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SELECT. SPEECHES 
 
 Hon. GEO. W. JULIAN, 
 
 oip UNnDi-A-Hsr^^., 
 
 Delirerrd hi fJte House of Iteprescniatirrn of flic VnitctJ Sfafrs, 
 since the Beginninr/ of the late Rebel/ iov. 
 
 CINCINNATI: 
 
 OAZKTTE STEAM ROOK AXI) JOB PKINTTNO ESTAP.T.TSnM K>fT. 
 1807. 
 
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K/EJ^X) JL1<T1D I=I?.E!SEK.VE! 
 
 SELECT SPEECHES 
 
 OP 
 
 j7 Sr 
 
 HON. GEO. W. JULIAN, 
 
 o:f ii^iDi^isr^, 
 
 jyellvered in the House of Representatives of the United States, since 
 the Beginning of the late Mebellion, 
 
 CINCINNATI: 
 
 GAZETTB STEAM BOOK AND JOB PRINTING ESTABLISHMENT. 
 1867. 
 

INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 The friends of Mr. Julian in the District he has so long and so faithfully represented, 
 earnestly desiring his continuance in Congress, have deemed it proper to republish the 
 following Congressional Speeches, delivered since the beginning of the late rebellion, and 
 circulate them in the Counties now united with Wayne, Union, and Fayette, as the new 
 Fourth District. The reason for this is their desire that his sagacity, statesmanship, and 
 faithfulness to his trust, shall be judged in the light of present events, and by his own 
 principles, publicly avowed long before they were accepted by the Government. His ablest 
 and most elaborate Speech, delivered January 14th, 1862, on the "Cause and Cure of our 
 National Troubles," is omitted from this series, having been considerably circulated already 
 in the counties referred to. His next Speech, delivered in May following, on " Confiscation 
 and Liberation," is similar in style and character, and is the first of the series. That 
 delivered in February, 1863, on the "Mistakes of the Past, the duty of the Present," is a 
 merciless review of "Democratic policy," as seen in the facts and figures which had been 
 supplied by the investigations of the Commttee on the Conduct of the War. The next is a 
 very thorough one, delivered in the winter of 1863-4, on his bill to provide "Homesteads for 
 Soldiers on the Lands of Ecbels," which was followed by another on the same subject, 
 involving a controversy with Mr. Mallory, of Kentucky^ who met with a most humilia- 
 ting defeat. The next of the series was delivered the following winter, on " Radicalism and 
 Conservatism," closing with a handsome and eloquent tribute to the Anti-Slavery pioneers. 
 The remaining Speeches, all delivered during the Thirty-ninth Congress, on " Suffrage in 
 the District of Columbia," on " Amending the Constitution," on "Radicalism, the Nation's 
 Hope," on "The Punishment of Rebel Leaders," and on " Regeneration before Reconstruc- 
 tion," add still further to his reputation as a thinker, and a perfectly independent man, who 
 knows how to say what he thinks. All his Speeches breath the same spirit of freedom, and 
 have the merit of careful thought, methodical arrangement, and a remarkable clear and 
 forcible diction. 
 
 The leading facts of Mr. Julian's career as a public man, are so well known, that no 
 particular recital of them is needed by his old friends and constituents. He was an active 
 leader in the Great Free Soil Revolt of 1848, which made California a free State; saved 
 Oregon from Slavery ; gave cheap postage to the people, and launched the policy of free 
 homes on the public domain, which finally prevailed so many years later. He was a 
 member of the memorable Thirty-first Congress, and bravely resisted the Great Compro- 
 mise, by which the Wilmot Proviso was sacrificed, and the principle of popular sovereignty 
 inaugurated, which ended in the raid into Kansas and kindred aggressions of Slavery. In 
 1852, his services and reputation received honorable national recognition in his nomination 
 by the Pittsburg Convention for the Vice Presidency of the United States, on the ticket 
 with the Hon. John P. Hale. In the years 1854 and 1855, he encountered the relentless 
 hostility of his opponents and his former political friends, by his earnest warfare against 
 Know-Nothingism, which he waged till this strange movement ceased to trouble our 
 politics. In 1856 he was one of the Vice Presidents of the first National Republican 
 Convention ever held, and Chairman of the Committee on Organization, through whose 
 plan of action, the party, as a national one, first took life. He has been the unflinching 
 advocate of freedom under all circumstances, and regardless of consequences personal to 
 himself; and this honor, we believe, is now accorded to him, by men of all parties. He was 
 a member of the Committee on Public Lands, in the Thirty-seventh Congress, and aided 
 in perfecting the Homestead law of 1862, embodying a policy which he publicly espoused 
 twenty years ago. During the Thirty-eighth and Thirty-ninth Congress he was Chairman 
 
of that Committee, and as such reported an important amendment to the Homestead law, 
 and his well known bill dedicating to homestead entry and settlement all the public lands 
 of the lately rebellious States, both of which measures passed. He also reported from the 
 same Committee, a bill which passed the House, providing "homesteads for soldiers on the 
 lands of rebels;" a very popular measure, which would have solved many vexed questions 
 which have troubled the country since. Early in the Thirty-seventh Congress he was 
 appointed by Speaker Grow, a member of the joint Committee of both Houses, on the 
 Conduct of the the War, to which very honorable and responsible position, he was 
 re-appointed by Speaker Colfax at the beginning of the Thiry-eighth Congress, serving 
 faithfully on said Committee, nearly four years. He has dealt very thoroughly with the 
 subject of mineral lands, insisting upon the policy of vesting the fee of these lands in the 
 miners; which policy has finally prevailed. His report at the long session of the last 
 Congress, against granting bounties to soldiers in lands, showing the reasons for opposing such 
 grants, first opened the way for the legislation which followed, and was the prime cause of 
 it, granting bounties in money. It should be added, that his well-timed bill on the subject 
 of Agricultural College scrip, which passed at the March session of the Fortieth Congress, 
 arrested and prevented the wholesale issue of such scrip by the President, to the Statss 
 lately in rebellion. 
 
 In addition to the important measures introduced and advocated by him, already named, 
 we might mention the bill repealing the fugitive slave law of 1850, and of 1793 ; that abolish- 
 ing the coast-wise slave trade; the bill equalizing the bounties of soldiers on the basis of 
 eight and one-third dollars per month, in lieu of bounties in land; the bill establishing the 
 right of sufl:rage in the District of Columbia, without regard to color or race; the bill 
 establishing the same principle in all the Territories of the United States, being the first 
 introduced in either House of Congress on the subject ; and the bill now pending, declaring 
 the railroad and swamp lands of the South, and the public lands of Texas, forfeited to the 
 United States, and subject to homestead entry and settlement by the landless poor. It is 
 scarcely necessary to add, that all the great measures growing out of, or connected with the 
 rebellion, have found in him an earnest supporter ; and that he has not only zealously 
 sustained the Government in all its grand measures of radicalism, such as the confiscation 
 of rebel property, the arming of negroes as soldiers, and the destruction of slavery, but he 
 has taken a decidedly advanced position on these questions. Applying his radicalism at 
 the end of the war, he has been among the most pronounced and emphatic of those who 
 have demanded the punishment of rebel leaders, and the complete enfranchisement of the 
 freedmeu ; whilst the late action of Congress on the subject of reconstruction, fully vindicates 
 the position assumed by him and other radicals early in the war, as to the power of Congress 
 over the revolted districts. 
 
 This brief record, principally copied from "W. H. Goddard's " Sketches of the Indiana 
 Delegation,'' published in pamphlet last year, is submitted with the Speeches which follow; 
 and the Republicans of the Fourth District will decide, in the light of their own interest, 
 and the still imperiled condition of our country, whether they will continue in Congress a 
 capable, faithful, and thoroughly tried public servant, or choose in his stead another, of less 
 experience, less identified with great national issues, and whose fidelity to the people under 
 every form of trial has been less unmistakably established. 
 
 S. S. BOYD, DANIEL HUFF, 
 
 IRA MAXWELL, WOODSON W. THRASHER, 
 
 JOSEPH M. BULLA, SYLVESTER JOHNSON, 
 
 BENJAMIN F. MILLER, JOHN CALLAWAY, 
 
 DAVID COMMONS, H. B. RUPE, 
 
 RICHARD J. HUBBARD, HOWELL GRAVE, 
 
 SAMUEL LITTLE, JOHN HENLEY. 
 
oonsriFiso^Tioisr j^js^jd XjiBEi$.j^Tionsr. 
 
 Hon. aEOEG-E ^Y. JTJLIAISr, 
 
 In the house OF KEPKESENTATIVES, Friday, May 23, 1862. 
 
 The House having under consideration the 
 bill to confiscate the property and free from 
 servitude the slaves of rebels — 
 
 Mr. Julian said : 
 
 Mr. Speaker : Before closing the debate 
 on the measures of confiscation and liberation 
 now before us, I desire to submit some general 
 observations which I hope may not be regard- 
 ed as irrelevant to these topics, or wholly 
 unworthy of consideration. I do not propose 
 to discuss these particular measures. I deem 
 it wholly unnecessary. I believe every thing 
 has been said, on the one side and on the 
 other, which can be said, and far more than 
 was demanded by an honest search after the 
 truth. Certainly I shall not argue, at any 
 length, the power of Congress to confiscate 
 the property of rebels. I take it for granted. 
 I have not allowed myself, for a single mo- 
 ment, toregard the question as open to debate, 
 nor do I believe it would ever have been se- 
 riously controverted, had it not been for the 
 infectious influence of slavery in giving us 
 false views of the Constitution of the United 
 States. It was ordained " to form a more per- 
 fect union, establish justice, insure domestic 
 tranquillity, provide for the common defence, 
 promote the general welfare, and secure the 
 blessings of liberty to ourselves and our pos- 
 terity." I take it for granted, that our fath- 
 ers meant to confer, and did confer upon us, 
 by the terms of the Constitution, the power 
 to execute these grand purposes, and made 
 adequate provision for the exercise of that 
 power. I feel entirely safe in indulging this 
 reasonable intendment in their favor; and I 
 hand over to other gentlemen on this floor, 
 and in the other end of this Capitol, the un- 
 gracious task of dealing with the Constitution 
 as a cunningly devised scheme for permitting 
 insurrections, conniving at civil war, and 
 rendering treason to the Government safer 
 than loyalty. 
 
 Sir, I have little sympathy for any such 
 friends of the Union, and I honor the Consti- 
 tution too much, and regard the memory of 
 its founders too sacredly, to permit myself 
 thus to trifle with the work of their hands. 
 The Constitution is not a shield for the pro- 
 tection of rebels against the Government, but 
 a sword for smiting them to the earth, and 
 preserving the nation' 3 life. Every man who 
 
 has been blessed with a moderate share of 
 common sense, and who really loves his coun- 
 try, will accept this as an obvious truth. 
 Congress has power — 
 
 "To declare war; to grant letters of marque and 
 reprisal ; to make rules concerning captures on land 
 and water; to raise and support aimies; to pi'ovide 
 and maintain a navy ; to make rules for the jiovern- 
 ment and regulation of the land and naval forces ; to 
 provide for calling forlh the militia to execute the 
 laws of the Union ; suppress insurrections and repel 
 invasions ; and to make all laivs which shall he necessary 
 and proper for carrying into effect the foregoing powers. 
 
 Here we find ample and express authority 
 for any and every measure which Congress 
 may see fit to employ, consistently with the 
 law of nations and the usages of war, which 
 fully recognise the power of confiscation. 
 And yet for long, weary months we have 
 been arguing, doubting, hesitating, depreca- 
 ting. 
 
 As to what is called slave property, wft 
 have been most fastidiously careful not to 
 harm it. "We have seen a lion in our path at 
 every step. "We have seemed to play the part 
 of graceless stipendiaries of slaveholding reb- 
 els, seeking, by technical subterfuges and the 
 ingenious arts of pensioned attorneys in des- 
 perate cases, to shield their precious interests 
 from all possible mischief. So long have we 
 been tugging in the harness of our southern 
 taskmasters, that even this horrid conspiracy 
 of rebel slave-masters cannot wholly divorce 
 us from the idea that slij^ry and the Consti- 
 tution are one and insefffrable. Sir, while I 
 honor the present Congress for its great labors 
 and the many good deeds it has performed, I 
 must yet count it a shame and a reproach 
 that we did not promptly enact an efficient 
 confiscation bill in December last, which 
 would have gone hand in hand with our con- 
 quering legions in the work of trampling 
 down the power of this rebellion, and restor- 
 ing our bleeding and distracted country to 
 the blessings of peace. Many thousands of 
 dear lives and many millions of money would 
 thus have been spared ; for which a poor 
 atonement, indeed, can be found in the learned 
 constitutional arguments against confiscation, 
 which have consumed so much of the time of 
 the present session of Congress. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, this never ending gabble 
 about the sacredness of the Constitution is 
 becoming intolerable; and it comes from ex- 
 
ccedincjly svispioious sources. We find that 
 just in proportion as a man loves slavery, and 
 desires to exalt it above all "principalities 
 and powers," he becomes most devoutly in 
 love with the Constitution as he understands 
 it. No class of men among us have so much 
 to say about the Constitution as those who are 
 known to sympathize with Jefferson Davis 
 and the pirate crew at his heels. It will not 
 be forgotten that the red-handed murderers 
 and thieves who set this rebellion on foot, 
 went out of the Union yelping for the Con- 
 stitution, which they had conspired to over- 
 throw, through the blackest perjury and 
 treason that ever confronted the Almighty. 
 I remember no men who were so zealously 
 on the side of the Constitution, or so studi- 
 ously careful to save it from detriment as 
 Bre'';kinridge and Burnett, while they re- 
 mained nominally on the side of the Union. 
 Every graceless miscreant who has wallowed 
 in the filthy mire of slavery till he has out- 
 lived his own conscience ; every man who 
 would be openly on the side of the rebels if he 
 had the courage to take his stand ; every op- 
 ponent of a vigorous prosecution of the war 
 by the use of all the powers of war, will be 
 found fulminating his dastardly diatribes on 
 the duty of standing by the Constitution. I 
 notice, also — and I do not mean to be offen- 
 sive — that the Democratic leaders who have 
 recently issued a semi-rebel address from this 
 city, are most painfully exercised lest the 
 Constitution should suffer in the hands of the 
 present Administration. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I prefer to muster in different 
 company. I prefer to show my fealty to the 
 Constitution by treating it as the charter of 
 liberty, as the foe of rebellion, and as amply 
 armed with the power to save its own life by 
 crushing its foes. Sir, who are these men in 
 whose behalf the Constitution is so persist- 
 ently invoked ? They are rebels, who have 
 defied its power, and who, by taking their 
 stand outside of the Constitution, have driven 
 us to meet them on their own chosen ground. 
 By abdicating the Constitution, and conspir- 
 ing against the Government, they have as- 
 sumed the character of public enemies, and 
 have thus no rights but the rights of war, 
 while in dealing with them we are bound by 
 no laws but the laws of war. Those provis- 
 ions of the Constitution which define the 
 rights of persons in time of peace, and which 
 must be observed in dealing with criminals, 
 have no application whatever to a state of 
 war, in which criminals acquire the character 
 of enemies. The powers of war are not un- 
 constitutional, because they are recognized 
 and provided for by the Constitution ; but 
 their function and exercise are to be regula- 
 ted by the law of nations governing a state of 
 war, and not by the terms of the Constitution 
 applicable to a state of peace. Hence I must 
 regard much of this clamor about the viola- 
 tion of the Constitution on our part as the 
 sickly higgling of pro-slavery fanatics, or the 
 poorly disguised rebel sympathy of snivelling 
 hypocrites. We must fight traitors where 
 
 thoy have chosen to meet us. They have 
 treated the Constitution as no longer in force, 
 and we should give them all the consequen- 
 ces, in full, of their position. By sotting the 
 Constitution at naught, they have rested their 
 case on tlie naked power of lawless might ; 
 and, therefore, we will not give them due 
 process of law, by trying, convicting, and 
 hanging them according to the Constitution 
 they have abjured, but we will give them, 
 abundantly, due process of luar, for which 
 the Constitution makes wise and ample pro- 
 vision. 
 
 I have referred, Mr. Speaker, to the influ- 
 ence of slavery in giving us false views of the 
 Constitution. It has also given us false ideas 
 as to the character and purposes of the war. 
 We are fighting, it is said, for the Union as it 
 was. Sir, I should be glad to know what we 
 are to understand by this. If it means that 
 these severed and belligerent States must 
 againbe united as one and inseparable, with 
 secession forever laid low, the national supre- 
 macy vindicated, and the old flag waving over 
 every State and every rood of the Eepublic, 
 then I agree to the proposition. Every true 
 Union man will say amen to it. But if, by 
 the Union as it was, wc are to understand the 
 Unioii as we beheld it under the thieving 
 Democracy of the last Administration, with 
 such men as Davis, Eloyd, Mason, and their 
 God-forsaken confederates, restored to their 
 places in Congress, in the army, and in the 
 Cabinet; if it means that the reign of terror 
 which prevailed in the Southern States for 
 years prior to this rebellion shall be re-estab- 
 lished, by which unoflending citizens of the 
 free States can only enter "the sacred soil" 
 of slaverj'^ at the peril of life ; if, by the Union 
 as it was, be meant the Union with another 
 James Buchanan as its king, and Chief Jus- 
 tice Taney as its anointed high-priest, steadily 
 gravitating, by the weight of its own rotten- 
 ness, into the frightful vortex of civil war; 
 then I am not for the Union as it was, but as 
 I believe it will be, when this rebellion shall 
 have worked out its providential lesson. I 
 confess that I look rather to the future than 
 the past; but if I must cast my eye back- 
 ward, I shall select the early administrations 
 of the Government, when the chains of the 
 slave were crumbling from his limbs, and be- 
 fore the Constitution of 1789 had been muti- 
 lated by the servile Democracy of a later 
 generation. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, this clamor for the Union as 
 it was, comes from men who believe in the 
 divinity of slavery. It comes from those who 
 would restore slavery in this District if they 
 dared ; who would put back the chains upon 
 every slave made free \)j our Army ; wlio 
 would completely re-establish the slave power 
 over the national Government as in the evil 
 days of the past, which have culminated at 
 last in the present bloody strife, and who are 
 now exhorting us to "leave off agitating the 
 negro question, and attend to the work of 
 putting down the rebellion." Sir, the people 
 of the loyal States understand this question. 
 
They know that slavery lies at thehottom of 
 all our troubles. They know that hut for this 
 curse, this horrid revolt against liberty and 
 law would not have occurred. They know 
 that all the unutterable agonies of our many 
 battle-fields, all the terrible sorrows which 
 rend so many thousands of loving hearts, all 
 the ravages and desolation of this stupendous 
 conflict are to be charged to slavery. They 
 know that its barbarism has moulded the 
 leaders of this rebellion into the most atro- 
 cious scoundrels of the nineteenth century, or 
 of any century or age of the world. They 
 know that it gives arsenic to our soldiers, 
 mocks at the agonies of wounded enemies, 
 fires on defenceless women and children, 
 plants torpedoes and infernal machines in its 
 path, boils the dead bodies of our soldiers in 
 cauldrons, so that it may make drinking cups 
 of their skulls, spurs of their jaw bones and 
 finger joints, as holiday presents for "the 
 first families of Virginia," and the "descend- 
 ants of the daughters of Pocahontas." They 
 know that it has originated whole broods of 
 crimes never enacted in all the ages of the 
 past, and that, were it possible, Satan himself 
 would now be ashamed of his achievements, 
 and seek a change of occupation. They know 
 that it hatches into life, under its infernal 
 incubation, the very scum of all the villanies 
 and abominations that ever defied God or 
 cursed his footstool. And they know that it 
 is just as impossible for them to pass through 
 the fiery trials of this war without feeling 
 that slavery is their grand antagonist, as it is 
 for a man to hold his breath and live. 
 
 Sir, the loyal people of these States will not 
 only think about slavery and talk about it, 
 during the progress of this war, but they will 
 seek earnestly to use the present opportunity 
 to get rid of it forever. Nothing can possi- 
 bly sanctify the trials and sufterings through 
 which we are called to pass but the perma- 
 nent establishment of liberty and peace. If 
 this is not a war of ideas, it is not a war to be 
 defended. As a mere struggle for political 
 power between opposing States, of a mere 
 question of physical strength or courage, it 
 becomes impious in the light of its horrid bap- 
 tism of fire and blood. It would rank with 
 the senseless and purposeless wars between 
 the despotisms of the Old World, bring with 
 it nothing of good for freedom or the race. 
 What I said on this floor in January last, I 
 repeat here now, that the mere suppression of 
 this rebellion will be an empty mockery of 
 our sufi^erings and sacrifices, if slavery shall 
 be spared to canker the heart of the nation 
 anew, and repeat its diabolical deeds. Sir, 
 the people of the United States and the ar- 
 mies of the United States, are not the unrea- 
 soning machines of arbitrary power, but the 
 intelligent champions of free institutions, vol- 
 untarily espousing the side of the Union upon 
 principle. They know, as does the civilized 
 world, that the rebels are fighting to diffuse 
 and eternise slavery, and that that purpose 
 must be met by a manly and conscientious 
 resistance. They feel that 
 
 " Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just." 
 
 and that nothing can " ennoble fight" but a 
 "noble cause.'' Mr. Speaker, I can conceive 
 of nothing more monstrously absurd, or more 
 flagrantly recreant, than the idea of conduct- 
 ing this war against a slaveholders' rebellion 
 as if slavery had no existence. The madness 
 of such a policy strikes me as next to infinite. 
 Here are more than a million of men called 
 into deadly strife by the struggle of this black 
 power to diflase itself over the continent, and 
 strike down the cause of free government 
 everywhere, deluging these otherwise happy 
 States with suftering and death without par- 
 allel in the history of the world; and yet so 
 far has this power perverted the judgment 
 and debauched the conscience of the country, 
 that we are seriously exhorted to make still 
 greater sacrifices, in order to placate its spirit 
 and spare its life. I thank God that such a 
 policy is simply impossible. The hearts of 
 the people of the free States, and of the sold- 
 iers we have sent into the field, beat for liberty; 
 and without their love of liberty, and the be- 
 lief that it is now in deadly pei-il, the rebel- 
 lion would have triumphed, just as the struggle 
 of our fathers, in 1776, would have ended in 
 failure, if it had been possible to make them 
 ignore the great question of human rights 
 which nerved their arms and fired their 
 hearts. 
 
 My colleague, [Mr.VooRHEES,]in his .speech 
 the other day, was quite eloquent in his con- 
 demnation of the financial management of 
 this war, and quite painstaking in his eflTort 
 to show the magnitude of the debt it is crea- 
 ting. He would do well to remember that 
 when Mr. Chase took charge of the Treasury, 
 the Government could only borrow money by 
 paying one per cent, per month, while Uni- 
 ted States six per cent, bonds are now at two 
 per cent, premium over American gold. As 
 to the immense burden which this war is heap- 
 ing upon us, it has been chiefly caused by the 
 mistaken policy of tenderness towards the 
 rebels, and immunity for their pet institution ; 
 and this policy has been steadily and strenu- 
 ously urged by my colleague and his Demo- 
 cratic associates. It has been far less the 
 fault of the Administration than some of our 
 commanding generals, and of conservative 
 gentlemen in both Houses of Congress, who 
 have sought by every means in their power 
 to accommodate the war policy of the Gov- 
 ernment to the equivocal loyalty of the border 
 States. Many precious lives, and many mil- 
 lions of money were sacrificed by the military 
 policy which neither allowed the army of the 
 Potomac to march against the enemy, nor go 
 into winter quarters during the dreary months 
 which pi'eceded the order of the Piesident, 
 directing a combined movement on the 22d 
 of February last. The policy of delay which 
 has also sought to spare slavery, was never 
 accepted by the President of his own choice, 
 but under the influence of those both in and 
 out of the army in whom he reposed confi- 
 dence at the time. 
 
 I rejoice now to find events all drifting in 
 a ditferent direction. I believe rebels and 
 outlaws are to be dealt with according to their 
 
8 
 
 character. I trust slavery is not much longer 
 to be spared. Congress has already sanc- 
 tioned the policy of gradual abolition, as 
 recommended by the President, who himself 
 recognizes slavery as the grand obstacle to 
 peace. We have abolished slavery in this 
 District, and thus branded it with national 
 reprobation. We have prohibited it in all 
 national territory, now owned or hereafter to 
 be acquired. We have enacted a new article 
 of war, prohibiting our army from aiding in 
 the recapture of fugitives, and I trust we 
 shall promptly repeal the fugitive slave law 
 of 1850, or at least suspend its operation dur- 
 ing the rebellion. We have given freedom 
 to multitudes of slaves through our confisca- 
 tion act of last July,and by receiving them into 
 ouv camps and retaining them in our service. 
 We have enacted the homestead bill, which 
 Rt once recognizes the inalienable rights of 
 the people and the dignity of labor, and thus 
 brands the slave power as no act of the nation 
 ever did before. Since that power has ceased 
 to dominate in Congress, we are perfecting, 
 and shall soon pass a bill for the construction 
 of a Pacific railroad, and another for the 
 abolition of Polj'^gamy in Utah. Our watch- 
 words are now — Freedom, Progress. 
 
 Those patriotic gentlemen who have been 
 anxious to hang "abolitionists," as equally 
 guilty with the rebels are changing their 
 tune. We are reconsidering the folly of deal- 
 ing with rebels as "misguided brethren," 
 who must not be exasperated, and while we 
 shall not imitate their barbarities, we are 
 learning to apply to their case the gospel of 
 'an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." 
 We are waging w'ar in earnest ; we are begin- 
 ning to love freedom almost as dearly as the 
 rebels love slavery; we are animated by a 
 measure of that resentment which the rebel- 
 lion demanded in the very beginning, and has 
 constantly invoked during the progress of 
 the war ; and when these troubles are passed 
 tlie people will honor most those who have 
 sought to crush the rebellion by the quickest 
 and most desperate blows, and who, in the lan- 
 guage of Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts, 
 have been willing to recognize all men, even 
 black men, as legally capable of that loyalty 
 the blacks are waiting to manifest, and let 
 them fight with God and nature on their side." 
 The proclamation of General Fremont, giv- 
 ing freedom to the slaves of rebels in Missouri 
 has done more to make his name a household 
 
 cowards may recoil from it, and seek to post- 
 pone it ; but to resist it, unless Congress shall 
 assume it, will be to wrestle with destiny. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I shall support the two meas- 
 ures of confiscation and liberation now before 
 us, for the same reason which led me to sup- 
 port the confiscation bill of last July. They 
 look in the right direction, and I am glad 
 to see any advance step taken by Congress. 
 But I shall retain, at any rate, my faith in 
 the President, and in that logic of events 
 which shows, amid all the seeming triumphs 
 of slavery, that the anti-slavery idea has been 
 steadily and surely marching towards its tri- 
 umph. The victories of slavery, in fact, have 
 been its defeats. It triumphed in the Missouri 
 compromise of 1820; but that triimi]>h, by 
 begetting new exactions, kindled and dif- 
 fused an imslumbering anti-slavery senti- 
 ment wiiich kept pace with every usurpation 
 of its foe. It triumphed in the annexation of 
 Texas ; but this, by paving the way for the 
 Mexican war, more fully displayed its spirit 
 of rapacity, and led to an organized political 
 action against it which finally secured the 
 control of the government. It triumphed in. 
 1850, in the passage of the fugitive slave act, 
 the Texas boundary bill, the overthrow of the 
 Wilmot proviso, and the inauguration of the 
 policy of popular sovereignty in our Territo- 
 ries, which afterwards brought forth such 
 bloody fruits in Kansas. But these measures, 
 instead of glutting the demands of slavery, 
 only whetted its appetite, and brought upon 
 it the roused and intensified hostility of the 
 people. It triumphed in the repeal of the 
 Missouri restriction ; but this was, perhaps, 
 the most signal defeat in the whole history 
 of its career of aggression and lawlessness, 
 completely unmasking its real character and 
 designs, and appealing to both conservatives 
 and radicals to combine against it. It tri- 
 umphed again in the Dred Scott decision, 
 and the election of James Buchanan as Presi- 
 dent; but this only enabled slave-breeding 
 Democracy to grow to its full stature, and 
 bud and blossom into that perfect luxuriance 
 of diabolism through which the Republican 
 party mounted to power. Slavery triumphed, 
 finally, when it clutched the national Treas- 
 ury, sent our Navy into distant seas, plun- 
 dered our arsenals, fired on our flag, and 
 sought to make sure its dominion by whole- 
 sale perjiiry, treason, rapine, and murder; 
 but all this was onlv a c;raiul challenge to the 
 
 word tlian could all the military glory of the ! nation to meet it in mortal combat, giving us 
 
 war; and I rejoice that, while the President 
 saw fit to revoke the recent sweeping order 
 of General Hunter, he took pains to couple 
 that revocation with words of earnest warn- 
 ing, which have neither meaning nor appli- 
 cation if they do not recognise the authority 
 of the Executive, in his military discretion, 
 to give freedom to the slaves. That this au- 
 thority will be executed, at no very distant 
 moment, I believe most firmly. The lan- 
 guage of the President obviously implies it, 
 and foreshadows it among the thick-coming 
 events of the future. Conservatives and 
 
 the right to choose any weapons recognised 
 by the hiws of civilized warfare. Baffled and 
 overborne in all its previous encounters, sla- 
 very has now forced upon the nation the 
 question of liberty or death; and I cannot 
 doubt that the triumphs of freedom thus far 
 will be crowned by final victorj' in this grand 
 struggle. The cost of our victory, in treas- 
 ure and blood, and the length of the struggle, 
 will depend much upon the madness or the 
 wisdom which may dictate our policy ; but I 
 am sure that our country is not so far given 
 over to the care of devils as to allow slavery 
 
to come out of this contest with its life. To 
 believe this, would be to take sides with " the 
 fool" who "hath said iu his heart there is no 
 God." 
 
 The triumph of anti-slavery is sure. In 
 the day of its weakness, it faced proscription, 
 persecution, violence, and death, but it never 
 deserted its flag. It was opposed by public 
 opinion, by the press, the religious organiza- 
 tions of the country, and by great political 
 parties, which it finally rent in twain and 
 trampled under its feet. It is now the mas- 
 ter of its own position, while its early heroes 
 are taking their rank among the "noble of all 
 ages." It has forced its way into the presi- 
 dential chair, and rules in the Cabinet. It 
 dictates the legislation of Congress, and speaks 
 in the Courts of the Old "World. It goes 
 forth with our armies, and is every hour more 
 and more imbuing the soldiers of the Repub- 
 lic with its spirit. Its course is onward, and 
 while 
 
 " The politic statesman looks back with a sigh, 
 There is doubt in his heart, there is fear in his eye;" 
 
 and even those slimy doughfaces and creep- 
 ing things that still continue to hiss at "aboli- 
 tionism," betray a tormenting apprehension 
 that their day and generation are rapidly 
 passing away. In the light of the past the 
 future is made so plain that "he that runs 
 may read." In the year 1850, when the slave 
 power triumphed through the "final settle- 
 ment" which was then attempted, I had the 
 honor to hold a seat in this body ; and I said, 
 in a speech then delivered, that — 
 
 " The suppression of agitation in the non-slave hold- 
 ing States will not and can not follow the ' pease meas- 
 ures' recently adopted. The alleged death of the 
 Wilmot proviso will only prove the death of those who 
 have sought to kill it, while its advocates will be 
 multiplied in every portion of the North. The cove- 
 nant lor the admission of additional slave States will be 
 repudiated, while a renewed and constantly increasing 
 agitation will spring up in behalf of the doctrine of ' no 
 more slave states.' Tho outrage of surrendering free 
 soil to Texan slavery can not fail to be followed by the 
 same results, and fust as naturally as fuel feeds the 
 flame -which consumes it. The passage of the fugitive 
 slave bill will open a. fresh wound in the North, and it 
 will continue to bleed just as long as the law stands 
 unrepealed. The existence of slavery iu the capitol of 
 the Republic, upheld by the laws of Congress, must of 
 itself keep alive an agitation whic'nwill be swelled with 
 the continuance of the evil. Sir, these questions are no 
 longer within the control of politicians. Party discipline, 
 presidential nominations, and the spoils of office, can 
 uot stifle the free utterance of the people respecting 
 the great struggle now going on in thiscountry between 
 the tree spirit of the North and a domineering oligarchy 
 in the South. Hero, sir, lies the great question, and it 
 must bo met. Neither acts of Congress nor the devices 
 of partisans can postpone or evade it. It will have 
 itself answered. 1 am aware that it involves the bread 
 and butter of whole hosts of politicians ; and I do not 
 marvel at their attempts to escape it, to smother it, to 
 hide it from the eyes of the people, and to dam up the 
 moral tide which is forcing it upon them. Neither do 
 I marvel at their firing of guna and bacch.inalian liba- 
 tions over ' the dead body of the Wilmot.' Such labors 
 and rejoicings are by no means unnatural, but hey will 
 befollowed by disappointment. It is vain to expect to 
 qjiiet agitation by continued concessions to an institu- 
 
 tion which is becoming every hour more and more a 
 
 stigrna to the nation, and which, instead of seekine 
 new conquests and new life, should be preparing itsell 
 with grave clothes for a decent exit from the world ; 
 concessions revolting to the humanity, the conscien- 
 tious convictions, the religion, and the patriotism of the 
 free States." 
 
 Sir, I speak to-day in the spirit of these 
 words uttered nearly twelve years ago, and 
 verified by time. A small band of men in 
 Congress braved public opinion, the ruling 
 influences of the time, and every form of pro- 
 scription, and intimidation, in standing by 
 the cause which was overwhelmingly voted 
 down. But although outvoted, it was not 
 conquered. " It is in vain," says Carlylc, " to 
 vote a false image true. Vote it, and re-vote 
 it, by overwhelming majorities, by jubilant 
 unanimities, the thing is not so ; it is otherwise 
 than so, and all Adam's posterity, voting upon 
 it till doomsday, cannot change it." 
 
 The history of reform bears unfailing wit- 
 ness to this truth. The cause which bore the 
 cross in 1850, wears the crown to-day. "No 
 power can die that ever wrought for truth." 
 while the political graves of recreant states- 
 men are eloquent with warnings against their 
 mistakes. Where are those northern states- 
 men v/ho betrayed liberty in 1820? They 
 are already forgotten, or remembered only in 
 their dishonor. Who now believes that any 
 fresh laurels were won in 1850, by the great 
 men who sought to gag the people of the free 
 States, and lay the slab of silence on those 
 truths which to-day write themselves down, 
 along with the guilt of slaverj^, in the flames 
 of civil war ? Has any man in the whole his- 
 tory of American politics, however deeply 
 rooted his reputation or god-like his gifts, 
 been able to hold dalliance with slavery and 
 live? I believe the spirit of liberty is the 
 spirit of God, and if the giants of a past gen- 
 eration were not strong enough to wrestle 
 with it, can the pigmies of the present? It 
 has been beautifully said of Wilberforce, that 
 " he ascended to tho throne of God, with a 
 million of broken shackles in his hands, as the 
 evidence of a life well spent." History will 
 take care of his memory ; and when our own 
 bleeding country shall again put on the robes 
 of peace, and freedom shall have leave to 
 gather up her jewels, she will not search for 
 them among the political fossils who are now 
 seeking to si3are the rebels by pettifogging 
 their cause in the name of the Constitution, 
 while the slave power is feeling for the na- 
 tion's throat. No ; God is not to be mocked. 
 Justice is sure. The defenders of slavery 
 and its despicable apologists will be nailed to 
 the world's pillory, and the holiest shrines in 
 the temple of American liberty will be re- 
 served for those who shall most faithfully do 
 battle against this rebellion, as a gigantic 
 conspiracy against the rights of human nature 
 and the brotherhood of our race. 
 
The Mebellion—tlie 3Iistal^es of the Past^-the Duty of the Present, 
 
 sipeech: OIF 
 
 Hon. GEOEGE W. JULIAN, 
 
 In the house OF REPRESENTATIVES, February 18th, 18G3. 
 
 The House having under consideration the 
 bill to indemnify the President and other 
 persons for suspending the privilege of the 
 ■writ of habeas corpus, and acts committed in 
 pursuance thereof — 
 
 Mr. Julian said : 
 
 Mr. Speaker: The line of argument I 
 ■propose to pursue during the hour which 
 belongs to me is general in its character, and 
 ■will not specially refer to the measure now 
 pending before the House. It will not, how- 
 ever, be found substantially irrelevant to the 
 Bubject ; and as I have already waited several 
 •weeks for the floor, and the widest latitude 
 has thus far been allowed in this debate, I 
 trust I shall be permitted to proceed without 
 encountering any very strict construction of 
 the rules of order provided for the government 
 of this body. 
 
 In seeking to interpret the terrible conflict 
 through which our countrj' is passing, and to 
 devise, if possible, a just and wise policy for 
 the Government in its future action, the mind 
 naturally reverts to the past There is a 
 gense in which it is well to let bj'-gones be 
 by-goncs, but we can never afford to dispense 
 with the lessons of experience. 'Ry an eternal 
 law, as unvarying in politics as in morals, to- 
 day is made the child of yesterday and the 
 parent of to-mori-ow — the past and the present 
 linked together in the relation of cause and 
 eiFect, and irrevocably woven into the future. 
 It is true philosophy, therefore, to proflt by 
 our mistakes, to the extent of shunning their 
 repetition, while causing the past to reappear 
 ■where its deeds have been worthy. 
 
 The triUmph of the Republican party in 
 1860 was the triumph of freedom over slavery. 
 I do not say that ail who supported Abraham 
 Lincoln were abolitionists, or even anti-slavery 
 men, or that all who opposed him were the 
 advocates of slavery. This would be very far 
 from the exact truth. "What I afllrm is, that 
 hostility to slavery was the animating senti- 
 ment of the men whose deeply-rooted con- 
 victions and unquenchable zeal made the 
 formation of the Republican party a necessity, 
 and nerved it with all its real strength ; while, 
 on the other hand, the espousal of slavery 
 was the grand and darling purpose of those 
 whose shaping hand and inspiring ambition 
 gave life and law to the Democratic organi- 
 zation. 
 
 I go further still. The contest of 1860 was 
 not simply a struggle between slavery arvd 
 freedom, but a struggle of life and death. 
 Slavery, as a system of unskilled labor, de- 
 '>na7ids the right of unrestricted extension 
 over fresh soil as a condition of its life. This 
 is a law of its nature, attested by the Seminole 
 and Florida war, the seizure of Texas, the 
 war with Mexico, the repeal of the Missouri 
 restriction, the raid into Kansas, and by its 
 entire history in this country. Contine it by 
 impassable boundaries, and it will turn upon 
 and devour its own life, and destroy both 
 master and slave. Slaveholders understand 
 this perfectly, and I do not marvel that their 
 hostility was not assuaged in the smallest 
 degree by the Republican dogma of nc>n- 
 interference with it in the States. They knew 
 that the exclusion of it from all Federal ter- 
 ritory would not only put the nation's brand 
 upon it in the States which it scourges, and 
 condemn it as a public enemy, but virtually 
 sentence it to death. They believed, Avith our 
 Republican fathers, that restriction means 
 destruction. They knew that as the first dose 
 of medicine given to a sick man forms a part 
 of the whole process of cure, so the policy of 
 limitation, as an incipient remedy for our 
 great national malady, would be followed by 
 other measures, moral, economical, and politi- 
 cal, which would ultimately but surely expel 
 it from the country. Hence they fought Re- 
 piublicanism with all the zeal and desperation 
 which could be inspired by a great social and 
 moneyed power, threatened with suflbcation 
 and death. They were simply obeying the 
 law of self-preservation ; and I think it due 
 to frankness to confess that the charge of 
 "abolitionism,'' which they incessantly hurled 
 at the Republican party, was by no means 
 totally wanting in essential truth. When 
 they were vanquished in the election of Mr. 
 Lincoln, their appeal from the ballot to the 
 bullet, was the logical consequence of their 
 insane devotion to slavery, and their convic- 
 tion that nothing could save it but the ruin of 
 the Republic. 
 
 Such was the issue decided by the people in 
 the last Presidential canvass. It was the long- 
 postponed battle between slavery and anti- 
 slavery, fairly encountering each other at the 
 ballot-box. It was a struggle between two 
 intensely hostile ideas, wrestling for the final 
 naastery of tlie Republic. Freedom, through 
 
11 
 
 the Republican party as its instrument, 
 triumphed over slavery, with both wings of 
 the Democratic party as its servants and 
 tools ; for the distinction between Breckin- 
 ridge Democracy and Douglas Democracy 
 was purely metaphysical, and eluded, entirely, 
 the plain common sense of honest men. 
 
 Now, sir, I hold that the people of the 
 United States, who earned and fairly achieved 
 this great victory, had a vested right to its 
 fruits. They had a right to expect the domi- 
 nation of slavery over the national Govern- 
 ment to cease. They had a right to demand 
 that all its departments should be committed 
 to the hands of those who believe in the grand 
 idea on which the Administration ascended 
 to power. And the intervention of the rebel- 
 lion in no degree whatever released the Go- 
 vernment from its duty in this respect. The 
 rebellion did not refute, but confirmed, the 
 truth of Republicanism. It was simply a 
 final chapter in the history of the slave 
 power, an advanced stage of slaveholding 
 rapacity, naturally born of Democratic mis- 
 rule ; and instead of tempting us to cower 
 before it and surrender our principles, fur- 
 nished an overwhelming argument in favor 
 of standing by them to the death. 
 
 I do not say that no man who had been 
 identified with the Democratic party should 
 have been appointed to office, but that no 
 man who regarded with indifference the great 
 principle which had triumphed in the can- 
 vass ; no man, certainly, who was known to 
 be hostile to that principle, should have been 
 allowed to hold any Federal office, high or 
 low, civil or military, at home or abroad. 
 This was the duty of the Administration; for 
 the simple reason that it could not decline it 
 with fidelity to the pieople who had installed 
 it in power. The Republican pirinciple was 
 as true after the election as during the can- 
 vass ; as true in the midst of war as in seasons 
 of peace ; and just so far as we have lost sight 
 of this truth, just so far have we strayed from 
 the path of safety. Indeed, instead of putting 
 our principles in abeyance when the storm of 
 war came, we should have clung to them with 
 a redoubled energy and a dedicated zeal. In- 
 stead of making terms with our vanquished 
 opponents by conferring upon them office and 
 power, we should have taught them that these 
 were necessarily forfeited in our triumph. 
 And we should have remenibered that even 
 our enemies would brand us as hypocrites 
 and cowards, if the Administration should be 
 less distinctively Republican in principle and 
 policy than had been the party which created 
 It. 
 
 Yery nearly allied to the policy of conciliat- 
 ing our opponents, and thus building up their 
 power, was the project of a Union party, en- 
 couraged by Republican politicians simultane- 
 ously with the beginning of this Administra- 
 tion. Such a movement, started soon after a 
 heated political canvass involving the issue of 
 slavery and anti-slavery, was utterly pre- 
 posterous. The war grew out of the very 
 question which had organized our parties 
 
 and marshalled them against each other in 
 time of peace; and hence, instead of melting 
 and fusing them into one, their lines of divi- 
 sion would be brought out all the more 
 palpably, and their antagonisms all the more 
 intensified. It was incredible that pro-slavery 
 Democracy, after having been so thoroughly 
 drugged and surfeited with the heresies of 
 southern rebels, should, in the twinkling of 
 an eye, enter into cordial union with the men 
 it had so long traduced. What is now paljv 
 able to all men, I thought obvious in the 
 beginning: that a union of Republicans and 
 Democrats, on the single question of putting 
 down the rebellion, ignoring the real issue 
 out of which it sprang, was simply a shallow 
 expedient for dividing the spoils of office, at 
 the cost of a practical surrender of the prin- 
 ciples for which Republicans had so zealously 
 contended. I do not say that the disruption 
 of the Democratic party was by any means 
 impossible. There was a vigorous loyal 
 element pervading its rank and file, which 
 its unprincipled Icadershipi would have been 
 powerless to control, if Republicans had stood 
 firm. If we had been perfectly true to our 
 own principles, bating no jot of zeal in their 
 maintenance, and frowning upon any move- 
 ment which sought to soften down or shade ofiT 
 the right-angled character of our anti-slavery 
 policy ; if we had bravely accepted the conse- 
 quences of that policy, branding the rebellion 
 as the child of slavery, and the Democratic 
 party as the great nursing mother that had 
 fed and pampered it into this bloody revolt 
 against the Constitution; if, when the truth 
 of our doctrines and the guilt of our opponents 
 were written down in the fires of civil war, 
 we had called upon all men to join hands with 
 us in saving the country, the Democratic 
 party would have heard its death knell in the 
 guns of Fort Sumter, and instead of borrow- 
 ing new life from the cowardice and decline 
 of Republicanism, would have crawled to its 
 guilty and dishonored grave. Only by per- 
 sistent fidelity to our own principles could we 
 hope either to break down the power of our 
 foes or maintain a real Union movement. 
 This we already had in the Republican party. 
 If there is anywhere a Republican who is not 
 a Union man I would be glad to know where 
 he may be found. This accursed war is upon 
 us to-day because the policy of the Govern- 
 ment, under the rule of slave-breeding Demo- 
 cracy, has so long been drifting from the 
 principles of our Republican fathers, as re- 
 affirmed in the Philadelphia and Chicago 
 platforms. The rebellion is a fulfilled prophecy 
 of Thomas Jefferson, and of all the leading 
 anti-slavery men of a later generation ; and 
 nothing, certainly, should have been further 
 from our purpose than to rush with indecent 
 haste into the embrace of unrepentant Demo- 
 crats, when the very life of the nation hud 
 been brought into deadly peril by their syste- 
 matic recreancy to the principles of real De- 
 mocracy. 
 
