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 THE ATTITUDE OF THADDEUS 
 
 STEVENS TOWARD THE 
 
 CONDUCT OF THE 
 
 CIVIL WAR 
 
 By 
 
 JAMES ALBERT WOODBURN 
 
 REPRINTED FROM THE 
 
 gimmatt gi^t^tial §mm 
 
 Vol. XII., No. 3 ; ^ APRIL, 1907 
 
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 [Reprinted from The American Histuricai, Review, Vol. XII., No. 3, April, 1907.] 
 
 THE ATTITUDE OF THADDEUS STEVENS TOWARD 
 THE CONDUCT OF THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 From July, 1861, to his death in 1869 Thaddeus Stevens was the 
 leader of the Republican majority of the House of Representatives. 
 He was chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of the House 
 throughout the war, and his attention was therefore largely devoted 
 to questions of taxation and finance, of revenues and appropriations. 
 These subjects in time of war offer a large field of study in connec- 
 tion with Stevens. But the purpose of this paper is not to consider 
 Stevens's contributions and services on these lines, but rather to 
 bring into review his career and opinions in relation particularly to 
 the more distinctly constitutional, political, and party issues which 
 the war presented. 
 
 There are three salient aspects about which the political move- 
 ments and controversies of the Civil War may best be organized and 
 studied : first, the relation of the war to slavery ; second, the relation 
 of the war to the Constitution ; third, the eflfect of the war upon the 
 political status of the seceded states and their relation to the Federal 
 Union. These, together with the increased war powers of the 
 President, present the essential issues and phases of the struggle in 
 which the student of war politics will be most concerned. I shall 
 attempt to summarize or bring into brief review Stevens's record 
 upon these salient features of the war. 
 
 Stevens recognized as clearly as any man then in public life the 
 seriousness of the great conflict in which the country was engaged, 
 and in the councils of the nation he constantly insisted upon prompt- 
 ness, energy, and determination of purpose. To him it was perfectly 
 clear that the slaveholders were trying to destroy the Union to save 
 slavery; he would, therefore, destroy slavery to save the Union. 
 The Southern states had violated the Constitution to gain their inde- 
 pendence ; Stevens would give them none of the benefits of the Con- 
 stitution in the war that it was found necessary to wage upon them. 
 These states had of their own free will repudiated the Constitution 
 and withdrawn from the Union. He would no longer recognize 
 them as sister states under the aegis of law, but having subdued 
 them as a belligerent enemy he would hold and govern them as con- 
 quered provinces. These principles of action he laid down in the 
 
568 /. A. Woodhiirn 
 
 beginning, and in the pursuance of them he was clear, consistent, 
 and undeviating from first to last. Firm of purpose and clear of 
 vision, he had no manner of doubt as to the course the nation should 
 pursue in the varying phases of the struggle for the Union. No one 
 need to have been left in doubt as to his policies and plans, for among 
 the membership of the national House he stood pre-eminent as a 
 man with the qualities that a public man most needs in such a time 
 — dauntless courage, a conscience of his own, opinions of his own, 
 and a will of his own. He encountered no superior in intellectual 
 combat, and in the fight he was appointed to endure he well fulfilled 
 the canons of the strenuous game — he never flinched, he fouled no 
 man, and he hit the line hard. An unconquerable fighter, he seemed 
 made for a time of war, a time of storm and stress, and, his enemies 
 themselves being the judges, he stood foursquare to all the winds 
 of opposition that came. These characteristics, together with the 
 times in which he lived and the problems which he faced, make 
 Stevens one of the most memorable figures in our Congressional 
 annals. I proceed to notice his war career with reference to the 
 three aspects of the war to which I have referred — slavery, the Con- 
 stitution, and the status of the states. 
 
 The evidence is conclusive that it was not the original purpose 
 of the nation in the Civil War to interfere with slavery. If it had 
 been but a hundred days' war, it would probably have ended with 
 slavery intact. Hostile intention against slavery was specifically 
 disclaimed. Air. Lincoln disclaimed it on behalf of the executive, 
 and the two houses of Congress disclaimed it on behalf of the legis- 
 lative branch of the government. 
 
 At the beginning of the war, two days after the battle of Bui! 
 Run, Congress passed almost unanimously, in both Houses, the 
 famous Crittenden resolutions setting forth the objects of the war. 
 These resolutions recited, in substance, that the war was not prose- 
 cuted for the purpose of subjugating the Southern states — that is, 
 of overthrowing their state governments and reducing them to 
 provinces ; nor for the purpose of interfering with slavery in the 
 states, but to defend and maintain the Constitution and the laws, 
 and to preserve the Union with all the equality and rights of the 
 several states unimpaired. The war should accomplish these ends 
 and no more. This resolution voiced at the time the public opinion 
 of the country, and almost the unanimous opinion of the Republican 
 party. President Lincoln represented this opinion, and in a con- 
 servative spirit he attempted at first to conduct the war without inter- 
 fering with slavery, on the assumption that the status of the states 
 and their relation to the Union had not changed. 
 
