'0 -'>mm^'^' Down with the Black Flag of Coafiscation; up with the Union Jack. SPEECH HON. JOHN ¥. CHANLEE, OF NEW YOEK, IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, DECEMBER 10, 1867. In reply to Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, on his Southern Confiscation Bill. : 480 C45 Jopy 1 The House resumed the consideration of the bill relative to damages done to loyal men, and for other purposes. Mr. CHANLER said : Mr. Speaker : My object in entering on a discussion of this bill is to meet that pai-t of the plan proposed by the gentleman from Penn- sylvania to which he alludes in his opening remarks when he addressed this House in March last: "^ "Mr. Speaker. I am about to discuss the question of the punishment of belligerent traitors by enforcing the confiscation of their property to a certain extent, both as a punishment for their crimes and to pay the loyal men who have been robbed by the rebels, and to increase the pensions of our wounded soldiers. The punishment of traitors have been wholly ignored by a treacherous Executive and by a sluggish Con- gress. I wish to make an issue before the American people, and see whether they will sanction the per- fect impunity of a murderous belligerent, and consent that the loyal men of this nation, who.have been de- spoiled of their property, shall remain without remu- neration, either by the rebel property or the property of the nation. "To this issue I desire to devote the small remnant of my life. I desire to make the issue before the peo- ple of my own State, and should be glad if the issue were to extend to other States. I desire the verditjt of the people upon this great qtuesti on. This bill is important to several classes.of people."— JJfr.jSievens's Speech. As to that part of the subject which refers to the pensions of our wounded soldiers by con- fiscation and the payment of losses by loyal citizens I do not think the gentleman really means what he says, nor can he suppose seriously that there is property enough liable to confis- cation under his bill to do all he proposes. I shall therefore limit myself to the real spirit and intention of the bill as declared in the opening remarks of the gentleman just quoted, and as manifested by the whole tenor of the speech and provisions of the bill. It is not very clear from the remarks of the gentleman on what precise law either of nations or of this Government he proposes to base his proposition. Vague statements and blind glimpses at history seem to furnish the mate- rial for his argument, and as I endeavor to hit this slippery subject I hope to be excused by the House if the course I take seem to it weary and eccentric. The huntsman cannot choose, but must follow the track of the wild animal be seeks to destroy or drive from his neighbor- hood, say a fox for instance. The gentleman appears at first to rest his argument on the act of Congress of July 17, 1862 : " I proceed to consider the bill. By the act of 17th July, 1862, treason is made punishable by death or some smaller punishment, at the discretion of the court. Before punishment can be inflicted for trea- son or misprision of treason the party must be duly convicted in a court of the United States. Not so with the balance of the bill. All the rest of that law (after the first four sections) refers to persons engaged in the belligerent army, or ofiicially connected with the government known as the 'confederate States of America,' or to those who voluntarily aided that power. While that law supposed that most of the people composing that ariny and government were traitors, yet they are dealt with in all the provisions which refer to confiscation merelySas belligerents making an unjust war. But further on in his speech he abandons, that untenable stand, and throws himself head- long on the laws of war : "But it matters not what you may thin'k of the efficiency of the act of July 17,1862. The laws of war authorizes us to take this property by our sovereign power — by a law now to be passed. AVe have a sub- dued enemy in our power; we have all their property and lives at our disposal." — Mr. Stevens's Speech. He runs through history like a bull in a crockery shop, smashing the well-established precedents and fixed opinions of the authors he quotes into a mass of unintelligible stuff fit only for the use the gentleman makes of it to fill up a bad hole in his logic. And then he ends in a whine over "certain gentlemen" who ' ' seem hard to learn either from the writings of learned publicists or from the passing and visible events of the present age." Confiscation, as known and practiced in history seems to be reasonably divided into two kinds: 1. That customary among conquerors over foreign alien enemies. 2. That statutory confiscation usual among Governments in dealing with refractory citi- zens, individually or in organized communities' We have to do, in my opinion, only with thePj second kind of confiscation in shaping our policy toward the States lately in rebellion. Confiscation is a method by which a con- queror robs his foes and rewards his friends. Two distinct acts are ^oufs by it, and two dis- Too tinct motives actuate it. One result is sought by it, namely, security to the State established by the conqueror. All confiscation is robbery ; it is the tool of the tyrant and the oppressor, who under the law of might creates his title to that which was another's. History is filled with examples of confiscation. Founded in violence, sustained by fraud, and sanctioned by necessity, it has become one of the estab- lished methods by which States are overthrown and maintained. Revolutions, civil wars, con- spiracies, assassinations, work the decay of dynasties, parties, and States ; but by confisca- tion the fictor seizes the spoils, and holds possession by the right of arms. Confiscation and proscription have moved hand in hand through all the changes and fluctuations of empire, and have come down to us heavy with crimes of past ages and stained with the blood and burdened with the wrongs of uncounted \ thousands whom man's inhumanity to man has made to mourn. The Roman triumvirs divided the empire and doomed their dearest friends to » assassination in the same breath. The genius and eloquence of Cicero could not save him from the doom which partisan hate decreed against him. The empire of Augustus was cemented with blood and enriched by the wealth of obnoxious men, proscribed by his partisans in a spirit of revenge