 Sir, Democratic policy not only gave birth 
 to the rebellion, but Democrats, and only 
 
12 
 
 Democrats, are in arms against their country. 
 Democruts fired on its flag at Fort Sumter. 
 Jefferson Davis is a Democrat, and so is every 
 God-forsaken rebel at his heels. A Demo- 
 cratic Administration was in power when the 
 rebellion first lifted its head. A Democratic 
 President, who could have nipped it in the 
 bud, allowed our Navy to he sent to distant 
 seas, our fortresses to be occupied, our arsenals 
 and navy-yards to be seized, and our arms 
 and munitions to be stolen. Democrats 
 clutched the Treasury of the Government 
 and robbed it of its Indian bonds. The dis- 
 tinguished thieves and cut-throats who are 
 known as the leaders of the rebellion, such as 
 Floyd, Thompson, Yancey,' and Cobb, are all 
 Democrats. Not only is it true that rebels 
 are Democrats, but so are rebel sympathizers, 
 whether in the North or the South. On the 
 other hand, the Kepublican party, so far as 
 I can learn, has not furnished a single recruit 
 to the ranks of the rebellion. Loyalty and 
 republicanism go hand in hand throughout 
 the Union, as perfectly as treason and 
 slavery. 
 
 In the light of these pregnant facts, Mr. 
 Chairman, we find no occasion for a new 
 party. What we should work and pray for 
 is the success of our principles, and this can 
 only be secured by steadfastness of purpose 
 and associated political action. We need 
 something of permanence in our movements, 
 shunning that fickleness and instability that 
 would form a new party, with a new name, 
 for every campaign, and thus fritter away 
 our strength in the fickleness of our schemes, 
 instead of husbanding it for effective service. 
 Kepublicanism is not like a garment, to be put 
 on or laid aside for our own convenience, but 
 an enduring principle, which can never be 
 abandoned without faithlessness to the country. 
 It is not a succession of "dissolving views," 
 brought on to the political stage to amuse 
 conservative gentlemen, or to dazzle and be- 
 wilder the people, but the fixed star which 
 should guide us through the shifting phases 
 of American polities and the bloody labyrinths 
 of war. Sir, not even to save the Union, or 
 to restore the blessings of peace, should we 
 forsake its light. It is because we loved our 
 principles more than peace that we are now 
 in the midst of war. We demanded a Union 
 under conditions that would make it the 
 servant of liberty, and not the handmaid of 
 slavery, and the rebellion is the result. Let 
 us accept it; and when we are charged with 
 producing.it, let us reply that the charge, if 
 true at all, is true in a sense which makes in- 
 famous the men who prefer it. In the sense 
 in which the opponents of paganism caused 
 martyrdoms in the early days of tlie Church ; 
 in the sense in which the enemies of the papal 
 power in the time of Luther caused persecu- 
 tions and death ; in the sense in which Thomas 
 Jefferson and the fiithers caused the war of 
 our Kcvolution, we, who are called llepubli- 
 cans, caused the rebellion, of which pro-slavery 
 Democracy is pre-eminently guilty. If wo 
 had allowed slavery to take root in the soil of 
 
 Kansas, without resistance or protest ; if we 
 had permitted it, through the help of the 
 Supreme Court, to fasten its fangs upon 
 all our Territories, so that neither Congress, 
 nor the people, nor any human power could 
 remove it; if we had allowed it to go freely 
 into the non-slavcholding States, and set up 
 its habitation in defiance of State enactments; 
 if we had consented to the revival of the 
 African slave trade, and that our lips should 
 be sealed against the right to talk about it, 
 except to talk in its favor; if, in a word, the 
 people of the free States had been willing to 
 trample unde# their feet the institutions of 
 their fathers, and to dedicate this continent 
 to slaveholding and slave-breeding forever, 
 then we might have peace to-day, and an 
 unbroken Union. But our Democratic peace 
 would have been the peace of the pit "stifling, 
 suflocating, sultry" — a peace infinitely more 
 dreadful than the war we have chosen to 
 accept in the maintenance of our principles; 
 and our Union would have been a confeder- 
 acy of corsairs, devouring humanity, defying 
 God, exalting the devil, and gladdening the 
 heart of every absolutist and tyrant through- 
 out the earth. Sir, I rejoice greatly that 
 Eepublicans had the courage to tlirow them- 
 selves between their country and the eternal 
 damnation to which Democratic policy was 
 about to consign it; and that now, standing 
 face to face with the dread realities of war, 
 they are still resolved to stand together by the 
 flagstaft' of freedom. No step backwards is 
 possible, nor was there any hope for the Re- 
 public so long as the Government and its ad- 
 visers failed to realize this fact. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, I have indicated, in general 
 terms, the mistakes of Republican policy since 
 the beginning of the war. Many of our 
 trusted leaders have lost their way, while the 
 Administration itself has not been thoroughly 
 Republican in its policy. Forgetting the 
 mere negations of our creed, it should have 
 planted itself bravely on its affirmations, 
 pausing not a moment to apologize, or depre- 
 cate, or explain. The crisis called for absolute 
 courage, and the time had gone by forever for 
 any policy savoring, in the smallest degree, of 
 timidity or hesitation. The disasters of this 
 war, and the perils which now threaten the 
 country, find their best explanation in the 
 failure of the Government to stand by its 
 friends, and its readiness to strengthen the 
 hands of its foes. To a fearful extent Demo- 
 cratic ideas and Democratic policy have ruled 
 this Republican Administration from the be- 
 ginning. Democratic piolicy, very soon after 
 the war began, speaking through our Repub- 
 lican Secretary of State, declared that " the 
 Federal Government could not reduce the 
 seceding States to obedience by conquest," 
 and that "only an imperial or dcsjiotic Go- 
 vernment could subjugate thorouglily disaf- 
 fected and insurrectionary members of the 
 State;" persuaded the nations of the earth 
 that our struggle was not an "irrepressible 
 conflict" between two forms of society, each 
 of which was aiming at absolute dominion 
 
13 
 
 over the country, but a mere domestic tumult 
 which would subside in "sixty days," and 
 that the institution of slavery, which the 
 whole world now confesses to have been the 
 cause of the war, would not be affected by it, 
 but "remain subject to exactly the same laws 
 and forms of administration, whether the re- 
 volution shall succeed or whether it shall 
 fail." Democratic policy, pouring its cow- 
 ardly counsels into the ear of the commander- 
 in-chief of our armies, tempted him to write a 
 letter to Secretary Sewai-d, on the day before 
 Mr. Lincoln's inauguration, in which he 
 scouted the idea of subduing the rebel States 
 by military power, fovored the organization 
 of a Union party and the abandonment of 
 Kepublicanism, and recommended a pacifica- 
 tion on the godless basis of the Crittenden re- 
 solves of January, 1861 ; or that we should say 
 to our "wayward sisters, go in peace." De- 
 mocratic policy made Gen. McClellan com- 
 mander-in-chief, by falsely claiming for him 
 the victories of our arms in "Western Virginia, 
 achieved by Rosecrans, Morris, and Benham, 
 and by the indorsement of General Scott, who, 
 as the country has since learned, did not 
 believe in the war which the Government 
 had inaugurated. Democratic policy, through 
 General Patterson as its representative, de- 
 tained a large army in the valley of Winches- 
 ter, which should have marched against 
 General Johnston and his inferior force, in- 
 stead of allowing him to join Beauregard at 
 Bull Run, thus securing the defeat and rout 
 of our army, instead of decisive victory, which, 
 else, would have crowned our arms. Demo- 
 cratic policy, through the authority of General 
 McClellan, kept the Potomac blockaded during 
 the fall and winter of 1861 and 1862; and 
 when the Navy Department insisted, as it 
 did repeatedly, on putting an end to the 
 blockade, which it could have done at any 
 moment, our Democratic general objected 
 that "it would bring on a general engage- 
 ment;" and thus was the honor of the nation 
 compromised, and millions sacrificed through 
 its interrupted commerce, without cause or 
 excuse. Democratic policy, personified by 
 General McClellan and General Stone, sent 
 Colonel Baker and his gallant men across the 
 Potom.ac against a superior force, with one 
 scow and two small boats as the only means 
 of transportation; and after the crossing had 
 commenced, twenty-four thousand men under 
 General Smith and General McCall, who 
 were within striking distance, and expected 
 by Colonel Baker to join him, were ordered 
 to retreat by General McClellan ; while fifteen 
 hundred of our men at Edward's Ferry, onljr 
 three and a half miles from the battle field, 
 who could have reinforced Colonel Baker 
 and turned the fortunes of the day, were 
 compelled to stand idle while the gallant 
 hero and his men were butchered without 
 mercy. During the autumn and winter 
 months which followed. Democratic policy 
 made the grand army of the Potomac squat 
 before the wooden guns of Centreville and 
 Manassas ; and although our forces were 
 
 many times larger than those of the rebels, 
 and our men in fine health and discipline, 
 and eager to fight, while during these succes- 
 sive months we were favored with solid roads 
 and clear frosty days and nights, yet neither 
 the persuasions of the President nor the 
 clamors of the people could induce General 
 McClellan to move; nor did any member of 
 the Cabinet, nor the President himself, nor 
 any general in his army, know his plans, or 
 why our forces did not advance. Democratic 
 policy, refusing to allow our armies to go into 
 winter quarters or to march upon the enemy, 
 kept them strictly on the defensive through- 
 out the Union, till the President in the latter 
 part of January of last year gave the order 
 forward, resulting in the victories of Fort 
 Henry, Fort Donelson, and Newbern, which 
 so electrified the country. The army of the 
 Potomac was required to march on the 22d of 
 February, but Democratic policy held it in- 
 active till the 10th of March, when General 
 McClellan, in obedience to a peremptory 
 order of the President, took up the line of 
 march toward Centreville, after having first 
 learned that the rebels had retired toward the 
 Rappahannock. This pink and beau-ideal of 
 Democratic policy, instead of pushing at once 
 towards Richmond, which he could have 
 done by railroad by way of Aquia Creek and 
 Fredericksburg, or by the Manassas and 
 Gordonsville road, marched his army back to 
 Alexandria, where hundreds perished or re- 
 ceived the cause of their death, in the open 
 fields and woods in sight of their tents, during 
 the cold, drenching rains, to which they were 
 exposed for many days prior to their embarka- 
 tion for Fortress Monroe. Democratic policy, 
 still ruling the country through General Mc- 
 Clellan, planned the ill-fated campaign on 
 the Peninsula ; and although he had insisted, 
 while himself near the capital, that the whole 
 armj^ of the Potomac was necessary for its 
 defence, yet on leaving, under positive orders 
 that this city should be amply defended, he 
 seems to have considered fifteen thousand raw 
 and undisciplined troops, the refuse of the 
 army, sufficient for its protection; all of the 
 army in and around Washington, except this 
 meagie force, having been ordered by him to 
 proceed at once to the Peninsula. Democratic 
 policy compelled the army of the Potomac to 
 sit down before Yorktown till a small army 
 had grown to be a large one, and then per- 
 mitted it to evacuate at its leisure. General 
 Hooker, with his advance force, followed ; 
 but Democratic policy, refusing him to be 
 reinforced, held thirty thousand men within 
 sound of the battle, by which our forces were 
 repulsed and the escape of the enemy secured. 
 When our army at length reached the Chicka- 
 hominy. Democratic policy founded the king- 
 dom of pickaxes and spades, and sent thou- 
 sands of our soldiers to their graves, because 
 the employment of able-bodied negroes in 
 ditching would bo offensive to Democratic 
 gentility, and might endanger "the Union 
 as it was." When Gpn. McClellan, by order 
 of Gen, Hallcck, left the James river, and 
 
14 
 
 reached Alexandria in time to save General 
 Pope at the second battle of Bull Eun ; De- 
 mocratic policy, forgetting the country, al- 
 lowed him to be sacrificed. Democratic 
 policy, sifting its deadly poison into the 
 mind of the President, again placed General 
 McClellan in command of the army of the 
 Potomac, and reinstated, at his request, the 
 generals whose failures had caused Pope's 
 defeat; and the "strategy" which followed 
 left the way open for the withdrawal of Gen. 
 Lee, and delayed the march of our forces till 
 Harper's Ferry had fallen into the hands of 
 the enemy. Democratic policy, at the battle 
 of Antietam, kept at least forty thousand of 
 our men in reserve, and thus converted a 
 magniflcent victory, most temptingly brought 
 within our grasp, into at best a drawn battle. 
 Democratic policy, which cost us more than 
 fifty thousand soldiers on the Peninsula, 
 systematically misled the public by compel- 
 ling the newspaper correspondents within 
 our lines to suppress facts and utter falsehoods, 
 in order to glorify General McClellan, shield 
 him from popular disapprobation, and per- 
 petuate his command. Democratic policy at 
 this moment clamoi'S for his restoration, and 
 every man who blames the Kepublicans for 
 bringing on this war, and who declares, as 
 Gen. McClellan did at its beginning, that the 
 South is right; every man who believes in 
 wearing out the patience of the country 
 by military failures, so that the rebels may 
 be restored to power through some infernal 
 compromise; every man who despises the 
 policy which woufd win victories, or follow 
 them up when won ; every man who was as 
 much of a traitor as he had the courage to be 
 in the beginning of this struggle, andhas all 
 the time wished the rebels "a hearty God- 
 speed; every man who has done his "be.it to 
 discourage enlistments, embarrass the action 
 of the Government, and render the Avar odious 
 to the people ; every man who raises the cry 
 of peace, and talks about new guarantees to 
 pacifj' the felons who have sought the nation's 
 life; every man who loves negro slavery better 
 than he loves his country, and would sooner 
 see the Eepublic in ruins than the slaves set 
 free, is the zealous advocate and unflinching 
 champion of General McClellan. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, Democratic policy proves 
 itself the ally of treason by hugging the 
 cause w..ich produces it. It clings to slavery 
 as a dyi-ig man clings to life. It condemns 
 its prohibition in our Territories, and its 
 abolition in this District. In the midst of a 
 terrific struggle of the nation for self-preserva- 
 tion, requiring the use of all the weapons 
 known to the laws of war, it demands the 
 repeal of our confiscation laws, and denounces 
 the President's proclamation giving freedom 
 to the slaves of rebels. With equal zeal it 
 opposes the gradual "abolishment of slavery," 
 with the consent of loyal masters, and com- 
 pensation allowed them. Democratic policy 
 clamors for peace with rebels in arms, on the 
 basis of the Crittenden compromise, rejected 
 by them two years ago, and which, if accept- 
 
 ed, would completely surrender the libertie' 
 of the people to the slaveholding vandals of 
 the South, Democratic policy has played 
 into the hands of rebels by refusing the help 
 of negroes into our armies, as laborers, team- 
 sters, cooks, nurses, scouts, and soldiers, thus 
 necessarily weakening our military power, 
 and sacrificing the lives of our men. Demo- 
 cratic policy has sought the oflfice of slave- 
 hound for rebels ever since the beginning of 
 the war, and is still, occasionally, exercising 
 its functions in defiance of positive prohibi- 
 tions. Democratic piolicy, taking the form of 
 "Order ISIo. ,3." under which, for more than a 
 year, loyal colored men were driven from our 
 camps, and their proffered aid and informa- 
 tion rejected, earned the gratitude of every 
 rebel throughout the Union, and the curses 
 of every loyal man. Democratic policy de- 
 spises an abolitionist far more heartily than 
 a traitor ; the term abolitionist, according to 
 a leading Democratic organ, signifying "any 
 man who does not love slavery for its own 
 sake, as a divine institution ; who does not 
 worship it as the corner-stone of civil liberty; 
 who does not adore it as the only possible 
 social condition on which a permanent re- 
 publican government can be erected; and who 
 does not, in his inmost soul, desire to see it ex- 
 tended and perpetuated over the whole earth, 
 as a means of human reformation, second in 
 dignity, importance, and sacredness, to the 
 religion of Christ." Democratic policy, by 
 thus perpetually deferring to slavery as a 
 sacred thing, and to slaveholders as a superior 
 order of men, has smothered that feeling of 
 resentment in our armies which else would 
 have been evoked, and the lack of which, 
 according to our commanders, is one of the 
 serious obstacles to our success. Democratic 
 policy in the year 1861 gave us as command- 
 ers of our three great military departments, 
 McClellan, Halleck, and Buell, whose military 
 administrations have so terribly cursed the 
 country; while it imposed upon our volunteer 
 forces in the field, such officers as Fitz John 
 Porter, General Nelson, General Stone, and 
 very many more whose sympathies with the 
 rebels were well known throughout the 
 country. 
 
 Mr. Wadsworth. I desire to make an in- 
 quiry of the gentleman. I thought I under- 
 stood him to say that General Nelson's 
 sympathy with the rebels was well known-. 
 I wish to know if he alludes to General "VVm. 
 Nelson, deceased. 
 
 Mr. Julian. I allude to that gentleman. 
 
 Mr. "Wadsworth. T was born and reared 
 with him, served witli him in the intimate 
 relations against the rebels, and knew him 
 from his j-outh up to (he time of his death ; 
 and I say that there was not a more deter- 
 mined opponent of the rebels and of secession 
 in America. The language of the gentleman 
 is untrue. The stain attempted to be cast 
 upon the memory of (ieneral Nelson is unde- 
 served and unfounded. Such language as 
 that is outrageous. I have heard the speech, 
 entirely out of order upon this bill, with 
 
15 
 
 patience, but I cannot allow the memory of 
 Wm. Nelson to be slandered in this way. 
 
 Mr. Julian. In reply to the remarks of 
 the gentleman from Kentucky, (Mr. Wads- 
 WOETH,) I have only to say that what I said 
 is true. I did not say that General Nelson 
 was a rebel. I said he was well understood 
 to be in sympathy with the rebels, and this 
 understanding, so far as I have any means of 
 knowledge, is universal among the soldiers 
 of Indiana and Ohio who have served under 
 him in the field in Kentucky and elsewhere. 
 While I do not say that he was a rebel, I say 
 that, like some other distinguished gentlemen 
 from Kentucky, he was a rebel sympathizer, 
 loving slavery more than he loved his 
 country. That I desire to say in the most 
 emphatic words I know how to employ. 
 
 The gentleman from Kentucky did not 
 charge me with an intentional misrepresenta- 
 tion, as I understood him. If he makes that 
 charge I shall deal with it. I understand we 
 simply differ as a matter of fact. 
 
 Mr. Wadsworth. I did not intend to 
 charge the gentleman with any intentional 
 misrepresentation touching the sentiments of 
 General Nelson, unless he makes himself 
 responsible for it. I did not know but that 
 he was making a statement, in which he con- 
 fided, derived from others. My purpose was 
 to denounce the statement which the gentle- 
 man brings in here. I do not care who makes 
 the statement, he is a slanderer of the gallant 
 dead. 
 
 Mr. Julian. I decline to yield to the gen- 
 tleman farther. The gentleman denounces 
 my assertion — 
 
 Mr. "Wadsworth. I denounce it as a 
 slander. 
 
 Mr. Julian. And I denounce the gentle- 
 man's denunciation, and his defence of a rebel 
 sympathizer. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, Democratic policy, speaking 
 through officers high in command in the 
 army of the Potomac, now more than a year 
 ago, threatened to march upon the capital and 
 disperse Congress as Cromwell did the Par- 
 liament, because a joint committee of both 
 Houses of Congress was inquiring into the 
 conduct of the war. Democratic policy, when 
 General Fremont proclaimed freedom to the 
 slaves of rebels in Missouri, inundated the 
 Executive Mansion with falsehoods, which 
 had their coining in pro-slavery malice and 
 disappointed ambition ; and a Kepublican 
 President, yielding to a torrent which he 
 thought resistless, removed him from his 
 command; and although the policy of this 
 proclamation has since been accepted by the 
 Government, and the charges on which he 
 was hounded down are known to be false, yet 
 Democratic policy still deprives the country 
 of his service, because he is a Kepublican, 
 and an unbeliever in the supreme divinity 
 of slavery. Democratic policy holds in its 
 hands all the great machinery of this war, 
 and directs it according to his own will. Our 
 present commander-in-chief is a Democrat, 
 whose future management of the war, if we 
 
 are to judge from his past career, promises 
 nothing for the country. Of the major and 
 brigadier generals in our armies. Democratic 
 policy has favored this Kepublican Adminis- 
 tration, if I am not mistaken, with over 
 four-fifths — certainly an overwhelming ma- 
 jority ; while those great hives of military 
 patronage, the Adjutant General's Depart- 
 ment, the Quartermaster's Department, the 
 Commissary Department, the Ordnance De- 
 partment, and the Pay Department, are all 
 under Democratic control, and have been 
 during the war. Several of the heads of 
 these departments held their positions under 
 James Buchanan ; while Democratic policy 
 likewise controls the chief bureaus in the 
 Navy Department. Democratic policy has 
 not only studiously thrown into the back- 
 ground Kepublican generals, whose hearts are 
 in the war, and put in the lead political 
 generals of its own type, but has pursued the 
 same policy toward Democratic generals who 
 have evinced a change of views on the ques- 
 tion of slavery. Mitchell and Hunter are 
 cases in point, while Curtis is almost the 
 only Republican general who has been al- 
 lowed to hold an independent command in a 
 war ill which, according to the best attain- 
 able data, more than three-fourths of the 
 soldiers of the Union are Republicans. To 
 an alarming extent Democratic policy has 
 ruled in the Post Office, War, Treasury, and 
 Interior Departments, in which, after very 
 many long-delayed but greatly needed re- 
 movals, effected chiefly through Congres- 
 sional intervention, there are still hundreds 
 of Democratic clerks, of whom many are 
 known to be rebels in heart, and some of them 
 the appointees and pets of Davis, Floyd, and 
 Thompson. What is equally remarkable, is 
 the fact that the higher and more lucrative 
 grades of these positions are nearly all given 
 to Democrats ; while Democratic policy, ad- 
 hering to its ancient custom, under this Re- 
 publican Administration, bestows upon tha 
 District of Columbia, and such States as 
 Maryland and Virginia, a share of these 
 places in monstrous disproportion to that of 
 the free States of the North and West. I 
 can not go further into details ; but the fruits 
 of this Democratic policy are seen in great 
 military disasters ; in the wasted energies 
 and fading hopes of the people ; in reaction- 
 ary movements in the free States ; in threat- 
 ened intervention from abroad, and in im- 
 pending national ruin ; and without a speedy 
 change in our policy, no power but that of 
 God, through miraculous intervention, can 
 save our country. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, the time has come when 
 every true man in the Union should demand, 
 in the name of the country, that Democratic 
 policy shall rule it no longer. When the 
 nation is grasping for breath because the 
 honored leaders of Republicanism have been 
 infidel to its principles, plainness of speech is 
 a duty, and silence a crime. As a freeman, 
 and the Representative of freemen, it is at 
 once my right and my duty to utter what I 
 
16 
 
 believe to be vital truth. I deeply regret the 
 necessity which impels me to criticise the 
 policy of the Administration. I honor the 
 President as the chief magistrate of the Ec- 
 public, and love him as a man. I have 
 received at his hands nothing hut personal 
 kindness and political respect. 1 stand ready 
 to make any earthly sacritice to sustain him 
 in this direful conflict with the rebel power of 
 the country, North and South. "Faithful 
 are the reproofs of a friend," and it is as his 
 friend, seeking to rescue the land from poli- 
 tical perdition, and not as a disguised rebel, 
 seeking to undermine his Administration, 
 that I speak. I tell him that his policy of 
 conciliating Democrats has been as ruinous 
 to our cause as the kindred policy of con- 
 caliating rebels. Instead of winning them to 
 our side, blotting out the lines of party, and 
 inaugurating an "era of good feeling," it has 
 breathed fresh life and vigor into the Demo- 
 cratic organization, which now everywhere 
 confronts us as a powerful and consolidated 
 opposition, while our own party is disbanded 
 and powerless. Sir, had the policy of the 
 Government been boldly Eepublican, making 
 good to ■ the people their victory over the 
 cohorts of slavery in 1860, every northern 
 State would to-day have been wheeled into 
 line on the side of the Administration, and 
 the Democratic party would have been linger- 
 ing on its death-bed. The war itself, I firmly 
 believe, would have been ended, and with far 
 less sacrifice of treasure and blood than we 
 have already incurred. 1 speak respectfully, 
 but earnestly, when I say the President must 
 stand by his friends, if he expects his friends 
 to stand by him. He must point the door to 
 ervery pampered pro-slavery rat in any of his 
 public cribs, and bestow the offices and honors 
 at his disposal upon those who believe in the 
 Republican idea. He should institute, as 
 speedily as possible, a general casting out of 
 devils from the various Departments of the 
 Government, and fill their places with men 
 who believe in God, and who have not out- 
 lived their consciences in serving as the 
 shameless scullions of the slave power. By 
 all means, and at the earliest moment, should 
 he insist upon a lustration of the military 
 Department, to purify it from the deadly con- 
 tamination of treason. This is a slaveholders' 
 rebellion. The rebellion, in fact, is " slavery 
 in arms," and therefore no man who believes 
 in slavery is fit for any high commiind. The 
 war is not a war of sections, but of ideas; and 
 we need and must have military leaders who 
 will conduct it in the light of this truth. To 
 the want of such leaders must be attributed 
 the delays and disasters of the struggle thus 
 far. General Sigel says : 
 
 "It is an enormous crime to expose our devoted 
 Boldicrs to the fury of a uiiit-i'd, dotermiiiod, and vigor- 
 ous enemy, on account of any heeitnncy to use the 
 right means at the riglit time, or b;/ plneinri men in hirjh 
 arid responsible positions wlio, on account of their former 
 as ociations and p edges, can never be. trusted bs sin- 
 cere friends of the Kepuhlic, nor expected to strike a 
 fatal blow at treasou and rebellion." 
 
 Sir, we must have commanders who will 
 fight, not simply as the stipendiaries of the 
 
 Government, but as men whose whole hearts 
 are in the work, and who believe, religiously, 
 in the rights of man. 
 
 " It is the heart, and not the brain, 
 That to the highest doth attain." 
 
 I believe you may search the history of the 
 world in vain for such armies as we now have 
 in the field. Their heroism upon every battle- 
 field, often under incompetent commanders, 
 and always under the most appalling dis- 
 advantages, must be the theme of everlasting 
 praise. They have seemed to understand this 
 quarrel from the beginning. They have 
 fought as only men could fight who counted 
 their lives as nothing in comparison with the 
 life of the Kepublic, and the imperiled cause 
 of libertj' on earth. The battle of Fredericks- 
 burg, where thousands marched into the jaws 
 of certain death without the wavering of a 
 hair, affords but a single example of the spirit 
 which has so ungrudgingly offered up so many 
 heroic lives during the war. Sir, I honor our 
 patriot soldiers as I honor no man, titled or 
 untitled, who walks the earth. Their example, 
 looming above the general profligacy and 
 faithlessness of mere politicians, has already 
 made humanity sublime, and anchored the 
 final triumph of our cause to the very throne 
 of the Eternal. In their name do I speak 
 when I plead that they shall be allowed to 
 fight our battles under competent and worthy 
 leaders, whose souls are on fire with a quench- 
 less zeal for our cause. In our war with 
 Mexico, as I am advised, no man was allowed 
 to hold the oflSce of major general of volun- 
 teers, or brigadier general, who was not a 
 member of the Democratic party. I believe 
 this policy was extensively carried out also as 
 to the subordinate places in our Army, at 
 least nine-tenths of which were conferred 
 upon the party in power. General Scott and 
 General Taylor were Whigs, but they held 
 their positions before the war, and during its 
 progress had to encounter a fierce and formid- 
 able opposition from the Administration and 
 its friends. I am not finding fault with this 
 policy, which I refer to as simply sliowing 
 that the Government, at that time, dispensed 
 its fiivors among its friends, and intrusted the 
 command of our armies to men who believed in 
 the war. This the Government .should do to- 
 day. This is a war of freedom and free 
 labor against a mighty aristocracy based upon 
 the ownership of men. Our aim is the over- 
 throw of that power, and the reorganization 
 of southern society on a republican basis; and 
 it should require no argument to prove that 
 men who believe in tliis aristocracy are. not 
 the most fit commanders in such a contest. 
 On this subject history is not wanting in les- 
 sons to guide us. As early as the year 1388 
 the cities of Germany, which had formed 
 four leagues in self-defence against the aris- 
 tocracy that lived only by its plunder of 
 commerce, were engaged in deadlj' conflict 
 for their rights. They made two mistakes, 
 which paved the way for their ruin. They 
 lost the symyathy of the peasantry, because 
 they fought only for the privileges of the 
 
17 
 
 cities; and tliey appointed nobles to command 
 tlieir armies wlio cared more for their pro- 
 perty in the cities than for the rights of the 
 people. These nobles counselled " modera- 
 tion," and one of them proved a traitor on the 
 field of battle. Afterwards, city after city 
 fell into the hands of the aristocracy, and the 
 people became the prey of a swarm of petty 
 monarchs, who annihilated the external 
 power of the country, which groans under 
 their oppression to this day. The same 
 principle was illustrated in our revolutionary 
 war by the State of South Carolina, which 
 S'.varmed with royalists and tories, who, like 
 the rebels now in arms against us, loved 
 slavery more than they loved their country. 
 It is not possible to put down one privileged^ 
 class through the leadership of another, un- 
 less their interests are antagonistical. 
 
 Jlr. Chairman, the fatal consequence of 
 losing sight of the principle I am now urging 
 has been seen in the recall of General Fre- 
 mont from his command of the Western 
 department. In the year 1856, his name had 
 been conspicuously identified with the great 
 political conflict which finally culminated in 
 a conflict of arms. He was -known to the 
 country less as a politician than as a jiatriot, 
 and a man of genius and dauntless courage; 
 and th re was a romance about his life and 
 name which kindled the popular enthusiasm 
 in his behalf to a very remarkable degree. 
 He entered upon his command at the end of 
 July with less than twenty-five thousand 
 effective men, poorly armed and equipped ; 
 and of these ten thousand were three months' 
 men, whose time expired in ten days from 
 his arrival. At the end of October he held 
 sixtj'' thousand square miles of the enemy's 
 country, and had succeeded in organizing 
 and equipping an army v/hich was every- 
 where successful along the whole extent of 
 liis lines. He had restored quiet and compa- 
 rative peace to the State of Missouri, while 
 the enemy was in full retreat before him. 
 Believing the revolutionary measures of the 
 rebels could only be put down by revolution- 
 ary energy, and that all moderation in deal- 
 ing with them v/as the expedient of weak men 
 or of traitors, he impressed his strong will 
 and earnest purpose upon every feature of his 
 administration. He saw then, what the 
 President has finally discovered and told us 
 in his last message, that "the dogmas of the 
 quiet past are inadequate to the stormy 
 present ;" that " as our case is new, so we 
 must think anew and act anew;" and that 
 " we must disenthral ourselves, and then we 
 shall save our country." I believe no com- 
 mander in the public service has thus fav 
 shown more military genius, or been more 
 successful, considering the circumstances of 
 his command ; and it should be remembered 
 to his credit that the victories of our arms in 
 the West, early in last year, were achieved 
 upon the exact lines of march which he 
 planned and published in September of the 
 preceding year. When he issued his pro- 
 claniiition of freedom the military enthasiasm 
 
 of the people was unchilled. With gladness 
 and thanksgiving they received it as a new 
 sign of promise. Even such Democratic 
 papers as the Boston Post, Detroit Free 
 Press, Chicago Times, and New York Herald, 
 approved of it, while it stirred and united the 
 people of the loyal States during the ten days 
 of life allotted it by the Government, far 
 more than any other event of this war. The 
 President, in an evil hour, annulled it ; and 
 the boiled-down malice and meanness which 
 it provoked, and which were poured out so 
 copiously through Adjutant General Thomas, 
 finfilly effected the intended change in the 
 command of this department. Prom this 
 conduct of the Government towards General 
 Fremont dates the pro-slavery reaction which 
 we now witness. Beginning then, it has 
 gained force and volume every hour since. 
 It balked the popular enthusiasm which else 
 would have drawn along with it even multi- 
 tudes of conservative men. It caused timid 
 and halting sjiirits to become cowards out- 
 right. It gave new life to the slave power, 
 and encouraged fiercer assaults upon "aboli- 
 tionism." The Democratic party, which the 
 war had pretty eflTectually driven into re- 
 tirement, began to assume its former preroga- 
 tives, and manifest its sympathy for treason. 
 Sir, I can never think of the woes and sor- 
 rows with which this war has deluged our 
 country within the past twelve months, with- 
 out deploring the malign influence which led 
 the Administration to strike down a Repub- 
 lican major general in the midst of a glorious 
 career, and in defiance of the sentiment of the 
 people, while Democratic generals, who wer- 
 lauded by every rebel synipathizer through- 
 out the country, and whose incapacity or dis- 
 loyalty could not have been unknowm to the 
 Government, have been persistently kept at 
 the head of our great military departments. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, while the past is beyond our 
 control, its lesson for the future should not go 
 unheeded. The Government can not "escape 
 history" ; but it can atone, in some degree, for 
 the great wrong it has done the country 'and 
 General Fremont, by restoring him, without 
 further delay, to active service, with a com- 
 mand befitting his rank and merits. Every 
 consideration of justice and patriotism pleads 
 for this. He has been the victim of the most 
 cruel injustice and the most unmerited and 
 mortifying humiliation. The President knows 
 this. The military conduct of General Fre- 
 mont will bear the most rigid scrutiny, while 
 his character is without a strain. The policy of 
 his proclamation has been vindicated by time, 
 and mora than vindicated by the Administra- 
 tion itself. Let this policy be committed to 
 the hands of its undoubted friends. The re- 
 storation of General Fremont would at once 
 signalize the earnestness and sense of justic* 
 of the President, and win back to him the 
 confidence of the people. It would be a con- 
 spicuous milestone in the progress of the Go- 
 vernment, and most fitly follow the grand 
 message which proclaimed freedom to mil- 
 lions on the first day of the new year. la th^ 
 
18 
 
 name of the country let it "be done; and let 
 restitution be made to every other oflicer in 
 our armies who has been tlie victim of Demo- 
 cratic policy. The Government, which at 
 first sought to s]iare slavery, now seelcs to 
 destroy it. At last it has a policy; and I 
 hold that no man is fit to lead our armies, or 
 to hold any civil position, who does not sus- 
 tain that policy. Our only hope lies in a 
 vigorous prosecution of the war and the over- 
 throw of Democratic rule. I care little for 
 inere names. Por such generals as Kose- 
 crans, Butler, Bayard, Rousseau, Wallace, 
 Dumont, and Corcoran, and such civilians as 
 Stanton, Bancroft, Owen, and Dickinson, I 
 have only words of praise. They are heartily 
 for their country, and as heartily despise the 
 Democratic leaders who gabble about com- 
 promise with rebels. The recognized leaders 
 of the Democratic partj', judged by their 
 avowed policy, are disloyal in spirit and pur- 
 pose. They talk about the " Constitution as 
 it is," while conniving at its destruction by 
 rebels, and oftering them peace on the basis of 
 a reconstructed Government and another Con- 
 stitution. They clamor for "the Union as it 
 was," and mean by this the Union more 
 ■completely than ever under the domination 
 of slavery. I know what I hazard by this 
 freedom of speech. I know that should De- 
 mocratic policy continue to sway this Ad- 
 ministration, still further disasters may over- 
 take our arms. I know that the people may 
 finally reel and sicken under the prolonged 
 spectacle of blood and treasure poured out in 
 vain ; and that the restoi-ation of the Demo- 
 cratic party to power may be the result, 
 followed by a compromise inaugurating a 
 '' reign of terror" in the free States far more 
 relentless than that which prevailed in the 
 South prior to the war. Demagogues, point- 
 ing the people to the desolation and ruin of 
 the country caused by a profitless "abolition 
 war," and stimulated by southern leaders 
 hungering and thirsting for revenge, may 
 usher in an era of lawlessness and blood 
 scarcely paralleled in history. The leaders 
 of Republicanism, whose counsels, if followed, 
 would have saved the country, may be con- 
 fronted by dungeons, gibbets, and exile, 
 under the new policy which the slave power, 
 maddened by success, would dictate. 
 
 Sir, it is because of the remorseless despo- 
 tism which Democratic policy would certainly 
 establish that I denounce it, and plead with 
 the President to smite it with all the power of 
 the Government, if he would save either his 
 ountry or himself. The Republic of our 
 
 fathers at this moment swings in horrid 
 alternation between life and death. To falter 
 or hesitate now is self-destruction. Rose- 
 water statesmanship will not meet the crisis. 
 Nothing can save us but the earnestness 
 wliich finds its reflex in the rebels, and the 
 courage which gathers strength from despair. 
 A wise policy of the war is not enough. 
 Proclamations of freedom will, of themselves, 
 accomplish little. What we need is action, 
 instant, decisive, defiant action, scourging 
 faithless men from power, sweeping away 
 obstacles, and kindling in the popular heart 
 the fires of a new courage and hope. The 
 Government should arm the colored men of 
 the free States as well as the slaves of the 
 South, and thereby give efiect to the procla- 
 mation of freedom. It should at once organ- 
 ize a bureau of emancipation, to take charge 
 of the great interests devolved upon it by the 
 extinction of slavery. While paying a fair 
 assessment for the slaves of loyal owners, it 
 should digest an equitable homestead policy, 
 parceling out the plantations of rebels in small 
 farms for the enjoyment of the freedmen, 
 who have earned their right to the soil by 
 genei'ations of oppression, instead of selling it 
 in large tracts to speculators, and thus laying 
 the foundation of a system of land monopoly 
 in the South scarcely less to be deplored than 
 slavery itself. It should seize all property 
 belonging to traitors, and use it in defraying 
 the expenses of the war. It should, as far as 
 possible, send all disloj-al persons beyond our 
 lines. It should see to it that corrupt army 
 contractors are shot. It should deal W'ith 
 rebels as having no rights vinder the Consti- 
 tution, or by the laws of war, but the right to 
 die. It should make war its special occupa- 
 tion and study, using every weapon in its 
 terrible armory in blasting, forever, the 
 organized diabolism which now employs all 
 the enginery of hell in its work of national 
 murder, and threatens to make our country 
 the grave of liberty on earth. Such an 
 earnestness, thus born of the unutterable guilt 
 of the rebels and the peril of great and price- 
 less interests, and sustained by a firm faith in 
 the justice of our cause and the smiles of our 
 Maker, would speedily restore our country to 
 the glad embrace of peace, and reassure its 
 promise of free government to the victims of 
 despotic power throughout the world. Our 
 liberties would be saved from present de- 
 struction, and new pulsations of life would be 
 sent down through all the coming generations 
 of men. 
 
ffomesteads for Soldiers on the Lands of Bebels. 
 
 SIPEimOS: OIF 
 
 Hon. GEOEQE W. JULIAN". 
 
 In the house OE EEPEESENTATIVES, Makch 18, 18C4. 
 
 The HousG liavins under consideration the 
 bill reported from the Committee on Pahlic 
 Lands amendatory of the homestead law, 
 together with the amendments thereto, 
 
 Mr. JxJLiAisr said : 
 
 Mr Speaker: During the past month I 
 prepared and reported from the Committee 
 on Public Lands a bill to provide homesteads 
 for persons in the military and naval service 
 of the United States, on the forfeited and con- 
 fiscated lands of rebels. The bill was re-com- 
 mitted and printed; and my purpose was to 
 discuss its provisions under the general call of 
 committees for reports, which will bring the 
 subject directly before the House for its ac- 
 tion. I find, however, in the crowded state 
 of our business, that this would delay my 
 purpose indefinitely; and I have therefore 
 ■concluded to avail myself of the opportunity 
 now olfered to submit what I have to say. 
 
 The measure referred to will be considered 
 a novel one, but it should not therefore be 
 regarded with surprise or disfavor. Our 
 country is in a novel condition. The civil 
 war in which we are engaged is one of the 
 grandest novelties the world has ever seen. 
 We are every day brought face to face with 
 new questions, and compelled to accept the 
 new duties which lie in our path. Who- 
 soever comprehends this crisis, and is willing 
 to assume its burdens, must keep step to the 
 march of events, and turn his back upon the 
 past. 
 
 The bill I have reported, however, is less a 
 novelty in its principles than in their appli- 
 cation to new and vmlooked for conditions. 
 It involves, among other things, the policy of 
 of free homesteads to actual settlers; and 
 since this policy is now seriously menaced, I 
 may be allowed to refer briefly to the sub- 
 ject, by way of preface to what I shall have 
 "to say on the special matter before us. 
 
 Our homestead law was approved May the 
 20th, 1862. Its enactment was a long delayed, 
 but magnificent triumph of freedom and free 
 labor over the slave power. While that 
 power ruled the Government, its success was 
 impossible. By recognizing the dignity of 
 labor and the equal rights of the million, it 
 threatened the very 'life of the oligarchy 
 which had so long stood in its way. The 
 slaveholders understood this perfectly; and 
 
 hence they resisted it, reinforced by their 
 northern allies, with all the zeal and despera- 
 tion with vvhich they resisted " abolitionism" 
 itself. Its final success is among the blessed 
 compensations of the bloody conflict in which 
 we are plunged. This policy takes for granted 
 the notorious fact that our public lands have 
 practically ceased to be a source of revenue. 
 It recognizes the evils of land monopoly on the 
 public domain, as well as in the old States, / 
 and looks to its settlement and improvement 
 as the true- aim and highest good of theEe- 
 public. It disowns, as iniquitous, the princi- 
 ple which would tax our landless poor men a 
 dollar and a quarter per acre for the privilege 
 of cultivating the earth; for the privilege of 
 making it a subject of taxation, a source of 
 national revenue, and a home for themselves 
 and their little ones. It assumes, to use the 
 words of General Jackson, that " the wealth 
 and strength of a country are its population," 
 and that "the best part of that population are 
 the cultivators of the soil." This bold and 
 heroic statesman urged this policy thirty-two 
 years ago; and had it then been adopted, 
 coupled with adequate guards against the 
 greed of speculators, millions of landless men 
 who have since gone down to their graves in 
 the weary conflict with poverty and hardship, 
 would have been cheered and blest with inde- 
 pendent homes on the public domain. Wealth 
 incalculable, quarried from the mountains 
 and wrung from the forests and prairies of the 
 AVest, would have poured into the federal 
 coft'ers. The question of slavery in our na- 
 tional territories would have found a peaceful 
 solution in the steady advance and sure em- 
 pire of free labor, whilst slavery in its strong- 
 holds, girdled by free institutions, might have 
 been content to die a natural death, instead of 
 ending its godless career in an infernal leap 
 at the nation's throat. 
 