Atlilitdc of Stevens toivard Conduct of Civil War 569 
 
 But the war made all the difference in the world. The events 
 of but a few short months of war wrought a decided change in the 
 purpose and temper of Congress and the country. It was seen that 
 slavery was a source of strength to the Rebellion. Conservative 
 Union men were being rapidly and radically convinced that if the 
 national government did not interfere with slavery, slavery would 
 seriously interfere with the national government and the success of 
 its arms. This change in policy and purpose is indicated by the 
 fact that when the Thirty-seventh Congress came together again in 
 its regular session in December, 1861, and an attempt was made to 
 reaffirm the Crittenden resolution which had received such universal 
 approval but a few months before, it was decisively rejected. It was 
 rejected by a party vote upon the motion of Stevens, who had thus 
 considerable satisfaction in seeing that at least his own party had 
 now come to his position in asserting its freedom from a doctrinaire 
 impediment to the conduct of the war, and that the nation was now 
 to feel free to strike at slavery or to do whatever else would seem 
 best calculated to promote the success of the national cause. 
 
 The events of the war had, however, made no change in the pur- 
 poses and opinions of Stevens. His principles were settled, his 
 mind was fixed from the beginning. When the Crittenden resolu- 
 tion had been oft'ercd in July, he objected to it and withheld his vote. 
 He was one of four in the House who were not ready to subscribe 
 to its doctrine. He was one of the more pronounced and radical — 
 may we not say more far-seeing? — antislavery men who believed 
 that the Rebellion must result in the destruction of slavery. He 
 would not embarrass the government nor prevent its dealing a blow 
 in opposition to slavery when occasion should arise. He wanted the 
 government to have a free hand, an unrestricted liberty, in the con- 
 duct of the war, and he did not wish Congress to commit itself to a 
 doctrine from which it would subsequently have to recede. He 
 believed in the beginning what Lincoln came to believe in the midst 
 of the war, that, in this national crisis. Congress and the President, 
 representing the sovereign nation, had the right to take " any step 
 which might best subdue the enemy." ' He wanted the rulers of 
 the nation to indulge no scruples nor lay down any generalities that 
 would interfere with the most vigorous prosecution of the war. 
 
 Time clearly vindicated Stevens's leadership in this respect. A 
 fortnight had not gone by after the passage of the Crittenden resolu- 
 tion defining the objects of the war and giving an implied promise 
 that slavery would not be interfered with, before slavery had become 
 a subject of sore discussion in Congress. It came up in connection 
 
 ^ Life and Writings of B. R. Curtis, I. 34S. 
 
570 J. A. Woodbiirii 
 
 with the first Confiscation Act, August 3, 1861. To this measure 
 Stevens gave his earnest support. This was the beginning of war 
 legislation concerning slavery. It aroused opposition, because a sec- 
 tion of the law required that owners should forfeit the slaves whom 
 
 thev allowed to be used in arms against the United States or to labor 
 
 * 
 in forts or intrenchments, or whom they should employ in any naval 
 
 or military capacity against the national government. 
 
 In the debate on confiscation, August 2, 1861, Stevens voiced 
 his deep opposition to slavery and his purpose to strike at that insti- 
 tution whenever occasion offered. He said:' ■ ' ' ^ j 
 
 God forbid that I should ever agree that the slaves should be re- 
 turned to their masters and that you should rivet again the chains 
 which you have once broken. I do not say that this war is made for 
 that purpose. Ask those who made the war what its object is. Do not 
 ask us. I did not like the Crittenden resolution because it looked like 
 an apology from us in saying what were the objects of the war. Those 
 who made the war should explain its objects. Our object is to subdue 
 the rebels. 
 
 In this discussion Stevens predicted the arming of the blacks and 
 said that he was ready to act for it, " horrifying to gentlemen as it 
 may appear ; that is my doctrine and it will be the doctrine of the 
 whole people of the North before two years roll round." 
 
 After the rejection of the Crittenden resolution in December, 1861, 
 Stevens wished to bring his party and the administration to higher 
 and more aggressive ground upon slavery and emancipation. He 
 would speak out the whole truth whether the nation would hear or 
 forbear. On December 3, 1861, the first day of the regular session 
 of the Thirty-seventh Congress, Stevens introduced a joint resolu- 
 tion, for enactment into law, containing two propositions : the first 
 was to strike for general emancipation as the best means of crushing 
 the Rebellion ; the second, to inake full payment for losses to loyal 
 owners by this policy. His resolution asserted that slavery had 
 caused the Rebellion and that there could be no peace and Union 
 while that institution existed ; as slaves are used by the rebels for 
 supporting the war, and as by the law of nations it is right to liberate 
 the slaves of an enemy to weaken his power, therefore the President 
 should be directed to declare free and to direct our generals in com- 
 mand to order freedom to all slaves who shall leave their masters 
 or aid in quelling the Rebellion. 
 
 His speech of January 22, 1862, on these resolutions shows him 
 
 ■ In order to avoid excessive lengtli of quotation, I have throughout this 
 article omitted many sentences from Stevens's speeches without sign of omission 
 and have even in some cases used abridged phrases, without, I trust, ever mis- 
 representing in any degree his meaning. 
 
