CONGRESS, U. S. 



289 



ourselves, be patriots merely, and not hesitate 

 or falter about undoing what we have already 

 done, whenever we discover that its operation 

 and effect has been different from what we an- 

 ticipated. Have not your anticipations failed 

 in regard to the measures you have heretofore 

 adopted ? Have not your acts been such as to 

 make the people believe that whatever may 

 have been the principles upon which this war 

 was begun, it is now used for the overthrow 

 of slavery. As candid men, is not that the ob- 

 ject of the war? 



"There is. a little tweedledum and tweedle- 

 dee about this matter. One says the war is 

 not to overthrow slavery it is to save the 

 Union. Another says, if you do not destroy 

 slavery, the Union is worth nothing. The ar- 

 gument here is exactly the argument of the 

 Jesuit fix your mind and attention upon one 

 object which you think a lawful one, and then 

 all the means are lawful. One object is the 

 abolition of slavery ; but that is not lawful. 

 No, says one, but the salvation of the Union is 

 constitutional. Direct your attention to that, 

 and you may abolish slavery. This is the doc- 

 trine which makes the end justify the means. 

 One says that abolition is his object, and that 

 he goes for it because abolition is necessary for 

 the salvation of the Union. Have we found it 

 so ? Has it conduced in any way to save the 

 Union? Will your three hundred thousand 

 black men tend to save the Union ? Have you 

 brought them out as soldiers ? We know bet- 

 ter. They are no soldiers, and you cannot dur- 

 ing this war make soldiers of them. I put out 

 of sight the question as to their capacity as a 

 military people, or what they may become by a 

 course of education; but you cannot in two, 

 three, or ten years, make efficient soldiers of 

 them. 



" Again : will your white soldiers serve with 

 them ? The whole country suspects that this is 

 an Abolition movement. You do not know 

 what to do Avith the runaway negroes which 

 infest you, and are calling on you for the bread 

 which they left behind when they left their 

 homes and families. You do not know what 

 to do with them. You can have some color for 

 feeding them or for setting them free, but when 

 you hold out the pretence that you mean to 

 make soldiers of them, it is all a delusion. It is 

 a pretence for abolitionism. It is a pretence for 

 placing negroes on an equality with your own 

 white soldiers. It will either raise to an equality 

 with white soldiers those whom they regard as 

 an inferior race, or else it will level them down 

 to an equality with negroes. That is the whole 

 effect of it. 



" I do not know that I differ with my honor- 

 able friend from Massachusetts (Mr. Thomas) 

 as to the principles which he advocates, that 

 this Government has a right to the employ- 

 ment of all the force it can command in this 

 exigency and peril. I will not say that this 

 bill, so far as regards the enrollment of the men 

 liable to military duty in the country, and sub- 

 VOL. in. 19 A 



jecting them to be called out for military ser- 

 vice, does not come within the power given to 

 Congress to raise and support armies. I will 

 not contest that question with him here, at any 

 rate. But I do not think that the Constitution 

 intended at all, as my friend from Massachu- 

 setts seems to think, that Congress should have 

 the power of enlisting negroes. They were 

 regarded as property, and it was not intended 

 that a man's property should be taken from 

 him. They fall within another category. The 

 gentleman says they may be employed if it be 

 necessary to save the republic. He postpones 

 the employment of negro soldiers until the last. 

 I differ with him in this. I believe that that time 

 has not only not come, but that it never can 

 come. It never can be expedient in this coun- 

 try to raise an army of negroes so long as we re- 

 main of the proud free race to which we belong. 

 Instead of being a source of power, the negro 

 in our army would be a source of weakness and 

 discontent, and his presence would drive from 

 the field men a thousand times more capable 

 of defending the country than he himself can 

 be made. The principle for which the gentle- 

 man contends, therefore, can never apply here ; 

 nor does he apply it. I want to show that it 

 has no application. A negro army is a weak- 

 ness to your country. It unnerves the white 

 man's hand. It unnerves the white man's heart. 

 White men will not fight by the side of ne- 

 groes." 



Mr. Vallandigham, of Ohio, offered the fol- 

 lowing amendment : 



Strike out of section twenty-fire, in line ten, after 

 the word " law," the words, " such persons shall be 

 subject to summary arrest by_ the provost-marshal, and 

 shall be delivered to the civil authorities," and insert 

 instead thereof as follows : 



Every person so offending shall be subject to arrest 

 upon warrant issued from some civil officer or court of 

 competent jurisdiction, upon oath or affirmation speci- 

 fying the offence, and upon trial and conviction. 



It was rejected. Yeas, 57; nays, 101. 



Mr. Cox, of Ohio, moved to amend, by in- 

 serting the word " white" in the first line after 

 the word " able bodied." It was rejected. Yeas, 

 52 ; nays, 85. 



Some amendments were made to the bill, 

 and it was passed by the following vote : 



YEAS Messrs. Aldrich, Alley, Arnold, Ashley, Bab- 

 bitt, Bailey, Baker, Baxter, Beaman, Bingham, Jacob 

 B. Blair, Samuel S. Blair, Blake, William G. Brown, 

 Buffinton, Calvert, Campbell, Casey, Chamberlain, 

 Clark, Colfax, Frederick A. Conkling, Roscoe Conkling, 

 Crisfield, Cutler, Davis, Dawes, Delano, Diven, Dunn, 

 Edgerton, Edwards, Eliot, Ely, Fenton, Samuel C. Fes- 

 senden, Thomas A. D. Fessenden, Fisher, Flanders, 

 Franchot, Frank, Gooch, Goodwin, Granger, Gurley, 

 Hahn, Haight, Hale, Harrison, Hickman, Hooper, Hor- 

 ton, Hutchins, Julian, Kelley, Francis W. Kellogg, 

 William Kellogg, Killinger, Lansing, Leary, Lehman, 

 Loomis, Lovejoy, Low, Mclndoe, McKean, McKnight, 

 McPherson, Marston, Maynard, Mitchell, Moprhead, 

 Anson P. Morrill, Justin S. Morrill, Nixon, Olin, Pat- 

 ton, Timothy G. Phelps, Pike, Pomeroy, Porter, Alex- 

 ander H. Rice, John H. Rice, Riddle, Edward H. Rol- 

 lins, Sargeant, Sedgwick, Segar, Shanks, Sheffield, 

 Shellabarger, Sherman, Sloan, Spaulding, Stevens, 

 Stratton, Benjamin F. Thomas, Francis Thomas, Train, 