and avarice. Roman liberty lost her last great advocate in the death of Cicero ; Roman empire began when the spirit of liberty was silenced by the edict of proscription and confiscation. All along the highway of history are strewn mag- nificent monuments reared to commemorate this mighty wrong by the successful tyrant of the era. No reader of the inscriptions which they bear can leave their perusal without cherishing a hope that in his day no ruthless tyrant shall rob him of his patrimony, his freedom, or his life. Confiscation is one of the hideous mon- sters chained to the car of grim-visaged war and never should be let loose to raven for its prey. It legitimately is only an instrument of terror and should not be let loose to destroy. In time of peace it should be nowhere seen or heard ; savage, cruel, destroying, it has no place among civilized, humane and law-abid- ing men in times like these. "Is it to beimasined that the laws which abolish the property of land and the succession of estates will diminish the avarice and cupidity of the great ? By no means. They will rather stimulate this cupidity and avarice." — Montesquieu's Spirit of Latos, vol. 1, book 5, chap. 14. "In moderate governments it is quite a different thing. Confiscations would render property uncer- tain, would strip innocent children, would destroy a whole familj', instead of punishing a single criminal. I' In republics they would be attended with the mischief of subverting equality, which is the very soul of this government, by depriving a citizen of his necessary subsistence. " Thereis a Roman law against confiscations, except ., in the ca,sQoi crimen majestaiis, or high treason of the - -most heinous nature. '" "It would be a prudent thing to follow the spirit of this law, and to limit confiscations to particular crimes. In countries where a local custom has rend- ered real estates alienable, Bodin very justly ob- serves that confiscation should extend only to such as are purchased or acquired." — Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws, vol. 1, book 5, chap. 15. GENERAL APPLICATION. Blood for blood, eye for an eye, life for life cries the fierce spirit of vengeance. Put up thy sword and let us reason together, says the spirit of mercy. Give me thy sword, com- mands divine justice, for vengeance is mine. The conqueror sheaths his sword under the plea of justice, but issues an edict of confisca- tion against all who dared to brave his power. Poverty, disgrace, despair, famine, death by slow degrees, succeed the swifter methods of the sword. The spotless ermine of the law covers this relentless instrument of tyranny, and day by day the homes once happy, the fields once smiling in requital to honest toil, the mill whose busy hum sang of plenty in the land, the factory where every comfort was wrought out in turn by skill and ingenuity — in fine, civilization, art, industry, all stop as the solemn voice of the crier reads out the law which banishes the citizen from his house, the laborer from his field, the farmer from his homestead. Whole districts have been made desolate, towns depopulated, whole races ban- ished and crushed into abject insignificance by the laws of confiscation. Does the mover of this bill propose France as an example of the application of this principle ? Has the brief sketch of Robespierre given by one of Eng- land's late historians so charmed his heart and mind that he, too, would lead a new people on the old cruel, skeleton-covered road of confis- cation? The thing is not even original. There is something apish and brutal in it, but nothing human that is not revolting and bad as applied by successful demagogues in past ages to the unfortunate victims of revolution. " Consider Maximilien Robespierre, for the greater part of two years what one may call autocrat of France. A poor, sea-green {verdatre) atrabiliar formula of a man; without head, without heart, or any grace, gift, or even vice beyond common, if it were not vanity, astueity, diseased rigor (which some count strength) as of a cramp; really a most sea- green individual in spectacles, meant by nature for a Methodist parson, of the stricter sort, to doom men who departed from the written confession; to chop fruitless shrill logic; to contend and suspect, and ineffectually wrestle and wriggle, and on the whole to love, or to know, or to be (properly speaking) nothing. This was he who, the sport of wracking winds, saw himself whirled aloft to command la premiere nation de I'univers, and all men shouting long life to him; one of the most lamentable, tragic, sea-green objects ever whirled aloft in that manner in any country, to his own swift destruction, and the world's long wonder." — Carlyle's Essays, \ol.i, page 7. ITS GENERAL RESULT AND PAST HISTORY. As Alaric the Groth, " the scourge of God," trampled in the dust the proud power of the fallen empire of Augustus Ctesar, "And quenched in blood the brightest gem That glittered in their diadem," so has the ruthless course of confiscation in retribution cursed the weak inheritors of land taken from a conquered people. The sans- culottes of France plundered and guillotined the loyalists of their day until the wealth of France was destroyed and her blood wasted in fruitless wars, fought by ragged soldiers, until a tyrant, wise, ambitious, and powerful, like the morning star in glory, shone brightly over the nations and disappeared among the distant isles of the sea. In his turn he robbed the heirs of the sans-culotfes of wealth, liberty, and life. The statistics of France show that Napoleon's wars literally exhausted the popu- lation of the empire, and left her at the mercy of her enemies when the fortune of war drove the great Napoleon a fugitive from Waterloo. English Henry VIII covered the scaffold with a hecatomb of victims to his lust, avarice, and cruelty, to establish a church which should sanction crime, and to secure a legislation that could cringe to his despotic will. From the tyranny, cruel executions, and confiscation of vast estate, Henry destroyed the power of the nobility, crushed the Catholic Romish priest- hood, intimidated the Parliament. But Smith- field martyrs and all the victims of bloody Mary's reign rose as witnesses to rebuke the follies and oppressions of Henry : and it is not far-fetched to assume that the Puritans who beheaded Charles I sprung from those whose blood flowed on the scaffold raised by Henry, and learned the true duties of freemen