiding in them, went about its daily occupation. But it will rise as one man and in terrible wrath. Vous le verrez mess les Diplomates.

The President calls on the country for 75,000 men; telegram has spoken, and they rise, they arm, they come. I am not deceived in my faith in the North; the excitement, the wrath, is terrible. Party lines burn, dissolved by the excitement. Now the people is in fusion as bronze; if Lincoln and the leaders have mettle in themselves, then they can cast such arms, moral, material, and legislative, as will destroy at once this rebellion. But will they have the energy? They do not look like Demiourgi.

Massachusetts takes the lead; always so, this first people in the world; first for peace by its civilization and intellectual development, and first to run to the rescue.

The most infamous treachery and murder, by Baltimoreans, of the Massachusetts men. Will the cowardly murderers be exemplarily punished?

The President, under the advice of Scott, seems to take coolly the treasonable murders of Baltimore; instead of action, again parleying with these Baltimorean traitors. The rumor says that Seward is for leniency, and goes hand in hand with Scott. Now, if they will handle such murderers in silk gloves as they do, the fire must spread.

The secessionists in Washington—and they are a legion, of all hues and positions are defiant, arrogant, sure that Washington will be taken. One risks to be murdered here.

I entered the thus called Cassius Clay Company, organized for the defence of Washington until troops came. For several days patrolled, drilled, and lay several nights on the hard floor. Had compensation, that the drill often reproduced that of Falstaff's heroes. But my campaigners would have fought well in case of emergency. Most of them office-seekers. When the alarm was over, the company dissolved, but each got a kind of certificate beautifully written and signed by Lincoln and Cameron. I refused to take such a certificate, we having had no occasion to fight.

The President issued a proclamation for the blockade of the Southern revolted ports. Do they not know better?

How can the Minister of Foreign Affairs advise the President to resort to such a measure? Is the Minister of Foreign Affairs so willing to call in foreign nations by this blockade, thus transforming a purely domestic and municipal question into an international, public one?

The President is to quench the rebellion, a domestic fire, and to do it he takes a weapon, an engine the most difficult to handle, and in using of which he depends on foreign nations. Do they not know better here in the ministry and in the councils? Russia dealt differently with the revolted Circassians and with England in the so celebrated case of the Vixen.

The administration ought to know its rights of sovereignty and to close the ports of entry. Then no chance would be left to England to meddle.

Yesterday N—— dined with Lord Lyons, and during the dinner an anonymous note announced to the Lord that the proclamation of the blockade is to be issued on to-morrow. N——, who has a romantic turn, or rather who seeks for midi a' 14¾ heures, speculated what lady would have thus violated a secret d'Etat.

I rather think it comes from the Ministry, or, as they call it here, from the Department. About two years ago, when the Central Americans were so teased and maltreated by the fillibusters and Democratic administration, a Minister of one of these Central American States told me in New York that in a Chief of the Departments, or something the like, the Central Americans have a valuable friend, who, every time that trouble is brewing against them in the Department, gives them a secret and anonymous notice of it. This friend may have transferred his kindness to England.

How will foreign nations behave? I wish I may be misguided by my political anglophobia, but England, envious, rapacious, and the Palmerstons and others, filled with hatred towards the genuine democracy and the American people, will play some bad tricks. They will seize the occasion to avenge many humiliations. Charles Sumner, Howe, and a great many others, rely on England, on her antislavery feeling. I do not. I know English policy. We shall see.

France, Frenchmen, and Louis Napoleon are by far more reliable. The principles and the interest of France, broadly conceived, make the existence of a powerful Union a statesmanlike European and world necessity. The cold, taciturn Louis Napoleon is full of broad and clear conceptions. I am for relying, almost explicitly, on France and on him.

The administration calls in all the men-of-war scattered in all waters. As the commercial interests of the Union will remain unprotected, the administration ought to put them under the protection of France. It is often done so between friendly powers. Louis Napoleon could not refuse; and accepting, would become pledged to our side.

Germany, great and small, governments and people, will be for the Union. Germans are honest; they love the Union, hate slavery, and understand, to be sure, the question. Russia, safe, very safe, few blackguards excepted; so Italy. Spain may play double. I do not expect that the Spaniards, goaded to the quick by the former fillibustering administrations, will have judgment enough to find out that the Republicans have been and will be anti-fillibusters, and do not crave Cuba.

Wrote a respectful warning to the President concerning the unvoidable results of his proclamation in regard to the blockade; explained to him that this, his international demonstration, will, and forcibly must evoke a counter proclamation from foreign powers in the interest of their own respective subjects and of their commercial relations. Warned, foretelling that the foreign powers will recognize the rebels as belligerents, he, the President, having done it already in some way, thus applying an international mode of coercion. Warned, that the condition of belligerents, once recognized, the rebel piratical crafts will be recognized as privateers by foreign powers, and as such will be admitted to all ports under the secesh flag, which will thus enjoy a partial recognition.

Foreign powers may grumble, or oppose the closing of the ports of entry as a domestic, administrative decision, because they may not wish to commit themselves to submit to a paper blockade. But if the President will declare that he will enforce the closing of the ports with the whole navy, so as to strictly guard and close the maritime league, then the foreign powers will see that the administration does not intend to humbug them, but that he, the President, will only preserve intact the fullest exercise of sovereignty, and, as said the Roman legist, he, the President, "nil sibi postulat quod non aliis tribuit." And so he, the President, will only execute the laws of his country, and not any arbitrary measure, to say with the Roman Emperor, "Leges etiam in ipsa arma imperium habere volumus." Warned the President that in all matters relating to this country Louis Napoleon has abandoned the initiative to England; and to throw a small wedge in this alliance, I finally respectfully suggested to the President what is said above about putting the American interests in the Mediterranean under the protection of Louis Napoleon.

Few days thereafter learned that Mr. Seward does not believe that France will follow England. Before long Seward will find it out.

All the coquetting with Virginia, all the presumed influence of General Scott, ended in Virginia's secession, and in the seizure of Norfolk.

Has ever any administration, cabinet, ministry—call it what name you will—given positive, indubitable signs of want and absence of foresight, as did ours in these Virginia, Norfolk, and Harper's Ferry affairs? Not this or that minister or secretary, but all of them ought to go to the constitutional guillotine. Blindness—no mere short-sightedness-permeates the whole administration, Blair excepted. And Scott, the politico-military adviser of the President! What is the matter with Scott, or were the halo and incense surrounding him based on bosh? Will it be one more illusion to be dispelled?

The administration understood not how to save or defend Norfolk, nor how to destroy it. No name to be found for such concrete incapacity.

The rebels are masters, taking our leaders by the nose. Norfolk gives to them thousands of guns, &c., and nobody cries for shame. They ought to go in sackcloth, those narrow-sighted, blind rulers. How will the people stand this masterly administrative demonstration? In England the people and the Parliament would impeach the whole Cabinet.

Charles Sumner told me that the President and his Minister of Foreign Affairs are to propose to the foreign powers the accession of the Union to the celebrated convention of Paris of 1856. All three considered it a master stroke of policy. They will not catch a fly by it.

Again wrote respectfully to Mr. Lincoln, warning him against a too hasty accession to the Paris convention. Based my warning,

1st. Not to give up the great principles contained in Marcy's amendment.

2d. Not to believe or suppose for a minute that the accession to the Paris convention at this time can act in a retroactive sense; explained that it will not and cannot prevent the rebel pirates from being recognized by foreign powers as legal privateers, or being treated as such.

3d. For all these reasons the Union will not win anything by such a step, but it will give up principles and chain its own hands in case of any war with England. Supplicated the President not to risk a step which logically must turn wrong.

Baltimore still unpunished, and the President parleying with various deputations, all this under the guidance of Scott. I begin to be confused; cannot find out what is the character of Lincoln, and above all of Scott.

Governors from whole or half-rebel States refuse the President's call for troops. The original call of 75,000, too small in itself, will be reduced by that refusal. Why does not the administration call for more on the North, and on the free States? In the temper of this noble people it will be as easy to have 250,000 as 75,000, and then rush on them; submerge Virginia, North Carolina, etc.; it can be now so easily done. The Virginians are neither armed nor organized. Courage and youth seemingly would do good in the councils.

The free States undoubtedly will vindicate self-government. Whatever may be said by foreign and domestic croakers, I do not doubt it for a single minute. The free people will show to the world that the apparently loose governmental ribbons are the strongest when everybody carries them in him, and holds them. The people will show that the intellectual magnetism of convictions permeating the million is by far stronger than the commonly called governmental action from above, and it is at the same time elastic and expansive, even if the official leaders may turn out to be altogether mediocrities. The self-governing free North will show more vitality and activity than any among the governed European countries would be able to show in similar emergencies. This is my creed, and I have faith in the people.

The infamous slavers of the South would even be honored if named Barbary States of North America. Before the inauguration, Seward was telling the diplomats that no disruption will take place; now he tells them that it will blow over in from sixty to ninety days. Does Seward believe it? Or does his imagination or his patriotism carry him away or astray? Or, perhaps, he prefers not to look the danger in the face, and tries to avert the bitter cup. At any rate, he is incomprehensible, and the more so when seen at a distance.

