836 



UNITED STATES. 



only necessary for the Southern States, in good 

 faith, to send representatives to Congress where 

 vacant chairs were in place for them, to restore 

 the States to their original position in the 

 Union. But now, under the operation of the 

 principle of emancipation, they could not re- 

 cover their position as slaveholding States, but 

 must appear as non-slaveholding States. The 

 problem thus to be solved was to accomplish 

 the re-appearance of the slaveholding insurrec- 

 tionary States in the Union, with the shackles 

 of their slaves knocked off, with their bond- 

 men and women and children sent forth as 

 free. A problem of this magnitude called into 

 exercise for its solution the ablest intellects of 

 the unconditional Union men, or emancipa- 

 tionists. In the first place it assumes that the 

 United States shall prescribe the terms and 

 conditions of the re-appearance of the insur- 

 rectionary States in the Union, and be able to 

 secure their re-appearance upon those terms. 

 To accomplish this measure involves the entire 

 subjugation of those States, the extinction of 

 their existing Governments and the creation of 

 new ones. The argument, however, upon the 

 relations of the insurrectionary States is too 

 important to be passed over. 



As early as the session of Congress which 

 commenced in December, 1861, and continued 

 through the first part of 1862, the ground was 

 taken by the majority of that body that slavery 

 was the cause of the war. They reasoned that 

 there could be no permanent peace as long as 

 it existed, and that the future interests of the 

 country demanded its extermination. In the 

 Border States this end could be accomplished, 

 it was suggested, by inducing the Union men 

 who had successfully resisted secession, to be- 

 come emancipationists either immediate or 

 gradual. Gradual emancipation with compen- 

 sation was proposed by the President and re- 

 jected in Maryland, Delaware and Kentucky, 

 and held in suspense in Missouri in order to 

 ascertain the action of Congress relative to an 

 appropriation for that purpose. (See AmrrAL 

 CYCLOPEDIA, 1862, PCBLIO DOCUMENTS.) The 

 appropriation failed to pass Congress, and the 

 subject was dropped. Subsequent proceedings 

 will be seen by reference to all the Border States 

 and Louisiana. The doctrine of " contraband," 

 as announced by Gen. Butler, had been followed 

 by the freeing of the slaves of those already 

 engaged in the rebellion, whenever they came 

 within the field of army operations, and the 

 emancipation proclamation declared free all 

 persons held aa slaves within the insurrection- 

 ary States. But in case of the ultimate suc- 

 OOM of the Federal forces, or of the people of 

 the Confederate States returning to their alle- 

 giance to the United States, under the consti- 

 tution and laws of their respective States at 

 the time of secession, the slaves not within the 

 lines of the army, or which had belonged to 

 masters who had not sympathized with the 

 rebellion, would remain in bondage unless the 

 doctrine that those in rebellion could lay down 



their arms and return to their allegiance un- 

 der the constitution and laws of their respect- 

 ive States, was set aside. Under this view 

 the doctrine of reconstruction was announced. 

 Some held that by the act of secession the 

 States had committed, as it were, political sui- 

 cide; others, that by the occupation of the 

 States by the Federal forces, they were reduced 

 to the condition of conquered provinces ; oth- 

 ers, that their condition would be similar to 

 that of the territories; all, however, agreed 

 that the consent of the United States was nec- 

 essary to their re-assuming their positions as 

 States, and that, too, upon such conditions as 

 might be imposed the principal one of which 

 of course would be that slavery should not ex- 

 ist in such States. It was contended that the 

 faith of the nation had been pledged to this 

 end, by the fact that slavery was the cause of 

 the war, and by the Proclamation of Emanci- 

 pation. These views were enforced in the 

 public journals and by addresses, without much 

 reference to authority, until the decision of the 

 prize cases (claimants of the Hiawatha, &c., vs. 

 United States, &c.), in which the actual status 

 of the people of the seceded States in reference 

 to the United States came before the Supreme 

 Court of the United States, on ap.peal from the 

 District Courts, and which were decided March 

 9th. This decision has been made the founda- 

 tion of arguments to prove that, by the act of 

 war, the Constitution in regard to the seceded 

 States is abrogated in the same manner as a 

 treaty made between two countries in time of 

 peace is by a declaration of war ; and there- 

 fore that those States have lost all rights which 

 they had under the Constitution before seces- 

 sion, and are in a position to be reduced to con- 

 quered provinces by the success of the Federal 

 forces. (See COXGEESS, U. S., pages 260, 309, 311, 

 312.) Mr. Whiting, Solicitor of the Treasury, to 

 whose opinion great weight was given, not 

 only on account of his position, but as a just 

 tribute to his acknowledged ability, presented 

 this view of the case in a letter to the Union 

 League of Philadelphia, in July : 



Beware of committing yourselves to the fatal doc- 

 trine of recognizing the existence, in the Union, of 

 States which have been declared by the President's 

 proclamation to be in rebellion. For, by this new de- 

 vice of the enemy this new version of the poisonous 

 State rights doctrine the secessionists will DC able to 

 get back by fraud what they failed to get by fighting. 

 Do not permit them, without proper safeguards, to re- 

 sume in your councils in the Senate and in the House 

 the power which their treason has stripped from them. 



Do not allow old States, with their Constitutions 

 still unaltered, to resume State powers. 



Beware of entangling yourselves with the technical 

 doctrine of forfeitures of State rights; as such doc- 

 trines admit, by necessary implication, the operation 

 of a code of laws and of corresponding civil rights, 

 the existence of which you deny. 



The solution of all our difficulty rests in the enforce- 

 ment, against our public enemy, of our belligerent 

 rights of civil war. 



When the insurrection commenced by illegal acts of 

 secession, and by certain exhibitions o'f force against 

 the Government, in distant parts of the country, it 

 waa supposed that the insurgents might be quelled 