 The homestead act did not go into eff'ect 
 till the first of January, 1863. Within four 
 months from that date, notv/ithstanding the 
 troubled state of the country, more than a 
 million of acres were taken up under its pro- 
 visions; and at the close of the year ending 
 September the 30th, this amount was in- 
 creased to nearly a million and a half. Peace 
 will soon revisit the land and resurrect the 
 nation to a new life. The energy and activ- 
 ity of the people, now directed to the business 
 
20 
 
 of war, will be dedicated afresh to industrial 
 pursuits. Many thousands in the loyal Wtates 
 who will have caught the spirit of travel and 
 adventure, and far greater multitudes in the 
 old world who will ho tempted to our shores, 
 will lay hold of the homestead law as their 
 glad refuge and sure help. It will he the day- 
 star of hope to millions beyond the sea, as 
 it is now the fond child of the millions of our 
 own people who inarch under tlie old flag of 
 our fathers. Should it stand for ten years to 
 come, its blessings will outstrip the most san- 
 guine anticipations of its friends. Its over- 
 throw, I have said, is threatened; and this is 
 done by indirection, as well as open assault. 
 Since the date of its passage, Congress has 
 granted nearly seven millions of acres for the 
 benefit of agricultural colleges, and about 
 twenty millions to aid in the construction of 
 railroads. There are now pending before 
 Congress, bills making other grants for rail- 
 roads amounting to nearly seventy millions 
 of acres. We have a project before us which 
 grants nearly seven millions of acres for the 
 education of the children of soldiers ; another 
 granting two hundred thousand acres in the 
 State of Michigan for the establishment of 
 female colleges, which of course would be 
 extended to" the other States ; and another 
 granting ten millions of acres for the cstab- 
 mont of Normal schools for yoving ladies. 
 Every day witnesses the birth of new projects, 
 by which our public lands may be fritted 
 sway and the benificient policy of the home- 
 stead law mutilated and destroyed. And, 
 simultaneously with the development of this 
 backward movement, and as if to aid it, spec- 
 ulators are hovering over the public domain, 
 picking and culiiug largo tracts of the best 
 lands, and thus cheating the government out 
 of their productive wealth, and the poor man 
 out of the home, which else might be his at 
 tho end of the war. Whilst the homestead 
 policy is thus invaded by gradual approaches, 
 and indirect attack, its overthrow is boldly 
 demanded as a financial necessity. A veteran 
 public journalist, and one of the foremost 
 party leaders of our time, proposes to go back 
 from tho Christian dispensation of free homes 
 And actual settlement to the Jewish darkness 
 of land speculators and public plunder. He 
 v/ants money to pay our immense national 
 debt, and seeks to obtain it by levying on the 
 lands which the nation has already dedicated 
 by Iaw to occupancy and cultivation as the 
 .sure means of revenue. What we want and 
 tho(jrOvornment needs is immigration. This is 
 demonstrated by tho report of lion. Samuel B. 
 Ruggles, to the International Congress which 
 mcrat ]>urlin in last September. He takes 
 the eight food-producing States of Ohio, Indi- 
 ana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnes- 
 sota, Iowa, and Missouri, and shows that 
 between tho years 1850 and 18C0, their popu- 
 tion increased 3,554,095, of whom a very large 
 proportion were emigrants from the old States 
 and from Europe. He shows that this intlax 
 of population increased the quantity of im- 
 proved land in those States, within the same 
 
 period, 25,146,054 acres; tliat the cereal pro- 
 ducts of these States increased 248,210,028 
 bushels; that their swine increased 2,503,224; 
 their cattle 2,831,098. He further shows that 
 within the same period, the assessed value of 
 real and j)ersonal estate of these States was 
 augmented §2,810,000,000. These to a great 
 extent are the direct results of immigration ; 
 and in the light of these facts the interest and 
 duty of the (Jovernment are palpable. By all 
 hcmorable and reasonable means it should 
 tempt Europe to send her people to our 
 shores. From 1850 to 1800 tho immigration 
 averaged, annually, 270,762, giving a total of 
 5,062,414. Within the next ten years, should 
 the homestead policy continue, the number of 
 immigrants will probably far transcend all 
 precedent, while increasing multitudes from 
 our older States will join in the grand pro- 
 cession towards the West. If Thurlow Weed 
 wishes to use tlie public domain in paying 
 our national debt, here is the process. It is 
 simply to give heed to the divine injunction 
 to "multiply and replenish the earth." It is 
 to give liomes to the millions who need them, 
 and at the same time coin their labor into 
 national wealth by marrying it to the virgin 
 soil which woos the cultivator. It is to com- 
 pel the earth to yield up her fruits, so that 
 commerce may transmute them into silver 
 and gold. Thus only can we solve the prob- 
 lem of our finances, so far as the public lands 
 are concerned. The project of paying a debt 
 of three thousand millions of dollars, or even 
 the interest on it, by the sale of these lands, 
 is sublimely ridiculous; whilst the proposi- 
 tion to repeal the homestead law is a proposi- 
 tion to encourage speculation, to plunder the 
 Government, to betray the just rights of mil- 
 lions by violating the plighted faith of tho 
 nation, to hinder the march of civilization, and 
 to weaken the force of our example as a Ee- 
 public, asserting equal rights and equal laws 
 as the basis of its policy. 
 
 But I pass from this topic. I have adverted 
 to it, partly because I desired to sound the 
 alarm of danger in the ears of the people, and 
 thus avert its approach, and partly because 
 the considerations I have presented bear di- 
 rectly upon the measure now before the 
 House. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, this rebellion has frequently, 
 and very justly, been styled a slave-holders' 
 rebellion. It is likewise a land-holders' rebel- 
 lion, for the chief owners of slaves have been 
 the chief owners 'of hind. Probably three- 
 fourths, if not five-sixths of the lands in the 
 rebel states at the beginning of the war be- 
 longed to the slave-holders, who constituted 
 onh' about one-fiftieth part of the whole 
 population of those States; whilst of the entire 
 landed estate of the three hundred and fifty 
 thousand slave-holders of the South, at least 
 two-thirds belonged to less than one-third of 
 their number. I make my calculations from 
 our census tables, and such other information 
 as I find within my reach. The bill I have 
 reported, therefore, contemplates no general 
 seizure and confiscation of the property of the 
 
21 
 
 people in the insurrectionary districts. It 
 looks to no sweeping measures against the 
 rghts of the masses, but simply to the break- 
 ing up and distribution of vast monopolies, 
 which have made the few the virtual owners of 
 the multitude, v;lietlier white or black. It is 
 a bill to restore the people to their inalienable 
 rights, by chastising the traitors who con- 
 spired against the government. It proposes 
 to vest in the United States the lands which 
 may be forfeited by confiscation in punish- 
 ment of treason, or of other crimes under 
 municipal laws; by confiscation as a right of 
 war, by military seizure, or by process in -rem; 
 and by sales of non-payment of taxes. The 
 quantity of real estate which shall thus pass 
 from the hands of rebels cannot now be defin- 
 itely determined, but in seeking to estimate 
 it we should bear in mind one important con- 
 sideration. The war which the rebels are 
 waging against us is no longer a mere insur- 
 rection. It is not a grand national riot, but a 
 civil, territorial war between them and the 
 United States. Having taken their stand 
 outside of the Constitution, and rested their 
 cause on the nalvcd ground of lawless might, 
 they have, of necessity, no constitutional 
 rights For them the Constitution has ceased 
 to exist. They are belligerents, enemies of 
 the United States. They still owe allegiance 
 to the government, and are still traitors, but 
 thej'' are at the same time public enemies, who 
 have simply the rights of war and are to be 
 dealt with according to the laws of war. The 
 rights of war and the rights of peace cannot 
 co-exist in the hands of rebels. One party to 
 a contract cannot violate it, and yet hold the 
 other bound; and hence the Constitution has 
 nothing whatever to do with our treatment of 
 the rebels, unless we shall see fit volunta- 
 rily to waive the rights of war, and deal with 
 them as citizens merely. I am not now ut- 
 tering my own opinion, but the solemn 
 judgment of the Nation itself, speaking au- 
 thoritatively through the highest court in the 
 Union. According to the decision, of that 
 court, a civil war between the United States 
 and the rebels has been carried on for more 
 than two years and a half. In the celebrated 
 prize cases decided last spring, and reported 
 in 2 Black's Keports, p. 635, Judge Grier says : 
 "the pai'ties to a civil war are in the same 
 predicament as two nations who engage in a 
 contest, and have recourse to arms;" that "a 
 civil war exists and maybe prosecuted, on the 
 same footing as if those opposing the govern- 
 ment were foreign invaders, whenever the 
 regular course of justice is interrupted by 
 revolt, rebellion, or insurrection, so that the 
 courts cannot be kept open;" and that "the 
 present civil war between the United States 
 and the so-called Confederate States has such 
 a character and magnitude as to give the 
 United States the same rights and powers 
 ■which they might exercise in tlie case of a 
 national or foreign war." Such, Mr. Speaker, 
 is the law as to the relations existing between 
 the rebels and the United States. I am not 
 arguing the point, because all argument is 
 
 closed by this decision. The rebels are bel- 
 ligerents, and when they shall be eifeetually 
 vanquished, they will have simply the rights 
 of a conquered people under the law of nations, 
 that is to say, such rights as we shall choose 
 to grant them, according to the laws of war, 
 untrammelled by the Constitution of the Uni- 
 ted States. 
 
 In the light of this settled principle, Mr. 
 Speaker, I judge of the extent of rebel terri- 
 tory which must fall under our control. The 
 war will increase in intensity and fierceness 
 to the end. The exasperation of the rebels 
 will naturally keep pace with our successes. 
 Our war policy, which has been steadily grow- 
 ing more and more earnest and radical for the 
 past two years, will not again become a " war 
 on peace principles." The amnesty procla- 
 mation may reach the case of many, but 
 should it reach even all who are not expressly 
 excepted by its terms, there will still be au 
 immense territory falling under our power. 
 Sir, whether we have willed it or not, this is 
 now a war oi subjugation, and the law of na- 
 tions must govern the parties and the settle- 
 ment of the dispute. We shall not be con- 
 fined to the penal enactments of Congress on 
 the subject of treason, which require an in- 
 dictment, a regular trial, and a conviction. 
 The condemnation of rebel property need not 
 depend upon the prosecution of its owner 
 through a grand jury, who may be wholly or 
 in part secessionists, nor upon his conviction 
 by a petit jury of like character, nor upon the 
 finding ot a bill within any statute of limita- 
 tions. Eesting our case on the law of nations 
 and the laws of war, we are not compelled to 
 seek the land of the rebel through a trial 
 which must be bad in a country in which tho 
 ofience was committed, and in which both 
 couit and jury may be in sympathy with the 
 accused. The several penal acts of Congress 
 on these subjects, and the ordinary safeguards 
 of law applicable to the rights of citizens in 
 a time of peace are not in our way. The war 
 powers of the government, as asserted and 
 defined in the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th sections 
 of the confiscation act of July 17, 1862, point 
 to a remedy as sweeping as it is just; namely, 
 the military seizure, condemnation, and sale 
 of the real estate of traitors and their abet- 
 tors. A considerable quantity of land, it is 
 true, may pass from the rebels by judicial 
 proceedings against them for treason, and 
 other crimes under municipal statutes. I 
 know, too, that millions of acres must be for- 
 feited by the non-payment of taxes. But, 
 independent of these sources of title, and by 
 virtue of militarj^ seizure and condemnation 
 alone, a very large proportion of the lands 
 within the insurrectionary districts, must vest 
 in the government of the Caited States. 
 
 If it be said that the government has no 
 right to confiscate the fee simple of rebel 
 States, I meet it with a direct denial. In 
 what I have said, 1 have taken this right for 
 granted. I have never doubted it for a mo- 
 ment, and I shall not now argue the question. 
 The hon.^st refusal of tho Tresidontj in last 
 
t2 
 
 Juno, to allow Congress to touch the fee of 
 rebels in arms against the nation, was the 
 saddest and grandeet mistake of his life. That 
 the right to do so was disputed and dehatcd 
 in the last Congress, as it has hecn extensively 
 in this, hy some of our wisest statesmen antl 
 greatest lawyers, will hereafter he set down 
 among the political curiosities of this century. 
 Our fathers were not fools, but Avise men, Avho 
 nrmed the nation with the power to crush its 
 foes, as well as to protect its friends. '• The 
 Constitution was made for the people, not the 
 people for the Constitution." It was not de- 
 signed as a shield in the hands of traitors, but 
 as the sword in the hands of the government 
 to smite them to the earth. It recognizes th<i 
 law of nations and the laws of war ; nor was it 
 possible for our country to esca]ie them. The 
 builders of our national ship did not so fash- 
 ion and rig her that she could sail only in calm 
 weather and over smooth seas, but they qual- 
 ified her to ride out the fiercest tempest in 
 safety, and to defy all pirates. That the na- 
 tion, in this struggle for its life against red- 
 handed traitors and assassins, has no power 
 to confiscate their lands, is a proposition 
 which gives comfort to every rebel symjia- 
 thizer in the country, while 'it insults both 
 loyalty and common sense. The people know 
 better, and on this question, their voice must 
 be heeded. They do not believe, but they 
 Jcnow that the lands of rebels are subject to our 
 power under the laws of war, as well as their 
 personal property, their negroes, or their 
 lives. The government, in the course of this 
 struggle, has learned many lessons. Others 
 are yet to be mastered. Having learned how 
 to strike at slavery as the wicked cause of the 
 war, and to arm the negroes in the national 
 defence, it must now lay hold of the lands of 
 rebels. I believe our triumph over them is 
 not so near at hand as we generally suppose. 
 The most terrific fighting of the war is yet 
 to come. Thej' do not dream of surrender, 
 or compromise, on any conceivable terms. 
 They will resist us, to the end, with a spirit 
 as remorseless as death, and as bitter as the 
 ashes of hell. They must be overcome and 
 crushed by the powers of war, and we must 
 employ, with all the might which can be 
 kindled by the crisis, every weapon known to 
 the law of nations. Congress must repeal the 
 Joint resolution of last year which protects the 
 fee of rebel land-holders. The President, as 
 I am well advised, now stands ready to join 
 us in such action. Should we fail to do this, 
 the courts must so interpret the joint resolu- 
 tion as to make its repeal needless. Should 
 both Congress and the courts stand in the way 
 of the nation's life, then "the red lightning 
 of the people's wrath," must consume the re- 
 creant men who refuse to execute the popular 
 will. Our country, united and free, must be 
 saved, at whatever hazard or cost; and noth- 
 ing, not even the Constitution, must bo allowed 
 to hold back the uplifted arm of the govern- 
 ment, in blasting the power of the rebels for 
 ever. 
 I come, then, Mr. Speaker, to the practical I 
 
 question involved in this bill. This conflict 
 is to be ended by hard, desperate, and per- 
 haps protracted fighting. "\Ve shall certainly 
 win; and our triumph will inevitably divest 
 the little to a vast body of land in the rebel 
 Stat(!S, and place; it under our control. I 
 think it entirely safe to conclude tluit it will 
 constitute more than luilf, and probably threo- 
 fourths, of all the cultivated lands in the re- 
 bellious districts. It will certainly, in any 
 event, cover millions of acres. It will include 
 all lands against which proceedings hi ran 
 shall be instituted, undertheprovisions ofthc 
 act to suppress insurrections, and punish trea- 
 son and rebellion, approved July 17, 18G2; all 
 lands which may be sold under the provisions 
 of the act for the collection of direct taxes in 
 insurrectionary districts, approved June Tth, 
 1862; and a''l lands which may be sold under 
 the provisions of the act to provide internal 
 revenue to support the Government, ajiproved 
 July 1st of the same year. 
 
 "V\'hat shall be done with these immense es- 
 tates, brought within our power by the acts of 
 rebels ? One of two policies, radically antag- 
 onistic, must be accepted. They must be 
 allowed to fall into the hands of speculators, 
 and become the basis of new and frightful 
 monopolies, or they must be placed under the 
 jurisdiction of the Government, in trust for 
 the people. The alternative is now presented, 
 and presses upon us for a speedy decision. 
 Under the laws of Congress now in force, un- 
 checked b}' counter legislation, these lands 
 will be purchased and monopolized by men 
 who care far more for their own niereenarv 
 gains than for the real progress and glory of 
 our country. Instead of being parcelled out 
 into small homesteads, to be tilled by their 
 own independent owners, they will be bought 
 in large tracts, and thus not only deprive the 
 great mass of landless laborers of the oppor- 
 tunity of acquiring homes, but place them at 
 the mercy of the lords of the soil. The old 
 order of things will be SAvept away, but a new 
 order, scarcely less to be deplored, Avill suc- 
 ceed. In place of the slaveholding land-own- 
 er of the South, lording it over hundreds of 
 slaves and thousands of acres, we shall have 
 the grasping monopolist of the North, whoso 
 dominion over the freedmcn and jjoor Avhites 
 will be more galling than slavery itself, which 
 in some degree tempers its despotism through 
 the interest of the tyrant in the health and 
 welfare of his victims. The maxim of the 
 slaveholder that " capital should own labor," 
 will be as frightfully exeniplified under the 
 system of wages-slavery, the child of land 
 monopoly, as under the system of chattel 
 slavery, which has so long scourged the south- 
 ern States. What we slmuld demand is a 
 policy that will guarantee homes to the loyal 
 millions who need them, and thus guard their 
 most precious rights and interests against the 
 remorseless exactions of capital, and the piti- 
 less rapacity of avarice. The helpless condi- 
 tion of the poor of the rebel States, when cap- 
 italists shall have monopolized the land, is 
 already foreshadowed iu the recent report of 
 
23 
 
 Mr. Yeatman, of the Western Sanitary Com- 
 mission. He says : 
 
 " The poor negroes are everywhere greatly op- 
 pressed at their condition. They all testify that if 
 they were only paid their little waijes as they earn 
 them, so that they could purchase clothing, and i"ar- 
 nished with the p"ovisions promised, they could stand 
 it ; but to work and get poony paid, poorly fed, and not 
 doctored when sick, is more than they can endure. 
 Among the thousands whom I questioned none showed 
 the l(\tst unwillingness to work. If they could ouly be 
 paid fair wages they would be contented and happy. 
 They do not realize that they are free men. They say 
 that" they are told they are, but then they are taken 
 and hired out to men who treat them, so far as pro- 
 viding for them is concerned, for worse than their 
 ' secesh' misters did. Besides this, they feel that 
 their i)iyor hire is lower now than it was when the 
 'secesh' used to hire them. 
 
 " ihe parties leasing plantations, and employing 
 these negroes, do it frr.m no motives, either of loyalty 
 O' humanity. The desire of gain alone prompts them, 
 and they care little whether they make it out of the 
 blood of those they employ, or from the soil. There 
 are, ot course, exceptions ; but I am informe.l that tlie 
 majority of ihe lessees were only adventurers, camp 
 followsrs, ' army sharks,' as they are termed, whu 
 hitve turn°d aside from what they consider their 
 legitimate prey, the poor soldier, to gatVier the riches 
 of the land which his pi-owess has laid open to them. 
 I feel that the fathers and brothers and friends of these 
 brave men should have an opportunity to reap, under 
 a more equitable system fir the labor, the reward of 
 the months of toil and exposure it has cost to open 
 this country to tlie institutions of freedom and com- 
 pensated labor. If these plantations were required to 
 be subdivided into parcels or tracts, to suit the views 
 and means of our western men, say in farms of from 
 one to two hundred acres, thousands would soon flock 
 to the South to lease them, especially when it was 
 known that one acre of ground there cultivated in 
 cotton would yield, in dollars, ten times as much as at 
 home. Besides, this subdivision would attract a loiial 
 population, who wo'ild protect the country against any 
 guerrilla bands thit might inlest it." 
 
 Mr. Speaker, the poor whites of the South 
 will be as powerless to take care of themselves 
 as the freedmen, unless the Government shall 
 arm them against their masters. "Subdivi- 
 sion'' of the land, as Mr. Yeatman says, 
 would also secure a loyal popuJat/on, since 
 every man who has a home to Jove and to 
 defend will naturally love his country. This 
 rebellion will present the strong-est tempta- 
 tions to land monopoly that were ever ofiered 
 to the greed of avarice and power. The 
 rich lands of the South have beencursed hy 
 this evil from the beginning, and without 
 the interposition of Congress the system will 
 be continued, and vitalized anew by falling 
 into fresh hands. The degraded and thrift- 
 less condition of the peop/e, the heritage of 
 centuries of bondage, wiJ] pave the way for 
 land monopoly in more g-rfevous forms than 
 have yet been recorded in ancient or modern 
 times. Society can not possibJy be organized 
 on a Republican basis, because a grinding 
 aristocracy, resting uj^on large landed 
 estates, will convert the mass of the people 
 into mere drudges and dependants. African 
 slavery may not exist in name, but the few 
 will practically control the fortunes of the 
 many, irrespective of color or race. In such 
 communities public improvements will neces- 
 sarily languish. Wasteful and slovenly farm- 
 ing will stamp upon the country the impress 
 of dilapidation, while reducing the pro- 
 ductiveness of the soil, and hindering the 
 growth of manufactures and commerce. In 
 
 the midst of large landed estates, towns and 
 villages can neither be multiplied nor enjoy 
 a healthy growth* The want of diversity of 
 pursuits and competition in business, will 
 palsy the energies of the people. The educa- 
 tion of the masses will be impossible, since 
 the establishment and support of schools 
 within convenient reach of the people can 
 not be secured. The proprietors of the great 
 estates, as has been well remarked, will be 
 feudal lords, while the poor will have no 
 feudal rights. Under the tendency of a 
 false system, society will steadily gravitate 
 towards the example of South America and 
 Mexico, where some estates are larger than 
 two or three of the smaller States of our 
 Union. The country will find its likeness 
 in England, in which the smaller land- 
 holders are daily being swallowed up by the 
 larger. 
 
 " In the civilized worM," says Dr. Clianning, "there 
 are few sadder specticles than the present contrast in 
 Great Britain ot unbounded wealth and lu.xury, with 
 the starvation of thousands and tens of thousand.s, 
 crowded into cellars and dens, without ventilation or 
 light, compared with which the wigwam of the Indian 
 is a palace. Jlisery, famine, brutal degradation, m the 
 neighborhood and presenee of stately mansions, which 
 ring with gaiety, and dazzle with pomp and unbounded 
 profusion, shock us as does uo oilier wretchedness." 
 
 Sir, the sympathy of the British aristocracy 
 for the rebels is altogether natural. Land 
 monopoly is slavery. The great English 
 landlord looks upon the large slaveholders of 
 the South as " brothers beloved," while the 
 "sand-hillers" and "clay-eaters" of Carolina 
 and Georgia are perhaps not more miserably 
 degraded by unjust laws than the English 
 agricultural laborer. Mr. Bancroft, describ- 
 ing the condition of Italy some two thousand 
 years ago, says : 
 
 "The aristocracy owned the soil and its eultiv.itors. 
 The vast capacity" for accumulation which the laws of 
 society secure to capital in a greater degree than to 
 personal exertion, displays itself nowhere so clearly as 
 in slaveholding States, where the laboring class is but 
 a portion of the capital of the opulent. As wealth 
 consists chiefly in land and slaves, the rates of interest 
 are, from universally operative causes, always com- 
 piratively high ; the difhculty of advancing with bor- 
 rowed capital proportionally great. The small land- 
 holder finds himself unable to compete with those who 
 are posses-ed of whole cohort-i of bondmen; his 
 slaves, his lands, rapidly pass, in consequence of his 
 debts, into the hands of the more opulent. The large 
 plantations are continually KW.allowing up the smaller 
 ones ; and land and slaves come to be engrossed by a 
 few." 
 
 This is not only an exact description of 
 slavery as we have seen it in the southern 
 States, but a parallel in principle to the 
 system of aristocracy in England, founded on 
 the monopoly of the soil. Travelers through 
 that country speak of it as "thinly settled." 
 Outside of the cities and towns this is true. 
 Even the commons, on which the poor used 
 to pasture their cattle and enjoy their games, 
 are now enclosed by legalized land robbers. 
 Those who demand a correction of these 
 evils, in the name of justice and the people, 
 are denounced as " Agrarians," just as the 
 enemies of slavery in this countrj- are brand- 
 ed as "Abolitionists." The slaveholding land 
 monopolists of this country are to-day repay- 
 
24 
 
 ing the bitter fruits of their unrighteous 
 domination. A retribution to the aristocracy 
 of England, not less terrible, is as certain to 
 come as that pampered injustice finds no 
 liuiits to its demands. 
 
 But I need not dwell longer upon the evils 
 of land monopoly. The history of civiliza- 
 tion furnishes an unbroken testimony to these 
 evils, and thus pleads with us, in the organi- 
 sation of new civil communities, to fortify 
 OTirselves against them. A grand oppor- 
 tunity now presents itself for recognizing 
 the principles of radical democracy in the 
 establishment of new and regenerated States. 
 We are summoned by every consideration of 
 patriotism, humanity, and republicanism to 
 lay the foundations of empire upon the 
 "^during basis of justice and equal rights. 
 No revolutionary or destructive ineitsures are 
 required on our part. We are already in the 
 midst of revolution and chaos. Through no 
 fault of our own, the foundations of social 
 and political order in the rebel States are 
 subverted, and the elimination of a great 
 disturbing clement opens up our pathway to 
 the establishment of free Christian common- 
 wealths on the ruins of the past. These 
 States constitute one of the fairest portions of 
 tlie globe. They are larger in area than all 
 the free States of the North. They have a 
 sea and gulf coast of more than six thousand 
 miles in extent, and are drained by more 
 than fifty navigable rivers, Avhieh are never 
 closed to navigation by the rigor of the 
 climate. They htive at least as rich a soil 
 «s the States of the North, yielding great 
 wealth-producing staples peculiar to them, 
 and two or three crops in the year. They 
 have a finer climate, and their agricultural, 
 manufacturing, and commercial advantages 
 are decidedly superior. Their geographical 
 position is better, as respects the great com- 
 mercial centres of the world. The institution 
 of slavery, which has so long cursed these 
 regions by excluding emigration, degrading 
 labor, and impoverishing the soil, will very 
 soon be expelled. The cry which already 
 tiomes up from these lands is for free laborers. 
 If wo otfer them free homesteads, and pro- 
 tect their rights, they will come. John 
 Bright, in a recent speech at Birmingham, 
 astimates that within the past year 150,000 
 people have sailed from England to New 
 York. Let it be settled that slavery is dead, 
 and that the estates of traitors in the South 
 oan be had under the provisions of the home- 
 stead law, and foreign emigration will 
 be quadrupled, if not augmented tenfold. 
 Millions in the old world, hungering and 
 thirsting after the righteousness of free insti- 
 .tutions, will flock to the sunny South, and 
 mingle there with the swarms of our own 
 people in pursuit of new homes under kindlier 
 Rkies. Immigration has not slackened, even 
 during this war, and in determining the di- 
 rection it will take, it must bo remembered 
 that settlements have very nearly reached 
 their limits in the North and West. Kansas 
 .iUid Nebraska are border States, and n.u;t so 
 
 continue. Their storms, and draughts, and 
 desert plains give a pretty distinct hint that 
 the emigrant must seek his Eldorado in lati- 
 tudes further south. In the new North- 
 western States the richest lands have been 
 purchased, and vast portions of them locked 
 up by speculators. Their distance from the 
 great markets for their produce, and their 
 severe winters, will also check emigration in 
 that direction, and incline it further south, 
 if lands can be procured there with tolerable 
 facility. The rebel States not only abound 
 in cheap and fertile land, with cheap labor 
 in the ])ersons of the freedmen to assist in its 
 cultivation, but they possess great mineral 
 resources. They have also extensive lines of 
 railroads, which, in connection with their great 
 rivers, bring almost every portion of their ter- 
 ritory into communication with the sea. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, nothing can atone for the 
 woes and sorrows of this war but the thor- 
 ough reorganization of society in these re- 
 volted States. Now is the time to begin this 
 work. We must nfit only cut up slavery, 
 root and branch, but we must see to it that 
 these teeming regions shall be studded over 
 with small farms and tilled by free men. We 
 must remember that "the best way to help 
 the poor is to enable them to help them- 
 selves." We must guard the equal rights of 
 the people as a religious duty, for " Christi- 
 anity is the root of all democracy, the highest 
 fact in the rights of man." Labor must be 
 rendered ho;n)rable and gainful, by securing 
 to the laborer the fruits of his toil. Instead 
 of the spirit of Caste and the law of Hate, 
 which have so long blasted these regions, wo 
 must build up homogeneous communities, in 
 which the interest of each will be recognized 
 as the interest of all. In.stead of an over- 
 shadowing aristocracy, founded on the mono- 
 poly of the soil, and its dominion over tlie 
 poor, we must have no order of nobility but 
 that of the laboring masses of the country, 
 who fight its battles in war, and constitute 
 its glory and its strength in peace. Instead 
 of large estates, widely scattered settlements, 
 wasteful agriculture, popular ignorance, poli- 
 tical and social degradation, the decay of 
 literature, the decline of manufactures and 
 the arts, contempt for honest labor, and a 
 pampered aristocracy, we must have small 
 farms, closely associated communities, thrifty 
 tillage, free schools, social independence, a 
 health}'- literature, flourishing manufactures 
 and mechanic arts, respect for honest labor, 
 and equality of political rights. These ends, 
 to a great extent, are provided for by the bill 
 I have introduced, and no measure of more 
 vital interest to the people has ever been 
 submitted to the Congress of the United 
 States. I voted for the bill which has passed 
 tiiis House, providing for a Bureau of Eman- 
 cipation, but I must regard this measure as 
 a far better " frccdman's hill" than that of my 
 honorable friend from Massachusetts, for it 
 provides for the emancipation of all races, 
 and the freedom of labor itself. Those re- 
 gions, blighted by treason, must bo cared for 
 
25 
 
 or abandoned, liy the general Government. 
 The heaven-daring conspiracy of rebels in 
 arms has placed them, or will place them, at 
 our feet. Shall we hand them over to the 
 speculator, in the hope of thereby securing a 
 revenue to pay our national debt ? I have 
 shown that the true source of revenue is the 
 cultivation of the soil. The future of these 
 rebellious States, involving the well-being of 
 millions for generations to come, is now com- 
 mitted to our hands. We can re-enact over 
 them the political and social damnation of the 
 past, or predestinate them to the blessedness 
 and glory of a grand and ever-unfolding 
 future. We can build up a magnificent con- 
 stellation of free commonwealths, whose terri- 
 tory can support a population of more than 
 one hundred millions, on the basis of free 
 labor and a just distribution of land among 
 the people; or we can again organize society 
 after the pattern of Europe, and thus spare 
 the hideous cancer, which, in the words of 
 Chateaubriand, '-has gnawed social order 
 since the beginning of the world." Can we 
 hesitate, in dealing with so fearful an alterna- 
 tive? Shall we mock the Almighty by sport- 
 ing with the heaven-permitted privilege now 
 placed before us? Shall we heap curses on 
 our children, when blessings are within our 
 grasp? Sir, let us prove ourselves worthy of 
 our day and of our work. Let us rise to the 
 full height of our sublime opportunity, and 
 thus make ourselves, under Providence, the 
 creators of a new dispensation of liberty and 
 peace. Then, in the eloquent language of 
 Solicitor Whiting, "the hills and valleys of 
 the South, purified and purged of all the guilt 
 of the past, clothed with a new and richer 
 verdure, will lift up their voices in thanks- 
 giving to the Author of all good, who has 
 granted to them, amidst the agonies of civil 
 war, a new birth and a glorious transfigura- 
 tion. Then, the people of the North and the 
 people of the South, will again become one 
 people, united in interests, in pursuits, in in- 
 telligence, in religion, and in patriotic devo- 
 tion to our common country." 
 
 As regards the particular provisions of the 
 bill before us, I need not occupy much of the 
 time of this House. It has been printed, and 
 gentlemen have had the opportunity of ex- 
 amining it for themselves. It has been pre- 
 pared with much care, and with the assistance 
 of some of the best lawyers in the Union. 
 The first and second sections of the bill 
 provide the methods by which the title of 
 rebel land owners shall vest in the United 
 States under the acts of Congress now in 
 force on the subject of confiscation and re- 
 venue. I shall not discuss the power of the 
 Government thus to acquire the title to this 
 land, for it can not be controverted without 
 overturning all the legislation of the last 
 Congress on the subject of confiscation, in- 
 ternal revenue, and the collection of taxes in 
 insurrectionary districts. I have, in fact, 
 already argued the question of power, in 
 what I have said of our relations to the 
 rebpls as belligerents. 
 
 The third section provides for the survey 
 of the lands in question as nearly as may be 
 in forty acre lots. This is deemed necessary 
 from the fact that in several of the insurrec- 
 tionary districts the old system of irregular 
 surveys exists, and not the present or rect- 
 angular system. The section also provides 
 for the appointment of necessary officers and 
 their compensation, and contemplates the ap- 
 plication and use of the machinery of the 
 General Land Office within such districts. 
 
 The fourth section gives a homestead of 
 eighty acres to all soldiers who shall have 
 served in the army or navy two years, and 
 forty acres to all persons who shall have aided 
 in the militarj^ service against the rebels for 
 any period of time, either as soldiers or la- 
 borers. It also extends the provisions of the 
 homestead act of 1862 over these lands, and 
 thus avoids any new and cumbersome regula- 
 tions, and exacts a continuous residence of 
 five years to consummate the title. 
 
 The fifth section provides that after keep- 
 ing the lands open for homesteads for five 
 years, those remaining vacant shall be sold at 
 public sale. It prohibits the sacrifice of 
 them by fixing a minimum price, which they 
 must bring. It also requires the purchaser 
 to comply with the pre-emption act of 1841, 
 prior to his receiving a patent, thus demand- 
 ing a residence on the land and precluding an 
 accumulation of it in the hands of specula- 
 tors. These safeguards look to the benefit of 
 the mass, and not the interests of a few, even 
 after homesteads have been selected. This 
 section also provides that proof of loyalty 
 shall be made by all persons claiming rights 
 under the bill. 
 
 The sixth section, as will be seen, requires 
 no comment. The seventh requires persons 
 selecting improved lands to pay for whatever 
 may be found of value on them, after an 
 appraisement by persons regularly appointed 
 for the purpose, and to pay the costs created 
 by the proceeding. The effect will be that 
 the expenses created by the act will be paid 
 into the Treasury of the United States, and 
 may exceed the expenditures which will be 
 connected with its operations. 
 
 The eighth section establishes an obviously 
 just if not a necessary rule of construction as 
 to persons of color, giving them equal rights 
 with white men, and extends the inchoate 
 rights of a settler to his heirs, or widow, who 
 may complete payments and make proof. 
 
 The ninth section places the execution of 
 the act in the Department of the Interior, or 
 that more immediately connected Avith the 
 land system ; and the last section repeals all 
 laws inconsistent with the provisions of this 
 act. I will only add, that the act has nothing 
 to do with real estate in towns, cities, and 
 villages, which will, of course, continue to bo 
 gold as heretofore. 
 
 Those, Mr. Speaker, are the material pro- 
 visions of the bill. They embody principles 
 which I have endeavored to vindicate, by 
 argument and by fact. If I am right, then 
 every moment of delay is a golden oppor- 
 
26 
 
 tnnity wasted forever. .Under the present 
 policy of the government every passing day 
 bears witness to the transfer of tliousands 
 of acres of forfeited hinds to specidators. Ac- 
 cording to Judge Underwood, more than two 
 hundred millions of dollars worth of property 
 in the State of Virginia, chiefly real estate, 
 should be confiscated by the Government. 
 Thousands of acres are now being sold in the 
 vicinitj'- of this city. In September last, the 
 President of the United States issued instruc- 
 tions to the Tax Commissioners of South 
 Carolina, providing for the sale of 40,845 
 acres, of which 24,31G acres were to be sold to 
 the highest bidder, in tracts of 320 acres. The 
 remainder was to be sold to the heads of 
 African families, for such sums, not less than 
 one dollar and tweutj'-tive cents per acre, as 
 the Government should see fit to demand. 
 These sales are portions of a lot of 7G,775 
 acres offered on the 9th of last March, when 
 16,479 acres were sold to speculators ; making 
 an aggregate of 40, 795 acres, which will have 
 been sold in large tracts, leaving for the 
 negro onl}- 16,479 acres which he may buy^ if 
 he can raise the money to pay the price fixed 
 by the Government. Such tiansactions as 
 these, in Port Royal, where so much has 
 been hoped for the freedman, are most signi- 
 ficant. If any people have a divine right to 
 these tropical lands, they are the slaves who 
 have bought them, over and over, by their 
 sweat and toil and blood, through centuries 
 of oppression. Degraded and imbruited by 
 servitude, mere children in knowledge and 
 self-help, we require them to compete for 
 their homesteads with the sharpened facul- 
 ties of the white speculator, schooled in 
 avarice by generations of money getting, 
 who believes tho almighty dollar is the only 
 
 living and true God, and would " run into 
 the mouth of hell after a bale of cotton." 
 Sir, our Government is false to its trust, 
 infidel to its mission, if it shall lend its high 
 sanction to such wanton injustice and wrong. 
 Had I the power I would give a free home 
 on the forfeited land of rebels to every bond- 
 man in the insurrectionary districts. Let 
 the Government at least give him an equal 
 chance with our own race, in the settlement 
 and enjoyment of his native land. Less than 
 this would be a mockery of justice and an 
 insult both to decency and humanity. He is 
 excluded from tlie Northern States and ter- 
 ritories by their uncongenial climate, by his 
 attachments to his birth place, and by Anglo- 
 Saxon domination and enterprise. Let the 
 Government which has so long connived at 
 his oppression now make sure to him a free 
 homestead on the land of his oppressor. Let 
 us deal justly with the African, and thereby 
 lay claim to justice for ourselves. Let us re- 
 member, in the language of our patriotic 
 Chief Magistrate, that " We cannot escape 
 history. We of this Congress, and of this 
 administration, will be remembered in spite 
 of ourselves. No personal significance or in- 
 significance can spare one or another of us. 
 The fiery trial through which we pass will 
 light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the 
 latest generation. In giving freedom to the 
 slave, wo assure freedom to the free; honor- 
 able alike in what we give and what we pre- 
 serve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, 
 the last best hope of earth. Other means 
 may succeed; this could not fail. The way 
 is plain, peaceful, generous, just — a way 
 which, if followed, the world will forever 
 applaud, and God must forever bless." 
 
Somesteads for Soldiers— Who are their Friends? 
 
 sipeikicih: oib^ 
 
 Hon. GEOEGE ^Y. JULIAIsT 
 
 In the house OP KEPEESENTATIVES, Mat 12th, 18G4. 
 
 The House having under considenitiou the 
 bill to secure to persons iu the militarj- or naval 
 service of the United States homesteads on con- 
 fiscated or forfeited estates in insurrectionary 
 districts, aa^ for other purposes — 
 
 Mr. Julian said: 
 
 Mh. Speaker: I propose this morniug, after 
 briefly referring to some of the objec-tious which 
 have been urged against this bill, to call for 
 a final vote upon it. I discussed its principles 
 and policy several weeks ago in a somewhat 
 carefully prepared speech. Other gentlemen 
 have since resinned the argument; and believ- 
 ing the House now prepared to vote upon the 
 pi-bposition, I do not wish to hinder other im- 
 jiortant legislation by needlessly prolonging the 
 debate. If there is any besetting sin which can 
 fairly be charged to tliis Congress it is a redun- 
 dancy of talk. 
 
 The gentleman from Kew York [Mr. Fer- 
 nando Wood] objects to this measure because, 
 as he asserts, it assumes that the Union is never 
 by any possibility to be restored. He thinks it 
 recognizes and aims at the destruction of the 
 Union, and says he never will do anything to 
 hinder its restoration. 
 
 Sir, I do not understand the force of the gen- 
 tleman's objection. I do not see how the con- 
 fiscation of the lands of rebels in arms 
 against the Government, or the sale of aban- 
 doned estates for the non-payment of taxes by 
 the vilhiius who have forced the Government to 
 levy them, can in any degree harm the integri- 
 ty of this Union. On the contrary, if the Union 
 is to be saved at all, the best practicable mode 
 of doing it is to lay hold of these confiscated 
 lands and these abandoned estates and make 
 such disposition of them as is proposed by this 
 bill. 
 
 Mr. Fernaxdo Wood. I am very sure the 
 gentleman from Indiana would not intentionally 
 represent me as saying what I did not say. I 
 said the bill was an obstruction to the restora- 
 tion of tlie Union. That was one of the objec- 
 tions I made to it. 
 
 Mr. Julian. I accept the gentleman's quali- 
 fication, but I do not see how it relieves him. I 
 wish he had explained in his speech on yester- 
 day how the passage of this bill could in any 
 way obstruct the restoration of the Union. On 
 the contrary, I think it would do more to ce- 
 ment and perpetuate the Union than any legis- 
 lative measure that could possibly be devised. 
 Here, for instance, are lands belonging to Toombs 
 of Georgia, a conspicuous rebel. He owns as I 
 understand, some forty thousand acres of rich 
 land in the State of Texas; enovigh to furnish 
 an independent homestead of one hundred 
 acres each to four hundred soldiers of this war. 
 How will it militate against the restoration of 
 
 the Union to parcel out these lands in free 
 homesteads to the soldiers and sailors now 
 fighting for the life of the Republic? Can the 
 gentleman tell? 
 
 Let me state another fact. Mr. Thompson, 
 one of the Cabinet ministers of Jimmy Bu- 
 chanan, owns lands which are said to be worth 
 $1,000,000, bonglit by him at from ten to eighty 
 cents an acre. I do not comprehend how the 
 confiscation of these estates and their distribu- 
 tion among our soldiers can endanger the Union ; 
 how it can do otherw'ise than subserve the ends 
 of justice, order, liberty, and peace in the re- 
 volted States. These are the pledges, not the 
 perils, of a real Union. 
 
 Here is another conspicuous rebel, Robert TT. 
 Johnson, of the State of Arkansas, holding an 
 estate perhaps equally as large; and I believe 
 Davis, Floyd, Wigfall, Slidell, Cobb, andin fact 
 all the rebel chiefs have largely monopolized 
 the lands of the South, while" owning and di- 
 recting the labor of the people, black and 
 white. 
 
 This bill proposes to jiarcel out all these 
 estates among the soldiers and seamen of this 
 war, and the gentleman from New York says it 
 will obstruct the restoration of the Union ? 
 
 Mr. Speaker, let me submit to the gentleman 
 from New York a few other facts. Under the 
 legislation of Congress in the old days of slave- 
 breeding Democracy, when old Jimmy Bu- 
 chanan was its king, and such men as the gen- 
 tleman from New^ York were its anointed high 
 priests, grants were made to the States of Ala- 
 bama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississipi)i and Ar- 
 kansas, luulcr the name of •-swamp lands," 
 amounting to more than thirty million acres, 
 and which are to-day the very richest lands iu 
 America. These lands were chiefly bought up 
 afterwards by the men wl)o are now conspicu- 
 ous rebels, and many of them traitors in arms 
 against us. 
 
 The gentleman from New York argues that if 
 we seize these lands and parcel them out among 
 our soldiers it will hinder the restoration of the 
 Union. Sir, I am utterly at a loss to know how^ 
 this can be true. I apprehend, however, that 
 when he talks about restoring the Union he 
 means one thing, and I mean exactly the oppo- 
 site, lie means the Union as it was when the 
 slave power ruled the country like a throned 
 monarch, and when Davis. Floyd, Thompson, 
 and tJieir confederate cut throats and pirates 
 were in the cabinet, in Congress, representing 
 us at the courts of the Old World, and ruling 
 the Government according to their own free 
 will. 
 
 Mr. Kalbfleisch. I would ask the gentle- 
 man whetlicr he means James Buchanan when 
 he talks of ''old Jimmy Buchanan?" 
 
 Mr. Julian, I think the gentleman can guess 
 my meaning pretty shrewdly if be will remem- 
 
28 
 
 bor that I ftroupfd him witli Floyd aticl Thomp- 
 son, his lii.^tinguislK'd Cabinet ministers, and 
 brolhei-s beloved in the work of undermining,' 
 tlie Union. I called him "old, linunv Buchan-in" 
 I'.imiliarly, not dreaming that it would ollend 
 any loyal man on this floor. 
 
 I was about to say, Mr. Speaker, when inter- 
 rnfjted, that if the gentleman from New York 
 demands tlie restoration of the Union as it was 
 when the Demoeratie party, in the evil davs of 
 the past, ruled the Government absolutidy in 
 the interest of slavery, and when the nation 
 was steadily gravitatins; under the accumula- 
 ting weight of its guilt toward the botto,niess 
 pit of national ruin, then I am not for the Union 
 as it was, but as it will be when this reliellion 
 shall have wrought out its providential lesson 
 in these States, and scourged the ilave-brecd- 
 ing Democracy forever from our land. I am 
 for a Union of regenerated States, resting 
 xipon the basis of free labor and the rights of 
 man, and disowning, as an atrocious libel upon 
 humanity and republicanism, the dogma which 
 demands that slavery shall be the corner-stone 
 of the Government, as those rebels and their 
 sympathizers have labored so long to make it. 
 
 Mr. Si)eaker, the gentleman from New York 
 8ays that it would be 'unconstitutional' to pass 
 this bill. I am again at a loss to know what the 
 gentleman means by his argument. If it be 
 unconstitutional to pass this bill, then all the 
 legislation of Congress since this rebellion be- 
 gun is unconstitutional and void. Our tax 
 laws and revenue laws, enacted during the past 
 three years, are all unconstitutional, including 
 the tax bill which recently passed this House. 
 If this bill is unconstitutional, then our grand 
 armies that have from time to time been raised 
 by authority of the Government were uncon- 
 stitutionally raised, equipped, and employed. 
 Every gun and every cannon fired in the na- 
 tional defense has been imconstitutionally lev- 
 eled at the rebels. The war itself is an uncon- 
 stitutional war, the President and Congress are 
 guilty of usurpation and treason, and the most 
 loyal men in the country are such as the con- 
 victed felon wlio once held a seat on this floor 
 from the State of Ohio, and is now in exile, 
 and the still more "unworthy" gentleman from 
 Maryland, [Mr. Harris,] who prays God to-dav 
 that the armies of the Union mav never prevail 
 over the organized thugs and assassins whose 
 daggers are aimed at the nation's heart. Ac- 
 cording to this philosophy the Constitution 
 itself is clearly unconstitutional, and tliere is no 
 sure guide left us save the new gospel of peace 
 as expounded by the distinguished gentleman 
 from New York. 
 
 Sir, I do not exactly accept those Democratic 
 revelations, and I say again that if this bill, 
 which we propose to vote upon to-dav, is un- 
 constitutional, then all the endeavors of this 
 Government to put down the rebellion are un- 
 constitutional, the gentlemen on the other side 
 of the TIou«o are on the loyal side, we who sup- 
 i)ort tlic Government are the enemies of the 
 country, and as the remedy for all our troubles, 
 the adniinistralion should be utterly overthrown 
 and George B. McChdlan chosen President. 
 Our h(?aven should be slavery, and the devil 
 ffhoiild be our God. Mr. Speaker, I respectfully 
 decline the espousal of this unsavory Demo- 
 cratic^ faith. 
 