from his licentious confiscation of land and property, bestowed on hungry partisans and unscupulous adventurers. Confiscation is one of the evil practices of parties which made Alexander blush before the robber. It belongs to the rubbish of his- tory and should be branded with the seal of infamy which has been fixed by modern civili- zation on the inquisition, slavery and piracy. No free people can practice them and preserve their liberty. No wise Government should tol- erate them — no virtuous nation will pour such poison into the minds of its children, or blot its statistics with such damning proof of man's degradation and brutality. Justice has no voice in such hue and cry after the vanquished in a time of profound peace and above all at a time when recon- struction of the Union is the known wish of this whole nation and the avowed object of our present legislation. It is strange that by such acts as these the party which has carried this Government through the war of the rebellion should so dim the brightness of its fame and so lower its high standard of "good will to- ward all, and malice toward none." Weak human nature with ruling passion strong in death ! Why should this old man persecute the white race "by a law which must desolate the homes of innocent women, harmless children, and impotent old men ? Let the annals of grim and gray barbarism and time-honored tyranny answer why. Cruelty seems so strong an ele- ment in our nature that not even the glow of complete triumph can soothe to rest nor mag- nanimity soften it into toleration for our fellow- man. From the time of Pharoah, who perished in the Red sea catching at straws he denied the Hebrews in Goshen, to the day when Napoleon was eaten up by a cancer and chagrin on the mean little island of St. Helena with Sir Hud- son Lowe for a comforter, and even to this hour hardness of heart have had its glory and its shame, its short triumph and long sorrow. Mr. Stevens in his speech asks and answers himself. " Is there anything in the practice of nations to condemn this confiscation ? Nothing; but everything to justify it. When a city of people in alliance with Rome conspired to levy war against her, on being conquered she was not unfrcquently deprived of half her population and their lands taken and given to Roman colonists." Memorable examples of the softening of the heart of nations under the trials of experience teach us our duty to-day. TREATMENT OF CONQUERED NATIONS BY THE EEPUBLIC OP EOME. "The Romans generally commenced by treating their provinces with mildness. The Government of Sicily was arranged on a basis which certainly did not augment the burdens on the inhabitants. The tribute imposed on Macedonia was less than the amount of taxation which she had paid to her own kings; and there is no reason for supposing that the burdens of the Greeks, whose country was embraced in the province of Achasa, were increased by the conquest. The local municipal administration of the separate cities was allowed to exist, but in order to enforce submission more readily their constitu- tions were modified by fixing a census which re- stricted the franchise in the democratic common- wealths." — Finley's Greece under the Romans, p. 28. LAWS EEGULATING CONFISCATION BY KINGS OP ENG- LAND. "In 1691 an attempt was made to render our law of treason more definite, just, and humane. But it was not until 1695 that the law on this point, assented to by William III, obtained its place in our statute- book. To us the Government of William may seem strong. But during some years the most intelligent men about him were far from regarding the now order of things as perfectly secure. The Jacobites were restless, noisy, and insolent, and besides men of that description whose imbecile fanaticism and malignant treason were belched forth every where, th e fact that a busy intercourse was going on between the court of James at St. Germains and his friends in this country was not wholly unknown to the statesmen of either party. To make the law of treason greatly more favorable to culprits in such circumstances de- manded some wisdom and courage, but after consid- erable deliberation the thing was done. The new law provided that the accused should have a copy of the indictment five days before trial ; that the names of the jurors should be given to him two days before; that he should be allowed the benefit of counsel ; that the witnesses in his favor might be examined upon oath and be compelled to make their appearance, and that overt acts of treason must be proved by two witnesses deposing to the same act, or to some act of the same significance relating to the same treason. It was provided also that judgment on a peer should be pronounced by the whole peerage, and not by any selection from that body made by the Government. In this enactment we see a near approximation to the law as it now stands. But even under William the manner of conducting such trials was not wholly free from irregularity and harshness. In the |KjSt reign the law became still more liberal. Biit^Jlie safety of state offenders in our history has gener*ily resulted from the force of enlightened public opinion more than from the letter of our law." — Vaughan's Bevolutions in History, vol. 3, p. 569. CONSTITUTIONAL VIEW. Confiscation is the punishment for high trea- son. Such has been the practice of all Gov- ernments. It is but fair, therefore, when con- fiscation is proposed by a Government against its citizens, or any part of them, that treason is the crime for which such customary punish- ment is inflicted. The Constitution expressly provides for such cases. The commentators fully define the intent and meaning of its pro- visions on that head, and without entering into any further examination of the practice of our Government in cases of treason and confisca- tion, I shall now simply quote the opinions of leading jurists, and leave the subject with them. First in order naturally comes the definition of the crime, and then its punishment. In fixing what constitutes treason the framers of the Constitution remembered their own great wrongs, and the great danger they had run in the struggle to redress them. They had a nat- ural and just horror of constructive treason, the plastic nature of which had helped many a tyrant to power and robbed many a free state of its peace. They therefore made treason odious, but at the same time rendered construc- tive treason not only odious, but impossible. PUNISHMENT