CONGRESS, U. S. 



275 



Senator from Kentucky -will hardly assume 

 that this Government can afford to commit an 

 act so atrocious as to call upon a slave to serve 

 in our armies and then remand him hack to sla- 

 very again after he shall have aided in the sup- 

 pression of this rebellion by his valor and his 

 bravery upon the battle-field." 



Mr. Wilier, of West Virginia, said : " I see 

 in the Constitution which I have taken an oath 

 to support a very plain provision that we shall 

 not take private property for public use with- 

 out just compensation ; and it seems to me that 

 the plain principles and obligations of constitu- 

 tional law and the simple dictates of justice 

 should compel the Senate to incorporate in a 

 bill of this character a provision looking to that 

 result. It will not do to tell me that there can 

 b% no property in slaves, and that^ therefore, 

 there ought to be no compensation for them. 

 The very" terms of the bill negative any such 

 idea as that. I agree perfectly with Senators 

 as to whether slaves should have been regarded 

 as property ia the first place ; but we are to 

 look at things as they are and at facts as they 

 exist. I say, then, the very terms of the bill 

 itself include the idea of property in slaves. 

 Else where the necessity for the emancipation 

 of the slaves whose husband and father enlists 

 In the service of the. United States ? The main 

 and fundamental principle of the bill is predi- 

 cated upon the very idea that there is property 

 in a slave. It is to take him out of the custody 

 of his master and give him to himself. I should 

 like, therefore (for I want to vote for this bill), 

 to see this plain requirement of the Constitu- 

 tion recognized in the provisions of the bill, 

 this plain response to the dictates of common 

 justice, and I had nearly said of common hon- 

 esty, heeded and obeyed under our obligation 

 to the Government." 



No further progress was made in this bill. 



In the House, on the 13th of January. Mr. 

 Wilson, of Iowa, from the Committee on the 

 Judiciary, reported a joint resolution to amend 

 a joint resolution, explanatory of the act to 

 suppress insurrection, &c., which he thus ex- 

 plained: "Mr. Speaker, the law affected by 

 the joint resolution just reported from the 

 Committee on the Judiciary, is in the following 

 language : 



Resolved by the Senate and House of Rep 

 <-., That the provision of the third clause of the 

 fifth section of "An act to suppress insurrection, to 

 punish treason and rebellion, to seize and confiscate 

 the property of rebels, and for other purposes," 

 shall be so construed as not to apply to any act or 

 acts done prior to the passage thereof; nor to in- 

 clude any member of a State Legislature, or judge 

 of any State court, who has not, in accepting or enter- 

 ing upon his office, taken an oath to support the con- 

 stitution of the so-called Confederate States of Amer- 

 ica ; nor shall any punishment or proceedings under 

 said act be so construed as to work a forfeiture of 

 the real estate of the offender beyond his natural life. 



"The only part of that resolution affected 

 by the one now under consideration is the last 

 clause, which provides that no punishment or 



proceeding under the confiscation act shall bo 

 so construed as to work a forfeiture of the real 

 estate of the offender beyond his natural life. 

 The object of the resolution which I have re- 

 ported, is to so amend that last clause of the 

 resolution of July, 1862, as to make it conform 

 to section third of article third of the Consti- 

 tution of the United States. In other words, 

 it proposes to substitute for the language em- 

 braced in that resolution of 1862, the language 

 of the Constitution, which is as follows : 



The Congress shall hare power to declare the pun- 

 ishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall 

 work corruption of blood or forfeiture, except during 

 the life of the person attainted. 



" We do not propose by the resolution to de- 

 termine the question of the legislative con- 

 struction of the Constitution, whether we may 

 provide for forfeiture of fee, or confiscation of 

 the real estate during life. The pending reso- 

 lution leaves the whole matter to the court. 

 In other words, we simply submit the section 

 of the Constitution relating to the forfeiture 

 of real estate to the courts of the country to 

 determine whether forfeiture may be in fee or 

 only for life." 



Mr. Kernan, of New York, who was unable 

 to agree with the majority of the Committee, 

 said : i; Now, sir, the confiscation act was pass- 

 ed by Congress, and' sent to the President, and 

 before the joint resolution now proposed to be 

 amended was passed, the President prepared a 

 message to veto the original confiscation act, 

 and I beg to read from that message which the 

 President transmitted to the House as his views 

 of the confiscation act. I read from the ' Con- 

 gressional Globe : ' 



That to which I chiefly object pervades most part 

 of the act, but more distinctly appears in the first, 

 second, seventh, and eighth sections. It is the sum 

 of those provisions which results in the divesting of 

 title forever. 



For the causes of treason and ingredients of trea- 

 son, not amounting to the full crime, it declares for- 

 feiture extending beyond the lives of the guilty par- 

 ties; whereas the Constitution of the United btates 

 declares that " no attainder shall work corruption of 

 blood or forfeiture except during the life of the per- 

 son attainted." True, there is to be no formal at- 

 tainder in this case : still I think the greater punish- 

 ment cannot be constitutionally inflicted, in a differ- 

 ent form, for the same offence. 



I may remark that the provision of the Constitu- 

 tion, put in language borrowed from Great Britain, 

 applies only in Ibis country, as I understand, to real 

 or landed estate. 



" After the President, having this confisca- 

 tion act under consideration, had, as he says to 

 Congress, prepared this message to veto it, be- 

 cause it was unconstitutional, as purporting to 

 take away, as part punishment of treason, a 

 greater estate in lands than a life estate, Con- 

 gress passed the resolution explanatory of the 

 confiscation act, and sent it to the President ; 

 and the language of the explanatory resolution 

 no\v in question I beg leave to read again : 



Xor shall any punishment or proceeding under 

 said act be so construed as to work a forfeiture of 

 the real estate of the offender beyond his natural life. 