 But the gentlem-in from New Y'ork says ho 
 suspected, when this bill was introduced, that 
 there was a "nigger" in it, and that upon inves- 
 tigation he has found him. lie refers to the Ne- 
 braska bill, of which Colonel Benton said ithad 
 u stump speech iu its belly, and says that this 
 
 bill has a "little nigger'^ in its belly. The con- 
 temptuous si)iritand characteristic language of 
 the gentleman from New York would commend 
 him to tiie kindly consid(;ration of the hero of 
 the Fort Pillow l)utchcries, or the ringleaders of 
 the late pro-slavery mob in New York. General 
 Forrest in his recent exploits, only displayed a 
 larger measure of the same unchristian and un- 
 manly hatred of "the nigger,"which the gentle- 
 man from New Y''ork exhibits on this floor as a 
 leader of the "i)eace Democracy !" Is it strange 
 that the rebels of the South should defy human- 
 ity in their treatment of the negroes? But, 
 Mr. Speaker, why is the gentleman unwilling 
 that negro soldiers shall have a homestead on 
 their native soil? They have enlisted in the ser- 
 vice of their country; they are sharing all the 
 perils and hardships of war; they are helping 
 by their valor to achieve our victories and save 
 the nation from impending destruction; they 
 are to-day covering themselves with glory un- 
 der General Grant, in driving back General Lee 
 and his legions. The country now pays them 
 the same wages as our white soldiers. Why 
 would the gentleman from New Y'ork refuse to 
 grant them, at the end of tlie war, a home on 
 the land of their op])resssors, who have en- 
 slaved their race for more than two hundred 
 years, and at last sought both their lives and 
 the life of the Republic? 
 
 IMr. Mallory. I wish, with the permission 
 of the gentleman from Indiana, in connection 
 with the remark he has just made, to inquire of 
 him, if he will be kind enough to answer, 
 whether it is not one of the provisions of this 
 bill that the negro soldier may go and settle 
 alongside of the white soldiers upon these confis- 
 cated lands in the rebel States, and other lands 
 which may come into possession of the General 
 Government? If that be so, then I wish to ask 
 the gentleman whether he docs not intend this 
 as one of a series of acts by which he desires to 
 work out the entire equality, social and politi- 
 cal, of the uegro with the white man in this 
 country? 
 
 I desire also, in addition, before the gentle- 
 man replies to that (luestion, to ask him 
 whether he does not himself believe that if the 
 negro is employed as a soldier in the Army un- 
 der the policy inaugurated by this Government 
 to maintain its liberties, as he says— I say 
 whether he does not himself believe it to be 
 wrcng and unjust for the black soldier wlio 
 served his country on the battle-field to be de- 
 nied social and political equality with the white 
 soldier? I desire to know the opinion of the 
 gentleman particularly as ivprcsenling the pe- 
 culiar portion of the party on that side of the 
 House with which he acts. 
 
 Mr. Juf>iAN. I take pleasiu-e in answering 
 the gentleman, but when he speaks of the "i>e^ 
 culiar portion" of the party with which I act I 
 do not know what he means. 
 
 Mr. Mai.lory. I suppose; the gentleman will 
 allow us to be as familiar with his party as he 
 assumes to be wdth the Democratic party when 
 he speaks of "Jimmy Buchanan." The'gcntle- 
 nian of course understands his position on that 
 side of the House. 
 
 Mr. Juf.iAM. I trust the gentleman will iind 
 when the vote comes to be taken on this bill 
 that I am identified with no "peculiar party" 
 on this side of the House which sei)aratrs ine 
 from the <o'eat body of the uncondition;'.! 
 Unicm men in this Hall or throughout the coun- 
 try, I ralher think the gentleman is right in 
 Ills remark that I understand my political posi- 
 tion . 
 
 In answer to the question of the gentleman 
 
29 
 
 from Knntucky I liave to sav tliat I mean by 
 this bill precisely what the bill says in its plain 
 English words. I mean that when this war is 
 over the black soldier, as Avell as the white sol- 
 dier shall have a homestead of forty or eighty 
 acres, as the bill provides, upon the lands of 
 these rebels which shall be contlscated or other- 
 wise come into the possession of tlie Govern- 
 ment. I mean, in other words, that they shall 
 have equality of rights as to the ownership of 
 the soil in these insurrectionary States. 
 
 As to the question ot social equality, I be- 
 lieve the negro will work out that problem for 
 himself under the new dispensation which the 
 military anfl legislative power of the Govern- 
 ment are now inaugurating. I do not propose 
 to enter into any nice speculations upon this 
 subject, but I have no opinion to conceal. 1 be- 
 lieve in doing justice to the negro, in guarding 
 his rights, and in giving him fair play in light- 
 ing his own battle, leaving his social position to 
 be determined by liisown conduct, and the con- 
 ditions of life in" which he may be placed. For 
 one I have no fear whatever of African dom- 
 ination. I trust the gentleman from Kentucky 
 is not seriously alarmed. I must say, however, 
 tJiat I hope no rebels or rebel sympathizers will 
 ever have any superiority of rights over the 
 negro soldiers who have aided in crushing the 
 rebellion. Should African domination take 
 its turn, I trust it will lind its true subjects. 
 
 Mr. Mallory. As the gentleman from In- 
 diana is very candid and distinct in his utter- 
 ances and the expression of his opinions, I do 
 not think he will object if I endeavor to under- 
 stand exactly where he stands on this question 
 before this colloquy is ended. I distinctly ask 
 the gentleman whether he does not contemplate 
 by the bill before the House, by which he propo- 
 ses to put negroes alongside of white men upon 
 these confiscated lands, to establish a perfect 
 equality of the negro with the white man; in 
 other words whether he does not advocate that 
 the negro shall vote and hold office, and be fully 
 the white man's equal? I understand the gcii- 
 tleman to acknowledge that to be true. I un- 
 derstand him in his answer to avow that he is 
 willing that politically the negro and white man 
 sliall be ef|ual, but that as to social equality that 
 was a matter which the negro would settle for 
 himself as soon as the shackles of bondage 
 were removed. I understand that to be the 
 answer of the gentleman from Indiana. If not, 
 I hope the gentleman will be explicit. 
 
 jNIr. Julian. I think I have answered the 
 gentleman fully. I will say in reference to the 
 right of the negro to vote 
 
 Mr. Mallouy. And hold cfHce. 
 
 Mr. Julian. I will say that under the Con- 
 stitution of our Government, which I hope to 
 see preserved, as does the gentleman from Ken- 
 tucky—the right of sufl'rage in the States is to 
 be determined by the States themselves. When 
 these revolted reunons shall be regenerated and 
 dotted over with free homesteads, tilled by the 
 labor of freemen, and when these negroes have 
 been converted from chattels into men, with a 
 common right to the soil and stake in society, 
 then the legislative bodies of these rebaptized 
 States will probably deal with the question of 
 suffrage on just principles. I think they will 
 not decline the logic^al consequences of radical 
 democracy. But I shall be for leaving that 
 matter tothem,as it is now left to Massachusetts 
 and Kentucky. If they shall see fit to recognize 
 the right of the negro "to cast his ballot; if the 
 right of voting is conferred upon all without 
 discrimination as to color or race, I can only say 
 that I would not pronounce it au unwise policy. 
 
 But I would submit that question to the States 
 themselves. I believe the States of North Care- 
 Una and Tennessee once allowed negroes to vote; 
 and the gentleman will remember that not very 
 many years ago two very prominent public 
 men of those States, Hon. George E. Badger and 
 Hon. John Bell, admitted that thev had been 
 elected to otlice over their competitors by the 
 votes of colored men. The case of Mr, Bell, I 
 think, was his first election to Congress. 
 
 The gentleman will also remember that sev- 
 eral of the slave States, and nearly all the non- 
 slave-holding States, permitted colored men to 
 vote at the date of the formation of the Gov- 
 ernment; and they did vote, as he must know, 
 upon the question of adopting the Constitu- 
 tion. 
 
 Mr. Mallory, I think I have obtained an 
 answer from the gentleman from Indiana, and 
 I want to show what I understand that answer 
 to be, so that there may be no mistake in the 
 future. I understand him to say that these 
 States may extend to this black population who 
 settle upon these lauds the right of suUVnge and 
 the right to hold office. I understand the gen- 
 tleman to say that while as a citizen of Indiana, 
 or Representative from that State, he has no 
 control over the matter, yet if he had any con- 
 trol over the matter his vote and voice would 
 be in favor of the exercise of the right of suff- 
 rage and to hold political otlice by the black 
 men in the revolted States, I understand the 
 gentleman to say if lands in Indiana be confis- 
 cated—and I believe it is alleged there are men 
 there whose property may be confiscated— and 
 these black men are located upon them, he will. 
 as a potential member of the Kepul)lican party," 
 advocate the enjoyment of the elective fran- 
 chise by black men, of the political equality of 
 the negro with the v.hite man. That I un- 
 derstand to be the exact object and aim of this 
 bill, I ask whether it is not the entering wed"e 
 for the purposes I have indicated, "^ 
 
 Mr. Julian. I fear I shall not be able to 
 satisfy the geni Ionian's remarkable thirst for 
 knowledge, and for exact information as to the 
 ulterior purposes of this bill and my own in- 
 tentions in urging its passage. If the bill, by a 
 fair interpretation of its language, is a good or.e 
 and should command the gentleman's support, 
 I hope he will not fight it because he fears it 
 will be "the entering wedge" to revolutionary 
 measures, or that my own intentions reach too 
 far into the distant and uncertain future, I 
 hope he will calm his fears. As to rebel lands 
 in Indiana, the gentleman knows, if he has read 
 the bill, that it applies oulv to the States in in- 
 surrection. As regards his reiterated questions, 
 let me remind tlie gentleman that if he will re- 
 member the answers I have already given him 
 he will find that they respond fuliv and fairly 
 to what he asks. As respects the question of 
 ••negro equality," let me say to the gentleman 
 that I do not think he ought to press it. consid- 
 ering his relations to his brethren in the Soutli. 
 I think tlie subject a somewhat delicate one for 
 Democratic gentlemen to deal with, 
 
 Mr. MALLOiiY. I would like to have the gen- 
 tleman explain that. 
 
 Mr. Julian. I will do so. We who are 
 known as Ilepublicans and unconditional Union 
 men sometimes associate with negroes. They 
 live among us, and of course we have dealings 
 with them. But no such intimate relations 
 exists between them aiul us as vre find existino- 
 between them and the Democrats South. Con*^ 
 tinually, habitually, and as the result of a weil- 
 recognized law of social order, the slave 
 mothers and slave masters of the South are 
 
BO 
 
 brought on the level of social equality in its 
 moi't loathsome forms. In some of tlie reliel 
 States I believe the number of mulattoes is nearly 
 equal to the number of Democratic voters. In 
 the State of Mississippi, if I am not mistalcen, 
 wherever you find an orthodox modern Demo- 
 crat you will lind a mulatto not very far off. 
 The gentleman cannot deny this form of social 
 equality, unless he can show tliat llicse niulat- 
 toes sprouted up from the soil, or were rained 
 down from the clouds, or reported their pres- 
 ence throu^irh some other miracle. The social 
 equality between negro women and Anglo Sax- 
 on Dernocrats is the natural consequciice aiul 
 necessary fruit of the institution which has 
 proved itself to be the mother of treason and of 
 all lesser abominations. 
 
 Mr. Mali.ouy. The Census Bureaxi estab- 
 lishes the fact that one-sixth of the colored popu- 
 lation of the Kortli liave white blood in their 
 A'eins, while only one-ninth of the slave popula- 
 tion have white blood in them. 
 
 Mr. Julian. I have not examined the census 
 tables as to the fact stated by the gentleman. 
 It may be true, for I believe mulattoes more 
 generally come into the northern States, than 
 those of a darker color, and of course their in- 
 crease will be mulattoes. The gentleman is not 
 at all relieved, however, by the white blood in 
 the veins of these negroes lu the North, for 
 they have migrated from the South, bringing 
 with them, perhaps the blood of the gentle- 
 man from Kentucky, and other distinguished 
 leaders ot his party. [Laughter.] 
 
 Mr. Mallory. "I have to say that the one- 
 ninth white blood which exists in the South 
 may be attributed to the fact that we have 
 among us northern teachers, schoolmasters, and 
 peddlers. [Laughter.] 
 
 Mr. Julian. The gentleman assigns entirely 
 too large a work to these itinerant Yankees. 
 Certainly, my friend from Kentucky does not 
 believe them to be so wonderfully endowed, or 
 so marvelously successful over able and experi- 
 enced Democratic rivals. Besides, I think it 
 was John Randolph who said that "the best 
 blood of old Virginia courses in the veins other 
 slaves." It was not the blood of northern 
 schoolmasters and peddlers, but Virginia blood, 
 and what is true of Virj^inia may fairly be as- 
 gumed as to other slave States. 
 
 3fr. Mallory. Mr. Speaker 
 
 Mr. Julian. I prefer not to be further inter- 
 rupted in this direction. 3Iy time is rapidly 
 expiring. 
 
 Mr. Mallory. I wish the gentleman to an- 
 swer my serious question, and not act the dema- 
 gogue upon this occasion. 
 
 Mr. Julian. The getitleman imputes to me 
 that which I think belongs exclusively to 
 himself on this occasion. 
 
 ]Mr. Mallory. The gentleman is mistaken. 
 
 Mr. Julian. I decline to yield further. 
 "When interrupted by the gentlen'ian from Ken- 
 tucky, I was replying to some of the objections 
 of tlie gentleman from New York, [IVIr. Fer- 
 nando Wood,] to this bill. After urging its un- 
 constitutionality, he said he did not seek to save 
 the negroes from their masters, but from their 
 white northern oppressors. 
 
 Mr. Fernando "Wood. Before the gentle- 
 man from Indiana leaves the point of replying 
 to me, I desire to call his attention to the fact 
 that my objection waste conferring these home- 
 steads upon the black laborers, and not upon 
 the black soldiers. The gentleman has carefully 
 avoided alludinic to that provision of the bill 
 which allows laborers to enjoy these homesteads 
 and not the soldiers. 
 
 Mr. Julian. I have no disposition whatever 
 to evade the fact that this bill ])rovides home- 
 steads of forty acres for those who have been 
 employed as laborers in the military service. 
 But I wish to ask the gentleman from New 
 York if he is in favor of conferring these lands 
 as homesteads upon the black soldiers. 
 
 Mr. Fernando Wood. I am not, [laughter.] 
 because the lands do not belong to the Govern- 
 ment, and hence they cannot confer them. 
 
 Mr. Julian. Then I have not misrepresented 
 the gentleman, and he had no occasion to inter- 
 rupt me. As respects the inhumanity of our 
 loyal people toward the freedmen of the South 
 I agree with him in all he has said; and one of 
 the chief purposes of this measure is to prevent 
 the establishment of a remorseless system of 
 serfdom over the blacks. I know very well 
 what is being done in Louisiana to-day under 
 false ideas of reconstruction. I know that a 
 system of enforced and uncompensated lat)or is 
 growing up there but one remove from slavery 
 itself. It is to guard against all this legalized 
 vassalage and wrong by' the white speculators of 
 the North and the monopolists of the South that 
 I desire to see this bill become a law. 
 
 Give away these lands in small homesteads to 
 the men who have earned them l)y their heroism 
 and their toils; for without a home no man can 
 have, absolutely, any rights. Land monopoly 
 IS slavery in disguise. It is a stupendous sys- 
 tem of serfdom, as unnatural in a republic as 
 would be the recognition of universal liberty in 
 an absolute despotism. 
 
 I have already referred to the vast estates of 
 Floyd, Thompson, and other leading rebels, who, 
 with their confederates own the great body of 
 the lands in the rebel States. If you seize these 
 lands and allot them in small homesteads, you 
 destroy this monopoly and establish indepen- 
 dence, liberty, and equality on the ruins of the 
 system which lias ripened into this war. You 
 establish closely associated communities on 
 the basis of free labor. You make it possible to 
 establish free schools and churches, and by 
 taking awa}- the absolute power of capital over 
 labor you secure the right to the ballot, and thus 
 enal)le the people themselves to guard their 
 political rights. Sir. this question of land mo- 
 nopoly is the grandest question of this tremend- 
 ous conflict with the rebels. It involves the 
 whole problem of reconstruction. If not de- 
 cided wisely, what wull the President's procla- 
 mation be worth ? Of what avail would be an 
 act of Congress totally abolishing slavery, or an 
 amendment of the Constitution forever prohibit- 
 ing it, if the old agricultural basis of aristocratic 
 power shall remain? Real liberty must ever be 
 an outlaw where one man only in three hundred 
 or five hundred is an owner of the soil. Let it 
 be remembered, too, that the work of settle- 
 ment and reorganization in the revolted States 
 must necessarily be attended by tumult and 
 peril. Guerrillas will infest the country, and 
 perhaps carry on their work of rapine and mur- 
 der for years to come. Order and security can 
 only approach their final empire by gradual 
 steps. Nothing, therefore, can be more entirely 
 natural and just than to send our veteran sol- 
 diers into these regions when the war is ended, 
 with their rifles on their shoulders, ready to de- 
 fend as well as to cultivate their homesteads, and 
 protect from wrong and outrage those who may 
 not be able to help themselves. This policy 
 would make every settler in these regions, dur- 
 ing their transition from barbarism to civiliza- 
 tion, a national policeman and avenger, an effi- 
 cient arm of that military force which for a 
 time will be required by the state of the coun- 
 
31 
 
 try. Both a military and an agricultural neces- 
 sity plead for it, while it is commended by the 
 highest statesmanship, and erai^odies a beautiful 
 poetic justice to our own soldiers and to the rebels 
 whose lands shall thus become their righteous 
 heritage. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, let me say in conclusion, to the 
 gentlemen on the other side of the House who 
 have seemed so anxious to increase the pay of 
 our soldiers that this bill gi^es them a capital 
 opportunity to demonstrate their sincerity. 
 My colleague, [Mr. Holman,] who I am 
 sorry to say, is not now in his scat, has 
 clamored during the whole of this 
 session for an increased compensation for the 
 brave fellows who are pei'illing their lives for 
 the Republic. The gentleman from New York 
 [Mr. Fernando WoodJ has also been very anxi- 
 ous on the subject. It seems to be the earnest 
 desire of our brethren on the other side of the 
 House to have something done and that speedily 
 for the common soldier. We have already in- 
 creased hispay, but our Democratic friends are 
 not yet satisfied. Now, here is a proposition, 
 made by a committee of the House, to give all 
 our sailors and soldiers, black or white, and all 
 who have served the United States as laborers, 
 homesteads of forty and eighty acres of land on 
 the forfeited estates of the rebels. This is pro- 
 posed as a reward for their valor, and as the 
 surest pledge of the redemption and regenera- 
 tion of the insurrectionaiy districts. Sir, I 
 want to know how these gentlemen are going 
 to reconcile their votes against this bill with 
 their declared love for the soldiers of the Union ? 
 
 It is a simple proposition to parcel out the 
 
 lands of the rebels by extending the homestead 
 law over them under the regulations of the Gen- 
 eral Land Office, and in pursuance of existing 
 laws of Congress on the subject of confiscation 
 and revenue. It is a proposition to make etlect- 
 ive, for the benefit of the soldier, what Congress 
 has already done, and it will at once test the sin- 
 cerity of every man who professes to be the sol- 
 dier's friend. I submit to gentlemen upon the 
 other side of the House that now is the favored 
 opportunitv, the accepted time, lor them to show 
 their faith by tbeir works. Not to vote for this 
 bill, it seems to me, is to vote to continue the 
 immense monojioly of the soil in the revolted 
 States without which this rebellion w^ould have 
 been impossible. Not to vote for this bill is to 
 vote that northern speculators and monopolists 
 shall continue to buy up the lands every day 
 sold by the Government for the non-payment of 
 taxes, and thus make them the basis of new 
 and frightful monopolies. Not to vote for this 
 bill is to wu-ite one's self down the enemy of 
 the common soldier, Avhose valor has covered 
 him with glory on so many bloody fields, and 
 earned for hiin so richly the gratitude of his 
 country. Not to vote for this bill is to balk 
 the righteoiis purpose of the nation to save its 
 own life, and to visit a fitting retribution upoa 
 its assassins. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I shall not detain the House lon- 
 ger, having already occupied more time than I 
 intended. I think the principles of this bill are 
 understood on both sides of the House, and I 
 now demand the previous ciuestion ou its pass- 
 age. 
 
Jtadicalisni and Conservatism — the Truth of Jlistory Vindicated. 
 
 sipeech: OIF- 
 
 Hon. GEOEGE ^. JULIAN, 
 
 Ix THE HOUSE OF KEPRESENTATIVES, Februaky 7th, 18C5. 
 
 Tho House being in the Committee of the Whole 
 on tlie 8t:ite of the Union, and having under 
 considerutiou the Tresideufs mcs-siige — 
 
 Mr. Julian said : 
 
 Mr. Chairman: Pcriiaps no task could be 
 more instruetivo or profitable, in these culmina- 
 ting days of the rebellion, than a review of the 
 shifting" phases of thouglit and policy which 
 have guided the Administration in its endeavors 
 to crush it. Sucli a retros))eet will help us to 
 vindicate the real truth of history, both as to 
 measures and men. It will bring out, in the 
 strongest colors, tho contrast between radical- 
 ism and conservatism, as rival political forces, 
 e;ich maintaining a varying control over the 
 conduct of the war. It will, at the same time, 
 point out and emphasize those pregnant lessons 
 of tlie struggle which may best supply the 
 Government with counsel in its further i)rose- 
 cutiou. The faithful performance of this task 
 demands plainness of speech; and I shall not 
 shrink from my accustomed use of it, in the in- 
 terests of truth and freedom. 
 
 At the beginning of this war, Mr. Chairman, 
 neither of the parties to it comprehended its 
 character and magnitude. Its actual history 
 has been an immeasurable s^u-prise to both, and 
 to the whole civilized world. The rebels evi- 
 dently expected to make short work of it. 
 Judging us by oar habitual and long-continued 
 submission to Southern domination, and con- 
 fiding in the nuiltiplied assurances of sympathy 
 and help whicii they had received from tlicir 
 faithful allies in the North, they regarded the 
 work of dismemberment as neither difficult nor 
 expensive. They did not dnniin of the grand 
 results which have proceeded from their mad 
 enterprise. Nor does their d(!lusion seem to 
 have been at all strange or unnatural. Cer- 
 tainly, it was not more remark-able tliaTi the in- 
 fatuation of the Administration, and its con- 
 servative friends. The Government understood 
 the conflict as little, and misunderstood it as 
 absolutely, as its foes. This, sir, is one of the 
 lessons of the war which I think it worth while 
 to have remem])ered. This revolt, it was be- 
 lieved, was simply a new and enlarged edition 
 of Southern bluster. The Government did not 
 realize tlu' inexorable necessity of actnal war, 
 because it lacked the moral visit n to perceive 
 tne real nature of the contest. To every sug- 
 gestion of so dire an event it turned an averted 
 face and a deaf ear. It ho])(Hl to restore order 
 by making a show of war, without actually call- 
 ing into play the terri!)lc enginery of waV. It 
 trusted in the form, without tlie power of war, 
 just as some people have trusted in the form, 
 without the power of godline-s. It will be re- 
 membered that just before the battle of r>all's 
 Blufl" General McClellcn ordered Colonel Stone 
 
 to "make a slight demonstration against t!.o 
 rebels," which might " have the effect to drivo 
 them from Leesburg." The Government seems 
 to have pursued a like poli(;y in dealing with 
 the rebellion itself. " A slight demonstration," 
 it was believed, Avould '• have the eflect" to ar- 
 rest the rebels in their madness, and re-estab- 
 lish order and peace in about "sixty days," 
 without allowing them to be seriously hurt, and 
 without imchaining the tiger of war at all. The 
 philosophy of General Patterson, who kindly 
 advised that the war on our part should be 
 '* conducted on peace i)rinciples," was by no 
 means out of fashion with our rulers, and thu 
 conservative leaders of opinion generally. — 
 Even the Commander-in-Chief of our Army 
 and Navy scoutiid the idea of putting down tho 
 rebellion by military power. He thouu'^iit the 
 country was to be saved by giving up the prin- 
 ciples it had fairly won by' the ballot in the year 
 1801), and to the maintenance of which the new 
 Administratiou was solemnly pledged. He be- 
 lieved in "conciliation," in "compromise" — 
 the meanest word in the whole vocabulary of 
 our politics, except, i)erhaps. the word "con- 
 ser rativc"— and had far less faith in the help of 
 bullets and bayonets in managing the rebels 
 than in the power of our brotherly love to melt 
 their susceptible hearts, and woo them Itack, 
 gently and lovingly, to a sense of their tnadness 
 and tlieir crime. Our distinguished Secretary 
 of State declared that " none but a despotic or 
 imperial (rovernmcnt would seek to subjugate 
 thoroughly disaflected sovereignties." The pol- 
 icy of coercing the revolted States was disa- 
 vowed by the Pn^sident himself in his messago 
 to Congress of July, 18ti1. 
 
 Nor "did the legislative department of the 
 Government, at that time, disagree with tha 
 executive. On the 22d day of July of the. same 
 year — and I say it with sorrow and shame— on 
 the v('ry mornV.g following the first battle of 
 Bull Run, the House of Representatives, speak- 
 ing in the form ijf solemn legislative resolves, as 
 did the Sentite two days later, declared that it 
 was not the purpose' of the Government to 
 "subjugate" the villains who began this work 
 of organized and inexcusable rapine and nuir- 
 der. "indeed, it was not then the fashion to 
 call them villains. In the very i)olite and gin- 
 gerly phrase of the times they were styled 
 " our misguided fellow-citizens," and "'o\u' er- 
 ring Soutiiern brethien." while the rebel States 
 themselves were lovingly referred to as " our 
 wayward sisters." Tiie truth is, that for about 
 a yc^u' and a half of this war the poli(;y of ten- 
 derness to the rebels so swayed the Administra- 
 tion that it seemed far less intent upon crush- 
 ing the rebellion by arms, than upon contriving 
 " iiow not to do it." General ilcClellan. who 
 so long palsied the cuergies and balked tho 
 
purpose of tlie nation, would not allow an un- 
 kind word to be uttered in liis presence against 
 tbe rebel leaders. If an officer or soldier was 
 beard to speak disrespectfully of tbe great con- 
 federate cbief, he was suir,marily reprimanded, 
 wbile the unrivaled reprobate and grandest of 
 national cut-throats was pronounced a bigh- 
 souled gentleman and man of honor! Not the 
 spirit ol war, but the spirit of peace, seemed to 
 dictate our principles of action and measures 
 of policy towards the men who bad resolved, at 
 whatever hazard or sacrifice, to break up the 
 Government by force. This policy, sir, had it 
 been continued, would haxe proved the certain 
 triumph of the rebel cause. With grand armies 
 in the field, and all the costl.y machinery of war 
 in our hnnds, our o]iportunities were sinned 
 away by inactivity and delay, while the rebels 
 gathered strength from our indecision and 
 weakness. A major general in our army, and 
 as brave and patriotic a man as lives, saiil to 
 me in the early stages of the war that the grand 
 obstacle to our success was the lack oi resent- 
 ment on our ])art toward traitors. He said wc 
 did not adequately hate them; and he tirged me, 
 if in any degree in my power, to breathe into 
 the hearts of the people in the loyal States a 
 spirit of righteous indignation and wrath to- 
 ward the rebels commensurate with the un- 
 matched enormity of their deeds. This spirit, 
 Mr. Chairman, was a military necessity. The 
 absence of it furnishes the best explanation of 
 our failure during tbe period referred to, while 
 its acceptance by the Government inaugurated 
 the new policy which has ever since been giving 
 us victories. 
 
 That this sickly policy of an inoffensive war 
 has nattu-ally prolonged the struggle, and 
 greatly augmented its cost in blood and treas- 
 ure, no one can doubt. Tbat it belongs, with 
 its entire legacy of frightful results, exclu- 
 sively to the conservative element in our poli- 
 tics, which at first ruled the Government, is 
 equally certain. The radical men saw at first, 
 a.s clearly as they see to-daj', tbe character and 
 spirit of this rebel revolt^ The massacre at 
 Fort Pillow, the starvation of our soldiers at 
 Ilic.hmond, and the whole black catalogue of 
 rebel atrocities, have only been so many veri- 
 fied predictions of the men who had studied the 
 institution of slavery, and who regarded the 
 rebellion as the natural fruit and culmination 
 of its Christless career. And hence it was that 
 in the very beginning of the war, radical men 
 were in favor of its vigorous prosecution . They 
 knew the foe with whom we had to wresi le. In 
 language employed on thisfloor more than three 
 years ago, they knew that "sooner than fail in 
 their purpose the rebels would light up heaven 
 itself with the red glare of the pit, and convert 
 the earth into a carnival of devils." They 
 knew that " every weapon in the armory of 
 war must be grasped, and every arrow in our 
 quiver sped toward the heart of a rebel." They 
 knew that " all tenderness to such a foe Is 
 treason to our cause, murder to our people, 
 faithlessness to the grandest and holiest trust 
 ever committed to a' free people." They knew 
 that '' the war should be made just as terrific to 
 the rebels as possible, consistently with the 
 laws of war, not as a work of vengeance, but of 
 mercy, and tlie surest means of our triumph," 
 They" knew that in struggling with such a foe 
 we were shut up to one grand and inevitable 
 necessity and duty, and tbat was entire and 
 absolute snhjiif/ation. All this was avowed and 
 insisted upon by the earnest men who under- 
 stood the nature of the conflict, and as persist- 
 
 ently disavowed and repudiated by tbe Govern 
 ment and its conservative advisers. 
 
 But a lime came wbeii its lessons had to be 
 unlearned. In tbe school of trial it was forced 
 to admit that war does not mean peace, but 
 exactly the oppo.-ite of peace. Slowly, and step 
 by step, it yielded up its theories and brought 
 itself face to face with the stern facts of the 
 crisis. Tbe Government no longer gets fright- 
 ened at tbe word subjugate, because of its 
 liberal etymolegy, but is manfully and success- 
 fully endeavoring' to place the yoke of the Con- 
 stitution upon tbe unbaptised necks of the 
 scoundrels who huxe tlirown it otf. The war is 
 now recognized as a struggle of numliers, of 
 desperate pbysical violence, ^to be fought out to 
 the l>itter eml, without stopping to count its 
 cost in money or in lilood. Both the people 
 and our armies, under this new dispensation, 
 have been learning how to bate rebels as Chris- 
 tian patriots ought to have done from the begin- 
 ning. They have been learning how to hate 
 rebel sympathizers also, and to brand them as 
 even meaner than rebels outright. They re- 
 gard the open-throated traitor, who stakes his 
 life, his property, his all, upon tbe success of 
 his conspiracy against the Constitution and the 
 rights of man, as a more tolerable character 
 than the skulking miscreant wlio in his heart 
 A\ islies the rebellion God-speed, wbile masquer- 
 ading in tbe hypocritical disguise of loyalty. 
 Had the Government been animated by a like 
 spirit at the beginning of the outbreak, practi- 
 cally accepting the truth that there can be no 
 middle ground between treason and loyalty, 
 rebel sympathizers would have given the 
 country far less trouble than they have done. 
 A little wholesome severity, summarily ad- 
 ministered, would have been a most sovereign 
 panacea. On this point the people were in ad- 
 vance of tbe Administration, and they are to- 
 day. Their earnestness has not yet found a 
 complete and authoritative expression in the 
 action of the Government. A system of retalia- 
 tion, which would have been a measure of real 
 mercy, has not been adopted. Our cause is not 
 wholiy rescued from the control of conservative 
 politicians and generals. Much remains to be 
 done; but far more, certainly, has already been 
 accomi)lisbed. The times of brotherly love 
 towards rebels in arms have gone by forever. 
 Such men as McClellan, Buell, and "Fitz John 
 Porter, are generally out of the way, and men 
 who believe in fi/jkiing rebels ai-'e in active 
 command. This revolution ui the war policy of 
 the Government, as already observed, was "ab- 
 solutely necessary to the salvation of our cause; 
 and th? country will not soon forget those 
 earnest men who at first coinpreheiuled the 
 crisis and the duty, and persistently urged a 
 vigorous policy, suited to remorseless' andrevo- 
 lutionary violence, till the Government felt con- 
 strained to embrace it. 
 
 But a vigorous prosecution of the war, Mr. 
 Chairman, was not enough. While this strug- 
 gle is one of numbers and of violence, it is like- 
 wise, and still more emphatically, a war of 
 ideas; a conflict between two forms of civiliza- 
 tion, each wrestling for tbe mastery of the 
 country, No one now pretends to dispute this, 
 nor is it easy to understand how any one could 
 ever have failed to perceive it. But tbe Gov- 
 ernment, in the beginning, did not believe it 
 It tried, with all its might, not to believe it, and 
 to persuade the world to disbelieve it. It in- 
 sisted that the real cause of the war did not 
 cause it at all. The rebellion was the work of 
 chance; a stupendous accident, leaping into 
 
34 
 
 life full-grown, without father or mother, with- 
 out any disfoverable genesis. It was a huge, 
 black, portentous, national riot, which must be 
 suppressed, but nobody was to l)e allowed to 
 say one word about the causes which produced 
 it, or the issues involved in the struggle. Si- 
 lence was to be our supreme wisdoui. Hence 
 it was that the Government, speaking tluough 
 Its higli functionaries, declared that the slavery 
 question was not involved in the quarrel, and 
 that every slave in Ixindagc would remain in 
 exactly the same condition after the war as be- 
 fore. Hence it was that, when a celebrated 
 proelamatiim was issued, giving freedom to 
 slaves of rebels in Missouri, it was revoked by 
 the Government in order to please the State of 
 Kentucky, and placate the power that began 
 the war. Hence, under General Halleck's 
 " Order No. 3," which remained in fouu; more 
 than a year, the swarms of contrabands who 
 came thronging to our lines, tendering us the 
 use of their muscles and the secrets of the rebel 
 prison-house, were driven away by our com- 
 manders. Hence it was that our soldiers were 
 compelled to serve as slave-hounds in chasing 
 down fugitives and sending them back to rebel 
 masters, and that General McClellan, who al- 
 ways loved slavery more than he loved his 
 country, and who declared he would put down 
 slave insurrections "'with an iron hand,"' was 
 continued as commander-in-chief of our armies 
 long mouths after the country desired to spew 
 him out. Hence, likewise, so many thousands 
 of our soldiers were compelled to dig and ditch 
 in the swamps of the Chiekahominy till the cold 
 sweat of death gathered on the handle of the 
 spade, while swarms of stalwart negroes, able 
 to relieve them and eager to do so, were denied 
 the privilege, lest it should otTend the nostrils 
 of democratic gentility, and give aid and com- 
 fort to the Abolitionists. Hence it was that the 
 President, instead of striking at slavery as a 
 military necessity, and Avhile rebuking that 
 policy in his dealings with Hunter and Fre- 
 mont, was at the same time so earnestly espous- 
 ing chimerical proiects for the colonization of 
 negroes, couplcLl ^\•iththe policy of gradual and 
 compensated emancipation, which should take 
 place sometime before the year 1900, if the slave- 
 holders should be willing. Hence it was that 
 very soon after the Administration had been 
 installed in power it began to lose sight of the 
 principles on which it had triumphed in 18130, 
 allowing four-fifths of the offices of the army 
 and navy to be held by men of known hostility 
 to those principles, while the various depart- 
 ments of the Government in this city were 
 largely filled by rebel sympathizers. Hence it 
 ■was that for nearly two" years of this war the 
 Government, while smiting the rebels with one 
 hand, was with the other guarding the slave 
 property and protecting the constitutional rights 
 of the men who had renounced the Constitution, 
 and ceased to have any rights under it save the 
 right to its peiudty against traitors. Hence it 
 was that during tlie greater part of this time the 
 Administration stood upon the jilatform and 
 urged the policy of "the Constitution as it is 
 and the Union as it was,'' whicli the nation so 
 overwhelming repudiated in the late presiden- 
 tial contest. Hence it was finally, that the 
 songs of Whittier could not be sung in our 
 armies; that slavery Avas everywhere dealt with 
 by the Government as the dear cliild of its love; 
 and that our rulers seemed, with matchless 
 impiety, to hope for the favor of God without 
 laying hpld of the conscience of our quarrel, 
 aiul by coolly kicking it out of doors! Sir, I 
 believe it safe to say that this madness cost the 
 
 nation the precious sacrifice of fifty thousand 
 soldiers, who have gone up to the throne of God 
 as witnesses against the horrid infatuation that 
 so long shaped tlie policy of the Government in 
 resisting this slaveholders' rebellion. 
 
 l!ut here, again, Mr. Chairman, the Govern- 
 ment had to unlearn its first lessons. Its pur- 
 pose to crush the rebellion and spare slavery 
 was found to be utterly suicidal to our cause. 
 It was a purpose to accomplish a moral impos- 
 sibility, and was therefore prosecuted, il not 
 conceived, in the interest of the rebels. It was 
 an attempt to marry treason and loyalty; for 
 the rebellion is slavery, armed with the i)owera 
 of war, organized for wholesale schemes of ag- 
 gression, and animated by the overfiowing full- 
 ness of its infernal genius. The strength of our 
 cause lies in its righteousness, and therefore no 
 bargain with the" devil could possibly give it 
 aid. Through great sutfering and sacrafice, 
 individual and national, our rulers learned that 
 there is but " one strong thing here below, the 
 just thing, the true thing," and that God would 
 not allow these severed States to be re-united 
 without the abandonment, forever, of our great 
 national sin. This was a difiicult lesson, but as 
 it was gradually mastered, the Government 
 "changed its base." It became disenchanted. 
 Congress took the lead in ushering in the new 
 dispensation. A new Article of War was en- 
 acted, forbidding our armies from returning 
 fugitive slaves. Slavery was abolished in the 
 District of Columbia, and prohibited in our 
 national Territories, where it had been planted 
 by the dogma of popular sovereignty and the 
 Dred Scott decision. Our Federal judiciary 
 was so reorganized as to make sure this anti- 
 slavery legislation of Congress. The confisca- 
 tion of slaves was provided for, and freedom 
 oflered to all who would come over and help us, 
 either as laborers or soldiers, thus annulling the 
 famous and infamous order of General Halleck, 
 already referred to. The fugitive slav e law was 
 at first made void as to the slaves of rebels, and 
 finally repealed altogether, with the old law of 
 179o. The coastwise slave trade, a frii^htful 
 system of home piracy, carried on by authority 
 of Congress since the year 1807, was totally 
 abolished. The right of testimony in our 
 Federal courts, and to sue and be sued, was 
 conferred upon negroes. Their employment as 
 soldiers was at last systematically provided for, 
 and their pay at length made the same as tliat 
 of white soldiers. The independence of Hayti 
 and Liberia was recognized, and new measures 
 taken to put an end to the African slave trade. 
 In thus wiping out our code of national slave 
 laws, acknowledging the manhood of the negro, 
 and recognizing slavery as the enemy of oiu: 
 peace. Congress emphatically rebuked the policy 
 which had sought to ignore "it, and to shield it 
 from the destructive hand of the war instigated 
 by itself; while it opened the way for furtlier 
 and inevitable measures of justice, looking to his 
 complete emancipation from tlie dominion of 
 Anglo-Saxon prejudice, the repeal of all special 
 legislation inteiuled for his injury, and his reso- 
 lute restoration to equal rights with the white 
 man as a citizen as well as a soldi(>r. 
 
 Meanwhile, the President had been giving 
 the subject his sober second thought, and re- 
 considering his position at tin* beginning of the 
 conflict. Instead of afiirming, as at first, that 
 tlie (luestion of slavery was not involved in tlie 
 strugirle, he gradually perceived and finally 
 admitted that it was at once the cause of the war 
 ami tlie obstacle to peace. Instead of resolving 
 to save the Union xoith slavery, he finally re- 
 solved to save the Union without it, and by its 
 
35 
 
 destruction. Instead of entertniniug the country 
 with projects of gnidual and distant emancipa- 
 tion, conditioned upon compensation to the 
 master and colonization of the freedmen, lie 
 himself linally launched the policj'^ of immediate 
 and unconditional liberation. Instead of re- 
 coiling from " radical and extreme measures," 
 and " a remorseless revolutionary conflict," he 
 at last marched up to the full height of tJie 
 national emergency, and proclaimed "to all 
 whom it may concern," that slavery must 
 perish. lustead of a constitutional amendment 
 for the purpose of eternizing the institution in 
 the Eepublic, indorsed by him in his inaugural 
 message, he became the zealous advocate of a 
 constitutional amendment aljolishingit forever. 
 Instead of committing the fortunes of the war 
 to pro-slavery commanders, whose hearts were 
 not in the work, he learned how to dispense 
 with their services, and find the proper substi- 
 tutes. These forward movements were not 
 ventured upon hastily, hut after much hesita- 
 tion and apparent reluctance. Not suddenly, 
 but following great deliberation and many mis- 
 givings, he issued his proclamation of freedom. 
 Months afterward he doubte i its wisdom; but 
 it was a grand step forward, which at once 
 served his relations with his old conservative 
 friends, and liuked his fortunes thenceforward 
 to those of the men of ideas and of progress. 
 Going hand in hand with Congress inthe great 
 advance measures referred to, or acquiescing in 
 their adoption, the whole policy of the Adminis- 
 tration has been revolutionized. Abolitionism 
 and loyalty are now accepted as convertible 
 terms, and so are treason and slavery. Our 
 covenant with death is annulled. Ovir national 
 partnership with Satan has been dissolved; and 
 just in proportion as this has been done, and an 
 alliance sought with divine Providence, has the 
 cause of our country prospered. In a word, 
 Eadicalism has saved our nation from the 
 IDolitical damnation and ruin to which conser- 
 vatism would certainly have consigned it; 
 while the mistakes and failures of the Adminis- 
 tration stand confessed in its new policy, which 
 alone can vindicate its wisdom, command the 
 respect and gratitude of the people, and save it 
 from humiliation and disgrace. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, these lessons of the past sug- 
 gest the true moral of tliis great conflict, and 
 make the way of tlie future jjlain. They de- 
 mand a vigorous prosecution of the war by all 
 the powers of war, and that the last vestige of 
 slavery shall be scourged out of life. Let the 
 Administration falter on cither of these points 
 and the people will disown its policy. They 
 have not chosen the President for another term 
 through any secondary or merely personal con- 
 siderations. In the presence of so grand an 
 issue, men were nothing. They had no faith in 
 General McClellan and the party leaders at his 
 heels. They had little faith in the early policy 
 of Mr. Lincoln, when Democratic ideas ruled 
 his Administration, and the power of slavery 
 held him in its grasp. Had his appeal to the 
 people been made two years earlier, he would 
 have been as overv\^helmingly rcpi'diated as he 
 has been gloriously indorsed. I^he i)Cople sus- 
 tain him now, because of their assured faith 
 that he will not hesitate to execute their will. 
 In voting for him for a second time, they voted 
 for liberating and arming the slaves of the South 
 to crush out a slaveholders' rebellion. They 
 voted that the Republic shall live, and that 
 whatever is necessary to save its life shall be 
 done. They voted that slavery shall be eter- 
 nally doomed, and further rebellions thus made 
 impossible. They voted, not that Abraham Lin- 
 
 coln can save the country, but that they can 
 save il , with him as their servant. That is what 
 was decided in the late elections. I have par- 
 ticipated, somewhat actively, in seven presi- 
 dential contests, and I remember none in which 
 the element of personal enthusiasm had a 
 smaller share than that of last November. One 
 grand and overmastering resolve filled the 
 hearts and swayed the purposes of the masses 
 everywhere, and that was the rescue of the 
 country through the defeat of the Chicago plat- 
 form and conspirators. In the execution of 
 that resolve they lost sight of everything else; 
 but should the President now place himself in 
 the people's way, by i-eviving the old policy of 
 tendesness to the rebels and their beloved insti- 
 tution, the loyal men of the country will aban- 
 don his policy as decidedly as they have sup- 
 ported it generously. They have not approved 
 the mistakes either of the leglstive or execu- 
 tive department of the Government. Tliey ex- 
 pect that Congress will pass a bill for the con- 
 fiscation of the fee of rebel landholders, and 
 they expect the President will approve it. 
 They expect that Congress will provide for 
 the reconstruction of the rebel States by syste- 
 matic legislation, which shall guarantee re- 
 publican governments to each of those States, 
 and the complete enfranchisement of the 
 negro; and they will not approve, as they 
 have not approved of any executive inter- 
 ference with the people's will as deliberately 
 expressed by Congress. They expect that 
 Congress will provide for parceling out the 
 forfeited and confiscated lands of rebels in 
 small homesteads among the soldiers and 
 seamen of the war, as a fit reward for their 
 valor, and a security against their ruinous mo- 
 nopoly of the soil in the South; and they will 
 be disappointed should this great measure fail 
 through the default either of Congress or the 
 Executive. They demand a system of just re- 
 taliation against the rebels for outrages com- 
 mitted upon our prisoners; that a policy of 
 increasing earnestness and vigor shall prevail 
 till the war shall be ended; and that no hope 
 of peace shall be whispered, save on condition 
 of an absolute and vinconditional surrender to 
 our authority; and the Government will only 
 prolong the war by standing in the way of these 
 demands. This is emphatically the people's 
 war; and it will not any longer suffice to say 
 that the people are not ready for all necessary- 
 measures of success. The people would have 
 been ready for such measures from the begin- 
 ning, if the Governmedt had lead the way. At 
 every stage of the contest they have hailed with 
 joy evej y eai-nest man who came forward, and 
 every vigorous war measure that has been pro- 
 posed. So long as the war was conducted 
 under the counsels of conservatives, and in tne 
 interests of slavery, the people clamored against 
 the Administration; but just so soon as the 
 Government entered upon a vigorous policy, and 
 pi'oclaimcd war against slavery, the people be- 
 gun to shout for the Union and liberty. In the 
 ifall of 1SG2, before the Administration was 
 divorced from its early policy, the Union party 
 was overwhelmed at the polls. Eut we tri 
 umphed the next year, and gloriously triumphed 
 last year, because the Government yielded to 
 the popular demand. The plea often urged that 
 the people were not ready, is less a fact than a 
 pretext. The men who loved slavery more than 
 they loved the Union were never ready for 
 radical measures. They are not ready to-day. 
 On the other hand, the men who were all the 
 while unconditionally for the Union, would 
 have sustained the Administration far more 
 
36 
 
 lieartily in the most thorouuli and swocpinjr 
 war nicasuro:*, than they sustained its policy of 
 delaying tho^^e measures to the last hour. 
 
