CONGRESS, U. S. 



309 



domestic tranquillity may be restored, that the 

 general welfare may be promoted, that personal 

 security and the blessings of liberty may be 

 forever insured. For these ends the Constitu- 

 tion was ordained by the people : not without 

 suffering and martyrdom and the sacrifice of 

 blood. Let not these ends fail of realization 

 by any act of ours. The sacred trust of pro- 

 viding for the common defence is in our hands ; 

 let us not fail, so far as in us lies, to execute it.'' 



After stating the laws which had been passed 

 by Congress to preserve the Government, he 

 proceeded to show that the most needed of all 

 was an act to liberate the slaves. He con- 

 tinued : %> Pass your laws liberating the 4,000,- 

 ives held by the rebels, and thereby break 

 every unjust yoke in that rebel region ; and let 

 the oppressed go free, in obedience to that 

 command which comes to us as a voice out of 

 heaven, ' proclaim liberty throughout all the 

 land, to all the inhabitants thereof.' Do yon 

 say this is fanaticism ? Do you say God was 

 a fanatic when He commanded it, and that the 

 fathers of the Republic were fanatics when 

 they adopted it as the sign under which they 

 should conquer, and burned it with fire into 

 the very bell whose iron tongue summoned 

 them to the stern work of resistance ? 



And do you say we have not the con- 

 stitutional power to enact such a law ? "Why 

 not ? Because, you say, the slave is the rebel's 

 property. I cannot admit that ; but, conceding 

 it for the moment, has he not forfeited his 

 property, a? well as his life, to the Govern- 

 ment ? Have you not by your law authorized 

 the taking of his life, both by the sword and 

 the gallows I Is his right to his slave, which 

 came by wrong, more sacred than his right to 

 his life, which is the gift of God ? Has the 

 rebel special rights and immunities of property 

 in his slave which you do not accord to the 

 loyal citizen ? Are you not about to assert 

 your power to take the property of the true 

 and loyal citizen by taxation, to the extent 

 needed for the public defence ? Do you stop 

 with a law demanding the property of the loyal 

 citizen ? Do you not demand his life as well, 

 and the life of the first-born of his house? 

 "Why, sir. the loyal citizen has no right or im- 

 munity which must not yield to the paramount 

 claims and wants of an imperilled country. 

 Even his house and home, the most sacred pos- 

 session of man on this side of the grave, must, 

 by the very terms of your Constitution, be 

 yielded up for the common defence : 



No soldier shall in time of peace be quartered in any 

 house without the consent of its owner; nor in time 

 of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law. 3, 

 Amendment* to the Constitution. 



' You may thus in war exercise a power 

 which in time of peace, even under the con- 

 stitution of monarchy, is denied to the sceptre 

 and the throne. The words of the great com- 

 moner of England will live forever : 



The poorest man mar in his cottage bid defiance to 

 all the powers of the Crown. It may be frail, its roof 



may shake, the wind may blow through it, the storm 

 may enter, the rain may "enter, but the king dare not 

 enter all his forces dare not cross the threshold of the 

 ruined tenement. 



"By your law this inviolable sanctity~of 

 the hearthstone, whence comes the nation's 

 strength, may be swept away, and yet you 

 cannot confiscate the property or liberate the 

 slaves of rebels in arms. Believe it not, sir, 

 though one rose from the dead to proclaim it." 



The previous question was then called for, 

 and the resolution passed : ayes, 134 ; noes, 5. 



Subsequently, on the same day, the House 

 went into Committee of the "Whole upon the 

 appropriation for certain fortifications. Mr. 

 "Wadsworth, of Kentucky, improved the oppor- 

 tunity to reply to Mr. Bingham, as follows : 

 A resolution, the most important, I undertake 

 to say, yet introduced into this House, was 

 brought in here, and a speech in interpretation 

 of the purposes for which it was introduced, 

 and as a commentary upon its text, from the 

 distinguished gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Bing- 

 ham), is delivered, and then the previous ques- 

 tion is sprung and sustained by the majority, 

 and gentlemen are asked to vote at once under 

 that commentary and under that previous ques- 

 tion, and without any answer to the most re- 

 markable speech, considering the source from 

 which it came, that was ever heard upon this 

 floor. I am never startled when the gentle- 

 man from Illinois (Mr. Lovejoy), who sits yon- 

 der, rises, upon that subject so near his heart, 

 to teach us his construction of the Constitu- 

 tion, the will of the Lord, and the duty of the 

 nation in this rebellion. Xor am I astonished 

 when the distinguished gentleman from Penn- 

 sylvania (Mr. Stevens), and who gives me the 

 honor of his attention, rises and unfolds his 

 views upon this question. * 



" But I was astonished in more respects than 

 one when my neighbor from the State of Ohio 

 delivered his views of the policy of the Govern- 

 ment, and laid down the boundaries the no 

 boundaries, rather of the power of Congress 

 to provide for the common defence and the 

 public welfare astonished in more than one 

 respect. A gentleman for whom I had the 

 highest esteem, and whose course, as I had ob- 

 1 it here, gave me the impression of a 

 patriotic man and a learned lawyer, rises here 

 and tells the Representatives of the people that 

 there are no boundaries to that power, and 

 that Congress is omnipotent to provide for the 

 common defence, and that, under that general 

 phrase of the Constitution, all other limitations 

 of the Constitution are swept away as chaff, 

 and that we may do anything in the world not 

 forbidden by ' natural right.' Sir, is not the 

 limitation itself absurd ? 



" The argumentation by which so startling a 

 proposition as that was supported was equally 

 surprising. It was asserted that trial by jury, 

 indictment, presentment, all the guards thrown 

 around the rights of the citizens of this country, 

 were swept away, because alien enemies had no 



