COXGEESS, U. S. 



349 



bloody harvest. Union, sir. Union with this 

 doctrine of fell destruction and annihilation, 

 where every man, woman, and child is to be 

 put to the sword, where their country is to he 

 laid waste, where their State institutions are to 

 be subverted, where freemen under your Con- 

 stitution, standing with equal rights with oar- 

 selves, are to be made slaves or die ! Why, 

 sir, men who talk of such a Union under our 

 11 have never read the Constitution. In 

 the elegant language to-day of the gentleman 

 from Pennsylvania (Mr. Stevens), they are 

 4 either fools or knaves.' 



-'r, there can be no such Union. Civil 

 war is dissolution, destruction, extermination, 

 and therefore I am opposed to it, and in favor 

 of making a peaceful effort for the settlement 

 of this great question. I am in favor of bring- 

 ing back the southern States into a condition 

 of fraternity and brotherhood with the Xorth. 

 I am in favor of the compacts and compromises 

 of the Constitution. I am in favor of this 

 galaxy of beautiful, independent powers being 

 once more gathered under a common Govern- 

 ment, entitled to equal rights, equal privileges, 

 and equal exemption from central usurpation 

 and tyranny/' 



Mr. Schenck, of Ohio, followed in reply, 

 saying: "Sir, I was not present when my 

 colleague (Mr. Long) delivered his speech. I 

 was in my room, unable by reason of illness to 

 be in my place. But I have a full, official, and 

 authorized report of that speech ; and to satisfy 

 me that he deserves the heavy punishment 

 proposed, I do not need to look any further 

 than to passages in it which strike my eye now 

 as I hold it here in my hand. I will read : 



Mr. Chairman, I hare deemed it proper thus to 

 advert to the charges of encouragement to the con- 

 federates so repeatedly made upon this floor, and I 

 again recur to the consideration of the Union. Can 

 the Union be restored bv war? I answer most un- 

 hesitatingly and deliberately, Xo, never; " war i-s 

 final, eternal separation." 



Again, in speaking of the remarks of the 

 gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Stevens), 

 and in trying to ally those opinions to his 

 with what want of success the gentleman from 

 Pennsylvania has most triumphantly shown 

 he says : 



The confederate States are out of the Union, occu- 

 pying the position of an independent Poicer de facto, 

 hare been acknowledged as a belligerent bo'th br 

 foreign nations and our own Government, maintained 

 their declaration of independence for three years by 

 force of arms, and that the war has cut asunder all 

 the ligaments and abrogated all the obligations that 

 bound them under the Constitution. 



*' Here, sir, I propose to make one single re- 

 mark in reference to my own view of this sub- 

 ject of the rights of these seceding States 

 and of the people of those States. I belong to 

 that class of theorists for we all have theories 

 on these subjects who believe that the rebels 

 by their insurrection and making war on their 

 Government have forfeited, if we choose to en- 

 force that forfeiture, all their rights as citizens 



of this country, and yet have not released 

 themselves from a single one of their obliga- 

 tions. And I hold, therefore, that we must 

 press them with fire and sword in order to 

 bring them back again into subjection to the 

 law of the land, and to their places as good and 

 law-abiding citizens, as if they were foreigners ; 

 and at the same time we have the right, be- 

 cause they are not foreigners and have not rid 

 themselves of their obligations under the Con- 

 stitution, to treat them as traitors under the 

 law. In other words to use a homely figure 

 we pursue them with a double-barrelled gun. 

 We may shoot them as belligerents, or we may 

 shoot them as traitors. They are subjects, on 

 the one hand, for the sword, because they have 

 themselves taken the sword and brought the 

 curse thus upon themselves ; and they are, on 

 the other hand, the subjects also of hemp, to be 

 raised to the elevation which only properly be- 

 longs to such traitors." 



Mr. Davis, of Maryland, said: ' ; Mr. Speaker, 

 if it be said that a time may come when the 

 question of recognizing the southern confed- 

 eracy will have to be answered, I admit it; 

 and it is answering the strongest and the ex- 

 treme case that gentlemen on the other side 

 can present. I admit it. When a Democrat 

 shall darken the White House and the land ; 

 when a Democratic majority here shall pro- 

 claim that freedom of speech secures impunity 

 to treason and declare recognition better than 

 extermination of traitors ; when McClellan and 

 Fitz John Porter shall have again brought the 

 rebel armies within sight of Washington city, 

 and the successor of James Buchanan shall 

 withdraw our armies from the unconstitutional 

 invasion of Virginia to the north of the Poto- 

 mac ; when exultant rebels shall sweep over the 

 fortifications and their bomb-shells shall crash 

 against the dome of the Capitol ; when thou- 

 sands throughout Pennsylvania shall seek refuge 

 on the shores of Lake Erie from the rebel in- 

 vasion, cheered and welcomed by the opponents 

 of extermination ; when Vallandigham shall be 

 Governor of Ohio, and Bright Governor of In- 

 diana, and Woodward Governor of Pennsyl- 

 vania, and Seymour Governor of Connecticut, 

 and Wall be Governor of Xew Jersey, and the 

 gentleman from New York city sit in Seymour's 

 seat, and thus, possessed of power over the 

 great centre of the country, they shall do what 

 they attempted in vain before in the midst of 

 rebel triumphs to array the authorities of the 

 States against those of the United States; to 

 oppose the militia to the army of the United 

 States; to invoke the habeas corpus to dis- 

 charge confined traitors ; to deny to the Gov- 

 ernment the benefit of the laws of war, lest it 

 exterminate its enemies ; when the Democrats, 

 as in the fall of 1862, shall again, with more 

 permanent success, persuade tbe people of the 

 country that the war should not be waged till 

 the integrity of the territory of the Union is 

 restored, cost what it might, but th?t such a 

 war violates the spirit of free institutions, which 