 The truth is, the people have stood l)y the 
 Government for the sake of the cause, whether 
 its policy pleased them or not. Their faith and 
 patience have been singularly unllincliing 
 throughout the entire struggle, 'i'hev would 
 not distrust the Tresident without the slrongest 
 reasons. They were ever ready to credit him 
 •\vitli good intentions, and to i)resume in favor 
 of his superior means of knowledge. "When 
 General i'remont was recalled from Missouri, 
 and General Eutler from New Orleans, the 
 people pocketed their deep disappointment, and 
 quietly acquiesced. When General lUiell was 
 kej)t in command so long after his ineUiciency 
 IkuI been demonstrated and his loyalty cpies- 
 tioned, both by the country and tUeinen under 
 Jiis conuuaud, the people bore it with uncom- 
 raion patience and long-suttering. They dis- 
 .-wLaycd the same virtues in the case of General 
 •McClelUm, and othor rebel sympathizers, who 
 :foK.ud favor Avith the Administration long after 
 "* the <r-,ountry would have sent them adrift. Sir, 
 this feeling of unconf(uerable respect for our 
 choseia rulers, this Anglo-Saxon regard for con- 
 etitutetl authority, has been evinced by the 
 people through all the phases of the war. Most 
 ■a.ssure«Uy it would not have been found want- 
 ing had .ti:ie Government inaugurated a radical 
 jQolicy, instead of a conservative one, during the 
 lirst year and a half of the struggle, "The 
 people who endured McClellan, and Ikiell, and 
 Halleck, would have endured Fremont, and 
 Hunter, and Butler. If the conservative Union- 
 ists of Kentucky were not ready for the procla- 
 mation of freedom to the slaves of JMissouri 
 rebels, tliere were millions of people outside of 
 -Kentucky who were not ready to have it re- 
 voked. I agree that slavery had done much to 
 drug the conscience of the country with its in- 
 sidious poison. I know that we had so long 
 made our bed W'lth slaveholders (hat kicking 
 tJiem out was ratiier an awkward business'. 
 As brethren, living under a common Govern- 
 ment, we had long journeyed together, and our 
 habits and traditions naturally took the form 
 of obstacles to a just policy in dealing with 
 them as rebels and public enemies. It was by 
 no means easy at once to recognize them as 
 such. All this is granted, and that in the be- 
 ginning the country was not prepared for every 
 radical measure of legisilation and war now 
 being employed by the Government. But it 
 was the duty of the Administration to do its 
 part in preparing the couctry. Clothed Avitli 
 solemn official authority, and intrusted by the 
 nation with the sworn duty .of serving it in such 
 a crisis, it had no right to become thie foot-ball 
 of events. It had no right, at such a time, to 
 make itself, a negative expression, or an un- 
 known quantity, in the algebra, which was to 
 -work out the grand problem. It liad no right 
 to take shelter beneath a debauched and sickly 
 public sentiment, and plead it in bar of the 
 great duty imposed upon it by the crisis. It 
 had no right, certainly, to lag behind that sen- 
 timent, to magnify its extent and potency, and 
 to become its virtual ally, instead of enileavor- 
 iug to control it, and to indoctrinate the 
 ■country with ideas suited to the emergency. 
 The power of the Government in molding the 
 general opinion and feeling was immense, and 
 Its responsibility must be measiu'cd accordingly. 
 The revocation of the first anti-slavery procla- 
 mation of this war chilled the heart "of every 
 earnest loyaiist iu the land, and came like a 
 rumpet-call to the pro-slavery hosts to rally 
 
 and stand together. They obeyed it, and ffom 
 that event dates the birth of organized copper- 
 head democracy. The rebels of the South and 
 their sympathizers in the North felt that they 
 had gained an ally in the rresident. Had lie 
 sustained that measure, would not its moral 
 ed'cct have been at least as potent on the other 
 side? Had his ollicial name and sanction been 
 as often given to Ihe cause of radicalism as 
 they were lent to that of pro-slavery conserva- 
 tism would not the country have been much 
 sooner prei)ared for the saving and only policy? 
 If he had said, early iu the struggle^ " to all 
 whom it may concern," what he says now, that 
 slavery is the nation's enemy, and therefore 
 nuist be destroyed, instead of sheltering it 
 luider the Constitution and sparing it from the 
 hand of war, how grandly could he have 
 " organized victory" and multiplied himself 
 among the people! Sir, our traditionary re- 
 spect fo- slavery and slaveholders was our 
 grand peril. It stood up as an imi)assible 
 barrier in the way of any siiccessful war for 
 the Union. So long as it was allowed to domi- 
 nate, it luinerved the arm of the Government 
 and deadened tin; spirit of the people. It made 
 the Old World our enemy, and threatened us 
 with foreign war. The mission of the Govern- 
 ment was not to make this feeling stronger by 
 defeiTing to it, or to dloom the country to a 
 prolonged war and deplorable sacrifices as the 
 best means of teaching the peojde the truth. 
 No. The coiuitry needed a speedy exodus from 
 the bondage of false ideas, and the Government 
 should have pointed the way. A frank state- 
 ment by it of the real issue of the war, without 
 any disposition to cover up the truth; an un- 
 mistakable hostility to slavery as the organized 
 curse, without which the rebellion would have 
 been impossible; and the timely utterance in its 
 leading State papers of a few bold and spirit- 
 stirring words which might have been "half 
 battles," appealing to the courage and manhood 
 of the nation, woidd have gone far to educate 
 the judgment and conscience of the people, and 
 command their enthusiastic espousal of what- 
 ever measures would promise most speedily to 
 end the struggle and economize its cost in pro- 
 perty and life. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, I take no pleasure, certainly, 
 in thus freely discussing the policy of the Gov- 
 ernment in its endeavors to meet its great re- 
 sponsibilities during this war. I have only 
 referred to its mistakes as a servant of the 
 truth, and in the name of the great cause which 
 has been made to sutler. I believe, religiously, 
 in the freedom of speech. From the beginning 
 of the war I have exercised the right of frank, 
 friendly, and fearless criticism of the conduct 
 of our rulers, wherever I believed them to have 
 been in tiie wrong. I shall continue to exercise 
 it to the end; and if I should not, through a,uy 
 ])ersonal or prudential considerations, I would 
 lie unworthy of the seat I have occupied on this 
 floor. Criticism has dictated the present policy 
 of the Government, and is still a duty. This 
 great battle for the rights of man. and the 
 actors in it, must be judged. Nr ne of them can 
 "escape history." The fame of none of them is 
 so i)recious as the truth, and as public justice, 
 which cares for the dead as well as the living, 
 for the common soldiers slain by thousands, afl 
 well as for the general and the statesman. The 
 President, his advisers, his commanding gene- 
 rals, and the civilians whose shaping hands 
 have had so much to do with the conduct of the 
 war, must all of them be weighed in the bal- 
 ance bj' the people and the generations to come. 
 "The great soul of the world is just," and 
 
37 
 
 sooner or later all disguises will be thrown off, 
 and every historical character will stand forth 
 as he is, in the light of his deeds and deserts. 
 The men who have been intrusted with the 
 concerns of the nation in this momentous crisis 
 will not he judged harshly. Much will be for- 
 given or excused on the score of the surpassing 
 magnitude and difficulty of their work. Justice 
 will be done; but that justice may brand as a 
 crime, the blunders proceeding from a feeble, 
 timid, ambidextrous policy, resulting in great 
 sacralices of life and treasure, and periling the 
 pi'iceless interests at stake. 1 would award all 
 due honor to this Administration, and to the 
 statesmen and generals who have been faithful 
 to their high trusts; but I woidd award an 
 equal honor to the rank and file of the people, 
 who have inspired its present policy, and to the 
 rank and tile of o\u- soldiers, who have saved 
 tlie country in spite of the mistakes of the 
 Government, the strifes of our i)oliticians, and 
 the rivalries of our generals. These are the 
 real hi'i-oes of the war. Untitled, practically 
 unrewarded, facing everj' form of privation and 
 danger, and animated by the purest patriotism, 
 the common soldier is not only the true hero of 
 the war, but the real saviour of his country. 
 
 But a higher honor, if not a more enduring 
 fame, will be the heritage of the anti-slavery 
 pioneers and prophets of bur laud; for 
 
 " Peace hath hiorber tests of manhood 
 Than battle ever knew." 
 
 Without their heroic labors and sacrifices the 
 Republic, " heirs of all the ages," would have 
 been the mightiest slave empire of the world. 
 In an age of practical atheism and mammon- 
 worship, when the Church and the State joined 
 hands with slavery as the new trinity of the 
 nation's faith, they really believed in God, in 
 justice, in the resistless might of the truth. 
 They believed that liberty is the birthright of 
 all men, and their grand mission was the prac- 
 tical vindication of this truth. They believed, 
 with their whole hearts, in the Declaration of 
 Independence. They accepted its teachings as 
 concident with the Gospel of Christ, and sup- 
 ported by reason and justice. It was their 
 ceaseless " battle-cry of freedom," and they 
 chanted it as "the fresh, the matin song of the 
 universe," to the enslaved of all races and 
 lands. They were branded as fanatics and in- 
 fidels, and encountered everywhere the hoot- 
 ings of the multitude and the scorn of politi- 
 cians and priests; but I know of no class of 
 men who were ever more far-sighted, whose 
 coinvictions rested on so broad a basis of Chris- 
 tian morals and logic, and whose religious trust 
 was so strong and so steadfast. For them there 
 was no '• eclipse of faith." Just as the nation 
 began to lapse from the grand ideas of our re- 
 volutionary era, they began to " cry aloud and 
 gpare not," and tliey never ceased or slackened 
 their labors. Placing their ears to the ground 
 in the infancy and weakness of their movement, 
 they cauffht the rumbling thunders of civil war 
 iu "the distance, warned the country of its 
 
 danger, and preached repentance as the chosen 
 and only means of escape. They were compelled 
 to face mobs, violence, persecution, and death, 
 and were always misunderstood or misrepre- 
 sented; but they never faltered. Reputation, 
 honors, property, worldly ease, were all freely 
 laid upon the altar of duty, in their resolve to 
 vindicate the rights of man and the freedom of 
 speech. To follow these ai>ostles and martyrs 
 was to forsake all the prizes of life which 
 worldly prudence or ambition could value or 
 covet. It was to take up the heaviest cross yet 
 fashioned by this century as the test of Christian 
 character and heroism; aiid those who bore it 
 were far braver spirits than the men who fight 
 our battles on land and sea. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, the failure of men thus de- 
 voted to a great aiul holy cause was morally 
 impossible. They could not fail. Throu.gh 
 their courage, constancy, and faith, they gradu- 
 ally seciu'cd the co-operation or sympathy of 
 the better type of men of all parties and creeds. 
 They seriously disturbed, or broke in pieces, 
 the great political and ecclesiastical organiza- 
 tions of the land; and even before this war their 
 ideas were rapidly taking captive the popular 
 heart. When it came, they saw, as by intuition, 
 the character of the struggle, as the final phase 
 of slaveholding madness and crime, and insisted 
 upon the early adoption of that radical policy 
 which the Government at last was compelled t'o 
 accept. I believe it safe to say that the moral 
 appeals and persistent criticism of these men, 
 auLl of the far greater numbers who borrowed 
 or sympathised with their views, saved our 
 cause from the complete control of conserva- 
 tism, and thus saved the country itself from 
 destruction. Going at once to the heart of our 
 great conflict, they pointed out the only remedy, 
 and felt compelled to reprobato the "failure of 
 the Government to adopt it. They judged its 
 !)olicy in war, as they had done in peace, in the 
 light of its fidelity or infidelity to human rights. 
 By this test they tried every man and party, 
 and they need ask for no other rule of judg- 
 ment for themselves. The Administration, and 
 the chief actors in this drama of war, of whatever 
 political school, must be weighed in the sarne 
 great balance. fTot even the founders of the 
 Repvdjlic will be spared from the trial. In 
 their compromise with slavery in the begin- 
 ning, which is now seen to have been the germ 
 of this horrid conflict, they "swerved from the 
 right." Posterity must so pronounce; and the 
 record which dims the luster of their great 
 names will be read in the flames of this war as 
 a warning against all future compacts Avith 
 evil. Justice to public men is a certain as that 
 truth is omnipotent. It may be delayd for a 
 season; it may be hidden from the vision of 
 men of little faith; but its final triumph is sure. 
 To the world's true heroes and confessors historj- 
 ever sends its word of cheer: 
 
 "Thp good can wf41 nfford to wait ; 
 
 Give erinined knaves their hour of crime ; . 
 Ye have the future, grand find great, 
 The safe appeal of truth to time." 
 
Suffrage in the District of Columhia, 
 
 sipeeoxh: oih^ 
 
 Hon. GEORGE ^Y. JTJLlAIsr, 
 
 In the house OF EEPRESENTATIVES, Janury ICxn, 1SG6. 
 
 The House having under consideration the 
 bill extending the right of suffrage in tlie 
 District of Columbia — 
 Mr. Julian said: 
 
 Mr. Speaker : "Whatever doubts may arise 
 as to the authority of Congress to regulate the 
 right of suffrage in the disti-icts lately in re- 
 volt, none can exist as to such authority v,dthin 
 the District of Columbia. By the express words 
 of the Constitution, Congress here has " ex- 
 clusive power of legislation ;" and that power, 
 of course, extends to all the legitimate sub- 
 jects of legislation, of which the ballot is un- 
 questionably one. Shall it be conferred, irre- 
 spective of color, or granted only to white 
 men ? Shall Congress recognize the equal 
 rights of all men in the metropolis of the nation 
 and the territory under its exclusive control, 
 or must our national policy still be inspired 
 by that contempt for the negro which caused 
 slavery, and finally gave birth to the horrid 
 war from which we have just emerged ? Shall 
 the nation, through its chosen servants, stand 
 by the principle of taxation and representa- 
 tion for which our fathers fought in the begin- 
 ning, or re-enact its guilty compact with 
 aristocracy and caste ? This is the question, 
 variously stated, which confronts us in the 
 bill before the House. It must now be dealt 
 ■with upon its merits. To attempt to postpone 
 or evade it is to trifle with the dangers and 
 duties of the hour, and forget all the terrible 
 lessons of the past. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I demand the ballot for the 
 colored men of this District on the broad 
 ground of absolute right. I repudiate the 
 political philosophy which treats the right of 
 suffrage as merely conventional. The right of 
 a man to a voice in the Government which 
 deals with his liberty, his property, and his 
 life, is as natural, as inborn, as any one of 
 those enumerated by our fathers. It is said, 
 I know, that natural rights are only those 
 universal ones which exist in a state of nature, 
 in which every man takes his defense and 
 protection into his own hands; but I ansvver 
 that there is no sucli state of nature, save in 
 the dreams of speculative writers. The natu- 
 ral state of man is a state of society, which 
 demands law, govern incut, as the condition of 
 its life. By the right of suffrage I mean the 
 right to a share in the governing power; and 
 while the peculiar manner and circumstances 
 
 of its exercise may fairly be regarded as con- 
 ventional, the right is natural. If not, then 
 there are no natural rights, since none could 
 be enjoyed except by the favor or grace of the 
 Government, which must decide for itself who 
 shall be permitted to share in its exercise. 
 You may, if you choose, call the right of suf- 
 frage a natural social right; but whatever 
 adjectives you employ in your delinition, the 
 right, I insist, is natural. Most certainly it 
 is so in its primary sense. My friend from 
 Iowa [Mr. Wilson] substantially agrees with 
 me, for he speaks of suffrage, not ns&jiricilege, 
 but as a right, equally sacred with those ac- 
 knowledged to be natural, and which Govern- 
 ment cannot take away. Sir, without the 
 ballot no man is really free, because if he 
 enjoys freedom it is by i\\Q permission of those 
 who govern, and not in virtue of his own 
 recognized manhood. We talk about the 
 natural right of all men to life, to liberty, and 
 to the pursuit of happiness ; but if one race of 
 men can rightfully disfranchise another, and 
 govern them at will, what becomes of their 
 natural rights ? The moment you admit such 
 a principle, the very idea of democracy is re- 
 nounced, and absolutism must own you as its 
 disciple. The fact that society, through Gov- 
 ernment as its agent, regulates the right, and 
 withholds it in certain instances, as in the 
 case of infants and idiots, and makes the 
 withdrawal of it a punishment for crime in 
 others, docs not at all contravene the ground 
 I assume. Society, for its own protection, 
 takes away all natural riglits, or rather, it de- 
 clares them forfeited on certain prescribed 
 conditions. Christianity and civilization place 
 their brand upon slavery as a violation of the 
 natural rights of men. But that system of 
 personal servitude from which we have final- 
 ly been delivered is only one type of slavery. 
 Serfdom is another. That unnatural owner- 
 ship of labor by capital which grinds the toil- 
 ing millions of the Old World, and renders 
 life itself a curse, is not loss at war with natu- 
 ral rights than negro slavery. The degrees 
 of slavery may varj', but the real teat of free- 
 dom is the right to a share in the governing 
 power. Judge Humphrej', speaking of the 
 freedmen, says "there is really no difference, 
 in my opinion, whether we hold them as 
 absolute slaves, or obtain their labor by some 
 other method.'"' The old slaveholders under- 
 
39 
 
 stand this perfectly. An intelligent human 
 being, absolutely subject to the Government 
 under which he lives, answerable to it in his 
 person and property for disobedience, and yet 
 denied any political rights whatever, is a 
 slave. He may not wear the collar of any 
 single owner, but he will be what Carl Schurz 
 aptly calls "the slave of society," which is 
 often a less merciful tyrant ! He will owe to 
 the mere grace of the Government the right 
 to marry and rear a family ; the right to sue 
 for any grievance ; the right to own a home 
 in the wide world ; the right to the means of 
 acquiring knowledge ; the right of free loco- 
 motion and to pursue his own happiness ; the 
 right to a fair day's wages for a fair day's 
 work; the right to life itself, save on condi- 
 tions to be fixed without his consent, and 
 which may render him an alien and an out- 
 cast among men. So abject and humiliating 
 is such a condition, and so perfectly does the 
 world understand the sacredness of the rights 
 of the citizen, that in all free Governments 
 his disfranchisement is appropriately made a 
 part of the punishment for high crimes. Sir, 
 I repeat it, theie is no freedom, no security 
 against wrong and outrage, save in the ballot; 
 and Gov. Brownlow is therefore thoroughly 
 right in principle, in contending that the con- 
 stitutional amendment abolishing slavery, and 
 giving Congress the power, by appropriate 
 legislation, to enforce this abolition, author- 
 izes us to secure the ballot to all men in the 
 revolted districts, iri'espective of color. It is 
 not slavery in form, but in ftict, and under 
 whatever name, that the people of the United 
 States intend to have abolished forever. 
 
 If I am right in this view, color has nothing 
 whatever to do with the question of suffrage, 
 as the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Kasson] 
 will see. The negro should not be disfran- 
 chised because he is black, nor the white man 
 allowed to vote because he is white. Both 
 should have the ballot, because they are men 
 and citizens, and require it for their protection. 
 Are you willing to rest your right to the bal- 
 lot on the purely contingent fact of your 
 color ? Your manhood tells you instantly 
 that t?iat is not the foundation. Tou are a 
 man, endowed with all the rights of a man, 
 and therefore 3'ou demand a voice in the 
 Government ; but when you say this you as- 
 sert the equal rights of the negro. Neither 
 color, nor race, nor a certain amount of pro- 
 perty,nor any other mere accident of humanity 
 can justify one portion of the people in strip- 
 ping another portion of their equal rights be- 
 fore the law, the common master over all. Gov- 
 ernment, in fact, in its proper, American 
 sense, is simply the agent and representative 
 of the governed, in taking care of their inter- 
 ests and guarding their rights. It is not the 
 concern of the few, nor the many, but of all. 
 The negro, doubtless, would have been born 
 white if he could have been consulted ; and 
 to take from him his inherent rights as a man 
 because of his complexion is a political absur- 
 dity as monstrous as its injustice is mean and 
 revolting. When you do it, you aim n dead- 
 
 ly stab at the vital principle of all democracy. 
 And if you may disfranchise the negro to-day 
 on account of his race, or color, j'ou may dis- 
 franchise the Irishman to-morrow, and the 
 German the next day; and then, perhaps, you 
 will be prepared to strike down the laboring 
 man, the "mudsill," adopting the Virginia 
 philosophy, that " filthy operatives" and 
 "greasy mechanics" are unfit for political 
 power. Ko absurdity or wickedness can be 
 too great for a people who could thus deliber, 
 ately sin against the great primal truths of 
 democracy ; and the logical consequence of 
 the first false step, of any departure whatever 
 from the rule which makes manhood alone 
 the test of right, must be to continually nar- 
 row the basis of popular power till the end 
 shall be a remorseless aristocracy or an abso- 
 lute despotism. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, this view of suffrage as a nat- 
 ural right greatly simplifies the whole subject. 
 The sole question is, as already stated, wheth- 
 er our democratic theorjr of Government shall 
 be maintained in practically recognizing the 
 inherent rights of all men as the source and 
 basis of political power ? To ask this ques- 
 tion in the United States is to answer it. And 
 public policy, also, answers the question in the 
 interest of the broadest radicalism. Duty and 
 advantage will be found hand in hand in any 
 fairly tested experiment of equal suflYage. 
 According to the census returns of 1860, the 
 colored population of this District was then 
 over fourteen thousand. It is novv^ estimated 
 at about twenty thousand. The value of real 
 and pei-sonal property owned by them is at 
 least $1, 225, 000. They own twenty-one 
 churches, supported at a cost of over §20,000 
 per annum. The whole number of their com- 
 municants is 4,300, with an average attend- 
 ance of 9,000, distributed among their own re- 
 ligious communities, and among the Catholic 
 and Episcopal churches of their white fellow- 
 citizens. They have twenty Sabbath schools, 
 with from three to four thousand scholars, and 
 thirtj'-threo day schools, attended by over 
 four thousand scholars in the month of last 
 November. Four thousand of the colored 
 people can read and write. They subscribe 
 for 1,200 copies of the National Eepublican, 
 and about 3,000 copies of the Daily and Sun- 
 day Chronicle. There are more than thirty 
 benevolent, literarj-, and civic organizations 
 among them, by which their needy, superan- 
 nuated and infirm are cared for to "a large ex- 
 tent, the city government having none or 
 very few colored paupers to support. They 
 furnished three full regiments for the national 
 service, numbering in all 3,549, and from six- 
 ty to seventy per cent, of the drafts in the 
 District were composed of drafted colored 
 soldiers or substitutes. This, sir, is the char- 
 acter and condition of a class in this commu- 
 nity, ninety per cent, of whom were slaves at 
 the beginning of the war, or their immediate 
 descendants, many of them having purchased 
 their ov.-n freedom and that of their fomilies, 
 and are besides property holders to a consid- 
 erable extent. Sir, I call this a good record 
 
40 
 
 if not a proud one. These people are here, 
 and they will remain here, either as the friends 
 or the enemies of the Government. If we 
 5-hall give them their rights — a stake in soci- 
 ety, an equal chance with the white man to 
 fight the battle of life — instead of becoming 
 an element of woukness and a source of dan- 
 ger they will be found our allies and friends, 
 and thus lend unity and strength to the Gov- 
 ernment. If we shall continue to di.^'franchise 
 and degrade them, we shall make them aliens, 
 domestic foes in our midst, a perpetual men- 
 ace of danger and discord, from which we 
 shall suffer quite as much as the party thus 
 wronged by our cruel folly. As a matter of 
 mere policy, therefore, wholly aside from the 
 question of right, I would give the ballot to 
 every colored man of competent age in the 
 District; and had I the power I would secure 
 to him a home on the soil he has so lomg 
 watered by his tears. I proposed this policy 
 for the revolted States in a measure I had the 
 honor to report to this House two years ago, 
 providing for homesteads on the forfeited and 
 confiscated lands of rebels ; and had it prevail- 
 ed in the Senate as it did in this body, it 
 would have wrought out the only true recon- 
 struction of government and society in the 
 South. The great want of every poor man is 
 a home, along with the ballot with which to 
 defend it. Kussia, in giving freedom to her 
 millions of serfs, secured to each of them a 
 homestead. Our policy should be the same. 
 In the history of the world the ballot has gen- 
 erally followed the granting of homesteads to 
 the poor; but the poor now should have the 
 ballot as the surest means of attaining the 
 homestead. Sir, there is but one remedy for 
 the appalling picture recently presented by 
 John Bright, of live million families in the 
 ITnited Kingdom who are unrepresented in 
 Parliament, and whose utter helplessness, pov- 
 erty and degradation appeal in vain to the 
 English aristocracy. Tiiat remedy, as right- 
 eously due these voiceless millions as the sun- 
 light, is the ballot. That would " bend the 
 powers of statesmanship to the high and holy 
 purposes of humanity and justice," and at last 
 make sure to the lowliest the blessed sanctu- 
 ary of a home upon the soil, which is among 
 the natural rights to secure which " Govern- 
 ments are instituted among men." In our 
 own more favored country the ballot and the 
 homestead may go together, and should be 
 conferred at once. In the live great landed 
 States of the South there j'et remain about 
 fifty million acres of public land unsold, all of 
 which, if not prevented by law, will be open 
 to rebel speculators. This should be set apart 
 at once for actual homesteads in limited quan- 
 tities, and a bill providing for this is now be- 
 fore the Committee on Public Lands. Every 
 landless freedman in the country, should this 
 measure prevail, will have at least a clianco 
 to become a freeholder, and thus to unite his 
 destiny to the GoviM-nment as its friend. 
 Tills, or some kindred measure, is rondored 
 absolutely necessary by the unfortunate fail- 
 ure of the policy of ooufiscation, and by what 
 
 seems to mo the criminal action of the Gov- 
 ernment in restoring to flagitious rebels, 
 through pardons and otherwise, the vast and 
 valuable lands which had vested in the nation 
 through their treason, and are so greatly need- 
 ed and have been so justly earned by the 
 frcedmon. Sir, no other policy than that of 
 justice and equal rights can be trusted in deal- 
 ing with these long-suffering people. Instead 
 of driving them to thriftlcssncss and vaga- 
 bondism, I would bind them to the Govern- 
 ment through its parental care for their wel- 
 fare. Let us give them the ballot ; and then, 
 should a public grievance come, they will bear 
 it cheerfully, as self-imposed. They will bide 
 their time, in the hope that at a future elec- 
 tion the remedy will be found. "I can con- 
 ceive no greater social evil," says Governor 
 Parsons, of Alabama, "than a class of human- 
 ity in our midst so excluded from the social 
 pale as to become a stagnant, seething, mias- 
 matic, moral cesspool in the community. Hu- 
 man nature cannot improve without the moral 
 incentive of hope in a human future." The 
 policy of education, of moral development, 
 can alone secure the just rights and the liigh- 
 est good of all races; and if the rulers of other 
 countries were wise, they would apply this 
 truth in dealing with their discontented and 
 dangerous population. " Each class in Eng- 
 land," says the Westminster Review, " as it 
 has, by tlie natural progress of civilization, in 
 time advanced to a consciousness of its own 
 condition, and a comparison between itself 
 and others has in turn demanded to be admit- 
 ted to a share in the Government. Each in 
 turn has been admitted, and the country has 
 grown more and more powerful, and the peo- 
 ple more contented, as the basis of freedom 
 has gone down lower and spread out wider." 
 Sir, I trust this lesson of English history, 
 slowly evolved, and now held up to us by 
 English radicals, will not be slighted in deal- 
 ing with the question of negro enfranchise- 
 ment in our own country. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, if it shall be objected that the 
 negroes of this District are not fit to vote ; that 
 they are too ignorant and degraded to be in- 
 trusted with power, I have several replies to 
 make. 
 
 In the first place, the negroes of this Dis- 
 trict are not all ignorunt, as I have already 
 shown by facts. 3Iany of them are educated 
 and quite intelligent. The larger class who 
 are not so will not suffer by a compa.-ison 
 with the very large class of their ignorant 
 white neighbors. The " rounders" and ruf- 
 fians wholnstigate mobs against harmless and 
 peaceable colored people, and then publish 
 their deeds as a negro insurrection, and wlio 
 have probably been on the side of the rebels, 
 in sympathy or in fact, during the whole of 
 the 'war, are not the most fit men in the world 
 for the ballot. They vote, and there is no 
 proposition from any quarter to disfranchise 
 thorn. The policy of Massachusetts, referred 
 to yesterday by the gentleman from Iowa, 
 [Mr. Kasson,] would leave them untouched. 
 
41 
 
 I commend this fact, to all the fair-minded op- 
 ponents of negro suffrage. 
 
 In the next place fitness is a relative term. 
 Nobody is 'perfectly fit to vote, because no- 
 body is perfectly informed as to all the sub- 
 jects of our legislation and policy. Of the 
 millions in our land who regularly go to the 
 polls and pass upon the gravest questions, 
 how many could stand even a tolerable ex- 
 amination on political economy, or consti- 
 tutional law, or political ethics? How many 
 men of good sense and fair intelligence could 
 give a well-defined reason even for some of 
 their most decided opinions ? The truth is, all 
 men are more or less unfit to vote, as all men 
 are more or less unfit to discharge all their du- 
 ties, civil, social, religious, or what not. The 
 political opinions and actions of the generali- 
 ty of men, who in a free country govern, are 
 not guided by logic, or any exact knowledge, 
 but by habit and tradition, by their social re- 
 lations, and by their natural trust in those 
 whom they think wiser than themselves. On 
 this subject the highest authority of which I 
 have any knowledge is John Stuart Mill. 
 He says : 
 
 " It is not necessary that the many should, in them- 
 selves, be perfectly wise ; it is sufficient if thny be duly 
 sensible of the value of superior wisdom. It is suffi- 
 cient if they be aware that the majority of political 
 questions turn upon considerations of whicli they and 
 all other persons not trained for the purpose must ne- 
 cessarily be very imperfect judges, and that their 
 judgment must, in general, be exercised upon the 
 characters and talents of the persons whom tney ap- 
 pomt to decide those questions for them, rather than 
 upon the questions themselves. Thisimplies no great- 
 er wisdom in the people than the very ordinary wis- 
 dom of knowing what things they are and are not suffi- 
 cient judge.s of. If the bulk of any people possess a 
 fair share of this wisdom, the argument for universal 
 suffrage, so far as respects that people, is irresistible." 
 
 Sir, by this standard I am willing to have 
 the colored people of this District tried ; and 
 I demand the same trial for the white men 
 who are loudest in their protest against negro 
 ballots. 
 
 Mr. Garfield. I desire to ask the gentle- 
 man whether, in his reference to the opinion 
 of John Stuart Mill, he quotes that distin- 
 guished writer as in favor of unqualified suf- 
 frage ? 
 
 Mr. Julian. No, sir. I quoted from him 
 simply to show his opinion as to the measure 
 of intelligence deemed by him necessary to 
 qualify men for suffrage. I q noted the extract 
 because it sustains the point I am arguing. 
 
 Mr. Garfield. I did not ask the question 
 witli a view of opposing any doctrine the gen- 
 tleman is advocating, but merely to suggest 
 that Mr. Mill, in the volume from which the 
 gentleman has just quoted, takes strong 
 ground in favor of suffrage restricted by edu- 
 cational qualifications, 
 
 Mr. Hill. Mr. Speaker, I understand my 
 colleague to base his argument in fovor of 
 negro suffrage in the District of Columbia 
 upon the personal right of suffrage. I desire 
 to ask my colleague whether he regards that 
 as a personal right elsewhere than in the Dis- 
 trict of Columbia ; and whether, as a citizen of 
 Indiana, where, it is notorious, negroes have 
 
 not for years past been permitted to migrate, 
 he is willing to extend that right to his own 
 State? 
 
 Mr. Julian. I shall refer to that question 
 presently ; and answer it, I think, to the sat- 
 isfaction of my colleague. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, mere knowledge, education in 
 its ordinary sense, will not fit any man to vote. 
 It must depend, as Dr. Lieber says, upon how 
 men use it. He declares it to be no guaran- 
 tee for free institutions, and refers to Prussia, 
 the best educated country in the world, where 
 liberty is an outlaw. The reading and writ- 
 ing test, so strenuously urged on this floor, is 
 a singularly insufficient measure of fitness. 
 Reading and writing are mechanical proces- 
 ses, and a man may be able to perform them 
 without any worthiness of life or character. 
 He may lack this qualification, and yet be 
 tolerably fit to have a voice in the Govern- 
 ment. If penmanship must be made the ave- 
 nue to the ballot, I fear several honorable gen- 
 tlemen on this floor will be disfranchised. A 
 merely educational test would allow all the 
 rebel leaders to vote, while the great body of 
 the people of the South, white and colored, 
 would be disfranchised. Sir, education of the 
 heart is fitr more important than that of the 
 brain. " The soul is greater than logic." 
 The hearts of the negroes have been unfalter- 
 ingly with us all through the war, inspiring 
 their judgment, vivifying their convictions, 
 and insuring their universal loyalty. They, 
 of all men in the South, have best vindicated 
 their title to the ballot. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, our American democracy has 
 never required any standard of knowledge as 
 a condition of suffrage; and the educational 
 test, invented by the Know-Nothings some 
 years ago, during their raid against the for- 
 eigners, would not now be thought of but for 
 our proverbial hatred of the negro. Accord- 
 ing to our census tables, more than half a mil- 
 lion men in our country annually go to the 
 polls who can neither read the Constitution 
 nor write their names. The proposition to 
 disfranchise this grand army of ignorant men 
 would meet with very little favor in any quar- 
 ter. No public man dreams of it, and any 
 such purpose as to the ignorant white men of 
 this District is expressly disavowed by the 
 advocates of restricted suftVage in this House. 
 Sir, the real trouble is that we liaie the vegro. 
 It is not his ignorance that offends us, but his 
 color; for those who are loudest in their op. 
 position to universal suffrage would be quite 
 as unwilling to give the ballot to Prederick 
 Douglass as to the most ignorant freedman in 
 the South. Of this fact 1 entertain no doubt 
 whatever, and I commend it to the attention 
 of conservative gentlemen on this floor, who 
 imagine that a vote for qualified negro suf- 
 frage will be less oflensive to their negro- 
 hating constituents than for the bill now un- 
 der discussion. 
 
 In further reply to the argument which 
 would disfranchise the negroes on account of 
 their ignorance, allow me to say that the rul- 
 ing class have made them ignorant by genera- 
 
42 
 
 tions of oppression, and no man should bo al- 
 lowed to take advantage of his own wrong. 
 Sir, how can the negro emerge from his igno- 
 rance and barbarism if left under the heel of 
 his old tyrant? I agree that in any scheme 
 of universal suffrage universal knowledge, as 
 far as posssble, sliould be demanded; but 
 universal suffrage is one of the surest means 
 of securing a higher level of intelligence for 
 the whole people. I would not level the edu- 
 cated classes downward, but the ignorant 
 masses upward, by giving them political pow- 
 er and the incentive to rise. Ourtirst duty is 
 to take off their chains, as the best means of 
 preparing them for the ballot. By no means 
 would I disparage education, and especially 
 political training; but the ballot is itself a 
 schoolmaster. If you expect a man to use it 
 well you must place it in his hands, and let 
 him learn to cast it by trial. If you wish to 
 teach a iiian to swim, you must first put him 
 in the water. If you wish to teach him how to 
 handle the tools of the mechanic, you must first 
 put them in his hands. If you wish to teach 
 the ignorant man, black or white, how to vote, 
 you must grant him the right to vote as the 
 first step in his education. The negro, I am 
 sure, will generally be found voting on the 
 side of his countrj^, and gradually learning 
 his duties as a citizen. Sir, let one rule be 
 adopted for white and black, and let us, if 
 possible, dispossess our minds, utterly, of the 
 vile spirit of caste which has brought upon 
 our country all its woes. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I rejjly still further, that my 
 argument is not at all invalidated if I admft 
 that the white people of this District are de- 
 cidedly superior to the negroes in education 
 and general intelligence. This very superi- 
 ority would give them an important advan- 
 tage over the class not thus favored. It would 
 become a powerful weapon in carrying out 
 their peculiar purposes ; and these will cer- 
 tainly be antagonistic to the best good of 
 those whom law and usage nave so long in- 
 jured and degraded. If any class will be pe- 
 culiarly exposed, and need the strongest safe- 
 guards, it will be the negroes, who have been 
 made comparative children in knowledge and 
 self-help. All class rule is vicious ; but if one 
 class must rule another, it will be found far 
 better to allow the prerogative to the labor- 
 ing many, whose usefulness and numbers best 
 entitle them to it, than to confer it upon the 
 aristocracy, the "gentlemen," the idlers, who 
 will of course maintain their privileges. The 
 many who have been denied equal rights, and 
 suffered from the privation, will bo quite as 
 fit for political power as the few who have had 
 no such experience. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I hope I need not replj' to 
 the argument often urged, that negro voting 
 will lead to the amalgamation of races, or so- 
 cial equality, which now seems to mean the 
 same thing. On this subject there is nothing 
 left to conjecture, and no ground for alarm. 
 Negro sutfrage has been very extensively 
 tried in this country, and we are able to ap- 
 peal to facts. Negroes h.id the right to vote 
 
 in all the colonies save one, under the Arti- 
 cles of Confederation. They voted, I believe, 
 generally, on the question of adopting the 
 Constitution of the United States. They 
 have voted ever since in New York and the 
 New England States, sav.e Connecticut, in 
 which the pi-actice was discontinued in 1818. 
 They voted in New Jersey till the year 
 1840; in Virginia and Maryland till 1833; 
 in Pennsylvania till 1838 ; in Delaware 
 till 1831 ; and in North Carolina and Ten- 
 nessee till 1836. I have never understood 
 that in all this experience of negro suffrage 
 the amalgamation of the races was the result. 
 I think these evils are not at all complained 
 of to this day in New England and New York, 
 where negro suffrage is still practiced and re- 
 cognized by law. Indeed, the fact is notori- 
 ous, that amalgamation is almost totally un- 
 known, except in a state of slavery, W'hich ob- 
 literates the ties of life, and subjects the negro 
 woman to the unbridled power of the master 
 race. Sir, give the colored man the ballot, so 
 that he may maintain the liberty already 
 nominally conferred, and the best possible step 
 will have been taken to regulate and purify 
 the relations heretofore existing between the 
 races. Should the copperheads and rebels of 
 this District feel in danger of matrimony with 
 their African fellow-citizens in consequence 
 of negro suffrage, I would have Congress j^ass 
 a law for their protection ; but I would not 
 withhold the ballot from the colored people for 
 a reason so contingent, and so uncomplimen- 
 tary to their character and taste. 
 
 Nor do I deem it necessarj', Mr. Speaker, 
 to dwell on the argument that negro voting 
 will lead to negro office-holding, negro domi- 
 nation, and ultimately to a war of races. Such 
 an argument, current as it is in certain quar- 
 ters, finds no shadow of support in any known 
 facts. The experience to which I have refer- 
 red certainly can alarm no one, and the in- 
 stances are rare, if in fact any can be adduc- 
 ed, in which colored men have held office, 
 though their numbers, as in States like Penn- 
 sylvania, Virginia and Maryland, w'ere very 
 large when black suffrage was allowed. Sir, no 
 fact is more notorious, and at the same time 
 more discreditable, than the nearly universal 
 prejudice of the white race in our country 
 against the negro. That prejudice will not 
 pass away swiftly, but graduallj^ and slowly. 
 Like every other form of injustice, it will ul- 
 timately die ; but the prospect of this is clear- 
 ly not immediate. AVe are certainly not yat 
 so in love with the negro that we prei'er him 
 as our ruler ; but when the fact shall be real- 
 ized, it will not be negro domination, but 
 negro rule of choice, by white as well as black 
 suffrage, and cannot therefore lead to an j' war 
 of races. This is quite evident; for though 
 the negroes here are numei-ous and in portions 
 of the South constitute the majoritj', the tide 
 ! of emigration from the North and from Eu- 
 rope must very soon place the white race 
 largely in the ascendant everywhere. I pre- 
 sent these considerations in order, if possible, 
 to calm the fears of my conservative friends ; 
 
4.3 
 
 for us to myself, my faith in democratic prin- 
 ciples depends not at all upon any temporary 
 or local results of their application. Sir, a 
 •war of races in this country can only be the 
 result of denying to the negro his rights, just 
 as such wars have been caused elsewhere; and 
 the late troubles in Jamaica should teach us, 
 if any lesson can, the duty of dealing justly 
 with our millions of freedmen. Like causes 
 must produce like results. English law made 
 the slaves of Jamaica free, hut England failed 
 to enact other laws making their freedom a 
 blessing. The old spirit of domination never 
 died in the slave-master, but was only mad- 
 dened by emancipation. For thirty years no 
 measures were adopted tending to protect or 
 educate the freedmen. At length, and quite 
 recently, the colonial authorities passed a 
 whipping act, then a law of eviction for peo- 
 ple of color, then a law imposing heavy im- 
 post duties, bearing most grievously upon 
 them, and finally a law providing for the im- 
 portation of coolies, thus taxing the freedmen 
 for the very purpose of taking the bread out 
 of the mouths of their own children! I be- 
 lieve it turns out, after all, that these outrag- 
 ed people even then did not rise up against the 
 local government; but the white ruffians of 
 the island, goaded on by their own unchecked 
 rapacity, and availing themselves of the in- 
 fernal pretext of a black insurrection, perpe- 
 trated deeds of rapine and vengeance that 
 find no parallel anywhere, save in the acts of 
 their natural allies, the late slave-breeding 
 rebels, against our flag. Sir, is there no warn- 
 ing here against the policy of leaving our 
 freedmen to the tender mercies of their old 
 masters? Are the white rebels of this Dis- 
 trict any better than the Jamaica villains to 
 whom I have referred ? The late report of 
 General Schurz gives evidence of some impor- 
 tant facts which will doubtless apply here. 
 The mass of the white people in the South, he 
 says, are totally destitute of any national 
 feeling. The same bigoted sectionalism that 
 swayed them prior to the war is almost uni- 
 versal. Nor have they any feeling of the 
 enormity of treason as a crime, To them it is 
 not odious, as very naturally it would not be, 
 under the policy which foregoes the punish- 
 ment of traitors, and gives so many of them 
 the chief places of power in the South. And 
 their hatred of the negro to-day is as intense 
 and scathing, and as universal, as before the 
 war. I believe it to be even more so. The 
 proposition to educate him and elevate his 
 condition is everywhere met with contempt 
 and scorn. They acknowledge that slavery, 
 as it once existed, is overthrown ; but the con- 
 tinued inferiority and subordination of the 
 colored race, under some form of vassalage or 
 serfdom, is regarded by them as certain. Sir, 
 they have no thought of anything else; and 
 if the ballot shall be withhel'd from the freed- 
 men after the withdrawal of military power, 
 the most revolting forms of oppression and 
 outrage will be practiced, resulting, at last, 
 in that very war of races which is foolishly 
 
 apprehended as the efi"cct of giving the ne- 
 gro his rights. 
 
 Mr. Speakei-, a more plausible, if not a 
 more formidable objection to negro suffrage 
 in this District remains to be noticed. Most 
 of the Northern States refuse the ballot to 
 their colored citizens, and even deny them 
 their testimony in suits in which white per- 
 sons are parties. In Indiana, which has done 
 so noble and glorious a part in the war, we 
 have a constitutional provision, and laws made 
 in pursuance of it, by which negroes from 
 other sections of our country are forbidden to 
 enter the State. It is made a penal ottence 
 for any negro or mulatto to come into her 
 borders, or'for any white person to bring him 
 in, or employ him after he shall have come. 
 Now, how can the Eepresentatives of such 
 States be expected to vote for negro suffrage 
 in this District? If Congress, having the 
 sole and exclusive power of legislation here, 
 ought to give the ballot to the negro, why 
 should not Indiana give the ballot te her ne- 
 gro population? And how can western Ee- 
 presentatives face their constituents and an- 
 swer this question, after having supported 
 this bill ? And it is just here that its passage 
 must encounter its greatest peril; for members 
 of Congress, however patriotic, will be ex- 
 ceedingly glad to escape this dilemma, and 
 to avoid the committal to the policy of negro 
 suffrare generally, which would seem to be 
 implied in the support of this measure. 
 
