654 



PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



ever had a control so absolute over his slave as this 

 bill gives to the military officers over both white and 

 colored persons. 



It may be answered to this that the officers of the 

 Army are too magnanimous, just, and humane to 

 oppress and trample upon a subjugated people. I do 

 not doubt that army officers are as well entitled to 

 this kind of confidence as any other class of men. 

 But the history of the world has been written in vain 

 if it does not teach us that unrestrained authority 

 can never be safely intrusted in human hands. It is 

 almost sure to be more or less abused under any cir- 

 cumstances, and it has always resulted in gross tyr- 

 anny where the rulers who exercise it are strangers 

 to their subjects, and come among them as the rep- 

 resentatives of a distant power, and more especially 

 when the power that sends them is unfriendly. Gov- 

 ernments closely resembling that here proposed have 

 been fairly tried in Hungary and Poland, and the 

 suffering endured by those people roused the sympa- 

 thies of the entire world. It was tried in Ireland, 

 and, though tempered at first by principles of Eng- 

 lish law, it gave birth to cruelties so atrocious that 

 they are never recounted without just indignation. 

 The French Convention armed its deputies with this 

 power, aad sent them to the southern departments 

 of the republic. The massacres, murders, and other 

 atrocities which they committed show what the pas- 

 sions of the ablest men in the most civilized society 

 will tempt them to do when wholly unrestrained 

 by law. 



The men of our race in every age have struggled 

 to tie up the hands of their governments and keep 

 them within the law ; because their own experience 

 of all mankind taught them that rulers could not be 

 relied on to concede those rights which they were 

 not legally bound to respect. The head of a great 

 empire has sometimes governed it with a mild and 

 paternal sway ; but the kindness of an irresponsible 

 deputy never yields what the law does not extort 

 from him. Between such a master and the people 

 subjected to his domination there can be nothing but 

 enmity ; he punishes them if they resist his authority; 

 and if they submit to it he hates them for their ser- 

 vility. 



I come now to a question which is, if possible, 

 still more important. Have we the power to estab- 

 lish and carry into execution a measure like this ? I 

 answer, certainly not, if we derive our authority 

 from the Constitution, and if we are bound by the 

 limitations which it imposes. This proposition is 

 perfectly clear : that no branch of the Federal Gov- 

 ernment, executive, legislative, or judicial, can have 

 any just powers except those which it derives 

 through and exercises under the organic law of the 

 Union. Outside of the Constitution we have no legal 

 authority more than private citizens, and within it 

 we have only so much as that instrument gives us. 

 This broad principle limits all our function and ap- 

 plies to all subjects. It protects not only the citizens 

 of States which are within the Union, but it shields 

 every human being who comes or is brought under 

 our jurisdiction. We have no right to 'do in one 

 place more than in another that which the Constitu- 

 tion says we shall not do at all. If, therefore, the 

 Southern States were in truth out of the Union, we 

 could not treat their people in a way which the fun- 

 damental law forbids. 



Some persons assume that the success of our arms, 

 in crushing the opposition that was made in some of 

 the States to the execution of the Federal laws, re- 

 duced these States and all their people, the innocent 

 as well as the guilty, to the condition of vassalage, 

 and gave us a power over them which the Constitu- 

 tion does not bestow or define or limit. No fallacy 

 can be more transparent than this. Our victories 

 subjected the insurgents to legal obedience, not to 

 the yoke of an arbitrary despotism. When an abso- 

 lute sovereign reduces his rebellious subjects he may 

 deal with them according to his pleasure, because he 



had that power before ; but when a limited monarch 

 puts down an insurrection he must still govern ac- 

 cording to law. If an insurrection should take place 

 in one of our States against the authority of the State 

 government and end in the overthrowing of those 

 who planned it, would they take away the rights of 

 all the people of the counties where it was favored by 

 a part or a majority of the population? Could they 

 for such a reason be wholly outlawed and deprived 

 of their representation in the Legislature ? I have 

 always contended that the Government of the United 

 States was sovereign within its constitutional sphere; 

 that it executed its laws, like the States themselves, 

 by applying its coercive power directly to individu- 

 als ; and that it could put down insurrection with the 

 same effect as a State and no other. The opposite 

 doctrine is the worst heresy of those who advocated 

 secession, and cannot be agreed to without admitting 

 that heresy to be right. 



Invasion, insurrection, rebellion, and domestic 

 violence were anticipated when the Government was 

 framed, and the means of repelling and suppressing 

 them were wisely provided for in the Constitution ; but 

 it was not thought necessary to declare that the States 

 in which they might occur should be expelled from 

 the Union. Rebellions, which were invariably sup- 

 pressed, occurred prior to that out of which these 

 questions grow ; but the States continued to exist 

 and the Union remained unbroken. In Massachu- 

 setts, in Pennsylvania, in Rhode Island, and in New 

 York, at different periods in our history, violent and 

 armed opposition to the United States was carried 

 on ; but the relations of those States to the Federal 

 Government were not supposed to be interrupted or 

 changed thereby after the rebellious portions of 

 their population were defeated and put down. It is 

 true that in these earlier cases there was no formal 

 expression of a determination to withdraw from the 

 Union ; but it is also true that in the Southern 

 States the ordinances of secession were treated by 

 all the friends of the Union as mere nullities, and are 

 now acknowledged to be so by the States themselves. 

 If we admit that they bad any force or validity, or 

 that they did in fact take the States in which they 

 were passed out of the Union, we sweep from under 

 our feet all the grounds upon which we stand in jus- 

 tifying the use of Federal force to maintain the 

 integrity of the Government. 



This is a bill passed by Congress in time of peace. 

 There is not in any one of the States brought under 

 its operation either war or insurrection. The laws 

 of the States and of the. Federal Government are all 

 in undisturbed and harmonious operation. The 

 courts, State and Federal, are open and in the full 

 exercise of their proper authority. Over every State 

 comprised in these five military districts, life, liberty, 

 and property are secured by State laws and Federal 

 laws, and the national Constitution is everywhere in 

 force and everywhere obeyed. What, then, is the 

 ground on which this bill proceeds ? The title of the 

 bill announces that it is intended "for the more effi- 

 cient government" of these ten States. It is recited, 

 by way of preamble, that no legal State governments 

 "nor adequate protection for life or property" exists 

 in those States, and that peace and good order 

 should be thus enforced. The first thing which 

 arrests attention upon these recitals which prepare 

 the way for martial law, is this : that the only foun- 

 dation upon which martial law can exist under our 

 form of Government is not stated or so much as pre- 

 tended. Actual war, foreign invasion, domestic in- 

 surrection none of these appear, and none of these 

 in fact exist. It is not even recited that any sort 

 of war or insurrection is threatened. Let us pause 

 here to consider, upon this question of constitu- 

 tional law and the power of Congress, a recent de- 

 cision of the Supreme Court of the United States, ex 



I will first quote from the opinion of the majority 

 of the court: 



