288 



COXGKESS, U. S, 



ment is to repeal the last clause of the joint 

 resolution which was passed after the passage 

 of the confiscation act. The Senator from In- 

 diana may remember that a joint resolution 

 was passed explanatory of the confiscation act, 

 the last clause of which was as follows : 



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. 



"My amendment proposes to repeal those 

 words, and leave the confiscation to extend to 

 life or to be absolute as the Constitution may 

 be decided to provide. I propose to leave it 

 where the Constitution has left it." 



Mr. McDougall, of California, said : " I de- 

 sire to ask the Senator from Illinois how he 

 can reconcile his position with the provisions 

 of the Constitution ? " 



Mr. Trumbull replied: "I reconcile it with 

 the Constitution in the same way that I recon- 

 cile with it the right to shoot a traitor, to de- 

 stroy him, to destroy his property and every 

 thing that he has for the purpose of putting 

 down this wicked rebellion. When we are 

 engaged in war we have a right to do what- 

 ever is necessary to accomplish the just ends 

 and objects and purposes for which the war is 

 waged, and in order to put down this rebellion 

 we may take the lives of men, their property, 

 and every thing else." 



Mr. McDougall again said : " Then I under- 

 stand that although the Senator has often 

 taken the oath to support the Constitution of 

 the United States and the laws made under it, 

 and although he took that oath upon entering 

 his present office, and although his right to his 

 present place in the Senate is dependent upon 

 that oath, nevertheless he thinks himself justi- 

 fied in trampling upon a plain provision of the 

 Constitution." 



Mr. Trumbull again replied : " I say no such 

 thing. I say it is as constitutional to take the 

 rebel's property as his life ; and does the Sena- 

 tor from California sit there and pretend that 

 we may not take the life of the rebel without 

 going to a court? What sort of a war would 

 that be which should be prosecuted by jury 

 trials and constables, when your armies are 

 opposing each other, and when hundreds of 

 thousands of men are arrayed against the Gov- 

 ernment ? I am not to be put in any such 

 position as that of advocating an unconstitu- 

 tional measure. It is clearly and palpably 

 constitutional, and as clearly and palpably 

 right, in my opinion, as it is to exert the 

 power of this Government in any other way 

 to suppress this wicked rebellion." 



Mr. McDougall : Mr. President, the provision 

 of the Constitution to which I have called the 

 attention of the Senate was adopted by men 

 who were just out of the struggles of the Kevo- 

 lutipn, where for a time they occupied the 

 position of rebels against English authority, 

 subject to the laws of attainder and confisca- 

 tion as they existed under English rule. With 

 the lessons learned in the struggles of the Eev- 



olution, they said then for themselves and for 

 the persons that were to come after them, that 

 the law confiscating the property of persons in 

 arms, guilty of treason, if you please, or rebel- 

 lion, is an oppressive and unjust law. In 

 affirming this opinion they but repeated the 

 expressed judgment of the great teachers of 

 moral, social, and governmental ethics. They 

 laid down the constitutional rule of law with 

 exact reference to questions such as the one 

 now pending, and made it part of the funda- 

 mental law of the Republic. It is so plain 

 that he who runs may read it. It cannot be 

 misunderstood ; it cannot be misconstrued." 



Mr. Carlile, of Virginia, followed, saying: 

 " I confess, Mr. President, that I was not pre- 

 pared for the proposition submitted by the 

 Senator from Illinois, because, if my recollec- 

 tion is not at fault, that Senator, in his discus- 

 sion of this subject when it was before this 

 body at the last Congress, maintained the 

 ground that real estate could not be confis- 

 cated beyond the life of the owner. That is 

 my recollection of the discussion of this sub- 

 ject when it was before the Senate. The Sen- 

 ator will correct me if I am wrong." 



Mr. Trumbull, in reply, said: "The Sen- 

 ator from Virginia is wrong so far as the 

 confiscation of property in the rebel dis- 

 tricts of country where there are no courts, 

 is concerned. I always maintained that the 

 clause in the Constitution limiting the effect of 

 a conviction for treason, had nothing in the 

 world to do with the waging of war in a dis- 

 trict of country governed by the military power, 

 and where there were no civil tribunals. I 

 agree now, that if in any of the loyal States an 

 individual were arrested and tried for treason, 4 

 convicted, and hung, that would be a sufficient 

 punishment ; and his real estate, if he had any, 

 might go to his descendants. But I always 

 insisted that the provision of the Constitution 

 applied only to trials in courts of law, and had 

 nothing to do with the prosecution of war 

 where there were no courts of law, and nothing 

 to do with the estates of persons who were not 

 brought to trial in courts of law and could not 

 be. I always insisted that a traitor who es- 

 caped from the country, like Slidell or Mason, 

 and left real estate behind, could not therefore 

 escape the punishment of the confiscation of 

 his property because he was beyond our reach 

 to be tried for treason." 



Mr. Carlile: "Mr. President, I should like 

 to know from the Senator where he gets his 

 authority to confiscate the property of traitors 

 or anybody else, unless he derives it from the 

 Constitution." 



Mr. Trumbull : " I do get it from the Con- 

 stitution." 



Mr. Carlile : " The proposition is now by 

 law, not by armies, not by virtue of the mili- 

 tary power of this Government, but under the 

 forms of law to deprive not the traitor, not the 

 rebel, of his property, because the Constitution 

 gives you the power to do that but it is to 



