292 



CONGKESS, U. S. 



uncaught. All this we have put upon the rec- 

 ord ; the statute-book will bear witness against 

 us in all coming time ; and we cannot escape the 

 consequences if we fail." 



Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, followed, say- 

 ing : " I desire to say a single word to the Sen- 

 ator from Pennsylvania. I was sorry to hear 

 him say here to-night what is said so often 

 without the semblance of being sustained by 

 the facts before the country, that the emanci- 

 pation policy of this Government had united 

 the South and divided the North. There is not 

 the shade of a shadow of truth about it. The 

 South is more divided to-day than it was three 

 years ago, and everybody knows it. How was 

 it in Delaware three years ago to-day? It was 

 doubtful if the loyal men had the State at all. 

 How was it in Maryland? She was held by 

 twenty or thirty thousand men, held only by 

 the military power of this nation, and all her 

 leading influences were in favor of the rebellion ; 

 and to-day Maryland is for the country and 

 for the Government, a free State of this Union. 

 How was it with West Virginia? West Vir- 

 ginia was then divided and struggling in civil 

 war ; now she is a free State, and for the coun- 

 try. How was it in Kentucky? Kentucky 

 three years ago was under the control of men 

 who were talking about armed neutrality, and 

 rolling back the armies of the Union and the 

 armies of the rebellion, and dictating a peace 

 when both parties were exhausted by war. Ken- 

 tucky is more united to-day than she was three 

 years ago for the country. How is it in Mis- 

 souri ? She is almost as united for the Govern- 

 ment to-day as any free State in the Union, and 

 three years ago she was overrun and held by 

 rebel influences. How is it in Tennessee ? How 

 is it in Arkansas? How is it in Louisiana? 

 How is it even in North Carolina ? There is 

 not a slave State in this Union to-day that is 

 not more divided and where we have not more 

 real supporters of the Government of the United 

 States than we had two or three years ago. 

 This is God's truth, and every man knows it ; 

 and yet men get up here and tell us that our 

 policy is uniting the South and dividing the 

 North ! Why, sir, the loyal men of the South 

 are stronger for the Government to-day than 

 ever before, and they are for emancipation. I 

 do not know a man for slavery in this country 

 who is really for this Government. I have yet 

 to see one. 



" How is it with the North ? I know that 

 when the firing took place upon Sumter, when 

 the people rose in their majesty, there were 

 men in the country who bowed to the storm, 

 bowed to the current ; but, sir, at the first op- 

 portunity, and even before your confiscation 

 bill or your emancipation proclamation, they 

 were everywhere in their party lines, under 

 their party flags ; and when the emancipation 

 proclamation was issued to the country these 

 very men had taken almost all the States of the 

 North under their control. That emancipation 

 proclamation had hardly gone to the country 



before the people began to comprehend it and 

 to understand it. They rose in their majesty, 

 and they hold to-day the control of alinost 

 every free State of this Union. They are 

 stronger to-day for this policy in every State 

 of the Union; and I say here now there ia 

 not a loyal State in this Union where naked, 

 raw abolitionism is not stronger than any polit- 

 ical party in that State. The ^Republican party 

 or the Union party in no portion of the country 

 is so strong to-day as is the anti-slavery party ; 

 and the men who march square up to that 

 policy are the men who will guide, direct, and 

 control, and be supported by the people." 



Mr. Hale, of New Hampshire, said: "My 

 friend from Pennsylvania is a man, whatever 

 may be said of his politics, of remarkably clear 

 intellect ; and where he has not suffered his in- 

 tellect to be led away by the absurdities of 

 black-letter English law, I have no doubt is a 

 good lawyer ; but, sir, there is a natural delu- 

 sion upon this subject. W T e are in more abso- 

 lute dependence to-day upon Great Britain than 

 we were before the Devolution of 1776. We 

 have got all the offensive and odious provisions 

 of her constitution fastened upon us. This idea 

 of the independence of the judiciary, and that 

 there must be a life-tenure to our judicial offi- 

 cers, is an inheritance from England that we 

 cannot get rid of; and the same is true it is 

 not declared in express terms, but is practically 

 so making a life-tenure in our officers in the 

 army and the navy. That is another of those 

 sad inheritances that come down to us from the 

 original sin of our ancestors being born under 

 the monarch of Great Britain. Notwithstand- 

 ing our fathers gave utterance to some of the 

 sublimest truths that ever fell from human lips 

 in the Declaration of Independence, we have 

 not begun to act upon the first principles, the 

 first elements of the doctrines which they enun- 

 ciated. 



" My friend from Pennsylvania has confound- 

 ed two things that are as different as it is pos- 

 sible for two things to be. The one is, what 

 the sovereign power of the United States 

 may do, and the other is what it has dele- 

 gated to its courts to declare. The Consti- 

 tution of the United States does not under- 

 take to limit, rror measure, nor control in the 

 slightest degree what the sovereign power 

 of the nation may do, but it simply declares 

 what the sovereign power has delegated to its 

 courts to do, and it says that ' no attainder of 

 treason,' that is, an attainder of treason judi- 

 cially declared, ' shall work corruption of blood, 

 or forfeiture, except during the life of the per- 

 son attainted.' Instead of that measuring the 

 sovereignty, it measures what the sovereignty 

 has delegated to the courts ; and yet the Amer- 

 ican mind has got so befogged by English pre- 

 cedents that it does not construe that right 

 either. There was a great struggle in England 

 on this subject, where the Government was op- 

 pressive, and convictions of treason were easily 

 obtained, and for very trifles. The humanit? 