OP TREASON. That the safety of the State might be secure in the hands of its legislature. Congress was empowered to punish treason against the Union. But fearful lest the partisan spirit of an elect- ive body might abuse the power of punishment by persecuting the opponents of the majority for political opinion rather than for treasonable acts, and renew the horrors of internecine par- tisan war under the pretense of punishing state criminals, a limit was put upon the power of Congress to punish treason. The children's teeth were not to be put on edge because their fathers had eaten of sour grapes. Nor was a political scaffold erected under the shadow of the Constitution to stain the land that Consti- tution was created to keep sacred as a refuge of tolerant men. Homeless orphans and house- less widows were to bless, not curse, the men who fought so long and thought so much and labored so well to redress the wrongs of Gov- ernments and establish the safety of the people. WHAT IS TREASON? EVIDENCE, CONVICTION, AND PUN- ISHMENT OF. "In this connection it seems proper to state the origin, and purpose of that definition of treason which is found in the Constitution, and which was placed there in order on the one hand to defend the su- premacy of the national Government and on the other to guard the liberty of the citizen against the mischief of constructive definitions of that crime. In order, therefore, to free the definition of treason of all complexity and to leave the power of the States to defend their respective sovereignties with- out embarrassment, the convention wisely determ- ined to make the crime of treason against the Uni- ted States to consist solely in acts directed against the United States themselves. "With respect to the nature of the evidence of this crime the committee provided that no person sli«|ld be convicted of treason unless on the testi- mOTS' of two witnesses. But to make this more defi- nite' it was provided by an amendment that the testi- mony of the two witnesses should be to the same overt act, and also that a conviction might take place on a confession made in open court. The punishment of treason was not prescribed by the Constitution, but was left to be declared by the Congress, with the limitation, however, that no attainder of treason should work corruption of blood or forfeiture ex- cept during the life of the person attainted." — Cur- tiJs History of the Constitution, vol. 2, pp. 384-387. Punishment of posterity for the treason of their fathers: "The reason commonly assigned for these severe punishments, beyond the mere forfeiture of the life of the party attainted, are those: by csmmitting treason the party has broken his original bond of allegiance and forfeited his social rights. Among these social rights that of transmitting property to others is deemed one of the chief .and most valuable. Moreover, such forfeitures, whereby the posterity of the oifender must sufi'er as well as himself, will help to restrain a man not only by the sense of his duty and dread of personal punishment, but also by his passions and natural affections ; and will interest every dependent and relation he has to keep him from offending. But this view of the subject is wholly unsatsifactory. It really operates as a posthumous punishment upon them, and compels them to bear, notonly the disgrace naturally attendant upon such flagitious crimes, but takes from them the common rights and privileges enjoyed by all other citizens where they are wholly innocent and however remote they may be in the lineage from the first offender. It surely is enough for society to take the life of the offender as a just punishment of his crime without taking from his offspring and relatives that property which may be the only means of saving them from poverty and ruin. It is bad policy too ; for it cuts off all the attachments which these unfortunate victitus might otherwise feel for their own Government, and prepares them to engage in any other service by which their supposed injuries may be redressed, or their hereditary hatred gratified." — Story's CommerUariea on the Constitution, chap. 28, sec. 655. EXAMINATION OF THIS BILL. Having spoken on the general character of confiscation laws and the punishments usual among civilized nations, I now shall ask for the attention of the Speaker to the character, object, and effect of this particular measure. Sir, it is a legal lineal offspring of that body of laws which sent the commissioners of Herod to every household to fetch him the young child whom he feared. It is of the same kind as those memorable laws of Spain which drove the Moors from their homes in Andalusia; and of that edict of France which sent Protestant Huguenots to this land and everywhere out of their native land in search of a home. It is the same kind of law, in a written form, as the crude lawsof conquest issued by the com- missioners of the king of Dahomey, of Congo, or any barbaric absolute monarchs of Central Africa, which strips every prisoner of every right to live save at the option of the con- queror. The object is the same, the effect the same — revenge! revenge! revenge! and all in the name of justice under the cover of law, cruel, bad law, terrible dire vengeance, carry- ing desolation and ruin in its course, blear- eyed justice seeing only the avenues of wrong and cruelty. This measure is not only intolerant, unjust, unwise, and despotic, but it is unnecessary : not only unnecessary, but impossible. It can- not be carried into effect even if passed by Congress, signed by the President, and sanc- tioned by the Supreme Court. Sir, the people of this Union would repeal it in open convention, as a blot on the statute- book of a free and enlightened nation. The time has passed for such laws. Although some gentlemen on this floor cannot see it, or will not see it, the war is over in the South, in the East, in the West, and above all, in the North. When this bill was introduced there was a party in power, on this floor at least, capable and perhaps willing to pass it. It was one of a long series of indictments which, as the great dragon "swinges the horrors of his twisted tail," was to close in upon the white race of the southern States and to stran- gle them into a torpor worse than death — the torpor of political subordination to the negro. This is the tail of this horrid monster of polit- ical atrocity ; it carries the sting which was to rob the white race of all political