Something, nay, even considerable efforts ought to be made to enlighten the public opinion in Europe, as on the outside, insurrections, nationalities, etc., are favored in Europe. How far the diplomats sent by the administration are prepared for this task?

Adams has shown in the last Congress his scholarly, classical narrow-mindedness. Sanford cannot favorably impress anybody in Europe, neither in cabinets, nor in saloons, nor the public at large. He looks and acts as a commis voyageur, will be considered as such at first sight by everybody, and his features and manners may not impress others as being distinguished and high-toned.

Every historical, that is, human event, has its moral and material character and sides. To ignore, and still worse to blot out, to reject the moral incentives and the moral verdict, is a crime to the public at large, is a crime towards human reason.

Such action blunts sound feelings and comprehension, increases the arrogance of the evil-doers.

The moral criterion is absolute and unconditional, and ought as such unconditionally to be applied to the events here. Things and actions must be called by their true names. What is true, noble, pure, and lofty, is on the side of the North, and permeates the unnamed millions of the free people; it ought to be separated from what is sham, egotism, lie or assumption. Truth must be told, never mind the outcry. History has not to produce pieces for the stage, or to amuse a tea-party.

Regiments pour in; the Massachusetts men, of course, leading the van, as in the times of the tea-party. My admiration for the Yankees is justified on every step, as is my scorn, my contempt, etc., etc., of the Southern chivalrous slaver.

Wrote to Charles Sumner expressing my wonder at the undecided conduct of the administration; at its want of foresight; its eternal parleying with Baltimoreans, Virginians, Missourians, etc., and no step to tread down the head of the young snake. No one among them seems to have the seer's eye. The people alone, who arm, who pour in every day and in large numbers, who transform Washington into a camp, and who crave for fighting, the people alone have the prophetic inspiration, and are the genuine statesmen for the emergency.

How will the Congress act? The Congress will come here emerging from the innermost of the popular volcano; but the Congress will be manacled by formulas; it will move not in the spirit of the Constitution, but in the dry constitutionalism, and the Congress will move with difficulty. Still I have faith, although the Congress never will seize upon parliamentary omnipotence. Up to to-day, the administration, instead of boldly crushing, or, at least, attempting to do it; instead of striking at the traitors, the administration is continually on the lookout where the blows come from, scarcely having courage to ward them off. The deputations pouring from the North urge prompt, decided, crushing action. This thunder-voice of the twenty millions of freemen ought to nerve this senile administration. The Southern leaders do not lose one minute's time; they spread the fire, arm, and attack with all the fury of traitors and criminals.

The Northern merchants roar for the offensive; the administration is undecided.

Some individuals, politicians, already speak out that the slaveocratic privileges are only to be curtailed, and slavery preserved as a domestic institution. Not a bit of it. The current and the development of events will run over the heads of the pusillanimous and contemptible conservatives. Slavery must perish, even if the whole North, Lincoln and Seward at its head, should attempt to save it.

Already they speak of the great results of Fabian policy; Seward, I am told, prides in it. Do those Fabiuses know what they talk about? Fabius's tactics—not policy—had in view not to expose young, disheartened levies against Hannibal's unconquered veterans, but further to give time to Rome to restore her exhausted means, to recover political influences with other Italian independent communities, to reconclude broken alliances with the cities, etc. But is this the condition of the Union? Your Fabian policy will cost lives, time, and money; the people feels it, and roars for action. Events are great, the people is great, but the official leaders may turn out inadequate to both.

What a magnificent chance-scarcely equal in history to become a great historical personality, to tower over future generations. But I do not see any one pointing out the way. Better so; the principle of self-government as the self-acting, self-preserving force will be asserted by the total eclipse of great or even eminent men.

The administration, under the influence of drill men, tries to form twenty regiments of regulars, and calls for 45,000 three years' volunteers. What a curious appreciation of necessity and of numbers must prevail in the brains of the administration. Twenty regiments of regulars will be a drop in water; will not help anything, but will be sufficient to poison the public spirit. Citizens and people, but not regulars, not hirelings, are to fight the battle of principle. Regulars and their spirit, with few exceptions, is worse here than were the Yanitschars.

When the principle will be saved and victorious, it will be by the devotion, the spontaneity of the people, and not by Lincoln, Scott, Seward, or any of the like. It is said that Seward rules both Lincoln and Scott. The people, the masses, do not doubt their ability to crush by one blow the traitors, but the administration does.

What I hear concerning the Blairs confirms my high opinion of both. Blair alone in the Cabinet represents the spirit of the people.

Something seems not right with Scott. Is he too old, or too much of a Virginian, or a hero on a small scale?

If, as they say, the President is guided by Scott's advice, such advice, to judge from facts, is not politic, not heroic, not thorough, not comprehensive, and not at all military, that is, not broad and deep, in the military sense. It will be a pity to be disappointed in this national idol.

Scott is against entering Virginia, against taking Baltimore, against punishing traitors. Strange, strange!

Diplomats altogether out of their senses; they are bewildered by the uprising, by the unanimity, by the warlike, earnest, unflinching attitude of the masses of the freemen, of my dear Yankees. The diplomats have lost the compass. They, duty bound, were diplomatically obsequious to the power held so long by the pro-slavery party. They got accustomed to the arrogant assumption and impertinence of the slavers, and, forgetting their European origin, the diplomats tacitly — but for their common sense and honor I hope reluctantly admitted the assumptions of the Southern banditti to be in America the nearest assimilation to the chivalry and nobility of old Europe. Without taking the cudgel in defence of European nobility, chivalry, and aristocracy, it is sacrilegious to compare those infamous slavers with the old or even with the modern European higher classes. In the midst of this slave-driving, slave-worshipping, and slave-breeding society of Washington, the diplomats swallowed, gulped all the Southern lies about the Constitution, state-rights, the necessity of slavery, and other like infamies. The question is, how far the diplomats in their respective official reports transferred these pro-slavery common-places to their governments. But, after all, the governments of Europe will not be thoroughly influenced by the chat of their diplomats.

Among all diplomats the English (Lord Lyons) is the most sphinx; he is taciturn, reserved, listens more than he speaks; the others are more communicative.

What an idea have those Americans of sending a secret agent to Canada, and what for? England will find it out, and must be offended. I would not have committed such an absurdity, even in my palmy days, when I conspired with Louis Napoleon, sat in the councils with Godefroi Cavaignac, or wrote instructions for Mazzini, then only a beginner with his Giovina Italia, and his miscarried Romarino attempt in Savoy.

Of what earthly use can be such politique provocatrice towards England? Or is it only to give some money to a hungry, noisy, and not over-principled office-seeker?

SOURCE: Adam Gurowski, Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862, p. 22-36

Wednesday, April 5, 2023

Diary of Gideon Welles: December 3, 1865

Told the President I disliked the proceedings of the Congressional caucus on Saturday evening. The resolution for a joint committee of fifteen to whom the whole subject of admission of Representatives from States which had been in rebellion [should be referred] without debate was in conflict with the spirit and letter of the Constitution, which gives to each house the decision of election of its own members, etc. Then in appointing Stevens, an opponent of State rights, to present it there was something bad. The whole was, in fact, revolutionary, a blow at our governmental system, and there had been evident preconcert to bring it about. The President agreed with me, but said they would be knocked in the head at the start. There would be a Representative from Tennessee who had been a loyal Member of the House since the War commenced, or during the War, who could present himself, and so state the case that he could not be controverted. I expressed my gratification if this could be accomplished, knowing he alluded to Maynard, but suggested a doubt whether the intrigue which was manifest by the resolution, the designation of Stevens, and Colfax's speech had not gone too far.

Congress organized about the time this conversation took place. Maynard was put aside, I think by concert between himself and the Radical leaders. The resolution introduced by Stevens passed by a strict party vote. In the Senate, Sumner introduced an avalanche of radical and some of them absurd-resolutions. These appeared to have absorbed the entire attention of that body, which adjourned without the customary committee to wait upon the President and inform him that Congress was organized. This was not unintentional. There was design in it.

Fogg of New Hampshire, our late Minister to Switzerland, came to see me this evening with Chandler, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury.

The recall of Fogg was an unwise, unjust, and I think an unpolitic act on the part of Seward, and I shall not be surprised if he has cause to rue it. Fogg was associated with me on the National Executive Committee in the Presidential campaign of 1860, and was brought in particularly intimate relations with Mr. Lincoln at that time. No one, perhaps, knows better than F. the whole workings in relation to the formation of the Cabinet of 1861. These he detailed very minutely this evening. Much of it I had known before. He has a remarkable memory, and all the details of 1860 and 1861 were impressed upon his mind. He was the first to bring me assurance that I was selected for the Cabinet from New England. I thought at the time his, F.'s, original preferences were in another direction, although the selection of myself was, he then and now assured me, acceptable to him. At that time F., listening to Seward's friends, believed he would not accept an appointment in the Cabinet. Such were the givings-out of his friends and of Seward himself. I told F. at the time, as he still recollects, he was deceiving himself, and that Mr. Lincoln was in a strange delusion if he believed it.