 In seeking to meet this difficulty, several 
 considerations must boborne in mind. In the 
 first place, the demand for negro suffrage in 
 this District rests not alone upon the general 
 ground of right, of democratic equality, but 
 upon peculiar reasons superinduced by the 
 late war, which make it an immediate prac- 
 tical issue, involving not merely the welfare 
 of the colored man but the safety of society 
 itself. If civil government is to be revived at 
 all in the South, it is perfectly self-evident 
 that the loyal men there must vote ; but the 
 loyal men are the negroes, and the disloyal 
 are the whites. To put back the governing 
 power into the hands of the very men who 
 brought on the war, and exclude those who 
 have proved themselves the true friends of 
 the country, would be utterly suicidal and 
 atrociously unjust. Negro suffrage in the 
 districts lately "in revolt is thus a present po- 
 litical necessity, dictated by the selfishness of 
 the white loyalist as well as his sense of jus- 
 tice. But in our Western States, in which 
 the negro population is relatively small, and 
 the prevailing sentiment of the white people 
 is loyal, no such emergency exists. Society- 
 will not be endangered by the temporary post- 
 ponement of the right of negro suflVage till 
 public opinion shall render it practicable, and 
 our western Eepresentatives can thus vote for 
 this bill without encountering any reasonable 
 hostility from their conservative constituents, 
 and leaving the question of suflrage in tho 
 loyal States to be decided by them on its p.ier- 
 its. If Indiana bad gono out of her proper 
 
44 
 
 place in the Union, and her loyal population 
 had been found too weak to force her back in- 
 to it without negro bullets and bayonets, and 
 if- after thus coercing lier again into her con- 
 stitutioiuil orbit, her loyalists had been found 
 unable to hold her there without negro ballots, 
 the question of negro sutfrage in Indi;\na 
 would most obviously have been very differ- 
 ent from the comjiaratively abstract one that 
 it now is. It would, it is true, have involved 
 the question of justice to the negroes of Indi- 
 ana, but the transcendantly broader and more 
 vital question of national salvation also. Let 
 me add further, that should Congress pass this 
 bill, and should the ballot be given to the ne- 
 groes in the sunny South generally, those in 
 our northern and western States, many of 
 them at least, may resturn to their native land' 
 and its kindlier skies, and thus quiet the 
 nerves of conservative gentlemen who dread 
 too close a proximity to those whose skins, 
 owing to some providential oversight, were 
 somehow o; other not stamped with the true 
 orthodox luster. 
 
 It should be further remembered, Mr. 
 Speaker, that the bill before us relates ex- 
 clusively to this District, and those municipal 
 and pidioe powers which are to be exercised 
 here under the laws of Congress. Were it in 
 fact dangerous and unwise to give the negro 
 a voice "in the general legislation of the 
 covmtry, I can see no objection whatever to 
 the experiment of black suffrage in this 
 District, in the purely local administration 
 of its affairs. For very excellent reasons, 
 alreadv given, I believe the negroes here are 
 entitled to the ballot, and are at least as fit as 
 multitudes of white men who are unquestion- 
 ably to have it. They have done their full 
 share in saving the nation's life. Many of 
 them went into the Army as the substitutes 
 of white ruffians and vagabonds who daily 
 "damn the nigger," and whose unprofitable 
 lives were saved by the black column which 
 stood between them and the bullets of the 
 rebels. Sir, let the experiment be fairly made 
 here, on this model political farm of the na- 
 tion. Should it fail. Congress will abandon 
 it ; should it work well, it may prove a most 
 excellent forerunner of measures of larger 
 justice to the colored race in our land. I do 
 not mean to say that the colored soldiers of 
 this District should alone have the ballot, 
 because no such rule is proposed or thought 
 of as to white voting. If the white rabble of 
 this District who did not enter our Army, 
 and who to a great extent were in sympathy 
 with the public enemy, are to vote, as they 
 undoubtedly will, it would be a very mean 
 mockery of justice to withhold the ballot 
 from Uiyal negroes who, although they did 
 not fight, furnished the Government with 
 their full share of men. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I ask conservative gentlemen 
 on this floor to consider duly one other fact. 
 If difficulties arc to bo encountered in voting 
 for this bill, still greater difficulties are to be 
 met in voting against it, and I know of no 
 half Ava.v ground in dealing with fundamental 
 
 principles. To vote against this measure ia 
 to vote against the first truths of democratic 
 liberty. It is to vote for the old spirit of 
 caste and the old law of hate which have so 
 terribly blasted our land. It is to vote down 
 justice and install misrule and maladministra- 
 tion as king. It is to sanction and encour- 
 age, by the national example, the barbarous 
 and worse than heathen laws of the nortliern 
 and western States, already referred to, which 
 so loudly call for our rebuke. It is to make 
 a record which the roused spirit of liberty 
 and progress, and the thick-coming events of 
 the future, will certainly disown and turn 
 from with shainc. Ami while such a vote 
 might tend to placate the conservative and 
 the trimmer, it would offend those radical 
 hosts now everywhere springing to their feet, 
 and preparing for battle against every form 
 of inequality and injustice, and in favor of 
 " all rights for all." Sir, justice is safe. The 
 right thing is the expedient thing. Demp- 
 cracy is not a lie. God is not the devil, " nor 
 was Christianity itself established by priae 
 essays, Bridgewater bequests, and a minimum 
 of four thousand five hundred a year." Far 
 better will it be for a northern Representativje 
 and for the cause of llepublicanism itself to 
 vote on the right side of this question, even 
 should it cost him his seat on this floor, than 
 to vote on the wrong side, and thus maintahi 
 his place by the sacrifice of both his own 
 manhood and the public welware intrusted to 
 his hands. Sir, I agree that the passage of 
 this bill would tend to open the way to per- 
 fect equality before the law in all the States. 
 I do not deny that the public would so under- 
 stand it, and I decline none of the consequen- 
 ces of my vote. Mr. Jefferson, speaking of 
 the negroes, declared that "whatever be their 
 degree of talent it is no measure of their 
 rights," and he likewise declared that " among 
 those who either pay or fight for their country 
 no line can be drawn." That is my demo- 
 cracy. "The one idea," says Humboldt, 
 "which history exhibits as evermore develop- 
 ing itself into greater distinctness, is the idea 
 of humanity, the noble endeavor to throw 
 down all barriers erected between men by 
 prejudice and one-sided views, and, by setting 
 aside the distinctions of religion, country, and 
 color, to treat the whole human race as one 
 brotherhood." Sir, on this broad ground, co- 
 incident with Christianity itself, 1 plant ray 
 feet; and no man can fail who will resolutery 
 maintain it. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I must not conclude my argji- 
 ment without referring to one further con- 
 sideration, by which the passage of this bill, 
 in my judgment, is urgently demanded. I 
 have argued that the ballot should be given 
 to the negroes as a matter of justice to thepi. 
 It should likewise be done as a matter of re- 
 tributive justice to the slaveholders and rebels. 
 According to the best information I can d\>- 
 tain, a very large majority of the white people 
 of this District have been rebels in heait 
 during the war, and are rebels in heart still. 
 That contempt for the negro and scorn of free 
 
iriclustr_v which constituted the mainspring of 
 the rebellion cropped out here during the ■svar 
 in every form that was possible, under the 
 immediate shadow of the central Government. 
 Meaner rebels than many in this District 
 could scarcely have been found in the 
 whole land. They have not been punished. 
 "fhe halter has been cheated out of their 
 necks. I am very sorry to say that under 
 what seems to be a false mercy, a misapplied 
 humanity, the guiltiest rebels of the war have 
 thus far been allowed to escape justice. I 
 have no desire to censure the authorities of 
 the Government for this fact. I hope they 
 liave some valid excuse for their action. This 
 qiiestion of punishment, I know, is a difficult 
 Ohe. The work of punishment is so vast that 
 it naturally palsies the will to enter upon it. 
 It never can be thoroughly done on this side 
 of the grave. And were it practicable to 
 punish adequate)}' all the most active and 
 guilty rebels, justice would still remain un- 
 satisfied. Far guiltier men than they are, the 
 rebel sympathizers of the loyal States, who 
 coolly stood by and encouraged their friends 
 in the South in their work of national rapine 
 and murder, and while they were ever ready 
 to go joyfully into the service of the devil, 
 were too cowardly to wear his uniform and 
 carry his weapons in open day. But Congress 
 in this District has the power to punish by 
 ballot, and there will be a beautiful poetic 
 justice in the exercise of this power. Sir, let 
 it be applied. The rebels here will recoil 
 from it with horror. Some of the worst of 
 them, sooner than submit to black sufirage, 
 will doubtless leave the Disti'ict, and thus 
 render it an unepeakable service. To be 
 voted down and governed by Yankee and 
 negro ballots will seem to them an intoler- 
 able grievance, and this is among the excel- 
 lent reasons why I am in favor of it. If 
 neither hanging nor exile can be extempor- 
 ized for the entertainment of our domestic 
 rebels, let us require them at least to make 
 their bed on negro ballots during the re- 
 mainder of their unworthy lives Of course 
 they will not relish it, but that will be their 
 own peculiar concern. Their darling institu- 
 tion nuist be charged with all the consequen- 
 ces of the war. They sowed the wind, and if 
 required must reap the whirlwind. Eetribu- 
 tion follows wrong doing ; and tliis law must 
 work out its results. Eebels and their 
 sympathizers, I am sure, will fare as well 
 under negro suffrage as they deserve, and I 
 desire to leave them, as far as practicable, in 
 tlie hands of their colored brethren. ISIor 
 shall I stop to inquire very critically whether 
 the negroes are fit to vote. As between 
 themselves and white rebels, who deserve to 
 be hung, they are eminently fit. I would not 
 have them more so. Will you, Mr. Speaker, 
 will even my conservative and Democratic 
 friends, be particularly nice or fastidious in 
 the choice of a man to vote down a rebel ? 
 6hull we insist upon a perfectly finished 
 
 gentleman and scholar to vote do^n the 
 traitors and white trash of this District, who 
 have recently signalized themselves by mob- 
 bing unoffending negroes ? Sir, almost any- 
 body, it seems to me, will answer the pur^jose. 
 I do not pretend that the colored men here, 
 should they get the ballot, will not sometimes 
 abuse it. Thej' will undoubtedly make mis- 
 takes. In some cases they may even vote on 
 the side of their old masters. But I feel 
 pretty safe in saying that even white men, 
 perfectly free from all suspicion of negro 
 blood, have sometimes voted on the wrong 
 side. Sir, I appeal to gentlemen on this 
 floor, and especially to my Democratic 
 friends, to say whether they can not call to 
 mind instances in which white men have 
 voted Avrong? Indeed, it rather strikes me 
 that white voting, ignorant, depraved, party- 
 ridden Democratic white voting, had a good 
 deal to do in hatching into life the rebellion 
 itself, and that no results of negro voting are 
 likely to be much worse. I respectfully com- 
 mend this consideration to my friend from 
 Iowa, [Mr. Kasson,] and to conservative 
 gentlemen here on both sides of this Hall. 
 Sir, as I have argued elsewhere, all men are 
 liable to make mistakes. The democracy I 
 stand by, the fitness to govern which I believe 
 in, is the aggregate wisdom and practical 
 common sense of the whole people. This, 
 and not the wisdom of our rulers, or of any 
 select few, carried us safely through the 
 rebellion, and this only can be trusted in 
 time to come. The:e is no other reliance 
 under God for us, as the champi(_)ns and ex- 
 emplars of Eepublicanism, and the sooner we 
 braveljf accept this truth the better it will be 
 for all races and orders of men composing our 
 great body-politic. In demanding the ballot 
 in this District for the despised and defense- 
 less, I simply demand the national recognition 
 of Christianity, which is ''the root of'all de- 
 mocracy, the highest fact in the rights of 
 man." I beseech gentlemen to rernember 
 this. As the lawgivers of a disenthralled 
 Republic, let us not write " infidel" on its 
 banner, by trampling humanity and justice 
 under our feet in these high places of power. 
 The question is ours to decide. The right, so 
 earnestly prayed for, is ours to bestow. The 
 assumption set up by the white voters here of 
 the right to decide this question is as super- 
 latively ridiculous as it is sublimeljnmpudent. 
 They have no more right to vote themselves 
 the exclusive depositaries of power in this 
 District than the inmates of its penitentiary 
 have to vote themselves at liberty to go at 
 large. Congress is the sovereign and sole 
 judge; and what the colored men here ask at 
 our hands, for their just protection, and as 
 their sure refuge, is the ballot — 
 
 ' .1 weapon firmer set, 
 
 And better than the bayonet ; 
 
 A wenpon tliat comes down as still 
 
 As snow-flakes fnll np'.n the sod ; 
 But expcntes a freeman's will 
 
 As lightning does ihe \\'\\\ of God." 
 
Amendment of the Constitution, 
 
 Hon. GEOEGE W. JULIAN, 
 
 In the house OP EEPRESENTATIYES, Janxjaky 29, 18G6. 
 
 The Honso having under consideration the 
 joint resohition rcp(n'ted by the committee on 
 reconstruction for the amendment of the Con- 
 stitution of the United States — 
 
 Mr. Julian said : 
 
 Mr. Speaker: Before this debate shall be 
 concluded, I desire to submit some observa- 
 tions which I deem important, and which I 
 r3«pectfull3' commend to the consideration of 
 those who advocate the proposition reported 
 bj' the joint committee of fifteen. How I 
 shall filially cast my vote on that proposition, 
 I cannot now certainly decide. I find diffi- 
 culties in my path ; and I shall feel much 
 obliged to any gentleman who may be able 
 and willing to clear them away, and thus, 
 perhaps, assist others on this floor in reaching 
 a just conclusion. I should regret, excecd- 
 ino-ly, to separate myself from those with 
 w'aom I habitually act here, by opposing the 
 measure referred to, and I must not do so 
 without recording my reasons ; and these rea- 
 sons, in so far as they possess weight, may 
 serve as my protest against whatever is objec- 
 tionable in that measure, should its modifica- 
 tion be found impracticable, and I should 
 finally give it my support as the best thing 
 within our power. 
 
 Under the constitutional injunction upon 
 the United States to guaranty a republican 
 form of government to every State, I believe 
 the power already exists in the nation to reg- 
 ulate the right of sufl-rage. It can only 
 exercise this power through Congress; and 
 Congress, of course, must decide what is a re- 
 publican form of government, and when the 
 national authority shall interpose against 
 State action, for the purpose of executing the 
 constitutional guarantee. Ko one will deny 
 the authority of Congress to decide that if a 
 State should disfranchise one-third, one-half, 
 or two-thirds of her citizens, such State would 
 cease to be republican, and might be required 
 to accept a ditfcrent rule of suffrage. If Con- 
 gress could intervene in such a case, it could 
 obviously intervene in any other case in which 
 it might deem it necessary or proper. It cer- 
 tainly might decide that the disfranchisment 
 by a State of a whole race of people within 
 her borders is inconsistent with a republican 
 form of government, and in their behalf, and 
 in the execution of its own authority and 
 
 duty, restore them to their equal right with 
 others to the franchise. It might decide, for 
 example, that in North Carolina, where 631- 
 000 citizens disfranchise 321,000, the govern- 
 ment is not republican, and should be made 
 so by extending the franchise. It might do 
 the same m Virginia, where 719,000 citizens 
 disfranchise 533,000 ; in Alabama, where 
 596,000 citizens disfranchise 337,000; in Geor- 
 gia, where 591,000 citizens disfranchise 465,- 
 000; in Louisiana, where 457,000 citizens 
 disfranchise 350,000; in Mississippi, where 
 353,000 citizens disfranchise 436,000 ; and in 
 South Carolina, where onh' 291,000 citizens 
 disfranchise 411,000. Can any man who rev- 
 erences the Constitution deny either the au- 
 thority or the duty of Congress to do all this 
 in the execution of the guarantee named? Or 
 if the 411,000 negroes in South Carolina were 
 to organize a government, and disfranchise her 
 291,000 white citizens, would anybody doubt 
 the authority of Congress to pronounce such 
 government anti-republican, and secure the 
 ballot equally to white and black citizens as 
 the remedy ? Or if a State should prescribe as 
 a qualification for tlie ballot such an owner- 
 ship of property, real or personal, as would 
 disfranchise the great body of her people, 
 could not Congress undoubtedly interfere ? 
 So of an educational test, which might fix the 
 standard of knowledge so high as to place the 
 governing power in the hands of a select few. 
 The power in all such cases is a reserved one 
 in Congress, to be exercised according to its 
 own judgment, with no accountability to any 
 tribunal save the people; and without such 
 power the nation would be at the mercy of as 
 many oligarchies as there are States. Na- 
 tionality would only be possible by the per- 
 mission of the States. 
 
 The same authority, Mr. Speaker, is claim.ed 
 by eminent jurists under the constitutional 
 amendment abolishing slavery and giving 
 Congress the power, by " appropriating legis- 
 lation," to "enforce'' thcprovision. The word 
 " appropriate" appeals to legislative discre- 
 tion, and the word "enforce" implies such 
 compulsory measures as Congress may deem 
 "appropriate" for the purpose of ridding the 
 country of every vestige of slavery, in form 
 and in fact. " There can be no denial," said 
 Chief Justice Parsons, not long since, "that 
 when this whole amendment shall be adopted 
 
47 
 
 Congress -will have the constitutional power 
 — be its exercise of this power wise or unwise 
 — to rend slavery out from our whole country, 
 root and branch, leaf and fruit, and guard 
 effectually against its return in any form, or 
 under any guise, or to any extent." The na- 
 tion, in other words, having given freedom 
 to four millions of people, can make that free- 
 dom a blessing by conferring it in substance, 
 as well as in name. It not only can do this, 
 but is sacredly bound to do it. The right to 
 freedom carries with it the right of way to it, 
 and that right of way is the ballot. Without 
 it the freedom of these people is a delusion 
 and a lie. 
 
 The freedmen of the South are not free, and 
 cannot be, when left to the domination of 
 their former masters, exasperated by their de- 
 feat in a war which outraged civilization by 
 thus aiming to perpetuate their rule. I need 
 not argue this proposition, because no man 
 can dispute it without ignoring the most obvi- 
 ous principles of human nature, and closing 
 his eyes to well authenticated facts of recent 
 occurrence in the island of Jamaica and in 
 the States lately in revolt. Sir, every gentle- 
 man on this floor knows what a shadow and a 
 mockery is the freedom thus far vouchsafed 
 to the millions now declared free by the Con- 
 stitution, and that to commit their fortunes 
 to the tender mercies of white rebels would 
 be like committing the lamb to the jaws of 
 the wolf. But if I am right, then Congress 
 could unquestionably' place the ballot in the 
 hands of the loyal freedmen, and thus arm them 
 with the power of self-defense, and save them 
 from a condition of pitiless serfdom, in com- 
 parison with which slavery in its old form 
 would be a blessing. I ask, gentlemen, there- 
 fore, to remember, that should every proposed 
 amendment of the Constitution now before 
 this House be voted down, we shall not, I 
 think, be wholly without a remedy for the 
 evil we are so anxious to cure. Instead of 
 restricting representation to actual suffrage, 
 we can extend sulfrage to actual representa- 
 tion, which will be far better. It is true, 
 that the power of Congress to guaranty re- 
 publican governments in the States through 
 its intervention with the question of suf- 
 rage, has not hitherto been exercised; but 
 this certainly does not disprove the exist- 
 ence of such power, nor the expediency of its 
 exercise now, under an additional and inde- 
 pendent constitutional grant, and when a fit 
 occasion for it has come through the madness 
 of treason. It will not be forgotten that we 
 have entered upon a new dispensation. Sla- 
 very sleeps in its bloody shroud. Its shaping- 
 hand, as we believe, Avill no longer mould our 
 national policy at home or abroad. Its evil 
 genius will no longer inspire our public men, 
 and give law to the nation from the supreme 
 bench ; but in the noonday radiance of uni- 
 versal liberty, the Government, I trust, in all 
 its departments, will find its speedy deliver- 
 ance from the trammels of the past. Such, at 
 least, is my hope. 
 
 But, Mr. Speaker, I may be mistaken. We 
 
 may not be able, at a single bouiul, to escape 
 the benumbing influence of slavery. Our 
 exodus from the long and sore bondage of the 
 past, may be tedious and toilsome. Our 
 dwarfed manhood may require time and judi- 
 cious tonics to restore its original vigor. I 
 cannot feel at all confident in the opinion I 
 have expressed, when I find so many distin- 
 guished gentlemen on this floor insisting that 
 we are still bovxnd by former interpretations 
 of the Constitution, in the interest of slavery. 
 I therefore favor a Constitutional amendment 
 which shall make certain that which may 
 otherwise remain doubtful. But I do not see 
 how I can consistently support the amend- 
 ment reported by the joint committee, though 
 I do not say that I will not. In the first 
 place, it seems to me that it offends the moral 
 sense of the country. It provides "that when- 
 ever the elective franchise shall be denied or 
 abridged in any State on account of race or 
 color, all persons of such race or color shall 
 be excluded from the basis of representation." 
 Sir, what right has any State " to deny or 
 abridge the elective franchise on account of 
 race or color?" To assent to such a proposi- 
 tion is to insult humanity and mock justice. 
 It is, moreover, as absurd as to deny or 
 abridge the franchise on account of the dist- 
 ance across the Atlantic or the height of the 
 Alleghanies. Why not say, in the plain 
 aflSrmative words of the am.e'ndment submit- 
 ted by the gentleman from 3Iassachusetts, 
 [Mr. Elliot,] that— 
 
 '= Tlie elective franchise ijhall not be denied or 
 abridged in any State on account of race or color ?" 
 
 The distinguished chairman of the joint 
 committee concedes the right of a State under 
 the Constitution to disfranchise its citizens 
 for such cause, and so does my friend from- 
 New York, [Mr. Conkling.] If they are 
 right, then the very thing to be done 'is to 
 amend the Constitution in that particular. 
 Have we any authority to sacrifice the rights 
 of a whole race in the South in order to save 
 ourselves from the evils of unequal represen- 
 tation, and thus compound with injustice and 
 oppression? Will the world justify us in 
 protecting our own political rights and 
 abridging the rights of white rebels at the 
 expense of millions of freedmen who will 
 thus be made the vicarious victims of our 
 policy ? Would that be an honest payment 
 of the debt we righteously owe them? My 
 friend from Ohio, [Mr. "Bingham] differs 
 with his colleagues on the joint committee as 
 to the right of a State to disfranchise her 
 citizens, and defends the proposed amend- 
 ment as a mere penaltj', designed to restrain 
 the States from violating their constitutional 
 duty. 
 
 Mr. Bingham. I do not admit and never 
 have admitted that any State has a right to 
 disfranchise any portion of the citizens of the 
 United States, resident therein, entitled to 
 vote for Kepresentatives under the second 
 section of the first article of the Constitution, 
 except as a punishment for their own crimes. 
 A citizen may forfeit his right by crime, and 
 
48 
 
 tlie State may enforce that forfcituve. I fa- 
 vor this amendment as a penalty in aid of the 
 rights guaranteed by the Costitution as it 
 now stands. 
 
 Mr. Julian. The gentleman niii^undcr- 
 stands what I said. I have just stated what 
 the gentleman from Ohio now alRrms, that he 
 defends the amendment reported by the 
 committee as a mere penalty intended to re- 
 strain the States from striking down the rights 
 of their citizens under the Constitution; but 
 as we are now endeavoring to amend the 
 Constitution, why incorporate it in a mere 
 penalty against its violation, which at least 
 seems to i'mply the right to violate it, if the 
 penalty shall be accepted ? Since the whole 
 policy of the Government fi'om its beginning 
 has yielded the right of the Southern States 
 to disfranchise their people of color, why not 
 provide a positive prohibition of such right? 
 Mr. Madison declared it to be wrong "to 
 admit in the Constitution the idea that there 
 can be property in man." So I say it seems 
 to me wrong to admit in this amendment the 
 idea that the rights of the citizen can be taken 
 away by reason of color or race, and that in 
 perfecting the organic law of the nation we 
 should avoid any phraseology which by any 
 possibility would admit a construction so fatal 
 to the fundamental principle of all free gov- 
 ernment. Why temporize by adopting half- 
 way measures and a policy of indirection ? 
 The shortest distance between two given 
 points, is a strait line. Let us follow it, in so 
 important a work as amending the Constitu- 
 tion. The advocates of the proposed amend- 
 ment do not profess to be satisfied with it. 
 They confess that it comes short of its pur- 
 pose. They say they have another proposition 
 in reserve which will cover the whole ground 
 Then why not bring it forward and let us 
 meet it on its own merits? Why j-ield any 
 longer to the policy of compromise? Sir, 
 remembering the mistakes of our fathers in 
 the beginning, and the frightful legacy to 
 their children which has been the result, let 
 us be warned against any short-sighted and 
 temporary expedients to-day. Let us bring 
 ourselves face to face with the great demand 
 of the nation upon us, and then appeal to the 
 people to sanction a plain, unambiguous 
 amendment of the Constitution, which we 
 believe to be necessary to their future se- 
 curity. 
 
 But the advocates of this measure, while 
 
 { promising us a better, frankly tell us it is the 
 jest we can now hope to secure They defend 
 it on this ground, and insist that our present 
 alternative is between its adoption, and the 
 representation of four million loyal colored 
 people in Congress bj' ex-rebels, who would 
 utterly misrepresent their wishes and tram- 
 ple down their rights. To this, several an- 
 swers are obviously suggested. 
 
 In the first place, how do you know that 
 tliG broad proposition I advocate, will fail in 
 Congress, or before the people? These are 
 revolutionary days. Whole generations of 
 common time are now crowded into the span 
 
 of a few years. Life was never before so 
 grand and blessed an opportunity. The man 
 mistakes his reckoning, who judges either the 
 present or the future by any political almanac 
 of by-gone years. Growth, development, 
 progress, are the expressive watchwords of 
 the hour. Who can remember the marvel- 
 ous events of the ]>ast four years, necessitated 
 by the late war, and then predict the failure, 
 of further measures, woven into the same fab- 
 ric, and born of the same inevitable logic ? It 
 is only a few days since this nation, speaking 
 through its llepresentatives on this floor, by 
 a vote of IIG against 54, deliberately sactioned 
 the very policy I urge, as an amendment to 
 the Constitution of the United States. Sir, if 
 that policy is right in this District, shall we 
 decline to extend it over the districts lately 
 in revolt where far sti'onger reasons plead for 
 it? Shall wo distrust the people, who have 
 been so ready to second all radical measures 
 during the war, and now speak with such 
 emphasis on emerging, with newly anointed 
 vision, from its terrible baptism of fire and 
 blood ? And besides, how do you know, Mr. 
 Speaker, that even the proposition reported 
 by the committee can prevail, either in Con- 
 gress or in the States ? It encounters, I know, 
 a veiy considerable opposition here, and I 
 sincerely hope it may be re-committed and 
 amended. It may encounter a greater oppo- 
 sition in the States. Its indirect mode of 
 reaching a desirable result, and its apparent 
 i-ecognit^ion of the infernal heresy of State 
 sovereignty, ma}" seriously endanger, if not 
 totally defeat, the proposition. Sir, I hope 
 this suggestion will not be deemed unworthy 
 of consideration. But the question, after all, 
 is, what amendment of the Constitution, if 
 any, is really demanded ? If we can agree as 
 to this, then we should submit it, trusting in 
 God, in the people, and in the great educa- 
 tional forces now everj'where at work, that it 
 will prevail. Should it fail for a season, it 
 will triumph ultimately, and in the end repay 
 all the cost of its delay. Neither constitu- 
 tional amendments nor reforms in any other 
 direction could make such headway, if no man 
 should ever espouse them till the people are 
 found prepared to accept them without oppo- 
 sition or dissent. 
 
 Again, Mr. Speaker, it should not be for- 
 gotten that the proposed amendment, should 
 it prevail, must fail of its purpose, till after 
 the census of 1870. If I am not mistaken, 
 there could be no new allotment of llepreson- 
 tavies among the Southern States, prior to 
 that time. If I am mistaken, and the Con- 
 stitution will permit us to take another cen- 
 sus whenever we choose, it will not make 
 any practical difference, as no one proposes 
 that measure, and if adopted, the re-apportion- 
 ment under the new census, could not take 
 etJ'ect sooner than the time I have named. 
 In all these intervening years, therefore, these 
 rebel States must have their full rejiresenta- 
 tions under the existing basis, or else their rep- 
 resentatives must be kept out of Congress. If 
 thoy should be admitted, prior to the passage 
 
49 
 
 of the amendment, there would be no coer- 
 cive authority in the hands of the Executive 
 or Congress to constrain any State to ratify 
 the amendment, and it could not be ratified. 
 If the Soutliern Eepresentatives should not 
 be admitted, then the evils of unequal repre- 
 sentation would be avoided, so long as they 
 are kept out. The object of the amendment, 
 therefore, namely, the reduction of rebel rep- 
 resentation in Congress and the extension of 
 suffrage to the whole people of the South, 
 could not be secured before the year 1870, or 
 1872, if the next census shall be taken at the 
 regular time ; and then it would remain for 
 the Southern States to say whether they 
 would give the ballot to the negroes, or still 
 cling to that unchristian spirit of caste and 
 lust of power which have so long been the 
 higher law of the South. If I am correct in 
 making these statements, much of the alleged 
 practical significance of the proposed amend- 
 ment is made to disappear, and we are thus 
 the better prepared to demand the amend- 
 ment, really necessary and effective, or else 
 such congressional action as shall grant suf- 
 frage to the people of the South, irrespective 
 of color. Should both these measures for the 
 present be found impracticable, I do not see 
 that any great interest of the country will 
 sufiTer in consequence, while the regular inarch 
 of events and the great tidal force of public 
 opinion will at length open the way for such 
 action, in some form, as shall be required by 
 the national exigency. 
 
 Finally, Mr. Speaker, I deny that the reb- 
 els of the South, who are the rulers of the 
 South, would grant the ballot to the negro if 
 the proposed amendment were now in full 
 force. They would not do it, because their 
 love of domination, their contempt for free 
 labor, and their scorn of an enslaved and 
 downtrodden race are as intense as ever. 
 They hate the negro now, not simply as the 
 ally of the Yankee in foiling their treason, but 
 as the author of all their misfortunes, who, 
 having been villainonsly misused by them, is 
 of course villainously despised. They hate 
 him with a rancor that feeds unceasingly 
 upon every memory of their humiliation and 
 defeat. They confront him with a hatred so 
 remorseless, withering, consuming, that it 
 crops out to-day in every quarter of the South, 
 in deeds of outrage, violence, and crime, 
 which find no parallel even in the atrocities 
 practiced in that section under the old codes 
 of slavery, which were codes of murder and 
 all minor crimes. Can any gentleman read 
 the late report of General Schutz, and listen 
 to the testimony of the great cloud of concur- 
 ring witnesses whose voices are now filling 
 the land, respecting the popular feeling in 
 the South, and then believe that the rebel 
 class will ever, under any inducements, vol- 
 untarily give equal political rights to the 
 freedmen ? The leaders of southern opinion 
 openly declare that they would rather die 
 than give the ballot to their former slaves. 
 While it would give their section an increased 
 representation in Congress, that representa- 
 3 
 
 tion woiild be secured by the votes of negroes, 
 and abolitionists, whose darling purpose 
 would be to Yankeeize and abolitionize the 
 entire South, and put the old slave dynasty 
 hopelessly unded their feet. And the old 
 slave dj-nasty understands this perfectly. 
 They know that negro sufl'rage, by checking 
 rebel rapacity and restoring oixler, and thus 
 rendering emigration from the North and 
 from Europe a safe and practicable thing, 
 will re-organize the whole structure of society 
 in their region, and thus doom their pride and 
 sloth to a hopeless conflict with the energy 
 and enterprise of free labor. Do you tell me 
 that men are governed by their own interests 
 and that the ruling class in the South, find- 
 ing no other way to serve those interests, will 
 extend suffrage to the negroes? I answer, 
 that long-cherished and traditionary prejudi- 
 ces and passions are stronger than interest. 
 It was always the true interest of the South 
 to abolish her slavery, but she waged a horrid 
 war to save and eternize it. She could al- 
 ways have increased her power in Congress 
 by its abolition, but she loved her domination 
 over the negro moi'e than she loved political 
 pov^er. It was the interest of the northern 
 States, long ago, to unite in checking the ag- 
 gressions and the further spread of slaA'ery in 
 the Union, and thereby to hasten the employ- 
 ment of peaceable measures in the South for 
 its abandonment; but the northern States, on 
 the contrary, became the allies of the slave 
 breeders in fortifying and extending their 
 rule on this continent. It was the interest of 
 our first pjarents not to sin, but the devil proved 
 too much for them. Sir, the argument of 
 interest will not do. Passion is stronger than 
 interest, because, being blind, it does not per- 
 ceive the best good. Before I agree to en- 
 trust the freedmen to the interest of their old 
 masters, I want to know that they understand 
 what their interest is, and that they have so far 
 outlived their prejudices that they will follow 
 it. I think no gentleman on this floor can 
 feel sure on these points. What we want, 
 what the nation needs for its own salvation, 
 is a constitutional amendment, or a law of 
 Congress which shall guaranty the ballot to 
 the freedmen of the South. This is not sim- 
 ply his equal political right as a citizen, but 
 his natural right as a man. As I have argued 
 on another occasion, a voice in the Govern- 
 ment which deals with property, liberty, and 
 life, is not a " privilege," but right, and as 
 natural, as indefeasable as the right to life 
 itself. Government cannot rightfully with- 
 hold it, but it is as sacredly bound to secuj'cit 
 to all men, regardless of race or color, as it is 
 bound to secure other rights which are ac- 
 corded to them by comirion consent as nat- 
 ural. In this view I am very glad to find 
 myself sustained by some of the ablest men in 
 this House. Our fathers affirmed, as a self- 
 evident truth, that all men are endowed by 
 their Creator, with the right of life, liberty, 
 and the pursuit of happiness ; and that Gov- 
 ernments are instituted among men to secure 
 these rights, deriving their just powers from 
 
50 
 
 the consent of the governed. Sir, let us not 
 shrink from the practical vindication of this 
 truth. Let us recognize no such anomaly in 
 our free system of government as a disfran- 
 chized citizen, innocent of crime, but prize 
 the franchise as so sacred that a man -without 
 it shall everwhere, and of necessity, wear the 
 brand of a convicted enemy of society. Let 
 us not preach a mere lip-democracy, while we 
 confess by our acts, our faith in the maxims 
 of despotism. Let us not, with the warnings 
 of the past before us, still continue to deny 
 the very gospel of our political salvation, and 
 arm the absolutists of the Old World with 
 weapons fatal to every just theory of republi- 
 canism. Let us not make enemies and out- 
 laws of four million people, among whom no 
 traitor or sympathizer with treason has ever 
 yet been found ; who were eagar to help us 
 
 from the very beginning of our struggle, and 
 as soon as we were ready gladly furnished 
 nearly two hundred thousand soldiers to aid 
 in saving the nation's life; and who, if al- 
 lowed justice at our hands, will be found in 
 the future, as they have been in the past, our 
 eifective auxiliaries and faithful friends. — 
 Above all, let us remember, for our own sake 
 as well as that of the colored race, that jus- 
 tice is omnipotent; that her demands nmst 
 be met to the uttermost farthing, and cannot 
 be slighted without offending the Most High; 
 and that if, when our pathway is lighted up 
 by the fires of a stupendous civil war, which 
 the whole world interprets as the avenger of 
 these .wronged millions, we now turn a deaf 
 ear to their cries, our guilt as a nation, and 
 our retribution, will find no precedent in the 
 annals of mankind. 
 
OOJie Punishment of Jxehel Leaders, 
 
 sipeech: OIF 
 
 Hon. GEOKGE ^i. JULIAE^, 
 
 In the house OF REPRESENTATIVES, April 30th, 1866. 
 
 The House having under consideration the 
 following resolution: 
 
 Resolved, (as the deliberate judgnifnt of this House,) 
 That the speedy trial of Jetfereou Lavir!, either by a 
 civil or military tribunal, for the crime oV treason or 
 the other crimes of which he stands chxrgi'd, and his 
 prompt execution, if found guilty, ara Imperaiivoly 
 aemanded by the people of the Un"iteii States in order 
 that treason may be adequately branded by the nation, 
 traitors made iufamouB, and the repetition of their 
 crimes, as fur as possible, be prevented, 
 
 Mr. Julian said: 
 
 Mr. Speaker: In demanding the punish- 
 ment of the chief rebel conspirators, I beg 
 not to be misunderstood. I do not ask for 
 vengeance. I feel sure there is no man in 
 the country, however intense his loyalty, who 
 would inflict the slightest unnecessary suffer- 
 ing, or any form of cruelty, upon even the 
 most flagitious of the confederate leaders. 
 "What the nation desires, and all it asks, is 
 the ordinary administration of justice against 
 the most extraordinary national criminals 
 The treason spun from their brains, and de- 
 liberately fashioned into the bloody warp and 
 woof of a four years' war, and the winding- 
 sheet of a half million of men, ought to be 
 branded by the nation as a crime. It ought 
 to be made " odious" and " infamous." The 
 punishment of that crime, prescribed by the 
 Constitution, is death ; and I am just as un- 
 willing to see the Constitution set aside and 
 made void in this respect, in the interest of 
 vanquished rebel leaders, as I was to see it 
 trampled under foot by their armed legions 
 while the war continued. Indeed, the punish- 
 ment of these leaders is a necessary part of 
 the logic of their infernal enterprise, and 
 without it the rebellion itself, instead of being 
 effectually crushed, must find a fresh incentive 
 to renew its life in its impunity from the just 
 consequences of its guilt. It will not do to 
 say these leaders have been sufiiciently 
 punished already, by the failure of their 
 treason, the loss of their coveted power, and 
 their humiliation, poverty, and disgrace. 
 Kindred arguments would empty our jails 
 and penitentiaries, and make the administra- 
 tion of criminal justice everywhere a farce. 
 The way of all transgressors is hard ; but this 
 hardship cannot justify society in failing to 
 protect itself by iitly chastising its enemies. 
 Justice to the nation whose life has been at- 
 tempted, and to the assassins who made the 
 attempt, is the great demand of the hour. 
 
 And here, again, Mr. Speaker, I hope I 
 shall be understood. In pleading for justice 
 I mean of course public justice, which seeks 
 the prevention of crime by making an ex- 
 ample of the criminal. Human laws do not 
 pretend to fathom the real moral guilt of of- 
 fenders. They have no power to do this. 
 Their sole aim is the prevention of crime. 
 They have nothing to do with that retributive 
 justice which graduates the punishment of 
 each transgressor by the exact measure of his 
 guilt. To the great Searcher of all hearts 
 belongs this prerogative, while society, acting 
 through Government as its agent, and having 
 an eye single to its own protection, must deal 
 with its criminals. This, sir, is my reply to 
 the plea often urged that we should not hang 
 the rebel leaders, because we can not also 
 hang the leading sympathizers of the north- 
 ern States who are perhaps more guilty. The 
 Government has nothing to do with the ques- 
 tion of degrees of moral guilt or blameworthi- 
 ness, either in the North or the South. Its 
 concern is with the nation's enemies, whose 
 overt acts of treason have made them amen- 
 able to the laws, and whose punishment 
 should be made a terror to evil doers here- 
 after. The fact that our power of punishment 
 can not reach all who are guilty, including 
 many men in the loyal States who richly deserve 
 the halter, is no reason whatever for allowing 
 those to go un whipped who are properly within 
 the reach of public justice. 
 
 And the same reasoning applies to the 
 argument sometimes urged against all punish- 
 ment, founded on the numbers who would 
 fairly be liable to sufler. The question is 
 frequently asked, would you build a gallows 
 in every village and neighborhood of the 
 South? "Would you shock the Christian 
 world by the spectacle of ten thousand gib- 
 bets, and the hanging of all who have been 
 guilty of treason, or even a respectable frac- 
 tion of their number ? I answer, I would do 
 no such thing. Public justice and the highest 
 good of the State do not lequire it. I would 
 simply apply the ordinary rules of criminal 
 jurisprudence to the question, and as in other 
 conspiracies, so in this grand one, I would 
 mete out the severest punishment to the ring- 
 leaders. Most undoubtedly I would give 
 them a constitutional entertainment on the 
 gallows; or should the number of ringleaders 
 be too great, or the guilt of some of tliem be 
 
r-,9. 
 
 less flagrant fhan others, perpetual exile might 
 "be substituted. The rebel masses, both on the 
 score of their numbers and their qualiticd 
 guilt, should have a general amnesty ; but by 
 no possible means would I spare the un- 
 matched villains who conceived the bloody 
 project of national dismemberment, and by 
 their devilish arts lured into their horrid 
 service the ignorant and misguided people of 
 their section. Whoever may escape justice, 
 either North or South, or whatever embar- 
 rassments may belong to the problem of 
 punishment at the end of this stupendous 
 conflict, nothing remains so perfectly clear 
 and unquestionable as tiie duty of the nation 
 to execute the great malefactors who fashioned 
 to their uses all the genius and resources of 
 the South, and throughout the entire struggle 
 invoked all the powers of hell in their work of 
 national destruction. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, the adequate punishment of 
 the rebel leaders involves the whole question 
 of the rebellion itself. It is not a matter 
 which the Government may dispose of indif- 
 ferently, but is vital to the nation's peace, if 
 not to its very existence. To trifle with it is 
 to trifle with public justice and the holy cause 
 for which the country has been made to bleed 
 and suff"er. It is to mock our dead heroes, 
 and confess our own pusillanimity or guilt. 
 It is to make treason respectable, and put 
 loyalty under the ban. It is to call evil good 
 and good evil ; and since God is not to be 
 mocked, it must in some form bring down 
 upon our own heads the retribution which we 
 may only escape by enforcing the penal laws 
 of the nation against the magnificent felons 
 who have sought its life. 
 
 Sir, I shall take it for granted that treason 
 is a crime, and not a mere accident or mis- 
 take. In this most frightful and desolating 
 struggle there is transcendent and unutter- 
 able guilt ; and I take it for granted that that 
 guilt is on the side of those who wantonly 
 and causelessly took up arms against the 
 nation, and not on the side of those who 
 fought to save it from destruction. Treason 
 is a crime, and therefore not a merediflerence 
 of opinion ; a crime, and therefore not an 
 honest mistake of judgment about the right 
 of a State to secede ; a crime, and therefore 
 not a mere struggle of the South for inde- 
 pendence while the North contended for 
 empire; a crime, and thereibre not a mere 
 "misapprehension of misguided men," as 
 some of our copperhead journals aflSrm; a 
 crime, and the highest of all crimes, including 
 all lesser villainies, and eclipsing them all, in 
 its heaven-daring leap at the nation's throat ; 
 and therefore those who withstood it by arms 
 ■were patriots and heroes, fighting for na- 
 tionality and freedom, against rebels whose 
 ^Burc and swift punishment .should be made 
 a ■warning against the repetition of their deeds. 
 Mr. Speaker, if a man were to come into 
 our midst and persuade us that treason and 
 loyalty are about the same thing ; that right 
 and wrong, good and evil, virtue and vice, are 
 
 convertible terms; that God and Satan are 
 in fact the same personage, under difl'erent 
 names, and that it matters little under whose 
 banner we fight ; and if he could thus enlist 
 us in the w^ork of uprooting the loundations 
 of Government, of morals, of society, of 
 everything held sacred among men, would he 
 not be the most execrable creature in the 
 universe? If he could indoctrinate mankind 
 with his theory of "reconstruction," would 
 not this beautiful earth of ours be converted 
 into a first-class hell, with the devil as its 
 king? Sir, you dare not trifle with this 
 question of the punishment of traitors. The- 
 ory goes before practice. Eight believing, on 
 moral or political issues, precedes right act- 
 ing ; and you touch the very marrow of the 
 rebellion when you approach the question of 
 the punishment of the rebels. Sir, there is 
 not a State in this Union, nor a civilized 
 country on earth, which in the treatment of 
 its criminals sanctions the sickly magnanimity 
 and misapplied humanity of this nation in 
 dealing with its leading traitors. No civil- 
 ized Government, in my judgment, could 
 possibly be maintained on any such loose and 
 confounded principles. Crime would have 
 unchecked license, and public justice would 
 not even be a decent sham. No man will 
 dispute this, or fail to be amazed that, in 
 dealing with our red-handed traitors, whose 
 crimes arc certainly unsurpas.sed in history, 
 and have filled the land with sorrow and 
 blood, we utterly decline to execute against 
 them the very Constitution which they sought 
 to overturn by years of wholesale rapine and 
 murder. 
 
 Sir, this fact is at once monstrous and 
 startling. We seize the murderer who only 
 takes the life of one man, indict him, convict 
 him, and then hang him. Undoubtedly some 
 murderers escape punishment through par- 
 dons and otherwise, but certainly the penalty 
 of death is inflicted in most countries. The 
 pirate, who boards a vessel on the sea, and 
 murders a few sailors, is " chased by the 
 civilized world to the gallows." The plea in 
 his behalf of magnanimity to a vanquished 
 criminal would not save him, and his friends 
 would scarcely urge it. Public justice de- 
 mands the sacrifice of his life, and no one 
 expects him to be spared if fairly convicted. 
 But Jeflerson Davis is no ordinary assassin or 
 pirate. He did not murder a single citizen, 
 but hundreds of thousands of men. He did 
 not board a ship on the sea and murder a few 
 sailors, but he boarded the great ship of state, 
 and tried, by all the power of his evil genius, 
 to sink her, cargo and crew, with the hopes of 
 the world forever, into the abyss of eternal 
 night. And is not his guilt as much greater 
 than that of an ordinary assassin or pirate as 
 th« life of a great republic is greater than the 
 life of one man? Was not each one of these 
 leaders a national assasin, aiming his bloody 
 dagger at the country's vitals, and is not his 
 guilt multiplied by the millions whose inter- 
 ests were imperiled? And shall justice only 
 
53 
 
 be defied by the world's grandest villains and 
 outlaws, and mercy defile herself by taking 
 them into her embrace ? 
 