vitalitj' iu the future. Its fiery bi'eath was to light np the flames of another civil war of races, the prize to the conquering race to be the public lands in the southern States. That the negro might be stronger and more irresistible for evil in this conflict, the Secretary of War is, by this bill, made monarch of the black kingdom of Dixie. Supreme and mighty lord, serene, invincible sovereign and commander-in-chief of the black armies which were and may here- after be enrolled into our services, armed and equipped, without law of Congress, but on the mere general order of the War Secretary. That money might be had for this black horde without additional tax the lands confiscated by this bill are to be sold, always, however, under the commission of this sovereign Secre- tary of War, who shall make a trust fund of a large part of the proceeds of the sale to keep the families of his black warriors in hog and hominy, Avhile the throats of white citizens are being heroically cut or their starved bodies stuck with black bayonets. PREAMBLE OP A bill relative to damages done to loyal men, and for other purposes. Whereas it is due to justice, and as an example to future times, that some proper punishment should be inflicted on the people who constituted the "Con- federate States of America," both because they, declaring an unjust war agaiist the United States for the purpose of destroying republican liberty and permanently establishing slavery, as well as for the cruel and barbarous manner in which they conducted said war, in violation of all the laws of civilized war- fare, and also to compel them to make some compen- sation for the damages and expenditures caused by said war: Therefore. But, sir, this bill is too full of interest, too sparkling with radical genius, and too glowing with radical philanthropy to be passed over without special notice of at least some of its sections. Mr. Speaker, Burke said in regard to the wholesale decrees of the British Parlia- ment against the American rebels of 1776, "You cannot make out an indictment against a whole people." But, sir, here is another indictment actually written and printed. Mr. Burke never met with such a master mind as the one which framed this bill. He certainly could never have thought that a portion of the descendants of the rebels of 1776 would imitate Lord North and his Tory majority in doing stupid and im- possible things. But times change, and we change with them. Whoever in future ages shall visit the ruins of this Capitol to search our archives for records of republican government as here administered, and shall study the causes of our ruin and read this law, mindful of the lessons taught by our fathers in their own- struggle — whoever, I say, shall do this will be justified in refusing to believe that the people who made this law and the patriots of 1776 are the same race of men. Why, Mr. Speaker, certain critics who have found many supporters now declare that we have fallen already into a premature political decay and have no claim to the wise prudence, sagacious toleration, and even-handed justice of the framers of our Constitutian. If such critics and their school need proof we have here conclusive evidence strong as Holy Writ that we are at least leaving the path of duty and wisdom which our fathers marked out ; and we have our leaders here to-day who have taken us astray. This bill is their work and not the act of the people. The people are firm to their faith in the principles and provisions of that Constitution. The over- whelming majorities against the Republican party have settled that question forever. Mr. Speaker, what a tyrant's plea is this preamble for licensing every crime under the sun, in the name of justice ! It is an artful evasion of the Constitution of the United States, which expressly defines treason, fixes the man- ner of trial and conviction, but limits the power of Congress to declare the punishment for trea- son. By declaring the ' ' people who constituted the confederate States of America" belliger- ents, in the second section of the bill, thereby making them amenable to the law of nations and putting them out of the pale of the Con- stitution, the framer of this bill seeks to pun- ish in an unconstitutional manner a portion of the people of the United States avowedly guilty of treason by levying war against the United States and in adhering to her enemies. Sec. 2. And he it further enacted. That the Presi- dent shall forthwith proceed to cause the seizure of such of the property belonging to the belligerent enemy as is deemed forfeited by the act of ITth July, A. D. 18(52, and hold and appropriate the same as enemy's property, and proceed to condemnation with that already seized. " I suppose none will deny the right to confiscate the property of the several belligerent States, as they all made war as States; or of the confederate States of America; for no one ever denied the right of the conqueror to the crown property of the vanquished sovereign, even where the seizure of private property would not be justified by the circumstances. [Speech of Mr. Stevens. This bill is an eflfort at constructive treason, to wreak partisan vengeance by aid of sophistry. Who were the people who "constituted the confederate States of America" when they formed the confederacy? Plainly a portion of the people of the United States. Their act of confederation and rebellion was treason. Their crime is clearly defined, their manner of trial established by the Constitu- tion, and on conviction Congress has tlie power to inflict punishment, provided always that no attainder of treason can work corruption of blood or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted. If "the people" who constituted the con- federate States of America were not citizens of the United States at the time of their waging war against the United States who were they? Where did they conspire? How come they to be in possession of the " ten States that formed the government of the so-called confederate States of America, ' ' named immediately in the first section of this bill? Be it enacted hy the Senate and House of Represent- atives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. That all the public lands belonging to the ten States that formed the government of the so-called "confederate States of America" shall be forfeited by said States, and become forthwith invested in the United States. 