226 



CONGRESS, U. S. 



certainly could not take this oath without 

 being guilty of perjury, and therefore, in effect, 

 this law impairs and abrogates the pardoning 

 power of the President to that extent. Is 

 that constitutional ? Can you obstruct by leg- 

 islation of this kind, direct or indirect, the 

 legal effect of a power which is vested in the 

 executive branch and not in the legislative 

 branch of the Government? This law pun- 

 ishes the member elect, in defiance of the 

 executive pardon, by disqualification for the 

 office or trust to which he has been legally and 

 constitutionally elected. 



" There is a still further and fourth objec- 

 tion to the validity of this law. By the Con- 

 stitution of the United States no ex post facto 

 law can be passed ; and yet by the imposition 

 of this oath you prescribe the penalty of dis- 

 qualification for office as the punishment for a 

 crime committed before the passage of the law, 

 though it was subject to no such punishment 

 at the time of its commission. 



" I have closed with the objections I have to 

 make to the constitutionality of the act of 1862, 

 and proceed now to the discussion of the sec- 

 ond question which I stated. The answer to 

 that question depends upon another, whether 

 a Senator or Eepresentative is a civil officer or 

 holds a civil office within the meaning of the 

 Federal Constitution. This question became a 

 subject of inquiry early in the history of the 

 country, on the impeachment of William 

 Blount by the House of Representatives in 

 the year 1798; and it was decided then by 

 the Senate on a plea to the jurisdiction on the 

 llth of January, 1790." 



This case was cited at some length by the 

 Senator, and reference made to the Constitution 

 as sustaining the decision of the Senate, that a 

 Senator was not a civil officer. He then con- 

 cluded as follows : 



" Mr. President, I have now concluded my 

 argument against the validity of the act of 

 July 2, 1862, and the rule proposed under it. 

 The oath prescribed in that act has been fre- 

 quently designated as ' the oath of loyalty ; ' 

 and doubtless there are those who may con- 

 sider my declining to take that oath as evi- 

 dence of disloyalty. The words 'loyal' and 

 ' loyalty ' have become familiar terms during 

 the progress of this disastrous civil war. I 

 will not pause to inquire whether loyalty in its 

 usual acceptation is not more appropriate to 

 the relations and personal devotion of a subject 

 to his prince than of a citizen to his Govern- 

 ment in a republic. Accepting the term as 

 applicable, I define loyalty in a Government 

 such as ours a representative Republic to 

 mean a steadfast adherence to the Constitution 

 or organic law under which and by virtue of 

 the adoption of which by the people of the 

 several States the Government was established ; 

 a cheerful and ready obedience to all laws 

 passed in pursuance of that Constitution ; and 

 a devoted and ardent support of those guaran- 

 tees of civil liberty which it was a primary 



object with its framers to maintain and per- 

 petuate, and thus ' secure to themselves and 

 their posterity the blessings of liberty.' I 

 have sworn to support that Constitution ; and 

 as I believe that the rule proposed and the law 

 which it is intended to enforce are repugnant 

 to its provisions, I call upon the tribunal which 

 has exclusive jurisdiction of all questions affect- 

 ing the elections, returns, and qualifications of 

 its members, to decide judicially whether the 

 act is constitutional, and give to it its proper 

 legal construction. If it be disloyal to support 

 the Constitution of my country, then I cheer- 

 fully accept the imputation of disloyalty ; but 

 if made on any other ground, I shall meet it 

 with calm contempt." 



Mr. Collamer, of Vermont, followed, saying : 

 "In 1862, at the time of the passage of this 

 act, there were a variety of laws relating to 

 the subject of treason, and its effect upon this 

 Government. The attempts to remedy it were 

 all begun in their incipient stages independent 

 of each other. Some of them were passed at 

 one period and some at another. Some of the 

 statutes which were commenced first, were ul- 

 timately passed after many others that were 

 commenced afterward; but in ascertaining 

 their purpose and purport, I take it, we must 

 look to them all as in pari materia. 



" Now, what was our trouble which was in- 

 tended, in some measure, to be corrected by 

 these laws, this one among the others? I do 

 not intend to occupy a great deal of time in 

 undertaking a description of our condition at 

 that time. Tip to the year 1861, and for sev- 

 eral months in that year, men occupied seats 

 in this Senate and in the other House, but es- * 

 pecially in this Chamber, who disclaimed all 

 allegiance to our Government, who claimed 

 the right to dismember that Government, as a 

 constitutional right, who set on foot plans to 

 execute these purposes, and who openly de- 

 clared such to be their purposes. They were 

 a body of men distinguished for ability, domi- 

 neering over the party of which they were in 

 a great measure a majority, and which party 

 was the dominant party of the Senate. They 

 did this defiantly, menacingly, superciliously. 

 This was the arena on which they put forth all 

 their gladiatorial efforts of treason. 



"The time finally came when those men de- 

 parted from this Chamber, and from this city, 

 as Catiline did from Rome, to go into the 

 country and carry into effect by blood the con- 

 spiracy which they here concocted.^ They did 

 go, and we soon learned, before the" year 1862, 

 that they did put in operation these their com- 

 binations, and that their hands were red with 

 the blood of our people. 



"The question at once arose in this body, 

 how can this country be secured against the 

 repetition of this ? Those men, and men like 

 them, must be put out of this body, and they 

 must be kept out of this body. No other 

 course could secure the country. Whenever 

 the opportunity occurred, whenever the ma- 



