COXGRESS, U. S. 



237 





of the loyal people of the so-called seceded 

 States are as much enlisted as are the hearts of 

 the constituency which the honorable Senator 

 from Connecticut represented. He did not un- 

 derstand him to say that he desired that this 

 war should be prosecuted to the extermination 

 of the institution of slavery. He merely under- 

 stood him to say that those who have inaugu- 

 rated this rebellion, who seem determined to 

 push it to its extremities, may by their act, and 

 by their act alone, effect the destruction 

 which the Abolitionists never could have ac- 

 complished. "I believe this a war constitu- 

 tionally waged for the perpetuity of the Gov- 

 ernment, in which are bound up all our hopes, 

 the hopes of posterity, and the hopes of the 

 civilized world." 



Mr. Browning, of Illinois, explicitly said : 

 "Mr. President, I am not prepared to admit, 

 as some gentlemen take pains to explain, that 

 this is not a war of subjugation. If it is not 

 a war of subjugation, what is it? What 

 was it set on foot for, if it is not for the 

 sole identical purpose of subjugating the atro- 

 cious rebellion that now exists in the coun- 

 try?" 



Mr. Sherman : " My friend misunderstood 

 my language. I said distinctly that it was not 

 the purpose of this war to subjugate a State, a 

 political community ; but I wiU go as far as he 

 or any other living man to uphold the Govern- 

 ment against all rebellious citizens, whether 

 there be one or many of them in a State. If 

 nine-tenths of the people of any State rebel 

 against the authority of this Government, the 

 physical power of this Government should be 

 brought to reduce those citizens to subjection ; 

 the State survives." 



Mr. Browning : " I will not stop to deal with 

 technicalities ; I care not whether you call it 

 the subjugation of the people or the subjugation 

 of the State. Where all the authorities of a 

 State, where all the officers, who are the em- 

 bodiment of the power of the State, who speak 

 for the State, who represent the government 

 of the State, where they are all disloyal and 

 banded in treasonable confederation against 

 this Government, I, for one, am for subjugating 

 them, and you may call it the subjugation of 

 the State or of the people, just as you please. 

 I am for subjugation, and you may apply the 

 term subjugation to the State or the people. I 

 want this rebellion put down, this wicked and 

 causeless treason punished, and an example given 

 to the world that will teach them that there is 

 a power in the freemen of this continent to 

 maintain a constitutional Government." 



Relative to the abolition or destruction of 

 slavery, he expressed Ihese views : " But, sir, 

 let us understand another thing. As I have 

 already said, the power to terminate this war 

 now is not with us. The power is with us, but 

 not to terminate it instantly. We will termi- 

 nate it. if it is not terminated, as it should be, 

 by those who began it. But, sir, I say for one 

 I speak for myself and myself only, but I be- 



lieve in so speaking I utter the sentiments 

 which will burst from every free heart in all 

 the northern States of the Confederacy that 

 if our brethren of the South do force upon us 

 the distinct issue, shall this Government be 

 overthrown, and it and all the hopes of civil 

 liberty, all the hopes for the oppressed and 

 down-trodden of all the despotisms of the earth 

 go down in one dark, dreary night of hopeless- 

 ness and despair if they force upon us the is- 

 sue, whether the Government shall go down to 

 maintain the institutions of slavery, or whether 

 slavery shall be obliterated to sustain the Con- 

 stitution and the Government for which our 

 fathers fought and bled, and the principles that 

 were concentrated in their blood I say, sir, 

 when the issue comes, if they force it upon us, 

 that one or the other is to be overthrown, then 

 I am for the Government and against slavery, 

 and my voice and my vote shall be for sweep- 

 ing the last vestige of barbarism from the face 

 of the continent. I trust that necessity may 

 not be forced on us ; but when it is forced upon 

 us, let us meet it like men, and not shrink from 

 the high, and holy, and sacred duties that are 

 laid upon us, as the conservators not only of 

 Government, but as the conservators of the 

 eternal principles of justice and freedom for the 

 whole human family." 



Mr. Carlile replied : " I desired to be under- 

 stood as saying that the institution of slavery 

 did not, of necessity, produce this rebellion ; 

 and, therefore, gentlemen had no right, in jus- 

 tice, to level all their artillery against the rights 

 of the people of one section of the Union, to the 

 property which is tolerated and acknowledged 

 by their laws. Because a conspiracy has been 

 inaugurated to overthrow and destroy the Gov- 

 ernment, are you to overthrow and destroy the 

 rights of property in one-half of the States of 

 this Union? Did gentlemen attempt to destroy 

 commerce in 1832, because the tariff was made 

 the pretext for the rebellion that was attempted 

 to be inaugurated then ? Does it follow that 

 commerce is an evil, because resistance to 

 tariffs, growing out of commerce, was made the 

 pretext by South Carolina, in 1832, for an at- 

 tempt to throw off her allegiance to this Gov- 

 ernment and to disconnect her people from it ? 

 As well should you have made a war upon com- 

 merce then, as to attempt now to make war 

 upon an institution existing in one-half of the 

 States of this Union ; and in the very breath 

 that you speak when you advocate such a war, 

 you say that you are waging it for what ? 

 For the maintenance of the Constitution ! And 

 do you not violate the Constitution in any effort 

 that you may make to destroy an institution 

 known to the laws of the States of the Union ? 

 What right have you, sir, as a Senator upon 

 this floor, to go into my State and to thrust 

 yourself between me and my property, and to 

 say that I shall not own it and dispose of it in 

 accordance with the laws of my State ? What 

 would the Government be, that would be pre- 

 served after conduct like that ? " 