Weed tried to induce Mr. Lincoln to visit Mr. Seward at Auburn. Said General Harrison went to Lexington in 1841 to see Mr. Clay, who advised in the formation of that Cabinet. Mr. Lincoln declined to imitate Harrison. The next effort was to try to have a meeting at Chicago, but this Mr. L. also declined. But he did invite Hamlin to meet him there. On his way Hamlin was intercepted by Weed, who said the offer of the State Department was due to Mr. Seward, but S. would decline it. The courtesy, however, was, he claimed, due to Mr. S. and to New York. H. was persuaded, and Mr. L. intrusted him with a letter tendering the appointment to Seward.

Shortly after the commencement of the session of Congress in December, 1860, Fogg says Hamlin, when coming down from the Capitol one afternoon after the adjournment of the Senate, fell in company with Seward, or was overtaken by him. They walked down the avenue together, Seward knowing H. had been to Chicago. On reaching Hamlin's hotel, he invited S. to go in, and a full conversation took place, S. declaring he was tired of public life and that he intended to resign his seat or decline a reƫlection and retire, that there was no place in the gift of the President which he would be willing to take. Several times he repeated that he would not go into the Cabinet of Mr. Lincoln. Having heard these refusals in various forms, Hamlin then told him he had a letter from Mr. Lincoln, which he produced. Seward, H. says to Fogg, trembled and was nervous as he took it. He read the letter, put it in his pocket, and said, while his whole feelings were repugnant to a longer continuance in public employment, he yet was willing to labor for his country. He would, therefore, consult his friends before giving a final answer. The next, or succeeding, day he left for New York, but before going he mailed a letter to the President elect accepting the appointment. Hamlin repeated all the facts to Fogg last week, so far as he was concerned.

Great efforts were made to secure the Treasury for Cameron. This was a part of the programme of Weed and Seward. I have always understood that Mr. Lincoln became committed to this scheme in a measure, though it was unlike him. Fogg explains it in this way: In the summer and fall a bargain was struck between Weed and Cameron. The latter went to Albany and then to Saratoga, where he spent several days with the intriguers. Cameron subsequently tried to get an invitation that fall to Springfield, but Lincoln would not give it. This annoyed the clique. After the election, Swett, who figured then as a confidential friend and intimate of Lincoln, not without some reason, was sent, or came, East to feel the public pulse. At a later day he went to California and had a finger in the Alameda quicksilver mine. Swett was seized by Weed and Company, open rooms and liquors were furnished by the New York junto, and his intimacy with Lincoln was magnified. Cameron took him to his estate at Lochiel and feasted him. Here the desire of Cameron to go to Springfield was made known to Swett, who took upon himself to extend an invitation in Mr. Lincoln's name. With this he took a large body-guard and went to Springfield. Although surprised, Mr. Lincoln could not disavow what Swett had done. Cameron was treated civilly; his friends talked, etc. After his return, Mr. Lincoln wrote him that in framing his Cabinet he proposed giving him a place, either in the Treasury or the War Department. Cameron immediately wrote, expressing his thanks and accepting the Treasury. Mr. Lincoln at once wrote that there seemed some misapprehension and he therefore withdrew his tender or any conclusive arrangement until he came to Washington. I have heard some of these things from Mr. L[incoln]. Fogg, who now tells them to me, says he knows them all.

Mrs. Lincoln has the credit of excluding Judd of Chicago from the Cabinet. The President was under great personal obligations to Judd, and always felt and acknowledged it. When excluded from the Cabinet, he selected the mission to Berlin.

Caleb Smith was brought in at a late hour and after Judd's exclusion. Weed and Seward had intended to bring in Emerson Etheridge and Graham of North Carolina, and After the President came to Washington, a decided onset was made by the anti-Seward men of New York and others against Chase. An earlier movement had been made, but not sufficient to commit the President. Senator Wade of Ohio did not favor Chase. Governor Dennison was strongly for him, and Wade, who disliked Seward, finally withdrew opposition to C. But about the time I reached Washington on the 1st of March another hitch had taken place. I had remained away until invited, and had been mixed up with none of the intrigues.

The President (Lincoln) told me on Sunday, 3d March, that there was still some trouble, but that he had become satisfied he should arrange the matter. Fogg tells me that Greeley and others who were here attending to the rightful construction of the Cabinet had deputed him to call upon the President and ascertain if Chase was to be excluded. A rumor to that effect had got abroad and Lamon, a close friend of Lincoln (too close), was offering to bet two to one that C. would not have the Treasury. Fogg called on the President, but first Mrs. L. and then Seward interrupted them. On Tuesday, the 5th, at 7 A.M., Fogg and Carl Schurz called on the President to make sure of Chase. Seward followed almost immediately. Lincoln, in a whisper, told F. all was right, and subsequently informed him that he had been annoyed and embarrassed by Seward on the 1st of March, who came to him and said that he, S., had not been consulted as was usual in the formation of the Cabinet, that he understood Chase had been assigned to the Treasury, that there were differences between himself and Chase which rendered it impossible for them to act in harmony, that the Cabinet ought, as General Jackson said, to be a unit. Under these circumstances and with his conviction of duty and what was due to himself, he must insist on the excluding of Mr. Chase if he, Seward, remained. Mr. Lincoln expressed his surprise after all that had takenplace and with the great trouble on his hands, that he should be met with such a demand on this late day. He requested Mr. S. to further consider the subject.

The result was that Mr. Lincoln came to the conclusion if Seward persisted, he would let him go and make Dayton, of New Jersey, Secretary of State. But Seward did not persist.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 387-92

Tuesday, January 17, 2023

Speech of Congressman Martin F. Conway: “The War: A Slave Union or a Free?” December 12, 1861

Speech of Hon. Martin F. Conway, of Kansas, delivered in the House of Representatives, Thursday, December 12, 1861. Revised by the Author.

MR. SPEAKER, It is a source of much regret to the country that the war should not be conducted with more effect than has so far characterized it. While few feel authorized to question the present delay of effective operations, or deny its necessity, all are profoundly dissatisfied with the fact itself. The war has already been protracted beyond the limit which the public mind, at the outset, fixed for its termination, assuming gigantic proportions, and involving expense of life and treasure not apprehended when the struggle began.

The original object of the country was to put down a rebellion, not to inaugurate a regular war. The authority to make war being not with the President, but with Congress, it was in recognition of his right to suppress insurrection merely that the volunteer soldiery of the country responded to his call, when the Government was menaced with destruction. The intention of Congress, in voting such extraordinary supplies of men and money, was the same.

The spirit of the lamented General Lyon, manifested in the vigorous and summary manner with which he subdued the earlier secession movements in Missouri, was that in which the whole nation impatiently sympathized. It wanted the authority of the Government exerted with decision and effect, so that rebellion should be crushed in the shell, and not permitted to hatch into revolution. But the course of the Government has not corresponded with the ardor of the people. The conflict has now been progressing nine months, and has changed its character from an attempt to destroy an insurrection into a deliberate and settled war.

Up to the present time we have not encountered the enemy in a single engagement of importance in which we have won an unquestionable victory. At Bethel, at Manassas, at Springfield, at Leesburg, and at Belmont, we have been defeated. Saving two expeditions to our Southern coast, the Federal arms have been everywhere overborne, notwithstanding our volunteers have displayed a gallantry rarely equaled even by veteran troops.

This fruitless campaign has resulted in defeating the original purpose of the country; and the rebels have secured, under the recognition of nations, a belligerent character, in derogation of their responsibilities to the Federal Union.

The character thus confirmed to the rebellious States gives them a position they could not hold under the Federal Constitution. In point of fact, it confers upon them a recognized status among nations to make war upon that Constitution. Why, then, does it not also exonerate the Federal Government from any obligation to them dependent upon that instrument? How can they have rights under the Constitution the Government is bound to respect, while they are enjoying the rights of belligerents arising from incompatible relations? It is impossible to appreciate the logic requiring us to treat them as sister States, respecting rights as such, while they are warring upon us as a foreign enemy. It certainly would be more just as well as correct to claim them as rebel States, with such a belligerent character as releases us from any obligation to respect their Federal status.

In fact and principle, their character as belligerents fixes their status, and not our common Constitution. Its authority is as to them suspended. No United States officer has exercised his functions in any of those States for nine months. During this period we have been powerless there to give protection in any shape to life and property. Through an organization styled the "Confederate States Government," a military power has exhibited itself, which, embodying the force of that section, exercises civil administration, and disputes our sway. The following from Vattel is precisely to the point:

“When a nation becomes divided into two parties, absolutely independent, and no longer acknowledging a common superior, the state is dissolved, and the war between the two parties stands upon the same ground, in every respect, as a public war between two different nations.”—Book III., chap. 17, p. 428.

