366 



CONGKESS, U. 8. 



for the crime of the owner. The disguise of 

 the proceeding in rem is too thin and trans- 

 parent. No lawyer, no man of common sense 

 will be deceived by it. The proceeding in spir- 

 it, in substance, and effect, is the punishment 

 of treason by the forfeiture of a man's entire 

 estate, real and personal, without trial by jury, 

 and in utter disregard of the provision of the 

 Constitution which limits the forfeiture for 

 treason to the life of the person attainted. 

 (Article 3, section 3). 



"Was there ever a bolder contrivance to get 

 around the plainest and most sacred provisions 

 of the Constitution than this attempt to get a 

 man's farm, his cattle and fodder, his plough, 

 spade, and hoe into a maritime court and try 

 them by the law of prize ? "With all respect 

 for my excellent friends upon the committee, 

 such a proposition ' shocks our common sense ' 

 as well as our sense of justice and right. You 

 make the plea of necessity, and necessity is the 

 mother of invention ; but do you expect to sat- 

 isfy sensible men, when reason resumes its 

 sway, that under a Constitution which defines 

 treason to consist in levying war against the 

 United States, which will not suffer the traitor 

 to be condemned except by the judgment of his 

 peers, and when condemned will not forfeit his 

 estate except during his life, you can, by this 

 proceeding in rem, without indictment, with- 

 out trial by jury, without the proof of two wit- 

 nesses (article 3, section 3), for treason, for the 

 act of levying war, deprive him of all his es- 

 tate, real and personal, for life and in fee? 

 Nay, more; and that, after he has thus been 

 punished, without trial by jury, and by the loss 

 of his whole estate, you can, for the same act 

 of levying war, try him and hang him? To 

 suggest a doubt whether, after all, this is plain 

 sailing under the flag of the Constitution, is to 

 have too nice constitutional scruples ! " 



After examining the details of the confisca- 

 tion and emancipation bills, Mr. Thomas pro- 

 ceeded thus : " That the bills before the House 

 are in violation of the law of nations and of 

 the Constitution I cannot I say it with all def- 

 erence to others I cannot entertain a doubt. 

 My path of duty is plain. The duty of obedi- 

 ence to that Constitution was never more im- 

 perative than now. I am not disposed to deny 

 that I have for it a superstitious reverence. I 

 have ' worshipped it from my forefathers.' In 

 the school of rigid discipline by which we were 

 prepared for it, in the struggles out of which 

 it was born, the seven years of bitter conflict, 

 and the seven darker years in which that con- 

 flict seemed to be fruitless of good, in the wis- 

 dom with which it was constructed and first 

 administered and set in motion, in the benefi- 

 cent Government it has secured for more than 

 two generations, in the blessed influences it has 

 exerted upon the cause of freedom and hu- 

 manity the world over, I cannot fail to recog- 

 nize the hand of a guiding and loving Provi- 

 dence. But not for the blessed memories of 

 the past only do I cling to it. He must be 



blinded with excess of light, or with the want 

 of it, who does not see that to this nation, 

 trembling on the verge of dissolution, it is the 

 only possible bond of unity. With this con- 

 viction wrought into the very texture of my 

 being, I believe I can appreciate this conflict, 

 can understand the necessity of using all the 

 powers given by the Constitution for the sup- 

 pression of this rebellion. They are, as I be- 

 lieve, and as the progress of our arms attests, 

 ample for the purpose. I do not, therefore, 

 see the wisdom of violating or impairing the 

 Constitution in the effort to save it, or of pass- 

 ing from the pestilent heresy of State secession 

 to the equally fatal one of State suicide. The 

 fruits of the first are anarchy and perpetual 

 border war ; of the second the growth of mili- 

 tary power, the loss of the centrifugal force of 

 the States, the merging of the States in the 

 central Government ; a republic in name and 

 form, in substance and effect a despotism." 



Subsequently the bill before the House was 

 passed, and sent to the Senate. It came up be- 

 fore that body on the 25th of June. 



Matters had now reached a crisis in the 

 Senate. A few of its members, determined, if 

 possible, to secure the passage of all such 

 measures as would extinguish slavery, conceiv- 

 ing that they had now reached the great and 

 crowning act to be adopted. In the heat of 

 their zeal, they had overlooked the Constitu- 

 tion and the courtesy due to the halting, con- 

 scientious convictions of more cool and con- 

 siderate members. The result of the struggle 

 which ensued was such as to convince these 

 extreme Senators that the Senate was not yet 

 ripe for, or 'educated up to' a compliance with 

 their wishes. 



Mr. Browning, of Illinois, took the floor. 

 The special order was this bill from the House, 

 and a substitute which had been moved. He 

 said : " I deny and I defy, though I do not like 

 to use that word, any man to point to one 

 single word or letter in the Constitution which 

 confers upon Congress any power to do any 

 act in the exigency of war which it cannot do in 

 times of peace. There, sir, is where the heresy 

 lies. I give .the Senator (Mr. Sumner's) own 

 words, and while I desire to treat him with 

 every possible respect, and have yielded to him 

 repeatedly a thing the Senator rarely does for 

 the accommodation of anybody I feel it in- 

 cumbent upon me, as an American citizen, to 

 say nothing of my position as a Senator, to 

 enter my most earnest protest against this 

 dangerous and revolutionary heresy that the 

 powers of Congress are enlarged and amplified 

 by a state of war. It overthrows the Govern- 

 ment and accomplishes here in this Chamber 

 what the rebels have not accomplished, and 

 never can accomplish. 



" Such, sir, are the extremities to which the 

 Senator is driven, the inconsistencies in which 

 he is involved, by his effort to compass an ob- 

 ject which, in my humble judgment, is not only 

 unconstitutional, but which, if successful, will 