6 The preamble charges this people who con- stitute the Confederate States of America with proposing to destroy republican liberty. Where was this republican liberty established which they purposed to destroy? Certainly every child can inform the gentleman from Pennsylvania. The whole history of the rebellion, the promi- nence of its leaders in the Congress of the United States at the outbreak of rebellion, their resigning from every branch of this Gov- ernment while citizens and even Representa- tives of those ten States, fixes the facts. The second section, therefore, of this bill is brutum fuhnen. The President dare not consistently with his oath to maintain the Constitution "forthwith proceed to cause the seizure of the property belonging to the belligerent enemy" and hold and appropriate the same as enemies' property. Nor can the President appoint the two com- missions or more for each of the "said con- federate States," to adjudicate and condemn the property aforesaid, as proposed in the third section. A title to such property could not be secured to any purchaser in any court ; and a standing army costing this country per annum the value of all the land so seized would not be able to insure peaceable possession for the ten years contemplated in the fourth section. But, grant for sake of argument if you like, that this can all be done as contemplated by this bill. Why should it be done? For whom is this free gift of the public lands of this Union made? The fourth section declares "that out of the lands thus seized and confiscated the slaves who have been liberated by the operations of the war and the amendment to the Constitu- tion, or otherwise, who resided in said confed- erate States on the 4th day of March, 1861, or since, shall have" these lands. • Now, Mr. Speaker, admit that the two or three hundred thousand negroes who fought in the Union Army, under the training and command of white officers, at the expense of our people overburdened with taxation, deserve a reward and recognition for their valor and saci-ifices during the war,j|,what has that to do with the slaves who resided in the confederate States in the service of our enemies — in the confederate army a great majority of them — during the war? The reward is rather due to the laboring men of the Union who were not slaves, and will not be classed with slaves, but who were as faith- ful to this Union as the most gallant soldier in our Army ever was. If you propose to reward the negro slaves of the southern rebel who stood faithful to his master until our brave soldiers drove both slave and slaveholder to submission, and compelled an unconditional surrender, why, Mr. Speaker, have not the whole people of the Union who remained faithful to this Govern- ment in the day of danger and trial been con- sidered in this bill? Why this invidious dis- tinction in favor of slaves and freedmen, to the insult and neglect of the loyal white men of the country? Under what claim to truth does this bill declare, in the preamble, "it is due to jus- tice " that this act should take effect to endow land, to clothe, to house, and to feed slaves, while our public credit is pledged to defray the expenses of the war which freed these very slaves? Allow, as the zealous Radicals claim, that our victories were won by the negro troops ; allow that the white race did not free the black slave of the South by his valor, suffering, and fortitude; allow the history of tliis war to be a lie as written on the tombs of our gallant soldiers of the free States who fell on every battle-field of the South, and left mourners at every hearth of the North, East, and West. Allow all this. Still are we to give away the land of our common inheritance to slaves who never raised a hand to fight for their own free- dom? ECONOMICAL VIEW. What will all this cost? What is the value of the land proposed by this bill to be given to the slaves of the ten confederate States? In the present disturbed condition of that section it is perhaps impossible satisfactorily to answer this question. An approximate estimate alone can now be made. The figures offered are taken from the best available sources: Department of the Interior, General Land Office, December 9. 1867. Sir: I am-in receipl^your communication, dated the 6th instant, requestinga statement as to the num- ber of acres of public land in the States lately in rebellion, and the approximate value of those acres in money. There are only five of these States in which the United States own public lands. The names of these, the quantities remaining undisposed of on the 30th June, 1867, and the money value at SI 25 per'acre, the minimum price, are shown in the first three col- umns. The fourth column indicates the asgregate of certain swamp selections, claimed under the swamp grant of September, 1850, within these States, which have not been approved. These selections form no part of other swamp lands, which years ago were approved to those States, as shown on page 68 of the annual report of the General Land Office for 1866. States. Acresunsold and unap- propriated up to ,30th June, 1867. Value at $1 25 per acre, the minimum price. Acres se- lected as sw amp, suhieet to approval. Florida 17,540,374.00 6,915,081.32 4.930,893.56 ■ 6.582,841.54 11,757,662.54 $21,925,467 8.643,851 6.163,616 8,228,551 14.697,077 889.629.70 Alabama Mississippi... Louisiana Arkansas 476.918.93 2.002.98 2,948.06.3.22 1,368,669.80 Total 47,726,852.96 $59,658,562 5,685,284.63 I am, sir, very respectfully, yoiir obedient servant, JOS. S. WiLSON, Commissioner. Hon. John W. Chanler, M. C, Home of Repre- sentatives. What will the commissioners together with the trustees awarded for in section four of this bill cost this Government? It will come to over one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars per annum to put the machinery of the fourth section into operation, allowing that under the present circumstances and condition of affairs in the late rebellious States such a plan is possible. Stsic. i. And be it further enacted, * * * * * * * For the purpose of distributing ancj allotting said land the Secretary of War shall appoint as many commissions in each State as he shall deem necessary, to consist of three members each, two of whom at least shall not be citizens of the State for which he is appointed. Each of said commis- sioners shall receive a salary of $3,000 annually and all his necessary expenses. Each commissioner shall be allowed one clerk, whose salary shall be $2,000 per