356 



CONGRESS, U. S. 



enumerated, or some other power not so ex- 

 pressed and enumerated, but nevertheless ' vest- 

 ed (to use the terms of the instrument) by 

 this Constitution in the Government of the 

 United States, or in any department thereof,' 

 we are unable to exercise it. I need not say 

 to candid and reflecting men that the dangers 

 arising from too broad an interpretation of the 

 Constitution are by no means less to be dread- 

 ed and avoided than those proceeding from one 

 too narrow and illiberal. The instrument 

 must be construed with reference to the state 

 of things existing at its formation, and the 

 purposes had in- view by its framers. Those 

 purposes are plainly announced in the compre- 

 hensive language of the preamble, and no one 

 can misunderstand them. They were ' to form 

 a more perfect union, establish justice, insure 

 domestic tranquillity, provide for the common 

 defence, promote the general welfare, and se- 

 cure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and 

 our posterity.' The insuring of domestic tran- 

 quillity is thus expressly indicated as one of the 

 prominents objects of the Constitution, and 

 nothing can be plainer than that it means, not 

 mere family or neighborhood tranquillity, not 

 the tranquillity of the fireside, but the internal 

 tranquillity of the nation as a nation, and of 

 the States as political bodies and constituent 

 parts of the nation. It was political tranquil- 

 lity, as opposed to political disturbance, as op- 

 posed to anarchical and insurrectionary move- 

 ments of classes, districts, or communities, 

 tending to disturb the internal peace of the 

 nation, and to overthrow law and order. 



" Such is one of the ends for which the Con- 

 stitution was made an important end ; one 

 without which the Government itself would 

 have been but vanity and vexation of spirit, and 

 the liberties it was to secure a chimera." 



Mr. Davis, of Kentucky, in opposition to the 

 bill, said : " It will be observed from the read- 

 ing of the bill that it creates two classes of 

 persons whose property shall be forfeited. 

 One class is composed of those who are out of 

 the United States, or who are within the States 

 now in rebellion, and in such position that the 

 ordinary process of the courts cannot be served 

 upon them. It then provides by different 

 modes of proceeding for all that class of persons 

 in arms in the rebellion, or giving it aid and 

 comfort, who can be found within the loyal 

 States, or in such position in the United States 

 that the ordinary process of law can be served 

 upon them. The white population of the dis- 

 loyal States amounts to 5,450,831. The slaves 

 in the same States amount to a fraction above 

 the number of 3,500,000. By the last census, 

 there are 3,953,587 slaves in the United States. 

 There are 3,500,000 in the disloyal States in 

 the States that have seceded and about 450,- 



000 in the States that are yet loyal, including 

 the western portion of the State of Virginia. 



1 assume that there are as many disloyal men 

 in the loyal States as there are loyal men in the 

 seceding States ; and I have no doubt that the 



number of disloyal men in the loyal States is 

 larger than the number of the Union men in 

 the seceding States. The result, then, is, that 

 the bill takes from a number of white people 

 equivalent to the entire white population of the 

 loyal Slave States a slave population equivalent 

 to the entire slave population of the disloyal 

 States. It not only takes their slave property, 

 but it takes all the property that they own. 

 What is the aggregate amount of the property 

 of the disloyal States, according to the census 

 tables? It is $6,792,585,742 in amount. The 

 property of the loyal Slave States amounts to 

 $1,983,702,055 ; so thai the aggregate amount 

 of property in the Southern States that is sub- 

 ject to be acted upon by the provisions of this 

 bill, if it becomes a law, will affect upward 

 of six millions of people, and will deprive them 

 of property of the value of $4,808,888,687 

 nearly five thousand millions of dollars. Now, 

 sir, I ask if this measure in its proportions is 

 not as gigantic as the insurrection and the war 

 itself? Was there ever in any country that 

 God's sun ever beamed upon a legislative meas- 

 ure involving such an amount of property, and 

 such numbers of property holders? 



" I will take another view of this subject. 

 The surplus production of the States that have 

 seceded, amounts annually to between five 

 hundred and six hundred millions of dollars. 

 Of this large surplus, at least one hundred and 

 fifty millions are distributed to the loyal and 

 Free States for cereal grains, for meats, for 

 stock, for mules, horses, and manufactured 

 articles of various kinds. My own State of 

 Kentucky finds a market annually in the South- 

 ern States, growing out of the productions of 

 their slave labor, to the amount of eight or ten 

 millions of dollars, and the Free States in the 

 same market find a sale for their articles of 

 natural or artificial productions to the amount 

 of at least one hundred and fifty millions of 

 dollars. Look at the great grain-growing re- 

 gions of the West, the Egypt of America in 

 fertility and production. Where do they find 

 their principal markets for their corn and their 

 meats? Where do Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, 

 Kentucky, and every other portion of the Unit- 

 ed States that produces and sells stock find a 

 market for their stock ? They find it in the 

 same sunny South, producing cotton and sugar. 

 Where do Chicago, Cincinnati, and the other 

 manufacturing points of plows, agricultural 

 implements, and all the machinery by which 

 crops are produced and harvested, find their 

 market for the sale of their manufactured ar- 

 ticles ? It is in the South. Where does New 

 England, where does Massachusetts, find the 

 principal market for her boots and her shoes, 

 her coarse woollens, her coarse cottons, and her 

 ice even? It is in the South. 



"I intend to maintain and shall endeavor to 

 show that this great and enriching market for 

 the loyal and Free States will be cut off by this 

 iniquitous measure for I so denominate it if 

 it should become a law. The great devotees 



