CONGRESS, U. S. 



289 



have to report a deficiency bill, even after Con- 

 gress appropriating $318,000,000 last July. 

 We shall have to appropriate from one hundred 

 and sixty to two hundred and fourteen million 

 dollars more to make up the deficiencies for 

 this fiscal year. We shall also have to report 

 a bill making an appropriation of $413,000,000 

 for next year. We will thus have to appro- 

 priate more than six hundred million dollars, 

 without the addition of a single dollar beyond 

 what is estimated for. Now, sir, that in itself 

 is alarming. I confess I do not see how, un- 

 less the expenses are greatly curtailed, this 

 Government can possibly go on over six months. 

 If we go on increasing expenses, as we have 

 been doing, and as we propose to do by this 

 bill, the finances, not only of the Government, 

 bat of the whole country must give way, and 

 the people will be involved in one general 

 bankruptcy and ruin. 



"Now what does this bill propose to do? 

 We have already in the field an army of six 

 hundred and sixty thousand men. I am told 

 that eighty thousand of these are in Kentucky, 

 constituting the command of Gen. Buell. If 

 that be not enough, it is most remarkable that, 

 out of the six hundred and sixty thousand now 

 in the field, enough cannot be spared to guard 

 Kentucky." 



Mr. Diven, of New York, replied : " Mr. 

 Speaker, I wish to advert briefly to the argu- 

 ment employed by the gentleman from Penn- 

 sylvania (Mr. Stevens) against this bill that 

 is, in reference to the enormous expenses that 

 this country is incurring, and his unwillingness 

 to add to that expense under any contingency. 

 Sir, this country is advanced too far in this 

 war to recede. It will not do to make calcu- 

 lations as to whether the expenses now run- 

 ning against the Government can be endured 

 for two or three years. The expenses that are 

 rolling up 'daily and monthly must be termi- 

 nated? How terminated? By withdrawing 

 our troops, disbanding our armies, and giving 

 up this struggle ? Who would thus terminate 

 this expense? No, sir, that is not the way. 

 There is but one determination as to the man- 

 ner in which this expense shall be abridged. 

 It is by going through with what we have un- 

 dertaken. This rebellion must be put down, 

 and put down speedily, or it will wear out the 

 resources of the country. In deciding, there- 

 fore, whether I will vote for this additional ex- 

 pense or not. I will be controlled by the fact 

 whether this rebellion will sooner be put down 

 by my giving than by my withholding my 

 vote. Let it be made apparent that by this 

 additional force in Kentucky this rebellion can 

 be subdued one month sooner than by with- 

 holding it, and it can be shown that no better 

 economy can be employed than by the expendi- 

 ture of this money in Kentucky." 



Mr. Wright, of Pennsylvania, urged the pas- 



sage of the bill at some length, during which 



he alluded to the object of the war in these 



words : " Sir, if this war is conducted upon 



VOL. IL 19 



legitimate principles, I have no fears in regard 

 to its result. If you will confine yourself to 

 the proclamation of Abraham Lincoln, issued 

 on the 19th of April last, when he made his 

 appeal to the people of this country, saying 

 that he wanted an army to put down insurrec- 

 tion and rebellion, and to protect the rights of 

 property and the rights guaranteed by the 

 Constitution to the States if gentlemen will 

 but adhere to the principles contained in that 

 proclamation, there is no danger with regard to 

 the result of the war, with the number of 

 troops we now have in the field. But if it be 

 the desire and the plan to change the object 

 of the war, and make it a war for emancipa- 

 tion, I can tell those gentlemen who hug the 

 negro so closely to their bosoms that they do it 

 at the hazard of the very life and existence of 

 the Government itself. I do not pretend to 

 say whether the gentleman from Illinois be of 

 that party or not. If gentlemen will confine 

 themselves even to the principles of the Mes- 

 sage which the President sent in at the open- 

 ing of this session, we need have no fear with 

 regard to the result; but, as the gentleman 

 from New York (Mr. Steele) observed the 

 other day, I repeat, if you change the object 

 and principle of the war, you paralyze the bra- 

 very of the army ; you present another ques- 

 tion ; you present a divided North and a South 

 united. That would be the effect of such a 

 change of policy. It is a war for the supre- 

 macy of the Constitution and laws, and the 

 honor of the flag, and not for the emancipation 

 of slaves. I believe that it is the sworn duty 

 of this Government to accept all the men who 

 offer to come to our standard for that purpose, 

 as these twenty thousand men seek to enlist 

 under our standard in Kentucky, and to make 

 our ranks formidable. I believe that we al- 

 ready have a well-disciplined army." 



Mr. Hickman, of Pennsylvania, opposed the 

 bill on the ground that it was giving to Ken- 

 tucky a military system different from that in 

 the other States, and thus replied to the remarks 

 of the preceding speaker on the conduct of the 

 war : " My colleague (Mr. Wright) has re- 

 sorted not to argument, but to a declaration 

 which I had hoped might have been avoided 

 upon this floor. It is to this amount : that if 

 this army should at any time be used, as I un- 

 derstand him, under any circumstances, to free 

 negroes from slavery, you will have demora- 

 lized the army and imperilled the safety of the 

 country. I enter my protest here against the 

 truth or soundness of any such declaration. It 

 is placing negro slavery above the country. It 

 is making the salvation of slavery superior to 

 and more sacred than the safety of the Con- 

 stitution of the country. Sir, in my judgment, 

 that man is not fit to conduct this war, either 

 as chief Executive or as a member of the Cab- 

 inet or as Commander-in-Chief or as subor- 

 dinate officer, who does not place the safety of 

 the Constitution beyond and above, immeas- 

 urably beyond and above, the safety of negro 