This is in reality the principle now governing the case, whatever may appear to the contrary. We have established a blockade of the Southern coast as against a public enemy, under international law. We have been meeting the Confederate authorities for months and holding relations with them through the medium of a flag of truce-a symbol authorized only by public law. We hold in our hands hundreds of their prisoners, including some of their most eminent men, whom we do not try for treason, but are exchanging for our own friends held as prisoners of war by them.

We have arrested their ambassadors, under the British flag on the high sea, for which we have no justification except on the assumption that they were envoys from a public enemy, recognized as such by the law of nations.

The action of our Government in all these matters is necessarily based on the theory that the Confederate States (so called) are beyond the jurisdiction of the Union, holding a middle ground, subject to the issue of the pending conflict. I do not see that there is any possibility of getting away from this conclusion.

The work of the Government, at its present stage, is not, therefore, suppression of insurrection, in any just sense; but the overthrow of a rebellious belligerent power. Its success does not signify the execution of the terms of an existing government in the seceded States—remitting them to their original status in the Union; but implies their subjugation to the sovereignty of the United States, to be held as Territories, or military dependencies, or States, or anything else we please. This is clearly the present attitude of the case.

Now the evil of our system is the institution of slavery. Conflicting with the rights of human nature, it is required to grasp, monopolize, and exercise power despotically, in order to perpetuate its own existence. It has been to us a prolific source of national disaster. It is the sustaining cause, the object, and chief resource of this rebellion; at the same time that it is the point at which the most fatal blow may be inflicted upon it.

The abolition of slavery is no longer a “contraband” proposition. It has been elevated by events into a measure of widespread public importance, demanding the favorable consideration of statesmen. It is no longer the shibboleth of a sect or party, but the overruling necessity of a nation. To retain slavery, under existing circumstances, in our body politic, would, in my judgment, evince the very worst kind of folly or wickedness. To eliminate it forever should be the unwavering determination of the Government.

Nevertheless, the Administration refuses to heed such counsel, and persists in regarding the institution as shielded by such constitutional sanction as it is not at liberty to infract.

The President, in his recent message to Congress, refers only incidentally to the subject, and indicates no policy whatever for dealing with the momentous question.

In the recent orders of the Secretary of War to Generals in the field, and other official documents and acts, the principles upon which the subject is to be regulated are, however, set forth. In an order to Major-General Butler, dated May 30, 1861, the Secretary of War says:

"While, therefore, you will permit no interference by the persons under your command with the relations persons held to service under the laws of any State, you will, on the other hand, so long as any State within which your military operations are conducted, is under the control of such armed combinations, refrain from surrendering to alleged masters any persons who may come within your lines. You will employ such persons in the services to which you they be best adapted, keeping an account of the labor by them performed, of the value of it, and of the expenses of their maintenance."

In another order to General Butler, dated August 8, 1861, the Secretary declares:

“It is the desire of the President that all existing rights in all the States be fully respected and maintained. The war now prosecuted on the part of the Federal Government is a war for the Union, and for the preservation of all constitutional rights of States, and the citizens of the States in the Union.” *  *   *


Under these circumstances, it seems quite clear that the substantial rights of loyal masters will be best protected by receiving such fugitives, as well as fugitives from disloyal masters, into the service of the United States, and employing them under such organizations and in such occupations as circumstances may suggest or require. Of course, a record should be kept, showing the name and description of the fugitives; the name and character, as loyal or disloyal, of the master; and such facts as may be necessary to a correct understanding of the circumstances of each case after tranquillity shall have been restored.”

An order to Brigadier-General Sherman, commanding the land forces of the United States in the recent expedition to Port Royal, dated October 14, 1861, is as follows:

“SIR—In conducting military operations within States declared, by the proclamation of the President, to be in a state of insurrection, you will govern yourself, so far as persons held to service under the laws of such States are concerned, by the principles of the letters addressed by me to Major-General Butler, on the 30th of May and the 8th of August, copies of which are here with furnished to you. As special directions, adapted to special circumstances, can not be given, much must be referred to your own discretion as commanding general of the expedition. You will, however, in general avail yourself of the services of any persons, whether fugitives from labor or not, who may offer them to the National Government; you will employ such persons in such services as they may be fitted for, either as ordinary employees, or, if special circumstances seem to require it, in any other capacity, in such organization, in squads, companies, or otherwise, as you may deem most beneficial to the service. This, however, not to mean a general arming of them for military service. You will assure all loyal masters that Congress will provide just compensation to them for the loss of the services of the persons so employed. It is believed that the course thus indicated will best secure the substantial rights of loyal masters, and the benefits to the United States of the services of all disposed to support the Government, while it avoids all interference with the social systems or local institutions of every State beyond that which insurrection makes unavoidable, and which a restoration of peaceful relations to the Union, under the Constitution, will immediately remove.


Respectfully,

SIMON CAMERON,        

Secretary of War.

Brigadier-General T. W. SHERMAN,

        Commanding Expedition to the Southern Coast.”

In pursuance of these instructions, a proclamation was issued by General Sherman to the people of South Carolina, saying that—

“In obedience to the orders of the President of these United States of America, I have landed on your shores with a small force of national troops. The dictates of a duty which, under these circumstances, I owe to a great sovereign State, and to a proud and hospitable people, among whom I have passed some of the pleasantest days of my life, prompt me to proclaim that we have come among you with no feelings of personal animosity, no desire to harm your citizens, destroy your property, or interfere with any of your lawful rights or your social or local institutions, beyond what the causes herein alluded to may render unavoidable.”

Major-General Dix also issued a proclamation to the people of Accomac and Northampton counties, in the State of Virginia, dated November 13, 1861, beginning as follows:

“The military forces of the United States are about to enter your counties as a part of the Union. They will go among you as friends, and with the earnest hope that they may not, by your own acts, be forced to become your enemies. They will invade no rights of person or property. On the contrary, your laws, your institutions, your usages, will be scrupulously respected. There need be no fear that the quietude of any fireside will be disturbed, unless the disturbance is caused by yourselves.


"Special directions have been given not to interfere with the condition of any person held to domestic service; and, in order that there may be no ground for mistake or pretext for misrepresentation, commanders of regiments and corps have been instructed not to permit any such persons to come within their lines."

Major-General Halleck within a few weeks departed from Washington to supersede General Fremont in the western department; and immediately upon arriving at headquarters issued an order excluding all slaves from the lines of his command, and prohibiting their further admission.

I can not see that the policy of the Administration, as thus exemplified, tends, in the smallest degree, to an anti-slavery result. The principle governing it is, that the constitutional Union, as it existed prior to the rebellion, remains intact; that the local laws, usages, and institutions of the seceded States are to be sedulously respected, unless necessity in military operations should otherwise demand. There is not, however, the most distant intimation of giving actual freedom to the slave in any event.

It is settled that the status of a slave under our system is fixed by law, or usage amounting to law; and until this is changed by competent authority, it adheres, no matter what change of circumstances may occur in other respects, to the slave. Should the rebellion be suppressed to-morrow, the masters of those slaves now coming within our lines, and helping us, would have a claim to their rendition, under the fugitive slave or the local law.

While, therefore, the order of the Treasury Department for paying these persons for services rendered, and the recommendation of the Navy Department that they be permitted to travel off, are good as far as they go, they do not affect the vital question at issue.

The Secretary of War suggests something nearer to the point, in saying that the Government ought to confer freedom on all slaves who shall, in any military exigency, render it service.

But nothing which may be said or done will be sufficient for the emergency while the Government imposes upon itself the responsibilities of the Union with regard to the rebellious States. This principle must be repudiated; or it is obvious that we are tied hand and foot. Under our constitutional system the individual States are authorized to control their domestic institutions (including slavery) in their own way. This is the simple truth, and can not be ignored or gainsayed. It is folly to look for emancipation by the nation in contravention of the system through which the nation lives and acts. The ministers of the Government are bound by the Constitution in the discharge of their duties. Any action of theirs transcending this limitation is revolutionary and criminal, and ground for impeachment and punishment. Men sworn to the performance of duty according to a certain formula, are mere instruments, and rightfully possess no volition of their own.

As to giving freedom to five millions of slaves on the principle of a military necessity to suppress insurrection, it is an idle dream. This principle does not even admit of a general rule on the subject. The requisite military exigency authorizing action may exist in one place and not in another—in Missouri, for instance, on the line of Lane's Kansas brigade, and not in Accomac or Northampton. Its existence must, of course, be determined upon, when and where it arises, by officers in command. To seriously impair the integrity of slavery in this way depends on two very remote contingencies, to wit: first, on an honest sympathy with the abolition cause in those who carry on the war; and second, on such a formidable and long-continued resistance from the rebels as will create the necessity for utter and absolute emancipation in order to overcome them. The chance of these contingencies being fulfilled is the measure of probability for emancipation on the ground of a military necessity under the Constitution; and the country can judge of the extent of this for itself.

