CONGRESS, U. S. 



215 



existence of which is denied hy that officer. It 

 therefore desires, by remedial legislation, to 

 cure that defect and omission. "SVe have before 

 : seceding States organized into a separate 

 hostile confederacy. It is said that it is about 

 to have, in thirty days, an army of fifty regi- 

 ments, backed up by a fund of $14,000,000." 



Mr. Craige, of North Carolina, said : " I de- 

 sire to correct the gentleman. The Southern 

 Confederacy is not hostile. Its Government 

 desires to be friendly." 



Mr. Stanton : " So I understand. It regards 

 the right of secession as a constitutional right, 

 and on that idea claims to be friendly ; but, 

 not recognizing that theory, we cannot so re- 

 gard it. 



' Mr. Speaker, we have the important ports 

 of Charleston, Savannah, and New Orleans, in 

 which the authorities of the United States are 

 superseded, where its laws cannot be executed, 

 and where no duties can be collected, unless 

 some mode be adopted, aside from the ordinary 

 mode of collection. One of two things has to 

 be done : either this right of secession has to 

 be recognized, the execution of the laws of the 

 United States in these ports to be abandoned, 

 or they must be treated as free ports, and all 

 the foreign commerce of the country diverted 

 from the ports of Boston, New York, Philadel- 

 phia, and Baltimore ; or else the duties on im- 

 ported goods must be collected at those ports, 

 or they may be suspended as ports of entry, 

 and their commerce made illegitimate. 



"One of these two things must be done. 

 Now, I take it there are very few gentlemen 

 that are prepared to say that the authority of 

 the United States over those ports shall be sur- 

 rendered and abandoned ; that the whole foreign 

 commerce of the country shall change its course 

 and go to those ports for the purpose of escaping 

 duties. That, I take it, there are very few gen- 

 tlemen prepared to recognize as a state of things 

 which is to be allowed to continue. 



' Now, Mr. Speaker, I have no doubt that it 

 is the- expectation of the incoming Administra- 

 tion either to collect duties at those ports by 

 vessels of war stationed off their harbors, or, 

 by some measure to be authorized at this ses- 

 sion of Congress, to close their ports, and not 

 regard them any longer as ports of entry. One 

 of these things has to be, and inevitably must 

 be done. Now, if the Southern Confederacy 

 should treat that as a hostile act, an act of war, 

 and should organize an armed force to make 

 an aggressive war upon the United States, this 

 Government must be placed in a position to 

 protect and defend itself. I do not myself sup- 

 pose that even the possession of the forts in the 

 Southern States will be regarded as a matter 

 of sufficient practical importance to imperil the 

 peace of the country by attempting their recap- 

 ture, until all hopes of a peaceable adjustment 

 are abandoned. But if there should be a hos- 

 tile attack made on vessels of the United States 

 stationed off Southern ports, if that mode of 

 executing the laws should be resisted by march- 



ing Southern armies into Northern States, or 

 by seeking the capture of the capital of the Re- 

 public, then the Administration must be placed 

 in a position to protect and defend itself against 

 ~<ion." 



Mr. Howard, of Michigan, who supported the 

 bill, said : " I suppose the idea of those gentle- 

 men who attack the bill so violently is that, in 

 some way, secession is a peaceful or constitu- 

 tional remedy ; or, in other words, that it has 

 a legal existence. Could any thing be more 

 absurd? Or, if they themselves admit, that 

 this is revolution, how can they resist the sup- 

 pression of revolution ? Mr. Speaker, we need 

 but a moment to show that it has no legal foun- 

 dation whatever ; for an ordinance of secession 

 can by no possibility rise higher, in a legal point 

 of view, than the State constitution. If a se- 

 cession convention be legal, or if it be regular, 

 if it observe all formality, if it receive the 

 unanimous indorsement of the people of the se- 

 ceding States, then it rises just as high, and no 

 higher, than any other organic act of the State. 

 It is just as high as a State constitution, and no 

 higher. And yet the Constitution makes the 

 Constitution itself, and the laws of the Union, 

 and the treaties made by the authorities of the 

 United States the supreme law of the land, any 

 thing in any State constitution, or, if you please, 

 any thing in your ordinances of secession, to 

 the contrary notwithstanding. It is absurd. 

 It needs only to be stated, to show that it can 

 have no legal foundation whatever. It is, there- 

 fore, a revolution no more and no less." 



Mr. Pry or, of Virginia, replied : " In a word, 

 sir. it is a measure of coercion a measure 

 under the authority of which .the President 

 may carry on a campaign of vigorous hostilities 

 against a State a measure, in trnth, of civil 

 and fraternal war. 



"Such, sir, are the object and effect of this 

 bill ; but it is distinguished by details of a still 

 more monstrous character. It submits to the 

 fallible and capricious judgment of a single in- 

 dividual the President of the United States 

 to determine when occasion shah 1 require the 

 employment of force against a State, and so 

 invests him with the arbitrary power of initi- 

 ating civil war. To carry out the suggestion 

 of his understanding, (it may be the impulse 

 of his resentment or the dictate of his ambition.) 

 the bill authorizes the President to grasp all 

 the naval and military resources of the country 

 the militia as well as the regular service 

 millions of men and to hurl them in fatal at- 

 tack upon a member of this Confederacy." 



Mr. Curtis, of Iowa, continued the debate, 

 and in reply to the previous speaker said : " To 

 say that we have not the constitutional power 

 to protect ourselves is an absurdity ; and to say 

 that we are going to revolutionize ourselves, is 

 to say that we are going to commit suicide, and 

 conclude our career as a felo de se. Can it be 

 possible, does anybody suppose, that the Fed- 

 eral Government designs to create revolution: 

 that it designs to promote civil war ; that it de- 



