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CONGKESS, UNITED STATES. 



of their infuriated masters to wreak on them 

 their vengeance, and cruelty ? Sir, they will 

 not do it." 



Mr. Johnson, of Maryland, followed in oppo- 

 sition to the resolution, saying : " I rise now 

 very briefly to state why it is that I am unable 

 to vote for this resolution. It is not because 

 perhaps no member of the Senate feels more 

 strongly in that regard than I do it is not be- 

 cause I desire to see the wives and children, 

 where there are wives and children, of the 

 black men who have enlisted in the army re- 

 main in the condition of slavery, but because I 

 am fully under the impression (and an impres- 

 sion so strongly felt that I am sure no argument 

 will be sufficient to induce me to change it) that 

 we have no authority to pass a resolution of 

 this nature. 



" The honorable member from Massachusetts, 

 in his speech a day or two ago, placed it upon 

 the ground of necessity. The rebellion, he 

 said, was to be suppressed. In that, I believe, 

 we are all agreed. It became necessary for 

 that purpose to call into the armies of the United 

 States the negroes. As to the power to call 

 them into the military service of the United 

 States I never had any doubt ; and I endeav- 

 ored to lay before the Senate on a former oc- 

 casion the reason why I supposed there existed 

 no doubt of the authority of Congress to use 

 these men as a means of warfare. But I found 

 it in the authority to raise armies, and in the 

 double character in which, under the Constitu- 

 tion, the negro slave, or the negro man who is 

 not a slave, stands toward the United States. 

 According to my view, whether he was slave or 

 free he held the relation of citizen, owing an alle- 

 giance to the United States ; and owing an al- 

 legiance to the United States, was subject to the 

 call of the United States when the United 

 States should think proper to call him to their 

 defence, either in time of foreign war or in time 

 of civil war ; that in relation to the negro slave, 

 although he stood in the condition of property, 

 and was, in the view of the Constitution of the 

 United States, and of the States where the insti- 

 tution exists, property, to the extent that it was 

 made property by the laws of the State in which 

 he might be, yet he also stood in the relation of 

 person, and was liable to be called upon to con- 

 stitute a part of the army of the United States. 



"The honorable member from Massachusetts, 

 however, said that we are all agreed in think- 

 ing that when a negro slave was called into the 

 service of the United States he became thereby 

 free. If he is under the impression that I con- 

 cur in that opinion he is mistaken. "What I 

 said was that, having called him into the ser- 

 vice of the United States, as I supposed we had 

 a right to do, it would become the duty of the 

 United States to have him free, but to have him 

 free in a constitutional and legal way ; to pay 

 for him whatever his services might be worth ; 

 to pay for him for those services to the master ; 

 or to pass an amendment to the Constitution 

 declaring him free. 



"But even if it was true, Mr. President, that 

 the power under the Constitution exists to make 

 a negro slave a free man by calling him into the 

 armies of the United States, it would be a very 

 illogical inference, in my view, to suppose that 

 thereby his wife and his children became free, 

 or that thereby his wife and his children could 

 be declared free by a simple act of Congress ; 

 and I was about to say that I was a little 

 amused, considering what we have heard in the 

 past, at the grounds upon which the opposite 

 view is placed by some of the Senators of the 

 other side. One of them says, and the resolu- 

 tion upon its face goes to that extent in part, 

 that it will encourage enlistments. Another, 

 the honorable member from New Hampshire, has 

 told us that it will wonderfully increase the ef- 

 ficiency of this description of force. Now in 

 relation to the first, I think I cannot be mistak- 

 en in saying that those who advocated the 

 bringing into the military service the negro 

 slave said, that once authorize it, and not only 

 would all the slaves be willing to come to the 

 standard of the United States, but that thou- 

 sands and thousands and hundreds of thousands 

 of white men in the Eastern States would be 

 seen flocking the highways, rushing to the cap- 

 ital of the United States for that purpose. In 

 the language of an editor who possesses, and 

 justly possesses, as I think, such a controlling 

 influence over the party to which he belongs, 

 three hundred thousand men would at once be 

 seen coming to the standard of the United 

 States, and the rebellion would at once be put 

 down. But I have not heard from the War 

 Department, the Senate certainly has not heard 

 officially, that there has been any difficulty in 

 getting black soldiers. Certainly there was 

 none in my State. There was none in my 

 State, because two modes were resorted to. I 

 will not stop to inquire whether both were con- 

 stitutional or legal. The one-was voluntary en- 

 listment, and as that was supposed to fail to a 

 certain extent, it was virtually compulsory en- 

 listment ; and they got just as many as they 

 wanted. There is hardly a black man now who 

 was a slave at the breaking out of this war, who 

 was living in Maryland at the time when you 

 authorized the enlistment of black soldiers, 

 capable of bearing arms, who has not been 

 placed in the army of the United States either 

 by voluntary enlistment or by compulsory en- 

 listment. 



"Then, as to their efficiency, I have heard 

 some of my friends on this floor say I hoped 

 then that they were right, and I hope still that 

 they are right, and the whole press that has 

 been advocating the employment of this class 

 of persons in tlie\anny of the United States 

 have said the same thing that among the most 

 gallant in the army during the battles in which 

 they were engaged were black soldiers ; and 

 yet their wives and their children were not free 

 by any law then passed. Does my honorable 

 friend from New Hampshire wish to make them 

 more gallant than gallant, more efficient than 