For my own part, I think it quite problematical whether there is more than one sincere abolitionist or emancipationist among the military authorities; or that the rebellion will ever hold out to the point of rendering the liberation of the whole body of slaves necessary to subdue it.

Slavery can not be abolished in a State by act of Congress. The thing is impossible. Congress is the legislative branch of the Government, performing its duties under certain constitutional limitations. Slavery in the States is outside of those limitations. It can be abolished only by the States themselves, or by the Executive in time of war, on principles of public law, as ably expounded many years ago by John Quincy Adams. In the suppression of insurrection, however, the Executive has not this power, unless the insurgents have ceased to be parties to our
constitutional Union; in which case they have, in fact, ceased to be insurgents, and become alien belligerents.

The overthrow of slavery by confiscating the property of rebel slaveholders seems to me to be utterly impracticable, consistently with the plain requirements of the Constitution. A bill has recently been introduced into the Senate to declare the property of all persons engaged in the rebellion forfeited, and directing the President to execute its provisions summarily without the interposition of civil process for trial or judgment. This bill is unconstitutional. The fifth amendment to the Constitution provides that—

“No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”

And the sixth amendment is as follows:

“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State or district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.”

A bill has been introduced, also, into this body of similar import, and obnoxious to the same objection, and likewise to a still stronger one. This latter bill proposes to abolish a State, and degrade it to the position of a Territory. Any such act as this would be utterly at war with the theory of our Federal system. It could not be carried into effect without destroying the nation, such as it has heretofore existed. Its success would establish a precedent which would make the Federal Government the source of all power, and convert the States into mere corporations.

Yet, while such views as these are correct, as regards the States of the Union, we could accomplish the object of emancipation without legal difficulty, as toward a foreign nation or belligerent power. The confiscation of property and the regulation of order could be provided for by act of Congress in any territory conquered to the authority of the United States. Powers equal to these ends would vest for the time being in the Executive, as Commander-in chief of the nation, even without any such enactment. When General Scott entered the halls of the Montezumas, conqueror of Mexico, his authority under the President was supreme throughout that country. He represented the sovereignty of the United States, and as its executive agent, no limitation existed upon his authority within the conquered territory but such as was imposed by the laws of nations. The discretion of the President in such case is the measure of his power; but this must be governed by the exigencies; and for the faithful exercise of this extensive trust, he is responsible to the nation, through its established tribunals. He may, at any moment, be impeached by this House.

It is, in my judgment, of transcendent importance to guard the principles of our system of free government. The most important of them is that of a division of powers into the three departments of the legislative, judicial, and executive. This has always been regarded as essential to liberty. It is now necessary that the Executive should wield military power. But the object of this is to preserve our system, not to destroy it. The war is, of course, to be comparatively of very short duration; and at its termination the executive power will again be restored to that of a civil magistrate. In the mean time, let Congress be circumspect in its own action, and prepared to hold the other branches to a just accountability.

The success of the Government in subduing upon its present plan the rebellious States must inevitably result in restoring the domination of the slaveholding class by reinstating the institution, under the forms of our constitutional system, in the powers, privileges, and immunities which have always pertained to it. Hence, such a policy is calculated to bring no lasting peace to the country, and utterly fails to fulfill the object to which a wise statesmanship would strive to direct the tendencies of the present momentous occasion.

It is no answer to me to say, that it would elevate to power in the South men of more agreeable manners, or even more gentle pro-slavery views, than are now on the stage. In truth, the character of the agents whom the slaveholders select to represent them has no important relation to the question. Men are of but little consequence in this case. It is a contest of principles. The rehabilitation of slavery in the Union brings with it the whole train of evils under which the country has suffered from the origin of the Government.

There are, however, many persons who believe that slavery may be placed where it will "be in course of ultimate extinction;" that, indeed, the effect of this war, in any event, will be so to weaken it in all the States in which it exists, that it will be unable to recover from the shock thereby inflicted, but will languish, and ultimately die, without a disturbing struggle.

This is, in my judgment, a mistake. The inexorable and eternal condition of the life of slavery is, that it must not only hold its own, but it must get more. Such is the unchangeable law, developed from the conflict of slavery with the order of justice; and no one is competent to render a judgment in the case who does not recognize it.

The object of government is the protection of the rights of persons and property, which slavery contravenes. Slavery is a systematic violation of these rights. Government is instituted for mutual protection—the protection of each through the union of all—and presupposes no superiority of right in its subjects one over another, but implies perfect equality between them in respect to the end aimed at the one object of justice between man and man. It is an instrument of nature; and whatever transient influences may for a time intervene to warp it from its appointed way, it will forever, like the magnetic needle, revert back to the eternal current which God has set to bind it to its course. Consequently, between it and slavery there is, in principle, an eternal antagonism. The law of the one is to accomplish the identical result which the other is bound by its law to prevent. To dominate government, and keep it from obeying the true principle of its being, is therefore the chief task of slavery. It must subvert government, with respect to itself, to have an existence. Nor is this all Government arises from the elementary spirit of justice operating to the end of maintaining among men the divine order. Slavery is at war with this elementary spirit, and consequently to merely neutralize government leaves it still exposed to the force of natural justice. It must, therefore, subvert this, which it can only do through the forms of authority; hence it must control the machinery and symbols of government. Thus possessing the power of the State, it can confer upon itself a legal sanction which nature denies it. So that the existence of slavery necessarily involves its mastery of the Government in some form or other. But the tenacity of Government to the law of its being gives it a powerful tendency, when thus perverted, to recur to its true functions, which calls for an equally strong opposing influence to counteract this tendency. Hence slaveholders are forever at work fortifying themselves in the Government by augmenting in every possible way their political control.

Security is the great necessity of slavery; security is what it wants and must have. The value of property in slaves, like that of any other, depends on its tenure. But a secure tenure is much more difficult to get for slaves than for ordinary property. The latter may be tolerably safe under any circumstances, except those of the wildest anarchy; because mankind recognize and respect, instinctively, the natural and necessary property which is in the order of nature incident to man. The relation which the universal sense recognizes and respects is man and property, several but connected, the one idea excluding the other as in the same being. Given the idea of man, and that of property pertaining to him follows, under the inflexible laws governing the association of ideas. But holding men as property conflicts with this. It breaks the chain of ideas. Men can not be held as property and yet stand to property as principal to supplement. Nature is violated. Logic is contradicted. Moral anarchy prevails. And hence the currents of human thought, linked with those of feeling, running upon eternal principles, set forever against it. Consequently, slave property is "peculiar." With respect to other kinds of property, no one will disturb it unless some one wants it for himself; unless some one intends to steal it. But as to slave property, the danger is simply that of an interference to set the bondman free. “Negro thief,” a favorite epithet of slaveholders, is with them only another name for an “Abolitionist.” It being only possible to render slavery secure by interposing the embodied force of the community, in its Government, against the natural impulse of each disinterested member thereof to strike it down, the slaveholder must not only govern the Government to keep it from doing justice between himself and bondman, but he must OWN IT, that he may use it as a shield against individual intervention. Yet it is constantly liable to be swept out of his hands and carried back to its natural orbit by the powerful tides of human thought and feeling, which never cease to flow. And so he is never at rest. He must be always rolling his stone. A precarious tenure of his slaves is intolerable to him. The constantly recurring fear of losing the power of governing excites in his mind visions—to him the most hideous—of universal emancipation. The probability of it goes directly home to his pocket by reducing the market value of his slaves.

It is, therefore, by no means enough for him to have present possession of Government. He must have it for all time; and of this he must have guarantees. It results that the more he gets the more he wants. He can, of course, never get absolute guarantees, because he is in conflict with the Absolute. The moral world moves, and Governments move with it, and both move, though irregularly, in the direction of eternal justice; and hence his institution continues more or less in question, in spite of all he can do. Thus slaveholding inevitably begets an intense and ever augmenting lust of power, which nothing can fully appease, but which would, if not overcome, advance, step by step, from one seat of authority to another, until it covered the whole continent with its black pall.

The annals of our country abound with illustrations to enforce this teaching. The slaveholders commenced under our system with much more than a moderate degree of power. They had, in fact, a large preponderance in the Government. They were uppermost in both Houses of Congress, and in the judiciary and executive departments. It is true, they might, in the Senate, be ultimately overcome; and the constantly expanding populations of the free North might soon neutralize them in the House. Nevertheless, they could at all times choose their own President. They had votes in the electoral college equal to their entire vote in Congress; and while their unity was of course perfect, the North was, at all times, more or less divided. Its rival candidates for the Presidency would compete for the vote of the slaveholders, for permission to take the office in trust for them, and use it under their dictation. The patronage and power of the executive office were ample to have enabled them, by keeping the other Departments generally filled with their servitors, to dominate over the country.

This was their original policy. In pursuance of it they elected nearly all our Presidents; appointed our judiciary; carried our Congresses; admitted Missouri, Arkansas, Florida, and Texas; involved us in the war with Mexico; passed the fugitive slave law; annulled the Missouri compromise; carried on the war against Kansas, and kept that State out of the Union for four years—governed the country, in short, entirely in their own way, for three fourths of a century. As a part of this policy, they subsidized a large number of the public men and public press of the North. The democratic party was their tool as long as they wanted to use it; and then they broke it into pieces and threw it away.

