COXGRESS, U. S. 



355 



the constitutionality of the act before the tri- 

 bunal created by the Constitution. It would 

 seein as if the authors of the bill, conscious of 

 the unconstitutionality of the proposed meas- 

 ure, purposely framed it so that its constitu- 

 tionality could not be pronounced upon by the 

 Supreme Court. 



" The bill proposes to confiscate to the use 

 of the Government all the property, real and 

 personal, belonging to the citizens of the se- 

 ceded States who are or may be in the service 

 of the so-called Confederate States, or who in 

 any way give aid and comfort to the rebellion. 

 Vhen it is remembered that the authors of the 

 rebellion were in possession of the various 

 State governments, and used the power and 

 machinery of their respective State govern- 

 ments to compel the people to acquiesce in 

 their unconstitutional acts, and to recognize 

 their usurped authority, it will be seen that all 

 the property of each and every citizen in the 

 seceded States would be forfeited under this 

 bill. Such a sweeping proposition, so unjust 

 and cruel a measure, one better calculated to 

 continue the war forever and exhaust the 

 whole country, never has been in the history 

 of the world, and I predict never will be again, 

 proposed to any legislative assembly represent- 

 ing a civilized community. 



" By the bill all the property, except slaves, 

 is to be sold, and the proceeds put into the 

 public treasury. The slaves are to be eman- 

 cipated in violation of the Constitution and in 

 disregard of the acknowledged constitutional 

 rights of their owners and of the States where- 

 in they reside. The want of power in Con- 

 gress to interfere with slavery in the States 

 where it exists has always heretofore been ad- 

 mitted ; the most ultra abolitionists admit that 

 Congress cannot interfere with slavery in the 

 States, and because this is so they denounce the 

 Constitution as a covenant with death and a 

 league with hell/' 



Mr. Henderson, of Missouri, argued that such 

 measures would not increase the Union feeling 

 at the South or strengthen the hands of the 

 Government. He said: "I have no objection 

 to confiscating the property of the rebel, in- 

 cluding his slave ; but let it only be done when 

 guilt has been established under the forms of 

 judicial investigation. 



' I crave this, not for the sake of the traitor, 

 but for our own sake and in behalf of consti- 

 tutional liberty. If we cling to the Constitu- 

 tion, whatever is right will yet be accomplish- 

 ed ; if we depart from its just restraints no man 

 can tell the excesses of the future. In the 

 midst of storms upon ocean's wilderness, the 

 mariner's only trust is upon his unerring com- 

 pass. In the midst of a revolution so vast and 

 terrible as the present, with armies in the field 

 even greater than those with which Xapoleon 

 brought the nations of Europe to his feet, our 

 only trust is in the Constitution. In the pleni- 

 tude of power to-day, we may deny mercy to 

 others ; to-morrow wo may ourselves cling in 



vain to the horns of the altar. To-day we 

 may insolently disregard the settled convictions 

 of the people, by gross perversions of the 

 charter of their liberties ; to-morrow the dan- 

 gerous precedents may be urged to our own 

 ruin. The inventor of the guillotine, we are 

 told, was soon forced to test the merits of his 

 own invention, and Haman, by sudden change 

 of fortune, met the fate he had prepared for 

 the offending Jew. 



"Pass this bill, by which the owner is strip- 

 ped of his real and personal property wherever 

 your armies march, then enact the measure 

 proposed by the able and excellent Senator 

 from Xew York (Mr. Harris), by which he is 

 outlawed and driven from the courts of the 

 land, and I have no promises to make in re- 

 gard to future exhibitions of loyal sentiment in 

 the Southern States. Let Congress adopt the 

 course pursued by that practical statesman and 

 distinguished soldier who commands the de- 

 partment of the Mississippi, pledging the power 

 of the Government to the protection of life, 

 liberty, and property, and our battles like his 

 will be victories victories beneficial alike to 

 the victor and the vanquished, removing preju- 

 dice, reforming sentiment, and regenerating the 

 public mind.'' 



Mr. Harris, of Xew York, offered a substi- 

 tute to the bill, and expressed his views in 

 these words: "Ours should not be a revenge- 

 ful policy. On the contrary, by adopting 

 measures of mildness and mercy, our effort 

 should be to extinguish the fires of hate which 

 now burn so fiercely. Exile and the gallows 

 for leaders. Confiscation and outlawry for 

 those who have, with 'malice aforethought,' 

 conceived and planned and brought into hide- 

 ous maturity this monstrous iniquity ; but pity 

 and pardon for their deluded followers those 

 whose greatest crime has been that they have 

 loved the bones of their fathers more than they 

 loved their country, who have from their 

 childhood been educated in the heresy that their 

 first and highest allegiance is due to their 

 State, even if it requires them to take up arms 

 against the Union. Such, in my judgment, is 

 an outline of the policy which a great, mag- 

 nanimous, and Christian people should adopt in 

 dealing with conquered treason." 



Mr. Howard, of Michigan, thus argued that 

 Congress had the power to enact such a law : 

 ''I come now to the question of power, the 

 great question whether under our written 

 Constitution we as a Government have in law 

 the right to declare and enforce the forfeitures 

 and confiscations contemplated by the bill. 



" I admit that if we have not this power 

 under the Constitution, we cannot forfeit and 

 confiscate the property of rebels, real or per- 

 sonal, and that any title we might assume to 

 give would be void in law. 



"There is no clause in the instrument ex- 

 pressly conferring the power, and unless it is 

 implied as a means of carrying into execution 

 some one of the powers expressly granted and 