Attitude of Stevens toward Conduct of Civil ]Var 371 
 
 to be one of the earliest, boldest, most outspoken, and, I think, most 
 influential of the antislavery advocates who were seeking to direct 
 the war to antislaver)' ends. Stevens knew that Congress and his 
 party were not yet ready to follow in the line of his proposals, and 
 that the public sentiment of the country did not sustain his radical 
 policy. But he wished to educate that sentiment and to lead his 
 party in the direction which he clearly saw would ultimately be 
 found to be essential. He felt that the national government in the 
 conduct of the war so far had been weak, timid, vacillating, inef- 
 fective, without appreciation of the formidable task before it. The 
 country needed a tonic : the administration needed nerve and a stif- 
 fened spine. Stevens would infuse more energy into the prosecution 
 of the war, and not be afraid to employ the means at hand. He did 
 not think it a time for honeyed words and conciliation. He was not 
 a representative of peace and good will ; he was a representative for 
 war ; the business of war was to conquer, and in the war now forced 
 upon the nation he stood for firm, unyielding, uncompromising force. 
 It seems reasonable to say that in energizing the war power of the 
 nation and leading it to lay hold of every possible weapon for over- 
 coming resistance to the national authority there was in the national 
 forum no stronger personal force than Thaddeus Stevens. A review 
 of his speeches will give one a high appreciation of their educational 
 influence in this direction. 
 
 He was bitter and unsparing in his denunciation of the Southern 
 leaders for their course, and he sought to arouse the resentment and 
 war spirit of the nation to crush the South. Yet he manifested a 
 better conception of the Southern spirit and character and of the 
 consequent nature of the task before the country than that possessed 
 by his opponents and critics. Dismissing all hope of reunion by 
 voluntary concession from the South, he wished to have it clearly 
 recognized, as it should have been, that from the Southern stand- 
 point the separation was final, and that the Confederate States would 
 consent to reunion only through the exhaustion of war. Stevens 
 saw that the task could be accomplished only by the sacrifice of thou- 
 sands of lives and millions of money. He recognized that the 
 Southerners were proud, haughty, obstinate, and that their training 
 had led them to believe that they were born to command. They had 
 declared that they would suffer their country to become a smoking 
 ruin before they would submit. Stevens would accept the issue. 
 He said : 
 
 It were better to lay wastt the whole South than to suffer the nation 
 to be murdered, better to depopulate the country and plant it with a 
 new race of freemen, than to suffer rebellion to triumph. There should 
 
572 J. A. IVoodbuDi. 
 
 be no negotiation, no parley, no truce until every rebel shall have laid 
 down his arms and submitted to the Government. 
 
 He was among the first to see that this would not be done until the 
 South was wholly exhausted : 
 
 Let us not be deceived. Those who talk about peace in sixty days 
 are shallow statesmen. The war will not end until the Government 
 shall more fully recognise the magnitude of the crisis; until they have 
 discovered that this is an internecine war in which one party or the 
 other nnist be reduced to hopeless feebleness and the power of further 
 cttort shall be utterly annihilated. It is a sad but true alternative. 
 The South can never be reduced to that condition so long as the war 
 is prosecuted on its present principles. The North with all its millions 
 of people and its countless wealth can never conquer the South until 
 a new mode of warfare is adopted. So long as these states are left 
 the means of cultivating their fields through forced labor, you may 
 expend the blood of thousands and billions of money, year by year, 
 without being any nearer the end, unless you reach it by your own 
 submission and th.e ruin of the nation. Slavery gives the South a 
 great advantage in time of war. They need not and do not withdraw 
 a single hand from the cultivation of the soil. Every able bodied 
 white man can be spared for the army. The black man, without lifting 
 a weapon is the mainstay of the war.' 
 
 Stevens would have no regard for the " sympathizer with trea- 
 son " who would " raise an outcry about a servile insurrection or 
 prate learnedly about the Constitution." He thought a " rebellion of 
 slaves fighting for their freedom was not so abhorrent as a rebellion 
 of freemen fighting to murder the nation."' He wished the Northern 
 armies to be " possessed and impelled by the inspiration that comes 
 from the glorious principle of freedom." He thought the North 
 had not shown " the fiery zeal that impelled the South ; nothing of 
 that determined and invincible courage that was inspired in the 
 Revolution by the grand idea of liberty, equality and rights of man." 
 
 Our statesmen do not seem to know how to touch the hearts of 
 freemen and rouse them to battle. No sound of universal liberty has 
 gone forth from the capital. Our generals have a sword in one hand 
 and shackles in the other. Let it be known that this government is 
 fighting to carry out the great principles of the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence and the blooJ of every freeman would boil with enthusiasm 
 and his nerves be strengthened for a holy warfare. Give him the 
 sword in one band and the book of freedom in the other, and he will 
 soon sweep despotism and rebellion from every corner of this continent. 
 The occasion is forced upon us and the invitation presented to strike 
 the chains from four millions of human beings and create thein men ; 
 to extinguish slavery on this whole continent: to wipe out so far as we 
 are concerned the most hateful and infernal blot that ever disgraced 
 the escutcheon of man ; to write a page in the history of the world 
 whose brightness shall eclipse all the records of hemes and sages.' 
 
 ' Congressional Globe, January 22, 1862. 
 = Ibid. 
 