Their plan of operations was, indeed, most excellent, and in hands as skillful as theirs need never have failed of its purpose. But they were not content with the vast power it gave them. Their instincts impelled them to look beyond it to still greater aggrandizement and stability. How could they, being slaveholders, be satisfied with any limitation, present or prospective, certain or contingent? Their first policy was accordingly superseded gradually by a more radical and ambitious one, of which the rebellion now convulsing the nation is the effect.

As early as 1832, it became the settled purpose of Mr. Calhoun and his disciples to organize the South into a distinct State. It was not originally, however, their wish to dissolve the Union. Their

preferred idea was to change the Federal system. They wanted to refine on the original plan by rendering the South one and an equal confederate in the system with the North; thus making the organization not only a Federal Government of several States, but having the South united as one, with a power of control over the whole. It was a thing necessary to this end, that the South should have in some form a final negative or veto power; so that nothing could be done by the Government without her assent. To hold the Senate would suffice for this, and such was the foundation of that desire for “equilibrium,” which induced the slaveholders, for a long time, to refuse to admit into the Union any free State without coupling therewith a slave State. This proving insufficient, the Southern mind, under the plastic genius of Mr. Calhoun, abandoned the idea of an equilibrium for the more imposing and attractive dream of independence. This gentleman elaborated and enforced his views with great eloquence and power in the Senate in 1850, when he suggested an amendment to the Constitution. He proposed that the executive department be reorganized, with two Presidents instead of but one; one to have charge of foreign, the other domestic affairs; one to be from the North, the other the South, and each to have a veto upon Congress and the other.

Although this proposition was regarded at the North as extremely visionary and preposterous, and was never again presented in the same form, its introduction marks the period of a new system of political action in the South. Every subsequent movement of the Southern leaders has had reference to the principle here involved. Independence has been since then their central idea—independence in or out of the Union. Their first effort after this was to make slave States out of all the Territories and to admit them; and to continue the acquisition of territory along the southern line for the same purpose, with a view to constitute the Senate the permanent organ of the South. Accordingly the Missouri compromise was annulled; Nebraska divided into two Territories, so as to form ultimately four States; and the Dred Scott opinion announced. These measures were all parts of a conspiracy. The Supreme Court were to adjudge all territory of the Union slave territory; so that the minions of the South might step in, take possession, and send up the Senators duly certificated. It never occurred to them that the North would, in spite of their judicial decree, wrest their possessions from them by a superior emigration. But it so happened that Kansas was the key to the whole issue, and the North fixed its eye upon Kansas, and determined, cost what it might, to secure it. The acquisition of Kansas by an intensely anti-slavery population dashed the fine scheme of the slaveholders, and left them no other resort, if they would have independence, than an attempt to win it by war against the Government. And this attempt we have in the present rebellion.

And here let me pause for a brief moment, to pay a merited tribute of respect and gratitude to my constituency. Brave, devoted, uncompromising, heroic people! proudly do I bear your honored name in these Halls. Sir, theirs is the glory of these eventful days; to them belongs the credit of having first interposed a barrier to check the progress of despotic rule on this continent. Kansas lost, we should now be hopelessly, irretrievably subjugated. No such Republican party as we have seen would have been organized, or, if organized, it would have been speedily extinguished. Abraham Lincoln would not now be President; but rather some such slaveholder as Jefferson Davis. We should not now see a mighty host marshaled beyond the Potomac, with the cheering ensign of the Republic full high advanced, and the power of a legitimate Government and twenty millions of free people behind it; but we should see, instead of this, our Government transformed into a slaveholding despotism, as tyrannical as that of Nero, by means so indirect and insidious as hardly to be seen until the fatal work was finished. The people of Kansas took it upon themselves to act as a breakwater, which has had the effect to stay the advancing tide of slavery, and shield the continent from its sway.

When I recur to my own intercourse with this gallant people during the period of their terrible struggle in their attempts to subdue the wilderness-to make homes for themselves where no home save that of the Indian, the elk, or the buffalo had ever existed before; considering their scanty resources, and the severities of life in a new country to which they were exposed; and remembering their determined purpose in behalf of the cause in stake-how men and women alike surrendered with alacrity every personal interest and comfort and aspiration, and, with a sublime self-sacrifice, consecrated themselves to the great service—the perils they encountered, the extreme suffering they individually endured, and yet the true martyr spirit, the patience, the constancy, the fortitude they displayed throughout; when I recall these things, and my own relations with them in those trying scenes our mutual hopes and fears and efforts the days when we were together in the council and the camp—the nights when, on the broad unsheltered prairie, or around rude and poor but hospitable firesides, we were consulting, deliberating, arranging, resolving, and executing; and when I recall, as I never fail to do, the glorious memory of those who passed through the shadows of death in this august work—some by sickness, others by privation, others again on the field of battle bravely fighting for liberty—I am moved with a feeling for which no expression would be appropriate but the silent eloquence of tears.

Sir, history has no brighter page in all her long annals than this. I say it without hesitancy, although I am the Representative of Kansas on this floor.

It is recorded of the chivalric but ill-fated people of Poland, that they stood up a shelter and breastwork for Europe against the swelling tide of infidel invaders who, in the seventeenth century, threatened to overwhelm the civilization of that continent. A similar record will be made by the pen of impartial history, to testify to the transcendent heroism of my noble friends and constituency. It shall be said of them that, though few in number, limited in means, surrounded by enemies, far away from friends and reinforcements, they yet stood up, like a wall of adamant, against a power which wielded the resources of a nation of thirty millions, balked it of its prey, and saved a continent to freedom and civilization. Such is the inscription which the eternal page will bear in letters of light, regarding the transactions to which I refer; and traditionary song and story shall celebrate to posterity the worth of their deeds which to-day may find no recognition.

In what has been said we may see two methods of teaching one by reasoning, Ć  priori, and the other by inference from history—alike inculcating the one lesson, to wit: the folly of attempting to hold slavery in a subordinate position, or to place it where it will be in course of ultimate extinction. It is tenacious of existence, and its very existence implies rule; and to make this secure is its never-failing motive. Security is what it wants—not security admitting of degrees of some, more, most-positive security, comparative security, or superlative security—but ABSOLUTE SECURITY. Hence, unlimited power will alone suffice it. No truth in history is brought more directly home to us than this. Leniently, patiently, indulgently, expensively, and fully have we tried the experiment; and now we have its lesson thundered in our ears from the cannon's mouth. And therefore Lord John Russell was perfectly correct in saying, as he did say a few weeks ago, at Newcastle, with respect to this country, that—

“Supposing this contest ended by the re-union of its different parts; that the South should agree to enter again with all the rights of the Constitution, should we not again have that fatal subject of slavery brought in along with them—that slavery which, no doubt, caused the disruption, and which we all agree must sooner or later cease from the face of the earth? Well, then, gentlemen, as you will see, if this quarrel could be made up, should we not have those who differed with Mr. Lincoln at the last election carry at the next, and thus the quarrel would re-commence, and perhaps a long civil war follow."

Lord John Russell is substantially right in this respect. Let this plan of the Administration for bringing back the seceded States on the old basis be realized, and we shall be precisely where we were at the commencement of this struggle. Slavery might possibly be satisfied with Mr. Lincoln's policy to-day, but what would not to-morrow inevitably disclose? It might possibly, while suffering from the disaster of secession, regard its situation tolerably satisfactory in the Union on almost any terms. But once recovered from the shock of its defeat, would it not again develop its ambitious and aggressive nature with as much virulence as ever? No one can doubt it. Hence, should this policy prevail, nothing is more demonstrably clear than that the future history of this country will realize the very same troubles of which we so grievously complain in our past, and which culminated in the overwhelming calamity of civil war. After the lapse of a little time, when the strife of the present hour shall have composed itself to rest, the old monster will again come forth from his lair. In every State in the South we shall have this measure and that for the benefit of slavery set up as a test in all the elections for State Legislature, for Governor, for members of Congress, for Presidential electors, for everything; and those candidates will, of course, be chosen who are most ultra in their pro-slavery tendencies. If Mr. Holt, or Mr. Johnson, or Mr. Carlile, or other men like them, do not square up to the highest standard of Southern exaction, they will be soon set aside, and those who do will take their places. The Presidential election will be controlled in the same way. It will be treason to the South to vote for a Northern man, unless he is a "Northern man with Southern principles." Their chosen candidate will be the one who gives the best proofs of his devotion to the South. Here, then, will again be generated that species of politician known as the "doughface." Those at the North who, in times past, ignominiously threw themselves down at the feet of the slaveholders, as "mudsills," to pave the edifice of their power, will again pass into the service of that "oligarchy." Northern servility and Southern arrogance will grow apace; and from one demand to another, from one concession to another, they will advance, until the disorder again reaches its crisis, when another explosion will ensue, the anti-slavery element will rise into power as before by reason of excesses on the other side, the whole slave interest will be again imperiled, in consequence of which it, with, perhaps, its allies, will again fly to arms (its natural resort), and the country will again be involved in the horrors of civil war. This is the inevitable action and reaction of our present system. The movement, while slavery lasts, is one which proceeds upon natural laws, just as inexorable as the laws which govern the movements of the planets. They can not be counteracted by any sort of political legerdemain.

