CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



213 



legislative power. That being the case, if you 

 can authorize the President in his discretion 

 to suspend it for six months, you may author- 

 ize him to suspend it by a law which has no 

 limit upon it at all, and therefore in legal con- 

 templation is to exist for all time. If you can 

 authorize him to suspend it from now until 

 the 4th of March next, you may make it a per- 

 manent statute on your statute-book, which 

 implies that it is to last as long as the Govern- 

 ment shall endure. If you can do that, then 

 Congress has given up its legislative power, 

 has been guilty of a perfect self-abnegation in 

 that respect, and that great privilege, which 

 was so sacred in the eyes of our forefathers, 

 that they did not allow it to be suspended 

 even by Congress when there was flagrant 

 war with a foreign nation, unless our soil was 

 invaded, may be given into the hands of a 

 single man. 



"When is it proposed to pass this bill? 

 When a presidential election is pending, when 

 the man into whose hands this power is given 

 is a candidate for reelection to that office ; 

 then his supporters in the Congress of the 

 United States, more regardful of his success in 

 the election and the perpetuation of the power 

 of their own party than of the welfare of the 

 country and the principles of the Constitution, 

 are for yielding up the power the Constitution 

 vests in them and devolving it upon a man who 

 can use it in order to reelect himself. 



"Mr. President, nothing that I can say 

 could present this measure in a stronger light 

 than these few words. I say that my friend 

 from Wisconsin, with all his ingenuity, and 

 with all his diligence, has utterly failed to 

 justify this bill." 



Mr. Hamilton, of Maryland, said : " Mr. 

 President, I object to this bill because it is for 

 the legislative department of this Government 

 to determine when the public safety requires 

 the suspension of the writ. I would clothe no 

 Executive with such power. I would not 

 clothe the best man in Christendom with it. 

 I would not have clothed George Washington 

 with this power under any circumstance ; nor 

 was he ever clothed with it. Much less would 

 I undertake to clothe the present Executive 

 with it, with his surroundings, and with the 

 faint conception he has manifested in his ad- 

 ministration for the personal rights of the peo- 

 ple. The other discretion, that is as to the facts 

 declared by the original act to constitute a 

 rebellion, is not so material. But there is 

 another matter to which I do object, and that 

 is to this constructive rebellion. Senators 

 know well that in ages gone by these doc- 

 trines of construction were without limitation. 

 Constructive treasons were both feared and 

 fought by our ancestors for centuries. They 

 fought against constructive treasons as those 

 of us who are opposing this bill are now fight- 

 ing against constructive rebellions. We know 

 what a rebellion is by much experience; lately 

 by sad and bloody experience do we know 



what a rebellion is. Our ancestors who made 

 the Constitution knew what constituted a re- 

 bellion, for they had just come out of one in 

 every respect a rebellion. They knew what 

 the Monmouth rebellion was; they knew 

 what the rebellion of 1680 was ; they lived in 

 the midst of the great French rebellion and 

 were familiar with the history of rebellions ; 

 then they were identified with their own ex- 

 perience as marked almost every page of his- 

 tory they read, and therefore they wanted no 

 critical definition of it in the Constitution. 

 What is it ? Re and ~bellare to war again ; it 

 is armed resistance to that authority to which 

 you owe allegiance. That- is what constitutes 

 rebellion. A rebellion is in itself as much 

 fixed in its proportions and known to the 

 world as any other fact can be. To attach to 

 the fact that an individual is deprived of the 

 privilege of voting for any cause, or is de- 

 prived of any high right as a citizen or as a 

 person, or to say that a combination or con- 

 spiracy, if you please, of two or more persons 

 for any such purposes does constitute a rebel- 

 lion is beyond my comprehension of what a 

 rebellion really is. We have just passed 

 through one mighty in all its parts, and then 

 to compare it, nay, even the smallest fragment 

 of it, to the rebellion that Congress would 

 create by the statute to which this bill is pro- 

 posed as an amendment, makes the contrast 

 so supremely ridiculous that one could hardly 

 suppose that the representatives of the Amer- 

 ican people could dignify such, legislation with 

 the forms of law. 



"Constructive rebellion should be con- 

 demned as constructive treasons are now. 

 This bill proposes to continue in force the 

 fourth section of the original act, and this 

 fourth section declares that the occurring of 

 certain things 'shall be deemed 'a rebellion, 

 and that thereupon, and if he considers the 

 public safety as requiring it, the President 

 shall exercise this power of suspension. Why, 

 sir, if you have a legislative power to deter- 

 mine what a rebellion is, and to say that cer- 

 tain things committed by individuals, or a 

 combination of two or more of them, shall be 

 rebellion, although wanting the characteristics 

 of a rebellion, as by the common assent of 

 mankind rebellion is known, and as it was in- 

 corporated in the Constitution, is the end of 

 written, defined, limited, constitutional gov- 

 ernment. It is going back centuries, even be- 

 fore the days of Edward III., when what con- 

 stituted treason depended upon the opinions 

 of judges, and when there was no limit to 

 either general or legislative power." 



Mr. Saulsbury, of Delaware, said: "Mr. 

 President, I did not intend to occupy any of 

 the time of the Senate on this question. I dis- 

 cussed at some length the subject when ^the 

 original bill was before us at the last session, 

 and have no disposition to do so now ; but I 

 cannot consent that a measure of this kind 

 shall pass this body without at least entering 



