338 



CONGRESS, U. S. 



to_ be belligerents, the United States has treated 

 with them as such in the exchange of prisoners, 

 and the Administration is to-day, without the 

 honesty or independence of the gentleman from 

 Pennsylvania to avow it, doing precisely what 

 he proposes to do under his war of conquest 

 waged against the confederate States as a foreign 

 nation. It is not now even pretended that the 

 war is carried on having for its object the res- 

 toration of the Union. ' Eeconstruction,' 

 ' consolidation,' ' centralization,' ' with an en- 

 tire change in the Constitution,' are the terms 

 employed in speaking of the Government that 

 is to exist hereafter. To speak of the Consti- 

 tution as it is, and the Union as it was, is an 

 offence, subjecting an officer in the army to 

 punishment by dismissal from the service, and 

 conclusive evidence of disloyalty in the cit- 

 izen. 



" If the time ever was when the Union could 

 have been restored by war (which I do not 

 believe), it has long since been dispelled by 

 emancipation, confiscation, amnesty, and the 

 like proclamations, military orders annulling 

 State constitutions, setting - aside State laws, 

 obliterating State lines, and attempting to or- 

 ganize and set up a form of State government 

 in their stead in which one man out of ten who 

 shall turn abolitionist, take and subscribe an 

 oath to execute and obey the will of Abraham 

 Lincoln, whatever it may be, shall govern and 

 rule over the remaining nine who refuse to 

 become abolitionists. These follies of the Ad- 

 ministration, and others of like character, have, 

 instead of 'crushing the rebellion,' crushed out 

 whatever Union sentiment may have remained 

 among the southern people. It is possible that 

 in districts of country occupied by the army, 

 occasionally a man may be found who, seeing 

 nothing before him but ignominy and death, 

 his wife and innocent children appealing to him 

 for protection with all the ties of filial affection, 

 his property to be confiscated, and his family 

 to become outcasts and beggars in the world 

 that such a man, in order for the time being to 

 save himself, save his family, and save his prop- 

 erty, may take the oath, but the effect produced 

 by it will be like that of Galileo, who invented 

 the telescope and who first taught the rotary 

 motion of the earth. That noble old Italian, 

 after many years of labor in the study of science, 

 and when he had advanced to the extreme age 

 of seventy, was summoned before an inquisition, 

 tried, condemned, and imprisoned in a dungeon 

 for teaching a heresy. Subsequently he was 

 brought outf and offered liberty on condition of 

 his renouncing his heretical doctrine. The 

 effect of once more beholding the glorious light 

 of the sun, and breathing again the pure air of 

 heaven, as contrasted with the loathsome dun- 

 geon in which he had been cast, and to which 

 he had to return if he did not renounce his 

 belief in the earth's motion, so far overcame 

 his humanity that he consented to comply, and 

 upon his bended knees, with his hands on the 

 Gospels, he abjured his belief in the Copernican 



doctrine. Part of his abjuration ran in these 

 words : 



With a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I abjure, 

 curse, and detest the said errors and heresies [namely, 

 that the earth moves, &c.] : I swear that I will nevei 

 in future say or assert any thing verbally or in writing, 

 which may give rise to a similar suspicion against me. 



" Eising from his knees, with eyes still fixed 

 upon the earth, he whispered to a friend, ' E 

 pur si muove? ' It moves for all that.' 



" So it will be with the man who is forced 

 to take the amnesty oath, to save himself, his 

 family, and his property : he may take it, but 

 in his heart he will detest and despise the au- 

 thority that requires it. Will such a man be 

 devoted to or make a good citizen of the Gov- 

 ernment in which he lives ? Who shall believe 

 it? The history of Poland, of Hungary, of 

 Italy, and of Ireland furnishes an answer to 

 the question. If imperial Governments are 

 not able to hold in submissive obedience small 

 portions of a vast empire, once in revolt, how 

 much less a Government having for its basis 

 ' the consent of the governed ! ' 



"But, Mr. Chairman, 'subjugation' is the 

 watchword. Liberty and freedom for the slave 

 and subjugation or extermination for the mas- 

 ter is the popular cry. 'Meet them, fight 

 them, crush them,' says the gentleman from 

 Kentucky (Mr. Smith). Sir, that is easily said 

 upon this floor, and is popular with those who 

 from day to day fill the gallery of this House ; 

 but even the gentleman from Kentucky as well 

 as a number of other military gentlemen, were 

 quite willing to forego the pleasure of the per- 

 formance, and exchange their commissions as 

 generals in the field for a certificate entitling 

 them to a seat upon this floor ; and were I to 

 judge by the willingness with which it was 

 done, the tenacity with which they hold on to 

 it, and the efforts some of them are making to 

 return here again, instead of the war spirit they 

 breathe within these walls, I should strongly 

 suspect them of being in sympathy with the 

 peace party. 



" Mr. Chairman, I am no military man, and 

 therefore incompetent to give advice or advance 

 an opinion in military affairs ; but I have often 

 been forcibly struck by the remarks of Marshal 

 Ney in reply to Napoleon, as related by Head- 

 ley in his Napoleon and his Marshals : 



One day, at Madrid, Napoleon entered the room 

 where Ney and several officers were standing, and 

 said in great glee, ' Every thing goes on well ; Ro- 

 mania will be reduced in a fortnight; the English 

 are defeated and will be unable to advance ; in three 

 months the war will be finished.' 



"The officers to whom this was addressed 

 made no reply ; but Ney, shaking his head, said 

 with his characteristic bluntness : 



' Sire, this war has lasted long already, and our 

 affairs are not improved. The people are obstinate, 

 even their women and children fight ; they massacre 

 our men in detail. To-day we cut the enemy in 

 pieces, to-morrow we have to oppose another twice 

 as numerous. It is not an army we have to fight, it 

 is a whole nation. I see no end to this business.' 