Nor does it improve the case in the slightest degree that all this will be done through men and organizations heretofore dear to the people as representing a better cause. Circumstances change, and men change with them; but principles change not. Men may not see, or seeing may not believe. Again: men may be willing, for the sake of power, to discard the principles to which they once stood pledged. Or they may never, in fact, have been pledged to principles in themselves, but only to certain applications of them.

The resolving force of the war may turn the spirit of slavery into a new body, with new head and feet and hands. The old personnel of the oligarchy may be entirely displaced. Hunter and Mason, and Slidell and Toombs, and Stephens and Beauregard, and Keitt and Pryor, and the whole array of the present, may pass into eternal oblivion, and new names be substituted in their stead; names, it may be, in many instances, which have been, and are even now, associated with our own in political action. But this will not improve the case. Slavery will be slavery still. Organizations can not change it, though it may change them. Nor can men's names, nor party names, change it. It may enroll itself under the "Flag of our Union," and turn its face from Richmond to Washington. It may gather around the purlieus of the White House, instead of the Confederate mansion. It may bow down to Abraham Lincoln as the god of its idolatry, rejecting its present idol on the banks of the James River. But it will, nevertheless, be sure to come into our Senate and House of Representatives; it will be sure to come into our electoral college; it will be sure to come into our national conventions; and it will be sure to be felt wherever it is. It will vote for slavery. It will vote for slavery first, and for slavery last, and always for slavery. If Abraham Lincoln would be re-elected President, he must secure the vote of slavery; for if he does not, somebody else will, by its aid, be elected over him. And it follows, as the night the day, if Abraham Lincoln secures the vote of slavery, that slavery must, in turn, secure the vote of Abraham Lincoln.

Indeed, the tendency of the Government, upon the principles which now control its action with respect to the war, is irresistibly toward such a transmutation of political elements as will restore the slave power to its wonted supremacy in the Union, with the Administration for its representative and agent, however reluctant the latter might be to perform so ignominious a part.

There are two classes of slaveholders, who, though divided on the particular question of secession, are yet one and indivisible on the paramount question affecting the power and prestige of slavery; namely, Unionists and Secessionists. One is, as to the Union, with us, the other against; both, however, having a common purpose with respect to slavery, to wit: its security, and to this end its domination.

It is the determination of the secessionists to dissolve all political relations with anti-slavery people of every class, and to establish a government into which no insidious foe shall be permitted to enter, but through which slavery shall reign forever, undisputed and indisputable sovereign lord. On the other hand, those slaveholders who cling to the Union propose to accomplish pretty much the same thing by a different process; namely, by bringing all the slaveholders back to their loyalty, and employing the power which will thereby accrue to them jointly to regain control of the Federal Government.

It is but a difference of choice among the slaveholders as to the kind of mansion they will inhabit; whether they will continue to dwell in the old establishment which their fathers built and consecrated to slavery; or abandoning that to the heathen, erect for themselves a new edifice, pictured in their arid dreams as one which no rude tempest shall assail, nor the winds of heaven visit too roughly; with foundations of tried steel, pillars of alabaster, halls of precious marble, and pavements of gold.

The slaveholders of the Union party, more practical and less imaginative than their secession brethren, prefer to tarry in the old place, proposing to themselves to convert the latter from the error of their way by convincing them that secession is a mistake; that Southern independence is a delusion fraught with manifold and terrible woes; that the safety, the stability, the dignity, the power, the grandeur, and the glory of slavery are all fixed in the Union, and not to be enjoyed out of it; established in the house which their fathers built; which is theirs by imprescriptible right; a glorious inheritance; "the fairest fabric of government ever erected by man."

They appeal to the masses of the South to abandon their present leaders and fly to them, crying out that to follow the Confederate flag along the "perilous edge," and through storm and battle, will lead them to swift destruction; but that to rally to their standard will take them back to the old homestead, where, in the affecting pictures they draw, the pastures are ever green, and the streams ever bright; the skies always blue, and flowers blooming perennial; and here, they tell them, they may forever repose under their own vine and fig-tree, with no one to make them afraid.

Their desire is that we should not be precipitate in moving forward the grand army of the Union; but should hold it up as a gigantic instrument of chastisement in terrorem over their erring brethren, allowing ample time before using it for penitence and absolution. Hence we are to infer that the harmless evolutions of dress parade are more to their views than frequent encounters on the field of battle.

Yet they require that our army should be advanced. It must occupy each rebellious State. Our standard must be unfurled, as a rallying point. A center of operations must be secured, from which missionary enterprise shall branch out. To convert the sinning sons of the South back to truth and righteousness, there must be a Jerusalem at each convenient locality, up to which they may come to indicate repentance and be again enrolled in the flock of the immaculate of the house of Israel. And nothing will suffice for such a Jerusalem but a military encampment, with such latter-day saints as McClellan and Banks, and Dix and Halleck, and the like, armed to the teeth and ready for the fray, with sword in one hand and the Constitution in the other, prepared to administer death or the oath of allegiance according to the stubbornness or docility of the subject.

Of course it is a part of the system of operations of these Union gentlemen to do a little in the revolutionary way themselves, whenever such slight irregularity may become necessary to checkmate the leaders of secession. For instance, as in all the rebellious States, the forms of government are in possession of the insurgents, it is part of their plan to arrange State governments of their own. Such machinery is necessary in carrying out the great scheme of salvation in which they are engaged—fealty to which, on the part of the penitent rebel, shall be the test of a return to the faith of the fathers. This has, indeed, already been tried, and found to work to a charm. The Unionists in Western Virginia met at Wheeling, and voted from among their number Mr. So-and-so for the Legislature, Mr. So-and-so for Governor, Mr. So-and-so for judge, and they having called this the government of the State, it was immediately recognized as such. Whereupon United States senators and members of this House were at once sent up, and promptly admitted; and these gentlemen of Western Virginia will, in 1864, by virtue of this little artful operation, carry about with them in their pockets some fifteen votes of our electoral college to decide who shall be our next President. As this programme is to be carried out in every seceded State, for every State which the  new South, "or the new oligarchy," thus clutch, they will secure two United States senators, besides an indefinite number of members of this House, and votes for President equal to their full Congressional representation. They will have, of course, proportionate delegations in all our nominating conventions.

Wherever such organization is set up, it is expected that the slaveholders will, in large numbers, desert the Confederate banner, and follow that of the Union. An inducement which will attract many, is the opportunity which will be thus presented of entering into the new order of things high in official station. Offices will be obtainable with little difficulty; and ambitious young men, and ambitious men not so young, will rush, it is supposed, to the side of the Union, to enjoy official patronage and prestige; bringing with them all their friends, relatives, debtors, creditors, and other persons interested in their success in life. It is also regarded as highly important that the most liberal promises in favor of slavery shall be given. Jefferson Davis may, in this respect bid high; but if so, Mr. Lincoln must bid against him. A strict observance of all the guarantees of the Constitution must, of course, be stipulated. An amnesty, which shall cover all sins of omission or commission, must be granted to whomsoever shall return to his allegiance, and all such measures be resorted to as shall serve to allay the suspicions, assuage the bitterness, and abate the hostility of the erring children of the South to our common Government, and persuade them again to enjoy its blessings.

By such skillful treatment as is here hinted at, by the military arm in one direction and the dexterous fingers of political artifice in another; by alternate blows and persuasion, blisters and sugarplums, it is expected that the belligerent will be tamed down; the willful recalled to tractability; the skeptical inspired with faith; and in fine, the whole body of slaveholders firmly planted once more on the side of the Union, the Constitution, and the laws.

The policy of the Administration harmonizes in almost every particular with the object of this class of slaveholders. It offers ample protection to their constitutional rights, and full pardon to secessionists returning to their allegiance. It holds the grand army in abeyance; and recognizing their empty frameworks of State governments, inducts them as bona fide into the sacred temple of our sovereignty.

In short, the two bodies seem to be at one table in full communion. Their actions tend unmistakably to the same result, whether they know it or not, and their success will develop a reunion of the slaveholding interest on the platform of the Administration, for the protection of slavery, and against all who oppose it.

In this way the party of slavery will become again the party of the Administration; Mr. Lincoln will become the President of the South, through the agency of the Union, and Jefferson Davis will retire to the shades. The Federal Capitol will once more become the seat of the slave power, the Federal Government its instrument, and the country its subject realm. The old game of a united South against a divided North will be repeated. The party of the Administration will play the role of the old Democratic party again. The former strife will be renewed; and in the end, however distant, slavery will again be driven to extremities.