Atiitudc of Stevens toioard Conduct of Civil War 573 
 
 This was effective oratory, the oratory of conviction and action. 
 It was spolccn at a time when slavery still seemed rooted and 
 grounded in the policy of the President and of Congress and in the 
 public sentiment of the country. Who will say that the voice of 
 Stevens was not a powerful influence in bringing the country and 
 its rulers to the higher plane of emancipation, to a readiness to direct 
 the war for liberty as well as for union? 
 
 As the war continued and the administration still seemed con- 
 servative and reluctant to pursue an antislavery policy, Stevens re- 
 peatedly expressed his- dissatisfaction. Lincoln's message proposing 
 compensated emancipation Stevens characterized as " the most 
 diluted milk and water gruel proposition that was ever given to the 
 American nation." He urged the passage of the Act (March 13, 
 1862) forbidding the return of fugitive slaves and he favored every 
 act looking toward antislavery ends. He said he could not approve 
 puffing generals who sympathized with slavery at the head of our 
 armies with orders to pursue and return fugitive slaves, nor did he 
 like it to have our forces set to guard the property of rebel soldiers. 
 When asked if he intended his charge against the President and the 
 Secretary of War or only against the generals in the field, he said 
 " I intend it shall apply where it belongs." 
 
 I am no sycophant, no parasite. What I think I say. These acts 
 have been perpetrated without rebuke. Let the world determine where 
 the responsibility rests. I believe the President is as honest a man 
 as there is in the world; but I believe him to be too easy and amiable, 
 and to be misled by the malign influence of Kentucky counselors — and 
 the Border State men.' 
 
 He again urged the enlistment of negro troops and advised the 
 administration not to be afraid of the cry of abolitionism, but to 
 follow out the policy of military emancipation suggested by General 
 Hunter's order. He had no hope of success until that policy was 
 adopted. He viewed the matter not only as a question of emancipa- 
 tion or abolition, but as the only means of putting down the Rebellion. 
 For rebuking General Hunter he thought the administration deserved 
 to be driven out, and he denounced it for refusing the liberation and 
 employment of the slaves. He would seize all property of disloyal 
 men as our armies advanced, and he would plant the South with a 
 military colony if the Southerners would not otherwise submit. 
 
 We come now to the attitude of Stevens toward the Constitution ; 
 the constitutionality of war measures ; and the effect of secession and 
 war on the status of the seceded states. 
 
 The antislavery policy advocated by Stevens and men like him 
 
 ' Congressional Globe, July 5, 1862. 
 
574 J- ^- ^Voodbiii'u 
 
 was one of the apologies for party opposition to the war. The anti- 
 slavery men were accused of wishing to make the war entirely sub- 
 servient to abolition, and of being unwilling to see the Union re- 
 stored with slavery as it was. They would not be quiet but were 
 obtruding their opinions everywhere, with the result that while in 
 July, 1861, the nation was united, the Union forces were now divided, 
 since those who wished to prosecute the war solely for the purpose 
 of restoring the Union were alienated and estranged.^ A large body 
 of conservative men in the North, chiefly among those who had 
 opposed the Republican party and Mr. Lincoln's election, looked 
 upon the antislavery programme both as a perversion of the Consti- 
 tution and as an entire departure from the original and legitimate 
 objects of the war. Under the leadership of adroit and able men. 
 these conservative Democrats and Constitutional Unionists became a 
 compact party of opposition whose opinions and purposes may be 
 summarized as follows : 
 
 (i) In the first place they accepted the Crittenden resolution as 
 their war platform, and they would have it clearly recognized that 
 the primary and sole object of the war was to save the Union. It 
 was not to interfere in any way with slavery. Any act or policy 
 tending to turn the military forces of the government from mere 
 union-saving to abolitionism, or toward emancipation as a means of 
 union-saving, was unconstitutional, a perversion of the object of the 
 war, and it ought to be resisted. 
 
 (2) In the second place the war must be so conducted and ended 
 as to preserve the equality of the states. The Union was based on 
 this equality and it must be preserved. There must be no conquest 
 or subjugation or interference with statehood or with the rights of 
 the states, their governments, or their domestic laws. Whoever 
 should attempt by Federal authority to destroy any of the states, or 
 to establish territorial governments within them, was guilty of a high 
 crime against the Constitution and the Union. The Union as it was 
 must be restored and maintained under the Constitution as it is ; and 
 any person proposing peace on any other basis than the integrity of 
 the states was as guilty a criminal as he who would propose peace 
 on the basis of a dismembered Union. The Southern states must 
 not be reduced to provinces or territories, nor the Southern people 
 regarded as alien enemies ; but the constitutional relation of the 
 states to the Union was to be recognized as being undisturbed and 
 the constitutional rights of the Southern people should be fully main- 
 tained. To prosecute hostilities beyond these limits or in a spirit of 
 
 ' Diven of New York. Congressional Globe, January 22, 1862. 
 
Attitude of Stevens toward Conduct of Civil JJ^ar 575 
 
 conquest would destroy state equality, subvert the Constitution, and 
 prevent the Union/ 
 
 (3) In the third place, a corollary to this view, the constitutional 
 limits set to congressional and executive power must be the same 
 in war as in peace. Secession, rebellion, and war had made no 
 change as to the power that Congress could exercise within the 
 states, be they the states of the Confederacy or the states of the 
 Union. The President's powers were not increased. Therefore his 
 executive orders, his proclamations, his military emancipation, his 
 suspension of Iiabcas corpus, his arbitrary arrests, must all be tested 
 by the terms and canons of the Constitution as in times of peace. 
 ■' The Union as it was ; the Constitution as it is," was the maxim of 
 the party. 
 
