352 



CONGKESS, U. S. 



ands reenacted within the borders of the South- 

 ern States. It seems to me to be entirely in- 

 consistent with the safety of those communities 

 that such a large body of freed slaves should be 

 kept there uncontrolled and unrestrained ex- 

 cept by the power which may exist within those 

 States." 



Mr. McDougall, of California, said : " Sir, as 

 far as I am able to read of the wisdom taught 

 by the history and counsellings of the past, the 

 measure now proposed can never secure peace. 

 The policy involved in it will continue an an- 

 gry, remorseless, relentless war, which, if it do 

 not involve subjugation, will involve extirpation. 

 I fear that the country, and not only the coun- 

 try but the Senate have been led wild with an- 

 ger ; that they have caught some of the angry 

 spirit of their adversaries, and instead of taking 

 lessons from the great states of the world, and 

 the great teachers of ancient and modern times, 

 have taken their advice from Kichmond and 

 Montgomery." 



Mr. Cowan, of Pennsylvania, followed, in op- 

 position to the bill, saying: "Mr. President, I 

 agree with the honorable Senator from Cali- 

 fornia, and look upon the bill now under con- 

 sideration as the most important, by far, upon 

 our calendar, involving the gravest questions 

 and most momentous issues. If it passes, I 

 think it will be the great historic event of the 

 times times which are as fruitful of events as 

 any the world has ever witnessed. Upon the 

 disposition we may make of it, perhaps the fate 

 of the American Eepublic may depend ; and no 

 one surely can overrate the magnitude of any- 

 thing which may be attended with such conse- 

 quences. 



" We are standing now squarely face to face 

 with questions of most pregnant significance. 

 Shall we stand or fall by the Constitution, or 

 shall we leave it and adventure ourselves upon 

 the wide sea of revolution ? Shall we attempt 

 to liberate the slaves of the people of the rebel- 

 lious States, or shall we leave them to regulate 

 their domestic institutions the same as before 

 the rebellion? Shall we go back to the doc- 

 trine of forfeitures which marked the middle 

 ages, and introduce feuds which intervening 

 centuries have not yet sufficed to quiet ? These 

 are great questions, and they are in this bill, 

 every one of them. If, for one moment, we can 

 suppose the scheme consummated which it con- 

 templates, we shall have the following results : 



"I suppose it is reasonable and moderate to 

 estimate the number of people engaged in the 

 rebellion to be equal to one-half of the whole 

 white population of the confederate States say 

 four millions. If so, this bill proposes, at a 

 single stroke, to strip all this vast number of 

 people of all their property, real, personal, and 

 mixed, of every kind whatsoever, and reduce 

 them at once to absolute poverty; and that, 

 too, at a time when we are at war with them, 

 when they have arms in their hands, with four 

 hundred thousand of them in the field oppos- 

 ing us desperately. 



" Now, sir, it does seem to me that if there 

 was anything in the world calculated to make 

 that four millions of people and their four hun- 

 dred thousand soldiers in the field now and 

 forever hostile to us and our Government, it 

 would be the promulgation of a law such as 

 this. "Will they yield to us sooner in view of 

 such a result to them ? "What would we be 

 likely to do if they were to threaten us with a 

 similar law ? "Would we ever, under any cir- 

 cumstances, yield on terms like those ? I need 

 hardly ask that question to men descended from 

 sires who refused to pay the tax on teas, and 

 from grandsires who rose in rebellion and over- 

 turned a monarchy rather than pay twenty 

 shillings ship money. 



" Again : the forfeitures of "William the Con- 

 queror, decreed upon the property of the Sax- 

 ons who followed Harold to the field of Hast- 

 ings, sink into utter insignificance compared 

 with those enacted in the bill before us. The 

 proud Norman and his rapacious barons were 

 content with the castles and fiefs of the Saxon 

 leaders whom they had overcome ; but they did 

 not dare to strip the people, or, indeed, even 

 much to increase their burdens. They knew, 

 victorious and all-powerful as they were, that 

 would have involved them in a new and far 

 more dangerous struggle, in which every peas- 

 ant would have been a principal combatant, 

 with his all at stake. 



" Neither did the English conquerors of Ire- 

 land, in their long series of forfeitures and con- 

 fiscations, from the time of Strongbow down to 

 the rebellion of 1798, ever, at any time, ven- 

 ture upon such a sweeping measure as this ; 

 their attainders exhausted themselves upon the 

 Irish nobility, and they never were rash enough 

 to strip the Irish people. I do not know the 

 value of the property forfeited by this bill ; I 

 cannot even approximate it, except to say that 

 it is enormous to be computed by billions. 

 But, sir, the bill goes further, and forfeits a vast 

 amount of property of the rebels which, when 

 forfeited, cannot be confiscated or put into the 

 coffers of the conquerors I mean their property 

 in negro slaves. 



" Now, I do not mean to stop here to discuss 

 their right to this species of property; it is 

 enough for me to say that all the people of the 

 Slave States, loyal and rebellious, seem to agree 

 as to this with a wonderful unanimity, and to 

 resent with an excessive sensibility any inter- 

 ference with it whatever. And, although in 

 the bitterness of the feuds engendered by the 

 civil war now raging among them, the loyalists 

 there would be glad to join in inflicting upon 

 the rebels even the severest punishments, yet 

 this one they abhor and refuse, because they 

 aver that it would be equally injurious to them 

 as to their enemies; and it makes no manner 

 of difference whether that view is correct or 

 not, if they believe it and this their represent- 

 atives can tell us. What I mean to say is, that 

 this bill would liberate, perhaps, three millions 

 of slaves ; surely the most stupendous stroke 