I may, however, be permitted at this point to put in a protest against extemporizing State organizations for seceded States, and clothing them with powers to correspond. So far as legal correctness is concerned, this action is as unwarranted as secession itself. It is quite as revolutionary. Indeed, it is, in this respect, upon precisely the same footing with secession. Secession repudiates the Federal authority within a State through State forms and State forces, while this repudiates the State authority through Federal forms and forces. They are both revolutionary. Nor can the plea of necessity be interposed to extenuate it. No necessity exists for anything but for a military occupation in a rebellious State until the rebellion is subdued. And this is precisely what should take place, and nothing else. These skeleton State organizations are nothing but the machinery of political artificers for monopolizing power; and it is a shameful and most pernicious abuse of the Executive trust to recognize them as valid.

A government for the State of Virginia made its appearance last May, and claimed to be entitled to consideration, because, as it was said, the people west of the mountains had instituted it. It received the recognition of the President, which was construed to bind the other branches of the Government. Since then, however, the people, who were represented as having adopted this, have organized another State government, with a view of being detached from the old State. But under the Federal Constitution this can not be done without the consent of the old State. Nevertheless, the people of Western Virginia having created a government for the whole State, of which the needed recognition was afforded, and having now created their new State of Kanawha, have only to give to the latter, through the former, the necessary assent, to secure the requisite compliance with the terms of the Constitution, and be doubly admitted into the Union—thus becoming invested with the constitutional powers of the old State of Virginia, besides those which will belong to the new State of Kanawha, including, of course, two United States senators for each. I conceive this to be a gross outrage upon the constitutional rights of all the other States. This process of making States at short-hand may give rise to one of the most gigantic schemes of political jugglery the world ever The war may not be finally closed or the rebels subdued for many years, and yet the vast power pertaining under our Constitution to the seceded States may, in the mean time, be exercised by a very limited number of persons. It is only necessary for the Government to secure a footing at some point within the geographical limits of one of these States to enable a few individuals to acquire the power to which such State is entitled by the Constitution and usages of the land, in Congress, in the election of President, and in all our nominating conventions. To this end, it is only necessary for a stock of ready-made State governments (so to speak) to go along with the army, and for one to be set up wherever a corps may encamp with a seceded State.

I will not say that this is the sort of game which the Unionist slaveholders intend to play, to hasten their control of the Government in advance of the actual conquest of the rebels. And yet is it not mainly as to the superiority of political over military tactics for maintaining power that they differ with their secession brethren? At any rate, this scheme would admit of a most stupendous fraud upon the country; and a public man, who is even decently honest, slaveholder or non-slaveholder, will regard it in this respect with great disfavor.

I will not impeach the motives of the Administration. It is doubtless guided by a sincere desire to do, in all things, what will prove to be for the best interests of the country. But it is, nevertheless, acting upon a most deplorable policy in this respect.

Principles control events; and its principles, in this regard, can not fail to develop another woeful cycle of national contention and disaster, probably more violent, bitter, and fatal than anything in our past history. The very opposite course is the one it ought to pursue. To liberate the Government utterly and forever from slavery should be its first and paramount object. To accomplish this it is only necessary for it to discard an attenuated abstraction, and avail itself of opportunities which God has brought to our very doors. The simple act of changing in practice the relations of the Government, and pursuing the war according to the law and facts of the case, would, in a short time, make the United States as completely free from slavery as Canada, and place the institution at our feet, and under our feet. To recognize the Confederate States for their benefit is no part of our duty; but to shape our policy to accord with events, and enable us to fulfill a high purpose, is what we are imperatively called upon to do. The fiction upon which we are now proceeding binds us to slavery; and hence the national arms, instead of being directed against it, are held where they may at any moment be required to be turned to its defense.

The wish of the masses of our people is to conquer the seceded States to the authority of the Union, and hold them as subject provinces. Whether this will ever be accomplished no one can, of course, confidently foretell; but, in my judgment, until this purpose is avowed, and the war assumes its true character, it is a mere juggle, to be turned this way or that for slavery or against it-as the varying accidents of the hour may determine.

It is well that the bugbear of disunion has passed away, and can no longer be used to frighten timid souls from their propriety. Every one now sees that there can not be any permanent separation of the States of the South from those of the North; that they are wedded by ties of nature, destined to triumph over all disintegrating and explosive forces.

Should the belligerent sections settle down upon existing bases into separate political communities, the States in the southern section, along the northern line, would speedily become free, and eager to reunite with the North. Such slaves as could escape across the line would do so, and the rest would be conveyed by their owners to the distant South; and as these States became free, they would become antagonistic to their confederates, and reconciled to the old Union; and no obstacle could prevent their return. Thus the southern line of the United States would be brought down to the next tier of slave States, upon which the same effect would be wrought; and thus the process continued until the national ensign would again float unchallenged on the breezes of the Gulf. This would effect a restoration of the Union on an anti-slavery basis.

So that, even if the present war should cease, a new one would immediately begin. Moral forces would take the place of physical ones; and the anti-slavery editor and lecturer would appear instead of the dragoon and musketeer. The center of abolitionism would, in time, be transferred from Boston to Richmond; and we should see a Virginia "liberator," in the person of some new Garrison, come forth to break the remaining "covenant with death" and "league with hell."

The question may be fairly regarded, however, as in one sense a question of union. Estrangement and war will always exist while slavery survives. The extinction of this evil is the only final end of disunion. The question, therefore, is, whether our Union shall be a real or a pretended one—whether freedom shall be its law and peace its fruit, or slavery its law and war its baleful offspring. A system based on slavery is essentially one of disunion. The war must, therefore, strike for freedom, or its professions about Union are delusive, and its end will be naught but evil.

Should it fail to do so, then let us cast it out as a wickedness and an abomination, and trust the cause of Union to other preservatives—to God's providence rather than to man's imbecility and treachery. War is obnoxious on general principles; and is only sanctified as a means to a noble end. It is a treacherous instrument at best; and in this case there is no little danger that it will turn into a thunderbolt to smite us to the earth, burying beneath the ruins of our constitutional liberty the hopes of mankind.

Eight hundred thousand strong men, in the prime of life, sober and industrious, are abstracted from the laboring population of the country to consume and be a tax upon those who remain to work. The report of the Secretary of the Treasury tells a fearful tale. Nearly two million dollars per day will hardly more than suffice to cover existing expenditures; and in one year and a half our national debt, if the war continues, will amount to the sum of $900,000,000.

This is the immense sacrifice we are making for freedom and Union; and yet, is it all to be squandered on a subterfuge and a cheat? For one, I shall not vote another dollar or man for the war until it assumes a different standing, and tends directly to an anti-slavery result. Millions for freedom, but not one cent for slavery!

Sir, we can not afford to despise the opinion of the civilized world in this matter. Our present policy narrows our cause down to an ignoble struggle for mere physical supremacy, and for this the world can have no genuine respect. Our claim of authority, based on a trivial technicality about the proper distinction between a Federal Government and a mere confederacy, amounts to nothing. The human mind has outgrown that superstitious reverence for Government of any kind which makes rebellion a crime per se; and right of secession or no right of secession- what the world demands to know in the case is, upon which side does the morality of the question lie? Considered as a bloody and brutal encounter between slaveholders for dominion, it is justly offensive to the enlightened and Christian sentiment of the age. Yet the fate of nations, no less than of individuals, is molded by the actions, and these by the opinions of mankind. So that public opinion is the real sovereign after all, and no policy can be permanently successful which defies or disregards it. The human mind, wherever found, however limited in development, or rude in culture, is essentially logical; the heart, however hardened by selfishness or sin, has a chord to be touched in sympathy with suffering; and the conscience has its "still small voice," which never dies, to whisper to both heart and understanding of eternal justice. Therefore, in an age of free thought and free expression, the brain and heart and conscience of mankind are the lords who rule the rulers of the world, and no mean attribute of statesman- ship is quickness to discern and promptness to interpret and improve the admonitions of this august trinity.

Sad, indeed, will it be if those who, in this auspicious hour, are invested with the responsibility of command, shall continue to lack wisdom to comprehend or virtue to perform their duty. This is the great opportunity which God has vouchsafed to us for our deliverance from that great curse which darkens our past. Let us not prove ourselves unequal to the destiny which it tenders. Oh! let us not attempt to rebuild our empire on foundations of sand; let us rear it on a basis of eternal granite. Let the order of justice, the harmony of God's benignant laws pervade it. And no internal commotions or outward assaults will afterward beset it, against which it may not rise triumphant and enduring.

"Thou vampire Slavery, own that thou art dead.
*        *         *         *         *         Yield to us
The wealth thy spectral fingers can not hold;
Bless us, and so depart to lie in state,
Embalmed thy lifeless body, and thy shade
So clamorous now for bloody holocausts,
Hallowed to peace by pious festivals."

Thus may the great Republic, so long perverted and paralyzed by slavery, stand forth, in the words of the Irish orator, "redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled by the genius of universal emancipation."

SOURCE: The Congressional Globe, Volume 53, Part 1, p. 82-7