 In the view of these constitutionalists, the Union was to be saved 
 only by, through, and under the Constitution — nothing more nor less. 
 They idealized the Constitution. To them the Constitution was 
 identical with the nation. Without it there could be no Union. 
 The Constitution gone, the republic is dead. The war was for the 
 preservation of the Constitution and for that alone ; it was against 
 the Constitution and because it was binding on all that the South- 
 erners were rebels. These conservatives denounced the antislavery 
 advocates as being indifferent as to whether or not their policies 
 were in harmony with the Constitution, and this fact made the 
 hated abolitionists — as they called all antislavery men — as guilty 
 criminals as the secessionists themselves. 
 
 In the view of this party almost everything that the President 
 or Congress proposed or did, for the effective and vigorous prosecu- 
 tion of the war, was unconstitutional. Confiscation of slave prop- 
 erty was unconstitutional ; retaining fugitive slaves within our lines 
 was unconstitutional ; the military emancipation of Fremont and 
 Hunter was unconstitutional ; the use of slaves as contraband was 
 unconstitutional ; Lincoln's plan of compensated emancipation was 
 unconstitutional ; enlistment of negro troops was unconstitutional ; 
 the Emancipation Proclamation was unconstitutional ; the draft was 
 unconstitutional ; the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus was 
 unconstitutional ; military arrests were unconstitutional ; suspending 
 or in any way reinstituting state governments at the South was un- 
 constitutional ; Lincoln's appointment of military governors and his 
 beginnings of reconstruction were unconstitutional. No exercise 
 of power was constitutional except what was unmistakably granted 
 by a strict construction of the Constitution interpreted as in times 
 of peace. Instead of the war's having made all the difference in the 
 
 'Pendleton's resolutions, Congressional Globe, July 31, 1861. 
 
576 J. A. M'oodburii 
 
 world, it had made no difference at all. The Southern states and 
 the Southern people were to have all the rights, privileges, immuni- 
 ties, and benefits of the Constitution. They were not bound by its 
 provisions in the conduct of the war, but their opponents were to be 
 restrained from every aggressive act of power not within its specific 
 limits. This was a fearful handicap for the national government. 
 Such a policy would have led to a passive and harmless war — almost 
 purely defensive in its operations. Carried to its logical conclusion, 
 no invasion of the Southern states nor subduing of the Southern 
 people would have been possible under it, and it is very problematical 
 whether the Constitution and the Union could have been saved for 
 the South under its operation. 
 
 To this party and its constitutional view Thaddeus Stevens was 
 diametrically opposed. He was its constant and stout antagonist. 
 He derided these sticklers for the Constitution and in unsparing 
 terms he denounced all their works and ways. They and he were 
 at the antipodes of the political world, and they had but little bowels 
 of mercy for one another. Stevens wished to establish a legal basis 
 for the conduct of the war that would give the nation a chance to 
 fight, and in the first discussion on slavery and the war to which I 
 have referred (August 2, 1861) he laid down the legal and proper 
 premises for that fight. He brushed theories aside, looked at the 
 facts, and saw things as they were, and he sought a basis of action 
 best calculated to bring the result desired. He took the bold ground 
 that in the contest for its life the nation was not bound by the limita- 
 tions of the Constitution. The war had abrogated the Constitution 
 — not where it was respected and could be enforced by ordinary civil 
 processes, but with respect to hostile confederated states that had 
 rejected and repudiated the Constitution, trampled it under foot, and 
 were resisting its restoration by organized armies. The people of 
 the Confederate States were public belligerent enemies, and the 
 nation in its eft'ort to overcome them was bound only by the laws of 
 war and the law of nations. The Constitution had no right to inter- 
 vene if it stood in the way of the laws of war in dealing with the 
 enemy. 
 
 Who says the Constitution must come in in bar of our action ? It 
 is the advocates of rebels, of rebels who have repudiated the Constitu- 
 tion, who have sought to overthrow it and trample it in the dust. Sir, 
 these rebels who have disregarded and set at defiance that instrument 
 are, by every rule of municipal and international law. estopped from 
 pleafling it against our action. Sir, it is an absurdity. There must 
 be a party in court to plead it, and that party to be entitled to plead 
 it in court, must first acknowledge its supremacy, or he has no business 
 
Attitude of Stevens toivard Conduct of Civil War 577 
 
 to be in court at all. . . . They can not be permitted to come in here 
 and tell us that we mustibe loyal to the Constitution/ 
 
 When he was asked how members of Congress who had taken 
 an oath to stipport the Constitution could violate it in their action, 
 whether rebels complain of it or not, he replied that they do not 
 violate it when "they are operating against men who have no rights 
 to the benefits of the Constitution. The law of nations was plain 
 upon this point, the law estabhshed in the days of Cicero, " Inter 
 arma silent leges." " This is a law that has been in force to the 
 present time, and any nation that disregards the law is a poor pusil- 
 lanimous nation which submits its neck to be struck oi? by the 
 enemy." 
 