 Mr. Speaker, Jefferson Davis was a favored 
 child of the Kepublic. He had been educated 
 at the nation's expense, and upon him had 
 been lavished the honors and emolii;i.ents of 
 office. He owed his country nothing but 
 gratitude and fidelity, and no man understood 
 these obligations better than himself. Again 
 and again he had asked his Maker to witness 
 that he would be faithful to the Constitution, 
 which at the time he was plotting to destroy. 
 Long years before the rebellion he had been 
 inoculating the public opinion of the South 
 with the poison of his heresies, and secretly 
 hatching his treason in the foul atmosphere 
 which lie helped to create. His perfidy was 
 most cold-blooded, deliberate, and premedi- 
 tated. In order to blast the Government of 
 his fathers, and establish upon its ruins a con- 
 federacy with slavery as its corner-stone, he 
 has ruthlessly wrapped his country in fire 
 and blood. He has wantonly destroyed the 
 lives of more than two hundred and fifty 
 thousand soldiers, who gloriously perished in 
 resisting his treason in arms. He has maimed 
 and crippled for life more than two hundred 
 and fifty thousand more. He has duplicated 
 these atrocities in his own section of the 
 Union. He has organized grand conspiracies 
 in the North and Northwest to lay in rapine 
 and blood the towns and cities and plantations 
 of the whole loyal portion of the land. He 
 has put to death, by the slow torture of star- 
 vation in rebel prisons, sixty thousand brave 
 men who went forth to peril their lives in 
 saving the country from his devilish crusade 
 against it. He has deliberately sought to 
 introduce into the United States and to na- 
 tionalize among us pestilence, in the form of 
 yellow-fever ; an enterprise which, had it 
 succeeded, would have startled the very 
 heavens above us wi^h the agony and sorrow 
 it would have lavished upon the land. He 
 stands charged by the Government with the 
 murder of the President of the United States, 
 and that charge, as I am well assured, is 
 amply verified by proofs which will very 
 soon be given to the public, and awaken a 
 stronger and sterner demand for his punish- 
 ment. He has instigated the burning of our 
 hotels. He has planted infernal machines in 
 the tracks of his armies. He has poisoned 
 our wells. He has murdered our wounded 
 soldiers. He has made drinking cups of 
 their skulls and jewelry of their bones. He 
 has spawned upon the world atrocities so 
 monstrous as to defy all definition, and which 
 nothing but the hot incubation of the slave 
 power, as the ripe fruit of its two hundred 
 years of diabolism, could have warmed into 
 life. Sir, he has done every thing, by the 
 help of his confederates, that an incarnate 
 demon could do to let loose " the whole con- 
 tagion of hell," aud convert his native land 
 into one grand refuge of devils. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, the pardon of a criminal so 
 
 strongly partaking of treason against the 
 nation. It would be at once a monstrous 
 denial and a frightful mockery of justice. 
 Do you plead for mercy to the great con- 
 federate assassin? I refer that plea to the 
 Father of Mercies, who, I believe, only 
 pardons on condition of repentance ; and as 
 yet I have heard of no rebel leader who even 
 professes penitence for his crimes. Sir, I 
 repudiate, as counterfeit, the mercy which can 
 only be exercised by trampling justice under 
 our feet, while it forgets both justice and 
 mercy to the millions who have been made to 
 mourn through striclcen lives by the human 
 monsters who plunged our peaceful country 
 into war. The loyal people of the nation 
 demand that they be dealt with as criminals. 
 For myself, I would not have a civil trial for 
 the leader of a belligerent power, which has 
 maintained a public war against us for years. 
 The nation can not afford to submit the ques- 
 tion of the right of a State to secede to a jury 
 of twelve men in one of the rebel States, and 
 a majority of them traitors, under an implied 
 alternative that if they fail to convict, the 
 Government itself would stand convicted of 
 half a million of murders. After the nation 
 has established its right to exist by a four 
 years' war, it can not put that right on trial 
 by a jury of its conquered enemies, or any 
 earthly tribunal. Sir, let Jefferson Davis be 
 tried by a military court, as he should have 
 been, promptly, at the time other and smaller 
 offenders were dealt with a year ago. Let 
 hitn have the compliment of a formal inquiry 
 to determine what the whole Avorld already 
 knows, that he is immeasurably guilty. And 
 when that guilt is pronounced let the Govern- 
 ment erect a gallows, and hang him in the 
 name of the Most High. I put aside mercy 
 on the one hand, and vengeance on the other, 
 and the simple claim I assert, in the nation's 
 behalf, is justice. In the name of half a 
 million soldiers who have gone before their 
 Maker as witnesses against " the deep damna- 
 tion of their taking ofi';'' ii^ the name of our 
 living soldiers, who have waded through seas 
 of fire in deadily confli'ct with rebels in arras; 
 in the name of the Republic, whose life has 
 only been saved bj^ the precious offering of 
 multitudes of her most idolized children; in 
 the name of the great future, with its pro- 
 cession of countless generations of men, whose 
 fate to-day swings in the balance, awaiting 
 the example you are to make of treason, I 
 demand the execution of Jefferson Davis. 
 The gallows is the symbol of infamy through- 
 out the civilized world, and no criminal ever 
 earned a clearer right to be crowned with its 
 honors. 
 
 Sir, I ask why the Constitution should be 
 mocked when it demands his life? What 
 right have the authorities of the Government 
 to cheat the halter out of his neck ? Not for 
 all the honors and offices of this nation, not 
 for all the gold and glory of the world, would 
 I spare him if in my power; for I would ex- 
 pect the ghosts of three hundred thousand 
 
 transccndently guilty -would be an act in itself j murdered soldiers to haunt my poor, cowardly 
 
54 
 
 life to tlie grave. As I havo said already, the 
 punishment of the rebel conspirators is a ne- 
 cessary part of the work of suppressing the 
 rebellion. Their treason was deliberately 
 aimed at the cause of free government on 
 cartli, and thoy are justly to be classed among 
 the guiltiest wretches whose crimes ever 
 drenched the earth in blood. Every one of 
 them should have a felon's death. The grave 
 of every one of them should bo made a grave 
 of infamy, and the cause they served should 
 be pilloried by all the ages to come. Sir, if 
 you discharge the confederate chiefs because 
 of the very magnitude of their work of car- 
 nage, you offer a public license to treason 
 hereafter. You say to turbulent and sedi- 
 tious spirits every where that they have full 
 liberty, when it may suit their convenience, 
 to levy war aginst the nation, and that while 
 it may lead their deluded followers to whole- 
 sale slaughter, ihey shall be allowed to escape. 
 You say that although the nation participa- 
 ted in the hanging of John Brown as a trai- 
 tor, for the crime of loving libertj^ " not wisely, 
 but too well," that same nation, which has 
 copied John Brown's example in emancipat- 
 ing slaves by militarj' power, shall turn loose 
 upon society the hideous monster who waged 
 war to establish and eternize a mighty slave 
 empire on the ruins of our free institutions. 
 And you speak it in the ear of the nation as 
 3'our deliberate estimate of the value of free 
 government, whose very life is the breath of 
 the people, that the bloody conspirator who 
 .seeks to destroy it by the hand of war is un- 
 deserving of punishment, and consequently 
 innocent of crime. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, can we, dare we, hope for the 
 favor of God in thus confounding the distinc- 
 tion between right and wrong, between trea- 
 son and loyalty, and forgetting that govern- 
 ment is a divine ordinance, Avhose authority 
 can only be maintained by enforcing obedi- 
 ence to its mandates ? I speak earnestly, be- 
 cause I feel deeply, on this question of the 
 punishment of leading traitors. The grand 
 peril of the hour comes from the mistake of 
 the Government on this point. During the 
 war our deserters and bounty jumpers were 
 executed. Our brave boys, overcome by wea- 
 riness, who fell asleep at their posts as senti- 
 nels, were shot. A year ago the miserable 
 tools of Davis and Lee, selected for their in- 
 fernal deeds because of their known fitness to 
 perform them, were suumarily tried and 
 hung. But in no solitary instance has trea- 
 son yet been dealt with as a crime. Pardon, 
 pardon, pardon, has been the order of the day, 
 as if the Government desired to make haste to 
 apologize for its mistake in lighting traitors, 
 and wished to reinstate itself in their good 
 opinion. Beccaria, in his celebrated Essay on 
 Crimes and Punishments, says that "clemency 
 is a virtue which belongs to the legislator, 
 ;;nd not to the executor of the laws ; a virtue 
 which ought to shine in the code, and not in 
 private judgment. To show mankind that 
 crimes are sometimes pardoned, and that pun- I 
 ishment is not the necessary consequence, \% I 
 
 to nourish the flattering hope of impunity, 
 and is the cause of their considering every 
 punishment inflicted as an act of injustice 
 and oppression. The prince, in pardoning, 
 gives up the public security in favor of an in- 
 dividual, and b}' ill-judged benevolence pro- 
 claims a public a?t of impunity." 
 
 Dr. Lieber says that " every pardon granted 
 upon insufficient grounds becomes a serious 
 offence against society, and he that grants it 
 is, in justice, answerable for the offences which 
 tlie offender may commit, and the general 
 injury done to political morality by undue 
 interference with the law." With these wise 
 and just sentiments the President of the Uni- 
 ted States, on acceping his high office, per- 
 fectly agreed. He declared that mercy to the 
 individual is often cruelty to the State. He 
 said that "robbery is a crime, murder is a 
 crime, treason is a crime, and crime must be 
 punished." He said that " treason must be 
 made odious and traitors impoverished," and 
 he reiterated and multiplied these declara- 
 tions on very many occasions which were of- 
 fered him for weeks and months following his 
 inauguration. He repeatedly referred, appro- 
 vingly, to his past record, covering declara- 
 tions in favor of hanging leading traitors, in 
 favor of dividing up their great plantations 
 into small farms for honest and industrious 
 men, without regard to color, and in favor of 
 breaking up the great aristocracy of the South, 
 and compelling the rebels to " take the back 
 seats in the work of reconstruction." For a 
 season the whole loyal country was electrified 
 by the clear ring of his words, while rebels 
 were as completely palsied and dumb. They 
 understood the new President quite as little 
 as his loyal friends. They expected no quar- 
 ter, and studiously sought their pleasure in 
 the will of the Executive. They would have 
 assented glrtdly to anj^ terms or conditions of 
 reconstruction dictated by him, including 
 even negro suffrage. Having staked all on 
 the issues of war and lost, they felt that they 
 were entitled only to such rights as the con- 
 queror might see fit to impose. 
 
 Sir, this golden season was sinned aAvay by 
 the President, and that systematic recreancy 
 to his pledges and record which has marked 
 his subsequent career, has brought the country 
 into the most fearful peril. The responsibil- 
 ity is upon him, and it must be measured by 
 the magnificent opportunity which the situa- 
 tion afforded him for an easy solution of our 
 national difficulties, and at the same time a 
 solid and permanent reconstruction of the 
 South. "No important political movement," 
 says a famous English writer, "was ever ob- 
 tained in a period of tranquillity. If the 
 effervescence of the public mind is suffered to 
 pass away without etroct, it would be absurd to 
 expect from languor what enthusiasm has not 
 obtained. If radical reform is not, at such a 
 moment, procured, all partial changes are 
 evaded and defeated in the tranquility which 
 succeeds." These are suggestive and solemn 
 words, and the reflection is a very sad on.i 
 that the nation to day would have been saved 
 
55 
 
 and blest, if the President had heeded them. 
 He disobeyed the divine command to " exe- 
 cute justice in the morning," and did not 
 even remember the heathen maxim, that "the 
 gods themselves cannot save those who neg- 
 lect opportunities." 
 
 Sir, while I dislike the occupation of an 
 alarmist, I must say that I have seen few 
 darker seasons than the present since the first 
 battle of Bull Kun. The President has not 
 kept the faith. He has not favored the hang- 
 ing of a siaigle rebel leader. He has not made 
 treason infamous, nor impoverished traitors. 
 He has not favored the confiscation of rebel 
 estates and their distribution among the poor. 
 He has not required traitors to take the back 
 seats in the work of reconstruction. He has 
 not co-operated with Congress in placing the 
 governing power of the South and of the na- 
 tion in the hands of loyal men. He has not 
 ■ shown himself the " Moses" of our loyal col- 
 ored millions in leading them out of their 
 grievous bondage. He has done the opposite 
 of all these. The Kichmond Times, the lead- 
 ing organ of treason in Virginia, says that 
 " in his course towards the mass of those who 
 supported the southern confederacy the Presi- 
 dent has been singularly magnanimous and 
 wisely lenient. Nine tenths of those who for 
 four years with unparalleled gallantry upheld 
 the confederacy, have long since been uncon- 
 ditionally pardoned. The cabinet oflicers 
 who counseled the president of the confeder- 
 acy, the congressmen who enacted those strin- 
 gent conscript and imprisonment laws which 
 kept up our armies, and many distinguished 
 generals of the confederate armies, have ei- 
 ther been formaly pardoned, or been released 
 upon parole, and no one dreams that they will 
 ever be molested in person or estate. The 
 military bastiles of the country, with one ex- 
 ception, have long since been thrown open, 
 and the distinguished confederate officers who 
 were confined in them have been restored to 
 their friends and families." And these Vir- 
 ginia traitors who thus damn our President 
 by their encomiums openly demand the uncon- 
 ditional release of Jcfl'erson Davis from prison. 
 Judging the President by the logic of his pol- 
 icy thus far, the demand will be complied 
 with. When he decided, nearly a year ago, 
 against the trial of Davis by a military court, 
 he virtually decided that his treason should 
 go unpunished; for no jury of southern reb- 
 els would ever find a vei'dict of guilty, and 
 the trial itself would only be an insult to the 
 nation. Jeflerson Davis, I doubt not is to be 
 restored to his family and friends, and the 
 argument of consistency demands it at the 
 hands of the President. 
 
 Robert E. Lee, whose spared life has out- 
 raged the honest claims of the gallows ever 
 since his surrender, is running at large, per- 
 fectly unmolested and saftf from all harm. 
 Black with treason, perjury, and murder, 
 guiltier by far than the Christless wretch 
 who obeyed his orders in starving our soldiers 
 at Andersonville, he goes his way in peace, 
 while the Government, in this monstrous and 
 
 appaling fact, con fesses to the world that 
 treason is unworthy of its notice. He is pres- 
 ident of a Virginia college, and teacher of her 
 youth. He visits Washington, and tenders 
 his advice to our public men about the work 
 of restoring the Union. He goes before the 
 reconstruction committee and gives his testi- 
 mony, as if an oath could take any possible 
 hold upon his seared conscience; and all that 
 can be said is, that his unpunished crimes are 
 doing precisely as much to make the Govern- 
 ment infamous as the Government itself has 
 done to make those crimes respectable. The 
 Legislature of Virginia endorses him as a fit 
 man for Governor, and the champions of this 
 proposition visit our Republican President, 
 laud his principles and policy, and take the 
 front seats in the house of his friends. 
 
 The vice president of the southern confed- 
 eracy is likewise at large, and has been elec- 
 ted a Senator in Congress from his State. He 
 also visits Washington, and gives his testi- 
 mony before the joint committee of fifteen. 
 Like the other leading traitors, he very nat- 
 urally "accepts the situation," because he 
 could not do otherwise, but he shows not the 
 smallest token of penitence; says the rebels 
 were in the right, and seems wholly uncon- 
 scious of his real character as simply an un- 
 hung traitor, whose advice and opinions we 
 shall only accept at their value. Leading 
 traitors are not only pardoned by wholesale, 
 but they hold nearly all the places of power 
 and profit in the South. They are made 
 Governors, judges, postmasters, revenue offi- 
 cers, and are likewise frequently chosen to 
 represent their cause in Congress ; and the 
 President, our distinguished Secretary of the 
 Treasury, and the Postmaster General, have 
 all openly trampled under their feet the laAV 
 of Congress requiring a test oath, in order 
 that the rebels might fill these offices, and on 
 the false pretence that loyal men could not be 
 found qualified to fill them in a country which 
 furnished more than forty thousand loyal 
 white soldiers during the war. As might 
 naturally be expected under this system of 
 reconstruction, loyal men are more unsafe in 
 the revolted districts noAV than they were be- 
 fore the war, while the condition of the negroes 
 in very many localities is more pitiably deplo- 
 rable than that of their former slavery. So 
 intense and wide spread is the feeling of hos- 
 tility to the Union in these regions, that loy- 
 alty is branded as both a crinje and a disgrace, 
 while even Wilkes Booth is regarded as a mar- 
 tyr, and his pictures hang in the parlors of 
 "southern gentlemen," whose children are 
 called by his name. 
 
 Nor am I surprised at the audacity of the 
 rebel leaders. Neither do I complain, or 
 blame them. They do not disguise their real 
 character and opinions, because they have 
 been made sure of the executive favor. With 
 the President resolutely on the side of Con- 
 gress in this crisis, a very different exhibition 
 of feeling and policy would have been devel- 
 oped in the South. The danger now at our 
 doors would never have appeared. The pros- 
 
56 
 
 pect of another bloody war to complete the 
 work which we supposed already accomplished 
 would never have alarmed the country. The 
 President has deserted the loyal millions who 
 crursed the rebel cause at the end of a c(mflict 
 of four years, and joined himself to that very 
 cause which is now borrowing new life from 
 the fertilizing sunshine of his favor, re-assert- 
 ing its old heresies, and renewing its treasona- 
 ble demands. This is at once the root and 
 source of our present national troubles, the 
 prophecy and parent of whatever calamity 
 may come. The President not only opposes 
 the will of the nation, the foVicy of the na- 
 tion, as exj)ressed through Congress, but he 
 brands as traitors before a rebel mob leading 
 and representative men in both Houses, who 
 are as guiltless of treason as the great majority 
 with whom they act. Not content with the 
 good fellowship of the men who began the 
 war and fought us with matchless desperation 
 to the end, he unites with them in branding 
 loyalty itself as treason, whi^e he employs the 
 power and patronage of his high office in re- 
 warding his minions, and opposing the very 
 men who made hiui their standard bearer 
 along with Abraham Lincoln, in the faith 
 that his loyalty was unselfish and sincere. In 
 fact, every phase of the presidential policy, as 
 latterly displayed, confounds the difierence 
 between loyal and disloyal men, and gives 
 aid and comfort to the rebels by mitigating 
 or removing the just consequence of their 
 crimes. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, thispolicy, utterly fatal to the 
 nation's peace, as I have shown, must be aban- 
 doned. The Government cannot wholly undo 
 the mistakes of the past, but it can do much 
 for the future, and save the loyal cause, if the 
 people, who see the threatened danger, will 
 set themselves to work so resolutely as to 
 compel a change. In God's name, let this be 
 done. Let the people speak, for the power is 
 in their hands, and if faithful now, as they 
 proved themselves during the war, justice will 
 prevail. Let them thunder it in the ears of 
 the President that the nation cannot be saved 
 nor the fruits of our victory gathered, if in 
 the settlement of this bloody conflict with 
 treason right and wrong are confounded, and 
 
 public justice trampled down. This is the 
 duty of the loyal millions ; and here lies the 
 danger of the hour. It is just as impossible 
 for the country to prosper if it shall sanction 
 the present policy of the Executive, as it is 
 for a man to violate a law of his physical be- 
 ing and escape the consequences. The de- 
 mands of justice are as inexorable as the 
 demands of natural law in the material world; 
 and the moral distinctions which God himself 
 has established cannot be slighted with the 
 least possible impunity by individuals or na- 
 tions. There is a difference, heaven-wide, 
 between fighting for a slave empire and fight- 
 ing for freedom and the universal rights of 
 man. The cause of treason and the cause of 
 loyalty are not the same. Perjury is not as 
 honorable as keeping a man's oath. The 
 black flag of slavery and treason was not as 
 noble a standard to follow as that of the stars 
 and stripes. The leading traitors of the South 
 should not have the same honorable treat- 
 ment and recognition as the patriot heroes of 
 the Union. Ihe grandest assassins and cut 
 throats of history should not defraud the gal- 
 lows, while ordinary murderers are hung. 
 Jefferson Davis should not have the same 
 honorable place in history as George "Wash- 
 ington. Benedict Arnold was not the heau 
 ideal of a patriot, nor was Judas Iscariot " a 
 high-sovxled gentleman and a man of honor," 
 nor even a misguided citizen of his country 
 who engaged in a mistaken cause." The 
 green mounds under which sleep our slaught- 
 ered heroes are not to have any moral com- 
 parison with the graves of traitors. The 
 "throng of dead, leadby Stonewall Jackson," 
 are not to contribute equally with the noble 
 spirits of the North to the renown of our 
 great Eepublic." Truth and falsehood, right 
 and wrong, heaven and hell, are not mere 
 names which signify nothing, but they per- 
 tain to the great veracities of the universe ; 
 and the throne of God itself is immovable, 
 only because its foundations are justice. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I now move that this resolu- 
 tion be referred to the Committee on the 
 Judiciary. 
 
 The motion was agreed to. 
 
Madicalism the Nation'' s Hojfe, 
 
 si^eeich: OIF" 
 Hon. GEOEGE W. JTJLIAI^, 
 
 In the house OF EEPEESENTATIVES, June 16, 1866. 
 
 The House, according to previous order, hav- 
 ing wider consideration tlie President's message, 
 as in Committee of the Whole — 
 
 Mr. Julian said : 
 
 Mr. Speaker: The conflict going on to-day 
 between Coubicrvatism and Radicalism is not a 
 new one. It only presents new phases, and 
 more decided characteristics in its progress to- 
 ward a final settlement. These elements in our 
 political life were at war long years prior to the 
 late rebellion. After the old questions concern- 
 ing trade, currency, and the i)ublic lands, had 
 ceased to be the pivots on which our national 
 policy turned, and were only nominally in dis- 
 pute. Conservatism put them on its banner, and 
 shouted for them as the living issues of the times, 
 while intelligent men everywhere saw that the 
 real and sole controversy was that very ques- 
 tion of slavery whicli the leaders of party were 
 striving so anxiously to keep out of sight. Con- 
 servatism stubbornly closed its eyes to this truth. 
 Ifit ever took the form of Radicalism it was in 
 denouncing tlie agitation of the subject. It be- 
 lieved in conciliation and concession. It preach- 
 ed the gospel of compromise. Professing hostili- 
 ty to slavery, it paraded its readiness to yield 
 up its convictions as a virtue. Resistance^ to 
 aggression and wrong it branded as fanaticism 
 or wickedness, while it was ever ready to pur- 
 chase peace at the cost of principle. This policy 
 of studiously deferring to the demands of arro- 
 gance and insolence, this dominating love of 
 peace and cowardly dread of conflict, this yield- 
 ing, and yielding, ahd yielding to the exactions 
 ofthe slave interest, naturally enough fed and 
 pampered its spirit of rapacity, and at last arm- 
 ed it with the weapDUs of civil war. Such will 
 be the unquestioned and unquestionable record 
 of history; and no riH'ord could be more blast- 
 ing, as it will be read in the clear light of the 
 future. To us belongs the privilege of taking 
 counsel from the lesson in dealing with the yet 
 unsettled problems of the crisis. 
 
 But Radicalism assumed a directly anta^-onis- 
 tic position. It did not believe in conciliation 
 and compromise. It did not believe that a pow- 
 erful and steadily advancing evil was to be mas- 
 tered by submiss'iou to its behests, but by time- 
 ly and resolute resistance. The Radicals, under 
 whatever peculiar banner they rallied, thought 
 it was their duty to take time by the forelock; 
 and with prophetic ears they heard the footfalls 
 of civil war in the distance, forewarned the 
 country of its danger, and pointed out the way 
 of deliverance. In the ages to come Freedom 
 will remember and cherish them as her most 
 precious jewels; for had they been seconded in 
 their earnest eflbrts to rouse "the people and to 
 
 lay hold of the aggressions of slavery in their in' 
 cipient stages, the black tide of southern domi" 
 nation which has since inundated the land 
 might have been rolled back, and the Republic 
 saved without the frightful surgery of war. 
 This exalteil tribute to their sagacity and their 
 fidelity to their country will be the sure award 
 of history; and its lesson, like that of Conserva- 
 tism, commends itself to our study. 
 
 But the war at length came, and with it came 
 the same conflict between Conservatism on the 
 one hand and Radicalism on the other. Their 
 antagonisms pnt on new shapes, but were as 
 perfectly defined as before. The prcJof of this is 
 supplied by facts so well known, and so painful- 
 ly remembered by all loyal men, that I need 
 scarcely refer to them. Conservatism, in its un- 
 exampled stupidity, denied that rebels in arms 
 against the Government were its enemies, and 
 declared them to be only misguided friends. 
 The counsel it perpetually volunteered was that 
 of great moderation and forbearance on our part 
 in the conduct of the war. It denied that slav- 
 ery caused the war, or should in any way be af- 
 fected by it. It insisted that slavery and free- 
 dom were "twin sisters of the Constitution," 
 equally sacred in its sight, and equally to be 
 guarded and defended at all hazards. Its owl- 
 ish vision failed to see that two civilizations had 
 met in the shock of deadly conflict, and that sla- 
 very at last must perish. "Even down to the very 
 close of the conflict, when the dullest minds 
 could see the new heavens and the new earth 
 which the rebellion h.id ushered in. Conserva- 
 tism madlv insisted on "the Con. titution as it 
 is and the "Union as it was." Its idolized party 
 leaders and its great military heroes were all 
 men who believed in the divinity of slavery, 
 whose hearts were therefore on the side of the 
 rebellion, and whose management of the war 
 gave proof of it. And every man of ordinary 
 sense and intelligence knows that just so long 
 and so far as Conservative counsels prevailed, 
 defeat and disaster followed in our steps, and 
 that if these counsels had not been abjured the 
 black flag of treason would have been unfurled 
 over the broken columns and shattered frag- 
 ments of our republican edifice. Let this also 
 be remembered in digesting a policy for the 
 future. 
 
 But here, again, Radicalism squarely met the 
 issue tendered by the Conservatives. _ That 
 slavery caused the war and was necessarily in- 
 volved in its fortunes it accepted as a simple 
 truism. Its theory was that the rebellion ^^1as 
 slavery, in arms against the nation, and that to 
 strike'it was to strike treason, and to spare it 
 was to espouse the cause of the rebels. In the 
 very beginning of the conflict Radicalism com- 
 
68 
 
 prehoncled the situation aiul the duty. It under- 
 stood the contlict as not simi)ly a stru,t!:gfle to save 
 the Union, but a grand and final battle for the 
 rifihts of man, now and hereafter; and it believ- 
 ed that God would never smile iipon our endea- 
 vors till we aceeptcd it as sueh. Ridicalistn, 
 therefore, demanded the repeal of all laws which 
 had been enacted to uphold and fortify shivery. 
 It demanded the armini? of the slaves against 
 their old tyrants. It demanded emancipation 
 as a moral and a military necessity, and a poli- 
 cy of the war so broadly and systematically anti- 
 slavery as to meet the rebel power in the full 
 sweep of its remorseless crusade against us. Its 
 trust was in the justice of our cause and the 
 favor of the Almighty; and just so soon as the 
 Government turned away from its Conservati^'e 
 friends and joined hands with Radicalism, our 
 arms were crowned with victories, which follow- 
 ed each other till the rebel power lay prostrate 
 at our feet. 
 
 But, Mr. Speaker, the war is over. So at least 
 we are informed by the President; and with the 
 glad return of peace comes once more the same 
 issvie between Conservatism and Radicalism, 
 and more clearly marked than ever before. Con- 
 servatism, true to the logic which made it the 
 ally and handmaid of treason all through the 
 war, now demands the indiscriminate pardon of 
 all the rebel leaders. It recognizes the revolted 
 States as still in the Union, in precisely the same 
 sense as are the loyal States, and restored to all 
 their rights.as completely as if no rebellion had 
 happened. It opposes any constitutional amend- 
 ment which shall deprive the rebels of the re- 
 presentation of the freedmen in Congress, who 
 have no voice as citizens, and thus sanctions this 
 most flagrant outrage upon justice and demo- 
 cratic e(iuality, in the interest of unrepentant 
 traitors. It opposes the protection of the mil- 
 lions of loyal colored people of the South through 
 the agency of a Freedmen's Bureau, and thus 
 hands them over to starvation, and scourgings, 
 and torture, by their former masters. It oppo- 
 ses, likewise, the civil rights hill, which seeks to 
 protect these people in their right to sue, to tes- 
 tify in the courts, to make contracts, and to own 
 property. It opposes, of course, with all bitter- 
 ness, the policy of giving the freedmen the bal- 
 lot, which '• is as just a demand as governed men 
 ever made of governing,'' and should be accord- 
 ed at once, both on the score of policy and jus- 
 tice. In short, it seeks to make void and of non- 
 effect, for any good purpose, the sacrifice of more 
 than three hundred thousand lives and three 
 thousand millions of money, by its eager service 
 ofllie heaven-defying villains who causelessly 
 brought this sacrifici? upon the nation. 
 
 But on all thesepoints Radicalism takes issue. 
 It holds that treason is a crime, and that it ought 
 to lie punished. "While it does not ask for ven- 
 geance, it demands public justice against some 
 at least of the rebel leaders. It deals with the 
 revolted States as outside of their constitutional 
 relations to the Union, and as incapable of re- 
 storing themselves to it except on conditions to 
 be prescribed by Congress. It demands the im- 
 mediate reduction of representation in the States 
 of the South tothe basis of actual voters, and the 
 amedcment of the Constitution for that purpose. 
 It favors the protection of the colored [jeople of 
 the South, through the Freedmen's Bureau and 
 civil rights bills, as necessary to make effective 
 theconstitutional amendment abolishing slavery 
 And for the same reason. Radicalism, when not 
 smitten by unn:itural fear or afflicted by policy, 
 demands the billot as the right of every colored 
 citizen of the rebellious States. Sueh have l)een 
 the issues between Conservatism and Radical- 
 
 ism, some of which are disposed of by time; and 
 they are all in facts f ide issues, save the grand 
 and all-comprehending one of suftYage. Let this 
 De settled in harmony with our democratic in- 
 stitutions and all else will be added. 
 
 And in dealing with this problem, Mr. Speak- 
 er, whose counsel shall we follow? Shall we be 
 guided by Conservatism, which paved the way 
 for the rebellion by its policy of concession and 
 compromise, which would have handed the 
 country over to the rebels when the war was 
 upon us if its policy had been adhered to, and 
 to-day would give to the winds the fruits of our 
 victory? Or shall our guide be that same Rad- 
 icalism which would have averted the rebellion 
 if its counsel had been heeded, which alone sav- 
 ed us when war came, ancf now asks us to ac- 
 cept its inevitable logic in seeking a true basis 
 of peace? Can a loyal man hesitate in his an- 
 swer? Sir, we can neither stand still nor take 
 any backward step. For myself, at least, I shall 
 ])ress right on; and my strong faith is that the 
 loyal people of the country will not madly at- 
 tempt a halt in that grand march of events 
 through whicn the hand of Providence is so visi- 
 bly guiding the nation to liberty and lasting 
 peace. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, of all the questions pertaining to 
 the late rebellion which have been so much de- 
 bated, it seems to me none could be more per- 
 fectly simple and unembarrassed than that of 
 giving the ballot to the freedmen of the South. 
 This would be conceded at once, if it were pos- 
 sible to forget the institution of slavery, and the 
 foul legacy of prejudice and hate which it has 
 bequeathed to us all. I believe the present dis- 
 cussions of the subject, and our gingerly reluc- 
 tance to face the issue squarely, will hereafter 
 be set down among the curiosities of American 
 politics. Sir, what is the proposition? It is 
 simply to extend our democratic institutions 
 over the States recently in revolt, which have 
 been overpowered by our arms, and are now 
 subject to the national jurisdiction. The mass 
 of the whitepeopleof the South, including those 
 who have been in arms against the Government, 
 have the ballot; and there is no pending propo- 
 sition to deprive thoin of it. But we imagine 
 insuperable difficulties in the way of giving it to 
 the colored people, who constitute the majority 
 in several States, who have been uiu\ ersally 
 Inyal, and have furnished a strong body of sol- 
 diery in the war for tlie Union. Can this, in- 
 deed, be true? 
 
 Alexander Hamilton, in the fifty-fourth num- 
 ber of the Federalist, speaking of the slaves, 
 says : " It is admitted that if the laws were to 
 restore the rights which have been taken away, 
 the negroes could no longer be refused an equal 
 share of representation with the other inhabi- 
 tants." Most certainly he was right. Why then 
 shirk the question ! Would we do so if these col- 
 ored men were white? No man will pretend it. 
 Why not secure the ballot to the men who have 
 been restored to their lights through the trea- 
 son of their masters? "Liberty, or freedom," 
 says Dr. Franklin, "consists inhaving an actu- 
 al share in the appointment of tlioso who frame the 
 laws and who are to be the guardians of every man's 
 life, propertv, and peace ; for the all of one man is 
 as dear to him as the all of another ; and the poor 
 man has an e(/ual riffht. but 7nore need, to have re- 
 presentatives in the Legislature than the rich one." 
 And he goes on to say : " That they who have no 
 voice nor vote in the electing of representatives do 
 not. enjoij liberty, but are absolutely enslaved to 
 those who" /ia 06 votes, and to their representatives; 
 for to be enslaved is to have governors whom other 
 men have set over us ; and bo subject to laws 
 
59 
 
 made by the representatives of others, without 
 havinn; had representatives of o\v^ own to give con- 
 sent in o^ir behalf." This, in different words, is the 
 doctrine of James Otis, that " taxation without repre- 
 sentation is tyranny," and was the principle on which 
 our revolutifinary fathers planted themselves in re- 
 sisting British despotism. Shall we shrink from it 
 to-dar, when just emorfring from a frightful civil 
 war, caused by our infidelity to the rights of man ? 
 Are we still to love the rebels so tenderly that we 
 must not offend them by a policy of equal and exact 
 justice between them and the loyal men who resisted 
 their devilish crusade against the national life? "We 
 hold those truths to be self-evident, that all men are 
 created equal ; that they are endowed by their Cre- 
 ator with certain inalienable rights, among which 
 are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ; and 
 that to secure these riglits governments are insti- 
 tuted among men, deriving their jnst powers from 
 the consent of the governed." Do we still doubt 
 these truths, thus named self-evident, after having 
 seen them written in fire and blood during the past 
 four years? Men talk eloquently of the natural 
 equality of all men, and the sovereignty of the popu- 
 lar will. Sir, if we are not hypocrites, why not ac- 
 cept these principles by reducing them to practice 
 everywhere throughout the Republic ? If all men 
 are equal in their inborn rights, every man has the 
 right to a voice in the governing power ; and that 
 right is as natural as the right to the breath of his 
 nostrils. It is not a privilege, but a righ ^ and you 
 insult republicanism and brand the preat Declara- 
 tion as a lie, when you dispute it. You espouse the 
 cause of absolutism at once : for if one portion of 
 the people, black or white, can deprive another of 
 their rights, the whole theory of American democra- 
 cy is overturned. That wise men, in Congress and 
 out of Congress, should deal with this question as a 
 difficult and complicated one seems incredibly 
 strange. The very horn-book of republicanism set- 
 tles it ; and if the teachings of our fathers are in 
 fact to be accepted, and the poisonous exhalations of 
 slavery shall ever be dispelled from the minds of 
 men, a disfranchised citizen, white or colored, inno- 
 cent of crime, will become an unknown anomaly. 
 This much I say on general principles, and wholly 
 aside from those considerations which plead imper- 
 atively for impartial suffrage in the South, on the 
 score of justice and gratitude to the negro, the peace 
 and well-being of society, and the stability of the 
 Union itself. 
 
 But our power over the subject of suffrage in the 
 States lately iu revolt is disputed ; and doubts re- 
 specting it are expressed even by the joint committee 
 of fifteen iu their elaborate and very able report just 
 given to the public. Sir, I never hear these opin- 
 ions and doubts uttered without unmingled astonish- 
 ment. In the whole domain of politics and jurispru- 
 dence a proposition cannot be found more perfectly 
 beyond dispute than that Congress can prescribe the 
 qualifications of voters in the States that rebelled 
 against the national authority, and have been subdu- 
 ed by our arms. I do not now speak of the power 
 conferred in the clause of the Constitution making it 
 the right and duty of Congress to guaranty a repulj- 
 lican form of government to every State ; though I 
 believe it clearly confers upon us the authority to 
 deal with the question of suffrage in all the States. 
 Nor do I here refer to the constitutional amendment 
 abolishing slavery, and giving Congress the power, 
 by appropriate legislation, to enforce such abolition ; 
 though I hold it to be perfectlj'' clear that under this 
 clause the power over the ballot is given, since a man 
 without it, according to the principles of radical de- 
 mocracy and the revolutionary authorities already 
 referred to, is a slave — the slave of society, if not the 
 chattel of an individual master. I waive these points, 
 and rest the case solely on the ground of the autho- 
 rity of the nation to do what it pleases v/ith rebels 
 
 whose revolt became a stupendous civil war, and 
 was crushed by the power of war. That, sir, js the 
 impregnable ground on which I stand, and I chal- 
 lenge all assailants. The revolt grew in its propor- 
 tions till it became a civil, territorial war. We 
 blockaded the rebel coast ; we exchanged prisoners ; 
 we conducted the conflict according to the laws of 
 war and the law of nations. The rebels became pub- 
 lic enemies, and by the power of our resistless hosts 
 we conquered them. As conquered public enemies 
 their rights were all swept away, all melted in the 
 fervent heat of their devilish tre.-ison and war. Not 
 a respectable jurist in the Union will dispute this 
 proposition, for the principles of the law of nations 
 which govern the conduct of a civil war, and define 
 the rights of the ])arties to it, are precisely those 
 which pertain to the conduct of a foreign war. If 
 this is not the settled law of nations, settled also 
 emphatically bv the Supreme Court of the United 
 States, then'uothing is settled, and nothing is capa- 
 ble of settlement. The report of the reconstruction 
 committee, already referred to, which expresses 
 doubt as to the power in question, asserts that " with- 
 in the limits prescribed by humanity the conquered 
 rebels were at the mercy of the conquerors. That a 
 Government thus outraged had a most perfect right 
 to exact indemnity for the injuries done and security 
 against the recurrence of such outrages in the future 
 would seem too clear for dispute. What the nature 
 of that security should be ; what proof should be re- 
 quired of a return to allegiance ; what time should 
 elapse before a people thus demoralized should be 
 restored in full to the enjoyment of political rights 
 and privileges, are questions for the law-making 
 power to decide, and that decision must depend on 
 grave considerations of public safety and the general 
 welfare." This language covers the whole ground 
 contended for. The power exists, and Congress 
 alone must determine what is demanded by " consid- 
 erations of the public safety and the general wel- 
 fare." The question before' us to-day is one of ne- 
 cessity and expediency, and not of power ; a question 
 of fact, rather than a question of law. 
 
 On this question, Mr. Speaker, I think there is 
 very little ground for disagreement among loyal men. 
 If the colored millions of the South need any earth- 
 ly good supremely, and need it soo", it is a share in 
 the governing power. Let us not mock them by the 
 hope of it at some time in the distant future, condi- 
 tioned upon alternatives which we tender to their 
 enemies, but grant it now, as their imperative and 
 instant necessity. They are at this moment pros- 
 trate and helpless under the heel of their old tyrants. 
 But for the partial succor afPirded by the Freedmen's 
 Bureau their condition would be far more deplorable 
 than that of slavery itself. Although the civil rights 
 bill is now the law, none of the insurgent States al- 
 low colored men to testify when white men are par- 
 ties. The bill, as I learn from General Howard, is 
 pronounced void by the jurists and courts of the 
 South. Florida makes it a misdemeanor for colored 
 men to carry weapons without a license to do so from 
 a probate judge, and the punishment of the offence 
 is whipping and the pillory. South Carolina has 
 the same enactments ; and a black man convicted of 
 an offence who fails immediately to pay his tine is 
 whipped, A magistrate may take colored children 
 and apprentice them for alleged misbehavior with- 
 out consulting then- parents. Mississippi allows no 
 negro living in any corporate town to lease or rent 
 lands. Cunning legislative devices are being invent- 
 ed in most of the States to restore slavery in fact. 
 Without the ballot in the hands of the freedmen, 
 local law, re-enforced by a public opinion more ram- 
 pant against them than ever before, will render the 
 civil rights bill a dead letter, and in the future, as it 
 has been in the past, the national authority will be 
 set at defiance. Even should the civil rights bill be 
 enforced, it would be a palliative and not a cure, 
 
60 
 
 since the risjht to sue, to testify, to make contracts, 
 and to own property may be lawfully enjoyed with- 
 out commandinpf a "tithe of the respect with which the 
 ballot arms every man who wields it. This is the 
 sure refiipje and lielpof th ■ froedmen, and Con<;ress 
 has the same power to secure it that it has to with- 
 hold it from the rebels ; the same power to make suf- 
 frage impartial that it has to prescribe any other con- 
 dition whatever in the reconstruction of these States. 
 If, as is alk'<xed, im such power exists over the 
 loyal States, that certainly is no reason why we 
 should not exercise it where wc hare the power. 
 With the authority unquestionably in our hands to 
 disfranciiise all the rebels, the plan reported by the 
 Joint Committee leaves the ballot in their hands. 
 With stranije and lavish liberality even the leaders 
 of the rebellion are to be clothed with this sovereijin 
 attribute. They may not hold ofHce, but they may 
 confer it. The pirate Semmes shall not be probate 
 judpe, but his baUot shall be counted in determininor 
 who 'jliall fill the office, and so shall the ballots of the 
 traitors who recently tried to make piracy honorable 
 in Alabama. Genera! liCC cannot be Pr-sident of 
 the United States, nor Governor of Virj^nnia, but he 
 can march to the polls with his unhung^ confederates 
 as the equal before the law, and under the old 
 flas, of the loyalists whose valor saved the Republic. 
 • The k'frioris of armed traitors who fought against the 
 nation four years, and deluijed it in sorrow and 
 blood, are all to be crowned with the honor and dig- 
 nity of the ballot ; and, as if to make treason respec- 
 table and loyalty odious, the colored people of the 
 country, whose enslavement caused the war, and 
 who furnished two hundred thousand soldiers in 
 crushing the rebellion, are to be handed over to the 
 unbridled hate and fury of their old masters. 
 
 One would naturally have supposed that vanquish- 
 ed rebels would be glad enough to escape with their 
 lives, and that Congress, in conferring uuon them 
 the franchise, would at least atone for tiiis unlooked 
 for and undeserved liberality by a policy of justice, 
 if not of gratitu<le, toward the iiegrocs, whose loyal- 
 ty was never questioned, and whose strong arms 
 helped strike down the enemies of the nation. One 
 would have supposed that if any party must be dis- 
 franchised it would be the rebels, and that loyal men 
 would govern the country they had saved by their 
 valor. I am quite sure that neither the copperheads 
 nor the rebels themselves, till they were caressed by 
 the Executive, ever dreamed of this cougressioua"l 
 discrimination in favor of treason. Sir, it will glad- 
 den the heart of every traitor in the Union. No loyal 
 man can defend it with a good conscience. Its re- 
 creancy is aggravated by every fact which comes to 
 us respecting the situation in the South. The gen- 
 eral feeling there against the free Imen is that of in- 
 tense l.o utility and envenumed hate. The institution 
 of slaxer*', througli the instinct of a common inter- 
 est, accorded to tiie negro some privileges ; but now 
 he has literally ''no rights which white men are 
 bound to resfiect." Sharing no longer the measure 
 of consideration which pertained to his condition as 
 a slave, he is regarded as a despised outcast, and 
 treated like a dog. A feeling scarcely less intoler- 
 ant is evinced toward the t'nw loyal' white men in 
 these States, who in many localities are living in 
 constant drea I of violence and murder, and are fre- 
 quently waylaid and shot. Quite recently I have 
 received a letter from a gentleman of intelligence 
 and worth in one of the Southern States, in which he 
 says that he and his friends and neighbors, who have 
 been hunted in the mountains like deer all through 
 the war because they refused to take up arms agiiust 
 the country, having had their houses plundered or 
 burned, tiieir p.operty destroyed, and themselves re- 
 duced to begsjary, are still living in constant dread 
 of assassination; and he begs me, if possible, to pro- 
 cure for them from the Secretary of War transporta- 
 tion to the North. This is a single instance among 
 
 raauT of the actual condition and treatment of the 
 loyalists of the South, under the fiendish domination 
 of men who have becnironically styled ''conquered.' ' 
 Sir, in heart and purpose they are less conquer ed 
 than before the war. If possible they hate the Y an- 
 kees, with their free schools and fi'ee institutions, 
 more tlian ever. I believe their wrath is more and 
 more a consuming fire. Down in the very dejiths of 
 their souls they despise the Union, its generals, its 
 soliliers, its statesmen, its prosperity, its peace. Up- 
 on the Frcedmen's Bureau and the civil rights bill 
 they pour out the sincerest and the most heartfelt 
 curses. Nut a man has been found among them wlio 
 does not defend the right of secession, and vindicate 
 the rebel cause. Tliev choose as their Senators and 
 Re])resentntives in Congress and for the highest 
 ollices in the States the most conspicuous and guilty 
 of their unrepentant traitor chiefs. They insult the 
 old flag and scoff at our national songs. They com- 
 memorate the deeds and honor the tombs of t heir 
 grandest villains, and refuse to the loyal colored 
 people of the South the coveted privilege of strewing 
 flowers over the graves of our heroes who died that 
 the Republic might live. They crown treason as tlifi 
 highest \irtue, and elevate murder to the rank of a 
 fine art. Their newspapers are reeking with the 
 foulest and most atrocious sentiments, and their man- 
 ifest purpose is to scatter the baleful fires of discord 
 and hate throughout the South. Under this new 
 " reign of terror," emigration to the South, which we 
 hoped would regenerate it, is interdicted, while tlie 
 loyal men already there are looking about them for 
 the means of speedy escape. Such is the Eden of 
 blessedness and beauty which has been chiefly evok- 
 ed by " my policy," a.nd such are the people in 
 whose hands Congress proposes to leave the powers 
 of government, while it withholds the ballot from the 
 only peoi)le whose redeeming agency and co-operat- 
 ing grace can restore order, liberty, and peace. 
 
