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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



who have already received amnesty. It is not 

 because of any particular and special damage 

 that he above others did to the Union, or be- 

 cause he was personally or especially of con- 

 sequence, that I except him. But I except him 

 on this ground : that he was the author, know- 

 ingly, deliberately, guiltily, and willfully, of 

 the gigantic murders and crimes at Anderson- 

 ville." 



A member : " And Libby." 



Mr. Elaine : " Libby pales into insignificance 

 before Andersonville. 1 place it on that ground, 

 and I believe to-day that so rapidly does one 

 event follow on the heels of another in the 

 rapid age in which we live, that even those of 

 us who were contemporaneous with what was 

 transpiring there, and still less those who have 

 grown up since, fail to remember the gigantic 

 crime then committed. 



" Sir, since the gentleman from Pennsylvania 

 (Mr. Eandall) introduced this bill, last month, 

 I have taken occasion to reread some of the 

 historic cruelties of the world. I have read 

 over the details of those atrocious murders of 

 the Duke of Alva in the Low Countries, which 

 are always mentioned with a thrill of horror 

 throughout Christendom. I have read the de- 

 tails of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, 

 that stand out in history as one of those atro- 

 cities beyond imagination. I have read anew 

 the horrors untold and unimaginable of the 

 Spanish Inquisition. And I here, before God, 

 measuring my words, knowing their full extent 

 and import, declare that neither the deeds of 

 the Duke of Alva in the Low Countries, nor 

 the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, nor the 

 thumb-screws and engines of torture of the 

 Spanish Inquisition, begin to compare in atro- 

 city with the hideous crime of Andersonville. 



" Now, I do not arraign the Southern people 

 for this. God forbid that I should charge any 

 people with sympathizing with such things! 

 There were many evidences of great uneasi- 

 ness among the Southern people about it ; and 

 one of the great crimes of Jefferson Davis was 

 that, besides conniving at and producing that 

 condition of things, he concealed it from the 

 Southern people. He labored not only to con- 

 ceal it, but to make false statements about it. 

 We have obtained, and have now in the Con- 

 gressional Library, a complete series of Mr. 

 Davis's messages the official imprint from 

 Richmond. I have looked over them, and I 

 have here an extract from his message of No- 

 vember V, 1864, at the very time that these 

 horrors were at their acme. Mark you, when 

 those horrors, of which I have read specimens, 

 were at their extremest verge of desperation, 

 Mr. Davis sends a message to the Confederate 

 Congress at Richmond, in which he says : 



The solicitude of the Government for the relief of 

 our captive fellow-citizens has known no abatement, 

 but has, on the contrary, been still more deeply 

 evoked by the additional sufferings to which they 

 have been wantonly subjected by deprivation of ade- 

 quate food, clothing, and fuel, which they were not 

 even permitted to purchase from the prison sutler. 



" And he adds that the 



Enemy attempted to excuse their barbarous treat- 

 ment by the unfounded allegation that it was retalia- 

 tory for like conduct on our part. 



" Now I undertake here to say that there is 

 not a Confederate soldier now living, who has 

 any credit as a man in his community, and who 

 ever was a prisoner in the hands of the Union 

 forces, who will say that he ever was cruelly 

 treated ; that he ever was deprived of the 

 same rations that the Union soldiers had the 

 same food, and the same clothing." 



Mr. Cook, of Georgia, said : " Thousands of 

 them say it thousands of them ; men of as 

 high character as any in this House." 



Mr. Blaine : " I take issue upon that. There 

 is not one who can substantiate it not one. 

 As for measures of retaliation, although goad- 

 ed by this terrific treatment of our friends 

 imprisoned by Mr. Davis, the Senate of the 

 United States specifically refused to pass a reso- 

 lution of retaliation, as contrary to modern 

 civilization and the first precepts of Christian- 

 ity. And there was no retaliation attempted 

 or justified. It was refused; and Mr. Davis 

 knew it was refused just as well as I knew it, 

 or any other man, because what took place in 

 Washington, or what took place in Richmond, 

 was known on either side of the line within 

 a day or two thereafter. 



"Mr. Speaker, this is not a proposition to 

 punish Jefferson Davis. There is nobody at- 

 tempting that. I will very frankly say, I my- 

 self thought the indictment of Mr. Davis at 

 Richmond, under the Administration of Mr. 

 Johnson, was a weak attempt, for he was in- 

 dicted only for that of which he was guilty in 

 common with all others who went into the 

 Confederate movement. Therefore, there was 

 no particular reason for it. But I will under- 

 take to say this, and, as it may be considered 

 an extreme speech, 1 want to say it with great 

 deliberation, that there is not a government, a 

 civilized government on the face of the globe 

 I am very sure there is not a European govern- 

 ment that would not have arrested Mr. Davis, 

 and when they had him in their power would 

 not have tried him for maltreatment of the 

 prisoners of war, and shot him within thirty 

 days. France, Russia, England, Germany, 

 Austria, any one of them would have done it. 

 The poor victim Wirz deserved" his death for 

 brutal treatment and murder of many victims, 

 but I always thought it was a weak movement 

 on the part of our Government to allow Jef- 

 ferson Davis to go at large and hang Wirz. I 

 confess I do. Wirz was nothing in the world 

 but a mere subordinate, a tool, and there was 

 no special reason for singling him out for death. 

 I do not say he did not deserve it he did richly, 

 amply, fully. He deserved no mercy, but at 

 the same time, as I have often said, it seemed 

 like skipping over the president, superintend- 

 ent, and board of directors in the case of a 

 great railroad accident, and hanging the brake- 

 man of the rear-car. 