 Stevens admitted that the Constitution, while it was in force for 
 the South, did not authorize Congress to interfere with slavery in the 
 states. While the Constitution and laws were supreme no one 
 would attempt it. But when the Constitution had been repudiated 
 and set at defiance by armed rebellion the case was different. 
 
 There were not [he said] three thousand abolitionists, properly so 
 called in the United States. Before this war the parties were bound 
 together by a compact, by a .reaty, called a Constitution. They ad- 
 mitted the validity of municipal laws binding on each. This war has 
 cut asunder all these ligaments, abrogated all these obligations. Since 
 these States have voluntarily thrown off that protection and placed 
 themselves under the law of nations, it is not only our right but our 
 duty to knock off every shackle from every limb. 
 
 He who wishes to re-establish the Union as it was cannot escape 
 the guilt of attempting to enslave his fellow-men. The " Union as it 
 was and the Constitution as it is ", is an atrocious idea ; it is man-steal- 
 ing. The Southern States have forfeited all rights under the Consti- 
 tution which they have renounced. They are forever estopped from 
 claiming the Constitution as it was. The United States may give them 
 those rights if it choose, but they cannot claim them. If a disgraceful 
 peace were made leaving the cause of this rebellion and the cause of 
 future wars untouched and living, its authors would be the objects of 
 the deepest execration and of the blackest infamy. . . , All this 
 clamor against radicals, all this cry of the " Union as it was ", is but 
 a persistent effort to re-establish slavery and to rivet anew forever the 
 chains of bondage on the limbs of immortal beings. May the God of 
 Justice thwart their designs and paralyze their wicked efforts." 
 
 Stevens believed that in an emergency in order to " snatch the 
 nation from the jaws of death " Congress was authorized to de- 
 clare a dictator. It was a fearful power, and he hoped the necessity 
 for it would never arise. But the safety of the people is the supreme 
 
 'Congressional Globe, August 2, 1861. 
 'Ibid., January 22. 1864. 
 
578 J- '-I- IJ^ooi/inru 
 
 law, and rather than see the nation perish, rather than see it dishon- 
 ored by compromise, concession, and submission, rather than see the 
 Union dissevered, he was ready to apply the dictator's power. 
 
 It will be seen that Stevens's constitutional position, or extra- 
 constitutional position, was consistent, straightforward, and out- 
 spoken. He blinked nothing, but always looked the constitutional 
 issue squarely in the face. He made no pretenses and would re- 
 sort to no forced construction to justify a course already prede- 
 termined. This is seen still more clearly in his attitude toward 
 the admission of West Virginia. 
 
 The Constitution clearly provides that no state shall be divided 
 except by its own consent. When \'irginia seceded, the people 
 in the western counties of the state, wishing to remain loyal to 
 the Union, assumed to form a state government and choose state 
 officers and a state legislature. They elected Senators and Repre- 
 sentatives to Congress, who were admitted to their seats. They 
 claimed to be the people of Virginia, constitutionally competent 
 to give its consent to the formation of a new state within the bor- 
 ders of the Old Dominion. This people, having given its consent 
 to the division of the old state of Virginia, immediately erected 
 itself into the new state of \\'est Mrginia. Nobody consented 
 e.xcept those within the limits of the new state. That is, the new 
 state consented to the division of the old. And when the new state 
 had been admitted according to prearrangement, Mr. Pierpont, pre- 
 tending to be the governor of the state that pretended to be Vir- 
 ginia, was to move over to Alexandria and keep up the pretense 
 of being the gubernatorial head of Old \'irginia, with an official 
 body that Sumner afterward called the " common council of Alex- 
 andria." As Stevens said after the war, " all the archives, prop- 
 erty, and eftects of the Pierpont Government were taken to Rich- 
 mond in an ambulance." This was the government recognized 
 during the war as the legitimate constitutional government of 
 Mrginia. 
 
 There were distinguished members of Congress who sought to 
 find ground in the Constitution, or in "the fictitious construction 
 of that instrument, for this process by which Virginia was divided 
 and ^^'est \^irginia admitted. It was not the way of Thaddeus 
 Stevens. To Stevens the proceedings, or the arguments based 
 upon them, were all ridiculous and absurd. He was opposed to 
 giving seats in the House to members from Virginia after the 
 secession of that state, for " We know," as he said, " that members 
 have been elected to this House bv onlv twentv votes and those 
 
Attitude of Stevens tmoarel Conduct of Civil War 579 
 
 cast under the guns of a fort. Now, to say that those gentlemen 
 represent any district is a mere mockery." ' 
 
 Stevens was willing to accomplish the end in view, the dismem-- 
 bernient of \'irginia and the admission of the new state, the sufficient 
 ground for the act being that it would w'eaken the enemy and help 
 the national cause. But he recognized that the legal ground for the 
 proceeding was, not the Constitution, but the laws of war. " We 
 may admit West Mrginia," he said, " not by any provisions of the 
 Constitution but under our absolute power which the laws of war 
 give us. I shall vote for this bill upon that theory and that alone ; 
 for I will not stultify myself by supposing that we have any warrant 
 in the Constitution for this proceeding." 
 
