CONGRESS, U. S. 



269 



to consider what would be the practical effect 

 of such an arrangement of our army." 



Mr. Porter, of Indiana, offered the following 

 amendment : 



But no person of African descent shall be admitted 

 as a private or officer of any regiment in which white 

 men are in the ranks, nor shall any person of African 

 descent, in any case, be placed in command of white 

 soldiers. 



Mr. Wickliffe, of Kentucky, opposed the bill 

 with great vigor. He said : " What have we 

 heard in this hall since this bill has been re- 

 ported? The gentleman from Pennsylvania 

 (Mr. Stevens), who is the leader of the Aboli- 

 tion party in this House, and who was the origi- 

 nator of this project, and who has nursed it 

 with the fondness for a sickly and only child, 

 one for whose fate he cannot bat fear, tells us, 

 and in his place proclaims to the South, that 

 we, with a white population in Pennsylvania 

 and New York alone of a million and a half 

 more than there are whites in the whole eleven 

 seceded States of the South, and eight millions 

 in the fifteen States more than the whole white, 

 population of the eleven States that with all 

 this difference, this country cannot conquer 

 and suppress this rebellion, unless ho can em- 

 ploy the negro slave, and put Sambo, or some 

 other man meaner than Sambo, in command. 

 Great God ! Is that so ? Are you, gentlemen 

 upon the other side of the House, prepared to 

 indorse this statement of the chairman of the 

 Committee of "Ways and Means, and proclaim 

 to the world that our States, with all their re- 

 sources of population and physical power, with 

 such resources of means for carrying on the 

 war, with a million soldiers now in the field, 

 still find it necessary at this time to blacken our 

 record for the first time, by adopting into the 

 army of the United States the African slave, 

 and making him the equal and associate, by 

 legislation, of the gallant soldier who may 

 have distinguished himself in many a hard- 

 fought battle ; and that a captain Sambo and 

 captain white somebody, and colonel Sambo 

 and colonel white somebody must stand side 

 by side, day after day, on terms of perfect 

 equality?" 



Mr. Dunn, of Indiana, was in favor of these 

 troops, urging as follows: "I have another 

 object in the employment of these men, and I 

 am willing here to avow it. It is this : we 

 have not only to conquer this rebel country, 

 but we have to hold it after it is conquered. 

 We have for a time to hold it by force of arms ; 

 and the question arises whether we shall send 

 our men of the North there to perish in South- 

 ern swamps and sickly localities, or whether 

 we shall make use of that population which, 

 from their peculiar physical adaptation, can 

 brave the malaria of that climate like alliga- 

 tors? If they are ignorant in the use of arms, 

 instruct them in that use. Teach their ' hands 

 to war, and their fingers to fight.' Are they 

 so brutalized that they will not fight for their 

 own liberty ? Shall we receive them and edu- 



cate them to arms for this purpose, or shall we 

 send our own sons there? " 



Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky, took the floor 

 in opposition to the bill, saying : " You pro- 

 pose by this bill to raise a force of one hun- 

 dred and fifty thousand slaves as soldiers. You 

 include, to be sure, and permit to be enlisted, 

 free men of color. How, in a general view 

 of the subject, can you approve of it? What 

 is your reason for it? Have you any de- 

 ficiency of numbers in your army? Have 

 your own constituents shrunk from this con- 

 test ? You say it is a contest for freedom, 

 a contest for liberty ; and shall we, sir, stig- 

 matize our constituents, our brothers, the white 

 free-born men of this land, as being so degene- 

 rate as to shrink from this contest, and so com- 

 pel you to appeal to your own black men to 

 defend the liberties of the white man ? 



" What a perversion of all feeling to make 

 such an appeal ! There is no want of patriot- 

 ism, no want of courage upon the part of the 

 free white men in this country. Have they 

 shown any such want ? In a war that has not 

 lasted more than eighteen months, you have 

 now in the field, or marching for the field, or 

 in preparation for the field, one million of 

 white men, who, with a few exceptions, have 

 voluntarily become soldiers. Where has the 

 world exhibited such an example of universal 

 patriotism and universal devotion to country ? 

 Yet in the face of all this, gentlemen here pro- 

 pose to raise one hundred and fifty thousand 

 Americans of African descent. You stigmatize 

 them, while you invite them into the field. 

 The bill is an indelible stigma upon their char- 

 acter. You employ them as soldiers to fight 

 your battle, but give them only one half pay, 

 and exclude them from command to a great 

 extent. You put a stigma upon them, while 

 you call them into the field, and while you 

 say they are worthy to be the defenders of 

 the liberties of this country. Your own sol- 

 diers are stigmatized by your own hands. Is 

 this right ; or is it anything else, in view of 

 all this, but a portion of that abolition policy 

 which would take every slave from the mas- 

 ter? That must be the object. They are 

 not necessary for the putting down of this 

 rebellion. They are not worthy of being called 

 to the aid of those who aspire to be considered 

 free-born men. 



" All nations which have held slaves have 

 been found to reject their services for military 

 purposes in time of war. My learned friend 

 from Ohio (Mr. Shellabarger,) who the other 

 day was comparing these rebels to Catiline, 

 is well enough acquainted with his history, 

 and can bear testimony that he, that bold 

 conspirator, had Roman pride enough left in 

 the midst of his vices to reject the assistance, 

 even in his extremest hour of peril, of slaves 

 and gladiators, although they were white slaves, 

 men who had been born free, men who had 

 been made captives in war, and reduced by 

 the inhuman policy of that age to the con- 