 And these people, Mr. Speaker, who have ''refin- 
 ed upon villainy till it wants a name," whose hearts 
 are thus impregnated with the most rancorous hate 
 toward the freedmen, and whose ascendancy over 
 the South is hourly extending in all directions, are 
 expected to give the ballot to the negro, if only we 
 provide that otherwise he shall not be counted in the 
 basis of representation. Sir, they will do no such 
 thing. They would see the negro in Paradise, soon- 
 er than see him with the ballot in his hands. The 
 madness which rushed into the rebellion in the inter- 
 est of slavery, and which to-day, instead of being 
 tamed by suffering and trial, is fiercer than ever be- 
 fore, will never extend justice to these people. The 
 much-talked-of " war of races," ending in negro ex- 
 termination, would be far more probable. I am cer- 
 tainly ready to vote, as I have done, for reducing re- 
 presentation in the revolted States to the basis of 
 actual voters. No man could defend his refusal to 
 do so ; but I believe the rebels, with the President 
 at their back, will never agree to any such anumd- 
 ment of the Constituti.m, and that with tlieir allies in 
 the North they will be able to defeat it. Neither 
 with nor without such an amendment, therefore, in 
 my judgment, is there any well-grounded hope for 
 justice from the rebel class. The decision of the 
 case would require j'ears of time, since it would in- 
 volve the questicui whether nineteen or twenty-seven 
 States are required to amend the Constitution ; and 
 the Supreme Court could not pass upon the point 
 till nineteen States had ratified the amendment. 
 During all this time the freedmen would be conunit- 
 ted to the tender mercies of their enemies instead of 
 sharing with ;hem at once the powers of government. 
 
 Sir, why should we decline a present liuty winch 
 is as clear and as palpable as the sunlight ? Why 
 impiously propose to red-handed tiaitors and assas- 
 si'is that" they may trample down the precious rights 
 of four million helpless but loyal people, if only it 
 shall be agreed that these downtrodden millions shall 
 
61 
 
 not be represented in Conojre.ss ? Why offer them a 
 proposition which, if accepted, mio^ht be as fatal to 
 the interests of the colored race as would have been 
 the acceptance of the offer of President Lincoln to 
 leave that race in bondapjc if the rebels would lay 
 down their arms within a stipulated time ? As I 
 have already shown, the power to do what wo wish 
 is in our hands. Conjrress can enact a statute secur- 
 ing impartial suffrage in all the insurgent States, in 
 which civil government is totally overthrown, and 
 over which our power is supreme. Congress can 
 pass enabling acts, as opportunely proposed by my 
 distinguished friend from Pennsylvania [Jlr. Stevens], 
 providing for the calling of State Conventions in 
 those States to form constitutions, and fixing the 
 qualifications of voters. Congress, if it deems it ex- 
 pedient, can disfranchise the rebels, or any portion 
 of them, and refuse admission to the rebellious States 
 till they have secured impartial suffrage to their peo- 
 ple. And finally, Congress, if constitutional amend- 
 ments are necessary, can propose such as will ac- 
 cord with justice and the rights of man, and will 
 therefore have the strongest pledge of their ultimate 
 success ; while, in the moan time, whatever obsta- 
 cles may be thro'vn in our way by the accic'ental oc- 
 cupant of the W hite House, the great cause of loy- 
 alty and freedom will be strengthened and fortified 
 by every honest and manly endeavor to serve it. 
 
 But it is said, Mr. Speaker, that the people are not 
 ready for so radical a policv, and that while the re- 
 construction of the rebel States on a solid and endur- 
 ing basis is very desirable, we must accept the ne- 
 cessity which compels us to regard the temper of 
 the public feeling and the practical effects upon the 
 harmony of the Union party which advance measures 
 would be likely to produce. 
 
 Sir, I defend the people against this accusation 
 against their intelligence and loyalty, ily own ex- 
 perience is that politicians are generally, if not inva- 
 riably, behind the people, and rather inclined to block 
 up the path of popular progress than to clear the 
 way. This was undoubtedly true during the war, 
 and every intelligent man can recall proofs of it in 
 abundance. The people were ready for a radical 
 policy in the first year of the conflict, as was shown 
 by the proclamation of General Fremont, of Septem- 
 ber 2, 18t)l. It was hailed with nearly universal 
 joy by the Republican masses, while every leadnig 
 Democratic paper in the country warmly approved 
 it. So intense and wide-sprr'ad was the feeling of 
 enthusiastic loyalty among the people from the firing 
 upon Fort Sumter down to the revocation of this 
 anti-slavery order, that party lines seemed utterly 
 forgotten, and the Democratic organization in fact 
 ceased to exist. Copperhead Democracy was a 
 sprout from the Executive edict which Kentucky 
 procured in the interest of slavery ; but the people, 
 at every stage of the conflict, received with open 
 arms and grateful hearts every earnest man who 
 came forward, and every vigorous war measure 
 which was proposed. 
 
 Sir, why were the Union men defeated in the fall 
 of 1S02? It was because the people feared that 
 General iMcClellan carried the Government in his 
 pocket, and had no faith in his conservative policy, 
 which bore no good fruits. The men who failed to 
 get back to the succeeding Congress were generally 
 the tiaiid men who counseled policy ; while the 
 Radicals who denounced McClellan, and preached 
 the anti-slavery gospel boldly, were successful. 
 Why did the Unionists sweep the country in the 
 next congressional elections ? It was because of 
 their bolder and more pronounced Radicalism. 
 Why have our public men failed before the people 
 in the political conflicts of the past twenty years ? 
 Not, certainly, because they outran the people in 
 radical progress, but because the peoi)le loved 
 courage, and felt that bolder leadership was de- 
 manded. For the truth of this I appeal to gentle- 
 
 men on this floor who have made political life a 
 profession, and who are most familiar with the 
 history of American politics. 
 
 A servant of the people needs to have faith in the 
 people. In dealing with a great question involving 
 the reconstruction of Government and regeneration 
 of society in nearly half the territory of the Republic, 
 he has no right to be " a nejzative expression, or an 
 unknown quantity, in the algebra which is to work 
 out the problem." He has no right to say that the 
 pecple are not ready for a given policy, if he himself 
 understands it, and is convinced that it is juEt and 
 necessary. On the contrary, he will tlnd it most 
 safe to accept our democratic theory, that the people 
 are capable of understanding their affairs, and of 
 managing them through honest and fearless repre- 
 sentatives. What our politicians most need to-day 
 is faith, faith in the penple, faith in justice, and 
 then to add to their faith courage. If the policy 
 you propose is right, nothing is so safe as to trust 
 the people ; if it is crooked, a weak and shallow ex- 
 pedient, a truce with justice, and not a real peace, 
 then nothing could be more unsafe than an appeal to 
 the voice of the people, which finally will be the 
 voice of truth. 
 
 The people, you say, are not ready for negro 
 ballots in the insurgent States. Sir, I would be 
 glad t.) have the proof of that. Since the outbreak 
 in 1861 they seem to have been rt-ady for whatever 
 has come iu the rapid and stirring march of events. 
 They were ready for the war, appalling as it was, 
 and utterly foreign to their habits and tastes. When 
 it came, as I have shown, they were ready for 
 radical measures iu its prosecution. They were 
 ready, or soon became ready, to arm the negroes 
 against their masters, and to demand the complete 
 enia- cipation of the millions in chains. They were 
 ready to sacrifice the lives of more than three hun- 
 dred thousand brave men to save the Republic from 
 dismemberment and ruin. The\^ were ready to send 
 sorrow into millions of households, and to entail 
 upon their children a weary burden of debt, in order 
 that freedom snculd bear rule in these States. They 
 were ready, when the war was ended, to demand 
 the just chastisement of the great national criminals 
 who were the instigators of the desolating conflict. 
 They were ready to sanction the policy of a Freed- 
 men's Bureau to guard and care for the men and 
 women made nominally free by the power of war. 
 They were ready to pass a constitutional amend- 
 ment abolishing slavery forever, and arming Con- 
 gress with the power, by appropriate legislation, 
 to make such abolition effective. They were ready 
 to crown the negro with the honors of a soldier of 
 the Republic, and ask him to help to defend it against 
 its assassin-, and thereby to pledge themselves 
 before God and man that he should thenceforward 
 share all the rights enjoyed by white citizens. They 
 were ready to say, in January la.-vt, through their 
 Representatives in this Hall, by a vote of 116 to 5t, 
 that no man under the exclusive jurisdiction of the 
 national Government should be deprived of the 
 ballot on account of race or color; and tliey have 
 been disappointed, I am very sure, in the long delay 
 of like action in the Senate. And they were ready, 
 speaking through overwhelming majorities in both 
 Houses of Congress, and in defiance of the Execu- 
 tive, to indorse the civil rights bill, which lacks only 
 one short step of reaching the ballot, and the prin- 
 ciples of which can only be defended by a lo"-ic 
 which necessitates the grant of it as the grandest 
 of all civil rights, and the pledge and shield of 
 them all. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, a people who have proved them- 
 selves ready for all this will be found ready to move 
 steadily forward towards the complete accomplish- 
 ment of their grand purpose. Jlost assuredly they 
 will not turn back, nor pause in their course. Their 
 schooling during the past five years has armed them 
 
62 
 
 against fear, and the man who says they are not 
 reaily for all moasuros required to make good to the 
 nation the righteous ends of the war impeaches both 
 their intelligence and their patriotism. The people 
 are not ready 1 This is the cry which is daily rung 
 out hero from a chorus of voices. We ourselves 
 are all ready, individually, for the most radical 
 policy, if the country would sustain us. Impartial 
 suSVage is openly indorsed as the true doctrine, 
 whicii, in due season, tiie people will be prepared to 
 accept. They may be ready, we are told, after the 
 fall elections, and the hope is frequently expressed 
 that then we shall meet the issue squarely. Almost 
 everybody, save the most unblushing copperheads, 
 says that negro voting in the South is the true 
 reconstruction, and is absolutely necessary if the 
 rebels are to vote ; but the country is not ripe for it. 
 " Personally," as Ilenry Clay said of the annexation 
 of Texas,' all of us " would be glad to see it," but the 
 issue is premature. 
 
 Sir, gentlemen are themselves premature, in all 
 such statements. The people are ready, in this 
 battle of politics, and would gladly go to the front if 
 they could, leaving the politicians to struggle in the 
 rear. And if the voice of the loyal millions could 
 be faithfully executed to-day, treason would be 
 made infamous, traitors would be disfranchised, 
 and the loyal men of the South, irrespective of 
 color, would take the front seats in the work of re- 
 construction and government. Do you doubt this ? 
 If there is roal uuiou among Union men everywhere, 
 upon any single point, it is in their absolute deter- 
 mination to make sure the fruits of their victory, 
 through whatever measures may be found ueeful. 
 Sir, remembering the past, can any man really be- 
 lieve the loyal masses will take fright at the spec- 
 tacle of negro ballots in the regions blasted by 
 treason ? All civil government there is overthrown. 
 The President himself has so officially declared. 
 The governments extemporized there by himself are 
 purely military, and so far as they have assumed to 
 be more than that they are simply usurpations. 
 This is also perfectly understood by th« country. 
 The work of organizing civil governments in these 
 regions belongs to their people, subject entirely to 
 the control and direction of Congress. This, too, 
 has been officially admitted by the President. And 
 now, if Congress, at this session, should pass the 
 enabling act referred to, reported by the venerable 
 gentleman from Pennsylvani v, authorizing the hold- 
 ing of conventions to form new State governments, 
 
 and prescribing the same rule of impartial suffrage 
 as was done by this House for the District of 
 Columbia, would the people revolt against it Y 
 Would they even be offended ? Does any intelligent, 
 fair-minded man reallv believe it 7 The restoration 
 of civil government in the South is undeniably 
 necessary. That Congress alone, in co-operation 
 with the people, can do this, is equally certain. 
 The mode of organizing civil government in re- 
 gions under the national jurisdiction is perfectly 
 fi'.miliar to the people, and well settled by long and 
 uniform practice. Who, then, shall be alaimu i, if 
 Congress, in rightfully initiating new governments, 
 shall secure a voice to the colored millions who 
 constitute more than two fifths of the people, and an 
 overwhelming majority of those who are loyal ? 
 What Union man will recoil from a policy of im- 
 partial justice ? Do we still so love our " Southern 
 brethren" that we must necessarily give them the 
 ballot, and so sympathize with their tastes and 
 dread their ill-will that we must deny it to the 
 freeJmen? Are the people to be dealt with as 
 idiots or madmen on this subject, and counted 
 rational on every other ? Sir, let us put away timid 
 counsels, and face the truth like men. Let us be 
 wise to-day. Let us have faith in the sturdy com- 
 mon sense and unquenchable loyalty and patriotism 
 of the people, as becomes these who have seen them 
 confront the greatest of trials, and never yet found 
 them wanting. Let us not doubt, for a moment, 
 that they will sustain us, if we ourselves have the 
 courage which " mounteth with occasion," and will 
 only " dare do all that may become a man." Above 
 all, let us remember that Providential guidance 
 which in our trials hitherto has favored us exactly 
 in the degree we have allied our cause to justice, 
 and withheld Irom us the coveted prize of success 
 as often as we have sought it at the expense of the 
 rights of man. That same Providential discipline 
 will most assuredly go with us to the end, whether 
 we bravely meet the great duties of the crisis or 
 prove ourselves unequal to our day and our work. 
 Nothing, therefore, is so safe, and so sure to win, 
 as the policy which shall make tbis truth our guide. 
 God give us faith in His counsels, and courage to 
 follow them ! And let us not forget that — 
 
 " The wise and active conquer difHculties 
 By daring to attempt thorn ; sloth and folly 
 Shiver kuiI shrink at sight of trial and hazard, 
 And iniike the impossibility they fear." 
 
Regeneration hefore Iteconstruction, 
 
 sipeeoh: OIF 
 
 Hon. aEOEGE W. JULIAN, 
 
 Ik the house OF KEPEESENTATIVES, January 28th, 1857. 
 
 The House having under consideration 
 House bill No. 543, to restore to the States 
 lately in rebellion their political rights, and 
 the amendment thereto proposed by Mr. 
 Stevens — 
 
 Mr. Julian said : 
 
 Mr. Speaker : In view of the time already 
 consumed in the discussion of the measure now 
 before us, and the general desire of members 
 to reach an early vote on the pending motion 
 to commit, I shall endeavor to address the 
 House as briefly as possible ; and I therefore 
 prefer, on this occasion, to submit my views 
 without interruption. I cannot support the 
 amendment proposed by the gentleman from 
 Pennsylvaraa (Mr. Stevens) in its present 
 form; but I shall not vote to send it to the 
 Committee on Reconstruction at this late hour 
 in the session. I believe the time has come 
 for action, and that having this great subject 
 now before us we should proceed earnestly, 
 and with as little delay as may be, to mature 
 some measure which may meet the demand 
 of the people. Nearly two years have elapsed 
 since the close of the war, during the whole 
 of which time the regions blasted by treason 
 have been subject to the authority of Congress; 
 and yet these regions are still unprovided with 
 any valid civil governments, and no loyal man 
 within their limits, black or white, is safe in 
 his person or estate. The civil rights act and 
 the Ereedmen's Bureau bill are set at open 
 defiance, while freedom of speech and of the 
 press are unknown. The loyal people of these 
 districts, with sorely-tried patience and hopes 
 long deferred, plead with us for our speedy 
 interposition in their behalf; and even the 
 conquered rebels themselves, who are supreme 
 in this general reign of terror, seem to be 
 growing weary of their term of lawlessness and 
 misrule. Sir, let us tolerate no further pro- 
 crastination ; and while we justly hold the 
 President responsible for the trouble and mal- 
 administration which now curse the South and 
 disturb the peace of the country, let us remem- 
 ber that the national odium already perpetu- 
 ally linked with the name of Andrew Johnson 
 will be shared by us, if we fail in the great 
 duty which is now brought to our doors. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, my first objection to the amend- 
 ment proposed is that it practically confounds 
 the distinction between treason and loyalty 
 by allowing the elective franchise to the great 
 
 body of the criminals who strove, through four 
 bloody years, to destroy the nation's life. No 
 such policy can have my sanction. The sixth 
 section of the amendment, which seeks to 
 guard against this by the affidavit which it 
 requires, would prove a delusion and a snare. 
 I will read the form of the oath which it pre- 
 scribes : 
 
 I, A. B., do solemnly svvenr, on the Holy Evangel- 
 ists of Almighty God, that on tho 4th day of March, 
 18G4, and at all times thereafter, 1 would willinijly 
 have complied with tho requirements of tho proclama- 
 tion of the President of the United Statei, issued on the 
 8th day of December, 18G3, had a safe opportunity of so 
 doing been allowed me ; th:it on iha saiu 4th of March, 
 18G4, and at ail times therealter, I was opposed to the 
 continuance of the rebellion and to the establishment 
 of the so-called confederate government, and volun- 
 tarily gave no aid or encouragement thereto, but 
 earnestly desired the success of the Union, and the 
 suppression of all armed resistance to the Government 
 of the United States ; and thst I will henceforth faith- 
 fully support the Constitution of the United States and 
 the Union of the States thereunder. 
 
 Sir, of what value would be such an oath ? 
 In exacting it, instead of protecting the rights 
 of loyal men we should build a safe bridge 
 over which every rebel in the South could 
 pass back into power. How could perjury he 
 assigned upon such an affidavit ? By what 
 process could the prosecutor prove, on the trial, 
 the hidden purpose or the secret intention of 
 the party ? I have little faith in the oaths of 
 rebels under any circumstances. If our ex- 
 perience in the late war establishes any 
 general rule in such cases, it is that the oath 
 of a traitor proves nothing but the perjury of 
 the villain who takes it. Most assuredly we 
 could not rely upon it where the man who 
 swears runs no risk of being brought to ac- 
 count; and the exaction of such an oath of 
 men who have ruthlessly lifted their hands 
 against their country is scarcely less than a 
 mockery. 
 
 But if it be granted that this oath would be 
 honestly taken, it does not follow that we 
 should now restore the franchise on any such 
 cheap and easy conditions. Are we willing 
 thus to degrade and belittle this great right, 
 the highest expression of citizenship, and its 
 truest safeguard ? Must we make haste to 
 share the governing power of the country 
 with the rebel hordes who fought us nearly 
 three years, because they grew weary of their 
 enterprise on the 4th day of March, 1864, and 
 desired then to give it up ? Is treason against 
 the nation an ofl'ense so slight, an afiair so 
 
6-4 
 
 trifling, that no real atonement for it shall be 
 denaanded? Sir, these are grave questions, 
 and the state of our country to-day demands 
 that Congress shall ponder them. The 
 citizen's duty of allegiance and the nation's 
 obligation of protection are reciprocal. The 
 one is the price of the other, and the compact 
 is alike binding upon both parties. "When 
 the rebels broke this compact b}' attempting 
 the crime of national murder their right of 
 citizenship was forfeited, and the nation has 
 the undoubted right to declare the conse- 
 quences of that forfeiture by law. It not 
 only has the right, but in my judgment is 
 sacredly bound to exercise it. And why? 
 Because, in the language of Vattel, " Every 
 nation is obliged to perform the duty of self- 
 preservation." The only solid foundation of 
 national security is the allegiance of the 
 citizen; and the most solemn duty which is 
 at this moment devolved upon the Congress 
 of the United States is the duty of keeping 
 the Government of the country in the hands 
 of loyal men. ]S o Government can be secure, 
 and no Government deserves to live, which 
 allows its enemies a common and equal voice 
 Avith its friends in the exercise of its powers. 
 This nation has hitherto recognized this prin- 
 ciple. In the very first years of the Eepublic, 
 Congress sanctioned the perpetual disfran- 
 chisement of the leader and principal officers 
 of Shay's rebellion; and the acts of Congress 
 which warrant the exercise of this power of 
 disfranchisement stand in full force and un- 
 challenged on your statute-books. Congress, 
 during the rebellion, deprived of all rights of 
 citizenship those who deserted from the mili- 
 tary or naval service, or who, after being 
 "duly enrolled," left the United States or 
 their military districts to avoid a draft. 
 Certainly these ofienses are no greater than 
 the crime of treason, persisted in for successive 
 years. The authority of Congress in all such 
 cases rests upon the universal law of nations. 
 It grows out of the contract of allegiance and 
 the duty of every nation to preserve its own 
 life ; and therefore no trial and conviction by 
 any judicial tribunal are necessary as a con- 
 dition of the declared forfeiture. The forfei- 
 ture is not declared as a punishment for the 
 violation of any criminal law, but as a safe- 
 guard against national danger. It is an ex- 
 pression of the same policy which excludes 
 aliens from the rights of citizens. The power 
 is not unconstitutional, for our fathers, in 
 framing the Constitution, recognized the law 
 of nations, as they were compelled to do, in 
 launching the Eepublic among the independ- 
 ent Powers of the world. Nor is it at all 
 affected by the question whether the districts 
 lately in revolt are States in the Union or 
 territorial provinces. In both States and 
 Territories the national authority must be 
 held paramount as to the rights of citizenship, 
 which has uniformly been regarded as a na- 
 tional question. If the second section of the 
 first article of the Constitution gives to the 
 States the power to say who shall vote, this 
 must necessarily be understood to apply onl-^ 
 
 to those who are citizens of the United States, 
 since otherwise the national authority might 
 be overthrown by aliens in our midst in 
 combination with citizens. The late war for 
 the Union has been carried on at immense 
 cost for the purpose of demonstrating to all 
 the world that we are h iiatioii ; and every 
 nation, according to the high authority already 
 quoted, "has a right to every thing that can 
 ward otf imminent danger, and keep at a dis- 
 tance whatever is capable of causing its ruin; 
 and from that very same reason that estab- 
 lishes its right it has also the right to the 
 things necessary to its preservation." 
 
 Mr. Speaker, with what face can we de- 
 nounce the President for his wholesale par- 
 dons, and charge him with making treason 
 honorable and loyalty odious, if we ourselves 
 voluntarily clothe with the honor and dignity 
 of the ballot the men who have forfeited all 
 their rights by their crimes against their 
 country ? With what consistency can we 
 declaim against the monstrous blood-guilti- 
 ness of treason while we extend to the traitor 
 the right hand of political fellowship? Sir, 
 not a single rebel has yet expiated his crime 
 on the gallows. Not one has even been tried. 
 Neither confiscation nor exile has been the 
 portion of the armed assassins and outlaws who 
 summoned to their untimely graves more than 
 three hundred thousand heroes of the Re- 
 public, and made the civilized world stand 
 aghast at the recital of their crimes. I do not 
 say we should disfranchise the rebels because 
 the President has allowed them to go un- 
 punished, but that loyal men alone can be 
 trusted to govern the country they have saved ; 
 and that the false clemency of the Executive 
 is the exact reverse of a good reason for re- 
 storing traitors to power. Nor do I argue 
 that perpetual disfranchisement will certainly 
 be necessarj', but that the nation, for its own 
 safetj', should withhold the ballot from its 
 enemies till they have proved themselves fit 
 to cast it. No such proof can be adduced. 
 On the contrary, the spirit of treason is now 
 quite as reeking and defiant in the revolted 
 districts as at any time during the war. In 
 the sunshine of the President it has sprouted 
 up into new and more vigorous forms of life, 
 while repentant rebels are unknown, save in 
 the sense of regretting the failure of their 
 treason. Sir, I hope the Thirty-Ninth Con- 
 gress will not sully its good name by con- 
 founding the friends of the country with its 
 enemies in the reconstruction and government 
 of the districts blighted by treason, and thus 
 trample down the great principle that alle- 
 giance to the nation is the condition of citi- 
 zenship and the bulwark of our freedom. To 
 do this would be to surrender oui strongest 
 weapons to the President and his rebel allies. 
 It would be disloyalty to the great cause 
 which would thus again be imperiled, and 
 bring dishonor upon the graves of our 
 martyred legions, who perished in deadly 
 encounter with the traitors whom we now 
 propose to restore to their lost rights. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I further object to the measure 
 
65 
 
 before us, that it is a mere enabling act, look- 1 
 ing to the early restoration of the rebellious 
 districts to their former places in the Union, 
 instead of a well-considered frame of govern- 
 ment, contemplating such restoration at some 
 indeiinite future time, and designed to fit 
 them to receive it. They are not ready for 
 reconstruction as independent States on any 
 terms or conditions which Congress might 
 impose ; and 1 believe the time has come for 
 us to say so. "We owe this much to their mis- 
 guided people, whose false and feverish hopes 
 have been kept alive by the course of the Ex- 
 ecutive and the hesitating policy of Congress. 
 I think I am safe in saying that if these dis- 
 tricts were to-day admitted as States, with the 
 precise political and social elements which we 
 know to exist in them, even with their rebel 
 population disfranchised and the ballot placed 
 in the hands of radical Union men onlj^, iri'e- 
 spective of color, the experiment would be 
 ruinous to the best interests of their loyal 
 people and calamitous to the nation. The 
 withdrawal of Federal intervention and the 
 unchecked operation of local supremacy 
 would as fatally hedge up the way of justice 
 and equality as the rebel ascendency which 
 now prevails. Why? Simply because no 
 theory of government, no forms of adminis- 
 tration, can be trusted, unless adequately 
 supported by public opinion. The power of 
 the great landed aristocracy in these regions, 
 if unrestrained by power from without, would 
 inevitably assert itself. Its political chemistry, 
 obeying its own laws, would very soon crystal- 
 ize itself into the same forms of treason and 
 lawlessness which to-day hold their undis- 
 turbed empire over the existing loyal element. 
 "What these regions need, above all things, is 
 not an easy and quick return to their forfeited 
 rights in the Union, but governmejit, the 
 strong arm of power, outstretched from the 
 central authority here in Washington, making 
 it safe for the freedmen of the South, safe for 
 her loyal white men, safe for emigrants from 
 the Old World and from the northern States 
 to go and dwell there; safe for northern 
 capital and labor, northern energy and enter- 
 prise, and northern ideas to set up their habi- 
 tation in peace, and thus found a Christian 
 civilization and a living democracy amid the 
 ruins of the past. That, sir, is what the 
 country demands and the rebel power needs. 
 To talk about suddenly building up independ- 
 ent States, where the material for such struc- 
 tures is fatally wanting, is nonsense. States 
 \\\nsi grow, and to that end their growth must 
 be fostered and protected. The political and 
 social regeneration of the country made deso- 
 late by treason is the prime necessity of the 
 hour, and is preliminary to any reconstruction 
 of States, Years of careful pupilage under 
 the authority of the nation may be found 
 necessary, and Congress alone must decide 
 when and upon what conditions the tie rudely 
 broken by treason shall be restored. Con- 
 gress, moreover, is as solemnly bound to deny 
 to disloyal communities admission into our 
 great sisterhood of States as it is to deny the 
 
 rights of citizenship to those who have for- 
 feited such rights by treason. 
 
 I have thus far, Mr. Speaker, addressed 
 myself to considerations which appeal to men 
 of my own political faith. There is a theory 
 of reconstruction held by gentlemen on the 
 other side of the House, according to which 
 the rebels, the moment they laid down their 
 arms and confessed themselves vanquished, 
 were entitled to resume all their rights as 
 citizens, just as if they had had not rebelled, 
 and to set in motion the machinery of their 
 State governments, be represented in Con- 
 gress, and enjoy all and singular the rights 
 and privileges of other citizens of the United 
 States. Sir, I shall not consume much time 
 in noticing this strange theory, which was so 
 happily disposed of by the gentleman from 
 Ohio [Mr. Shellabarger] on Friday last. I 
 must, however, do its friends the honor of 
 confessing it to be entirely original. I think 
 no such principle can be found in the law of 
 nations, I am quite sure there is no histori- 
 cal precedent for it, and that the precedents 
 are strongly the other way. One of these, and 
 a very nottible one, I may refer to, as illustrat- 
 ing the difference between the congressional 
 and presidential theories of reconstruction. 
 I understand that when Satan rebelled 
 against the Almighty he was accommodated 
 with quarters somewhat more tropical and 
 less salubrious than the kingdom he had in- 
 voluntarily abdicated. To speak plainly, he 
 was plunged into hell; and he "accepted the 
 situation." According to one account of the 
 transaction he said it was — 
 
 "Better to reign iu hell than serve in heaven ;" 
 and he has not been "reconstructed" to this 
 day. But according to the modern theory to 
 which I refer, the devil, when he was finally 
 overpowered and was willing to acknowledge 
 it, was that moment entitled to be reinstated 
 in his ancient rights in Paradise, exactly as if 
 he had not sinned. That I understand to be 
 the Democratic theory of reconstruction. But 
 Satan, devil as he was, never had the infernal 
 audacity to insinuate so monstrous a preten- 
 sion ; and it was reserved for the followers of 
 Andrew Johnson, nearlj'- six thousand years 
 later, to startle the civilized world by its 
 avowal. Mr. Speaker, let me not be mis- 
 understood here. I do not desire to see the 
 rebels follow in the footsteps of their illus- 
 trious predecessor. There may have been 
 times when it seemed to me they deserved a 
 similar treatment. It may even have oc- 
 curred to me, in some of my profimer mo- 
 ments, that if there is not a pretty respectable 
 orthodox hell on the other side of the grave 
 for the special discipline of the rebel leaders, 
 it would seem to be the grandest oversight 
 that divine Providence could possibly have 
 committed. But in confronting the dangers 
 which now beset our country, I put aside 
 these theological fancies ; and what I demand^ 
 and all I ask, is that Congress shall organize 
 a well-appointed political purgatory, located 
 in the rebellious districts, and keep the rebels 
 
66 
 
 in it until by their penitence and a change of 
 their lives they shall satisfy us that they can 
 again be trusted with power. Let us put 
 them on probation; and should it require ten 
 years,_or twenty years, to qualify them for re- 
 storation, or secure an outside element strong 
 enougli to rule the rebel faction, let the time 
 be extended. The grand interests involved 
 plead with us to " make haste slowly," while 
 voices from the graves of our slaughtered 
 countrymen beseech us to " keep none but 
 loyal men on guard." When the rebels, con- 
 scious of the ruin they have wrought, shall 
 wash away their guilt m their tears of genu- 
 ine contrition, then, and not till then, let us 
 restore them to our embrace. 
 
 And now, Mr. Speaker, if any gentleman 
 asks me what plan of govocnmcnt 1 would 
 institute for the probation and pupilage of 
 these districts I am ready to answer "him. 
 But before I do that I desire to say what 
 forms of reconstruction I do not favor. In 
 the first place. I oppose any cunninglv devised 
 scheme like that reported by the gentleman 
 from Ohio [Mr. Ashley] from the Committee 
 on Territories, with its popular conventions. 
 Its committees of safety, its provisional gov- 
 ernors, and other machinery designed to meet 
 the ugly fact that wo have a bad man in the 
 presidential chair, whose usurpations it is 
 pretended we must checkmate by these extra- 
 ordinary measures. If the President has 
 been guilty of high crimes and misdemean- 
 ors, let him be impeached and hurled from 
 power. I believe he is thus guilty, and there- 
 fore I believe our first duty is to' call him to 
 account. Instead of gradual approaches and 
 flank movements we should confront him at 
 once with our accusations and demand his 
 trial. Instead of lopping off the branches we 
 should strike at the root of our troubles, and 
 no significance or insignificance of the execu- 
 tive oflice as now filled should stand in the 
 way of our constitutional duty. If the Presi- 
 dent is not guilty of high crimes and misde- 
 meanors, in the sense in which those terms 
 were understood by our forefathers; and ac- 
 cording to the precedents they had before 
 them, then the right of impeachment is not 
 even a "scarecrow," as Mr. Jefferson styled 
 it. But if I am mistaken, and the country is 
 doomed yet longer to endure his maladminis- 
 tration, then let us adopt precisely such meas- 
 ures of government for the rebellious districts 
 as would be necessary and proper if we had an 
 honest man in the place of Andrew Johnson, 
 thus affording him the opportunity, should he 
 seek it, to provoke new conflicts with the 
 people by opposing our measures. Should 
 his madness fail to supply us, abundantly, 
 with the grounds for a successful impeach- 
 ment, the sands of his official life will soon 
 run out at the worst, while the management 
 of the rebel territory demands a policy which 
 may last for indefinite years. As the' friends 
 of the Constitution and the champions of law, 
 we can best perform our duty by adhering to 
 the well-settled forms and usages of our re- 
 publican institutions. 
 
 I oppose, in the second place, any plan of 
 reconstruction which attempts to reconcile 
 opposite and utterly irreconcilable theories. 
 If the rebellious districts are States, known 
 to the Constitution as such, they have the 
 right to be represented on this floor and in 
 the other end of the Capital. They have all 
 the rights of the other independent States of 
 the Union, and the work of reconstruction is 
 done already. The logic of this theory, if 
 accepted, not only vindicates the policy of 
 the President, but brands the legislation of 
 Congress for nearly six years past as a deli- 
 berate usurpation. This is the rebel theory, 
 and those who have accepted it, with all its 
 consequences, are consistent and brave men, 
 who are entitled to the thanks of all the 
 enemies of their country. But if you reject 
 this theory, then you are driven squarely 
 over to the policy of unqualified radicalism, 
 for there is no middle ground on which to 
 stand. If these districts are not States known 
 to the Constitution it must follow inevitably 
 that the Constitution knows them only as 
 Territories, for which Congress is bound by 
 the express words of the Constitution to 
 " make all needful rules and regulations." 
 Sir, I am opposed to any scheme of compro- 
 mise between these theories, and to any plan 
 of reconstruction which embodies in it any 
 elements of the rebel theory. The policy of 
 Congress and the President in reorganizing 
 those districts as States, while exercising over 
 them powers utterly inconsistent with the 
 rights of States, has brought upon us our 
 worst troubles, and the sooner we abandon 
 it the better it will be for the country. The 
 nation needs a manly and straightforward 
 policy, and not the weakness and vacillation 
 which spring from crooked and ambidextrous 
 measures -vchich lend strength to the enemies 
 of the Kepublic. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, the theory which deals with 
 the rebellious districts as under the exclusive 
 jurisdiction of Congress rests upon grounds 
 which are logically impregnable. In the first 
 place, their old constitutional governments 
 were overthrown and destroyed by the rebel- 
 lion. This will not be disputed. Second, 
 their rebel governments, which followed, 
 were destroyed by our arms. This is equally 
 certain. Third, their present governments, 
 extemporized by the President, are military 
 and provisional only, having no validity 
 whatever save that which they borrow from 
 the continued acquiescence of Congress. The 
 President himself can be quoted in support of 
 this proposition. And fourth, the rebels 
 themselves, having forfeited all their rights 
 by their treason, as I have already shown, 
 have no authority to institute any sort of 
 government within their respective districts, 
 until they are expressly empowered so to do 
 by Congress. If 1 am right in these positions, 
 these districts are so many geographical divi- 
 sions of the Kepublic whose people are wholly 
 without any valid civil government, and with- 
 out any constitutional power to frame such 
 government; and being solely under the juris- 
 
67 
 
 diction of Congress, and having none of the 
 powers and attributes of States, they are neces- 
 sarily Territories of the United States. As 
 such they need government till they are pre- 
 pared for readinission, and the machinery of 
 territorial governments, older than the Consti- 
 tution itseff, is as familiar to the American 
 people as that of the State governments. Let 
 each of these Territories then have a governor, 
 A chief justice, a marshal, and an attorney. 
 Let each of them have a Delegate in Congress, 
 fitly denied the right to vote, while permitted 
 to speak. Let each have a legislature for the 
 enactment of local laws, subject to the super- 
 vision of Congress. Let Congress declare who 
 shall be qualified to vote in these Territories, 
 adopting the same rule already established in 
 the other Territories of the United States and 
 in the District of Columbia. And when local 
 supremacy shall defy the national authority 
 in any of these Territories, let it be effectually 
 curbed by the military power of the United 
 States. Under this educational process, I 
 would have these rebellious districts trained 
 up in the way they should go, whether the 
 time required for such training shall prove 
 long or short ; while in the mean time every 
 inch of their soil will be subject to the national 
 authority, and freely open to the energy and 
 enterprise of the world. This policy, by 
 aationalizing the South, would render life 
 and property as secure in Louisiana as in 
 Maine. It would tend powerfully to make 
 ■our whole country homogeneous. It would 
 encourage in these wasted regions "small 
 farms," thrifty tillage, free schools, closely- 
 associated communities, social independence, 
 respect for honest labor, and equality of 
 political rights." All these blessings must 
 follow, if only the nation, having vanquished 
 its enemies, will now resolutely assert its 
 pow:er in the interest of loyal men, over 
 Tegions in which nothing but power is re- 
 spected. 
 
 To all this, Mr. Speaker, it will be objected 
 •that it contravenes the policy of the constitu- 
 tional amendment proposed by Congress at 
 our last session, and therefore can not in good 
 faith be urged while that amendment is 
 pending. Several replies to this objection 
 are at hand. First, it must be remembered 
 that this amendment was submitted to the 
 several States. Congress had no right to 
 propose it to unorganized districts which had 
 no constitutional governments of any sort, 
 and therefore no power to pass upon the 
 question. Could we, for example, submit 
 this amendment to Colorado or Nebraska, 
 before they have been lawfully declared- 
 States ! Congress at the last session, might 
 have waived all formalities and recognized 
 the rebellious districts as States by receiving 
 their re}:h'esentatives, as was done in the case 
 of Tennessee; but we refused to do this. Con- 
 gress even declined to pass the bill reported 
 from the Eeconstruction Committee provid- 
 ing that these so-called States should be re- 
 ceived on their acceptance of the amendment. 
 It is perfectly certain, therefore that Congress 
 
 reserved for its future judgment the very 
 question which is assumed to have been deci-, 
 ded by the objection under notice ; or, that if 
 Congress did decide it the decision was the oth- 
 er way. The very utmost that can be claimed 
 by the champions of the constitutional amend- 
 ment is that the question is an open one ; and, 
 being an open question. Congress may decide 
 it to-day by putting territorial governments 
 over these regions, leaving the amendment to 
 the disposition of the loyal States, whose rep- 
 resentatives m Congress for nearly six years 
 past have ignored the existence of disloyal 
 States in dealing with the mighty concerns of 
 ■war and peace and the amendment of the Con- 
 stitution itself. I believe the pending amend- 
 ment will be ratified ; but in voting to sub- 
 mit it I do not think Congress is at all em- 
 barrassed in its present action. I can say for 
 myself at least, that I am perfectly untram- 
 meled, either by my votes in this House, or by 
 pledges or committals anywhere ; while I 
 believe the general understanding at the last 
 session was that the amendment embodied 
 provisions which were demanded as national 
 safeguards, without pretending to supply any 
 final solution of the problem of reconstruc- 
 tion. 
 
 But I reply, in the next place, that even \( 
 Congress at the last session bound itself by 
 an implied agreement to admit these districts 
 as States on their ratification of the amend- 
 ment, we are now released from that obliga- 
 tion. With singular unanimity and empha- 
 sis they have rejected our proposal,and thereby 
 left us free. Sir, are we bound to wait here 
 five years or ten years, for them to ponder 
 the question and reverse their decision, after 
 they have already defiantly spurned our offer, 
 allowing the rebel power in the meanwhile to 
 have free course ? I do not so understand the 
 bargain, if any bargain has been made. "We 
 have the right to plead our release, and the 
 state of the country demands that we shall 
 exercise it. Since our session of last summer 
 great changes have been wrought in the gen- 
 eral feeling of the people. We see daily the 
 truth of the old adage that " circumstances 
 alter cases." Public opinion has forced Con- 
 gress to establish manhood suffrage in the 
 District of Columbia, and thereby to say that 
 that principle should prevail in all the States 
 of the Union. Congress has extended it ovor 
 all the Territories of the United States, con- 
 stituting an empire large enough to support a 
 population of two hundred millions of people. 
 Congress has voted for the admission of Colo- 
 rado and Nebraska on the fundamental con- 
 dition of their acceptance of the same princi- 
 ple, and thus advertised all v.'hom it may 
 concern that other States yet to be born must 
 comply with the same condition. Most cer- 
 tainly the like requirement will be made of 
 the districts lately in arms against us, what- 
 ever may betide the constitutional amend- 
 ment. God forbid that we should impose 
 conditions upon the virgin States of the 
 Northwest, which have never rebelled, and 
 whose people to-day are loyal, which we will 
 
G8 
 
 not exact of the rebels -whp have drenched 
 their country in Llood ! Sir, we cannot trifle 
 ■with a principle so vital, or expose it to any 
 sort of hazard. I voted last year against 
 restoring Tennessee to her place in the Union, 
 hecause I feared she could not he trusted 
 ■without a mortgage from her securing the 
 hallot to her colored loyalists. I hope jny 
 fears will prove groundless,, but I shall never 
 regret my vote. The loyal people of Mary- 
 land to day, black and white, would be safer 
 under Federal bayonets than under their local 
 governments ; and Congress, where it has the 
 power, must exert it against the enemies of 
 the country and their s^^mpathizers. I shall 
 never vote to restore one of these rebel dis- 
 tricts to power as a State, except upon the 
 condition that impartial suffrage without re- 
 spect to race, color, or former condition of 
 slavery, shall be the supreme law within her 
 borders. Sir, we can no longer evade the 
 solemn duty which the logic of events has at 
 last made plain to the lovers of justice; and 
 the man who now thrusts constitutional 
 amendments in our way might as well quote 
 the Crittenden resolutions, adopted by this 
 House the day following the first Battle of 
 Bull Eun, as the governing principle of the 
 Thirty-Ninth Congress. 
 
 I add, finally, and as a conclusion from 
 what I have said already, that the second sec- 
 tion of the proposed amendment ought never 
 to be made a part of the Constitution of the 
 United States. It would not now be propos- 
 ed, if the question were pending as a new one, 
 as our action at this session has plainly indi- 
 cated. I voted for it, along with the other 
 sections of the amendment, simply as a pro- 
 posal to reduce the political power of the reb- 
 els to a common level with that of loyal men ; 
 but instead of cutting down representation in 
 these districts to the basis of actual suffrage, 
 I think we are now ready so to extend the 
 franchise as to make it commensurate with 
 actual representation. An amendment of the 
 Constitution securing this result should have 
 been proposed at the last session. When, in 
 our extremity, we called on the black loyal- 
 ists of the South to help us through the red 
 sea of war into which our wickedness had 
 plunged us, and they responded to our call 
 by sending two hiindred thousand soldiers to 
 our rescue, it thence-forward became the na- 
 tion's duty, from which no escape was mor- 
 
 ally possible, to secure the rights of citizen- 
 ship, both civil and political, to the wronged 
 and outraged millions of the African race in 
 our midst. It thence-forward ought to have 
 been counted a shameful proposition, a fla- 
 grat affront to common justice and gratitude,, 
 for Congress to propose to the rebels, as a 
 constitutional amendment, that if they would 
 agree to the exclusion of these loyal colored 
 men from the basis of representation, we 
 would agree to surrender them to the tender 
 mercies of rebel State governments, which 
 might vvholly deprive them of the sacred right 
 of representation. Sir, I hope no such prin- 
 ciple will ever defile the Constitution of our 
 fathers. Aside from its cold-blooded ingrat- 
 itude to our black allies, it is radically vi- 
 cious. It impliedly concedes to the States of 
 the Union the right to disfranchise male citi- 
 izens of the United States over twenty-one 
 years old who are innocent of crime, and thus 
 strikes at the root of all democracy. If " tax- 
 ation without representation is tyranny," and 
 Governments derive " their just powers from 
 the consent of the governed," the citizen's 
 right of representation is as natural and inher- 
 ent as the breath of his nostrils. To deprive- 
 him of it, unless he himself forfeits it by his 
 offences against society, is a crime against his 
 manhood, which is the common foundation of 
 the rights of all men. It is an offense against 
 all free government, for the right of one cit- 
 izen to a voice in its public administration is 
 precisely the same as the right of every other 
 citizen; and no fraction of citizens, however- 
 large, can deprive the remainder of their 
 common and equal right. To deny this is to 
 mock the Declaration of Independence and 
 insult the memory of our fathers ; and to in- 
 corporate the denial into the Constitution of 
 the United States, in words which express or 
 imply it, would strengthen the hands of every 
 rebel in the South, and comfort the enemies- 
 of American democracy throughout the 
 world. It would pollute the very foun- 
 tains of our national life by the unnatural 
 marriage of the Constitution to the foul her- 
 esy of State rights, which so recently wrapped 
 the Eepublic in the flames of war; while it 
 would stand in open conflict with that grand 
 central principle of our great Charter which- 
 declares that "the United States shall guaran- 
 tee to every State in this Union a republican, 
 form of government." 
 
 LRBFe'iS