annum. The title to the homestead aforesaid shall be vested in trustees for the use of the liberated per- sons aforesaid; trustees shall bo appointed by the Secretary of War, and shall receive such salary as he shall direct, not exceeding $3,000 per annum. At the end often years the absolute title to said homesteads shall be conveyed to said owners or to the heirs of such as are then dead. What will the trustee system cost? By this system proceeds of the salgs of the public lands are to be kept for the exclusive use and benefit of these slaves and the other blacks who may now reside in the ten confederate States, and nominally for the benefit of the pensioners of the Government and to pay damages done loyal citizens during the war. It is utterly impossible to calculate, even approximately, the cost of carrying out this portion of the bill, or to estimate the expense of preserving the right of the grantors under this act should a military force be required to assist the officers herein appointed. Sec. 5. And he it further enacted. That out of the balance of the property thus seized and confiscated there shall be raised, in the manner hereinafter pro- vided, a sum equal to fifty dollars for each home ■ stead, to be applied by the trustees hereinafter mentioned toward the erection of buildings on the said homesteads for the use of said slaves." What will be the probable cost of carrying out the provisions of this bill by force of arms should a war of races ensue ? What will it cost to prevent a war of races if this bill be enforced by the Secretary of War ? These are all questions which should be answered before this bill becomes a law. Of the whole probable expense to the people of this Union of carry- ing out this scheme no reliable calculation can be made and none can reasonably be stated at this time of confusion in the States to which it is to apply. It remains to consider if we can bear this probable extra expense now ? For an answer to this question I refer the House and coun- try to the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, who better than any man in the country ought to know what our liabil- ities and assets at this time are. He brought -in this bill while chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, and after having served several years as chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means. POLITICAL VIEW— BALANCE OF POWER IN CONGRESS. Mr. Speaker, there remains a point in this debate which seems to me too important to be passed in silence. Is there any political object in this bill? Perhaps not; but I think assertions made by leading Radicals here warrant the supposition that some such object underlies the bill. From a political point of view this bill is one of the many like measures to create and keep the negro vote for the Republican party. Having created the negro constituency by previous laws, it is now proposed to bribe that constitu- ency to vote for the Radical leaders. A Protestant negro constituency in the Afri- canized southern States is to be pitted in the political arena against the Catholic white im- migrant at the North, the East, and the West. Four million blacks are to be bought at the rate of many hundred millions of money vested in land grants. The whites are to shift for themselves ; they cannot be bought. They know how to govern themselves and vote for them- selves. They know the value of freedom frofn long possession, and the power of the ballot from long use and experience. Sir, I pronounce this bill to be a monster of injustice to the living and an outrage against the fair fame of the dead heroes of the Union armies. Suppose this act to become a law. How are you to enforce it? What will be the result of such enforcement? Has the gen- tleman who proposes this measure not seen enough of bloodshed and civil strife? Can the land have no rest from the curses which this rebellion has already put upon her, but a new cause of bloodshed and destruction in every form must be inaugurated here? Will the war of races in the South be any less fatal to our prosperity because we bring it about? Sir, this bill to me seems a mad, bad, worthless plan to deluge the South in blood. It can have no other result. It will cost millions of treasure, thousands of lives, and years of public distress in every department of life. The black man must work for his own living, earn his own ■wages, and buy his own land. This Govern- ment has no power and no right to make a special pensioner of him. If he has not man- hood enough to thrive by his own industry let him quit the soil and make room for his betters : they are coming from every land by thousands every day and dwell in every city of the North. The African has no time-honored experi- ence of the power and value of the ballot, and scarcely knows where to go with it, and for whom to deposit it, except a white man shows him the way. The European brought the right to vote with him. His ancestors used it for centuries to choose their representatives to control their governments and to rebuke their kings. The African savage or the African slave, whether in America or Africa, knows nothing about this sacred symbol of individual liberty and representative government. He is as de- pendent on the white man in these things to-day as he was when he first landed on our shores. He is yet in his pupilage, and must be taught how and for whom to vote. This bill, Mr. Speaker, proposes to secure his gratitude for the Radical leaders and bribe his vote. It is clearly liable to this charge. It is thought by this scheme to check the polit- ical power of the Democratic party of the free States and build up a petty African princi- pality in the ten southern States under the dominion of certain political religious fanatics. Such a scheme must fail. It is a wicked and weak plot. It is treason against the people. It is a political heresy against the tolerant principles of the Constitution. It may bring about a war of races or a mixed war of races and religions, but it never can restore this 8 013 701 79'? Union or maintain this Government as formed by the Constitution. Sir, the dominion of this continent belongs to the white man. He formed the nations which now extend across it. He developed the civilization which those nations protect and adorn. His is the mastery, and you might as well seek to check this planet in its course around the sun as to curb the white man in kis dominion in America. The white race is fulfilling