CONGEESS, UNITED STATES. 



209 



If so, why do we raise and send mighty hosts to 

 enforce, by the sword, the bayonet, and the 

 cannon, obedience and subjugation to that Con- 

 stitution and to those laws ? If the people of 

 the so-called seceded States are not citizens in 

 the Union, why are our courts engaged, under 

 an act of Congress, in confiscating their estates 

 for acts of treason against their Government? 

 Treason implies citizenship ; it cannot be com- 

 mitted by an alien or an enemy. If those States 

 are "not out of the Union in theory of law, and 

 if their people owe the allegiance to the Gov- 

 ernment of the United States which is claimed 

 of them, then clearly those States are among 

 the number of States three-fourths of whom 

 must unite their voices upon any proposition to 

 amend their Constitution. 



" That they are not so legally in the Union, 

 and so to be regarded as States with a control- 

 ling portion of their people in rebellion, is a 

 new and recently assumed proposition, and at 

 war with every executive manifesto, proclama- 

 tion, and declaration from the first act of seces- 

 sion till now. From the commencement of 

 what every one has called rebellion the people 

 of the Federal States, of all parties, and without 

 distinction, have ageed upon the common idea 

 and doctrine that ordinances of secession are 

 null and void ; that the sovereignty of the Con- 

 stitution was unalterably fixed upon all the 

 people of the realm, and on that faith, and that 

 only, the Union-loving patriotism of the coun- 

 try has responded to all calls made by the mili- 

 tary administration, and allowed the blood of 

 the nation to be freely poured out and expended, 

 and a grievous national debt to be incurred. 

 Are we now to see the predominating party, 

 holding these great issues in its hands, change 

 front upon this vital question? If so, then 

 manifestly, with the policy of the nation in 

 their hands, there is no hope of a restoration 

 of the Union. A change in our public councils 

 must occur, or we shall be stripped of the birth- 

 right which we most valued. 



"But were the proposed action practicable 

 in a legal point of view, I should shrink from 

 the policy as putting us upon untenable ground, 

 and making us to assume the character of ag- 

 gressors while we profess to be fighting against 

 and punishing aggression we, who ought in 

 this terrible business to have no stain upon our 

 hands. Undoubtedly the rebellion is a great 

 wrong ; but it would certainly be meeting wrong 

 with wrong to deny them their original con- 

 stitutional rights in the Union when they shall 

 have returned to it. Whoever wishes for their 

 return should openly condemn all such policy. 

 Whatever moral question may bo involved in 

 the subject of negro slavery in any State of the 

 original Confederacy, is a question for determi- 

 nation and settlement only by the people of 

 such State. To abandonor maintain the insti- 

 tution according to the sense, will, and policy 

 of the people of such local sovereignty, was an 

 undisputed right before and at the time of their 

 entering into the Federal Union; and the great 

 VOL. T. 14 A. 



compact of confederation, the Constitution of 

 the United States, gave them no new right in 

 that respect, but only guaranteed to them the 

 undisturbed enjoyment of a preexisting right, 

 with such full recognition of the same through- 

 out the country as should enable them safely to 

 assert their right of property in the labor of 

 slaves, even in the recapture of fugitives from 

 their service in any State. By the amendment 

 it is proposed to crush out a sovereign right 

 and power which never was placed within the 

 jurisdiction of any authority except the local 

 sovereignty by whose laws it exists. Such is 

 the main principle of the Government framed 

 by Washington and his compeers. It cannot 

 now be changed except by revolution. 



" The success of this proposition would dash 

 the cup of hope from the lips of a majority of 

 the people of all the adhering States. It is the 

 desire of a great majority of our people to re- 

 construct the Union upon its old basis. Upon 

 that basis compromise can be made and the 

 war honorably closed ; but upon no other or 

 more restricted plan can it be done. Subjuga- 

 tion of the South, and sway over it, can be 

 accomplished only by standing armies. We 

 cannot dictate in any other way the abandon- 

 ment of their constitutional and reserved rights. 

 Can we afford the blood, the expense, the gen- 

 eral suffering, the lack of all substantial success, 

 which must attend upon such policy ? " 



Mr. Rogers, of New Jersey, on the same side, 

 said : " If the position in reference to the 

 amendment of the Constitution taken by gen- 

 tlemen on the other side of the House be true, 

 then the other relations of the States, the mari- 

 tal rights, the rights of husband and wife, of 

 parent and child, of master and servants, the 

 right of licensing hotels, the right of making 

 private contracts, the rights of courts, the man- 

 ner in which they shall obtain evidence, the 

 allowance of parties to be witnesses, the juris- 

 diction and powers of State courts, the rights 

 of suffrage for State officers, constitutions of 

 States, and all the rights which now belong to 

 the States, upon the same principle may be in- 

 terfered with, abolished, and annulled. Those 

 rights, like those connected with the institution 

 of slavery, belong solely and exclusively to the 

 jurisdiction of the States, and were never dele- 

 gated to the General Government. Does any 

 man here believe that Congress, by a constitu- 

 tional amendment, can so f^r alter the organic 

 law of the land as to interfere with marital re- 

 lations in the States ; interfere with the manner 

 in which evidence shall be given ; take away 

 the constitutional provision that a man shall 

 enjoy property by descent in certain ways de- 

 fined by the organic law of a State, and blot all 

 State laws out of existence? I ask, do gentle- 

 men here believe that by constitutional amend- 

 ment the General Government would have a 

 right to do away with all those express and re- 

 served rights of the States, and which were 

 never delegated to that General Government, 

 and never constituted a part of the jurisdiction 