 He regarded it as n-.ockery to claim that the legislature of \^ir- 
 ginia had ever consented to the division of that state. The ma- 
 jority of the people of Mrginia, organized as a political community, 
 was the state of Virginia. That state had changed its constitution 
 and its relation to the federal government from that of one of its 
 members to that of secession. The act was treason, but so far as 
 the state corporation was concerned it was a valid act and governed 
 the state. " A small number of the citizens of Mrginia — the people 
 in West Virginia — assembled together, disapproved of the acts of' 
 Mrginia and with the utmost self-complacency called themselves 
 Virginia. Is it not ridiculous ? " 
 
 That seems more straightforward than to stretch the Constitution 
 by a forced and fictitious construction while claiming to respect its 
 provisions. To a layman it seems like better law, sounder sense, 
 and more correct political science, if the United States was to be 
 regarded as a nation and not a mere congeries of states. 
 
 This view of the character of the state and the effect of seces- 
 sion he maintained consistently on all occasions. He looked upon 
 the Southern states as public enemies. We were at war with an 
 acknowledged belligerent, with a foreign nation, and since such a 
 war had annulled all former compacts existing between them neither 
 could claim as against the other the aid of the Constitution. Stevens 
 held that the Southern states, having committed treason, renounced 
 their allegiance to the Union, discarded its Constitution and laws, 
 organized a distinct and hostile government, and by force of arms 
 having risen from the condition of insurgents to the position of an 
 independent power de facto, and having been acknowdedged as a 
 belligerent both by foreign nations and by our own government, the 
 Constitution and laws of the Union were set aside as far as they were 
 concerned, and that as between the two belligerents they were under 
 
 ' Congressional Globe, December 2, 1861. 
 
5 So /. .4. J]'oodbui-ii 
 
 the laws of war and nations alone. If the rebel states were still in 
 the Union and under the Constitution, as some contended, he saw 
 no reason why they should not elect the next President of the United 
 states. If the rebels declined to vote, then one hundred loyal men 
 who, as his legal opponents contended, still continued to be " the 
 state," might meet and choose electors. The few loyal men around 
 Fortress Monroe or Norfolk, or Alexandria, and a few cleansed 
 patches in Louisiana, being one thousandth part of the state, might 
 choose electors for the whole state. It was such reasoning that 
 seemed like a mockery of constitutional law and political science to 
 Stevens. 
 
 As to the minority who were loyal to the Union within a seceded 
 state, he would regard them as citizens of that state and subject to its 
 conditions. They must migrate or bear the burdens and penalties 
 of their domicile, although in dealing with persons he would dis- 
 tinguish between the innocent and the guilty. The states were at 
 war with the nation. The idea that a few loyal citizens are the 
 state and may override and govern the disloyal millions, he was 
 unable to comprehend. " If ten men fit to save Sodom can elect a 
 governor and other state officers against more than a million Sodom- 
 ites in \'irginia, then the democratic doctrine that the majority shall 
 rule is discarded and ignored." 
 
 The position of Stevens was vigorously assailed by Mr. Francis 
 P. Blair, of ^Missouri, in a notable speech in the House, February 5, 
 1864. Blair held that Stevens's policy of confiscation could only be 
 efifected by the extermination of our whole kindred race in the South. 
 The world would expect them to shed the last drop of blood rather 
 than to submit to such spoliation, with no alternative but to die as 
 paupers. Europe would be justified in intervening to put down such 
 an mnovation on the code of humanity and to arrest barbarities in 
 defiance of the law of nations. It was frenzied altruism tending to 
 promote " amalgamation of repugnant races in the name and by the 
 charm of equality." 
 
 Blair held that the Southern states were indestructible ; that 
 their status was like that of Missouri, whose state organization had 
 remained loyal to the Union. All that was needed was to drive out 
 the rebel power that was holding the state government in duress. 
 Our army and navy were crushing the life out of the usurpation, 
 vetoing what Blair called the " assumption of Stevens that the state 
 governments in the rebel states are as perfect now as before the 
 rebellion, and being subsisting states, capable of corporate action, 
 thev have as states changed their allegiance from the United States 
 to the Confederate States." In this undeniable fact, as Stevens had 
 
Atlilnde of Stevens toiuard Conduct of Civil ]\\ 
 
 ar 
 
 stated it, Blair maintained that the secession doctrine was " abso- 
 hitely recognized, with more distinctness than Calhoun ventured to 
 urge it." 
 
 Here the majority of disloyalists in a State [said Blair] have the 
 right admitted to over-ride a minority of loyal men and make them 
 forswear their allegiance to the Union. No man, North or South, ever 
 asserted the secession cause so boldly in the forum as the gentleman 
 from Pennsylvania. He founds the rebel government upon the will 
 of a majority of the people; proclaims that the minority, though loyal to 
 the General Government (which has a right to the "allegiance of all) 
 must abandon the states or subscribe to their authority; insists that the 
 usurpation has established independent states endowed with all the 
 mimunities and rights of an independent nation carrying on a legitimate 
 war. This is the secession, abolition, absolute-conquest doctrine which 
 the gentleman has broached in defiance of national and State Constitu- 
 tions, the law of the civilized world and of all humanity.' 
 