the destiny of their race and the law of their God. This bill from this point of view is too feeble to deserve but a passing notice. But the gentleman who introduced it has held great power in this House, and is held in great esteem by the party in power, or lately in power, in this Government. His word was almost law here but a few short months ago. He has declared on this floor that to say that this Government is a white man's Government is blasphemy. He has cham- pioned the black race here and has boldly advocated an equality of the races^always apparently, however, turning his back on the poor Indian and Asiatic. The gentleman's discriminations do him honor, and his zeal may yet be crowned with success. Against the efforts of himself and his party it is the chief satisfaction of the Democracy to labor, and perhaps not always in vain. But, if such bills as this become laws under the efforts of any political party, I believe that party will perish or this Union will pass into a military despotism. A constituency created, maintained, and pro- vided for in land and homesteads by the Gov- ernment they are called on to elect is a mon- strous anomal}', and is only fit for tyranny. The present system of military departments, the Freedmen's Bureau, this bill, all its kith and kin, argthe schools in which the freedmen of the South have learned their duties as citi- zens. Dependent on the General Government for everythmg, they have learned to look to it for all they want, and have not the faintest' knowledge of the responsibility of the Govern- ment to them. Such, sir, is the balance of power proposed by this measure. What a resemblance does this crazy plot to preserve partisan supremacy offer to the similar plan of the great protector of England, Oliver Cromwell ! He, sir, had fanatics enough to deal with. He had traitors of all sorts ready at hand, and had the power and will to hang them at short notice. He, too, held the bal- ance of power, not by yielding to fanatics but by using them ; not by wasting the public treas- ure and domain but by enlarging it ; not by making his authority ridiculous by throwing pearls before swine but by rendering the name and dignity of a citizen and freeman still more famous, formidable, and honored than ever before in England. This Congress has been called the Rump Parliament; 1 doubt the jus- tice of the fling. Where is the statesman who can shape the fanatical madness of tii;3 Ilouse to some useful end and make its acts in peace worthy of the deeds of our armies and navies in battle ? Certainly not by wastefully throw' ing away millions of acres of public lands on the slaves of the leaders of the late rebellion and excluding the families of the white heroes who fell in your service from possessing any share of those lands unless they consent to mix with a race still fettered in mind by the manacles of slavery, though bodily ransomed by our laws. "Cromwell maintained aceordingrly, and with mani- fest justice, that for 'the present an enlightened regard to the interests of the nation recjuired that the most vigorous efforts should be made to prevent the complete success of any one of these parties, and to balance them against each other, so as to bring them at last to some common ground of settlement. His experiments in convening his several parlia- ments were all designed to facilitate such an adjust- ment of differences by mutual concession as should be most in accordance, in the circumstances, with mutual right aad duty. Unhappily in his time the enm' es of the several factions were not to be s-o far con.roi.ed, either by reason or humanity, as to allow the country to realii'.e the prosperity and greatness which it might have derived from his lai'ge and equitable policy. The source of those acts of despot- ism observable in the government of England dur- ing the Protectorate will be found mainly in the cir- cumstances now mentioned. Cromwell, like most men who have risen to supreme power without being born to it, became an arbitrary ruler from the neces- sities of his position. " AVhen his parliaments refused supplies the salva- tion of the State depended on his extorting them by the sword. In the spring of 1655 he did not hesitate to place many of the leading nobility and gentry under arrest until they should tind bail for their peaceable conduct. But at that moment th'e land was known to be covered with a network of con- spiracy, either royalist or republican. It was at that juncture, too, that the ordinance was published which declared every royalist worth a hundred a year liable to pay a tenth of his income to the support of the Government. It was to collect this assessment that the Protector's major generals were invested with their large powers in the districts committed to their oversight. Cromwell intrusted this service to men for the most part in whose discretion he had the greatest confidence. But where there was much known disaifeetion the burden no doubt often fell very grievously. The hope of the Protector in con- vening his third parliament in the following year was, that supplies being thus obtained for the exi- gency, such 'arbitrary proceedings, so unacceptable to the nation,' might come to an end." — Vaughan'sMev- olutionary History, vol. 3, pp. 392-395. Mr. Speaker, the people have spoken in reply to the invitation of the gentleman from Pennsylvania. He said on the 19th March last : "To this issue I desire to devote the small remnant of my life. I desire to make the issue before the people -of my own State, and should be glad if the issue were to extend to other States. I desire the verdict of the people upon this great question." Sir, the gentleman has received the verdict. He has been found guilty, and the country breathes freely and naturally once more, after the horrors of a long and bloody war ; after a fierce political strife; after enduring with long-suffering patience the ceaseless cry for blood, vengeance, and robbery from the gentle- man and his followers on this floor. The black flag which they hoisted over this Capitol must come down. Hoist the Union Jack, and say to the ship of State: '"Sail on, ihou glorious ship, freighted with the hopes and happiness of millions. The curse of piracy and outlawry and confiscation shall not rest on our peo- ple. We are free and united, and, with God's help, will share our blessings with our brother man. " I o / LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 013 701 771 4 pH83