 On May 2, 1864, during the discussion in the House on the 
 Wade-Davis plan of reconstruction, Stevens had occasion to refer to 
 these criticisms. He restated his position that the South was only a 
 belligerent, with such rights only as the laws of war might accord. 
 The fact of their being rebels as well as belligerents put them in a 
 worse predicament and only extended our rights and justified the 
 sinuinuii} jus of martial law. In urging again a general scheme of 
 confiscation he said the country should decide whether this was an 
 unjust war, and whether the enemy was obstinate and ought to bear 
 the burden of the war. 
 
 Stevens pictured in vigorous language the suffering and destruc- 
 tion of the war, which he denounced as unjust and as deserving of 
 punishment. " If we are not justified ". he said, " in exacting the 
 extreir.e demands of war then I can hardly conceive a case where it 
 would be applicable. To allow them to return with their estates 
 untouched, on the theory that they have never gone out of the Union, 
 seems to me rank injustice to loyal men." 
 
 Stevens replied with special vigor to Blair, " whose speech ", he 
 said, " contained the distilled virus of the copperhead." He recog- 
 nized that selling estates in perpetuity as the result of attainder for 
 treason was forbidden by the Constitution; conviction for treason 
 could work no such consequence. What he contended for was the 
 forfeiture of the property of rebels as enemies. Blair had said that 
 Stevens had " treated with scorn the idea that States held in duress 
 by the rebel power have a right to look to our laws and Constitution 
 for protection." Stevens replied ; 
 
 This is a false statement of my position. If the armies of the 
 Confederate States should overrun a loyal state and hold it in duress, 
 
 ' Congressional Globe. February 5. 1864. 
 
582 J. A. \\'oodbui-n 
 
 that state would have a right to appeal to the Constitution for protec- 
 tion. But a state which by a free majority of its voters has thrown 
 off its allegiance to the Constitution and holds itself in duress by its 
 own armies, is estopped from claiming any protection under the Con- 
 stitution. To say that such a state is within the pale of the Union 
 so as to claim protection under its Constitution and laws is but the 
 raving of a madman. 
 
 To escape the consequence of my argument he [Blair] denies that 
 the Confederate States have been acknowledged as a belligerent or 
 have established and maintained independent governments dc facto. 
 Such assurance would deny that there was a sun in the heavens. They 
 have a Congress in which eleven states are represented ; they have at 
 least 300,000 soldiers in the field; their pickets are almost within sight 
 of Washington. They have ships of war on the ocean destroying 
 himdreds of our ships, and our government and the governments of 
 Europe acknowledge and treat them as privateers, not as pirates. There 
 is no reasoning against such impudent denials. 
 
 Stevens denied that he was countenancing secession in recog- 
 nizing the palpable facts of war. The law forbids robbery and 
 mtirder. but tliese crimes exist dc facto. Does the man who declares 
 their existence give coimtenance to them ? If the fiction of equity 
 courts that whatever ought to be shall be considered as existing — if 
 this is trtie, then the rebel states are in the Union. 
 
 If the naked facts, palpable to every eye, attested by many bloody 
 battle-fields, and recorded by every day's hostile legislation both in 
 Washington and Richmond are to prevail, then the rebellious states are 
 no more in the Union in fact, than the loyal states are in the Con- 
 federate States. Nor should they ever be treated so until they repent 
 and are rebaptized into the National Union. 
 
 Stevens congratulated the country that the House had recently 
 passed a resolution (1864) recognizing the Confederate States as a 
 public enemy. That was the doctrine for which he had been con- 
 tending. The consequences which he had sought to establish would 
 follow as a corollary. " I have lived ", he said, " to see the triumph 
 of principles which, although I had full faith in their ultimate suc- 
 cess, I did not expect to witness. If Providence will spare me a 
 little longer, until this government shall be so reconstructed that the 
 foot of a slave can never again tread upon the soil of the Republic, 
 I shall be content to accept any lot which may await me." ' 
 
 These extracts will serve to make clear Stevens's attitude toward 
 the chief issues of the Civil War. Those whom he opposed will 
 not be easily reconciled to honor his memory. As Sumner said, 
 ■' No one gave to language a sharper bite." His words were words 
 of sarcasm, satire, denunciation. They aroused resentment and often 
 left a bitter sting. His antagonists dreaded him, and he has been 
 
 ^ Consrcssional Globe, vol. 65. pp. 2042-2043, May 2. 1864. 
 
Attitude of Stevens toward Conduct of Civil War 5 S3 
 
 spoken of as a man of hate and vindictive vengeance. But there 
 is testimony to show, from party friend and foe alike, that he was a 
 man of deep and tender humanitarian feelings. He desired fair 
 play and a square deal for all mankind. The punitive measures 
 which he favored did not spring from personal feelings. It was the 
 cause that he hated or loved. He loved justice; he entertained a 
 deep hatred of slavery and secession, and he believed that a just 
 punishment, as well as mercy, should be visited upon those whom he 
 considered as the guilty authors of his country's woes. In this he 
 was but human, a natural man begotten of passionate times, and he 
 probably represented to a large degree the feelings of a majority of 
 his fellow-countrymen. He deplored the compromising errors of the 
 fathers, and his great purpose was to write the law of justice and 
 human equality into the Constitution of his country; and he would 
 feign no fraternal, sentimental regard for those who, as he thought, 
 sought to violate, obstruct, or pervert these great principles of gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 James Albert Woodburn. 
 
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